For our assigned readings today there were several very interesting and thought provoking articles and links in my opinion. I began by reading "Techniques of the Body" by Marcel Maus. Out of all the readings I found this one most interesting, yet also slightly confusing in some portions of it. Marcel explains how all or nearly all of how humans act are formed from the society they live. Everything from sleeping to walking is something that is formed from the society in which the individual lives. Societies are constantly changing and so are the ways the body is used and viewed, which I find rather interesting.
Maus brings up many points about how different societies behave and live, and I initially hadn't thought much about it. As I read more into it though it become extremely apparent how it is extremely true. This didn't just come out of me believing everything he wrote in his article, but I was able to see these things from my own life. One of these examples is how he talks about sleep. How it is possible to distinguish different societies through the way that they sleep. There are many societies in which the individual simply sleeps of the floor, while personally I sleep in a bed and have done so my entire life. It would be difficult for me to fall asleep in many other manors, but he goes on to say how some societies even learn to sleep standing up. While in my opinion it is necessary to lay on a comfortable bed to fall asleep, the body definitely does not need that in order to sleep. It is a societal behavior that I have learned over time.
Maus brought up many good points, and a lot of interesting facts and examples for different ways individuals in different societies act. I thought that his reading was not completely clear to me though, I felt that it didn't flow very well in parts. I also had a problem grasping what he was referring to as his rubric and how he was applying this to his different points he was raising.
The other sources were also intriguing as well. Today media plays an unbelievably large role in the way we as a society think. This includes how our culture thinks about the body. Our views of the attractive body, and fit body are overwhelmingly shaped by what we see in mass media today. Commercials, magazine ads, billboards, movies, we are constantly bombarded with images of what we should look like. One big example of this that comes to mind is the store Abercrombie and Fitch. The models they employ and images they portray create this image of what teens girls and boys need to be like. Abercrombie and Fitch Controversy In the video "Body Building" it goes through the last century and how the definitions of beauty have changed. They show both men and women, and how once a fuller woman was more beautiful but that has drastically changed overtime. The photos of the exotic dancers in the 1890's also displays how our cultures view of beauty has changed. From the plump bodied women, to much much skinnier today.
Lastly I wanted to talk a little about the article "Sitting Down is Killing You" simply because I found it rather terrifying. Our society has shifted from one based on more manual labor to many people working jobs in which they spend most of their day sitting at a desk. The fact that these hours of sedentary activity raise the chance of death is rather alarming to me. While reading this I began to think about how much I sit, in fact I've been sitting for quite a while know typing this. So much of our activities in the world we live in are based on sitting and looking at a screen or just relaxing while sitting, and this definitely has changed our bodies over time.
While I don't think it is bad at all that our world has changed and continued to develop, it has brought along with it other issues that can't be over looked. I don't think that it is good to continue to embrace the images our media shows us about beauty, but also I don't think it should be good to embrace things like obesity. There is a very fine line that I think our society should strive for.
I agree that Maus writing made me think differently about how the body acts. Humans have developed different functions of the body based on the society individuals were raised in. In his paragraphs about imitation, Maus used great examples of how the body adapts to what they were accustom to seeing at young age. in a child's early stages of life education also plays a role in how the body functions. Maus uses examples of running and swimming which were good in backing up his claim. The video "body building" is also a good example for showing how the media has influenced the body over the years and how men and women want to be portrayed.
ReplyDeleteYou bring up a good point about sleeping habits. You don't necessarily assume that sleeping is different from culture to culture or society to society (sleeping is sleeping). But cultural norms and practices are so pervasive that you somehow just learn to sleep a particular way, similar to how one speaks. To clarify about Maus' rubric, in my opinion I thought it to be a type of checklist. If a particular habit was or was not present, it either confirmed or negated a particular technique or form of the body and this distinction could allow one to see what was taught and reproduced in shaping the body (and not the dreaded "miscellaneous" category). To try and wrap all the readings into one, it's interesting to know what the techniques of the body are (what habits change the body, which in turn change societal norms) and how those simple techniques can drastically transform a culture over decades. Could there be a tangible way to shape the social body?
ReplyDeleteI agree with several of your points regarding the Marcel reading. It was kinda confusing for the most part but his argument regarding how as humans we react to the environment or society was key.As a whole I think the Marcel reading argued the techniques or habits that a body does reshapes and reproduces different outcomes which in turn, change society. I never thought about sleeping in a cultural or societal manner either until I read this. In Japan, companies allow there employees to sleep at work, because being tired is a sign of hard work, so why not sleep if your working hard. These habits helped shape there community and society, the technique of sleeping.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.japan-talk.com/jt/new/japans-sleep-at-work-culture
I completely agree with your thoughts on Maus' piece: I found myself slightly confused about some of the examples he made. Though, I believe that the best way to summarize his underlying message is to conclude that social life constructs the body physiologically. Where many people look at the body as only a biological entity that is shaped by genetics, Maus describes the opposite. For example, Maus describes how squatting has become extinct in many adult individuals. This is not because modern individuals randomly lost the ability to do so, but rather because modern individuals found it more effective to sit in chairs. Thus, modifying our bodies physiologically because of social reasons. Expanding on your comment about sleeping, this is exactly what Maus is trying to describe. You, personally, cannot sleep standing up because your body won't let you. American society has taught you to sleep lying down, which has changed your body physically. Your body now automatically knows that a standing position means activity.
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