Celebrating the Body in Western Culture – Yahya Abdul-Mubadi Mohammed

The scenes of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Paris on the evening of the 26th of last month did not shock me as much as they did many radical secular elites around the world who have dominated the intellectual and cultural world since the Enlightenment, leaving no opportunity or occasion to prove that the face of France is enlightened, modern, liberal, rational, secular, and that its non-religious identity is solid and cannot be defeated by reactionary, local right-wing or immigrant conservative culture, even though they represent a large and growing mass group.

France is no exception in the West, but is considered the most strict and radical in adopting and applying liberal modernist values ​​and separating religion, rituals and symbols from public life. Since the Age of Enlightenment, liberation values ​​at all levels of Western society have been increasing in a striking way, especially since the 1960s, when Western and American culture witnessed this period, especially the so-called “liberation”. The sexual revolution, and the liberation and extremism associated with it, celebrated the body and called for… acceptance of sexual relations in all shapes and colors, tending towards sensuality and emphasizing the attractiveness of the body. Conservative values ​​have become reactionary values ​​that restrict the freedom of the body and celebrate it. A quick look at Western women’s clothing around the 1960s clearly expresses the rapid changes that the world has experienced in recent decades.

As the ideological elites have taken control of the cultural scene in the West, there is an automatic link between art, science, enlightenment, progress and sophistication on the one hand, and the freedom of people to celebrate their bodies. This is clearly a fallacy imposed by the arrogant liberal elites of the West. Despite the fact that celebration is a positive word and connotation, the celebration of the body has become so extreme in Western societies that it has become a fetish and vulgar. The celebration of the body has gone beyond the boundaries of freedom and over time has turned into commodification and competition to highlight the attractiveness of the body, not to mention using it to achieve material and moral gains. Vulgarity, obsession with highlighting oneself, and a passion for bold and ostentatious art festivals and social events seem to have become a condition for success, a recipe for existence, dissemination, and gain, especially with social media.

Western society’s values ​​regarding the body have shifted differently than Eastern societies, which have not recently celebrated appearance, shape, and the obsession with the body in our current lifestyle. Some people believe that Western society is essentially materialistic and inclined toward nudity and sensuality. Often, we are surprised by the nude or semi-nude statues of the Greeks and Romans, which highlight the muscles of men and the charm of women. Compare them with statues from other civilizations in the East or the South.

One could argue that some traditional tribes in Africa, Australia, South America live naked, or that traditional female clothing in India, etc. is almost naked. This is true, but it is not a celebration, fetishization or attempt to highlight the fascination and fascination with the body, it is a cultural pattern with its own background and anthropology that can be discussed in another article.

After the spread of Christianity in Europe, celebration of the body declined, and most of the newly formed Western Christian societies lived in a conservative atmosphere, which can be observed in paintings, statues, and other types of art and literature before the Renaissance. Even after the major changes of the Renaissance, Christian morality in the Victorian era remained largely conservative.

In Western culture, men don’t celebrate their bodies all that much, and working out and going to the gym are more about appearance and appreciation than maintaining your body and being healthy.

In our contemporary world, the glorification of the body, the obsession with it, and the behaviors that dare to highlight these charms have become a reality that has reduced women and men to commodities and materials, greatly diminishing the value and essence of the human being. Due to the continuation of this reality and the ability of the promoters of these behaviors to influence social culture and public opinion, people have begun to believe that this reality is natural, ancient, and has always existed, which has led to competition in the interests of all shapes, looks, appearances, makeup, and plastic surgery. Of course, the competition between celebrities and wealthy men and women is more intense than that of other groups.

Given the dominance of modern elites over Western society, disagreements and even discussions about these values ​​have become red lines that cannot be touched or questioned. For a person, celebrating the body is absolute freedom, because he owns his own body, and no individual, society, or country can interfere with his choice. But in my opinion, this kind of celebration and freedom is relative and varies from time to time and culture to culture. No group can claim that their ideas are the end of history and the pinnacle of human civilization and progress.

Of course, there are religious and moral conservatives in the West, but they are constrained by the liberal elite culture that has long dominated the cultural scene. These people often face difficulties in promoting their values ​​or asking the state and its institutions to incorporate them into public ownership. For example, some are forced to send their children to private schools or teach them academic courses at home.

The intention here is not to restrict one’s freedom to dress, I firmly believe in one’s freedom of personal choice, the intention is not to be ashamed of the body or not appreciate it. The intention is to call for celebrating essence and value rather than indulging in deceptive shapes and appearances. Our Noble Prophet (PBUH) said: “Allah does not look at your body, nor at your form, but at your heart and your deeds.”

Western elites have long patronized other cultures and imposed their own ideas of modernity, freedom and human rights on the world. On the other hand, subordinate societies, including Arab societies, still have admiration and affection for Western culture, so what has happened in the West in recent years in terms of celebration of the body and obsession with appearance and form can be applied to the reality of the East or its elites without generalizing.