[A friend recommended Baltasar Gracian's The Art of Worldly Wisdom. Gracian was a Spanish scholar of the 17th century who set forth a series of maxims for ethical action. He also wrote A Pocket Mirror for Heroes, another source of food for my thinking. This column was inspired by A Pocket Mirror for Heroes.]
The Face of Mischief
Gracian reminds us of the differences in people and how important it is to study these differences. He speaks, among other people, of "wise men without works", "people who respect no laws" and "humans without humaneness". He views the faces of the people he criticizes as the "face[s] of mischief". He fails, however, to give us guidance as to how to identify people's character from looking at their faces. We all know there are people who meet the descriptions but I don't think we can tell by looking at them. In fact, I think there's a danger in assuming that people's looks tell us their character.
I suppose it's natural in a time dominated by television and other visual images that we would assume that looks equal character. Some actors play villains and we associate their looks with villains, others play heroes and we associate their looks with heroism. We associate the superficial characteristics of good looks with good deeds and we begin to believe that we must be handsome to be a hero. We think that if someone is not handsome he or she must be a villain. To make these assumptions is not only belied by history, it is terribly unfair and destructive.
Studies tell us that the good-looking receive more attention from birth, that the handsome are encouraged while those who are not handsome are ignored. It doesn't take an expert to see that these differences in attention reinforce feelings of superiority or inferiority, that the handsome get a leg up that continues throughout life.
Wouldn't it be better to judge people by their demeanor, their conduct, their works? Wouldn't we all be better off if we thought more about behavior than looks? Wouldn't it be fairer to look at character rather than faces? Wouldn't it make more sense to seek inner beauty rather than external appearance? But how do we do it?
I think we can start by giving people a chance. If we wait to see how people behave before we judge them, if we look for evidence of character before we make assumptions based on appearance, if we do our best to be encouraging in dealing with other people, we will eventually see the inner beauty in most of those we encounter.
[Our best wishes and hopes are with our friends who may be affected by the Florida hurricanes. We're thinking about you.]
9-6-04
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