The “body” dimension of balance encompasses the balance of “culturalized naturalness” as an ideal type. It is a dimension concerning how humans relate to culture and nature. This dimension incorporates the genetic and biological foundations of human beings, which sociologists have generally overlooked. “Critical cyborg” here refers to a growing awareness of how culture and nature must be utilized in the pursuit and search for the good life. Humans thrive best when they have a strong connection to nature and are influenced by sleep, food, exercise, and physical contact with other organisms. Culture is used to harness human bodily potential by creating a culture that emphasizes the importance of, for example, spending time in nature or ensuring that urban planning takes this into account. It involves striking a balance so as not to reduce humans to mere biological entities, a view that leads to seeing humans as unfoundedly rigid and overlooks the brain’s plasticity.
Culturalized naturalness: cultural technologies and dispositions that support human genetics and brain plasticity, and are adapted to the functional diversity of bodies. The body is both a means and an end, which requires a balanced approach to substances that have negative physiological effects. For example, alcohol generally has a negative impact on the body, but if it serves as a means to foster a high degree of camaraderie in a pub, it can be something that does more good than harm. Alcohol is linked to other dimensions of balance, such as embedded autonomy, which it can support. However, alcohol can also be viewed, like other drugs, as “opium for the masses” in an alienated contemporary society. If alcohol becomes a means of depoliticizing and privatizing culture and discourse, for example, through conversations about the latest developments in the world of sports, it reinforces an imbalance in the dimension of citizenship. Exactly how much genetics shapes and influences this is part of an ongoing inquiry, as research has not yet been able to determine how it might work, given that twin studies have several methodological shortcomings. The body is a sub, balance dimension of action, with “sobjectification” as the ideal type of balance in that dimension, a balancing act between subjectification and objectification. The body as an end in itself is an imbalance, but forgetting the body is also an imbalance, or the notion that the body can never be a means beyond itself.
Imbalances
Below are various imbalances in this dimension.
Biologization (Rose, 2006) is the overemphasis on biology and genetic factors, which can become a self, fulfilling prophecy. Biologization is also a powerful discourse and practice that is particularly evident in the debate on gender differences. Below are some examples of biologization: gender biologization, appearance biologization in the form of lookism, medicalization, and psychiatrization.
Another imbalance is cultural disengagement, which can sometimes go too far in that we fail to recognize the limits of our genes (Harden, 2021). Examples include capitalocratic and oligarchic meritocratic ideas that overvalue capitalist and elitist merits such as symbolic dexterity (Jackall, 2010) in the governance of organizations and undervalue care, balance between forms of governance and craftsmanship (Berglund, 2026), stress, intensive parenting, too little play, failing to reach one’s biological/genetic potential, physically atrophied bodies with various weaknesses due to, for example, poor diet and insufficient physical activity, lack of sleep, healthism, and wellness syndrome (Cederström & Spicer, 2017).
Pathologized: Pathologization means that a behavior, an experience, or a group of people is defined and treated as if it were a disease or a deviation from the norm. In sociology, the term is used to critique how societies often create norms that define what is considered healthy or normal, and how deviations from these norms can lead to stigmatization. One example is how mental illness was previously viewed as a personal weakness or moral failing rather than a reaction to social or structural factors.
Medicalized: Medicalization refers to the process by which social problems, human experiences, or deviant behaviors come to be understood and treated as medical conditions, often with a focus on diagnoses and treatments (Conrad, 2007).
Embodied inequality/oppression: Research shows that brains are shaped by upbringing and even by stress during pregnancy. Culture and society leave their mark on people’s brains even before they are born. To then be judged like everyone else is a form of cultural disconnection that is oppressive. The same society first puts the person at a disadvantage and then judges them in the same way throughout their life in the distribution of resources, status, and autonomy.
Excessive focus on the body. Body focus: an imbalance in which the body becomes the excessive focus. This can manifest primarily as a focus on appearance.
Arrogance in the face of complexity: The idea and practice of assuming that one’s brain is not playing tricks on us. This disconnection from our biology is easy to fall into because our brain often succeeds in creating some form of perceived understanding and pattern recognition (Taleb, 2007). This sense of understanding is an illusion we easily fall into, because the brain constantly seeks to predict the future and makes do with what it has so far (Freidman, 2020). We construct this idea of the brain’s perfection daily when we place complete trust in our own abilities, when we harshly criticize others’ lack of competence while forgetting our own.
Genetic and Chemical Disconnection: Cultural disconnection also refers to how different social contexts create pressure or encourage the use of neurotransmitters in an unbalanced way. For example, a significant portion of a person’s dopamine is often used for readily accessible pleasure, which makes it harder to derive pleasure from engaging in less pleasurable but important activities throughout the day.
Psychiatrized. Psychotherapy and psychiatry are the umbrella terms for the practices that modern society has established to treat psychological problems and illnesses. Several sociologists and psychologists have demonstrated that the biomedical perspective on which psychiatry is based does not take psychological and social factors sufficiently into account. What is referred to as the biopsychosocial model often becomes, in practice, especially in the United States, the bio, bio, bio model (Sharfstein, 2005). Psychiatry has the effect of biologizing people, in that they come to view themselves too much as biological beings, thereby obscuring the ambiguity of how biology is intertwined with culture. Biological explanations are given too much explanatory power. This is evident in how the theory of chemical imbalance has long been the dominant explanation for how depression works, even though it lacks a scientific basis. Psychiatry is a factor in society that has constructed what Nicolas Rose calls the “chemical self”, where one’s self, image is that of a chemical being (Rose, 2006). This is a form of biologization because it fails to take into account the extent to which the suffering associated with depression, for example, is often caused by social factors. Not all depression is likely caused by society, but its prevalence and severity certainly are. Psychiatrization can also be seen as a form of cultural disconnection, since psychotropic drugs, as an artifact, are used to prop up a society that is generally culturally disconnected from what people need to avoid becoming depressed, for example, due to spending too little time in nature, being too lonely, over, planning, or engaging in too little physical activity, etc. The overuse of psychotropic drugs is thus both a misbiologization and a cultural disconnection. Psychiatric jargon is both depoliticizing and amoralizing. This causes psychiatry to separate people from a desire for autonomy, which is often political, and it prevents us from viewing the world through a moral lens. The language used is psychiatric rather than moral and linked to citizenship. Psychiatric jargon makes it more difficult to view personal problems as part of societal problems or injustices (Cohen, 2016).
Nature Deficit. Research on nature’s impact on human well, being has been conducted outside the field of sociology. Sociology has generally neglected the issue of nature and focused on other topics. Nevertheless, research has shown that nature is important to humans. Cultural disconnection is evident in urbanization, which leads to a nature deficit. Nature has revitalizing effects (Ryan, Weinstein, Berstein, Brown, Mistretta, & Gagné, 2010). The nature deficit is evident in the fact that people living closer to green spaces are prescribed fewer antidepressants and experience better sleep (Stenfors et al., 2024). Another study provides some support for the idea that the experience of biodiversity and naturalness has a significant impact on perceived revitalization (Marselle, Irvine, Lorenzo, Arribas, & Warber, 2016). The appearance of the natural environment also influences the likelihood of experiencing wonder, which is defined as powerful and transformative experiences in which we are struck by amazement and wonder (Shiota, Keltner, & Mossman, 2007). Awe has a very positive impact that can lead to increased curiosity, greater openness, and an easier ability to connect with other people (Shiota, Keltner, & Mossman, 2007). Thus, hiking in the mountains and in a park have different effects, but both generally have positive impacts based on the above discussion. A common relationship with nature is that people enjoy it but spend too little time in it, which is seen as a loss (Thurfjell, 2020). The benefits people derive from being in nature indicate that there is a widespread “nature deficit” among urban dwellers. Due to the demands of work, the best hours of the day, especially during the dark winter months, are spent indoors; some people even work without access to windows.