Regular readers know that one basic problem with social science is that often it spends time proving what is obvious to any alert eight-year-old, though social scientists sometimes strain to defy common sense. So in the past, we’ve reported on social science studies that prove conservative politicians are better looking than liberal politicians, that conservatives smell better than liberals (it’s called “bathing,” libs), and that conservatives are “better groomed” than liberals.
Well now from the journal Politics and the Life Sciences, we have social science research that better looking people trend conservative. Here’s the abstract of “Effects of Physical Attractiveness on Political Beliefs“:
Physical attractiveness is an important social factor in our daily interactions. Scholars in social psychology provide evidence that attractiveness stereotypes and the “halo effect” are prominent in affecting the traits we attribute to others. However, the interest in attractiveness has not directly filtered down to questions of political behavior beyond candidates and elites. Utilizing measures of attractiveness across multiple surveys, we examine the relationship between attractiveness and political beliefs. Controlling for socioeconomic status, we find that more attractive individuals are more likely to report higher levels of political efficacy, identify as conservative, and identify as Republican. These findings suggest an additional mechanism for political socialization that has further implications for understading how the body intertwines with the social nature of politics.
The implications of this are immense. First, conservatives should support subsidizing cosmetic surgery as one means to create more conservatives. Second, we can see this as yet another reason liberals demand that everyone wear masks, and why mask-wearing will become a permanent goal of the left.
You think I jest? It is hard to watch the craziness of the left of the last few months and not see that the telos of the present moment is Kurt Vonnegut’s short story “Harrison Bergeron,” in which beautify people were required to disguise their faces in the name of “equality.” Here’s how that great story opens, if you don’t know it:
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213thAmendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General. . .
Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn’t think about anything except in short bursts. And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains. . .
[Ballerinas] were burdened with sashweights and bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in. George was toying with the vague notion that maybe dancers shouldn’t be handicapped. But he didn’t get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts.
Yup, sounds like the Democratic platform. (That noise in George’s ear was a university “bias incident response team.”)
