The body and self-actualisation

`The body' sounds a simple notion, particularly as compared to concepts like `self' or `self-identity'. The body is an object in which we are all privileged, or doomed, to dwell, the source of feelings of well-being and pleasure, but also the site of illnesses and strains. However, as has been emphasised, the body is not just a physical entity which we `possess', it is an action-system, a mode of praxis, and its practical immersion in the interactions of day-to-day life is an essential part of the sustaining of a coherent sense of self-identity.

Several aspects of the body having special relevance to self and self-identity can be distinguished. Bodily appearance concerns all those features of the surface of the body, including modes of dress and adornment, which are visible to the individual and to other agents, and which are ordinarily used as clues to interpret actions.Demeanour determines how appearance is used by the individual within generic settings of day-to-day activities: it is how the body is mobilised in relation to constitutive conventions of daily life. The sensuality of the body refers to the dispositional handling of pleasure and pain. Finally we have the regimes to which bodies are subject.

Certain types of bodily appearance and demeanour plainly become particularly important with the advent of modernity. In many settings of pre-modern cultures, appearance was largely standardised in terms of traditional criteria. Modes of facial adornment or dress, for example, have always been to some degree a means of individualisation; yet the extent to which this was either possible or desired was usually quite limited. Appearance primarily designated social identity rather than personal identity. Dress and social identity have certainly not become entirely dissociated today, and dress remains a signalling device of gender, class position and occupational status. Modes of dress are influenced by group pressures, advertising, socioeconomic resources and other factors that often promote standardisation rather than individual difference. But the fact that we have a special word, the `uniform', to refer to styles of dress that are standardised in relation to given social positions indicates that in other settings choice of dress is relatively open. Appearance, to

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put the matter bluntly and in terms of the ideas discussed so far, becomes a central element of the reflexive project of the self.

Demeanour is strongly influenced by the pluralisation of milieux. Not only must an individual be prepared to interact with others in public places, where demeanour is expected to meet certain generalised criteria of everyday competence, but he or she must be able to maintain appropriate behaviour in a variety of settings or locales. Naturally, individuals adjust both appearance and demeanour somewhat according to the perceived demands of the particular setting. That this is so has led some authors to suppose that the self essentially becomes broken up -- that individuals tend to develop multiple selves in which there is no inner core of self-identity. Yet surely, as an abundance of studies of self-identity show, this is plainly not the case. The maintaining of constants of demeanour across varying settings of interaction is one of the prime means whereby coherence of self-identity is ordinarily preserved. The potential for the unravelling of self-identity is kept in check because demeanour sustains a link between `feeling at home in one's body' and the personalised narrative. Demeanour effectively has to be integrated into that narrative for a person both to be able to sustain `normal appearances' and at the same time be convinced of personal continuity across time and space; in most circumstances this is accomplished without great difficulty (although at any point it may come under strain).

In the post-traditional environments of high modernity, neither appearance nor demeanour can be organised as given; the body participates in a very direct way in the principle that the self has to be constructed. Bodily regimes, which also bear directly on patterns of sensuality, are the prime means whereby the institutional reflexivity of modern social life is focused on the cultivation -- almost, one might say, the creation -- of the body.

Let us once again look to a particular guide as a means of investigating these matters. Bodysense, by Vernon Coleman, is one among a massive number of self-help works which aim to provide a way of steering between reliance on pre-established bodily habits and the barrage of new information developed within abstract systems (emanating from doctors -- of which Coleman is one -- holistic health practitioners, dieticians, and so forth). ³⁷ Again, we look at it symptomatically.

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The book offers a `comprehensive screening programme', by means of which one can monitor many aspects of one's health and susceptibility to different ailments or disabilities. This is life-planning in a very concrete sense: a checklist is included, for example, which allows the calculation of a person's life expectancy. Each section of the book (referred to as a `clinic') contains a health area questionnaire, a `truth file' (which summarises the current state of medical fact about the subject or subjects concerned) and an `action plan' (what the individual might do to improve his health in the relevant respects). The concept of risk is pivotal to the work as a whole. The questionnaires allow the individual to collect points designed to give an estimate of his risk of contracting particular diseases -- in particular, cancer, heart and circulatory problems, respiratory disease, digestive problems and muscle or joint difficulties.

Two of the most prominent sections are to do with eating habits and health care. Each provides an object lesson in the difficulties even professionals have in sifting through the diversity of claims and counterclaims characteristic of expert systems. As Coleman puts it:

If you believed everything you read about foodstuffs these days, you'd probably never eat again. Turn on the TV or the radio, open a magazine or newspaper and you'll see horrifying stories about the dreadful things your grocer is doing to you. That in itself would be bad enough. It's not much fun sitting down to a good-looking meal if you're worried that it might be your last. But the whole business has been made even more worrying by the fact that the information being offered now frequently conflicts with last week's data ... so what is the truth about the food we eat? ... What is good for you and what is bad for you? What should you avoid and what can you eat with impunity? ³⁸

Coleman tries to provide authoritative answers, although he has to recognise that many of the things he says might be disputed by other experts; and in many instances risks cannot be calculated because existing knowledge is too incomplete.

According to Coleman's programme, cholesterol intake is to be reduced; the eating of animal fats, salt and sugar, and the drinking of alcohol, is to be brought down to a minimum: these

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recommendations are made quite confidently. By contrast, coffee -- which, for example, Rainwater recommends cutting out entirely on health grounds -- is held not to have deserved its bad press, for `there really is no solid evidence to support the theory that coffee is bad for you.' ³⁹ Fibre, bran and roughage are advocated as important for a healthy digestive system, while additives are treated more ambivalently by the author. Pointing out that a massive range of additives is now regularly used in the manufacture of processed foods, and pesticides sprayed on crops, Coleman emphasises that many of these chemicals have been only inadequately tested in terms of their effects on health -- indeed, that testing for their long-term effects is almost impossible. It is suggested that, while it would be very difficult to eradicate all artificial additives from the diet, as much as possible can be bought from local market gardeners, local farmers and shops selling fresh or organically grown food.

`Bodysense' entails `body care', and that is something, Coleman says, which cannot be provided by experts. Although professionals should be consulted where appropriate, resisting illness has to be primarily a matter of developing the body's `own skills'. Body care means constantly `listening to the body', both in order to experience fully the benefits of good health and to pick up signs that something might be going wrong. Body care delivers `body-power', the increased capability to avoid serious illness and the capacity to deal with minor symptoms without drugs. Bodypower can help a person retain, and even improve on, her or his appearance: understanding how the body functions and closely monitoring this functioning in an alert fashion keeps a person's skin fresh and body slim.

What does it mean to say that the body has become part of the reflexivity of modernity? Body regimes and the organisation of sensuality in high modernity become open to continuous reflexive attention, against the backdrop of plurality of choice. Both life- planning and the adoption of lifestyle options become (in principle) integrated with bodily regimes. It would be quite short-sighted to see this phenomenon only in terms of changing ideals of bodily appearance (such as slimness or youthfulness), or as solely brought about by the commodifying influence of advertising. We become responsible for the design of our own bodies, and in a certain sense noted above are forced to do so the more post-traditional the social contexts in which we move.

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The study of anorexia nervosa, apparently purely an obsession with bodily appearance and slimness, provides a means of placing this point in stark relief.

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 748