Seeing tweets by @libsoftiktok reminded me to document the cultural decline happening across the West.

Apparently fat Hooters is a thing now. Cuz why be beautiful when you can be ugly?

"So stunning and brave"

Apparently being 'merfolk' is a thing.

https://twitter.com/MinistryofTru16/status/1508152541292511235

I recently stumbled upon this Ayn Rand quote about beauty (I haven't read the associated work, so I may be misinterpreting something or taking things out of context):

[I]f you tell an ugly woman that she is beautiful, you [corrupt] the concept of beauty. [T]o love [a woman] for her vices is [...] unearned and undeserved. To love her for her vices is to defile all virtue for her sake [...].

From Atlas Shrugged, as quoted here, except the brackets are mine. Notably, without those brackets, the quote reads like something Rand would disagree with and might have an antagonist say in the mentioned work. But there's some truth in the unaltered quote, and the brackets are meant to help that truth come to light – again, with the grain of salt that I haven't read the book.

The altered quote above is reminiscent of Rand's stance on compromise. In 'Doesn’t Life Require Compromise?' from her book The Virtue of Selfishness, p. 93, which I have read, she writes:

There can be no compromise between a property owner and a burglar; offering the burglar a single teaspoon of one’s silverware would not be a compromise, but a total surrender—the recognition of his right to one’s property.

As quoted here. Recognizing the ugly as beautiful is a total surrender in the same sense.

Unfortunately, the Ayn Rand Lexicon's entry on beauty currently doesn't load.