NOTES: CMM3119. Case Studies in Communication. Body Culture. Dr Rod Giblett. ECU Mt. Lawley. Assessment: Journal. Week One

Lecture. Introduction: Reading, Preface, Giblett,  The body of nature and culture: 24th February 2009

“O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and women, nor the likes of the parts of you,

I believe the likes of your are to stand or fall with the likes of the soul, (and that they are the soul,)”
Walt Whitman, “I Sing the Body Electric,” -. 129 – 130
In the Western World the feminine ‘way in which we live’ (Giblett, p. 1) is bound up in conditioning. From the earliest age, the feminine is taught certain postures and attitudes, which forever colour her view  – of herself as an entity, and her view of her body.

It is very difficult work indeed  – to move from a thus-entrenched feminine position of ‘mastery’ (p. 1)

The Western feminine world has not been, until recently, so much concerned with ‘the natural environment’ as the wholly artificial ‘cultural environment’ (p. 1)

Certainly the world of the feminine is ‘linked and intertwined’, the cultural conditioning taking the lead. This is the guiding, (or misguiding)  factor. This has historically,  irrevocably distorted any chance of a ‘natural’ attitude to the relationship between the ‘body and the earth’ (p. 1).

For many years, this cultural distortion has been a major factor in the deterioration of the ‘eco-health’ of the planet. (p. 1)

Artificial meaning is imposed, upon the feminine, via the feminine body; how the media and the society desire, design, portray and comprehend the feminine place in western society.

As from the beginning of, and throughout their lives,  girls, then ladies are ‘positioned’ by propaganda, overt and covert.

It is refreshing to consider the feminine role in Western society with only the proposition of the relationship between the ‘nature of the body and … the nature of the environment in which bodies are positioned’ (p. 1).

Until these matters are addressed, considered, properly understood, and then balanced out there is little chance of  fulfilling which Giblett terms “mak[ing] ecologically sustainable the relationship between human beings/bodies [female] and ecosystems/ecology’. (p. 1)

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In this ultra-important conditioning of the feminine process, metaphor figures heavily, aligned with and locked into the prevailing current aesthetics.

The female is taught her body is at all times a metaphor of her value. (Nussbaum VIP). ‘narcissistic defeats’ (2004, p. 184). This is a further matter of the body, outside those Giblett lists – namely, the body as machine, the body as landscape, the body as land, and the land as body; the body as ‘cyborg’ (or cybernetic organism); and disease and illness as an invading army to be fought and defeated on the battlefield of the body’. (Giblett, p. 2)

The feminine must deal with what Nussbaum terms ‘the audience’ (p. 191) ‘intensification of the painful experience’. ‘Primitive shame’ the demand for perfection and the consequent inability to tolerate any lack of control or imperfection’ (p. 192)

Nussbaum says ‘the immediate family is one very powerful agent of shame-development, whether healthy or unhealthy. But the surrounding society is another’ (p. 193).

For example, Nussbaum discusses the drive to return to the branding of the face used in previous eras – this is to revive the ‘shaming’ of an offender in a way that ‘express[es] and reinforce[es] shared moral values’ (p. 175). Branding bring about a ‘visible signs of social ostracism and disapproval’ (p. 174).

To this today’s Western societies have ‘diametrically opposed views’  – one: ‘the shaming of those who are different is a pernicious aspect of social custom, which should not be sanctified by building it into our legal practices’ (p. 174).

The face is ‘the part of the human body in which human dignity primarily is thought to reside’ (p. 174). The ‘public gaze’ (p. 175).

The relationship between shame and several related emotions, including disgust, guilt, anger, and depression’. (p. 176).

In recent times in Western society the feminine relationship to the society she lives in is dictated by her body through her body.

When young the girl is instructed via the media where her own worth is tied to what she looks like and when older, to how much conspicuous consumption she can wear or exhibit on her body.

When considering the dress of other times and other people …. the diversity of costume worldwide seemed far more surprising than it does now’ (Leventon, 2008, Introduction).

Leventon, M. (2008). What People Wore When: A complete illustrated History of
Costume from ancient times to the Nineteenth Century for every level of society. New York: St Martin’s Griffin.

Brainy Quote Words definition of the word ‘body’
1. The material organized substance of an animal, whether living or dead, as distringuished from the spirit, or vital principle; the physical person.
2. The trunk, or main part, of a person or animal, as distinguished from the limbs and head; the main, central, or principal part, as of a tree, army, country, etc.
3. The real, as opposed to the symbolical; the substance, as opposed to the shadow.
4. A person; a human being; — frequently in composition; as anybody, nobody.
5. Any mass or portion of matter; any substance distinct from others; as, a metallic body; a moving body; an aeriform body.
6. Amount; quantity; extent.
Also gives the following quotes
From C.S. Lewis “You don’t have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.”

Hermann Hess
“As a body everyone is single, as a soul never.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein
“The human body is the best picture of the human soul.”

Buddha
“An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will would your mind.”

http://www.brainyquote.com/words/bo/body137867.html

Word body came from Old English – bodil, thru to Middle English – bodi
Different to many other languages, French – (corps), Norwegian (legeme)
Italian (addome, corpo), Latin (corpus corporis)

Ancient Greeks and Romans admired both the body shape and the spirit of the Celts as in the famous
sculpture of the “Dying Celt” – the Dying Gaul
http://mythagora.com/encyctxt/enca.html

Nussbaum, M.C. (2004)  Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, shame and the Law. Princeton: Princeton

Page 3 of 3 Susanne Harford student number 10043898