One of my many pet peeves of modern life in the United States has to do with how we view the human body. When you go to Italy, and you see the great works of art they have there (both paintings and sculpture), what you see are honest representations of human physiology. For the most part, it is breathtakingly beautiful, and it just makes you feel good in magical and mystical ways.
Here in the USA, however, no such luck. We’re constantly exposed to comic book exaggerations of the human body which are designed to make us feel bad. The human form as presented to us in Photoshopped ads is, for most of us, impossible to attain. It would require hours and hours of severe physical training each day, a strict dietary regimen, and a fair amount of plastic surgery to boot.
Since we are constantly and collectively being exposed to these exaggerated standards of “beauty,” the intentional side effect is to create a sense of shame and inadequacy about what we truly are. I say intentional, because the purpose of making us feel so inadequate is so we will go out and buy “buns of steel” DVDs and all sorts of products that promise to get us to this grandiose ideal. Of course, as every ad says, “results not typical.”
As we are more and more brainwashed with this imagery, we find ourselves constantly living with the sense that we should really keep ourselves covered up, for fear of having other people see our extreme physical inadequacy.
This is not news. Many people have complained about superthin models and steroid enhanced athletes and how this affects our general “self-esteem.” But along with all this exaggeration and shaming of our physical selves, there is a parallel intention, and that is, to shame our intellectual selves as well.
Just as we are made to feel that we are not really socially acceptable if we don’t have sixpack abs, if you don’t read a certain number of books, or perhaps have a minimum institutional certification of a master’s degree, there is also a constant undercurrent of implication that your mind is just as shamefully substandard as your love handles. If you are so brash as to openly eexpress a political position, there is someone somewhere who will tellyou you shouldbe ashamed for having that viewpoint, just as there are constant implications that you should be ashamed of various parts of your anatomy.
One of the reasons why our political discourse has become so terribly polarized and strident these days is because we are individually so afraid of being shamed for having very human thoughts. Any "open" thread of discussion on the web is filled with this vitriol. If someone disagrees with someone else, they do not calmly argue; instead they immediately engage in belittlement and character assassination. (For both parties, this polarization guarantees that nohting will improve, as we are gridlocked by non communication borne of mutual contempt, fear, and disdain.) Like small children on a playground teasing children who have some unusual physical attribute, we are quick to tease and scorn any public figure for saying anything out of the ordinary. When we see this happening to others, it trains us to keep our thoughts concealed. This is not good for democracy.
My efforts to become an author and speaker have put me in a position where I have to face this collective societal fear. Every time I publish a book or a blog post, I risk exposing my own ignorance. I risk the “flaming posts” of those who disagree with my opinions, the more so when I take stands which may not be universally popular. With practice, I have become more and more emboldened, since all of the backlash of disapproval that I was expecting to get never really arrived. Mostly, people just ignore you to death.
I suppose if I get a little more famous, this will change, and any bold idea I present will precipitate voluminous backlash from people who are just looking to dump their anxiety on somebody. But even though I have managed to build up my “sixpack brain cells,” this is not enough. For a Democratic society to function, we need a whole lot more people who are able and willing to do that. Far from moving towards that, it seems as though every institution has an ax to grind in making everyone feel mentally and physically inadequate, and therefore needing their support or to buy their services.
So let me start by saying, OK, I suppose we can both stand to lose a few pounds, and we can both stand to read a few more books and maybe actually read the legislation at hand and become a little more aware of various politicians platforms, but there’s a lot to be said for what we are here and now. Let’s accept our mutual shortcomings and try and support each other in making collective improvements. And by the way, we will never be perfect.
© Justin Locke
