I.
The Be Real Campaign - which has developed out of a global marketing campaign by Unilever for a range of toiletries sold under the brand name Dove and in partnership with the YMCA - is determined to change attitudes to body image and help all of us put real health above appearance.
According to their website, low body confidence is something that affects everyone; impacting upon our physical and mental well-being and preventing us from achieving all of the wonderful things we would be capable of if only we were more body confident.
In order to bring about real change, the campaign calls upon businesses, advertisers, and the media to act responsibly and embrace real diversity, positively portraying different body shapes and sizes drawn from all ages, genders and ethnicities.
Individuals are also encouraged to take back control and sign a pledge in which they promise to help create a body confident nation by no longer editing their photos on social media. They also, of course, agree to submit their details to the Be Real Campaign.
According to their website, low body confidence is something that affects everyone; impacting upon our physical and mental well-being and preventing us from achieving all of the wonderful things we would be capable of if only we were more body confident.
In order to bring about real change, the campaign calls upon businesses, advertisers, and the media to act responsibly and embrace real diversity, positively portraying different body shapes and sizes drawn from all ages, genders and ethnicities.
Individuals are also encouraged to take back control and sign a pledge in which they promise to help create a body confident nation by no longer editing their photos on social media. They also, of course, agree to submit their details to the Be Real Campaign.
II.
I suppose it'll be pretty obvious to most readers that I won't be signing this pledge. Indeed, I philosophically oppose the aims of this campaign and the language of politico-moral correctness and authenticity upon which it relies.
What is confidence, ultimately, but a mixture of faith and narcissism? And what's the point of being healthy if you look like shit? As for Dove's idea of the real, do they not know that - somewhat ironically - it's objectifying and betrays a death instinct?
Our individuality and our agency is a type of artifice; something styled within culture. To become-human is to challenge real being (understood in essentialist terms) and enhance our thingness; our uniqueness as a species rests on the fact that we are more than a mere piece of nature and that we have invented each gesture.
I may, as a Nietzschean, be interested in ways of overcoming our humanity as presently conceived, but I certainly don't want us to fall back into a pre-human condition lacking in style, complexity and virtuality - no matter how real it may be ...
I suppose it'll be pretty obvious to most readers that I won't be signing this pledge. Indeed, I philosophically oppose the aims of this campaign and the language of politico-moral correctness and authenticity upon which it relies.
What is confidence, ultimately, but a mixture of faith and narcissism? And what's the point of being healthy if you look like shit? As for Dove's idea of the real, do they not know that - somewhat ironically - it's objectifying and betrays a death instinct?
Our individuality and our agency is a type of artifice; something styled within culture. To become-human is to challenge real being (understood in essentialist terms) and enhance our thingness; our uniqueness as a species rests on the fact that we are more than a mere piece of nature and that we have invented each gesture.
I may, as a Nietzschean, be interested in ways of overcoming our humanity as presently conceived, but I certainly don't want us to fall back into a pre-human condition lacking in style, complexity and virtuality - no matter how real it may be ...
