James Hillman argues that we should consider banning the cosmetic surgery and face lift as a crime against humanity. The face of the old is good for the group.
The transition from cyclical to linear time. The myth of youth wrong
Old age is not only a biological destiny, but also cultural history. When the time was cyclical and every year the seasons repeat themselves, who had seen more than he knew. For this "knowing is remembering," as noted in the Meno Plato, and the old, the accumulation of his memory, was full of knowledge. Today, with the progressive conception of time, not more cyclical in its repetition, but an arrow shot in the future without a goal, is no longer the old store of knowledge, but delayed, inadequate, anxious for news that is not longer able to control them in quick succession and nagging. This is why Max Weber in 1919 noted: "Unlike the generations that preceded us, today's men do not die more satisfied in their lives, but just tired."
why old age is hard to live, not only for the decay of biological and historical and cultural conditioning, but also for a range of destruction that we try to list here. The first is between the ego and one's body: no longer a vehicle for being in the world, but barrier to be overcome in order to continue being in the world, so to make sense is no longer the world, but the body transforms from the old subject of intent to receive some attention. Since then no one can identify with an old, indeed all spasmodically defend themselves from this identification, you create the second deconstruction of the ego and the world around them that impoverishes the reports and makes formal and therefore false affection. In the old, in fact, love, Freud pointed out that as the antithesis of death, shall not be extinguished. And with "love" here I mean eros and sexuality, of which there is memory, memory and regret. The old cease to be recognized as an erotic subject and this misrecognition deconstruction is the third that separates them from the drive I love.
In his desperate attempt to oppose the law of nature, who wants the inexorable decline of individuals, who do not accept old age is forced to be constantly alert to seize every day the slightest sign of decline. Hypochondriasis, obsessiveness, anxiety and depression become the evil companions on the journey of his life, while his fetishes become the balance, diet, fitness, perfumery, the mirror.
Yet in Leviticus (19.32) we read: "Honor the face of the old," because if the old no longer shows his vulnerability, where to find the reasons of piety, the need of sincerity, the demand for answers that underpin the social cohesion? The face of the old is good for the group, and therefore Hillman can write that, for the good of humanity, "we should ban the cosmetic surgery and to consider lifting a crime against humanity" because, in addition to depriving the group of face of the old rope ends to give the myth of youth who receive old age as the antechamber of death.
In support of the myth of youth, there are two ideas that govern the sick Western culture, making the elderly more fearful of what it is: the primacy of the biological factor and economic factor that, throwing in the background all other values, connecting the old to useless, uselessness expectation of death. Yet it is not just the damage that occurs when the faces as they age have poor visibility, when exposed to public view are just faces without hair, makeup and telegenic made to ensure a product, be it commercial and political, because politics today wants his telegenic. The face of the former is an act of truth, and the mask behind which hides a face treated with surgery is a forgery which reveals the insecurity of those who have the courage to expose himself with his own face. If
exposed the myth of youth and treat ideas sick that our culture has spread over the old could see it in two virtues: that of "character" and that of 'love'. The sooner it is noted in The force of character Hillman (Adelphi), "Getting older I reveal my character, not my death", where a character I think of what has shaped my face, which is called "face" because the "I" self, with the habits acquired in life, the friendships that I attended, the peculiarity that I have given, the ambitions that I pursued, the loves that I have met and I wanted to see, the children I raised.
And the love that, reminds us Manlio Sgalambro in the Treaty of age (Adelphi) does not seek shelter, no refuge in the "inner youth" a place that is known to be infamous, but turn to the "sacred flesh of the old" that contrasts with that of the young, a mere res extensa good for breeding. "Eros comes from what are you, friend, not the features of your body comes from your age, not having goals, can finally understand what love's sake." A total sexuality happens to genital sexuality. Here lurks the secret of the age, where the spirit of life slips in like a thunderbolt, leaving blank the youth, unable to understand.
Maybe they need and love the character of those years more that the length of life today allows us to see what the generations that came before us, with few exceptions, could not see, and exactly what one is beyond what he does, beyond what I try to look beyond these contacts of love that youth burns, without knowing.
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