Ugliness as a Tool of Social Control

[Leonardo17]

I’m actually reading a historical novel on the starting of a resistance movement during a well-known episode of invasion. A young princess is leading this new movement of independence against the invaders. The first phase of the revolution is: Laundry.
 
She distributes soap to her people and closely supervises laundry-work within the palace. Then she goes on with greater attention to the clean state of the streets of the city they are living in. Of course there are also efforts to rebuild the army etc. but another main effort is in the area of some basic makeup needs for women. So in this first phase of the revolution streets become cleaner, people become cleaner, women start to be better looking and physical hygiene is increasing.
 
Why is this important?
 
Because it’s about self-respect. If you want to raise your voice against an invading force, the first thing you need is a feeling of confidence that come from being a clean / shaved individual if you are a man, tanned and good looking hair if you are a woman, who doesn’t stink, who looks like a human being more than a street dog, who lives in a clean house and who wanders in clean streets without garbage rooting in every corner. Than you can go on an claim your rights as a self-respecting human being.
 
To this I would add the importance of art and education. This is another important step too. It reminds people that they have a brain and a soul and that they are an entity that has the power to determine their own destiny.
 
And these are the first things that will be targeted by anyone who wants to turn a society into an obedient animal flock. So they will not fight poverty. They will not invest in things like museums (I was in Syria at the time of the father of the current Syrian dictator and I visited a museum in the city of Allepo. They had ancient scroll who had fallen and were broken and no one would even pick these up and restore them). Dirt will be widespread. Streets will be ugly and dirty and full of garbage. People will be unclean and they will be wearing clothes that are not being frequently washed. Body odors will be the common rule. And women will either be bad-looking or they will be completely hidden from view. This is especially important: People have to get used to dirt and ugliness. Anything that is nice or beautiful must not be seen by them. In this way you can make them think they are a type of being that is unworthy of anything that is good. And, as a result, you can make them agree that the only thing they deserve is a tyrant or a group of tyrants that will take everything from them and give them nothing in return.
 
Just another historical quote: The founder of the Modern Turkish Republic did the exact opposite of that. And because of that, he was met with the resistance of all those who had become used to the old, tyrannical way of doing things. And that’s how insane the human Ego is. If it has become used to being a pig, it will feel threatened by anyone who reminds it that it is a human being rather than a pig

[Belacqua]

To this I would add the importance of art and education. This is another important step too. It reminds people that they have a brain and a soul and that they are an entity that has the power to determine their own destiny.

I very much agree with you that the beauty of where we live is of vital importance. 

Too often beauty is treated as a luxury that has to give way to convenience or efficiency. I do not think it's some kind of extra that should be an afterthought. It is an integral part of the quality of life. 

I do want to be careful with what we say about people's appearances. I agree that taking care with one's clothes (and one's body odor!) is a way to show respect and consideration for people around you. But I don't want to imply that young beautiful people somehow deserve to be out on the street more than others. Or that there is only one template for how people can be beautiful -- variety is also good, and there are different ways for people to be attractive.

[The Grand Nudger]

Sounds like a dressed up maid fantasy to me. If I were looking to resist an invader I think I'd spend my beauty product budget on bullets. The reason that you see dirty cities run by tyrants has nothing to do with any active plot to deprive their lives of beauty so as to better subdue them. They're alrweady subdued. It's because the tyrant pockets the cash that services would require....usually to buy bullets.....

Not that I have anything against clean streets and pretty women, but it seems like the kind of detail you focus on after you've expelled an invader, and it's certainly not a precondition to your rights.

[arewethereyet]

Sounds like a dressed up maid fantasy to me.  If I were looking to resist an invader I think I'd spend my beauty product budget on bullets.  The reason that you see dirty cities run by tyrants has nothing to do with any active plot to deprive their lives of beauty so as to better subdue them.  They're alrweady subdued.  It's because the tyrant pockets the cash that services would require....usually to buy bullets.....

Not that I have anything against clean streets and pretty women, but it seems like the kind of detail you focus on after you've expelled an invader, and it's certainly not a precondition to your rights.

Bold mine...

...and you win the Internet today.

[brewer]

I wonder if Gengis Khan or Attila the Hun new about this?

[Anomalocaris]

Sounds like a dressed up maid fantasy to me.  If I were looking to resist an invader I think I'd spend my beauty product budget on bullets.  The reason that you see dirty cities run by tyrants has nothing to do with any active plot to deprive their lives of beauty so as to better subdue them.  They're alrweady subdued.  It's because the tyrant pockets the cash that services would require....usually to buy bullets.....

Not that I have anything against clean streets and pretty women, but it seems like the kind of detail you focus on after you've expelled an invader, and it's certainly not a precondition to your rights.

Depends on the tyrant.    Mao’s China clearly made concerted effort to break down any outward distinctions between individuals, social origins and sex and dress literally everyone, men and women, old and young alike, in identical green, faintly military style but baggy uniforms, but uniforms that are also devoid of rank insignia, piping, badges, or other means of individual and collective distinction, or expression.   During that era any hint of cosmetics on a women will earn her an expenses paid multi-month journey to an re-education camp. 

The same,  magnified by several orders of magnitude, prevailed in pol pot’s Cambodia. 

Many of the leftist revolutionary movements during 1960-1980d inspired by Maoism in Latin America, Africa, and Oceania also aspire towards similar enforced sexual and social anonymity.

While hitler’s germany didn’t get time to implement a full suit of sexually anonymizing measures, the objective was also to make women both sexually anonymous and sexually promiscuous breeding stock.  Cosmetics, personal decoration, and other assertions of sexual individuality that aren’t direct enough in getting women impregnated were increasingly discouraged as the Nazi regime lasted.

[Objectivist]

I’m actually reading a historical novel on the starting of a resistance movement during a well-known episode of invasion. A young princess is leading this new movement of independence against the invaders. The first phase of the revolution is: Laundry.
 
She distributes soap to her people and closely supervises laundry-work within the palace. Then she goes on with greater attention to the clean state of the streets of the city they are living in. Of course there are also efforts to rebuild the army etc. but another main effort is in the area of some basic makeup needs for women. So in this first phase of the revolution streets become cleaner, people become cleaner, women start to be better looking and physical hygiene is increasing.
 
Why is this important?
 
Because it’s about self-respect. If you want to raise your voice against an invading force, the first thing you need is a feeling of confidence that come from being a clean / shaved individual if you are a man, tanned and good looking hair if you are a woman, who doesn’t stink, who looks like a human being more than a street dog, who lives in a clean house and who wanders in clean streets without garbage rooting in every corner. Than you can go on an claim your rights as a self-respecting human being.
 
To this I would add the importance of art and education. This is another important step too. It reminds people that they have a brain and a soul and that they are an entity that has the power to determine their own destiny.
 
And these are the first things that will be targeted by anyone who wants to turn a society into an obedient animal flock. So they will not fight poverty. They will not invest in things like museums (I was in Syria at the time of the father of the current Syrian dictator and I visited a museum in the city of Allepo. They had ancient scroll who had fallen and were broken and no one would even pick these up and restore them). Dirt will be widespread. Streets will be ugly and dirty and full of garbage. People will be unclean and they will be wearing clothes that are not being frequently washed. Body odors will be the common rule. And women will either be bad-looking or they will be completely hidden from view. This is especially important: People have to get used to dirt and ugliness. Anything that is nice or beautiful must not be seen by them. In this way you can make them think they are a type of being that is unworthy of anything that is good. And, as a result, you can make them agree that the only thing they deserve is a tyrant or a group of tyrants that will take everything from them and give them nothing in return.
 
Just another historical quote: The founder of the Modern Turkish Republic did the exact opposite of that. And because of that, he was met with the resistance of all those who had become used to the old, tyrannical way of doing things. And that’s how insane the human Ego is. If it has become used to being a pig, it will feel threatened by anyone who reminds it that it is a human being rather than a pig

If you want to control people you have to take away their self-esteem.  You have to make them feel unworthy.  You have to get them to accept themselves as the standard of evil.  What are we hearing now?  You should shower only once a week.  You should eat bugs instead of steak.  You shouldn't have a nice gas stove that is wonderful and efficient to cook on.  You should be limited to driving no more than 15 minutes from your home.  They are even trying to ban those 1 lbs. propane cylinders that backpackers and campers use. If they 
try limiting me to a 15-minute drive from my home the first thing I'll do is drive 20 minutes and call the police and tell them to come and arrest me.   Our sheriff wouldn't do it.

[Anomalocaris]

not always it even usually true.   an effective and frequent means of controlling people is to give them the kind of self esteem they inwardly know they don’t deserve and therefore rely on your cynical affirmation to feel.    hence “ubermensche”, appeal to nationalism, racism and racialism are favorites it would be dictators.

what tyranny implicitly seeks is not to cause people to lose self esteem.   rather they seek to become the dominant venue for affirming and denying self esteem,  rather like religions such as christianity abs islam.    There is no salvation outside the church,   there is no self esteem but what the tyrant grants.

[GrandizerII]

OP: When you're being oppressed, probably the last thing on your mind is to tend to your appearance/hygiene as a precondition to fighting for your rights as a human being. It's not practical (imo), and it also does come off as trying to appease the oppressors in some way (even if the intended goal is something noble, like self-respect)

[Leonardo17]

Here is the conclusion Part of an article on today’s Russia:
 

“The sentiment is classic fatalism, the product of centuries of life under despotic rulers — czars, revolutionaries, oligarchs — who treated ordinary people as an inconvenience, one that could be resolved in the vast frozen wastelands of Siberia, littered with the bones of so many dead. Resignation has become a form of survival, a kind of political self-care.
 
Navalny is asking Russians to put aside their cynicism, difficult as that may be today. For years he has asked Russians to imagine a country other than the authoritarian petro-state Putin has fashioned from the wreckage of the Soviet Union.
 
“It requires a lot of patience. It’s really slow,” Volkov says of the work he and the Anti-Corruption Foundation are doing. But, he later adds, “it’s important that we don’t lose faith.””

https://www.yahoo.com/news/from-prison-dissident-alexei-navalny-plots-vladimir-putins-demise-200202833.html
 
- So Cynicisms, low feeling of self-worth, resignation in the face of political oppression and fatalism is the typical attitude of the oppressed masses.
 
   Beauty, high level of self-worth, belief in individual power to create change is the characteristic of a self-governing people made of free citizens.