I've been thinking about the whole "body as a commodity" issue. More specifically, why it's an issue. The same people that see it as a problem generally tout the taking of the brains that you were born with, developing it and using your intelligence to the achieve the best you can with it. Don't get me wrong, it's certainly a noble cause. But why is it so different with the body?
The division is largely imagined. One, that being the brain, has an illusion of complexity and honour. It takes reading and discipline and spark - or the ability to act. The other, our body, is easy. It takes spreading your legs or thrusting. It doesn't take hours or days or months to shape or mold. It is easy to learn how to accentuate one's natural gifts. The body is easy.
We have been taught, perhaps, to view the best things in life as heinous or degrading or not worthwhile. And there is nothing better than carnal pleasure.
The body and the mind are on equal platform; one is not more respectful or better than the other - so long as the path you take is one that makes you happy. Pretending to be devoted to either is pathetic. Read what you want and touch where you feel. It's hardly important so long as you have a smile on your face while you're doing it.
3 comments:
i love this. despite not agreeing :)
admittedly it's 9am and i'm confused in a typical a.m. fashion as to my thoughts on the world i've woken up in BUT.. i'll give a response a crack.
i get what you're saying, i do. and it does make sense. particularly if you decide to rail against the 'but not everybody is blessed with a great/working body, so we shouldn't place so much emphasis on it' and respond with something like 'doesn't the same go for intelligence? work with what you've got, either way.' .. but there are a few problems with that.
the first, is that the body is easier to create a standard acceptable 'form' for, something marketable, something people want to spend money on achieving, something uniform and near impossible, something ultimately worthless. Y'know? Billboards exist everywhere implying that if you aren't size 8 or don't have hair on your head, you aren't acceptable and should buy more product to get closer to 'the norm' (which ironically few people of course are) . But it's difficult to do that with the brain. Your brain is more ..yours. Does that make any sense? So it makes more sense to put more value on something like that. Plus your brain is what works towards socially and individually benefitting outcomes. Your brain is what will come up with a way to live sustainably on the planet, discover a cure for cancer, make you or someone else laugh, enjoy life. Again, I'd argue that's more valuable. The body does very little socially, so our obsessions with our bodies are a pretty solid indicator of the self-obsession of current generations, don't you think? (lordy this is a higgledy piggledy post, no?)
Obsessing about the body you're advertising, distracts from nourishing the much more 'you' part of yourself, the part that gets to know others and figures things out, be it by dieting and neglecting nutrition required for cognitive health, or by spending all your time and money sculpting your abs rather than reading or hanging out with your friends.
Accepting the body as a commodity also has a scary patriarchal dominance implication. Women are 'commodified' more, it's a fact. As women accept their body being a product to improve on, to sell, to be valued by, aren't they more likely to have sex younger, complain less about rape and abuse, and feel less valuable if at a healthy happy weight while unhealthy 'norms' are pushed on them? Having a working, satisfied brain rarely costs deprivation of family dinners and a healthy body, I'd argue. Not to mention the huge market benefit existing in promoting irrational ideals and selling fear to the public that will apparently be quashed by products that science says won't work anyway.
And then.. sigh.. there's the fact that nothing should be commidified (oh spell check doesn't like that one. bother. too early. not only is my post making no sense but it's also probably not even in english) in the first place and that's one of our biggest woes. Live and let live, be who we are, and so forth and so forth
The issue of turning anything in a commodity being bad ('Cuz it is) aside!
The assumption is that one is working towards the marketed, mainstream image type. If someone was to work and mold themselves in a less "billboard" image type, say bearded male wearing flannel and off to buy organic vegetables so he can be seen riding around with them in his bike's basket, would that change your perception on the goal? I pick that example simply because I know it makes you swoon.
The body can be just as unique and personal as the mind, the same way the mind can be just as shallow and mass produced as the body.
As for self-obsession, I don't think that's a current generation thing. Every movement and every generation has a particular fashion or scene - even the fabled hippie movement had a fashion that the followers followed. Every generation, as a collective, is self-obsessed, it's just that this particular generation struggle/issue has highlighted it a little bit more. To paraphrase a comic I read a long time ago... Well I actually found the comic in question. BAM. http://girlyyy.com/comics/girly_0071.gif
It could be argued that there's just as much pressure to develop the mind. From what I've seen in my life, there's a definite sense of the educated higherpower keeping the uneducated, lower-class down. Look at the pressure to go to university nowadays. Maybe the physical is preferred to by some because the outcome of that isn't put forward as life-shaping and a lot less intimidating.
Either way, a balance between the two is ideal. Be smart and pretty. The strong, almost insane level of obsession on either end - to the point of despising the other - is shallow. There are unhappy people on both sides, and that's what sucks.
Anyways, it was all just something I was tossing about while I was bored. Whether or not it holds up to analysis - and hell, even if I actually think any of this is true - is an entirely different matter. Because like you said, the benefits of mental development CAN have more significant worldwide ramifications, but I like the idea of weighing that up against the happiness something like, saaaaaay, a shitty romcom can provide. Sure, it's entirely different type of output so it's hard to compare, but it's interesting if you look deep enough into it.
*Shruuuuuuuugs*
WTF. my email is meant to notify me re: comments . dang. will read and respond to this at work... (but you didn't hear it from me... damn employment ethics code etc.. >: .. )
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