A Face Only A Mother Could Love - The Myth Of Inner Beauty And The Political Odyssey Of A Very Ugly Woman

Greta Bergen knew there was something quite wrong with her when in kindergarten she was teased about her eyes, as wide apart as a flounder's and very hard to look at.  A choice had to be made - left one or right one, and even Mrs. Crandall, the teacher, wondered if she had normal depth perception...or, on the other hand whether her peripheral vision encompassed far more than the average bear.

'God made you that way', her mother said, trying to comfort the little girl who had come home from school disconsolate, sobbing, and a snotty mess.  'But you have inner beauty'.  

Mrs. Bergen had known that her daughter would never be a beauty early on.  'What a baby!' was all relatives could say when they saw Baby Greta in her cradle, doing all they could from turning away from the bassinette, averting their eyes from the baby and her poor mother.

Of course she loved her daughter, her first born, as any mother would, and hoped that in time her features would reassemble - the eyes would migrate, her chin would recede, and her ears would align themselves closer to her head; but no such luck.  As the child grew, her already unusual features only became more so, and by the time she entered school she her face had a character and 'uniqueness' that would be hers for ever onward. 

Mrs. and Mr. Bergen disagreed over the girl's parentage.  Not that Harold accused his wife of infidelity (although he never looked at the milkman or plumber the same way again) or any such thing.  He just wondered where in her genetic past her misshapenness (and yes, that was the only word to describe her) came from.  

He exhumed old leatherbound albums and looked at hundreds of black and white photos of his wife's family - the reprobate Uncle George, convicted of felonious assault but a handsome man, dapper, a Rudolph Valentino lookalike; the fey and boyish Tommy, cute even at forty, photographed on Keuka Lake in a canoe; the absolutely stunning Mildred, flapper girl, Las Vegas star, and Hollywood bit player - but none of them gave an inkling as to where Greta's features came from. 

 

His own family forbears were of no help - a sad sack, uninteresting lot, but they were at least regular in appearance, respectable burghers from Oneida, farmers and draymen since the Revolution.  Nothing odd or remarkable there. 

So it must have been a twist of fate, the garbling of genes through the generations which combined in such a holy mess in their poor daughter; but you had to play the hand dealt to you, and with any luck Greta would be a strong woman who would overcome her unfortunate physical heritage and be happy. 

In America there were only two ways for a girl like Greta to overcome or at least compensate for her physical unattractiveness.  The first was to submit to a surgical makeover, tighten the ears to her head, flesh out the lips, tonsure and accentuate eyebrows and lashes to deflect attention from the irremediable placement of her eyes, and complement with cosmetics, rouge and gloss, eyeshadow and liner, makeup, powders, lipstick and highlighters. 

The second was to play the cards dealt, make the best of your hand or somehow capitalize on it.  Greta chose this option, and decided that she would use her unfortunate physical appearance as a bold and defiant statement against bourgeois superficiality - the facile, contrived beauty of Hollywood, the runways of Milan, Paris, and New York, advertising, and the cult of the cute blue-eyed goddess. 

Social scientists have long studied the relationship between physical appearance and social success. Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder.  The standards of feminine beauty have not changed for millennia. Symmetrical features, luminescent eyes, full lips, and luxuriant hair all express health, wealth, and well-being as well as being pleasing to a natural sense of geometrical order, and sexual appeal.  There is little difference between  the women painted by Leonardo and the most beautiful Hollywood actresses of today.

Such beauty has always assured success.  All things considered, beautiful women are hired first, promoted first, married first, and sought after always.   Beauty has been less important for men whose success and sexual appeal has come largely from professional ambition, family status, and wealth; but still, the tall, handsome man is always noticed, deferred to, and given the benefit of the doubt.  While women may reasonably doubt these men’s fidelity, they are drawn to them.  Male beauty implies good breeding, good nutrition, and good genes.  It is a stand-in for the more easily assessable and practical qualities.

What was surprising for the scientists was to find a link between unattractiveness and political philosophy.  With few exceptions those women with a particularly insistent sense of compassion for the poor, the rights of the oppressed, the wavering climate, and the unequal distribution of wealth fell far off. 

 
While liberal women - those watching from the sidelines, marching in the occasional jamboree for this or that, consistently voting Democrat - were no strangers to Armani, Arpege, and vogue, those in the progressive trenches, the social justice crusaders, were without exception stone brutes in appearance.  From flannel-shirted tough girls from Bernal Heights, to Habitat for the Homeless ghetto missionaries, to tireless, passionate demonstrators for civil rights and international justice, they were off the charts. 

Greta was on to something - ugliness in the face of ignorant bourgeois complacency was a badge of honor, a symbol of serious pursuits, intellectual commitment, and moral rectitude. Hundreds of these scraggly women gathered daily in front of the Trump White House, jeering the young, lily white, blonde, blue-eyed aides and interns headed for the West Wing.  Not a black woman among them, not one gay man, not one 'othered' person.  

Progressive to the core, dismissive of the superficial blandness of Midwestern farm conservatism, those jeering and howling at the gates made something of their unfortunate genes and showed the world that beauty was a farce, and that inner strength meant all. 

Now, despite Greta's realism, she had been influenced like any other normal, healthy American girl by the culture of beauty; and when it came to choosing a mate, she of course hoped for a Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, or Chris Hemsworth.  Yet unsurprisingly the young men in her political coterie were as unfortunately graced as she; and like her, affected the most unappealing, slovenly, brashly indifferent attitude to dress and appearance. 

In an epiphanic moment she realized, 'It's all about the sex', and coupling with one of these political retreads was not an option.  Yet there was no telling how or even if dipping into the mainstream would pay any dividends - those binocular eyes, that frizzy hair, the ears...God had indeed been unkind. 

Diana Vreeland is perhaps the best example of how clothes, cosmetics, and hair style can compensate for unattractive physical characteristics.  In her autobiography, D.V., she recounts her particularly difficult childhood years,  a very unattractive child with a beautiful sister.  

Vreeland, never an attractive woman, went on to become the doyenne of fashion as editor-in-chief of Vogue and a long tenure and Harpers Bazaar.  She believed that not only were clothes important and could compensate for a lack of classical beauty; but that they added value.  She promoted the idea of style – an attitude more than a look not dissimilar from the Italian bella figura but far more dramatic.  Vreeland was never a beautiful woman, but no one noticed.

It was worth a try, and Greta's parents happily offered to pay for the makeover - plastic surgery, top-of-the-line cosmetics, haute couture and American casual clothes, the works, and after a year, she emerged from the penumbra of ugliness.  While not a stunning beauty, she was more than acceptable, and found herself the attention of not a few attractive, eligible young men. 

Her former political sisters - the ones deep in the progressive struggle for social reform, equality, and right - saw her transformation as apostasy.  She had become a Republican! an outsider, a defiling, unwanted presence.  She might as well join Donald Trump and his pretty minions on Pennsylvania Avenue. 

Which is what she did.  Her years of squirreling away in the carrels of Harvard's Widener Library and across town in the economic labs of MIT were now paying off.  Her esoteric work on the nature of markets was neutral enough to brush off any intimations of Keynes, and the Trump populists saw her as a welcome addition to the Council of Economic Advisors. 

All this was incidental to what beauty - natural or acquired - means.  Successful mating; and that, of course, had been the reason for her veering off course and into more congenial waters.  She bedded one eager aide after another and could have had any of them; but again surprisingly reveled in her new, unanticipated libertinage.  Marriage could wait.  Conservatism, unlike progressivism had beauty and good times built in. 

Sound And Fury Signifying Nothing - Protest Marches As Self-Gratifying, Happy Jamborees

There seems to be a march every weekend in Washington; and the Women’s March, the March for Science, the Climate March are just a few. This weekend (4/5/25) was no different.  Marchers gathered on the National Mall to protest Donald Trump.  It was a delighted, happy crowd.  The placards, banners, and signs were effusive in their attacks on an imbalanced, insurrectionist, enemy of the people.  

The crowd cheered every speaker, raised their fists in defiance and solidarity, whooped and hollered until hoarse, and headed home satisfied, content, and extremely happy with themselves. 

The real purpose of the march was to create a sense of solidarity and a camaraderie of like-minded people, progressives who refuse to capitulate to the retrograde, destructionist, bullying of Donald Trump.  It was hatred of the man that ironically fueled the joy of the event.  The bilious, hysterical, incontinent rage felt good to express - to yell and scream finally after so many months of tamped down, frustrated, and inchoate anger.  

The joy at these marches and demonstrations is palpable. Those marches that concern women have an additional note of bonding, communal love, and belonging. Demonstrators are not angry but happy, for they are shouting in unison with their sisters, hugging and kissing in exuberant displays of female solidarity.  Their soprano voices, loud and choral, might never be heard by the men that decide, but that is of no consequence.  It was femininity, femaleness, feminism expressed joyously and with abandon. 

It all comes down social collectivity – an expression of concern for a common cause which unites thousands into a community of ideas – an identity community with markers, banners, logos, doctrines, and liturgies.  Belonging feels good, feels important, feels useful, and most importantly reflects one’s own goodness.

The marches all have a stated purpose – demand for women’s rights, more objectivity and less politics in scientific research, and immediate action on climate change – and while they may be well intentioned, their objectives are far too vague and diffuse to have any impact on policy; and this march of protest against Donald Trump was perhaps the most centripetal, airy, and breezy of them all.  

The President had done nothing wrong, at least not like Richard Nixon's dirty tricks, Watergate, and break-ins to the offices of Daniel Ellsberg; or LBJ who prosecuted the War in Vietnam despite unclear objectives and goals, causing the death of thousands.  

No, this was a magical premise of pre-crime, a Julius Caesar moment when Cassius and his Roman cohorts plan to kill Caesar for the crimes he might commit.  Caesar has hardly even intimated a desire for imperial rule, only been adamant about principles of governance and national sovereignty. 

The marchers on the Mall saw Elon Musk, the man tapped with the responsibility of identifying waste, fraud, and inefficiency and charged with the dismantling and closing of bureaucracies which were hemorrhaging taxpayer dollars with nothing to show, as a villain, a usurper, a Genghis Khan.  Yet Musk was only out to save taxpayer money, reduce or eliminate non-essential, wasteful government interventions in individual lives, and return governance to the foundational principles of the Constitution. 

Closing the borders was a necessary, long overdue, national right and priority; and Trump was unequivocal about it. Drastic, uncompromising measures would be taken to repatriate foreign nationals here illegally.  Such removal would benefit Americans - without cheap, undocumented labor, wages for American citizens would rise, a modicum of social integrity would be restored.  

The war in Ukraine, increasingly unpopular in the United States - a war with only the feeble premise of 'Saving Democracy' and resulting in tens of thousands of deaths, the ruin of a country, and little opposition to Russia - would be ended. 

The ridiculousness of woke would be ended - no gender spectrum, no transgender kindergarten teachers, no outrageous redefinitions.  Affirmative action and DEI - intrusive, objectional attempts to value identity over talent, intelligence, ability, and performance - would have to go, making the marketplace much more fair, equitable, and just. 

So, what was the point of the march?  The marchers on the Mall had been so badly infected with the fabulist concoctions of the progressive Left - that Trump was a homophobic, racist, misogynist and oppressor of the weak and disadvantaged - that hatred had become endemic and ingrained. 

This was not a protest with one clear, definable, achievable objective - to pass a Civil Rights Bill, to remove Johnson from office, to stop the war in Vietnam, or to force Richard Nixon to resign - but one with only inchoate, hysterical 'feelings'. 

The ‘68 March on Washington had one and only one purpose – civil rights.  It was the most defining, momentous, and significant event of the movement which had begun with Rosa Parks, sit-ins, and the signing of the Civil Rights Act.  No one could ignore the plight of black Americans after Martin Luther King spoke at the Lincoln Memorial.



Anti-Vietnam War protesters brought the war to Washington, and Nixon was bedeviled.  Although he stubbornly hardened his stance, dismissed the protesters as renegade, anti-Americans, he paid attention; and most observers have concluded that the demonstrations, marches, and protests helped to end the war if only indirectly.

The leaders of both the civil rights and anti-war protests understood their power.  They had specific objectives – both direct and indirect – in mind, and never wavered from them.

However recent marches have been hodge-podges, potpourris of grievances.  The Women’s March a number of years ago was a stew of progressive demands.  Every issue from equal pay to abortion rights, to sexual abuse, male patriarchy, transgender acceptance, and the capitalist system which is fundamentally oligarchic and oppressive to women was represented on the Mall. 

Real activism requires both political and philosophical commitment and savvy lobbying.  In the case of environmentalism, the desks of Congressional Representatives are piled high with requests and demands from hundreds of cause-specific groups.  Environmental fatigue sets in, and the pile is simply moved.

Current causes have no immediacy.  There are no thousands of coffins of dead American soldiers arriving at Andrews Air Force Base.  No black people being beaten or attacked by dogs.  Global warming is remote, distant, and by no means the Armageddon envisaged by some.  For the time being, it means less brutal winters in Minnesota, a longer growing season and lower farm prices, and easy sailing through the Arctic Passage.



Women have never been more successful, now outnumbering men in law and medical school, increasing in numbers in media, academia, and industry.  Although feminists still insist on protecting women from the depredation of men, most women are strong, confident, and quite able to take care of themselves.

The election of Donald Trump has given common cause to progressives – perhaps the unifying enemy they have hoped for. In the electoral campaign they vilified him as homophobic, misogynist, racist, and xenophobic – all vague, passionately-felt, impossible to validate, but too melodramatic for any real resonance.  

A woman who was an organizer of the anti-Trump march when asked what he hoped to accomplish, said, “Media coverage”.  The more the public is exposed to progressive principles, the greater the chance for progressive reform.

Nothing, of course, could be farther from the truth.  Progressives who see televised images of Washington marchers will feel even more solidarity and commitment.  Conservatives, on the other hand, will only be hardened in their opposition to what they see as liberal cant and interventionism.  The images of marchers, random signs, and violent encounters will only drive them further from the causes marchers intend to promote.

So, what’s the point? Why march? Why bother?

The answer is in collective progressive solidarity.  It matters little whether protests and marches will have any impact.  The point is sharing in a common, philosophical, universal movement.

This all accords marchers a certain generosity.  They are serious about their causes if undirected and vague.  Other observers have characterized marches as purely psycho-social phenomenon, feel-good enterprises of community, belonging, and personal purpose.

Whatever the motivation, marches have an unintended consequence – march fatigue.  Few members of Congress, let alone the White House or the rest of us, pay any attention to the doings on the Mall.  We are simply tired – let alone sick and tired – of the same old, same old. 

Everybody marches in America – Bay-to-Breakers, St. Patrick’s and Columbus Day, Fourth of July, and every possible combination and permutation of protest, patriotism, and pure fun.  This is a good thing.

Just don’t take them seriously.