Breaking In Tight Girdle

Adriana González

body fatigue

"The soul, effect and instrument

of a political anatomy;

soul, prison of the body"

Michel Foucault

Michel Foucault makes it clear the effects of the power of rationality oppressive and exclusionary discourses on the body.

In Discipline and Punish , Foucault delves into the background of an event that at first seems simple and even humans, the latter due to the change in the practice of punishment inflicted on people. But the truth is that such an event involves a deep set of rearrangements in the design and management of bodies, whole new form of power over people "legitimate" indirectly to the birth of the prison. In the early nineteenth century with the conquest and eradication of the show that became physical punishment-particularly those atrocious tortures of the Middle Ages, for example, the notion is gaining strength less direct repression on the bodies of the damned the idea of \u200b\u200bsubtlety and discretion in the "art of suffering" begins to creep into the society of that time. The general discourse of modernity now working on the bodies considered as object and target of power, basically in two categories that Foucault identified: firstly, the registration anatomo-metaphysical, the idea of \u200b\u200bthe human body as something analyzable, and on the other The technical and political record, which sees the body entirely manipulated. Is latent in both the notion of docility, docile a body that can be subjected, used, transformed and perfected (Foucault, 1997:140). But in the past where everything comes into play discursive language that is through discipline, mobilized, individually normalized and to human bodies.

In the search for the disciplining of bodies emerged a mechanism of power that runs from the top of the Panopticon in the form of "all-seeing eye." The political anatomy biopolitics or working with knowledge-charge of surveillance powers and the proper channeling of the people, they have been building and modifying space and time scales to monitor human behavior / body without losing the most minimal movement, as well as producing "truths" that state what must be a body. Knowledge-power, as a script, indicating how they should act on the stage bodies constituted discursively institutional (Lash, 1997:27) where they are. This performance by the French philosopher brings up is not limited only to the prison, schools, colleges, hospitals and now the mass media, fall equally on bodies, on individuals manufacturing constantly homogenized with help of the omnipresent gaze of biopower. The picture is horrifying and somewhat tragic: bodies as mere serial products, effects of a disciplinary power devices that require uniformity, but also to set individualized specialties, by distributing individuals in space, for example (Foucault, 1997). It includes the desire to Teresa, one of the characters come to life in The Unbearable Lightness of Being Milan Kundera de not be a body like other bodies, to see on the surface of the own face to marine soul rushed out of the cellar , to escape the mandatory uniform concentration camp where they were imagined bodies, perhaps monitored by Big Brother.

then is to develop a subjectivity or individuality that act as fully rational soul and true that monitors and punishes, dominates, normalizes and disciplines the body that is "hosted" and l penal discourse operates on bodies, not through direct physical cruelty, but by a look that takes effect on the soul by way of "bad conscience" that is attributed to the bodies (Lash, 1997:26). Now is the prisoner of the soul body, speech to try to build and mold, which attempts to process and determine their different ways of life, love, feel, express, etc. All these ideas forwarded to The Birth of Tragedy , where the effect of the dominant discourse, the Apollonian in its highest form, for example, and then the scientist, the theoretical-is to individuate, to invent individuals who are stuck, so to speak, their bodies (Lash, 1997:47).

Clara is a critique of Nietzsche to the submission of the body to an entirely rational soul and seen as the only real and true, in the eyes of a logical-scientific optimism and the illusion theory, given that individual imperturbable that can not have the need to feel or even his own body, which concern only from afar the spectacle of the world. A scholar refers Euripides, which also Nietzsche criticizes the modern aesthetic, which places the body in a master-servant relationship to the soul; "was a requirement of actual listeners inmusicales of which is necessary to understand above all the word," says Nietzsche talking about the opera, modern aesthetics on general-(...) since words were said to surpass in nobility to the accompanying harmonic system as well as the noble soul in the body than " (2000:163). With Euripides and Socratic dialectical optimism to the head, begins to gain strength requirement that art and life the body respond to the vagaries of blind rationality; conception of understanding as the only root of all enjoy and create, the abstraction and quiet contemplation, individualistic works of art, life, and the interest to understand and explain the aesthetic experiences infused into a mass "prepared and illustrated" now unable to leave the scene to act on it so bodily and empirical, unable to feel deeply the tragedy in the body which is the world. Similar to the latter idea is the notion of a mass that thinks, produces, feel, express and mass consumption. Finally, the tragedy drive that originates and powerful Dionysian element and rebuild purely about art, morality and consideration of non-Dionysian world: such is the tendency of Euripides (Nietzsche, 2000:112). This is a reflection of a progressive physical fatigue.

This body fatigue or passivity is inevitable when one wants to civilize the body to the maximum-sensitive and make it accessible to the world of logos "straining" the filter of rationality. Both Nietzsche and Foucault notes in the amount of speech that fall on the bodies and to have them be controlled, restrained, repressed and subordinate, or to establish them, model and produce from the various systems that attempt to direct the body toward "truth" that Panopticon states since that . Are representations of what they say true, real, good, fair or beautiful from which are chiselled bodies.

Marks, signs and individualism in contemporary bodies

Next to the pedestal that holds the traditional presumption reason, the typical representation of the soul and the unattainable truth, it came to pose the mass media (mass media), bringing new paradigms, new knowledge-power also pave the neglecting of the body-sensitive, the body and its corresponding passive individuality and mass production of disembodied.

modern corporeality Foucault thought something like a passive receptacle of punishments, checks and charges to follow, all this knowledge-power emitted from the high world dominated by logos. In this image of the concentration camp full of disciplined bodies, stunned and individualistic, yet under the omnipresent gaze homogenates of biopower, bodies now súmesele seduced by the sensation of pleasure when consuming them "installed" bodies and frustrated by the inability of contemporary beauty ideal that is imposed. It is undeniable that saturation of advertising images, signs, icons and ideals that are part of the bodies currently imbued with the visual and commercial pollution. The contemporary body becomes a canvas of trade marks and signs. Are quite the art criticism to the phenomenon of surface registration bodies as consumerism. Photos of Micaela Milicich point out the cover of the skin by endless billboards and advertisements that promote excessive consumption and depriving the body of his ability to be touched by life. The bodies here reflect only the alluring lights of the mass-media-lights that normally leave us with a desperate, highly contagious white blindness "increasingly resembling mere dummies made of plastic or metal cold. As confined to a window, are now human bodies also bombarded by a large number of images that promote the superficial, trivial and impossible ideal of beauty.

desired body is built through the mass media, which come to function as the new knowledge-power of society, those images that dictate what should be a body and how to seen, its imposing presence made possible thanks to them. Usual the fact that it is always sensible body who receives the consequences, now visual consumption usually becomes the fetish of life experience (Finch, 1999:225) of body experience. One body disciplined, controlled, personalized and stunning, is now a body-image, a body to be seen gradually moving away from the experience and sensitivity.

Manufacturing and universal dissemination of idols by the mass media, is evident today. Function as role models for the bodies, but not only represent the aesthetic ideal, the ideal of beauty, but also the ideal of life that everyone should want. The bodies are brought to act under the eyes of these idols and images-images projected by generally possible but intensely desired by the mass media. It is both a longing for these images that parallel to the manufacture of them, have come to generate body processing industries which are in some other way approximate the ideal. Parade down the runway in which the world has become an endless products for body Beauty: dyes, plastic surgery, accessories, everything imaginable to lose weight, etc.. C devices on the creators of these fantasies the body, while the image is clear or becomes independent, to some extent, the sensory body, the body that perceives (Finch, 1999: 211). Here the homogenizing effect yet "individualizing" of speeches that fall on the bodies. On the one hand, virtually the same body-image-the same body-image ideals universally sold through mass-media, are becoming globalized. On the other hand, leaving aside the human body's own sensitivity, to become plastic skin, you lose contact with what is on a par with the most immediate everyday, life ... and promoting a society full of individuals passive, indifferent and insensitive. They all dream the same and are identified with the same ideal, but they do from their own boat and protected by the soothing and comforting veil of Maya .

Following Richard Sennett, who is on a city's history told through the bodily experience of the people, the phenomenon of comfort goes hand in hand with a number of elements of urban contemporary, but from the nineteenth century. For example, the construction of buildings and sealed tight to allow away from everything outside, has at heart the idea of \u200b\u200bgiving the individual comfort as well as the progressive invention of chairs with comfortable cushioned and surrounding structures, which cause the body to "sink" to the point of reaching the halt . Creating parks also provided alternate routes and meters, are expressions of urban planning that was guided by the idea of \u200b\u200ba free, fast and pleasant movement of individuals and not mass-for the city. From the hand of comfort, are also the body passivity and individualism: comfort is a state that we associate with rest and passivity. Nineteenth-century technology was extending this kind of passive body experience ... if the comfort reduces the amount of stimulation and responsiveness of a person, may serve to isolate themselves from others (Sennett, 2002:360). This notion of comfort that promotes passivity and isolation body of people, then comfort is synonymous with individual. The individual does nothing more than collected in a "self" thinks authentic and safe: e stamos, so to speak, broken into pieces by the absolute arts, and now also enjoy pieces, sometimes as men ears, eyes sometimes as men, and so on ... (Nietzsche, 2000:208).

Des-rationalization of body resistance and Dionysian ecstasy

What world is this broken passive individuals, devoid of all bodily sensitivity? Is it worth sacrificing the skin and covering with a plastic decorated with speeches only rational, systematic, manipulative, oppressive, producers ...? Will we self-repression and censorship, self-hatred and neglect, precepts for the good life? Will we need of that drug called soma (Huxley, A Brave New World ) to be happy because of the inability to feel? How to get rid of the cold bars of the soul that imprisons us?

Contrary to the general rationality exclusionary discourses that fall on the bodies, Foucault proposes the creation of "non-discursive language" of "counter-discourse" that undo the mass-produced individuality that shackle bodies: if the social science discourse has made the subject of the bodies in a series of institutional settings, non-discursive language can help create a counter-memory as a means to resist this subject (Lash, 1997:27). Sign in to play fair resistance.

should be remembered that the notion of power in Foucault not only represses, excludes or rejects, but also produce, produce "reality." It is also intended as a power struggle in which, on one side Hayase the exercise of power and the other resistance to that year. The importance of this resistance lies not only in the ability of everyone to decouple the high voltage power relations, and opposition forces to react in the opposite direction to those exerted on it, note also the ability to play with these forces. Despite the overwhelming body passivity, resistance are bodies that exercise the freedom to seek escape from the powers-shattering knowledge seeking, the resistors act, are incarnated in bodies, bodies become, are the attitudes of some bodies that simply do not want to be like the other bodies.

Well Foucault puts it: the body is shaped by a variety of different systems together, is worn by the rhythms of work, rest and vacations, is poisoned by food or values, through eating habits or moral laws; generates resistance ... How to Get Rid then these cold bars of the soul? The resistors will face forms of subject, subjectivity and submission constantly imposed on people. Refute the way it has been shaped contemporary subjectivity and individuality, techniques and discourses on the bodies applied to restrain, monitor them and establish them. Finally, try to resist resistance-pun intended-to the persistent efforts of biopower to hang on both society and themselves-to our individuality, to the "I" - the latter through the awareness and knowledge him. This deification of individualization, when thought of as mandatory and prescriptive, knows one law, the individual, ie the maintenance of the individual limits, meaning it sparingly in Hellenic (Nietzsche, 2000:60). Restraint implies in fact a full knowledge of self. No clutch, Foucault the self, my soul, my individuality, there are elements already taken, but products of knowledge-power set. The self-repression and censorship, the "bad conscience" that inhibits the body respond to that procedure.

The de-rationalization of the body, destruction of the modern subject that individual subject, the creation of a human being can invent himself and invent new ways of life other than the same paradigm as always. A human being to reveal, transform, reverse and put into play that subtly systems we organize. These are the answers that Foucault outlines, and with which the life of every person can become a work of art. Drunkenness ! Excess! Forgotten yes! Renunciation of the principium individuations! Orgiastic self-annihilation! - Nietzsche screams.

is notoriously active and strong presence of the body and sensitivity in the states of Dionysian ecstasy that Nietzsche enacts as synonymous with the deep overflow of a life that knows no logic or rigid formalism of reason. Undeniably, the bodies are part of this life-contradictory, full of paradoxes, of eternal suffering and conflict, confused, tragic, painful ... more powerful and enjoyable indestructibly . Life in the skin permeates us and permeates our veins, until gradually we are led to wild dancing to the beat of music that immediately reflects the primary one, it calls for an early whole body symbolism that brings about his harrowing intensity. The body turns in these states Dionysian its highest potential Created and sensitivity, is released from all enforcement and taxation, himself, manages to escape from prison of the soul: slave is now a free man, are now broken all the rigid boundaries that need, the arbitrary and insolent fashion been established between the man (Nietzsche, 2000:46).

The principium individuationis fades into Dionysian ecstasy. Despiértanse it those whose emotions Dionysian subjective intensification disappears completely until the selflessness (Nietzsche, 2000:45). Commence the game knowledge-power that quietly falls on the bodies. Nothing now prevents the creation of a new life, a new human being subjected to power relations and social practices imposed, which are the manifestation of the subordination of one lifestyle over another. S it -nly in the state of ecstasy dionosiaco- joy reaches its artistic nature, only there was a rupture of principium individuationis becomes an artistic phenomenon (Nietzsche, 2000:51).

The heaviest burden tear us apart, We knocked down by it, it crushes into the ground. But in the love poetry of every age woman wants to bear the weight of the male body. The heaviest burden is therefore at the same time, the image of the most intense fullness of life. The heavier the load, more down to earth is our life, real and true will. By contrast, the absolute absence of burden causes man to become lighter than air flying upwards, moves away from the earth, of his being ground, which is only half real and his movements as free as negligible. So what we have to choose? Does the weight or lightness?

Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being .

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Bibliography

Balbi, Etienne; Deleuze, Gilles, and others (1999) Michel Foucault, philosopher . Barcelona: Gedisa.

Foucault, Michel (1997) Discipline and Punish . Birth of the Prison . Mexico: Twenty-First Century.

_______ (1998) History of Sexuality. Mexico: Twenty-First Century.

Lash, Scott (1997) Sociology of postmodernism. Buenos Aires: Amorrurtu.

Nietzsche, Friedrich (2000) The Birth of Tragedy . Madrid: Alianza.

Pinzón, Carlos. " The body-image. The body as a place of cultural confrontation " In: maguaré No.14. P. 191-238. 1999.

Sennett, Richard (2002). Meat and stone. The body and the city in Western civilization . Madrid: Alianza.