Bianchetti_Bodies.-Between-Space-and-Desi_9783868599497

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THE LOSS OF THE BODY
role: salaried workers, consumers, insurance contractors, investors, stockholders,
entrepreneurs, or savers. Or, equally, the sick, the poor, the crazy, or
refugees. It is the functionalist theatre and its puppets to which the concept
of the abstract rationality of the economy has contributed. The same goes
for the law, with another no-less-powerful abstraction: the owner-individual
at the heart of modern constitutionalism. 39 And the same can be said again
for medicine.
The heretical tradition of social and economic philosophy brings into play
interests and passions, but moves in the direction opposite to that of functionalist,
economic, juridical and medical orthodoxy. This tradition was followed
by anthropologists such as Marcel Mauss 40 and Marshall Sahlins, 41
as well as atypical sociologists such as Georg Simmel and Gabriel Tarde. 42
It was also followed by Karl Polanyi, with the copresence of pre-capitalist
and advanced economic relations, 43 and obviously by Albert Hirschman, the
author of The Passions and the Interests: 44 the first chapter of his book is en -
titled “How the Interests were called upon to counteract the Passions”. In it,
the individual appears with all his bridled, repressed emotions and is turned
into a counterweight to action.
Incorporeity recalls the parallel process of the derealisation of things and,
we can easily add, of spaces reduced to neutral, smooth surfaces that are also
bereft of “accent, intonation, gesture, and facial expression”. 45 Many authors
would eventually revive the topic. One of these was Roberto Esposito, who
dedicated a small but important book to two contrary and complementary
processes: the depersonalisation of individuals and the derealisation of
things. 46 The book focuses on the crux of the matter: Esposito writes that the
genealogy of the concept of the individual is the result of progressive abstraction
which, in the end, clearly uncouples it from the body. 47
Losing the Body
How many ways are there to lose the body? It can be lost in form, structure,
and measurement. Undoubtedly in these ways; but there are also many other
ways. In positions that ignore the fact that the body exists in an increasingly
emphasised dislocation between natural and technological traits; between
a “conform” condition and one which tends to be constantly evolving;
between sexuality and identity; between old and new types of families as the
result of new possible conceptions and filiations. The body is lost in every
compression of this abundant, growing variety. In every collective imagery