People make efforts to make our lives more livable. Teachers, care-givers, service workers, scientists, activists quickly come to mind. So do beautification initiatives to refurbish broken or blighted neighborhoods. Such efforts say a lot about the kind of society we want to be, our values, our aspirations our moral ethos.

But while not explicitly identified or closely analyzed, uglification initiatives also abound. They also speak trenchantly about our values, our morality, our humanity.

I can recall the best-selling 1958 novel “The Ugly American” by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer , which depicts America’s insensitive, intolerant, and morally offensive diplomacy during the Cold War with Russia. Set in Southeast Asia, it dramatizes how by our shortcomings we lost the goodwill of coun

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