On the Quickness and Allure of Objects

Phoebe Stadler: Saucy (c. 1920)

collections.vam.ac.uk

Was ist Schnelligkeit? asks Heide. And it's an interesting question.

I suppose, for me at least, the quality of quickness is something I understand in relation to the work of D. H. Lawrence and in terms of an object-oriented ontology.

In his essay 'The Novel' (1925), Lawrence describes the quick as an invisible flame of impersonal presence that flickers in the words and deeds of the individual. Unless, that is, they belong to the legions of the undead; living corpses with ready-made sensations who drive to work, chew their fast food, stare at the screen, and engage in idle talk that merely passes the word along (what Heidegger calls Gerede).

These men and women are awfully lifelike, but lifeless; for they have no quickness, writes Lawrence.

It's important to be clear on this point: the corpse-bodies Lawrence fears have not become less than human, but, strange as it may sound - unless one hears this phrase with Nietzschean ears - all too human (which is to say, all too limited and cut-off). Quickness is, therefore, certainly not the same as human being; in fact, it's the non-human element of man which is found in all things.

Lawrence likes to call it the God-flame, but I prefer to describe it as object-allure, if only because I find his religious language unhelpful and off-putting.* Either way, it means we have two types of object: (i) those that are quick (though not necessarily alive in the conventional organic sense of the term) and (ii) those that are dead (again, not in the sense that they lack or have lost life, but in the sense that they aren't quick or very alluring - and so don't really affect us in the same way).

Lawrence writes:

"In this room where I write, there is a little table that is dead: it doesn't even weakly exist. And there is a ridiculous little iron stove, which for some unknown reason is quick. And there is an iron wardrobe trunk, which for some still more mysterious reason is quick. And there are several books, whose mere corpus is dead, utterly dead and non-existent. And there is a sleeping cat, very quick. And a glass lamp, that, alas, is dead." 

Thus, interestingly - according to Lawrence - there are degrees of quickness; though he claims not to know how or why this is so, even if he knows for certain that it's the case. Probably, he speculates, the quickness of the quick lies in a "certain weird relationship" between objects; one that is "fluid, changing, grotesque or beautiful".

Again, I would discuss this relatedness in terms of allure; objects attract and lead other objects, including ourselves, into temptation and it's in this way that we and all things come into touch. The more they entice us, the stronger their allure, the quicker they are; the more we come into touch - with "snow, bed-bugs, sunshine, the phallus, trains, silk-hats, cats, sorrow, people, food, diphtheria, fuchsias, stars, ideas, God, tooth-paste, lightning, and toilet-paper"** - the quicker we are.

Of course, even dead objects retain some power of attraction and can seduce us - they like to be tickled as Lawrence puts it - but ultimately they lead us not into touch but into the void. Dead objects, in other words, tease but don't deliver the goods; they are indifferent to those doing the tickling and drain the quick of their quickness. They are strange attractors, like black holes.       

Notes

* I like the word allure as it is drawn from the language of seduction, which is the appropriate language in which to discuss objects philosophically. One might also note that the modern English word quick is of Germanic origin and is related not only to the Dutch term kwiek, meaning sprightly, but the German word keck, meaning saucy; another term belonging to the language of seduction. In sum, quickness goes beyond merely a question of speed - it's more than Schnelligkeit - just as it's more than vitality.

** With the use of a list like this, composed of seemingly random objects, Lawrence wishes to show that there are no absolutes; all things exist relative to one another upon a flat ontological field and/or within a general economy of the whole. We can call this a democracy of objects, like Levi Bryant, or a democracy of touch, like Lawrence.  

D. H. Lawrence, 'The Novel', Study of Thomas Hardy and Other Essays, ed. Bruce Steele, (Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 177-90. Lines quoted p. 183.

D. H. Lawrence, 'Cry of the Masses', Poems Vol. I., ed. Christopher Pollnitz, (Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 511-12.

Hamartiology: Notes on the Greening of Sin and Carbon Offsetting

Image: Ron Barrett

The New York Times (2007)

I.

Sin - a concept crucial to Christianity - was defined by Augustine as a transgression against God's eternal law, be it by word, deed, or desire.  

Today, however, when everyone is environmentally aware and more concerned about global warming than seeking spiritual salvation, sin seems to involve a transgression against Nature or a defilement of the Earth (sometimes personified as the Greek goddess Gaia).

In other words, we no longer condemn people for missing the moral mark, but eagerly judge individuals, corporations, and governments for failing to hit targets to reduce their carbon emissions or recycle plastic waste ...   

II.

Because no one really wants to be punished for their sins, the Catholic Church came up with the clever idea of an indulgence - which is a kind of get out jail free card that allows for the remission of sins or, at the very least, mitigates the temporal punishment that one might otherwise have expected to receive for wrongdoing.   

By the late Middle Ages, indulgences were hugely popular but abuse of the system was widespread; a problem which the Church recognised, but seemed either unable or unwilling to address. Chaucer famously mocks the idea of holy relics and the unrestricted sale of indulgences in The Pardoner's Tale and, later, Protestant reformers were relentless in their attacks on what they regarded as a sign of worldly corruption. The only thing that indulgences guaranteed, said Luther, was an increase in profit and in sin.  

Finally, in response, the Church did take action: in 1562 the Council of Trent suppressed the office of pardoners and reserved the publication of indulgences to bishops only. Shortly afterwards, Pope Pius V cancelled all issuing of indulgences involving fees or other financial transactions.

But now, however, in this age of green sin, they're back in the form of carbon offsets ...


III. 

A carbon offset is a sleight of hand in which an emission of greenhouse gases made in one place is offset by a reduction in emissions made elsewhere, thereby guaranteeing the blissful state of carbon neutrality.

There are two markets for these carbon offsets: a compliance market, in which large companies and institutions buy them up in bulk in order to comply with international regulations and agreed caps; and, secondly, a much smaller scale voluntary market in which individuals as well as companies purchase carbon offsets so as to mitgate their own greenhouse gas emisssions from things like transport (particularly air travel).  

Carbon offset vendors - i.e., the new pardoners - will happily meet all your needs; even providing other services should you require them, such as measuring your very own carbon footprint.

I'm not the first critic to liken these carbon offsets to indulgences; i.e., a way for the rich and powerful to pay for absolution rather than changing their extravagant lifestyles or harmful business practices. Indeed, several environmental organisations have expressed concern that carbon offsetting is merely a convenient way to virtue signal on the one hand whilst continuing to pollute and consume on the other.   

Think Harry and Meghan, for example, whose sins are bright scarlet, even if they paint themselves as green as green can be ...

On Benevolent Sexism

I.

Even sexism, it seems, isn't as unambiguous a term as one might have previously believed. For according to some theorists, sexism has two components: hostile sexism on the one hand and benevolent sexism on the other.

The first is an overtly negative - often violent - form of misogyny that deals in untenable evaluations and stereotypes based on a strict binary model of gender. I think we might all agree that it's not something to be very proud of, or that there's much to be said about such stupidity.     

But sexism in its more benevolent form is, I think, worthy of further reflection ...


II.

Just to be clear from the outset: I'm perfectly happy to concede that sexism - even at its most benevolent - involves prejudice and may have negative consequences, whatever the motivation or intent of the male agent. But I think it might also be conceded that often the things we're told are harmful actually make us feel good, whilst the things we're supposed to value often make us miserable in practice.

As the author and journalist Ed West notes:

"Sexual freedom, for example, makes people depressed much of the time [...] A money-obsessed culture, with its intense competition, stress and inequality, also causes us to be miserable [...] Ethnic diversity we know makes people unhappy because they vote with their feet. Likewise sexual equality, or at least sexual equality that refuses to acknowledge the biological reality of sex; and I can't imagine the idea of 'microaggressions', in which people are encouraged to see slights in every experience, is very good for one's mental health."

That's a conservative-cum-reactionary viewpoint (unsurprisingly perhaps from the deputy editor of The Catholic Herald who blogs for The Spectator), but West is touching on something important here; particularly when it comes to microaggressions (or sins) which only the righteous and the woke whose eyes are fully open can perceive.   

III.

One of the fields where we can witness gender politics being played out is etiquette; for some feminists, it's manners that maketh the benevolently sexist man and they consider it insulting if a chap holds a door open for them, or offers to help carry their luggage up a flight of stairs.

The gent in question might regard his actions as simply a form of kindness, but his polite actions are part of a tradition founded upon cultural representations of women as the weaker (and less competent) sex and thus problematic from the perspective of feminism. For those who base their sexual politics upon such a perspective, chivalry is simply a disguised form of oppression that entrenches gender inequality.       

But most (heterosexual) women seem not to think like this; in fact, the evidence is that they like to be shown a little courtesy by members of the opposite sex - be they loved ones, work colleagues, or simply strangers on a train. Interestingly, there is also evidence to suggest that men like making these small gestures; that civility - as a playful exercise of power - makes everyone happy.   

Unfortunately, contemporary culture seems to be more concerned with political correctness rather than joie de vivre ... 

See: Ed West, 'Don’t knock 'benevolent sexism'  - it makes us happy', The Spectator, (25 March 2014): click here.

Good Husbands Make Unhappy Wives

According to a report in The Sun, a woman is seeking a divorce from her husband because he smothers her with affection and showers her with gifts. He also refuses to argue, takes care of the housework, and generally makes her life unbearable with his loving behaviour.

When she complained about his weight, he even put himself on a strict diet and exercise regime - what a monster! And I say that not in a joking manner, but in all seriousness; he is a monster of kindness, perhaps, but a monster all the same and I can understand the woman's frustration and her longing for conflict in order to keep the relationship spicy. 

D. H. Lawrence often writes about this in his work; about the boredom experienced by modern women married to husbands who are perfectly polite and decent at all times, but who grind on the nerves.

In one short verse (or pansy), he writes:   

Good husbands make unhappy wives

so do bad husbands, just as often;

but the unhappiness of a wife with a good husband

is much more devastating

than the unhappiness of a wife with a bad husband.

I don't know if that's true, but, if so, then we can rule out good husbands as the answer to Freud's famously exasperated question: What do women want? 

See: 

Alahna Kindred, 'Smothered with Affection', The Sun, (24 August 2019): click here.

D. H. Lawrence, 'Good husbands make unhappy wives', The Poems, Vol. I., ed. Christopher Pollnitz, (Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 395.  

Watching the Detectives: King of the Cops

From the very early days of television, the police have been an endless source of inspiration for programme makers in the UK and US and some of the most memorable characters within the popular imagination have been detectives. 

There are still plenty of cop shows on TV, but these days they take themselves very seriously and expect viewers to do so as well; no longer just about catching the bad guys, these crime dramas deal with issues and are often morally ambiguous to the point that you no longer know who to root for. 

Personally, I prefer watching cops who have catchphrases and lollipops rather than psychological problems; the sort of characters that English impressionist Billy Howard gently poked fun at in his top ten single King of the Cops (1975): Kojak, Cannon, Columbo, et al.   

It's impossible to imagine a similar record being released today. For not only are impressionists no longer in vogue in the way they were in the 1970s - Mike Yarwood was a huge star throughout the decade and the ITV sketch show Who Do You Do? ran for five series between 1972-76 - but, as already noted, cop shows just aren't much fun any longer. 

Indeed, I'm tempted to ask: Is anything more carefree in 2019 than in 1974? 

TV, music, film, sport and pretty much everything else - even politics - seemed so much more joyous back then and I would still rather watch re-runs of The Rockford Files or Starsky and Hutch, than Line of Duty and I really don't think this is simply nostalgia on my part; something has significantly changed within popular culture (and not for the better).    

Play: Billy Howard, King of the Cops (Penny Farthing, 1975): click here. 

 

Gymnosophy 4: Oh Yes They Call it the Streak (Boogity, Boogity)

Streaker Michael O'Brien being escorted from the field at Twickenham

Photo by Ian Bradshaw (20 April 1974)

I. Don't Look Ethel

Released in the late-spring of 1974, The Streak was a smash hit single written and performed by the country western singer Ray Stevens, that comically cashed in on the then popular craze of streaking; i.e. the act of running naked through a public place - usually as a prank, although sometimes as an act of protest - and often chased by officials or policemen lending it Keystone Cops appeal.

The Streak sold over five million copies and topped the charts in both the US and UK. I didn't buy it, but I remember it with a certain fondness as one of the tunes of my childhood - probably due to the fact the record features a slide whistle - even if I found the phenomenon to which it referred somewhat disturbing.   

II.  A Brief History of Streaking

Like most things, streaking isn't without a longer and more complex history than people imagine ...

One might, for example, discuss it in relation to the behaviour of the Neo-Adamites in medieval Europe, who passed naked through towns and villages; or, indeed, the 17th-century Quaker Solomon Eagle, mentioned by both Daniel Defoe and Samuel Pepys, who would run naked through the streets of London with a burning brazier upon his head (à la Arthur Brown), crying Repent! Repent!   

Having said that, I'm not entirely convinced of the legitimacy of attempting to tie streaking in the modern sense to Christian asceticism; nor even to place it within the context of naturism. It's also distinct from flashing in the pervy sense, in that the intent is generally not to cause shock or outrage.* Ultimately, it makes more sense to see it as something that has its origins within American campus culture, with incidents of (male) college students running around naked beginning in the early 19th-century.  

It wasn't until the 1960s and '70s, however, that streaking became a much wider cultural phenomenon; suddenly everyone wanted to get naked and exhibit themselves to the world and its cameras. Even supposedly uptight Brits were throwing caution - and their clothes - to the wind and you could hardly turn on the TV without having to see some idiot interrupt the rugby or cricket.

Whilst many streakers seem to have a penchant for running naked in front of cheering and/or jeering crowds at sporting events, perhaps the most widely seen streaker in history was Robert Opel who ran across the stage at the Oscars in 1974 - an event broadcast on live tv and so witnessed by millions of viewers around the world.

Bemused host David Niven quipped: 'Isn't it fascinating to think that probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and revealing his shortcomings.' Which is funny, but not quite the amusing ad-lib that people at the time took it to be; for there's evidence to suggest that the whole thing was a stunt that had been arranged by the show's producer and that Niven's line was scripted.      

In Hollywood, even nudity is a game of artifice and spontaneity well rehearsed ...

Notes

* It should be noted, however, that unlike in the '70s, anybody now arrested for streaking in the United States risks being charged with indecent exposure and consequently branded a  sex offender upon conviction. Just one more example of the neo-puritanism that blights our times ... 

Play: Ray Stevens, 'The Streak', single release from the album Boogity Boogity (Barnaby, 1974): click here. 

Gymnosophy 1: naked philosophers: click here.

Gymnosophy 2: naked Germans: click here.

Gymnosophy 3: naked witches: click here. 

Gymnosophy 3: Ye Shall be Naked in Your Rites (Redux)

The original poster for the fifth paper in the 

Treadwell's Sex/Magic series (2005)

I. Opening Remarks

For this third entry in the gymnosophy series of posts, I thought it would be nice to (re-)examine the role of nudity played within modern pagan witchcraft - and to do so by offering an edited version of a paper first given at London's finest occult bookstore, Treadwell's, way back in March 2005.*

The essential argument of the paper was that truth doesn't, in fact, love to go naked - despite what many witches insist on believing, and that there is nothing natural or authentic about nudity. Indeed, working skyclad, very often exposes more than the flesh; not least a lack of style which, like culture, is ultimately founded upon cloth.

Having said that, ritualised nudity as practiced within Wicca isn't simply a naive exhibitionism. It is, rather, a symbolic gesture rich in philosophical and political meaning, involving as it does questions to do with power, freedom, and the body. Whatever it might signify, taking your underwear off in a public space is never simply an innocent act.      

II. Five Good Reasons to Get Naked According to A Witches' Bible

The Wiccan penchant for performing ceremonies naked is often justified on the grounds that it's an ancient pagan practice. However, whilst it is certainly the case that ritual nudity does have a long tradition within magic, it should be noted that it was extremely rare within a religious context until it was assigned as a central feature of the witches' sabbat by Christian writers keen to imagine all manner of transgressive activity taking place within the woods at night.

According to Janet and Stewart Farrar, however, this doesn't really matter - "whether or not the widespread Wiccan habit of working skyclad is mainly a phenomenon of the twentieth century revival […] or the continuation of a secret custom […] is hardly important […] what matters is its validity for witches today" - and there are, they claim, at least five good reasons for working naked:

The first is that it challenges the metaphysical division between mind and body. In other words, by working naked and affirming the beauty and potency of the flesh, witches are making a quasi-deconstructive gesture.

Whilst I'd probably not describe this mind/body division as the cardinal sin of the patriarchal period,  I’d agree, as a Lawrentian, that it has been modern man's fate to be self-divided in this manner, so that the upper centres of consciousness dominate and exploit the lower centres of sensual and intuitive feeling. I'd also support any attempt to counter this which values nakedness as something positive and pristine and helps us overcome the bad conscience that has attached itself to the body and its forces and flows.

Secondly, according to the Farrar's, a naked body is far more sensitive and responsive than a clothed one and trying to work magic whilst dressed is "like trying to play the piano in gloves". There is, therefore, a sound practical reason to disrobe.

Unfortunately, never having attempted to raise psychic energy whilst naked - nor play the piano whilst wearing gloves - I cannot personally vouch for this. Neither can I confirm or deny their additional claim that "the naked body gives off pheromones far more quickly and efficiently than a clothed one, so it may well be that [...] a skyclad coven is exchanging unconscious information more effectively than a robed one", though this seems reasonable (if, that is, human pheromones actually exist).

The third reason for working skyclad, say the Farrar's, is because it allows one to be oneself.

This psychological claim leaves me profoundly depressed: to suggest that undressing is a "powerful gesture of image-shedding, a symbolic milestone on the road to self-realization" reveals naivety at almost every conceivable level. The Farrar's also assert that when naked we are able to see others for what they really are and to relate at a truer level; one that is entirely unmediated and closer to universal nature.

Of course, they are not alone in believing such nonsense. Indeed, the idea of nudity as a way to reach (and/or liberate) an essential self regarded as the origin of all truth and goodness, is common within Western culture. Our society is filled to bursting with intellectually challenged and emotionally disturbed people striving to achieve authenticity and to create identities in which their deepest selves are expressed.

The fourth reason for witches to get naked is a political consequence of the above. Subscribing as they do to the untenable hypothesis that modern man is sexually repressed and, therefore, in need of sexual liberation, it comes as no surprise to find the Farrar's insisting that people are fearful of nakedness in much the same way that the slave is fearful of throwing off their chains and embracing freedom.

However, whilst the moral prohibitions of Judeo-Christian culture have undoubtedly shaped our thinking and behaviour, it's not in the straightforward and simplistic - not to mention entirely negative - manner that the Farrar's imagine. And couldn't it be that our fear of the naked body is as much due to an aversion for corpses and animality, as it is a sign of our repression ...?

Finally, the Farrar's argue that nakedness is a way of overcoming personal vanity and teaches those who would otherwise be seduced by "the appeal of splendid robes" to realise that "psychic effectiveness comes from within". 

I have to admit, it's particularly disappointing to discover just how many witches seem to have a puritanical mistrust of fine clothes and expensive make-up. Do they not know the etymology of the term glamour? Historically, hasn't the witch always been a woman dressed in a striking fashion, with her pointed hat, full-length cloak, cat-skin gloves, and long-toed shoes? Hasn't she always understood the magic of colourful cosmetics and exotic perfumes?
 
So hostile are the Farrar's to the idea of wearing clothing during a ceremony that it is only with great reluctance that they make one small concession: menstruating women may, if they wish, keep their knickers on - providing they are of a plain cotton variety and nothing too frilly, colourful, or seductive. I'm afraid that as Nietzsche said of 19th-century feminism, we might say of 20th-century pagan witchcraft:

"There is an almost masculine stupidity in this movement [...] of which a real woman [...] would be ashamed from the very heart."

Today's witch should, in my opinion, revolt into style and dare to look splendid; not only delighting in her own appearance, but actively striking a blow against the drabness of the secular world with its blues and browns and sensible footwear. If she risks being thought a whore in her emerald-green stockings as she struts through town, better that than to be identified as just another office worker or shop assistant on her lunch break.

III. Closing Remarks

It's ironic, as Ronald Hutton points out, that in the ancient world pagan goddesses were most often associated with the city and with the arts and learning; i.e. with culture and society, not nature.

The goddess as Earth Mother is essentially a post-Romantic notion, created by poets like Swinburne and James Thomson. The latter, for example, published a verse in 1880 entitled 'The Naked Goddess' in which the heroine, Nature, comes to town only to be told by the local authorities to cover herself up immediately in either the habit of a nun, or the robes of a philosopher. Only the children appreciate her innocence and the beauty of her nakedness and, when she leaves the town, they return with her to the woods.

This is a nice story. But to make it into a kind of foundation myth, as neo-pagans seems to have done, is, I think, mistaken. Ultimately, whilst it may be magical to go wild in the country - swinging from the trees / naked in the breeze - so too is it a blessing to have a new pair of shoes and a warm place to shit.

Notes

* This and other papers from the series can be found in Vol. 1 of The Treadwell's Papers, by Stephen Alexander, (Blind Cupid Press, 2010).

Jane and Stewart Farrar, A Witches' Bible, (The Crowood Press, 2002), pp. 195-98.

Ronald Hutton, The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft, (Oxford University Press, 2001). 

Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, trans. R. J. Hollingdale, (Penguin Books, 1990), VII. 239. I have slightly modified the line quoted here. 


Readers interested in part one of this post on naked philosophers of the ancient world, should click here.

Readers interested in part two of this post on naked body culture in modern Germany, should click here. 

Readers interested in part four of this post on streakers, should click here.

Gymnosophy 2: On German Free Body Culture and the Third Reich

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: Bathers at Moritzburg (1909-26)

Image: tate.org.uk

The German naturist movement, often known by the name of Freikörperkultur (FKK), was the first such movement in the modern world and helped to establish public acceptance and enthusiasm for nudity which has continued to the present day; there are some legal restrictions about where and when you can strip off, but they are few in number compared to most other countries and as viewers of Eurotrash will recall, Germans love being naked more than anybody else.

Ask almost any German, and they will wax lyrical about the joys of nature, communal living, and getting naked with friends and family - and, indeed, strangers. It is, of course, a Romantic ideal and it's not surprising to discover that at the same time as public nudity was becoming increasingly taboo, there were poets, perverts and philosophers all preaching in favour of nude bathing and adopting an Ancient Greek perspective on these matters.  

It wasn't until 1898, however, that the first Freikörperkultur club was established for consenting adults to meet up and strip off as part of a wider programme of so-called Lebensreform.* Predictably, there was some opposition from within conservative circles who saw such behaviour not as an expression of health and freedom, but moral degeneracy. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, nudist organisations were either banned or absorbed into their own programme of Kraft durch Freude [KdF].

It should be noted, however, that naturism was a subject that the Nazis were extremely ambiguous on. On the one hand, many passionately believed in the benefits of nude sunbathing and sporting activities and argued that FKK should be given state recognition and support. But, on the other hand, there were some Nazis who worried that Nacktkultur** encouraged immoral activity, including homosexuality, so argued for laws restricting its practice.     

Ultimately, any prohibitions on nudity were not strictly enforced during the Third Reich - provided activities were kept in the countryside and that all clubs and organisations were officially registered with KdF to ensure that Jews and known communists were not given membership; naked rambling beneath a Nordic sky was something that only members of the master race could enjoy ...

Notes

* Lebensreform was a social and cultural movement in the late-19th and early-20th century that propagated a back-to-nature fantasy that anticipated the hippies and the green movement of today in its emphasis on organic farming, vegetarianism, nudism, alternative therapies, anti-capitalism, and neo-paganism. Although politically diverse, I would argue that the driving force of this reactionary movement came from the extreme right and that völkisch Romanticism all-too-easily feeds into the spurious Blut und Boden ideology of the Nazis. 

**  The term Nacktkultur was coined by Heinrich Pudor, who in 1906 published a three-volume study that connected nudism to vegetarianism and social reform. It was also tied to pacificism and became politicised by radical socialists who believed that sunbathing, plenty of outdoor exercise and sexual hygiene would lead to a utopian society. Mention should also be given to Adolf Koch, as his was the name most closely associated with Nacktkultur in the 1920s and '30s. A PE teacher who had studied psychology and medicine, Koch was founder of the Institute for Nudist Education, as well as a network of schools throughout Germany. Despite attempts to curry favour with the new regime (to which he was not unsympathetic), his organisation was closed down and his activities curtailed by the Nazis. 

Readers interested in part one of this post on the naked philosophers of the ancient world, should click here. 

Readers interested in part three, on nudity and neo-pagan witchcraft, should click here. 

Readers interested in part four, on streakers, should click here.

Gymnosophy 1: On the Naked Philosophers of the Ancient World

Medieval image (c. 1420) of Alexander encountering the γυμνοσοφισταί

I.

Ascetic - often militant - nudity has a very long history, predating skyclad witches, free-loving hippies, and German naturists preaching their vitalist philosophy of Lebensreform and whilst I'm mostly interested in the modern world, I thought it might be fun to provide some ancient historical context for more recent expressions of Nacktkultur. 

The term, gymnosophists, was used by Plutarch when describing an encounter between Alexander and a group of Indian wisemen who regarded both food and clothing as detrimental to a life of pure contemplation and so followed a strict vegetarian diet and went around naked at all times.

What Alexander made of these holy fools who prided themselves on their extraordinary impassivity and indifference to suffering, I don't know. But reports of these (and other) naked thinkers obviously got back to Greece and seem to have influenced the development of various schools of thought; they are believed, for example, to have served as role models for the Cynics, who loved to sit naked in the marketplace.    

It's also worth noting that Pyrrho - along with Anaxarchus - had accompanied Alexander on his trip to Asia and exposure to Eastern philosophy seems to have inspired his own ideas and ethics. Having said that, however, it's important to remember that his ideal of ataraxia has roots in earlier Greek philosophy and it would be mistaken, I think, to push the Indo-Greek connection too far here.   

Similarly, the Greeks didn't need any foreign encouragement to go round naked ...

II.

In Ancient Greece - as in other ancient Mediterranean cultures - male nudity, particlarly within an aesthetico-athletic context, was the cultural norm.

Only women were expected to do the decent thing and cover up and, apart from Aphrodite, goddesses too were normally portrayed clothed in the Classical period, or posed in a modest manner with hands strategically placed. It might surprise some readers to discover that the (admittedly misogynistic) phrase Put 'em away, love is first recorded in a fragment of text by the comic playwright Aristophanes.

Socrates and his mates would often head down to the gymnasium to admire the bodies of youths working out or competing in sports. The love of beauty was an important component of Greek philosophy and this certainly included the beauty of the human form; indeed, this was often regarded as the most exceptional form of beauty - the mark not only of civilisation at its highest, but an unfolding of the sacred. Thus it was that participants in religious ceremonies were also often nude. 


III.

Whilst there are still plenty of naked saints and gurus wandering round India, devoted to their gods, practicing yoga, posing for the tourists, etc., the modern Greeks have pretty much covered up and full nudity is not officially sanctioned even on beaches (although often tolerated in practice).

As for gymnosophy, the term was bandied about in the late-19th and early-20th century by several groups and movements in Europe and the USA, denoting an ideology that insisted truth loves to go naked and that mankind needs to return to a more natural way of living (one that often involved asceticism and meditation, as well as nudity and eurythmics).

The English Gymnosophical Society was founded in 1922 and numbered Gerald Gardner among its early members. Gardner, of course, would later become a central figure within naturism and neopagan witchcraft or Wicca, as he termed it. I shall explore these and other connections in future posts ...   

Readers interested in part two of this post on naked Germans, should click here.

Readers interested in part three of this post on naked witches, should click here. 

Readers interested in part four of this post on streakers, should click here.

In Praise of the Plastic Mac

Joan Bennett and Pamela Green illustrate the sexy, 

stylish character of the see-through plastic mac

As everybody knows, the first fully waterproof raincoat was designed by Scottish chemist Charles Macintosh, almost a century ago, using softened rubber sandwiched between two layers of fabric. Functional, lightweight, and stylish, the mac - as it came to be known - quickly became an essential element of the British wardrobe, popular with both men and women, as nobody likes getting wet.

Advances in fabric technology mean that raincoats are now constructed from all kinds of hi-tech material and come in many different colours, but, personally, I have a penchant for clear plastic macs and so was pleased to see them recently making a return to the catwalk; Karl Lagerfeld, for example, sent out models in his spring 2018 collection for Chanel complete with transparent capes, boots and rain hats.  

Of course, as Caroline Leaper - fashion editor at The Telegraph - reminds us, staying dry in style has long been a concern. But synthetic clothing, including vinyl, only became popular after the Second World War when production boomed and prices dropped, finding fans amongst fashionistas and fetishists in the 1950s, '60s and '70s.    

I'm sure many torpedophiles will have their own favourite image of a beautiful woman in a plastic mac, but, for me, it comes down to just two: Joan Bennett, as Kitty March, in the 1945 film noir, Scarlet Street and Pamela Green posing for the Hungarian-born photographer Zoltán Glass, in the early-mid 1950s.

I cannot put into words how much I love these pictures ... 

See: Caroline Leaper, 'The plastic mac is back: How the humble raincoat got an upgrade for spring', The Telegraph (12 Feb 2018): click here.