interrogating the text from the wrong perspective
Ignoring, for the moment, the content of the following paragraph*, is it just me or is there something... off about it?
"It must be [a mix of genetics and cultural influence], but the interesting question is how much of each. If social pressure is everything, then the images and lessons we give to youth of both sexes, through films, books, advertisements, and example, are crucially important. If not, then the fact that men prefer, say, thin women is fixed by the genes and hormones and not a passing fad."
This is something muddling me here, and I'm not sure whether the problem is with me or the sentence.**
*squints*
*In the next chapter, he actually goes into how thinness is not, actually, a universally preferred trait, so that's all right, then.***
**Okay, I'm actually pretty sure it's the sentence, but I'm a little suspicious of my own motives. I'm afraid I'm looking for problems that aren't there because I'm resistant to his thesis.
***ETA: Except now in the *next* chapter he's saying that because he can't find any *reason* why men's preferences shifted from fat to thin, that must mean that men have always genetically preferred thinness and just... weren't able to find skinny women or something? whut?
"It must be [a mix of genetics and cultural influence], but the interesting question is how much of each. If social pressure is everything, then the images and lessons we give to youth of both sexes, through films, books, advertisements, and example, are crucially important. If not, then the fact that men prefer, say, thin women is fixed by the genes and hormones and not a passing fad."
This is something muddling me here, and I'm not sure whether the problem is with me or the sentence.**
*squints*
*In the next chapter, he actually goes into how thinness is not, actually, a universally preferred trait, so that's all right, then.***
**Okay, I'm actually pretty sure it's the sentence, but I'm a little suspicious of my own motives. I'm afraid I'm looking for problems that aren't there because I'm resistant to his thesis.
***ETA: Except now in the *next* chapter he's saying that because he can't find any *reason* why men's preferences shifted from fat to thin, that must mean that men have always genetically preferred thinness and just... weren't able to find skinny women or something? whut?