“ For Plato (unlike Descartes) there are no ‘mere’ physical bodies; bodies are lit with meaning, with memory. Our culture is more Cartesian; we like to think of our bodies as so much stuff, which can be tinkered with without any consequences for the soul. We bob our ‘family noses,’ lift our aging faces, suction extra fat, remove minor ‘flaws’ with seemingly little concern for any ‘deep’ meaning that our bodies might have, as repositories of our histories, our ethnic and racial and family lineage, our personalities. Actually, much of the time our intentions are to deliberately shed those meanings: to get rid of that Jewish nose, to erase the years from our faces. Unlike the Platonic philosopher, we aren’t content to experience timelessness in philosophy, art, or even the beautiful bodies of others; we want to stop time on our own bodies too. In the process, we substitute individualized beauty—the distinctive faces of the generation of beautiful actresses of my own age, for example—for generic, very often racialized, reproducible codes of youth.
Susan Bordo, “Beauty (Re)discovers the Male Body.” (via katiecoyle)
“Descartes, I want you to go home, take a paper bag, cut some eyeholes out of it. Put it over your head, get undressed and look at yourself in the cave. Really evaluate where your ideas and forms are. And be honest.”
(via faithandbegorrah)
heeeeeeee.
(via novazembla)