Same song, new group

We are told the body does not matter. If we believe R. Lee Emery’s character from Full Metal Jacket, the body is merely a connection to a larger tradition, something that individually has no value beyond the achievement of a larger goal. If we believe posthumanists, the body is something that will be overcome; consciousness will be transferred into other physical forms that will not deteriorate, age, or die. If we believe Orthodox Christianity, the body is merely a vessel to serve out God’s plan; the body will automatically fail at the predestined time and the soul will leave to exist in paradise.

In this long tradition, the body is nothing. It is the mortal coil that allows us the fulfillment of a role or an evolutionary stage. And yet, if we look at this article entitled "MMO Addiction" from the July 2007 issue of PC Gamer, the gamers who vacate their bodies for digital avatars are ridiculed and medicalized for their participation in the denying of their meat selves.


The interesting (and simple) question is: why?


We are told to repress our sensuality, to believe the body is nothing more than a commodity. The foregrounding of the body is usually left to the queer community, and this (along with other, stupid reasons) is why queer people are often vilified. Yet when leaving the body is met with such organized vehemence, how can this tradition of vilifying the sensual not be seen as hypocritical? How does the act of vacating the physical body become something negative—is it not the directive of mainstream discourse? Does it point to the supremacy of phenomenology within our system of knowledge making? Is the body much more important than we are taught to believe?