R. Marie Griffith
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520217539
- eISBN:
- 9780520938113
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520217539.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Religious Studies
Psychological explanations of shame and self-punishment, coupled with dubious secularization theories, display less agility in accounting for America's love affair with thin bodies than theories of ...
More
Psychological explanations of shame and self-punishment, coupled with dubious secularization theories, display less agility in accounting for America's love affair with thin bodies than theories of religion. This chapter highlights purveyors and consumers of religious fitness culture raised in such relationships to foremost levels of concern: ideal bodies serve not merely private or even political ends, but perform indispensable work as effective agents of devotional intimacy. Protestant and New Thought influences helped shape the dominant American diet culture, as the upward currency of disciplined, meditative thought imbued authors and expectant dieters alike with hope in the power of mental therapeutic methods to boost weight loss.Less
Psychological explanations of shame and self-punishment, coupled with dubious secularization theories, display less agility in accounting for America's love affair with thin bodies than theories of religion. This chapter highlights purveyors and consumers of religious fitness culture raised in such relationships to foremost levels of concern: ideal bodies serve not merely private or even political ends, but perform indispensable work as effective agents of devotional intimacy. Protestant and New Thought influences helped shape the dominant American diet culture, as the upward currency of disciplined, meditative thought imbued authors and expectant dieters alike with hope in the power of mental therapeutic methods to boost weight loss.
Claire E. Rasmussen
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816669561
- eISBN:
- 9781452946757
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816669561.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This chapter examines the everyday politics of the autonomous subject of advanced liberal physical culture; i.e. the fitness culture, where self-management of the body is the exemplar of autonomous ...
More
This chapter examines the everyday politics of the autonomous subject of advanced liberal physical culture; i.e. the fitness culture, where self-management of the body is the exemplar of autonomous subjectivity. By exploring the tensions between autonomy as law and autonomy as creativity, this chapter considers the possibility of an addiction to autonomy. Freedom is not located in the intentional liberation from power relationships but rather in the ways in which power can produce consequences that disrupt the ordinary operation of power and require us to think and act differently. The practices of constructing the self through rigorous attention to the body is reminiscent of Kant’s joy in his successful self-management, but the practices of fitness can be interpreted as challenging his view of the sovereign unitary subject who practices intentional agency in the management of the body.Less
This chapter examines the everyday politics of the autonomous subject of advanced liberal physical culture; i.e. the fitness culture, where self-management of the body is the exemplar of autonomous subjectivity. By exploring the tensions between autonomy as law and autonomy as creativity, this chapter considers the possibility of an addiction to autonomy. Freedom is not located in the intentional liberation from power relationships but rather in the ways in which power can produce consequences that disrupt the ordinary operation of power and require us to think and act differently. The practices of constructing the self through rigorous attention to the body is reminiscent of Kant’s joy in his successful self-management, but the practices of fitness can be interpreted as challenging his view of the sovereign unitary subject who practices intentional agency in the management of the body.
