This controversial lady senator did some
philosophizing several days ago, upon her mentioning of the catchphrase “beauty
is in the eyes of the beholder.”
She mentioned this in the wake of an
uproar over a very pricey building that was built to the tune of two billion pesos, by the patriarch of her
family in an upscale city. Her brother, who now sits as the mayor of that city,
described the notorious building as “world-class.”
Critics, however, are not convinced as
they think otherwise. Ocular inspections revealed a disconnect between the
“isness” of the building and the mayor’s “world-class” pronouncement.
According to a quantity surveyor, the
building is yes, modern, but of average standard. The same surveyor also
mentioned that there was nothing astonishing about the building and its design.
With its “world-class” tag, it should be
comparable to a five-star hotel or condominium. But this isn’t the case
according to one architect.
And so this lady senator issued a feisty
statement to bluff the critics, wherein she established a close parallelism between
“world-class” and the concept of beauty:
“Di ba, parang, parang beauty din yan eh...It’s in the eyes of the beholder.”
It is indeed very true that beauty lies
in the eyes of the beholder, since what a person perceives as beautiful may be
the opposite in the perception of another person. Beauty is a matter of taste,
in other words.
I am neither an engineer nor an
architect, and not an interior designer as well. But plain logic tells me that
in order for a building to be considered world-class, then it has to be
compliant to certain standards o requirements, like the kinds
of materials used and the incorporation of technological innovations. So if a
building is not at par with such requirements, then it is not world-class.
This rules out the parallelism made by
the lady senator, since subjectivity (“beauty is in the eyes of the beholder”)
will not thrive amidst established guidelines and parameters that have to be
considered.
Hence, either the building is compliant
or not, or world-class or not.
Beauty is a far different matter, since
there are no clear-cut guidelines or criteria that can be used to make a
judgment on whether a person is beautiful or not, for beauty is a matter of
taste, laced further with an individual’s social and cultural influences.
To conclude, the lady senator’s parallelism
does not hold water. Nice try at philosophizing though.
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