The ideology of the body
- The humble warmth of August in Babana doesn’t leave too many options. Invite him to sleep. To do nothing. Why in Cuba the intense speed of capitalism is not possible and make a neurotic hobby if the climate itself explains it easily. The Western choice to work hard in Cuba cannot be justified. At least not in August.
Joseba Azkarraga Etxagibel
2013ko maiatzaren 06a
Carlos Corbella
Well, even with our intestines sweating, that afternoon in August we went to the Museum of the Revolution to travel through the caves of a collective dream of the 20th century. To remember the little one's chance to win.
Revolutions have been invented by the upper classes, those of noble or bourgeois origin. Bakunin, Marx, Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg or Che, take a look at any of them. You will hardly find what is in the eyes of the detailed people. However, you will find the ability to hearten the fragility of those below. It is not so difficult to understand: to represent the revolution, one needs cultural and educational capital; one needs the capacity for self-determination that economic and psychological dependence usually prevents; one needs pride that is not hindered by fear.
But the little people have given birth to some specimens from the belly of need. Camilo Cienfuegos is one of them. In the museum, with the intense sympathy I felt for Camilo’s bizarre image, a young boy stood beside me. European, I'd say. Youth, beauty and genetics were on his side, it was obvious. In the chest of the Nikia with straps, the red star.
He moved swiftly, as if to get rid of the explanation that was held in the garments of the photographs of the windows, the rifles, the clothes of those who had been revolutionaries. He got ahead of me. And I realized that I was in front of him, in the next cabinet: he stepped back and looked at the image that the reflection of the glass in the cabinet had returned, looking at his own image.
I noticed that with the display case the display case was looking disguised at the reflection of itself, as when you take advantage of the shop windows when you walk down the street. He clapped the political content of the display cabinets with his well-defined body, as if both were appealing to attention. As if the revolutionary narrative wanted to prevail over the narrative of his body.
The praise we give to the body today was before my eyes. I remember that they are filling the dietetics stores, the gyms and the operating rooms. The Museum of the Revolution in Havana reminded me that in the place of ideological bodies, the body is the new ideology.
The body is the new cause, the privileged framework of puzzle and influence of a new generation. It is necessary to build the body, plan it well, because it is one of the highest manifestations of the lifestyle and the self. A space to demonstrate one’s singularity and expressive wealth.
The body is no longer something that comes delivered. You have to influence it. And many so-called experts want to get their hands on it if they knead bread: dietetics and nutrition, anabolics, dermoaesthetics, genetic engineering, pharmacology...
New technologies to dispel the horror of aging. The body is colonized by expert systems, and with technical colonization comes economic colonization: the market sharpened its teeth a long time ago and encouraged us all to “take care” of the body.
Today there are among us, in exchange for passing the course, premature demands for the correction of excessively long noses or excessively small breasts. A legitimate violence against the body. An acknowledged physical self-violence caused by the Western desire for perfection.
The beautiful narcissus also lived in self-obscurity with the image returned by the river water. Until he fell and drowned in wonder at himself. Narcotized by a deadly image –Narkis-sos– until the body became a corpse.
Revolutions have been invented by the upper classes, those of noble or bourgeois origin. Bakunin, Marx, Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg or Che, take a look at any of them. You will hardly find what is in the eyes of the detailed people. However, you will find the ability to hearten the fragility of those below. It is not so difficult to understand: to represent the revolution, one needs cultural and educational capital; one needs the capacity for self-determination that economic and psychological dependence usually prevents; one needs pride that is not hindered by fear.
But the little people have given birth to some specimens from the belly of need. Camilo Cienfuegos is one of them. In the museum, with the intense sympathy I felt for Camilo’s bizarre image, a young boy stood beside me. European, I'd say. Youth, beauty and genetics were on his side, it was obvious. In the chest of the Nikia with straps, the red star.
He moved swiftly, as if to get rid of the explanation that was held in the garments of the photographs of the windows, the rifles, the clothes of those who had been revolutionaries. He got ahead of me. And I realized that I was in front of him, in the next cabinet: he stepped back and looked at the image that the reflection of the glass in the cabinet had returned, looking at his own image.
I noticed that with the display case the display case was looking disguised at the reflection of itself, as when you take advantage of the shop windows when you walk down the street. He clapped the political content of the display cabinets with his well-defined body, as if both were appealing to attention. As if the revolutionary narrative wanted to prevail over the narrative of his body.
The praise we give to the body today was before my eyes. I remember that they are filling the dietetics stores, the gyms and the operating rooms. The Museum of the Revolution in Havana reminded me that in the place of ideological bodies, the body is the new ideology.
The body is the new cause, the privileged framework of puzzle and influence of a new generation. It is necessary to build the body, plan it well, because it is one of the highest manifestations of the lifestyle and the self. A space to demonstrate one’s singularity and expressive wealth.
The body is no longer something that comes delivered. You have to influence it. And many so-called experts want to get their hands on it if they knead bread: dietetics and nutrition, anabolics, dermoaesthetics, genetic engineering, pharmacology...
New technologies to dispel the horror of aging. The body is colonized by expert systems, and with technical colonization comes economic colonization: the market sharpened its teeth a long time ago and encouraged us all to “take care” of the body.
Today there are among us, in exchange for passing the course, premature demands for the correction of excessively long noses or excessively small breasts. A legitimate violence against the body. An acknowledged physical self-violence caused by the Western desire for perfection.
The beautiful narcissus also lived in self-obscurity with the image returned by the river water. Until he fell and drowned in wonder at himself. Narcotized by a deadly image –Narkis-sos– until the body became a corpse.