Yesterday's hospital consultation went really well - a happy consultant makes for a happy patient. The surgeon outlined the options I may be offered by the plastics team and used the expression 'part of the package' to describe reconstructive surgery. The purely therapeutic and the ostensibly cosmetic (including aspects that are purely cosmetic) do not find simple separation, and the psychological as well as the physical aspects are considered.
As I listened carefully to what I was being told, I was struck quite forcibly how some of what they offer as part of this therapeutic package has its origins in the purely cosmetic - enlargement, reduction, nips and tucks. I fail to understand why someone would put themself in hopsital for a week, plus potnetially a long convalescence, purely to make themself look different, but I find myself grateful for the skills that have been developed and honed in that context. Those with cash to spare in the illusive quest for the body beautiful as a by-product inspire and inform the work of those who endeavour to help people who are damaged by disease or injury to look reasonably normal.
Sometimes things that are beneficial emerge from things that are seemingly frivolous. My Dad for many years worked in the motor sport industry, a lowly factory post but never the less one that brought him into a world of hi-tech facilities and cutting edge techniques. The spin-offs from motor-sport find their way into ordinary vehicles - apparent vanity serving (eventually) wider society. There are undoubtedly many other examples too.
I'm not suggesting that the wider benefits are an automatic justification of the seemingly vain or frivolous, or that we should simply surrender to the prevailing worldviews on what is to be valued, it is just that it isn't quite so simple to separate the purely practical and useful from the merely vain and fanciful.