Seven Modern Deadly Sins – 2) Artifice

Monday 14th August

 

We live in a world of Artifice, where the look of things is far more important than the substance.  When I was a teenager, we all wanted to wear the latest ‘Mod’ clothes, to be part of the ‘gang’, to be accepted as part of the group.  But we always knew we all looked a bit different, it didn’t seem so important to gain perfection – as long as you were acceptable.  But a modern disease has crept in of ‘Body Image’ and a striving for ‘Perfect looks’.  And so now we have the total achievement of Style over Content.

Now, I have always known (or suspected) that I was an ugly sod, and had to rely on my “sparkling” personality to win over the opposite sex…hahaha.  But now it seems that both sexes are resorting to Artifice in order to appear ‘attractive’.  Make-up, which was once so simple is a whole regime.  Many girls (and some boys) don’t even nip to the paper shop without slathering on layer after layer of skin treatments, lotions and potions, foundation, powder, lippy, lip-gloss, mascara and layers of eye shadow.  But it doesn’t stop there – false eyelashes are almost de rigeur, and even the exfoliating of real eyebrows and painting on ‘false’ ones. To me they all look like mannequins, perfectly moulded – yet lifeless.  Almost every girl and many of the boys are unhappy about their body – their hair is too curly or too straight or too dry or too greasy – their breasts are too small or too large, they have cellulite, their teeth aren’t perfectly white…and so the list of imperfections continues.  All body hair must be removed, as if it is ugliness (it is there for a reason, girls) and must be waxed and expunged or the sky will fall in.  And now young men too are being infected by the same disease.

Leonard Cohen sang “There is a crack in everything – that’s how the light gets in.”  I think he meant that we should accept imperfection, it is what makes us different and interesting.

But this Artifice, this seeking for perfection – and ultimately deception – has now moved on.  We have Botox injections, puffed up trout lips, and breast enlargement and reductions, trimming of one’s sex itself.  Plastic surgery, once the preserve of the very rich and vain is now on the high street.  Why can people not simply accept themselves as they are?  Does all this seeking after some (probably photo-shopped) perfection, this resorting to Artifice, simply mask some deeper unhappiness.

But the herd mentality seems to sweep over all common-sense and Artifice is now a very common but still a modern deadly sin.