Homer called beauty a glorious gift of nature; Socrates a short-lived tyranny; Theophrastus, a silent cheat; Theocritus, a delightful prejudice; Carneades, a solitary kingdom; Aristotle said it was better than all the letters of recommendation in the world.

Yet beauty explains nothing, solves nothing and teaches us nothing. Nor does it last. It really is only a matter of the number of millimetres between the eyes and the chin. Why does so inconsequential and transitory a quality have such power to influence people’s lives? This is another of the great human mysteries.

All movie heroes are handsome, all heroines beautiful and most villains are ugly. Even in our imaginations beauty is important, and few novels have unattractive protagonists. Asked why people desire physical beauty, Aristotle said “No one that is not blind could ask that question.” Plato defined the three wishes of every man as “to be healthy, to be rich by honest means and to be beautiful”. Montaigne wrote that “I cannot say enough how much I value beauty as a quality that gives power and advantage…It takes first place in human relations; appears in the foreground, seduces and prepossesses our judgements…”

Some find the concept of beauty embarrassing and unworthy of intellectual discourse. But outside the realm of ideas, beauty rules. In her book ‘Survival Of The Prettiest: The Science Of Beauty’ Nancy Etcoff says “Turning a cold eye to beauty is as easy as quelling physical desire…The absence of response to physical beauty is one clinical sign of depression.” Perhaps too it is a sign of that true old age marked by total indifference. A philosopher once remarked that “To love is like to live – all reason is against it, but all healthy instinct is for it”. Maybe the same is true of beauty.

We automatically notice the attractiveness of each face we see. Experiments show that people give a face the same beauty rating whether they see it for 150 milliseconds or a normal length of time. And three month old babies gaze significantly longer at faces that adults find attractive. People expect attractive persons to be more capable and happier, and treat them with deference.

Beauty is often considered a female prerogative, perhaps because men place more value on the looks of their sexual and romantic partners. As Robert Wright notes in his book “The Moral Animal: Why We Are The Way We Are”, women are not indifferent to males’ appearance, but place a higher premium on status.

Is beauty a cultural construct, or even a product of mass advertising? Cross cultural studies done in Asia, Europe, North America and Africa show significant agreement among people of different races about which faces they find beautiful. But how can the effects of global popular culture be discounted when the entire world watches the same Hollywood movies and TV shows? There is a constant and often justified complaint that Jamaican beauty pageants reflect a Caucasian standard of beauty often at odds with the African ideal. But the pageant franchise holders say the winner is chosen with the ultimate goal of competing in the Miss World and Miss Universe contests. Cultural imperialism apparently affects all aspects of a nation’s life, even its aesthetic judgements. 

What is beauty? Poets have debated the question since time immemorial. According to modern experts, facial beauty usually includes symmetrical features, large widely spaced eyes, high cheekbones, small chins and full lips. Beautiful women are also typically young and tall with good skin, long shiny hair and a waist to hip ratio below .8. All these are signs of health and fertility, and are found in abundance at beauty pageants.

Beauty contests are often criticized as flesh hunts and cattle shows. Feminists say they demean women and should be banned. Yet no one is forced to enter or watch them. In Jamaica at least, spectators are overwhelmingly female. Maybe the Miss Universe who said ‘Boys follow sports, girls follow beauty contests’ was right. These contests are not philosophical debates or national elections. But are they any more inherently ridiculous than sports events? Do not both place an almost complete premium on physical attributes? And both engender a degree of enthusiasm that suggests they fulfill basic unconscious human desires.

Beauty pageants are elaborate fantasies. Though the entrants wear swimsuits, there is an almost sexless aura about them. They appear in elaborate gowns of the type often seen in fairy tale illustrations. And whatever their true inclinations, all contestants present a virginal façade and express a selfless love of children and community. The winner in effect symbolizes the ideal female transmitter of a country’s genes – healthy, fertile, chaste, caring and not too stupid. It is make believe, but then so are most movies, poems and songs. If they did not make people happy, would they pay to see them?

Beauty is power. Good looks in young women are exchangeable for social position, money, even love. Beauty has changed the course of human history and inspired supreme works of art. “Had Cleopatra’s nose been shorter, history would have been different”, wrote Pascal. Homer’s Iliad, the western world’s greatest work of literature, tells of a war fought over the legendary beauty Helen of Troy. As Marlowe later wrote

“Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,

 And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?    

 Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss…

 Oh, thou art fairer than the evening air

 Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.”

But worshipped and intimidating as it may be, beauty in the end is but a fleeting illusion. As Thomas Nash rhymed "Beauty is but a flower, Which wrinkles will devour”. When taken too seriously, it is more curse than blessing. The cynical saying ‘beauty times brains is a constant’ is not always true, for there are many attractive and intelligent women. But constant indulgence makes many pretty girls spoilt and self-centered, and some come to think looks more important than character and education. Yet beauty has no past tense, and often leaves its once proud possessors with only undeveloped minds and bitter memories.

Besotted men often attribute intelligence to rather stupid girls because they are fair, but beauty without wit or goodness grows tiresome. In the end it is intelligence and, even more importantly, kindness of heart that make people truly interesting and desirable. As Napoleon said, a beautiful woman is an ornament but a good woman is a treasure.