The Paradox of Commodification of the Body in a Society of Consumption and Cyborgization

Abstract

In the article, we make an attempt at discussing what it means that our reality is commodified, what the consequences of this are, how we commodify our bodies and what role in this process is played by cyborgization, as well as what the relation between commodification and disembodiment is. These issues seem to be significant because when the consumptionist and neo-liberal discourse is reconstructed, the aspect of commodification of a human being through cyborgization is omitted or marginalized. Yet such a context of commodification seems to be especially important as it constitutes the idea of radical questioning of a biological body as a commodity of a high market value. Thus, it constitutes the paradox of the commodification of body, i.e. a situation when a body that is the most attractive from the consumer’s viewpoint is a body that is disembodied to the maximum.