Plastic surgery is on the rise, and it's not hard to imagine why. Where a few decades ago even the most skilled surgeon could botch one of these procedures and accidentally malign a face rather than beautify it, technology, technique, and a wealth of knowledge on the subject is making it easier and easier to give people the body they want. It is interesting to note that this is occurring simultaneously with a general increase in public opinion on the appropriateness of plastic surgery. There are lots of different hypotheses as to why this may be, and it's hard to speak to any single one's validity without intense sociological study of the phenomenon, but that should not stop us from at least speculating and opening a discourse into how this came to be.

One theory is that people were simply influenced by what they saw of plastic surgery. That the above-mentioned €botch-jobs€ so to speak made those that underwent plastic surgery seem desperate to the point of lunacy. To gamble the admittedly imperfect looks that nature gave you on the off-chance that a plastic surgeon might have success in enhancing them spoke to a fear in people's hearts that being this easily influenced by vanity was a sign of moral deterioration. Furthermore, it is exceptionally easy for people to draw lines of cause and effect along these moral grounds€"to imagine that the reason why someone's plastic surgery went awry is because their desire to be good looking was at odds with God's natural plan. It is akin to when, nowadays, people take excessive joy in the tawdry love-affairs of celebrities. They sleep around and, as a result, become incapable of having simple, happy relationships. They €had it coming.€

This tendency to look towards God for tangible, visible answers to life's moral quandaries may be another reason why plastic surgery is on the rise. Whether the majority in this country likes to acknowledge it or not, atheism is on the rise. As a result, people who get plastic surgery are no longer exclusively viewed as meddling in God's affairs by changing their looks. As the information-age advances further and further, people see themselves more and more as masters of our own destiny. Religion never takes kindly to this concept, because it implies an ability to act with moral absolution in all ordeals, but even the pious are becoming more and more inclined to take this concept with a grain of salt. Not every act is being looked over by God to see if the sum total will send you to hell or heaven; some things simply are, and taking pleasure in augmenting your looks will not matter so much to a benevolent creator if it helps you be happy and caring towards those you love.

We can wax philosophical until we're blue in the face about exactly why people are beginning to internalize plastic surgery as simply a fact of life and not some crazy beautification scheme pursued only by the most Faustian of people, but that somewhat defeats the purpose. When you get right down to it, plastic surgery just is; love it or leave it. Not participating in it is a fine course of action, but rebelling against other people making use of it will likely fall on deaf ears.