Ｑ41.What is beauty and ugliness?

Ａ.Clean and interesting things are beautiful; unclean things that we have to avoid are ugly.<br>
<br>
　　The adjective pair corresponding to interest and disgust is beautiful and ugly.<br>
　　Beauty is a visual or auditory stimuli that cause a pleasant sensation. There are beautiful paintings, photographs and sounds, but there are not beautiful smells, textures, or flavors. However, in Japanese there is a phrase meaning beautiful flavor called bimi.<br>
　　This is because beauty is designed to attract animals from far away. The sense of sight and hearing can discern stimuli that are far away, but the sense of touch and taste can't pick up stimuli that are far away. The sense of smell also has a shorter range than sight and hearing, so beauty does not apply to all senses.<br>
　　Some examples of beautiful thing are those that shine like gems, those that appear clean, and the opposite sex as well as others. Among these cleanliness is very similar to beauty.<br>
　　A common factor is that approaching these things is advantageous to survival. We use the term beautiful generically for things that we instinctively approach. Things that we should approach, things that are in the distance now but we should approach and learn about, are beautiful.<br>
　　Beauty is sometimes sad. For example, there are tragic but beautiful stories and songs. We can also say these are ephemeral. Another person's sadness is also something that people should approach.<br>
　　Remote and interesting things are beautiful.<br>
　　On the other hand things that are ugly are disliked and/or instinctively avoid. Especially things which are unclean are usually considered ugly. Also like the phrase, "a ugly family feud," shows, the meaning of ugliness isn't restricted to appearances, but includes things that you must stay away from as well.<br>
　　When we feel something is ugly we can attack and exclude it without hesitation. In other words, as we evolved we started thinking that things we should exclude are ugly.<br>
　　For example, many people feel hyenas are ugly because its looks and voice are a little creepy.<br>
　　Hyenas are ugly because disliking them has an advantage in evolution. Both human beings and hyenas will hunt in groups and chase their prey for a long time across the savanna. Most likely humans and hyenas inhabited the same niche for a long time. Therefore, it convenient for humans to feel hyenas are ugly so they can fight and kill hyenas without hesitation.<br>
　　These feelings are relative, so hyenas may also feel that human beings are very ugly animals.<br>
　　We feel that not only hyenas but also cockroaches are ugly because they are omnivorous which means they are in a way competing with human beings. An anthropologist Tim D. White calls human beings the hyenas of the primate family. So other creatures might think human beings, hyenas, and cockroaches dislike each other because they are very similar.<br>
　　The movie trilogy, "The lord of the Ring" made good use of this feeling. In the movie the main character's side is clean and beautiful, while the villain's side is filthy and ugly. Owing to this, we can enjoy the story without empathy for villain's creatures casually killed in a massacre.<br>
　　However, these feelings do not apply to all animals. It only applies to animals which are deeply involved with human beings. Animals which are only involved a little with the lives of human beings, we feel they are creepy, for example, bats which are beneficial. This is because their appearance has evolved independently of human beings.<br>
<br>