3 - Magnificence and the Broken System of Beauty

It's not a coincidence that looks and beauty are the first impressions people have of each other since it is usually the first sensory introduction to the person. This regards both the person in how they are in the flesh and who they are as they present themselves (clothing, body-gestures, etc.). In terms of the value we put onto each other, using any standard for beauty results an automatic failure: by any standard based on values of beauty and desirability (already rooted purely in sexual desire, already problematic to base an entire value-system off of), someone is always left out or left behind. 

It seems basic to state that we should not base the value we put on others by beauty alone, but this instinct goes so much further than just sexual attraction. To have a society full of different outlets for which to 'enforce' a certain standard of beauty, this curated value-basing ideology extends to how we view every person and body regardless of relation to yourself. To have this value-basing standard be both based purely on beauty and curated for a specific group and a specific intention, it almost feels as if this is a broken concept on purpose. 

Mingus's argument for magnificence to replace the value standards of beauty turns a seemingly obvious concept into a radical and well-backed philosophical and political discussion. Of course we can still each strive to look how we want to and to be beautiful, but to use this as the basis of assigning value to each other and ourselves (a broken system) we are participating in a concept that inherently others a LOT of people. It's broken idea, something we've used as the quickest way to separate and catalog bodies and people; something perpetuated so as to allow a society to weed the ugly out - a self-otherizing and self-organizing society so that those groups who fall within the value-standards of beauty can remain the normal and the beautiful. 

This is bullshit. 

Mingus is essentially arguing for a reassessing of our values and how they are enacted on ourselves. Beauty is not to be eradicated as that would be silly, but to have beauty as the first layer to assign value is automatically a highly discriminatory thing, rooted within our societies now and many before (it is philosophically a dumb and irrational thing). It is directly opposed to progress of a queerer society, which does not impose queer identity but rather makes its value-basis system queer and therefore accepting of every body and person. From there, magnificence takes the place of beauty (not killing it), a value and feeling that goes way deeper than just the qualifications for beauty ('achievable by some, fulfilling for none').