As my subjectivity quotient is nonexistent, I’m just hoping it’s nothing scurrilous to the implied
1. Where does ugliness (or fugliness for the cantankerous among us) happen? The site of ugliness must be in the viewer. When, therefore, we say of a person that she or he ‘is ugly’ we are identifying the presence in her or him of traits which provoke or stimulate an inner/verbal disquisition in us (and perhaps in an imagined community of ‘people like us’).
2. Ugliness is, to put it another way, a subjective event in the viewer’s mind, stimulated by the presence in a ‘ugly’ person of certain qualities (bucktoothed, moon-faced, clumsy, cold, hateful, bitter, mean-spirited, profoundly ignorant, 'no money' et cetera, et cetera).
3. It would therefore be possible to produce a society of fans whose definition of ugliness hinge on preferences stimulated by a completely different set of qualities, if that society saw those new qualities as things to be protected, cherished, succored. I refer to C.S who was the only one to praise the looks of a certain implied. ('He called him cute.')
4. On point 3, ugliness is not the same as sexual arousal. It does, however, operate in a similar way: the qualities an ugly person possesses can stimulate arousal in the viewer – if, of course, the viewer feels those qualities to be platonic. The wide range of traits and qualities which people find arousing is therefore a useful model for the variety of traits which stimulate beauty in ugliness. The word ‘fetish’ is therefore not literally applicable to an ugly trait, but may serve as a useful metaphor.
5. It is worth noting that certain viewers could find that some traits stimulate an ugly reaction known as a sexual reaction. A grotesque countenance implies a power relationship, which may provoke a dichotomy of fear or arousal – or both. A doubled reaction – both sexual and succor – to the fringes may be where the desire comes from, but ‘Whereof one can not speak, thereof one must be silent‘ – that’s a euphemism for ‘I don’t like ugly people, so I couldn’t say’. But there are alternative formulations. For example, in my understanding ugliness is restricted to parts of the upper-lower-left-right-hand quadrant of the facial compass. If your interest is piqued by ugly people, you may wish to peruse 'If Ugliness is to Survive, Compromises Must be Made', available in major bookstores.
6. Since a desire to protect, cherish, succor is a necessary (though perhaps not a sufficient) part of being attracted to ugly features, pointing out that "He is ugly" means the viewer is making two speculative assumptions, that he or she is stronger or more good-looking than the person who is provoking the ugliness; and that he or she is in some way is able to enter the person’s world to do the protecting, cherishing, succoring - which I think C.S failed terribly due to his open perversion.
7. This is the viewer's most dangerous element. Imagining ugliness to be true leads very easily to pride, and certainly encourages the viewer to be blind to his or her own weaknesses. It is self-centered. Imagining it to be true is an exercise in hopelessness. Ugliness, uncritically buffooned, can therefore become hopeless, foolish pride: hubris. Alert readers may notice that Edison at times question people who are likely to stimulate ugliness but who are also strong - too ironic, in fact. He does not completely deny, however, that these people, including himself, have moments of genuine weakness.
8. There is, therefore, a need to question the level of ugliness that one experiences. But it is not an emotion, or structure of emotions, which must be rejected – but neither is it a consequence-free emotion which can be unthinkingly enjoyed. The same might be said of most (but definitely not all) of the emotions which are easily provoked in us by idiotic people. Do not cease, gentle readers, from your mental fight, and do not let your critical thoughts cover your faces (stop laughing, you at the back).
[That was the fun I had writing it, not the fun you had reading it - a situation perhaps analogous, but not amounting to an old blog experiment (I hope you remembered) in mass manipulation executed by a group of cunning minions. And be thankful you didn't get an entry about brushing my teeth after I got out of bed. Because I very nearly wrote one.]