Even though most of us recognize the fallacy of placing too great a value on appearance, our desire for physical beauty is so ingrained in us that we cannot disassociate ourselves from it. Why is physical beauty so important?
尽管我们大多数人都认同把外表看的过重是种谬误。然而，对美得渴求根植于人心，我们难于摆脱，为何外表美如此重要？
I discard the easy answer that the media has branded the idea on our minds. While magazines and television certainly heighten our consciousness of looks, they are merely harping on insecurities that already exist. Our desire for physical beauty, while shaped and polished by the superficial media culture, actually has deeper roots in who we are.
“因为媒体把‘外表非常重要’这一观念烙进我们心底”，对这个简单回答我是不能苟同的。杂志和电视的确让我们更在意外表美，但其反复玩捏的不过是我们的种种不安心理，而这些怯弱感时早已存在的。我们对外表美的渴求虽然受到付钱的媒体文化影响和熏陶，但实际上有着更深的根源--我们的本性。
Our desire for physical beauty is an original human feeling, like the desire for food, nurturing, or happiness. Just as those other things drive us toward survival, physical beauty is programmed into our brains as a means of staying alive and furthering our family line. After all, if males and females weren't attracted to each other, none of us would even be here: humankind would be a fatally flawed experiment. Instead, nature has given us impulses that drive us towards procreation. Every creature, from the lowest organism to the most complex, desires sex. A natural precursor to that desire, which also exists in every society, is indicators of attraction. Dogs are attracted to each other's smells. Peacocks are attracted to each others' plumages. Human beings are attracted to many things about each other - one of which is physical beauty.
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