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While reflecting on the banal self-defense of various Nazi war criminals during the Nuremberg Trials, former Heidegger student, Hannah Arendt, began a series of meditations on the nature of thought and its relation to moral human action. These meditations became the extended treatise, "The Life of the Mind".

In one of the foundational chapters she lays out a rather stark reversal of conventional thinking on the relative importance of appearance in man's moral existence. Simply put, she argues that what we harbor inside our subconscious is a largely undifferentiated mess of psychic ugliness, and, what's more, that it is an ugliness largely indistinguishable from the various hidden neuroses and pathologies possessed by our neighbor. Consequently, what is important in her mind is what we choose to make appear in our habitual self-display---our virtues, our character, our very identity.

"Since choice as the decisive factor in self-presentation has to do with appearances, and since appearance has the double function of concealing some interior and revealing some "surface"--for instance of concealing fear and revealing courage, that is, hiding the fear by showing courage--there is always the possibility that what appears may by disappearing turn out finally to be a mere semblance. Because of the gap between inside and outside, between the ground of appearance and appearance--or to put it differently, no matter how different and individualized we appear and how deliberately we have chosen this individuality--it always remains true that "inside we are all alike," unchangeable except at the cost of the very functioning of our inner psychic and bodily organs or, conversely, of an intervention undertaken to remove some dysfunction. Hence, there is always an element of semblance in all appearance: the ground itself does not appear. From this it does not follow that all appearances are mere semblances. Semblances are possible only in the midst of appearances; they presuppose appearance as error presupposes truth. Error is the price we pay for truth, and semblance is the price we pay for the wonders of appearance. Error and semblance are closely connected phenomena; they correspond with each other" (pp. 37-8).

Is appearance in this sense more important than what we think we possess inside?

What about the pertinent line in the recent "Batman Begins"?

"It's not who I am on the inside, but what I do that defines me."


Agree or disagree?

Discuss.

NO

I think that our perceptions of ourselves is more important than our actual appearance. For if you perceive yourself to be weak, you'll act weak, and eventually people will note this in your appearance. In some ways, our outwerd appearance is based more on the person's attitude toward themself instead of the actual appearance.

I know it's hokey, but I'll reference V for Vendetta: After Evey Hammond goes through the torture, she goes back into the world, and she runs into an old coworker, who looks her directly in the face, and yet doesn't recognize her. Evey's appearance had not changed, expect for the shaven head, so it was the fact that she had been through that experience that led her to think of herself as stronger than she used to think herself. The change in attitude led to the 'change' in her appearance.