>>Miles: where are the societies that prize/prized assymetry, waiste/hip
>>ratios (for women) in excess of .7, baldness etc.? If you're going to
>>argue in favor of a social learning theory of all of our beauty standards,
>>you really can't dodge this question. (Speaking of social learning:
>>apparently, it doesn't take infants very long to "learn" our beauty
>>standards: they respond more positively to beautiful faces long before
>>they can flip through the pages of _Vogue_.)
>>
>>
>Assume that infants learn basic forms of beauty from their caretakers -- in how
>many societies are the overwhelming majority of mothers asymetrical? of fathers
>of infants bald? The innate standards of beauty argument seems to rest on the
>observation that features so rare that we label them "abnormal" are not prized.
>This doesn't explain how different cultures prize different emphases and even
>exaggerations of different body parts -- weight, breast size, foot size, skin
>color.
>
No, it doesn't, but it's not intended to explain that. The indicators
mentioned above are, more or less, averages and commonalities that hold
true across cultures, and it's not unreasonable to presume that these
commonalities may reflect human universals. They don't argue that
individual cultures, or individuals within cultures, can't develop
idiosyncratic tastes that lie outside of such values.
And one can't point to the occasional exception and argue that it invalidates the supposition of universals. After all, bilateral symmetry is a human universal-- but we don't cite thalidomide babies and say, "Well, that shows that it's all cultural."