The body issue has gained weight in current speeches, it appears to us in many ways. However, these are relatively recent debates in which the body has been quite marginalized in the history of Western thought compared to other times.

To me the truth is that they help me apply the three terms used by Jacques Lacan to the subject of the body. Symbolic, imaginative and real. Three threads to approach the body in different ways, without simplifying the subject. Because we hear it many times. “I am my body.” But who do we talk about and what bodies? About the image? From the body? What do we say about ourselves?

Let's take the body in its symbolic dimension. What is it about? In the game between presence and absence: exists and does not exist. We can also relate it to the body, to the name that appears in the cemetery, to the words marked in the stone: in this way we present the bodies that no longer exist, placing a symbol in their absence. Imagine, for example, how important it is for family and friends to find the bodies of the missing people! The headache of discovering the bodies of the shipwrecks so that they have a symbolic place in the memory. With another dimension, the body is also imaginative. In this image, the different parts of our body are joined together: arms, legs, ears, hands… And, don’t believe, it’s not so easy to attach the body parts: a newborn has only unconnected body pieces and the mirror image gives the body integrity. Finally, the body has a real dimension: the organism itself. The heart beating, the kidneys working without knowing… There is the piece (or pieces) of meat that we are not of symbols and images. To this real body we can add the mystery of the presence: the tone of the voice, the gestures made, the tempus, the passion to do things… Issues beyond symbolization and images.

Therefore, threads must be invented between words, images and organs (links between the three dimensions mentioned). Are we the body, therefore, or do we have the body? Sometimes we transport it as a burden, sometimes it is too stimulated and it cannot stand still… we live in the time of orders to “listen” the bombardment of the “bioauthority”, we want to be masters of the body, conquer the body. However, we are being crushed! Gilles Lipovetsky believes that the current depoliticized hedonism seeks balance and control of the body. But, as I say, how far can bodies be mastered? Not entirely, not entirely. And maybe fortunately.