Young Writers Society

I don't normally watch TV, on the other hand, my family, with their close minded ways do. However, something caught my eye when my mother was watching Dr. Phil, the topic, Beauty or Brains?

The Question...
Would you rather be a bubble brain and absolutely gorgeous...? or
One of the most intelligent people in the world but completely and utterly Ugly...?

After seeing this (being the nerd that I am!) i asked girls from my school (aged 15) what they thought... 100% said beauty. Now there are only 10 girls in my class and when I asked the boys they laughed and asked me whether being fat was an option... (boys will be boys...!) so i never could get an answer out of them.

You wonderful people are lucky enough to leave a comment below on what you believe... i want to know, which one (Beauty or Brains) came to you first... Honesty people! Don't say what you think you have to say, say what, no matter how petty you believe it is, the truth.

Me... I'm sorry, but it goes against everything i believe in but personally, Beauty was the first that I agreed with. (age 15)

Leave your comments and your age below xxxx

Hmm... interesting question.

This is kinda terrible of me, but honesty I'd go with Beauty. I'm a 16, female. Just so you know.

Brains.

Beauty doesn't last forever, and is not a guarantee that you will find real love. Intellect opens many more doors for you and makes people look deeper than a pretty skin. And not being beautiful doesn't mean you won't be attractive, it just means that physical appearances won't be a sealing deal for everything.

I'm a 16, female. Just so you know.

People of the same age and gender can reason very differently on a subject (like now). It's about the individual mindset. Not one answer is general, so using age/gender doesn't really come as a thorough explanation.

I agree to disagree with XxMattxX, I mean, during puberty, especially during teenage years we think differently, but yes, it is to do with a certain mindset. Males and Females also have different views on this, where as both sex's are bombarded with photo's of the celebrities, that have the so-called 'perfect bodies'. I feel, and it would be nice for people's views on this too, that there is more pressure on girls within society to be as pretty as possible. that is why, I felt, like age and sex would be interesting to see the differences. A 34 year old male will definitely have a different view, on this matter, than a 16 year old girl, in my opinion.

Um... neither. I know people who are very smart, but they are horrible people. I know people who are very beautiful, but they are horrible people as well. I would rather be kind and generous and loving rather than beautiful and/or intelligent. This takes more work, but I think it's infinitely more useful and it helps develop you into a better human being in the long run.

So, I'd rather be who I am and just work out the particulars.

I agree with the views of Snoink, however, in this case scenario, I'm not asking you to choose between your personality now. Also, I know a very beautiful young girl, who hates being pretty. She says that she hates all the attention she receives, she's quiet and wouldn't hurt a fly. I do understand, that being in the middle (which is where i would put myself) is perfectly acceptable, but in this case, your life is at stake! You have to choose one, which would it be?

Tough choice. I don't think I could handle not having like, the ease and opportunities that intelligence offers, but nor could I handle being ugly. Instead of beautiful and stupid versus intelligent and ugly, though, could you make the options average looks and extremely intelligent versus average intelligence and extremely attractive? So it's not so cut and dry?

For your direct question of which word - "beauty or brains" - came to us first, I think a lot of that really depends on word connotations. The word "beauty" itself tends to have an aesthetic draw, whereas "brains" as a word for intelligence often has a negative connotation. If you asked the question as "intelligence or looks?" I think you might get slightly different answers.

If the options are strictly an unintelligent beauty versus an ugly genius, I really don't know which I'd choose. I think the simple beauty would have a much easier, happier life. So if I just want to be happy in life, maybe I'd go for that. (Not just because of beauty, but because of the simplicity. As extremely pretentious as this sounds, I think I could be a lot happier if I were more simple. On the other hand, if I idealistically (and again, pretentiously) aim to effect positive change with my life, I think I'd have to choose the ugly genius.

Personally though, for the here and now, I've decided that if I could improve either my intelligence or my beauty, I'd increase my intelligence. But if I were forced to choose one to decrease, I would also choose to decrease my intelligence. Make of that what you will, but I couldn't handle hurting my looks.

So... yeah, tough choice. Excuse my babbling, and sorry I never really answered it outright.

Alright, I'll play

I chose brains as beauty isn't guaranteed to lead to a good career and I know beautiful air heads who just get taken advantage of all the time. I guess in that way this is an informed choice but seriously, modelling is not the career for me. At least with brains I know I should be able to make some money and live a comfortable life.

There is also, a big chance of, being Ugly, being fought back by society. There is a chance you might never be happy, and there was a study done, that had women who were fully qualified, if not more qualified for a job but up against beautiful airheads, to no one's surprise, the beautiful airheads, got the job, even though they were not qualified! There is a real social problem going on with looks and Intelligence. Does this society, price Beauty over Brains? It's all very confusing! Thanks for everyone who replied or took part in the survey! It was lovely to see all points of views, but keep replying! xxx

All right then! I would probably choose beauty over brains then. Beauty fades away, true, but I would rather have a beautiful smile than be able to do whatever smart people do in their spare time.

Well, honestly, who measures beauty?
Whose scale are we using exactly?

Are we using the scale that says skinny, pale and anorexic-looking is beautiful?
Are we using that says 5 pounds of makeup is beautiful?
Are we using the scale that says an elegant designer dress with matching shoes and a purse is beautiful?
Are we using the scale that says inner peace, simplicity, and happiness is beautiful?

What kind of "beautiful" are we talking about here, exactly?
Whose scale are we using to measure "ugliness"?

Beauty can be very subjective. It changes with time, and changes with each person.

I personally, would go with brains in a heartbeat. Sure, people will disagree and the jolly well are allowed to do so. But I would rather live my life with brains than with beauty. Because I can still be beautiful and have brains, since it really depends on what I think is true "beauty." So others may think I am "ugly" but smart. But, especially inside, I can know that I am beautiful, and have brains to boot.

Knowledge helps me learn, create new inventions, write interesting poems and works, draw my dragons in proportion using anatomy, understand physics and biology 2, learn new math problems, apply them, and so much more until I turn like 90 and maybe have memory loss..?.

Beauty can help me...gain more friends, get acting parts (I hate acting), be popular, build my self esteem...until I turn like, 45 and grow wrinkles and start to sag, and turn "ugly," then have to apply makeup to cover it up. (and some loose friends may desert me and my beauty pageant days are over).

I don't know. If "beauty" floats your boat, that's fine.

So, yeah, beauty is great and all, but I treasure knowledge much more.

Moreover, beauty can be subjective, so who says I am not beautiful and by what scale?

For that matter, brains are subjective too. C.S. Lewis was absolutely brilliant in literature and philosophy, but in his autobiography, he describes algebra with utter loathing. And, I've worked with engineers who can design a chemical reactor, no problem, but they can't recognize Robert Frost if they tried. So! Yeah. XD

True Snoink, true. But for me, personally, I can do so much more in my own area of brilliance, be that art or poetry or writing articles or whatever. But the thing is I have brilliance in some subject. And I can work hard to master that, and devote my life to it if need be, like working in my favorite medical field.

I could probably work with beauty too, and maybe become a beautician when I grow old? Or own a salon when I am old? I don't know, but that just does not fit me.

Plus, as I said before, anyone can judge if I am ugly or not. But why do I care exactly? And why limit myself to the scale they are using? I can still see myself as beautiful and choose brains.

Brains was the first answer I instinctively chose. But then, thinking over it, there’s really more than one way of looking at the scenario.

Shiney1,

But I would rather live my life with brains than with beauty. Because I can still be beautiful and have brains, since it really depends on what I think is true "beauty." So others may think I am "ugly" but smart. But, especially inside, I can know that I am beautiful, and have brains to boot.

Knowledge helps me learn, create new inventions, write interesting poems and works, apply them, and so much more until I turn like 90 and maybe have memory loss..?.
But for me, personally, I can do so much more in my own area of brilliance, be that art or poetry or writing articles or whatever. But the thing is I have brilliance in some subject. And I can work hard to master that, and devote my life to it if need be.

Plus, as I said before, anyone can judge if I am ugly or not. But why do I care exactly? And why limit myself to the scale they are using? I can still see myself as beautiful and choose brains.

I agree with every word.

On the topic of beauty, if we’re talking about the typical bubble headed beauty, everybody doesn’t find them attractive, whether she or he is gorgeous or not, because nothing valuable beneath the surface is being displayed. It just runs deeper than that, people run deeper, in their preferences towards what they find attractive, based on what kind of beauty and intelligence they find appealing.

One can be considered to have the most beautiful face with the ‘sexiest’ body and still be completely ugly acting in the way they treat people around them. For me, such behavior would taint the way I view that person, because their actions would shine so bright, it reduces their whole appearance and presence to an unpleasant point.

If somebody is considered to have a beautiful face/body, and they’ve got beautiful traits such as a genuine, compassionate and overall wonderful heart with all the above qualities, those traits will only enhance their outer beauty above and beyond! As well as be appreciated by a lot of people.

If they, or somebody considers them ugly, but they have those beautiful traits, such inner beauty will only enhance their outer beauty even still, above and beyond!

So, essentially, I don’t think the answer to the question can truly be summed into one product. That’s just not how I see it. There are too many people on the globe, with looks differing from one extreme to another, for that to be possible. The only way it would be possible is it everybody got plastic surgery to look the same, but everybody can’t afford that and everybody doesn’t want that. I believe it is who one is as a person that makes them beautiful or not, flaws and all.

I want to thank you all for your comments xxx It was wonderful to see everyone's idea on how Beauty or Brains should be measured and what it actually is.

[quote="shiney1"]

Are we using the scale that says skinny, pale and anorexic-looking is beautiful?
Are we using that says 5 pounds of makeup is beautiful?
Are we using the scale that says an elegant designer dress with matching shoes and a purse is beautiful?
Are we using the scale that says inner peace, simplicity, and happiness is beautiful?

The measurement of beauty is hard... for, what is beauty? It is the one thing in life that doesn't have a label. Beauty is nothing more than DNA and a stroke of luck, so why is it so important in our society to look beautiful? Why when I see girls, that I think are more prettier then me, I tell myself, ah, but, I bet they have shit personalities I judge them before I look, but that in itself is a whole different matter.
What beauty is changes in society every day. I believe it is like fashion almost, one day your in, and the next day your out.
Thank you for all your comments xxxx I love to hear everyones opinions xxxx