In last week´s Takimag, our favorite doctor returns to the curiously disturbing rise in ugliness—from fashion to rap to architecture and art—in our modern and economically prosperous world.

To dress well likewise takes self-discipline. It also takes effort and imagination—not imagination of a high order, perhaps, but of the minimal kind that requires a person to see himself as others see him. But that implies that others are and should be important in our eyes, which is an affront to our self-importance.