Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Bruni-Sarkozy and the Unbearable Lightness of Nudity

By Rick Pearcey

France's First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy seems to have second thoughts about having "posed for too many nude photos."

Good for her, and yet: How is this possible?

Is she no longer "proud of my body"? What? She wants something special, private, reserved, unknown to others, with her husband?

As if human love between husband and wife is more than the publicly accessible physics and chemistry of firing neurons.

Here's what may be bubbling to the surface: Despite the pronouncements of Darwinian and atheistic theory, human beings in fact are more than flesh, skin surfaces, and matter.

For all the MTV and artsy hype, the reduction of ethics and meaning to the raw power of individual choice diminishes the human being as a person.

Beauty may be skin deep, but privacy isn't. It goes to the heart of the living soul as a personal being who acts out into the external world.

Like an alienated man on a bridge in the dark of night, humanity screams out against the unbearable lightness of materialism and its inhumane orthodoxies, no matter how pleasing they may be to the skin trade or cash register.

Privacy is good. If it survives, we survive as free, humane beings. To be naked in love one must sometimes cover up.

See also
Rolled Model: Tennis Pro Harkleroad "Proud of My Body"

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Rick Pearcey is editor and publisher of The Pearcey Report (articles).