Dateline: PITTSBURGH — Lisa Prettysweet, an achingly beautiful 26-year old, stunned her family and friends by showing the slightest interest in philosophy.
Predictably, her reading of philosophy has made her more skeptical, pessimistic, and cynical and her parents are convinced that somewhere along the line, some dark miracle has brought about this ruinous diversion.
“I see no other explanation,” says Lisa’s father.
“What the hell are her genes thinking, allowing this to happen? Already, she’s turned down job offers because they don’t live up to her newfangled ideals. Soon she’ll still be single but she’ll also be homeless and a couple decades from now, when she’s lost her youthful beauty, she’ll no longer have her golden ticket to fame and fortune.”
A hunchbacked academic philosopher, Joseph Bitterman, is also perplexed by Miss Prettysweet.
“The mystery,” he says, “is how anyone could willingly surrender such a natural advantage for so paltry a reward as philosophical insight. Beauty earns you tangible goods such as success in all your endeavours, whereas philosophy is just consolation for the downtrodden. If you’re not in dire straits, you’ve no need for consolation. However, if you learn the dark philosophical truths, pretty soon you will find yourself miserable and then you’ll need more and more philosophy. So you’ll have entered the trap, but you’ll have done it to yourself. Why would anyone do that?”
One evolutionary psychologist sees Lisa’s peculiar interest as an extreme case of self-sacrifice.
“I don’t go in much for Christian theology,” he says, “but if I were so inclined I might get down on my knees and worship this weirdly altruistic young woman. Jesus gave up only his heavenly father’s kingdom, which obviously doesn’t exist; and anyway, Jesus supposedly got it all back when he was resurrected.
“But the blessed Lisa Prettysweet is sacrificing her physical beauty, something which is obviously real. And she won’t ever get it back. Thanks to philosophy, all she’ll be left with is knowledge of life’s absurdity. Fat lot of good that will do her when her face is all wrinkled and her breasts are saggy! Turning your back on heaven to help out some conquered desert tribe is all very moral. But throwing away the chance to earn millions of dollars thanks to your having won the cosmic lottery, with full lips, large eyes, and a flat belly? That’s just insane.”
However, Lisa is not insane. When she first began reading philosophy as a teenager, her parents assumed she was developing a mental illness and they took her to a therapist.
“Without anyone forcing this on her, she started reading Nietzsche,” relates the therapist.
“I agree this is baffling, considering her beauty, but I ran all the standard tests and despite that anomalous and counterproductive interest in philosophy, her mental faculties are normal.”
Asked why she bothers to study philosophy when she could be entrancing the average person with her good looks, Lisa Prettysweet smiled, shook her head slowly, and turned and looked out the window.
Melissa Derr, in that photo she’s reading Ulysses, by James Joyce, although who knows if she’s actually reading it. Thanks for sharing on Facebook. There are a bunch of other photos of her in that set. Look up her name and Ulysses on Google.
And thanks, rfreed!
Aced this one Cain!
It is nice to see articles this original that don’t follow the normal comedic beaten paths.
People, please recognize this "article" is coming from a satire website. And I simply wanted to share the photo and my view with all of you. Thanks.
Beautiful photo of Marilyn, I haven't seen that one before. I admire her very much and not because of her exquisite beauty but because despite the fact she was basically uneducated she was in fact an intellectual forever pursuing more knowedge and understanding of he world around her, not to mention the fact she was a brilliant comedienne.
Nah, I love throwing the words dogma and karma around interchangeably Cain. Keeps one on their toes. While I have known some blondes that have come across as dogs (dirty dogs, that is), the majority are ok in my book, especially since the color, more often than not, comes from a bottle and not a gene. I better quit commenting or you’ll win the compy…
Ah, Patti, I thought you were implying that I should let sleeping dogs (i.e. the stereotype of the dumb beautiful woman) lie. It was a good pun, though.
But were you inadvertently calling those poor dumb blondes dogs? Don’t you think they have enough to worry about? 😉
Uh, Oh, Cain. Sounds like you’ve got big trouble in River City. Could be worst. Could be The Hulk with Bruce Banner’s brain hacked off that he ain’t pretty enough to be an enigma.
What issue? I was merely making a joke…seeing as I had to choose brains or beauty, I chose brains this time around. Watch out when I combine the two on your next piece.
Thanks, Kilroy.
Patti, what’s the politically incorrect issue here? Do you think I’m criticizing women? Well, maybe I am a little, since most beautiful women are too smart to throw away that advantage.
But I wrote this satire in response to seeing the first episode of True Detective. I thought it unlikely that someone as attractive as the character played by McConaughey would espouse such extreme pessimism and antinatalism. So it’s not really about women. It’s about beauty versus truth. The more physically attractive you are, regardless of your gender, the less likely you’re going to want to be held back by knowledge of unpleasant truths. So we should expect wisdom out of the uglier folks.
I appreciate there’s a stereotype that beautiful people are dumb, but I’m not saying they’re innately so. I’m saying they have more things handed to them so they don’t have to work as hard. And I’m saying unpleasant knowledge can be counterproductive.
Cain: Good one!
Patti:Buh-DUMP-BUMP
Should just let sleeping dogmas lie…