Hey, everyone, welcome back to my blog!! I am so sorry I wasn't able to publish a post last week, I was extremely ill to the point I couldn't physically sit up straight without having the worst headache. Anyways, take this as a sign to relax before burnout because I kept overworking my body and ended up passing out for nearly a whole day. On a brighter note, I had lacrosse national schools championships this weekend. I was a bit ill going into it and I really don't like overnight trips from school but seeing as I am the goalkeeper, I pulled my socks up (literally) and went. It was super intense and I still haven't fully recovered because I was unable to take Monday off (the joys of doing 4 A-Levels and having no frees!!). I was super super proud of my team. We played so well and I'm also proud of myself because in tournament play, there's a lot of pressure on defence and the goalkeeper seeing as everyone wants to try and shoot as much as possible in the 7 minute halves but we pulled through and came 10th in the country in our category. My lacrosse coach also told me that he's never been prouder of a goalkeeper in any moment of his life than he is right now which I really took to heart and is what'll keep me going My team and I also bonded really well and it's really sad I won't ever play with the year 13's again but I'm excited for them to move onto bigger and better things. Sorry, this went on for ages, I feel like I have so much to catch you guys up on hahaha, anyways, onto the post!
Cultural Relativism
Cultural relativism is a term used often in psychology. It is the view that ethical and social standards reflect the cultural context from which they are derived. The idea that cultures differ from each other which then causes their moral and social standards to differ from society to society. It is discussed a lot in psychology because psychology is the scientific study of the mind and behaviour. Obviously, behaviour is something that is very subjective and no 2 people will behave the same but trying to study different factors (such as culture) can help us understand more about people and society as a whole.
Beauty Standards?
Growing up as an Indian girl being born and brought up in London, you can understand my confusion when 11 year old me got told things like 'your nose is too big' or 'don't spend too much time in the sun or you'll tan too dark'. Now this isn't a post to just pity myself because I don't pity myself, I pity the people who try to put humans into boxes and tell them to uphold certain societal standards.
As I got older I started to learn that everyone around me was following Eurocentric beauty standards (which makes sense because we are in a Western country) and I finally understood that different countries, different time periods and different communities consider different things as 'beautiful'.
Beauty is something people are criticised about or complimented about on a day to day basis but the root of all the 'criticisms' come from what culture people grew up in or what time period they grew up in. Certain features can seem 'unattractive' to the society you are in but maybe 10 years ago or somewhere across the world it could be seen the most gorgeous thing created. That's why I think beauty standards are quite simply rubbish. Beauty is also such a subjective thing, I should know because I've dealt with some of my friends very 'good looking' situationships.
The philosopher Immanuel Kant did a lot of work on aesthetics and aesthetic philosophy. He defined the experience of beauty as something we feel. It sounds quite ambiguous as it doesn't give us a definite answer but that's what I really like about it, it makes it a very universal definition and can be interpreted as one wants.
The crux of what I'm trying to say is that you should remind yourself, whenever you feel insecure, that beauty is found in anything and everything. Trying to change yourself to be 'pretty' because that's what society has told you to do is a waste of time because trends are constantly changing and we shouldn't be held at any obligation to keep up with them and frankly, trying to stay on top of things that are constantly changing is tiring and you should not allow yourself to treat yourself like that. We have a lot of value, every single one of us, and that value should not be defined through temporary and subjective things such as looks, especially because they vary from place to place and time to time.
After a long and rough journey in trying to love myself, understanding more about my culture and the values they promote has really helped me. While I don't wake up everyday thinking 'damn I love myself, I'm so amazing' understanding more about cultural relativism and different time eras has allowed me to recognise that the world is always changing and I deserve better than to compare myself to something so impermanent.
I hope you enjoyed this week's post! It was mainly aimed to remind all of you guys that you are very beautiful whether you know that already or have been feeling a bit insecure lately. I'm currently absolutely knackered from dance tonight so I have literally no energy to say anything else but I'll see you next week, love you guys <33
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