Introduction

Currently the body is used as a showcase in which the individual advertises himself and thinks he is standing out from most people and asserting his individuality. However, the understanding of the people in the context of administered society - in which capitalist relations extend to all aspects of life - is not exempt from the recognition that he, despite being the representative of the opposition to the pressures of socialization (of integrating force of society), reflects “[...] in its individualization, the pre-established social law of exploitation, however much it is mediatized” (^{Adorno, 1993}, p. 131). In these terms, the individual who aspires to stand out from the world through their body - what they wear, their physical form or their behavior - is not only promoting themselves, but also promoting the world in which they live.

Therefore, the reinforcement of social relations to weaken individuality, since the 'socialization' of a greater number of individuals and human groups drags everyone towards the functional context of society. Social entanglement, in the conception of ^{Horkheimer and Adorno (1978}). affects human, involving them in their individuality, whose expansion of the rationality of the world presupposes a progressive regression, insofar as

Through the mediation of total society, which encompasses all relationships and emotions, men become exactly what the evolutionary law of society had turned against, the principle of the self: simple generic beings, equal to each other through isolation in the collectivity governed by strength (^{Adorno & Horkheimer, 1985}, p. 47).

Furthermore, the aggravation of narcissism weakens people, trapped in the consumer network, which offers the most diverse products, in which it is possible to identify the promise of happiness and the consolidation of the new social ontology, whose existence refers to having and appear.

Under this condition, the exploitation of the body goes beyond work and the appropriation of its physical and mental strengths, as it is also an object of exploitation, when treated as an investment, which feeds aesthetic exploration. Thus, it becomes a reified body, imprisoned by the logic of the world of commodities in various moments of life: in leisure time, in the choice of clothes and food, in the most intimate relationship that people have with their bodies.

An absorbed reflection on the conditions of the body in today's society presents the challenge of thinking about the ubiquity of the cultural industry that defining our relationships with our bodies. The challenge of this text aims to reflect, based on Critical Theory, on the civilizing process within the scope of bourgeois society, whose organization is expanded through the cultural industry, which constitutes a leading reference in the construction of individuals body image, as it establishes models of beauty, diet, exercise and behavior. The cultural industry does not just plan culture, but life which, under its guidance, establishes standards of normality, which, according to ^{Adorno (1993}), in the aphorism 'Health for Death', resemble the which is dead, since they move away from every organic characteristic found in the primeval constitution of life.

The characteristic of the civilizing process is discussed in the first moment of the text, also addresses the relationship between the aforementioned process and nature, which constitutes the object of a dominating and autocratic reason, impassive to the sensitive sphere of life and the possibility of a cozy relationship between human beings and nature. This possibility, according to ^{Adorno and Horkheimer (1985}), does not properly recognize satisfaction or needs to extend it beyond its need - which points to the social and alienated characteristic of pleasure within the scope of human relationships. Thus, the pleasure that breaks the fixed order, ignoring it, expresses the desire to return to the nature from which civilization intends to protect itself.

The sacrifice that the civilizing process demands of the self falls on the body, the discussion of which is the subject of the second part of this text. The body, according to ^{Vaz (2007}), expresses our primitive nature, uncontrolled and ungoverned. In this way, it is possible to affirm that reconciliation with nature is corollary of reconciliation with one's own body and the body of others. Also, that the encounter with nature provides mimesis, in which it is possible to experience a relationship of proximity and comfort with the environment, whose characteristic is repressed by the civilizing process, to transform the first mimesis into controlled, administered mimesis and at the service of the social system.

The management of the mimetic tendency, understood as an organic tendency of living beings that leads them to get closer to nature and establish relationships of similarities between them, impacts the discussion about the cultural industry and constitutes the object of the last moment of this reflection. The cultural industry is an emblematic phenomenon of the expanded technology of life and the social pressure that the civilizing process exerts on the individual. It promotes the spectacularism and reification of the body influences the constitution of its subjectivity and the body image of individuals, motivating a debate in the field of education, for which an introductory approach is triggered, as well as, in the reflections that fall within the scope of the final considerations.

The civilizing process and bourgeois rationality

According to ^{Adorno and Horkheimer (1985}), the objective of clarification, understood as the disenchantment of the world and the intellectual emancipation of man through the use of his reason, avoided fear and helplessness in relation to the powers of nature. In an attempt to free themselves from fear, human beings assumed the position of masters, overriding their interests on those of other things and beings. They acted not only on external nature, but also against internal nature, wich elucidation is found in the Dialectic of Enlightenment (^{Adorno & Horkheimer 1985}), in the prototypical figure of Ulysses, the character from the Odyssey, who on his epic journey needs to resist the charms of hetairas goddesses and the song of mermaids. Ulisses behaves rationally and strategically, seeking to reconcile the irreconcilable, pleasure and the execution of his goals. At this point, he personifies the disguise and renunciation that constitutes the civilizing process, since enlightenment has followed the path of obedience and work, in which one must not succumb to seduction, but rather self-control, guided by practicality and achievement whose expression is found in the logic of equivalents.

The self's resource for winning adventures: losing oneself to preserve oneself, is cunning. The navigator Ulysses deceives the deities of nature, just as the civilized traveler will deceive the savages by offering them colored glass beads in exchange for ivory. The gift of Homeric hospitality is halfway between exchange and sacrifice (^{Adorno & Horkheimer, 1985}, p. 57).

To dominate the world, human beings chose to explain it, name it and make it intelligible. When doing it, they converted into an abstraction, constituting a process that gradually widens the separation between the thing and the name. The effort expended in the process of reporting and naming things in this world, according to ^{Adorno and Horkheimer (1985}), was also part of the myth. This fact impacts the assertion that myths were already a product of enlightenment. However, unlike the latter, myths contained distinctions, as the image of the thing, its representation protected similarity rather than its replacement and universal fungibility, according scientific parameters.

Like science, magic aims at ends, but it pursues them through mimesis, not through progressive distancing from the object. It is in no way based on the ‘omnipotence of thoughts’, which the primitive would attribute to himself, it is said, as well as the neurotic. There cannot be an ‘overestimation of psychic processes in opposition to reality’, when thought and reality are not radically separated (^{Adorno & Horkheimer, 1985}, p. 25, emphasis added).

According ^{Adorno and Horkheimer (1985}), magic pursues its purposes through mimesis (imitation, similarity) not through progressive distancing in relation to the object. It does not overestimate psychic processes to the detriment of reality, as thought and reality are not radically separated. Thoughts are not autonomous in relation to objects, which can be explained by the attitude of the sorcerer who becomes similar to demons to scare and mitigate them.

The authors (^{Adorno & Horkheimer, 1985}), ratio, when repressing mimesis, does not constitute its opposite, since it takes the necrophilic form of the latter, resembling what is dead, since “The subjective spirit who excludes the soul from nature only dominates this private nature of the soul by imitating its rigidity and excluding himself as an animist” (^{Adorno & Horkheimer, 1985}, p. 62). The disenchantment of the world to which these authors refer the destruction of animism, in which it is possible to recognize that nature has a soul and that it is made up of will and sensitivity. By choosing abstraction as the instrument of knowledge, clarification supplants sensitivity and, through reason, converts things into the same common denominator, classifying them, naming them and anticipating the sensible order of things.

To ^{Adorno and Horkheimer (1985}), enlightenment radicalizes mythical anguish, since it leaves nothing out, seeking to equalize the world through thought, in order to obtain greater control over things. Thus, science usurp all beings and capture them, but what it captures is not the being, only the nominalist attribute and the logical convention established as the representation of the being.

The clarification implied self-preservation, that is, material survival. During its development process until the constitution of bourgeois rationality, material needs increasingly demanded that reason converge with productive interests and objectives external to spiritual needs. Through mathematization and anticipatory calculation it was believed to be safe from mythical return and to be able to infiltrate the being of things. However, according to ^{Adorno and Horkheimer (1985}), science was unable to know being, because it reified itself and opted for the unity and classification of the world based on predetermined schemes.

In the book Eclipse of Reason, ^{Horkheimer (2002}) speak that life is increasingly subject to rationalization and planning, including in the most individual sphere, where individuals could preserve their uniqueness and privacy. Under these conditions, the preservation of individuals requires their adjustment to the system, from whose power they cannot freedom, as it is the inertial capacity of the subjects that the system survives, according to ^{Adorno (2008}).

The regulatory power of reason enhances continuous coercion, which occurs even when the individual thinks they enjoy an increase in freedom - which, according to ^{Horkheimer (2002}), implies a change in the character of freedom. The author illustrates this fact, through the comparison between the carriage and the automobile, whose speed, efficiency and ease of driver come up against laws, norms and instructions, to which we must submit. Speed limits, warnings, traffic lanes and signage require attention and the replacement of our spontaneity “[...] with a frame of mind that forces us to discard any emotion or idea that could reduce our attention to the impersonal demands that assail us” (^{Horkheimer, 2002}, p. 103).

Western civilization, according to ^{Horkheimer (2002}), has a pragmatic attitude towards nature, which manifests itself in different ways. While ancient hunters, when observing the mountains and fields, aspired to success in hunting, modern men look at the landscapes with the intention of profit - the commercialization of land, the opportunity to use that space to put up a cigarette poster. Regarding the fate of animals, the author uses as an example a report about the landing of planes in Africa, the difficulty of which was caused by the horde of elephants and other wild animals, considered traffic obstructions by human beings. In ^{Horkheimer's (2002}) conception, the Bible bears witness to this fact, as the book Genesis points to human superiority, in the face of the possession of a soul, which guarantees power over all other creatures, releasing human beings from the care and respect for them.

With these examples, the author shows that pragmatic reason is not new and that it expresses its instrumental characteristic, currently better formulated and accepted than in the past. The expansion of human power over nature is the result of the structure of society and its historical development, in which physical needs are subjugated by artificial needs, of second nature, which date back to the world of commodities.

However, nature is today more than ever conceived as a simple instrument of man. It is the object of total exploration, which has no objective established by reason and, therefore, has no limit. The dominance of the human species on Earth is unparalleled in those other epochs of natural history when other animal species represented the highest forms of organic development. Their appetites were limited by the needs of physical existence. In fact, man's cunning to extend his power in two infinities, the microcosm and the universe, does not emerge directly from his own nature, but from the structure of society (^{Horkheimer, 2002}, p. 112-113).

According to ^{Horkheimer (2002}), there is an interrelationship between the history of the subjugation of nature and the history of the subjugation of man by man, and the development of the concept of ego reflects this double history. The ego is understood by the author as the principle of the self, aimed at domination and organization of the world. In these terms, he confronts nature in general, against other people and against his own impulses.

For ^{Horkheimer (2002}), each subject's inner ego personifies the leader and like the latter, classifies and categorizes experiences, planning the lives of individuals. The ego is characterized by indulgence in relation to pleasant emotions and by austerity in relation to what causes sadness, since it aims to preserve itself from oblique emotions and judgments.

Parallel to the expanded rationalization of society, there is an increase in conscious and unconscious indignation in people against civilization, whose locus is located in the ego, since the repression of desires imposed by society through it, is senseless not only for the individual, but for the population as a whole (^{Horkheimer, 2002}).

Civilization oppresses the subject from the moment of birth, with parents representing to the child the overwhelming power and freedom from nature, over which power is exercised. In these terms,

Hatred for civilization is not just an irrational projection of personal psychological difficulties into the world as interpreted in some psychoanalytic writings. The adolescent learns that the renunciations of instinctual impulses expected of him are not adequately compensated; that, for example, the sublimation of sexual impulses that civilization demands does not bring him the material security in the name of which it is preached. Industrialism increasingly tends to subject sexual relations to social domination (^{Horkheimer, 2002}, p. 115).

The denial of nature in man is, according to ^{Adorno and Horkheimer (1985}), the nucleus of all civilizational rationality and the cell of the proliferation of mythical irrationality. The human being, by denying the nature that exists within him, makes the telos of external domination of nature and the telos of life itself confusing and opaque. In the search for self-preservation, human beings satisfy their needs in an objectified way, that is, through the world of commodities. Under this dominating condition, life is dissolved, when it should be preserved. Therefore, “[...] the anti-reason of totalitarian capitalism, whose technique of satisfying needs, in its falsified form, determined by domination, makes the satisfaction of needs impossible and leads to the extermination of men” (^{Adorno & Horkheimer, 1985}, p. 61).

Life is, according to ^{Horkheimer (2002}), to a continuous effort to suppress and degrade nature, both internally and externally. The energy of natural desires is directed towards identification with their substitutes: the homeland, the leader, the idols, the tradition, the political factions, among others. This process is expressed both in the overlapping of broader interests over individual ones, and in the overlapping of reification over a more organic and playful vision, in which it is possible to think of the body in its most original constitution, before being largely administered by the bourgeois project of society.

The civilizing process and the body

In the aphorism 'interest in the body', published in the notes and sketches of Dialectic of Enlightenment (1985), Adorno and Horkheimer mention that human instincts and passions occupy an underground place in history, since they are repressed and disfigured by civilization, whose guidance prioritized the external nature to the detriment of the internal nature of human beings. In these terms, the authors relate civilization to terror, as it was under the sign of the executioner that the evolution of culture took place. Thus, it is not possible to abolish terror and preserve civilization.

In this passage from the text ‘The Malaise of Civilization’ (2010), Freud unveils the conflictive relationship between sexual impulses and civilization.

[...] deriving the antithesis between civilization and sexuality from the fact that sexual love is a relationship between two people, in which a third is perhaps superfluous or intrusive, while civilization rests on the bonds between many people. At the height of a love relationship there is no interest in the rest of the world; the loving couple is enough for themselves; they don't even need a child to be happy. In no other case does Eros so clearly reveal the core of his being, the purpose of transforming several into one [...] (^{Freud, 2010}, p. 71).

In ^{Freud's (2010}) conception, passions driven by instincts prevail over interests imposed by reason and this fact threatens the disintegration of society, which reacts by preventing the aggressive attitudes of human beings and their manifestations, promoting reactive psychic formations, to the extent that loving relationships are inhibited in their goal and directed towards broader interests: social interests.

Due to this primary hostility between men, society is permanently threatened with disintegration. The interest of common work would not maintain it; Passions driven by instincts are stronger than interests imposed by reason. Civilization has to resort to everything to put limits on man's aggressive instincts, to keep their manifestations in check through reactive psychic formations. Therefore the use of methods that should encourage people to establish identifications and loving relationships inhibited in their goal, hence the restrictions on sexual life and also the ideal commandment to love your neighbor as yourself, which is truly justified by the fact of nothing being more contrary to original human nature (^{Freud, 2010}, p. 78).

The constitution of subjectivity in the context of the civilizing process required, according to ^{Vaz (2007}), the breaking of natural and primitive bond with the subject. In this way, mimesis constitutes an attempt to rediscover the original prototypic al happiness, whose reconciliation with nature was possible. The body is also the expression of this primitive, uncontrolled nature, and the human being is also part of it. In this way, reconciliation with the nature that surrounds us presupposes a comprehensive relationship, which embraces the environment, other human bodies and the body itself. For ^{Vaz (2007}), all mimesis is a form of encounter with nature, even if prototypical.

In this author's understanding (^{Vaz, 2007}), the theme of mimesis in Adorno and Horkheimer is understood from the relationship with self-preservation, in which the civilizing tendency presupposes the break with the organic and cozy relationship of mimesis. In this process, the body becomes an object of control and domination. If enlightenment presupposes sacrifice and renunciation, the pleasure administered by society is realized as a deception, since civilization tends to distance us from our original brand and direct us towards the sphere of a happiness of substitutes, the achievement of which is achieved through world of goods. “That is why the repressed sadistic traits that vivify tendencies towards lack of control and bodily violence remain in the disturbed and pathogenic relationship with the body” (^{Vaz, 2007}, p. 190).

The relationship between mimesis and the body also refers to the relationship between hatred and identification. In these terms, mimesis is experienced in its opposite sense, since the approach occurs with dominating intentions, configuring repressed mimesis or false projection. Thus it is rationalized, organized and individuality is diluted in the establishment and becomes incapable of alterity: “For the mass that attends the rallies, new identity figures are presented, with which identification must be immediate, non-reflective, organic. Gestures and postures must imitate the Führer, to whose ideas adherence will be, above all, ‘corporeal’” (^{Vaz, 2007}, p. 192, emphasis added).

The desire for the rationalization of the body through the control of its movements and its reduction to simple physiology, as highlighted by ^{Vaz (2007}), is part of the constitution of modern society and sport presents itself as a category of understanding of this society, in which worships violence, obedience, authoritarianism and sacrifice. Furthermore, sport is seen by individuals as the possibility of giving back to the body some of what was stolen from it by the capitalist system, which is adept at machinery and automation and the wear and tear of life. The reified body carries a condition analogous to that of the machine. Thus, he needs to be indifferent to pain and suffering - which means that the development of corporeality requires its elimination, the removal of its life and sensitivity.

The submission of body to technocratic power, with the aim of perfecting the human race, is portrayed in the Wakolda movie, which is analyzed by ^{Galak, Gomes and Zoboli (2018}). For them, the film by Argentine filmmaker Lucía Puenzo, released in 2013, expresses modern rationality, which thinks of the human being as an object of science, as a laboratory, in which it is possible to experiment with techniques for correcting and improving the body. The movie, according to the authors, portrays modernity based on man's relationship with science and knowledge. Furthermore, it tensions the relationship between difference and homogenization of bodies and the relationship between the natural body and the artificial body.

The name Wakolda, of analyzed movie, is the same as that wife of a famous Patagonian indigenous chief. This name is used to refer a doll, which takes on a new configuration, in which its singularity is replaced by mass production, characteristic of technical-scientific rationality and its power to act on bodies, homogenizing them.

For this reason, the Wakolda doll represents the 'engine' of the narrative, as it is she who must be 'transformed' into something else to break with her singularity and fit into a process of homogenization (in other dolls that will be manufactured in series) by project of modern science (^{Galak et al., 2018}, p. 5, emphasis added).

The craftsman of the Wakolda doll is the father of Lilith, whose height is below average for her age, attracts the attention of doctor Helmut Gregor, who applies growth hormones to the girl, monitoring the evolution of her growth through notes in a notebook. This narrative, according to ^{Galak et al. (2018}), integrates the movies discussion about the body which, in the context of the problem experienced by Lilith, becomes the object of investigation and experimentation by Helmut Gregor, whose code name was used by Josef Mengele. The latter conceives Lilith's body within the scope of the project of pure race and population, which he defends. In this way, Helmut believes in science as a way to correct the body, a way to free it from mythical threat through control, domination and experimentation. Paradoxically to Helmut's attitude, Lilith's father does not wish the same end to which his dolls were subjected to for his daughter.

The movie visualizes the confrontation between these two types of knowledge: myth x science. The German doctor asks Eva, Lilith's mother: 'They never 'studied your daughter' to see if she was still in time?' She, without fully understanding what he suggests, responds with another question: 'In time for what?' . ‘Growing up’, the doctor responds, which leads Eva to an immediate and affirmative response: ‘This is not something that medicine decides’ (^{Galak et al., 2018}, p. 4, emphasis added).

^{Adorno and Horkheimer (1985}) show the relationship of love and hate for the body that permeates modern culture, in which the body is inferiorized and enslaved, reified and desired to the same extent that it is prohibited. The authors highlight the function of culture in the constitution of the body as a thing, as a possession, because as such, it was distinguished from the spirit, “[...] quintessence of power and command, as an object, dead thing, corpus” (^{Adorno & Horkheimer, 1985}, p. 217).

The authors highlight a formal change regarding the virility of the body, which is outlined in bourgeois domination, in commerce, industry and the media. Advertising, aimed at promoting the use of vitamins, skin creams or fascist propaganda, shares the rational and programmed action on the body. This rationalization focuses on an objective and mathematized view of the body, in which food reduces the amount of calories and walking reduces the amount and intensity of movement.

Those in Germany who praised the body, gymnasts and hikers, always had the closest affinity with murder, just as nature lovers had with hunting. They see the body as a moving mechanism, in its joints the different parts of this mechanism, and in the flesh the simple covering of the skeleton. They deal with the body, manage its limbs as if they were already separate. Jewish tradition retained the aversion to measuring people with a meter, because it is from the dead that the measurements are taken - for the coffin (^{Adorno & Horkheimer, 1985}, p. 219).

^{Vaz (2004}) argues that sport reflects the capitalist structure, in that it treats the body as if it were a machine, based on the premise of performance, of sports training aimed at improving technique, performance and achievement of perfect movements.

The relationship between body training structures and the instruments used to dominate nature, finds in sport, according to ^{Vaz (2004}), one of its forms of expression, especially in high-performance sports and in gyms and bodybuilding gyms. The author recalls the affinity between sport and technique, which was highlighted by Adorno, for whom sport would be a clandestine adaptation to machinery.

In sport, the technical instrument by nature is the body itself, so it is this that must be mastered, trained and functionalized for the purposes sought. If technical instruments should facilitate the mastery of the nature that surrounds us, the body turned into a (technical) instrument is itself an expression of the dominated nature (^{Vaz, 2001}, p. 92).

Symbolically, according to ^{Vaz (2004}), sport provides the realization of one of the most primitive utopias - the aspiration to extend life and resistance to its finitude. The relationship between the body and sport, mediated by technological acceleration in the scope of human life, encourages the capacity to withstand pain and suffering and, in these terms, celebrates death to detriment of life.

Technological development, in the view of ^{Türcke (2010}), contributes to the triggering of shame and Promethean anger, which express the condition of impotence experienced by subjects under these conditions. ^{Türcke (2010}) also identifies in tattooing and piercing a revolt against the intangibility of the world of microelectronics and an outlet for the desire for tactile experiences. These and other needs in today's world are eagerly captured by the cultural industry, which is always ready to offer compensation for life's deprivations.

Human attitudes in relation to the body is addressed by ^{Türcke (2010}), within the scope of discussion on tattoos and piercings, which express a new ontology: sentio, ergo, sun (I feel, so I am). The author establishes a relationship between the tattoo and a first form of writing, representing the ‘scar carved by signature of divinity’, a manifestation of divine force. At moments, tattoos are inflicted by men who aspire to show their power over themselves and assert their identity.

The inflict verb reveals the meaning of penance and punishment, which the author uses to refer to the use of these ornaments on the skin. Therefore, the affirmation of the identity of the subjects who use them refers to sacrifice, the intensity of which increases in the same proportion as life becomes planned and regulated by consumption values.

The cultural industry and the planned exploitation of the body

Pseudo-individuation is a characteristic of the cultural industry, which manifests its purpose to fit individual needs with those of the system, as self-preservation in the society of commodities demands the eliminate of subjectivity, of our idiosyncrasies, whose spontaneity gives way to the direction of schematism.

The cultural industry drives the shape of our bodies, the diet we must follow, the clothes, the fashionable makeup and the movements our bodies must perform to become a vehicle for the world's advertising and to establish their place in the world of products. Thus, the body valued by society is one that adheres to generality and similarity, that is, to the standards established by society.

Continuous and quickly repetition of words and models, in the understanding of ^{Adorno and Horkheimer (1985}), links advertising to the totalitarian order. Like the latter, advertising cultivates coldness and heteronomy, necessary to keep the wheel of consumption turning.

The cultural industry manages the public's spontaneity, anticipates their reactions and plans the offering of its products around their expectations and needs. In fact, the cultural industry manufactures our tastes and the way we behave, acting towards the destruction of individuality. Schematism is typical of the cultural industry and, according to ^{Adorno and Horkheimer (1985}, p. 115), “[...] it is the first service provided by it to the customer”. He, in turn, must be content with reading the menu.

Under the pressure of universal advertising, powder and lipstick, breaking with their hetairic origin, are transformed into products for skin protection, the swimsuit into a hygiene requirement. Impossible to escape. The simple circumstance that all this takes place in the totally organized system of domination is enough to print the factory mark on love itself (^{Adorno & Horkheimer, 1985}, p. 233).

The cultural industry, as ^{Adorno and Horkheimer state (1985}), works as a filter and technical resources enhance this task through editing, sound and image resources. This fact allows us to spectacularize life and the body, whose image presented most of the time does not correspond to the ideal of perfection conveyed, given the possibility of altering images through computer programs. These resources reinforce the idea that the condition of life in society is the continuous wear and tear of individuality (^{Adorno & Horkheimer, 1985}, p. 130). In other words, the constant search for a perfect body and a positive self-image constitutes a promise of pleasure, a repression of satisfaction, since, under the aegis of the cultural industry, it is constantly postponed and linked to the search of the next new thing and trend.

Imitation is placed as something absolute by the cultural industry, whose configuration oscillates between pornography and puritanism. It offers and deprives in equal measure, analogous to the myth of Tantalus. In this way, insatiable consumers are always in constant search for a fulfillment that is postponed with each new product launched by the cultural industry. This confirms the logic of civilization, which offers something to the individual, at the same time as it deprives him was offered. The only realization that the cultural industry allows is that of a substitutive and false characteristic.

The libidinal nature that links the individual to the mass is recalled by ^{Adorno and Horkheimer (1985}), when they emphasize that the cultural industry does not sublimate, but represses, managing the libido to itself - which it does through identification with the idols and with the products it offers. By identifying with these elements, individuals alleviate their impotence in the face of the world and feed their narcissism.

^{Vaz (2003}) establishes a relationship between shopping malls as temples of consumption, as well as bodybuilding and gymnastics gyms with temples celebrating bodily sacrifice.

The suffering of the body is no longer required to purify the soul, but the body itself, which has become a soul, must purify itself of its worst evils: fat, sagging and ugliness. It is no surprise that the issue of good appearance becomes an important distinction in the market, which begins to exclude obese people, the preferred victims of the persecutory fury of idealized or acceptable body models. In Brazilian society, in which the visibility of the body is the very presence of the soul, these issues reach dramatic proportions (^{Vaz, 2016}, p. 67).

On television, on the internet and in advertising in general, it is possible to identify actors, singers and other personalities expressing their image in line with the standard body model established by society. Thanks to them, bodybuilding and gymnastics gyms are full, as everyone wants to conform to hegemonic physical standards.

^{Vaz (2016}) highlights that in this process, photos of women's bodies are intended for other women so that they can be admired and copied through a diet or exercise recipe and even recommendations for the spirit.

The desire of young people to convey perfect, smooth and plastic body images is highlighted by ^{Dias (2010}), for whom the bodies displayed in newspapers, magazines, television, billboards, pamphlets, shop windows and mirrors in bodybuilding gyms influence the school environment and in physical education. ^{Dias (2010}) highlights that the mass media contribute to the anti-formative stance, enabling and guaranteeing the perception of the body as a machine for both performance and beauty. This perception gained strength notably with the political-economic regime of capitalism. The body in today's society, according to ^{Dias (2010}), is like still life - subject to manipulation and builder like objects. This way it is possible to cut, reduce, increase, disguise with silicone, tan naturally or artificially.

The parades of body trends that influence the masses are mentioned by ^{Dias (2010}), who exemplifies by citing the glamorous woman, who creates the body, taking television and movie stars as a reference. In Hollywood production, body stereotypes are present, such as the chubby person as a comic figure, the main stars with a toned body and the studious student with an unusual physique. Faced with this reality, he highlights the need to problematize the constitution of the body in today's society.

The relationship between the cultural industry and the body is defined by exploitation and, consequently, by social injustice, by the coldness and utilitarianism of the economic system, as it is as part of this mechanism that corporeality is conceived. More and more people want to manufacture their bodies, even though the price is high, both financially and in relation to the suffering that one has to go through when faced with invasive action on the body. Thus, they update the archaic schemes of self-preservation and “[...] life pays the tribute of its survival by assimilating itself to what is dead” (^{Adorno & Horkheimer, 1985}, p. 168).

People's egoic fragility and their impotence in the face of a world that increasingly exposes us feeds narcissism. The cultural industry manages our psychic economy, so that it succumbs to the pressures of the system, adhering to the social totality symbolized by the ticket mentality. Under these conditions, the products of the cultural industry and its idols constitute an escape valve for all those who are tired and aspire to happiness, although they find themselves, according to ^{Adorno and Horkheimer (1985}, p. 179), “[.. .] into the abyss of its meaninglessness.”

The cultural industry promotes the spectacularization of the body, making it increasingly objectified, that is, increasingly submissive to the conditions of production and economic needs. This fact is understandable as the spectacle, according to ^{Debord (1997}),

[...] is at the same time the result and the project of the existing mode of production. It is not a supplement to the real world, a decoration that is added to it. It is the core of the unrealism of real society. In all its particular forms - information or propaganda, publicity or direct consumption of entertainment - ​​the spectacle constitutes the current model of dominant life in society (^{Debord, 1997}, p. 14).

For ^{Debord (1997}), the spectacle is the product of a society that expands fetishization to all spheres and, therefore, favors alienation, because the more life becomes a human production, the more it tends to separate itself from itself, becoming increasingly abstract and falsified. It is in this sense that ^{Debord (1997}) also defines the spectacle as a social relationship between people, which is mediated by images, which are confused with reality, creating a pseudo-world.

In aphorism 92, from Minima moralia (^{Adorno, 1993}), entitled 'book of figures without figures', Adorno reflects on the relationship between enlightenment and imagistic thinking, since the development of reason, by freeing itself from its self-criticism, it did not bring any subjective gain to thought. Under these conditions, the images are presented in a simplistic, abbreviated and schematized way. Representation separates itself from the thing represented, which makes images omnipresent and, as such, they are not images, because, according to ^{Adorno (1993}), they are limited to representing the universal, the average and the standardized, they consist more of a ocular provocation so that the individual expresses adherence to the image presented to them.

The mentioned author's idea becomes provocative within the current ontological condition, built on appearance and the digital universe. In the latter, there is an inflation of images, in which individuals invest and expose their bodies. The obsession with the perfect body and youth does not allow for any relaxation and reproduces the weakness of the paranoid, who does not admit any thoughts other than those preconceived along the lines of the culture industry's schematism. Paranoia is the symptom of the half-formed individual, the one who adheres to the spirit of commodities; it is a usurper of the kingdom of freedom and threatens the inherent meaning of educational work: humanization.

^{Santos and Zanotti (2013}) highlight that the incentive to search for this ideal of beauty comes mainly from the media, the media and advertising, which propagate aesthetic measures and standards consistent with current culture. From that, bodily interventions will seek nothing less than finding happiness and success. This authors also highlight that the happiness of the contemporary subject is guided by the idealization of the body, but it is restricted and short-lasting happiness, in which the ideal of beauty is accompanied by dissatisfaction, as at each moment new procedures are discovered to achieve it of the perfect body.

Teenagers, according to ^{Santos and Zanotti (2013}), is a significant fraction of individuals who seek the perfect body, given the various bodily transformations arising from puberty, which contributes to them experiencing a feeling of estrangement in relation to their own body. To deal with the anguish of the feared and strange body, characteristic of this phase, teenagers seek reference in the image of the idealized and perfect body, which is conveyed by the media.

For ^{Frois, Moreira and Stengel (2011}), the construction of body image presupposes the subject's relationship with the world. They argument the need to break with the fragmented view of the functions of the biological body and the affective body, so that the teenagers relationship with his bodily and relational perception contributes to intertwining of biological, psychic and social dimensions as constituents of the individual.

In the understanding of the authors (^{Frois et al., 2011}), body image makes up teenager identity and formative process and the experiences they experience help to understand how the individual constructs and reconstructs the image of their body throughout their lives, how he sees himself and how he relates to the world. In this way, childhood care, as well as the relationships established with the family nucleus and with other individuals, act in the construction of body image, enabling the individual to define themselves as fat, thin, tall or short.

For ^{Frois et al. (2011}), the conflict between the search for an adult identity and the desire to continue in love and dependence, characteristic of children, can be expressed by the young person's dissatisfaction in relation to their body. Furthermore, teenagers find themselves facing new emotional, hormonal and physical demands and, consequently, their body image needs to adjust to them. ^{Frois et al. (2011}) highlight that in adolescence there is a typical mourning of the child's body, which allows a significant change in the positioning of the body in the world.

In this way, how can young people build a satisfactory body identity for themselves, a body image congruent with their experiences, perceptions and subjectivities, if they do not have stable standards, especially parental ones, to oppose, appropriate and define themselves in a corporeality? How can you build an identity if your references are not stable? (^{Frois et al., 2011}, p. 75).

The constant quandary between body image and body-image, according to ^{Frois et al. (2011}), affects all segments, from children, young people, adults and the elderly. This fact is related to the context of society, in which the constant rehabilitation of bodies is required and the opportunity for everyone to experience the conflict that is characteristic of adolescence and which implies adjustment and achieving stability in body image. According to the authors, the conflict between body image and body image becomes problematic when a transitory characteristic becomes a body standard, and the lack of stable body standards, especially parental ones, makes it difficult to construct a satisfactory body identity for the young man. The weakening of social frameworks, whether political, family or institutional, does not provide a secure basis on which adolescents can oppose themselves and define structural frameworks for their identity towards the adult world. Given this, ^{Frois et al. (2011}) question how adolescents can define themselves and guarantee a certain body stability in the absence of a stable adult model, in which they can model themselves.

The phenomenon of ‘adolescence’ is used by ^{Frois et al. (2011}) to describe the appreciation of the attributes of youth, which affects all ages. The difficulty related to the construction of adult identity based on the idealization of the young body is accompanied by the valorization of immediacy, consumption and experimentation without commitment, characteristic of youth.

However, what can we say about a context in which all segments - children, young people, adults and the elderly - remain in a constant dilemma between body image and body-image?; in a context in which everyone constantly needs to readapt their bodies without finding themselves adjusting and stabilizing their body image and continuing to experience a conflict typical and characteristic of adolescence? The conflict between body, which leads to the desire for a body different from the one we have, is not a new fact and also does not constitute a problem in itself. The question is when a characteristic, initially necessarily transitory, becomes a standard. To this extent, how can young people build a satisfactory body identity for themselves, a body image congruent with their experiences, perceptions and subjectivities, if they do not have stable standards, especially parental ones, to oppose, appropriate and define themselves in a corporeality? How can you build an identity if your references are not stable? These issues denote the weakening of social landmarks - political, family, institutional references - so that teenagers can oppose themselves and build their own structural and defining marks of their identity towards the adult world. How to define yourself by guaranteeing a certain body stability without having an adult model based on stability to look up to? The transitory perspective and experimentation of situations and identities is a typical characteristic of adolescents, but it has emerged in contemporary times as a stereotype that is valued, accepted and pursued by people of all ages. In this sense, how can one become an adult by defining oneself as a more stable figure, a reference for young people? This type of question seems to sustain an invitation to reflect on new paradigms for the concepts of identity, adolescence and adulthood which, as they go beyond the objectives of this article, will not be further explored here. However, a brief analysis of this process of 'adolescentization' of contemporary society is necessary, as the valorization of these typical attributes of young people, when extended to other ages of life, ends up bringing other complications beyond the difficulties of construction of adult identity based on the idealization of the young body. It also points to a constant search for other adolescent attributes, such as experimentation without commitment, immediacy and consumption (^{Frois et al., 2011}, p. 75, emphasis added).

^{Kehl (2007}) is endorsed by ^{Frois et al. (2011}) to remember that the cultural industry and consumption contribute to the valorization of youth, as they use the physical attributes of this stage of life to promote their products. Body references guided by immediacy and ephemerality make people dissatisfied with their own bodies, as the existence of stable references is fundamental to the process of healthy reorganization of body image. In this sense, the media acts inversely to this process, disturbing the construction of body image as its standards frequently fluctuate.

During adolescence, the construction of body image moves from the parental sphere to other spheres. Despite this, the family reference, according to ^{Frois et al. (2011}), contributes to the acquisition of stable standards, which serve as a basis for the opposition, appropriation and definition of corporeality, which is confronted by the influence of the media and the circle of friends.

The condition of life organized by the cultural industry, according to ^{Adorno and Horkheimer (1985}), is continuous wear and tear, it is a continuous rite of initiation, in which the individual affirms his identification with the oppressor and is realized in general. Therefore, the individual is illusory. It is only tolerated to the extent that it identifies with the universal and contributes to maintaining the logic in which absolute difference is perfect similarity. It is a pseudo individuality, whose constitution is linked to details related to clothing, behavior, among others, which are common to other people submerged in personality regulated by the world of commodities.

The particularities of the self are monopolized and socially conditioned commodities, which pass themselves off as something natural. They are reduced to the mustache, the French accent, the deep voice of the free-living woman, the Lubitsch touch: they are like fingerprints on identity cards that, if it weren't for them, would be rigorously equal and in which the life and physiognomy of all individuals - from the movie star to the prisoner - are transformed, in the face of the power of the universal. Pseudo-individuality is a presupposition for understanding and removing its virulence from tragedy: it is only because individuals are no longer individuals, but mere crossroads of the tendencies of the universal, that it is possible to fully reintegrate them into universality (^{Adorno & Horkheimer, 1985} , p. 145).

^{Passos, Gugelmin, Castro and Carvalho (2013}) carried out a survey with 9th year students (between 13 and 18 years old - but with a greater concentration around 14-15 years old) of private and municipal elementary schools (27 teenagers from school public schools and 26 from private schools) in Rio de Janeiro. The study, whose objective was to understand social representations about the body, found that for the majority of students, beauty is synonymous with a beautiful body, describing a model of beauty: a body defined by muscles for young men and a thin, curvy body for young women.

The research carried out by ^{Passos et al. (2013}), mentions that according to the Brazilian Society of Plastic Surgery (SBCP), 6% of plastic surgeries for aesthetic purposes carried out from September 2007 to August 2008 were carried out by people between 13 and 18 years of age. These data indicate that young people resort to surgery in an attempt to adapt to the aesthetic standards dictated by society.

Due to the pressure they suffer to have a beautiful body and come close to the aesthetic standard disseminated as ideal, young women feel obliged to follow miracle diets in order to lose weight quickly, but, on the other hand, they are bombarded with advertisements for high-calorie and highly processed foods. A zone of conflict is then created between achieving the desired body and the feeling of guilt in surrendering to the high-calorie products industry (^{Passos et al., 2013}, p. 2390).

In the view of ^{Passos et al. (2013}), social representations about the body enable reflection on school practice and on adolescents' body dissatisfactions in the face of the aesthetic standard conveyed by the cultural industry. This, within the scope of critical theory, constitutes a fundamental category for analyzing the power that society exercises over bodies.

The cultural industry, like medicine and Physical Education, is used as a government device, as part of a machinery that operates on bodies, directing their power towards them, which is not limited to the political sphere, encompassing the economic sphere. and aesthetics. The latter seduces people in search of an idealized image of the body, whose possibility of conquering it involves the consumption of products conveyed by the media.

Currently there is a lot of talk about the protagonism and evidence of youth culture, however, the constitution of this culture increasingly occurs under the intense media irradiation, provided by digital technologies. This situation raises the issue of the conscious constitution of this culture and, consequently, of youth identity.

The inseparability between bodily practice and cultural practice is problematized by ^{Maroun (2021}), for whom groups relate in a specific way to their bodies, expressing it through aspects related to birth, sleep, movements, hygiene, consumption and nutrition. The aforementioned author deals with the construction of quilombola people identity based on the body, as she believes that it is possible to affirm a cultural identity through it. This assertion has its truth, but it requires a conflicting understanding of the territory that the author calls the body. In this territory, “[...] a variety of teaching body techniques can be observed, expressing specific customs and revealing particular traits of the individual and the community” (^{Maroun, 2021}, p. 3).

The body is not just a territory in which body techniques are expressed. It is a territory of tension, whose cultural practices do not separate from social, political and ideological conditions, that is, from the objective conditions related to the division of labor, which promotes a cold and calculating relationship with corporeality, promoting the split between the body and mind, between matter and consciousness.

The exploration of the heteronomy of consciousness, which results in its dominant form and the omnipresence of the alienated spirit, according to ^{Adorno (2010}), conforms cultural products to real life, converting them into semi-culture and, consequently, into semi-formation, since that, for the aforementioned author, culture is a corollary of training.

The opposition to this process requires, according to ^{Adorno (2010}), gaps in socialization and protection against the attractions of the outside world. For this to happen, the family and school need to talk about the body imagery promoted by society - which presupposes an exercise in self-criticism and openness.

The body is not just a territory in which body techniques are expressed. It is a territory of tension, whose cultural practices do not separate from social, political and ideological conditions, that is, from the objective conditions related to the division of labor, which promotes a cold and calculating relationship with corporeality, promoting the split between the body and mind, between matter and consciousness.

The exploration of the heteronomy of consciousness, which results in its dominant form and the omnipresence of the alienated spirit, according to ^{Adorno (2010}), conforms cultural products to real life, converting them into semi-culture and, consequently, into semi-formation , since that, for the aforementioned author, culture is a corollary of formation.

The counterpoint to this process requires, according to ^{Adorno (2010}), gaps in socialization and protection against the attractions of the outside world. For this to happen, the family and school need to talk about the body imagery promoted by society - which presupposes an exercise in self-criticism and openness.

The school space, through curricular activities (on transversal themes) and interdisciplinarity, can provide opportunities for debate about body identity and the pressure that society exerts on it.

A school committed to social transformation cannot condone any type of oppression, even more so when it appropriates the most intimate spheres of individuals, promoting a paranoid relationship with life, which is not exclusive to teenagers, as their family circle directly affects body imagery. Therefore, the Pedagogical Political Project, in line with democratic management, needs to provide extracurricular activities that put this issue on the agenda, in order to promote self-awareness, which is essential for the creation of strengthened identities.

Final considerations

Sacrifice, renunciation and deception are intrinsic to the civilizing process and are part of the relationship it establishes with the body. These characteristics, within the scope of bourgeois society, guide an identity process, whose social pressure tends to make adaptation an imperative force, encouraging individuals to annul their particularities and identify with the aggressor, represented by the reifying social tendency. Under these conditions, the social possibilities of individuation are reduced and give way to sadomasochistic behaviors, in which everything goes to achieve the desired standard of beauty. Thus, indifference towards pain in general, both that which refers to oneself and that which refers to the pain of others, according to ^{Adorno (1995}), contributes to the individual taking revenge for the suffering that they had to hide and repress.

The constituent coldness of social relations and the weakening of self-determination constitute the same side of the amorphous personality and apt for generality, characteristics that instigated Adorno to think about an education that refuses to reward pain and the ability to bear it. For the author, one should not repress fear, but allow it to surface, assuming the proportion that reality imposes - which will allow the disappearance of “[...] the deleterious effects of unconscious and repressed fear” (Adorno, 1995, p. 129).

Lack of repression of fear, in the context of the individual's relationship with their own body, presupposes the confrontation and non-acceptance of the hegemonic body image, through the immanent criticism of discourses about the body, whose false promises of perfection, distance individuals from their first and organic body, which has a welcoming characteristic and love for one's own body, which allows it to be protected from sacrifices in the name of beauty and perfection.

The assumption of bodily constitution by each individual presupposes the strengthening of the formation of the self. This training, in Adornian terms, refers to education for critical self-reflection, characterized by a double movement, in which the more the individual reflects on himself, the more he is able to reflect on the other, self-protecting himself from the possibility of making him a target. of your frustrations and your unhappiness.

When talking about self-consciousness for Hegel, ^{Torres (2003}) realized that, for the aforementioned philosopher, it presupposes a doubled movement, in which consciousness needs to lose itself to find itself in another consciousness. Thus, self-recognition of consciousness requires mutual recognition.

^{Adorno (1995}) assumes that he is an old Hegelian, therefore his understanding of critical self-reflection and self-awareness is part of a double movement, a movement of transcendence and tension between thought and reality, for which it is possible to find an opening for diversity and towards a more plural and organic way of relating to life and the body.