by Bob Campbell
While I was rummaging around in my alleged mind thinking about what subject I would discuss in this column, a recent piece by New York Times columnist David Brooks caught my attention. He wrote about the revulsion we all experienced over the beheading of two American journalists by Islamic terrorists.
In discussing this revulsion Brooks wrote, “The revulsion aroused by beheading is mostly a moral revulsion. A beheading feels like a defilement. It’s not just an injury or a crime. It is an indignity. A beheading is more like rape, castration or cannibalism. It is a defacement of something sacred that should be inviolable. But what is this sacred thing that is being violated? Well, the human body is sacred.”
The writer has hit upon something most nudists have known all along. He goes on by saying, “Most of us understand, even if we don’t think about it, or have a vocabulary to talk about it these days, that the human body is not just a piece of meat or a bunch of neurons and cells. The human body has a different moral status than a cow’s body or a piece of broccoli.”
He adds, “We’re repulsed by a beheading because the body has spiritual essence. The human head and body don’t just live and pass along genes. They paint, make ethical judgments, savor the beauty of a sunset and experience the transcendent. The body is material but surpasses the material. It’s spiritualized matter.”
Brooks’ column was right on target in his discussion of the human body. It’s no wonder the Islamic world is so heavily clothed. They don’t truly appreciate the magnificence of the wonderful human body. Hopefully most nudists do have that appreciation.
I do not take the subject of terrorist beheadings lightly. They are wrong. They are despicable. The perpetrators deserve to be punished similarly. And nudists should better appreciate just what we have in this country – the freedom to be nude.