The Aesthetic Perils Of Morally Ambigious Corn

We ruined corn.

Along with most of civilization, we also ruined corn, because we wanted it to look pretty, so we bred the hell out of it and made it into something unrecognizable from what it once looked like. This may not seem like a very big deal, but what if I told you that ethically questionable corn could be attached to modern architecture? Because I'm about to tell you that, yes, ethically questionable corn could be attached to modern architecture.

About a year ago, back when I still lived in a bustling city, the downtown area near my upscale grocery store got remodeled, and up went these high rise blocky looking apartment buildings. I'm sure you've seen them by now, in some write up or another, where the author extols the evils and perils of modern living and how modern architecture is akin to the greatest sins of mankind. How these new apartments have no personality, how they are but just a mere hollow shell of what we once considered homes and how that somehow means that we are nothing but a mere hollow shell of what people once were. People put a LOT of thought into what apartment buildings architecture means, and I think it's pretty ridiculous. It's a building, for god sakes. But...that being said, I do think there's one thing that can be said about them, and that is that they are much like genetically engineered corn. Stripped of all its identity, changed to be a uniformally recognized piece of everyday life, something that fits into what we consider "aesthetically pleasing". Technology has become this way as well. Everything is either white or black, and sleek and visually pleasing.

What does it say about a society, a culture, a species that decides to be aesthetically pleasing instead of being unique is more important? So important even that we extend that concept to things like corn?

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When I was in middle school, I recognized everyone suddenly cared about their appearance. My stepsister would spend hours doing her hair in the morning, and for kids who had to get up at the crack of dawn meant she got up even earlier than that. Monster though she may have been, I have to on some level commend that sort of commitment to your vanity. Suddenly all the girls around me were matching their clothes and making sure their makeup was precise. Meanwhile, I was wearing slacks and plaid overshirts and not even brushing my hair. I'm not saying this to make myself sound better than anyone. In fact, in the past 6 years or so, I've become extremely interested in fashion and have cobbled together what I consider to be a fairly nice wardrobe. I no longer solely dress for pleasure and comfort, and instead now enjoy looking good.

This is because I too, like everyone else, am no better than corn.

Have you ever watched a very old scifi movie? Something where humans visit an alien planet or perhaps it takes place in the "far future" of 2018 and everyone has the same matching silver jumpsuits? Something where fashion has become replaced with, yet again, aesthetically pleasing uniformity. And nobody ever really questions this, nobody ever really thinks that it's all that strange. After all, if we've cultivated a society based around total peace and harmony, then shouldn't we all dress alike too? Keep everyone completely equal? That's likely the idea behind it anyway, I'm willing to bet. But 2018 has come and passed and we are no closer to a utopian world than we are to having a movie that isn't part of a franchise break the box office. You may not be aware of it, but clothing conformity has already begun. It actually begun a long time ago when people were killing eachother over Air Jordans and it continues today when everyone wants an Apple Watch. We are moving ever close to the silver jumpsuit, to becoming the human version of corn; stripped of everything we are, everyone we are, and boiled down to nothing more than an aesthetically pleasing eyeful.

And as I said, far be it from me, the lady who decided after 20 something odd years of her life to finally get with the program and be physically presentable, to write a long winded hipster blog post about the perils of Gucci Sunglasses and Calvin Klein Underwear. I'm just as much a soldier to brand uniformity as everyone else. The thing is, it isn't just happening to us. We're also doing it to every other facet of our existence, from corn to apartment buildings, and at what cost? In fact, the concept of aesthetics is so in style right now that it's a tag on social media in general. Search on Tumblr or Instagram and you'll come across dozen upon dozens of posts dedicated solely to the concept of aesthetics. Our buildings look the same. Our corn looks the same. Ourselves look the same.

But is this really a bad thing?

I mean, in the end, who cares if fashion and buildings and food are all identical, right? I say sterilize humanity, strip it of its personality in all forms and facets and let's get this conformity train on the tracks. The sooner we can't pick apart at one another over what they're wearing, where they live or what they eat, the better off I think we'll likely be. You can't theoretically hate people who dress, live and eat exactly like you do, because then, in essence, you'd hate yourself. Except that argument is total bullshit because you totally can do that. Trust me, nobody hates me more than I hate me. And it doesn't matter if you live in the same wage class or not, you will hate the people you are supposed to be equal to for no reason other than you can. Have you ever heard of a little thing called "keeping up with the Jonses?" The idea is that, even if you live a fairly well off life and live in, say, a comfortably sized home with enough money to be okay and drive a pretty okay car and have a pretty good looking spouse and your children are pretty acceptable by societies standards...you'll still hate that fucking prick next door, Larry Jones.

This is because, in your mind, you are always the victim, even if you're the one on top. This is why rich people don't want to pay their employees a living wage, this is why we encourage our children to compete against one another and this is why even if you are seemingly on the top tier of society, someone, somewhere has it better than you and that is just unacceptable.

When I was a little girl, I grew up in a fairly well off home, and my parents were so ashamed of my mental health problems. I wasn't really told not to talk about my therapy sessions with people, but it was certainly discouraged because when you live a lifestyle of a certain kind, you're expected to keep everything unsightly behind closed doors. Back in the 50s, if your daughter became pregnant, you sent her away for a year to "visit relatives". This is just how the upper class operates, clawing for total conformity and yet still trying to one up eachother because equality is not really equality if someone has it better than YOU. See, the problem with the concept of equality is that people think it means 'strictly equal' but really it just means we stop treating people like dirt. We stop killing immigrants, we stop bombing foreign countries for oil and we stop sending queer children to conversion camps because guess what, they're people too. I should know. I'm a queer woman and I'm fairly certain I'm a person, even with as little self worth as I have about me.

But the people in charge? They think equality means instantly giving everyone else access to their bank accounts, their yachts, their healthcare plans and so on and so they're completely against it. Because to these people, what good is being able to have the finer things in life if everyone is capable of attaining them? The silver jumpsuit, the engineered corn and modern architecture are a ruse, and not something we should be striving for. We should pride ourselves on our differences, while still being treated equally. I should be allowed to be queer and still have access to clean fucking drinking water. We have this weird terror that unattractive foods, if ingested, say that we're somehow unattractive, because food is, by extension, a part of us since we ingest it. This is why supermarkets are so perfectly organized and this is why so many foods have been bred to be peak aesthetically visually pleasing. This is why people are afraid of dropping something and still eating it after it's touched the floor, even with the universally agreed upon five second rule. Because to them, you're eating trash, which makes you trash.

Anyone who eats frozen food, fast food or anything other than a perfectly manufactured yet sterile diet that was created by a personalized dietician and is GMO free is only hurting themselves. This mindset already exists in a lot of the people who claim they eat healthy, because they see themselves as superior for doing so and don't recognize that not everyone can financially adopt that lifestyle, nor should they want to. Just because someone eats a double cheeseburger it doesn't make them cheap, disposable trash.

And unmodified corn doesn't mean we're ugly.

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Too too many more times than I can count, I have either seen someone, or done it myself, pick up a piece of fruit at the grocery store, inspect it and then put it back because it has a slight bump or discolored spot. In reality, those bumps and colored spots rarely mean anything negative. Sometimes discoloration can mean early molding, but otherwise it's just what you see. Discoloration. But we need them to be perfect. Inbred dogs to create perfect canines and inbred corn to create perfect food. Everything has to be picture perfect and visually pleasing if you want to make that instagram post be noticed. So, that's why now I'm trying my hardest to stop doing this sort of thing myself. I was never a big supported of it myself but being a member of society, even at the bare minimum level of participation that I'm in, you pick up a few bad habits here and there and judging food by discoloration or general unsightlyness was one of them. But now I'm going to do my best to not care even more than I already did.

You know who else wanted to make things perfect? Hitler. That was the whole idea behind eugenics. He wanted everyone to be blonde and blue eyed and have perfect skin. So no, I'm not calling our obsession with uniformity surrounding corn or apartment buildings akin to Hitler, but I also won't deny that the comparison should be made. If you create everything to be perfect, it makes it easier to judge people and things that are not up to those standards, and I don't know about you, but I'm not ready to live in that kind of world, and frankly I don't think any of us ever should be.

I'm imperfect as hell, but you know what? Even with my many varying imperfections, even with my myriad of problems and issues, I still recognize that those things make me who I am, and enough people seem to like who I am, so why should I change that? I'm not saying I won't try harder to become a better version of me, certainly not. I'm always for change and growth. But I also am tired of dragging myself down when so many others have already spent a lifetime doing the same.

No, I am not corn, and no I don't live in a perfectly made apartment building, but I also will not judge myself, or others, for being imperfect. We're all told far too often to embrace our uniqueness and then
just as quickly harassed for not following the crowd, and that's a game I no longer refuse to play in.

But if anyone does ever create the silver jumpsuit, I have to admit, I'll jump right into that thing.

Hey, it's about convenience, you know?