Do Humans Have Bodies?
May 23rd, 2008 by Micah Tillman | 1 Comment |
Mariah Carey’s latest single is “Touch My Body.” (At least I think it’s her latest.)
What I want to know is why the lyrics say “my body,” and not simply “me.”
For instance, Enrique Iglesias has a song called, “The Way You Touch Me.”
“Me.” Not, “my body.”
The question is: Is there a difference?
And have you ever noticed how news reporters will refer to a person’s body being found (not the person her/himself), or a person’s body being moved (not the person her/himself)? That way of talking implies the belief that humans have bodies, rather than being bodies.
So I have some questions:
(1) Can you believe humans have bodies without believing in human “souls” or “spirits”?
(2) Which way of talking about oneself is more degrading: Carey’s or Iglesias’s? And to whom: the requester or the requestee?
For instance: If referring to yourself as having a body implies you think you are something more than your body, then Carey’s way of talking would seem to be less degrading than talking about yourself as if you were just your body (and then inviting someone else to treat you like a merely-physical thing to be experienced in a purely-tactile manner).
But if you just say, “touch me,” then maybe you don’t mean something purely physical (cf. U2’s “Beautiful Day“). Or maybe you’re identifying yourself with your body and that’s bad.
(3) Is it possible to objectify a person as a soul (like it is possible to objectify people as tools, or sex objects, or lumps of tissue)? Does that question even have a sense, or is it like, “Are orange and three soft when triangle smiles?”
>Can you believe humans have bodies without believing in human “souls” or “spirits”?
>>I don’t see how it would make sense. If there is not anything but the body, then a human being must be his or her body. Probably most people who deny that there is anything but a body talk as though there is something else. For example, they might say, “I can tell that my body is getting older, but my mind is as sharp as ever.”
>(2) Which way of talking about oneself is more degrading: Carey’s or Iglesias’s? And to whom: the requester or the requestee?
>>Well, if you are a Gnostic, then having somebody merely touching your body might be degrading to you or to that person. (Although you would probably enjoy it anyway.) Being a Christian, I do not find it degrading for my wife to touch either my body or me, and by me I mean that “something” on the inside. Sometimes a touch on the body registers simultaneously as a touch on the soul, and vice versa.