Moments of beauty

Is there anything sweeter than seeing England lose? (India, perhaps?). A sheer moment of beauty. 

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M&S have introduced a "Burkini". Created quite a stir amongst the usual circles of fascists and racists. Western civilisation under threat blah blah blah. Our values, blah, blah, blah. We didn't fight two world wars to see freedom eroded like this. Another regressive step that will see women go back to the medieval ages.

One of the most interesting comments I saw was along these lines: cut it out with your hypocrisy and whining. Where were you when so many women's bodies were mutilated by the bombs that are a direct or indirect result of western 'interventions'.

And, of course, they were nowhere because culture, private or personal matters -"the body"-are what count as political nowadays. Or, to put it more accurately, they are the paramount political concerns.

"I am not an Islamophobe. Women have the right to wear headscarves, but I do not see why we are going towards this religion, these practices and mores, that are absolutely incompatible with our western freedoms."

"Designers are there to make women more beautiful, to give them their freedom, not to collaborate with this dictatorship."

--Pierre Berge.

H&M: "There are no rules in fashion."

"Of course, there are women who make the choice..there were also..american negroes who were in favour of slavery."
--Rossignol, French minister for women's rights.

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Nothing grates on people's nerves more than the word 'modesty' or the idea that there might be some standards of appropriate dress/behaviour. Who the fuck do you think you are telling me? And, of course, there is often good reason to resent standards because they've been imposed (usually by men) in order to control and subdue others. 

But the very idea that men and women could choose moderation, austerity or reticence, goes against the grain of the culture of late capitalism where perpetual growth is the driving force and limits, of whatever kind, impede the expansion of the markets. And nothing can be allowed to remain private or secretive. Everyone is in thrall to the latest revelations, to the goss that lays it all bare.

To say we live in a consumer society is to say we live in a labouring one (labour in the sense of producing enough for the body's renewal, producing something that is consumed and then disappears). Life, bios, becomes a supremely political notion (or rather the efficient management of it does). Not life as a 'way of life' but sheer animal existence (the unnatural growth of the natural, Arendt would say).

The biopolitical, the bringing of the forces of what was previously hidden (the economy) into the public realm ends up destroying both the private and the public. 

But no-one even flinches when they think what this has led to. Foucault, on the other hand, was quite explicit. The totalitarian aspect of the management of life is exemplified by the camps: work shall set you free.