Lately, in April 21^st, news was reported about a 40-year-old woman who committed suicide after going through melancholia due to devastating consequence of cosmetic surgery.

Humans are beautiful due to their physical diversity and mental particularity; yet the current society began losing its balance, tending to attach greater weight on the outward aspect. Present trend of empowering beauty of external features stirred up the species, especially the feminine gender, to refuse to open their eyes that look deep in people’s souls but to have visions providing glance over outer appearances only. An obsession with physical beauty has formed a twisted blind faith in which the exterior became the utmost criterion in judging people. Realizing that external beauty is only skin deep is urgently needed; the true charm of a human being radiates from one’s inward nature that cannot be transformed by any form of artificial surgery.

People receive cosmetic surgery in order to improve their appearance assuming that it will eventually compensate them with better lives. Earning confidence in daily life, gaining more self-satisfaction, and obtaining better treatment from others—these are some of the main “excuses” why people choose to put artificial objects in their faces, pull out natural part of their own body, and transform themselves into factitious creatures. Believing that such a surgery would empower oneself with confidence is fatuous; and it simply serves as just another unreliable excuse. It is not the outside of a person that brings out his or her real figure. No cosmetic surgery makes a person truly happy or confident, but trusting oneself with respecting one’s natural innermost grace. Moreover, self-satisfaction is obtainable only if a person begins to sincerely accept oneself as who he or she is.

The media is practically the one to blame for starting to establish certain standards of being beautiful neglecting the ultimate value, uniqueness. Television programs and magazines unceasingly play enormous roles in arousing “lookism” among teenagers. Celebrities are esteemed and praised for how gorgeous faces and bodies are giving impression to immature ones that having good looks equals to a significant factor that generates deep admiration and raise recognition. When one of the celebrities gain fat or turn into unpleasant forms by any chance, the media immediately attacks and gives humiliation. Being fat and ugly is severely criticized as if committing serious crime; the whole society seems to offend a person when he or she does not meet the criterion of being beautiful.

I do not condemn those who receive plastic surgery. But we all should realize an important fact. If the one cannot recognize the one’s true value, then what good will the transformed body skin bring?

The Milgram experiment is one of the most famous and one of the most shocking psychological experiments at the same time. The experiment was conducted by Yale University psychologist, Stanley Milgram, in 1963.

 

The experimenter (E) orders the teacher (T), the subject of the experiment, to give what the subject believes are painful electric shocks to a learner (L), who is actually an actor and confederate. The subjects believed that for each wrong answer, the learner was receiving actual shocks, but in reality there were no shocks. Being separated from the subject, the confederate set up a tape recorder integrated with the electro-shock generator, which played pre-recorded sounds for each shock level. (wikipedia)

The participants read the voltage rate on each button; they heard the person’s screaming behind the screen when each button was pressed; they knew that they were hurting the learner through electric shocks; yet they continued to follow the orders and constantly pressed the button with the higher voltage rate written on. Some people, during the experiment, refused to continue the operation. However, such resistances were temporal for the most time. They began the operation again once the conductor “ordered” them to do so. The participants questioned and wavered, but did not stop. Two thirds of the participants (although demonstrated hesitations up to certain degrees,) ended up giving the electronic shock of the highest voltage that will surely kill a person. Only the other one thirds stopped and “disobeyed” to kill a man. The result shocked the United States. None of the participants had committed any form of crimes. They were normal citizens that a normal person would meet while walking down any street.

Millions were killed during the Holocaust. Through the use of gas chambers, open-air shootings, and extermination camps, the Jews and “the inferior beings” lost their lives. When the war ended with Hitler’s loss, inhumane war-crimes of the Nazis were severely criticized. People questioned: how can a human being commit such a heartless violence on another human being? How could the Nazi guards push the poor, innocent people into the gas chambers?

Sinister intention, ill will, anger, and violence were not the motivations that drove the Nazis to commit their sins. Obedience—this simple ingredient of human nature was what made them heartless. The mass tends to seek a strong leadership. People always search for a powerful authority to rely on and expect the leader to give instructions.

Let’s think, people. Let’s question, people. Let’s stop, people. Do not think this scary rule of obedience applies only to the past events. Look at the Iraq war. The American soldiers killed, kill, and will kill the innocent Iraqis. Why? How? They follow “the orders”; and that’s all it takes for a person to become the most cruel criminal.