Absolute vs. Relative

I am certain that I want to write on Anne Wysocki’s chapter “The Sticky Embrace of Beauty”. I enjoyed the intricate and complex ideas thrown out, and I think its a very relative and modern topic that I would enjoy. The main idea that I think Wysocki is interacting with is the view of Absolute vs. Relative beauty. How can we define what "beautiful" is? Can we? Why is it that when I open up a magazine and see a woman I can say for certain, "THAT is beautiful."?

I think my purpose in this is because I do not even know what I think yet. I do not know if beauty is absolute or relative. I think I know what I think, but I have no reason why I think it. I would love to delve into possibly different cultures and see how they produce "beauty" in multimodal texts. (i.e. South African magazines, German advertisements, etc.) I also wonder if because of media and technology today if the cultural standards of beauty have become more generic and not as different as they used to be. I wonder if what used to be ugly to America and beautiful to Asia is now not as vast or stark of a difference. This would call me to really delve into a lot of cultural aspects and research of beauty. (Possibly see how "beauty" has evolved over the past few decades?) Wysocki argues that beauty is not a tangible object but an essence; however, what if it is a tangible object? What if certain forms of beauty transcend culture or background or time?