Summary
Appearances Are Destructive, written by Mark Mathabane and adopted from The News York Times, describes how the author's sisters are treated in American school and how open dress codes affect American students. Having enrolling them at one of the American public school, Mark originally is expectant to give his sisters a brand-new lives; however, they are teased by their classmates because of their plain and unattractive clothes. These sisters are not specialized in dressing up themselves for they do not have to think about what they wear and just wear uniforms.
Trying to find one school which is more proper for them to study, Mark is astonished that the phenomenon exists in almost American schools; students care about the appearance instead of their studies. In class, most students are distracted; they take their mirrors out, put them on the desk and start to gaze their faces rather than books. They always compare what they wear, how much their jewelries are and whether their brands are high and valued. Mark also points out that civil libertarians prefer open dress codes for humans' freedom is not invaded; however, in Mark's mind, freedom is never affected by dress codes. There are so many people wearing uniforms when they work.
Mark concludes that students should not concentrate on materialism; instead, they should focus on school works. If they release the minds of pursuing outer vanity, they can be more mature and gain the real freedom from themselves.
Response
After reading the article, I can fully understand what the author talks about and agree with his thoughts. In the modern society, people live under the environment filling with the stimulation of senses. In cities, there are too many neon lamps lighting up at night. With the prosperous medium, people see plenty of dazzling images and beautiful celebrities appearing on television or on the websites. While people watch these programs or pictures, they are unconsciously imbued with the concepts of keeping up with the times. People blindly worship the latest fashion, extremely expensive and well-known brands and try their best to make them become beautiful or mimic singers or movie stars. Because of the stimulation of senses, people all over the world prefer the beautiful appearance for humans always use their eyes to "judge" people.
A question is in my mind for a long time; one day if all human beings are blind, what the world would be? If people lose their sight ability, they are bound to "feel" people by using their hearts. When people make friends, they use their true hearts to judge whether the person is good or not; there is no obstruction and influence because eyes do not get between them. Especially, when people choose their mates, they are not concerned people whether they have good-looking faces; instead, they choose the person having good characteristics, similar habits and hobbies. If the hypothesis would happen, I deeply believe that there would be enormous changes between people to people.
To my thinking, appearance is not the priority we have to consider firstly; instead, when we get along with people, we should be concerned about their thoughtfulness. We should endeavor not to be superficial and become more mature.
I won’t against someone pursue his or her appearance because appearance is very important to everyone. In my opinion, appearance is very important when you are finding a job because a good appearance will give your employer a good impression. Most people like beautiful women or handsome men and even they do nothing, a good appearance can bring you happier. Employers usually will hire a person who has a good face such as receptionists, models and etc because as long as you give guests a good first impression or a good smile, they usually hope that you can serve them. The more guests ask you serve them, the more reputations you have. And it is good for your occupation. And I agree people to have a plastic surgery. Everyone all likes to have a beautiful face. If you think you are ugly, why can’t you to have a surgery to become beautiful? Some people think that a person who has a plastic surgery is a “fake person.” But I don’t agree with this thought. Because when a person is ugly, you will abuse at his appearance how ugly he is, but when he can become handsome, you still abuse at his unreal appearance. What do you want for him? If my son is an ugly guy, I respect him to have a plastic surgery because that is no fault of him.
回覆刪除It is inevitable that people judge others by appearances. As the saying goes, “to see is to believe.” Most people rely on what they see and take it for granted that what they see is as true as the sun rises from the east. However, if we judge everything only by appearances, it is no doubt that we will become superficial and brainless. There are still something hiding under appearances, as shown in your article, characteristics, habits and hobbies. Although appearances can reveal some information about people, we should understand that what we see sometimes can deceive and mislead us, which results in prejudice and bias. I am interested in your hypothesis and wonder if one day all human beings were blind, would we really judge people by using hearts? Maybe at first people judge others by touching because through touching, people could imagine what this man or woman looks like. As time passes, however, people would know others by hearts rather than touching and believing everything superficial because the kind and virtuous people are truly beautiful people in the world.
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