Wellness aesthetics, broken systems and happy endings
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Transcript: English(auto-generated)
00:18
So our next session deals with wellness as tactics.
00:23
Actually, we see so many glossy, nice pictures online all the time on social media. And these two women actually think about what influence these have on culture, society, on health. And yeah, with no further ado,
00:41
I would like to introduce Andrea Goetzge, cultural producer and curator of various events. And Cecilia Palma, designer and developer for fashion and web. And they will perform a dialogue. I'm very curious to hear what this will be about. Thank you.
01:04
So hi, welcome. And thank you for coming for this one of the last slots of the Republica. Be here with us. And this is not a good thing for this class. We are waiting to start. Well, yes. So we're here to talk about wellness, and aesthetics,
01:26
and beauty, and its complications on further areas in society. But to start with ourselves, we both like to feel good,
01:41
to eat well, live healthy, take care of ourselves. I mean, basically, we like wellness. And it does make sense to take care for yourself. Also, we love glossy surfaces, facial creams,
02:01
and there's pampering. And so as you can see, we prepared this slide show for you with pictures that we enjoy. So we hope you enjoy too. Yeah, actually, this idea to do this talk was a bit inspired by a visit to the spa of mine. At the beginning of the year, around the time when you had to submit the papers,
02:21
and I was floating there in the outdoor pool. It's a spa that opened near Hauptbahnhof, for those of you who are from Berlin who might have been there. And thinking about how this whole wellness temple landscape is maybe less about the body, in a natural sense, in a way, but shares lots of aesthetics with technology,
02:43
or airports, or something. It's about total seamlessness, convenience, glossiness. And so a yoga studio and a max store are not so far apart, somehow, aesthetically. Yes, and so what is this wellness aesthetic we're talking about? As you said, it's this glossy, seamless appearance,
03:02
and it has something which is real, but in an unreal way. It's kind of beautiful. Well, it's kind of beautiful. It's like a creating nature in chaos. Romanticism and tech together.
03:20
Pretty, and most of all, maybe unproblematic. There was this quote just up there that we put up from the Berlin-based philosopher Bjorn Schulhahn, who published a book last year about beauty, and he discusses in a quite romantic way, I feel like different philosophers' approaches to beauty,
03:42
and he starts out in the first chapter talking about glossiness, and he uses examples of Jeff Koons, the balloon dog, also of iPhones, and he writes how the glossy begs for the like, you want to touch it, you mirror yourself in it,
04:02
and at the same time, it kind of eliminates the differentness or negativity of the other. This is how he writes it. So there's not really, it's just positive. There's no real space for a spot, or if there is a spot, it's really a problem.
04:22
Yeah, but this is also, I think I remember, we used to have a method for this when I was younger, when I was in school, because basically, if you would, and it might still be around, I don't know. With the kids, if you say something negative to me, I can put up my hand as a mirror to you,
04:41
and it just bounces right up back to you. So I just go mirror, mirror, and anything you tell me will just be about you. So like your don't be a hater, you know, I want to be happy, which brings us to the topic of happiness, kind of the next chapter in our scripted, unmoderated dialogue here.
05:03
So I'm the one who is quoting the books today. There is this book also published last year by Carl Siederstrom and Andres Beiser, and that's called The Wellness Syndrome, and they talk at length in that book about a thing that they call the happiness doctrine,
05:22
coming from the idea of neoliberal self-optimization, so the internalization of control. You don't have an outside person to tell you, oh no, you have to do this or that, but it's all inside yourself. You tell yourself to be productive and to be good and all this, and they outline with many different examples how this doctrine to be happy and well,
05:44
meaning healthy and fits, feeds into the self-optimization thing and how the wellness command transforms every activity, like including eating and sleeping, into an opportunity to optimize pleasure and to become more productive. And they use many examples, mostly from the US, UK, and Scandinavia,
06:03
from wellness contracts that you sign when you enter a university at several universities in the US where you say, okay, I sign that I'm gonna work out and eat healthy and so on, to various positive thinking books and the proliferation of life coaching all over the place,
06:23
and how everyone for themselves pursues the perfect human, and also how health and happiness are always a choice for yourself that you can pursue. You can always choose to do that, and the result, that's their conclusion,
06:40
of this pressure to constantly be happy and have an enjoyable day and of this narrative actually causes lots of anxieties and feelings of guilt because by all means, trying to be happy does not make you so happy after all. So while you can have a positive attitude to life, that doesn't mean that you always actually feel happy
07:01
because this is more something that kind of happens to you it's not something which you can really force on yourself. And this also connects back to the experience at the spa, which was just, when I was there, I was offering so many like yogurt peeling, honey infusion, water beds, like so many things
07:20
that had kind of a spa, formal moment there where I just felt like I could not really relax because I was like constantly torn between the different things that I could do to just feel better. Yeah, and I think it's also, it's an environment where, as you say, you're supposed to be happy.
07:40
But I think it's as well, I guess, you know, in life, as you're changing between the screen and then going outside, seeing real people, going back to the screen, and you quickly get accustomed to this, to the interface, to the digital interface where everything, where it tends to work, where you can push buttons and everything is smooth
08:00
and it looks good. And it goes to a point where sometimes you get so accustomed to this, so then when you go outside, it's not like the user interface of life just sometimes really sucks. And, but you have already built up these expectations that things should just like be work, work and be really nice to you
08:21
and then you have like this gap between technology and real life that becomes problematic. And then I think like when we're talking about the self, we also need to talk about our homes because it's just become this like extension of ourselves and it's just as it's important to like grooming,
08:41
it's important for self presentation and everything, tidying and cleaning at home has become very important. And for example, you might be familiar with this Japanese author called Marie Kondo, who's, she's written several books about organizing and tidying,
09:02
especially she wrote this bestseller called The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up that's sold in many languages in many countries. It's also put her to Time Magazine's list of 100 most influential people last year. And she has this method which is central to this method called the Konmari Method.
09:21
It is that you go through your things and you only keep those things that spark joy. So it is about organizing and being clean, but it also is about being happy and to just have happy, nice things. So basically you just, you know, it's also about, it's detoxing everything so that everything that is not desirable comes out of the way.
09:44
And well, bringing this back to health, you can, the thing is that you can always do better. This is, and choose to do better. And this, I mean, this is nothing new, of course. It's in a paper by Sigmund Bauman who also spoke here last year at Republika.
10:03
He refers, or he writes in a paper from 1998 about the difference that he sees between health and fitness, kind of seeing health as something that has more objective criteria. But again, this is fitness. Fitness is never done. There's no objective criteria.
10:21
You set the goals yourself and you can always improve. Yeah, and it's also, I'm noticing like among all the positive thinking and the good vibes and improving ourselves, I've been lately,
10:40
like maybe the last two years, so I thought I didn't have to work on that. And suddenly I thought, person, which kind of sucks, of course, because supposed to be like that. But then I really, because it almost started itself when I was criticizing things,
11:03
to not kind of pollute the mental environment of the person I was talking with. And this came up because we were talking about things and criticizing a lot. And I realized like, well, actually I didn't, maybe I didn't change, but maybe, or was it me who changed, or was it the surroundings that changed
11:21
and that this criticizing things is just not so welcome? One more thing I'd like to add to this. Also going back to health, and this is also another example from that book, The Wellness Syndrome that I mentioned earlier. I think it becomes kind of problematic
11:43
where health becomes kind of a moral category. For example, in several clinics in the US, they changed from forbidding to smoke at the workplace to not hiring smokers.
12:00
So it becomes like from a habit to going back to the actual person. So if you're a smoker, you just cannot work here. So you are a bad person kind of, you can't. So it's, yeah, it's not a thing of like of personal choice, but it comes something that is for your whole personality.
12:22
Yeah, and that it's not that it's about that you, that it feels good to be healthy, which ultimately it does. And I think that is a good reason to be healthy, but that it's so much more this about being a better person. And also for example, to go back to this Marie Kondo and extreme tiding and decluttering.
12:42
It's like the opposite of decluttering and tiding, which would be hoarding stuff is something which is extremely shameful. Like you have reality TV shows exploiting this topic. Well, basically of hoarding stuff, also of other things of eating too much,
13:00
of having too much depth and just having too much of stuff. And with this implication that basically eating too much, eating too bad, having too much, it's something that makes you morally inferior and it's something that allows other people to laugh about you. So I think it becomes problematic as I mean,
13:22
it's of course, I like to live healthy, but I think it becomes problematic at a point where self optimization, including wellness and happiness is in the ultimate service of productivity and efficiency. I think this is where kind of the breaking point is. And yeah, I mean, of course it's not your personal issue.
13:43
You're costing everyone money when you're sick and everybody else is trying to stay healthy. Well, possibly. Well, so I also, I recently read an article with some examples from Swedish companies that have had introduced not only fitness in the workplace,
14:04
but mandatory fitness and workout. So that people, if you work there, basically you have to do exercise during work time. And the most extreme case was a water company where it would even have a negative influence
14:22
on your salary if you would not comply and do your exercise. Or it would basically would raise less if you wouldn't take part in this. And I think this is also raises questions like with the whole productivity thing is like who does the body belong to? Is it, and especially like in such a situation
14:41
with an employer, an employee, whose body is it? Also, more and more companies are offering mindfulness workshops or relaxation or meditation classes at work. And one could, I mean, while of course this is a nice thing one could also argue that structural problems
15:02
at the workplace are being turned onto the individual. So if you have lots of stress at work, you go to meditation class and just feel better about it. Yes, and by all means, like you don't need to, don't join the union, but go to yoga. Because it will be the quicker way
15:21
to make you feel better about your work situation. On one of the slides before, there was a quote that actually is from a work contract that I have signed, which is in the standard work contract. Nowadays, it says that you're supposed to improve your health when you're sick.
15:40
So I mean, you're at home, but still kind of your behavior kind of belongs to the workplace. Yeah, and it's those things, I think, I see this parallel to, well, in the earlier times during the industrialization,
16:01
especially in the early 1900s, there was this methodology called Taylorism. It was an early form of scientific management to improve productivity on the workflow and improve processes. So this was during the time where you went from craft production to mass production.
16:22
And it basically, it was about changing the workflows and the tasks that workers had. And it has, I mean, the Taylorism way of doing things, it changed a lot of things, but it's also been abandoned since maybe the 30s and some places later,
16:41
and also a lot of criticizing for alienating workers and just not giving them the same agency that they might have had before as craftsmen and so on. And yeah, and this is the thing, that like the whole thing is with wellness seems to be like this fresh new thing, especially in the workplace, and it's so great when an employer enables people
17:03
to take care for themselves during work time. But I think it's also somehow, in the end, it's just a new form of doing the same thing, of raising productivity, because it's ultimately not about people individually to feel better. It's just about to create workers
17:23
that work more effectively. So yeah, it's about trying this whole, what we talked about, trying to be the perfect human and the wellness improvement and glossy aesthetics relate in that sense very much
17:41
to the technologically enhanced human or the technology replacing the two human parts of the human. Exactly, and it's also, I mean, it's a lot also about treating the body like a machine that you can enhance and you can pimp it and improve it.
18:00
And I think it's also like this, the wellness idea, it's connected a lot to enhancement and to the technologically enhanced body. And it's basically, it takes us also a little bit closer to cyborgs and we can have functional food as fuels
18:20
for like this machine. And it's just to remove some of the human factors and just like improve the machinery of our bodies. Lots of technology and medicine improving the human body and human life is very great though. And I would not want to miss it. Also to self-improve, to practice something, to become really amazing at something is really good.
18:43
No, I think that is also great. And I mean, I also, I go to yoga because I feel better and also in my mind and in my body doing these things. And I would definitely advocate for them. But, and I think also, I mean, I use things like the Nike running up. I think that's really fun.
19:01
Although it's kind of weird that I couldn't see where I'm, and they can see where I'm going and those things. But at the same time, I think it's like this, we're basically like, we have like the whole idea of like the quantified self and self-tracking, using, you know, like with a Fitbit or anything else,
19:20
any kind of fitness tracker. It's, I think there is some, on another level, there's also a way of simplifying a lot of complexity of being human. Like, I mean, you have a body, it gives you signals and it shows you things, but it's much easier to get a data set or like that you have data points that will tell you something
19:41
instead of having to kind of feel and pick up on signals from your body. So do I feel full or does my blood sugar level measure as saturated? Exactly, and maybe it is also like, is your feeling correct or is the other thing wrong if they don't match up?
20:01
So we're talking a lot about human. So we are thinking more human than post-human, kind of in a way. I had one quote up that came before it from a test card magazine article that I really recommend to read, which is about a simulated conversation
20:21
between artificial intelligence and the human, and where it says that we're using technology to build a world where humans cannot be sinful, lazy, or imperfect, but where you can either function or disturb. Yeah, and yeah, this is the thing. I mean, it just, it doesn't want to leave
20:44
so much space for other things, I think, because it wouldn't be so convenient. And well, basically, I would also refer here a little bit to Mayu, sitting here. She just gave a very interesting talk about self-driving car and ethics an hour or so ago.
21:01
And well, basically, it's the thing. It's super convenient as long as the cars are just, as long as if they're just self-driving cars, everything will work, but it's not. And it's problematic. And this is the same thing, I think, with this, the whole idea, like with the whole, this whole glossiness. It's like, it's very fragile,
21:21
and it's easy to break the system. And there is, I think, also with the fitness trackers, it's also a question of what are they tracking? I mean, I know that they track a lot of things, a lot of bio data, but I mean, do they also, do they track, like, which books you read lately?
21:42
Do they track, like, when was the last time you spoke up for yourself or for someone else, or the last time, like, how often you care for other people, because it's all like stuff, it's super important, it's very healthy, it's very important for intellectual hygiene and mental well-being and those things. And this is just factors that don't get in,
22:01
but I would say that they are at least as important as your heart rate on the big picture, and also just for health, so. Yeah, I would agree on that. I think that we start another, like, topic that we planned to talk about.
22:22
We may be stretching it a bit with that, but we still wanna do it. So we talked about the anxiety and pressure to be well and about the perfect body and so on, and a problematic step further that we discussed about when we prepared this topic is the expectation to be well.
22:40
On this topic, we found some pictures that you've already seen on the screen from an exhibition called Swim in Our Politics, that was published in DIS Magazine, and that was inspired by the anticipatory aesthetics of the swimming pool on the Greek island of Zamas,
23:01
where tourists on the beach meet refugee life jackets and where this expectation to be well clashes with reality. Yes, and there is a, I think, I mean, that exhibition is showing that really well, and also, like, on this friction in between those two, the two, the worlds,
23:24
like the convenient part and just the problematic real shit. And yeah, it's the same. I think that on a, I mean, you have this on a technology level, you expect things to work seamlessly, and when you have this expectation,
23:40
you don't wanna be let down. It's very easy to be very annoyed as soon as something doesn't load fast enough, the internet goes down, or it seems like it's the same thing. Maybe like if you're in traffic, it's very annoying when there's roadblocks, even if, I mean, you could expect them to be there because it's a part of, like, normal maintenance is that you have to kind of dig holes
24:01
and renew the road to keep it working, and that those obstacles are just part of the game. And still, it's really easy to be annoyed because there's something that gets into your way, so it's not seamless. And that's, I think, why a lot of, I would say that many people are ready to pay quite a lot for that quality,
24:21
for that seamlessness, especially in the terms of well hardware, software, products that we use. And I mean, then either you pay in cash, or maybe more often, like, to pay with personal data. Because, well, it has a price, but then, you know, it's worth it because you get this nice experience.
24:42
I think what we're talking about is, of course, about, like, a privilege. Like, wellness is a privilege, and what I find problematic is that lots of people have the opinion that we have the right to this, to wellness, and to our standard of living, like, feel like kind of an entitlement to be well.
25:02
I think this is like the ultimate thing, what we talk about, where other people, like, for example, outside of Europe, don't have this to the same degree, this right. Yeah, so then, following that logic, you mean that you can also say that, for example, it would then also be okay
25:20
to keep refugees outside of our country, or the EU, and then we could call that a solution? Like, as soon as it doesn't, a situation messes up too much, and we can, like, keep our country clean and well in order? Or when people are discussing, like, can you actually travel to that country,
25:41
or is it just too dirty? That always makes me angry. I mean, while I'm totally against, like, poverty tourism or something, but these comments make me angry because there are usually, like, 10,000 people living in those places where those people talk about, like, it's too much to bear to go there.
26:00
And I heard an interesting talk last, a lecture at Hauste Kultur under Welt here, last year by Marina Grinich, a Slovenian philosopher, which talked about the different approaches to politics for people within, like those productively contributing, and those outside, like, outside the EU, outside of productivity.
26:21
So it's biopolitics, be more human than human, ins for within, and necropolitics, so you can die because you are still too human. This is maybe too short. You can also look this up. It's an interesting, like, talk from her. Yeah, so it's also a matter of power, structure, and privilege. And I think from here we have to wrap up
26:41
to the conclusion quite quick. We have three minutes. Yeah, so basically, to conclude, like, what is the problem, then, with convenience? It's great. I mean, love it, it's nice, and this is,
27:00
what is, okay, I'll take this example quickly also. It's like, if you call me on a day that I plan everything really well, and I'm a really good, productive human, so I work and I feel good, and then you as my friend, you call me and you have a problem. Like, of course I want to be there for you, begin to help you out and to be a friend,
27:21
but it really messes up my day, and it's totally inconvenient, and it's sometimes so annoying. So I think, I mean, we're not gonna provide the 10-point conclusion, because this is exactly what we're criticizing, but maybe we, like, one further thought. In another article in The Guardian,
27:40
there was recently about the ancient Chinese philosophers, not that I'm an expert on this, like, the Confucius or Lao Si, or so they were also about talking about becoming better persons and proving yourself, but however, it was more by looking outward, like, by recognizing that we are complex creatures, constantly pulled in different directions, and that it's through working on interactions,
28:01
experiences, and responses that we grow. So it's like recognizing complexity and learning to deal with that, and this is how we improve. Yes, exactly, and I think it's also like, maybe you've seen this quote by this guy called Céadastrom, who also wrote Wellness Syndrome,
28:22
who said, when we can no longer influence the development of society, we tend to turn the focus inwards to ourselves, and I think often you can see that symptom also happening with people. Yeah, and I think it's also,
28:41
I mean, convenience is a great thing, and it's great to design processes to be more efficient in daily life, to be more smooth in interaction with other people, but there has to be a place in that narrative as well, for critical thinking, for dissidence, and debate, and not leave it out.
29:02
So yeah, I think also, I think actually seeing several talks the past days, I think this notion came through in several of the talks that it's a problem that complexity is kind of being designed away. Like Richard Sennett, for example, ended his talk on Monday with the sentence,
29:23
tensions open people up, not comfort, and I think we would kind of conclude that it's important to recognize there are problems. It's important to recognize the other, also as something disturbing,
29:41
but deal with the disturbing thing. It's better than trying to clean everything away, and makes you happier after all if you know you're gonna be disturbed. Yeah, and deal with the complexity and enjoy the complexity instead. So except the crack in the mirror that somehow wears on our slides,
30:01
but they kind of stop showing. We had some, yeah. I think it's because we have to go. Okay, good, but that's it. You only missed that last slide that was really good on that, but yeah, it's not. Oh, no, it's broken. It was broken. It was something broken. It was a broken glass on the floor, so.
30:23
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.