Rich People Didn't Use to Look Like This

The core of this article is ultimately excess.

What does it mean for something to be excessive? At first glance, the article seems to argue that denying aging itself is unnatural. Personally, I think aging is a state that should eventually be overcome.

But the real issue lies elsewhere.

The article’s central criticism is that the human face is becoming a class display device. The definition of a “rich face” is essentially the ability to redesign natural limits with money. A face into which surgery and capital have visibly been poured becomes the face of wealth.

The article argues that this virtue of excess is becoming monopolized by the rich. After reading it, I looked at my own face: the face of a $15-an-hour Upwork developer. It was a face worn down by fatigue.

At that moment, a strange thought came to me.

Excess and poverty look like opposites, but both erase the human being from the face.

The rich face loses the traces of life because it has been altered too much. The poor worker’s face loses the leisure of life because it has been consumed too much. One is a face into which too much money has been poured; the other is a face worn down because too little money remained.

In the end, the problem is not the desire to look young itself. The problem begins when the face is no longer the surface of a person’s life, emotions, and time, but instead becomes something read like a receipt of class.

The rich lose their faces through excess. The poor lose their faces through exhaustion.

And somewhere between the two, the human face gradually disappears.

Interesting article, but I'm perplexed by the original headline on the New York Times. The double past tense is grammatically incorrect, and yet it is repeated in the first paragraph.

I see this grammar a lot now, and it always bothers me. Is it accepted usage now?