"Body Worlds"
Tuesday December 19, 2006
Heard about the "Body Worlds" exhibit, in which actual eviscerated and dissected human bodies are turned into a plastic-like substance, then posed and exhibited for museum crowds? It's here in Dallas now, and I asked two smart guys to go...
Add to Del.icio.us
Add to Technorati
Add to Digg
Add to Newsvine
Add to Facebook
Add to StumbleUpon
Advertisement
Advertisement
Search This Blog
Recent Posts
About Crunchy Con
Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
Subscribe
Archives
Blogs Worth Reading
- Front Porch Republic
- The American Conservative
- Patrick Deneen
- Conventional Folly
- The American Scene
- First Things
- Andrew Sullivan
- The Plank
- Eunomia
- Get Religion
- Postmodern Conservative
- Alex Massie
- The Corner
- Contentions
- Sharon Astyk
- Barry Ritholtz
- The Oil Drum
- Mere Comments
- First Principles (ISI)
- Brian Kaller
Rod,
Where do you stand on this? I'm assumming with Hibbs... but I could be wrong.>
It's like when the Church forbade corpse dissection due to all the "sanctity" hooplah. Anything to hinder science and keep the myth's duct-taped together.>
Yes, Rod, no doubt you stand with the cat'lik "philosopher" who projects his own flawed character onto other people: _you_ and _he_ see can't stand the fact that you're attracted to the exhibit as pornography, as exhibition, as profanity, but rather than face up to that you drag the rest of humankind, and the exhibit, down into the gutter with you. Nice, and courageous, as always.
-ml>
Nope, no doubt at all about where Rod stands on the matter. Derb's observation about Larry Auster yesterday at NRO covers just about all the paleocons (where Rod is headed, if he isn't there already): they have little or no interest in science, either by nature or by design. As Fry from Futurama said: "Clever things make people feel stupid and unexpected things make them feel scared."
It may be "crunchy" to be offended by the exhibit, but it sure ain't catholic (big C or little c). The church of the high middle ages was too busy prizing knowledge and establishing universities to be sqeamish about autopsies--it's just one of those Aristotellian, rational things that eastern Christians just can't truly understand.
Ok, so I exaggerate. But St. Francis of Assisi about summed up the best Christian, western, and rational perspective when he called his body Brother Ass. Respect the human body, sure. Treat it well. But don't make a fetish out of it or cease regarding it with some skepticism and wonder at its workings, all at the same time.>
I saw a subset of this exhibit at our local science museum, and I have to say that while I didn't learn anything I couldn't learn from Gray's Anatomy (the book, not the TV show ;), I also didn't find it pornographic, tittilating, or otherwise offensive. If Hibbs wants to talk about an inappropriate approach to death, he'd do better to look at what's become of the horror film genre in the last decade or two.>
It may be "crunchy" to be offended by the exhibit
Hardly...>
Do all beliefnet blogs draw this many rude, obnoxious trolls?>
I haven't seen Body Worlds, but I would love to. I think the human body, like those of many of the species who inhabit our planet, is a wonderfully complex and endlessly facinating machine. I think the ability to bring an up close look at the inner workings of the human form is a wonderful opportunity for everybody--from scientists to poets to stay-at-home moms--to get an close look at their insides and marvel how all of those parts add up to a person.
I read both reviews and have trouble understanding the pornography rap. Compared to most species, our bodies are fairly fragile and unsuited to natural environments. Our brains, our ability to makes tools, to form complex societies and civilizations has helped us endure for the short, 3 million years we've existed on Earth. I'm reading a great book by Susan Casey, "The Devil's Teeth." It's about the great white sharks of the Farallones, 30 miles from San Fransisco. According to Casey, this species predates TREES. Over the course of hundreds of millions of years, this animal has survived and thrived. Observing how their behavior and physical manifestations have helped it survive is amazing.
Science and attempting to understand our tiny place in a tiny world in an enromous universe... it's something that makes us unique as a species. It's not something we should be ashamed of.>
Rod,
A quick thank you for picking Dr. Foster for the pro-article. He's also an excellent Sunday school teacher, and you can hear his lessons online at ">http://www.presbyterians.org/media/ring.asp.>
I saw the exhibit and loved it. It was educational, informative, inspirational. Not in the least "pornographic".>
That's because you haven't drunk the kool-aid, otherwise you'd recognize it's pornographic.>
I went to the show with my wife when it was here in Philadelphia. She's in the medical and bioresearch fields and was very impressed in the way that the exhibit was able to display the complexity of human anatomy to the general public. Also, showing a smoke damaged lung and babies in various stages of development might make people reconsider their attitudes towards smoking and abortion.
I was made most uncomfortable by seeing bodies that were largely intact rather than in pieces. I think pornographic is too strong a word, but it simply feels disrespectful to gape at another person's remains. If it's someone you love it's one thing, but done anonymously it's like an invasion of privacy.
I've always found the Catholic practice of displaying "relics" of saints to be equally unsettling. I once went to mass at the shrine of St. John Neumann here in Philadelphia. (I put the link into my URL space). His body lays directly below the alter. I know it is a sign of honor and respect, but it felt the opposite to me. I would be curious to hear Dr. Hibb's views about this.
Overall I think the pros of the exhibit outweigh the cons, but just barely.>
Dr. Foster relates how the cave-dwellers gingerly placed their dead in the fetal position, and surrounded them with belongings and sundry things for their journey to the afterlife, and we re touched by a sense of kinship even across these 70,000 years. Imagine if we learned that our cave-dwellers flayed their dead, boxed them up and carted them around the countryside to various locales, where they then displayed them in all manner of positions, brains hanging out by the spinal cord and so on, all so that the chief flayer could make millions of cave-man dollars from his gawking audiences. How shocking would seem such a society.
Plastination might be a great advance for those who need to study anatomy (they re called doctors) but otherwise the whole Body Worlds thing seems quite obviously a money-making enterprise that capitalizes on an unseemly, voyeuristic fascination with the grotesque. And the fact that we can t see that says a lot.>
I didn't see this exhibit, but it sounds like something that I would enjoy seeing if it was plastic made to look like the real thing. Turning the real thing into plastic sounds rather gross.>
I too saw this exhibit. I have to say what worried me more than the actual exhibition of the bodies were people's cavalier attitude toward them. I saw people touching the plastic bodies. I guess I can understand how, because they weren't behind glass, people had a hard time remembering they were real bodies. I have to say that I found the exhibit informative, but I also wished that people were reminded at the entrance about proper etiquette.>
I saw it. Not a big deal, really. It got kind of boring after a while, if you've seen one you've seen them all. On the other hand, I didn't find it pornographic, but it was a bit odd.>
Saw it last summer. Everyone was hushed and respectful. The nervous system made me start to cry. The wonder of it.
But it did not seem particularly real, more like plastic models. What is more disturbing are the ethical questions being asked about how they obtained the bodies for this and competing exhibits. This is a money-maker for museums so they are minimizing the ethical issues.
Other than that, I don't see why this is any more gross than the Vatican considering opening St. Paul's sarcophogus.>
Imagine if we learned that our cave-dwellers flayed their dead, boxed them up and carted them around the countryside to various locales, where they then displayed them in all manner of positions, brains hanging out by the spinal cord and so on, all so that the chief flayer could make millions of cave-man dollars from his gawking audiences. How shocking would seem such a society.
Are you kidding? That used to be one of the churches biggest money-makers, well, they didn't have plastination, but the concept was the same. They'd even design elaboarte reliquaries(sp?) for the various body parts.>
Not something that I would care to see but anything that annoys people has got to be worthwhile.>
My understanding is that these were Chinese paupers whose bodies were sold to recoup for the government as far as possible whatever they had cost in dying. As such, I wouldn't see it here in Atlanta, even though medical employees got in free.>
Has anyone ever seen the human cross-sections exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago? They have "slices" of cadavers on display there. It's fascinating and appalling at the same time. Though I have to admit enjoying the exhibit, I felt somehow that it lacked reverence for the deceased individual(s) displayed therein.
The museum also has preserved human fetuses exhibited from conception to near-birth. None were the results of abortions, but still...it made me feel a little queasy. Plastic models would serve the purpose just as well.>
Just curious....have you gone to see the exhibit or are you commenting on the idea of it.>
I saw it and loved it. Filled me with awe and wonderment at the creation of humans. Hardly 'pornographic'.
What kind of mind would even think that?>
Post a Comment
By submitting these comments, I agree to the beliefnet.com terms of service, rules of conduct and privacy policy (the "agreements"). I understand and agree that any content I post is licensed to beliefnet.com and may be used by beliefnet.com in accordance with the agreements.