We live in scary times. The mental and moral meltdowns that we see everywhere show no signs of abating, and one fears things will simply go from bad to worse. At some point all this must bottom out, and it will then indeed be the end of civilisation as we know it.
The disease of political correctness and all that goes with it – the victimhood cult, the offense industry, the trigger warning culture, etc. – is ensuring that the West is on its last legs. Countless documented cases of this have been offered on this website.
Plenty of them are exceedingly serious: creeping sharia, the homosexualisation of everything, the culture of death, and the erosion of truth. These are all causing massive problems, and sadly there is no end in sight. And I just spotted a news item that is simply more of the same.
True, it is in some ways much less serious, and I need to offer a few qualifications here concerning it. But it may be another indication of PC culture spinning out of control. It has to do with beauty pageants, of all things. So let me offer my prefatory remarks here.
I have little interest in beauty contests, and if they were all banned tonight, it would not faze me very much. Sure, many young women might object, and many may have been greatly helped in their careers and life paths by taking part in these things.
But as a conservative and a Christian, I obviously do not put much emphasis on mere external looks. Who we are inside is what matters. As we read in Proverbs 31:30, “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain.” And all of us know we have far too much on display already, so I certainly am not promoting any of this.
That we should see a return to modesty in how we dress, etc, of course goes without saying. I for one have long worked to reduce the objectification of women and the sexualisation of our culture. So with those words of introduction and clarification out of the way, let me turn to the news item.
In what seemed like yet another article from a satire site, it nonetheless seems this is legit. The headline runs this way: “Miss America competition is getting a major makeover”. But the really mind-boggling thing is this: contestants will now not be judged by how they look – really!
Says the article:
There she is, Miss America … fully clothed. Miss America is scrapping its swimsuit competition and will no longer judge contestants based on their looks, the organization announced Tuesday. “We’ve heard from a lot of young women who say, ‘We’d love to be a part of your program but we don’t want to be out there in high heels and a swimsuit,’ so guess what, you don’t have to do that anymore,” Gretchen Carlson, chairwoman of the Miss America Organization, told “Good Morning America.”
“Who doesn’t want to be empowered, learn leadership skills and pay for college and be able to show the world who you are as a person from the inside of your soul,” she said. “That’s what we’re judging them on now.”
nypost.com/2018/06/05/miss-america-competition-is-getting-a-major-makeover/
So there you have it. Bearing in mind my earlier qualifications, it still seems rather odd. A beauty pageant not about beauty? Hmmm. So what gives? Can anyone now enter? Can an old and not very good looking guy – such as myself – now join in as a contestant?
Yep, such levelling downwards may make the social justice warriors feel good. It has such a neat PC ring to it. And just think, I now stand a very real chance of winning such a contest! Now that beauty has zippo to do with a beauty contest, the odds of me winning have just skyrocketed!
But could it be this just seems to defeat the purpose of all this? In the interests of not offending anyone, of being PC in all things, and not being seen as discriminatory, the entire rationale for something like a beauty contest has just been chucked out the window.
What is the point then? Why even have one? One might as well have Olympic competitions where no one wins. Everyone just gets a participation trophy and then they all go home. So a weightlifter would not be judged on how much weight he pumps.
A sprinter would not be judged on how fast he or she goes. A long jumper would not be judged on how far the jump is. A high jumper would not be judged on how high he jumped. Sorta defeats the purpose of such contests, don’t you think?
So tell me: is it just me, or does anyone else think this is all a bit much, and all a bit bizarre? A beauty contest in which beauty will no longer feature? One might as well have a cake-making contest in which cakes are no longer featured.
Or a knitting contest in which knitting is not featured. Or a painting competition in which paintings are not a part of it. Umm, this all sounds rather strange to me. But then again, we live in rather strange times. So I guess I should no longer be surprised about such things.
Let me repeat: as a conservative and a Christian I have no real love of beauty pageants, nor any great concern either way if they continue. But I am concerned about nutty political correctness where every num num idea and agenda item is run with, and common sense and rationality are thrown under the bus.
