The human body as a problem in post-modern culture

• Main Author: Maria Teresa Russo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2020-01-01
• Series: Church, Communication and Culture
• Subjects: autonomy; biomedical approach; feminist philosophy; physical and personal body; postmodernity; subjectivity
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23753234.2020.1713010

The discourse on the body today appears problematic because the uncertain and changing characteristics of our culture, whose postmodern title is by now insufficient and controversial, place it at the crossroads of ethical, political and biomedical issues. In this paper, the theme is articulated around the dissociation between body and freedom, indicated by several parties as one of the characteristics of the modern subject. This dissociation is at the root of the fundamental ambivalence with which one looks at the body: on the one hand it is exalted as an image of one’s own identity, on the other one attempts to control it in its dynamisms, in the name of individual self-determination. This ambivalence also concerns the progress of biomedical techniques: these are acclaimed if considered a resource for the management of one’s body or, on the contrary, rejected if considered an obstacle to self-affirmation. The positive proposal presupposes an integral anthropology, which overcomes both a naturalistic vision of the body and a purely symbolic vision.