I once had a discussion on the question of public nudity (on whether it should be allowed). In the end, except for special circumstances where hygiene and public safety came into play, it all cleared down to whether the right to be unclothed trumped the right not to be offended.
Now it seems pretty obvious to me that being naked is an entirely natural (in fact default) condition, while the latter is an authoritarian social construct. Clothing is a denial of reality; an oppressive mechanism to strip people of their humanity (by disguising perceived bodily imperfections) behind the meretricious array of veils promoted by the fashion industry. It is an arrogant, authoritarian attempt to make people conform to one ideal, one kitsch, one despotic image.
The exception proves the rule, in that society only accepts its most beautiful specimens probing the boundaries between freedom and the veil. For, as Milan Kundera wrote in The Unbearable Lightness of Being,
Kitsch is the absolute denial of shit, in both the literal and figurative senses of the word; kitsch excludes everything from its purview which is essentially unacceptable in human existence.
Nonetheless, there has been progress about what is publicly acceptable, in mixed sex settings. And like much else, its rate has been doubly exponential, as shown below for swimwear on the beach.
Phase I – Dawn of Civilization -> Industrialism. The era of the most overt expression of the Tyranny of the Veil, when society is kept entranced and enslaved by the sublime mystery of the veil, to which only the elect have access to.
Phase II - Industrialism -> Post-modernism. The Veil starts to fall asunder, revealing hints that the sublime mystery is in fact somewhat banal.
1920 (one-piece swimwear appears in US)
1950 (the bikini explodes onto the stage)
1970 (the string bikini and variants become increasingly popular)
1990 (increasing popularity of top-free and nudist resorts, albeit in most countries only at designated locations)
1. As we can see, there is a substantial gap between ‘early adopters’ and mass use. For instance, while string and other skimpy swimwear became commercially available in the 70′s, it has become a mass phenomenom only relatively recently – just as the next paradigm (the flight from clothes altogether) was beginning, again amongst a smaller number of early adopters (typically young, physically attractive folks not afraid of revealing, as opposed to denying, their bodies – at least on the beach).
2. In the larger picture, we are coming round full circle, returning to the social ideals of nudity existent in prehistoric hunter-gatherer societies (which were in fact Phase 0). This is reflected in other social trends – rejection of traditional religion in favor of pagan/spiritualist beliefs, environmentalism, wireless ‘nomadism’, the decline of the traditional family, in general, a new emphasis on the cyclical as opposed to the universal, etc. I believe such trends create a more psychologically and spiritually fulfilling environment (after all, these were the patterns of the past by which the vast majority of our ancestors lived before being consumed by civilizational blight and its mind viruses) and welcome them.
3. Social control is achieved via control over a sublime veiled mystery, and is practiced to a greater degree in the world’s more socially authoritarian nations (a veil being a text/matrix that denies direct experience). As the layers of veils are peeled away before the gaze of the assembled masses and something entirely ordinary and mundane is revealed, the spell is broken and freedom reigns. This is a gradual, not a revolutionary process (although I believe that the Last Sublation in the End Times will take place in the last chronon, before looping back to the First Day – but let’s ignore this mad theory for now, it will come in handy when I start my cult).
A corollary is that on average some cultures lag significantly behind others. Most of the world’s Muslims hail from conservative countries languishing in Phase I, although there are signs that some are close to Phase II with their introduction of the ‘burqini‘.
N.B. mad rant begins in earnest from now. Read no further if you value your sanity.
4. Revealing the meta-narrative allows us to gaze into the future. Provided civilization manages to grow new (cyber-)forests (the Singularity), to harbor human souls fleeing from the desert of the real that will emerge out it (due to resource depletion and catastrophic climate change), we will observe the either the overthrow or the culmination of the Tyranny of the Veil. How you interpret it is up to you.
Eventually, humanity will have to shift to the next stage of development (the only alternative is collapse of the material base and extinction) to continue the story of universal evolution. This will necessarily mean the discarding of their physical bodies and their transfer to the cyber-realm. Here, the concept of the body will lose its meaning; for as noted by the Christians, the body is weak and imperfect, but the spirit is strong. (Of course spirit is actually just a component of our neural network that currently uses the brain as its hardware, but spirit has a somewhat more elegant ring to it). What bodies there will be within the simulation, will be perfect yet immaterial; as divined at by Kundera,
Conversely, the absolute absence of a burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into the heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant.
In the world of universal perfection, the concept itself loses its meaning; for meaning is derived from how symbols relate to each othe
r. As 50 Cent rapped in Many Men Wish Death,
Some days wouldn’t be special, if it wasn’t for rain
Joy wouldn’t feel so good, if it wasn’t for pain
Death gotta be easy, ’cause life is hard
We are into the era of Phase III, the age when the banality of existence is revealed to all. Yet limits are what give humanity meaning, and as such its collective conscience will have no choice but to reject reason and commit suicide (the two are synonymous). This is the Last Sublation at the End of Time fearfully foreseen by the American horror writer HP Lovecraft:
The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
I feel that at this moment the Supermen of the Singularity will fight a last apocalyptic battle that will destroy the universe, and in doing so, begin the Loop anew.
Back to Phase 0.
Back to dreams of perfection and their subsequent destruction by reason.
Back to the struggle towards suicide, which when attained immediately reverts back to struggle.
Back to Alpha and Omega, World and Time Without End, Amen.
This is my prophecy.
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Hmmm… I was reading your sight, and got down to the “4″ section, with the “warning”. Why should others avoid that portion of the post? In my opinion, yes, we are eventually going to be reduced to nothing. With the continual breeding, and in-breeding in scarce instances, the genetic variation of the gene pool slowly shrinks. With the continual shrinkage, genetic “failures”, if you will, occur more and more frequently. Things like Dermatitis occur more often, genetically weaker organs, mental illnesses, still berths, and what-not. It’s only a matter of time, before the gene pool becomes to… weak to support existence any longer.
You dont see a tail on a human being do you ? even the people of old ages including stone age had to wear some kind of “Clothes” to protect their sensitive human skin.
Human is Superior to all other creatures because he / she can think and should Not act like an Animal.