Buenos Aires is famous for its beautiful women and men. The birthplace of tango is famous for people reputed to be not only attractive, but confident, if not arrogant about it. Argentineans have long embraced cosmetic surgery, as well as promoting natural beauty.
But one man is stepping up to fight for all the not-beautiful people. His new book, Feo (Ugly), says not only that it is okay for people to be ugly, but that it is the beautiful people who should be ashamed of themselves. He says that not only are beautiful people given all the advantages, but they take these advantages as their personal right. He attacks the vanity of the culture of beauty and tries to promote character development.
This campaign is one that comes up periodically, the tension between whether we should want to be good-looking or whether we should disdain appearance and try exclusively to become better people. Cosmetic surgery exacerbates this debate, especially with the popularity of ostentatiously superficial procedures such as breast augmentation.
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