For the question posed, ‘How do bodies function in your environment?’ I can think of several different ways to answer. In terms of literal, human bodies, I find they work much like machines in my environment. This is especially true in my case of being at a large university. Many bodies have to be working, and playing their part in the system in order for it to work. Some bodies clean the halls of the dorm I live in, some bodies teach the classes that I attend. Some of the bodies aren’t directly related to me at all; but for how they function in my environment, they serve as noise and visual interest as they bustle along Speedway, or hassle me with fliers in West Mall. During my daily activities, I do not see these bodies as individuals, although I am aware that each body I see in on the streets or in my classes houses a brain, and in that brain a mind, and, in my opinion, in that mind a soul. This makes them all individuals, serving their own goals just like me, and I am a part of their environment, too. But I have little time to consider every individual, because, although I know it, the desires and fears they have, the goals, memories, all things that make up someone’s soul, are hidden to me. And all I see are bodies.

When I come to address the arguments these bodies are making, how they present themselves; it conveys a message to me, it is only a limited window into their identity. I tend to see more obvious their functions in relations to me than the arguments they make, lest their arguments give clues to their function in relation to myself or my environment. For example, if I see a rather shady looking character, meaning, the argument of his or her body is conveying hostility, I would tend to stay away from them because their function in my environment could be to be a threat to me. The argument is definitely a factor in determining the function of the body, but is limited in how is can express their individual nature with such limited interaction.

Another examples of bodies acting in terms of function rather than arguments expressing personal identities is the collective of the student body. One can tell by the term alone that one is grouping hundreds, thousands of unique interests and arguments into a collective by function. To be a student is the general function they have in their environment, as far as the university is concerned. To group students this fashion is forgetting about their unique bodies in some way, as they are being generalized by function. While the physical body is being largely ignored in a way, it’s not entirely negative, it’s merely a consequence of large institutions. One place where bodies remain important, however, is in the world of visual mass media; movies, television, and in many cases, on the internet. The body is very important in this media because the body itself is serving as the entertainment for the masses. Thus, the body simply cannot be ignored and is very important if so many eyes are on it, and it’s function in the environment is to provide entertainment.