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And I always thought it was funny how in classic books from authors like Jane Austen they’d always talk about a person’s physiognomy, and how you could draw str
by sethc2 6y ago
And I always thought it was funny how in classic books from authors like Jane Austen they’d always talk about a person’s physiognomy, and how you could draw strong conclusions about them from it. Maybe it wasn’t so bogus after all?
- anigbrowl 6y agoI think there's quite likely something to that. I seem to have better-than-average intuition in this area and it's handy, but not reliable enough that I'm willing to build causal explanations on it. Sadly, uncritical application of physiognomy has led to many bad outcomes involving discrimination or institutionalization, and the ideas are often used to prop up racism or other sorts of prejudice, so it's not much different from pseudosciences like phrenology or palm reading. Consider too that in Austen's time manual labor was much more common and social/job mobility much lower, so there were a lot of subtle clues that could be picked up from someone's appearance. Think how many folk tales center on someone's ability (or not) to cross social boundaries by modifying their appearance.