The Statistical Body

Abstract

If we live in a visual culture where society is distinguished by the spectacle, we also live in the society of the statistic.’ Images of the body are circulated endlessly in postmodern culture. Figures of the body are also continuously deployed in the discourse of statistics as a way of understanding our lives and comparing ourselves to others. Statistics are the very atmosphere we breathe, the strange weather in which we live, the continuous emission of postmodern media life. Body statistics are transmitted at every moment of the day and night — on the Internet, in the newspaper and magazines, and on TV and the radio. Statistics tell us how many African-Americans hold management positions in the financial district in New York; how many Asians make up the student body at the University of California; how many people over 65 are employed full-time. Statistics such as these are based on what I call ‘difference demographics’. Statistics also stream from the worlds of sports and beauty. We learn about baseball batting averages and yards rushed in football; about how many men and women are having cosmetic surgery; about the reduction in the appearance of face wrinkles if a certain cream is used (see Coupland, this volume).

Once you have had cancer, the chance of having it again is even greater than before.

Jane Lazarre, Wet Earth and Dreams (121)

Probability and statistics crowd in upon us … There are more explicit statements of probabilities presented on American prime time television than explicit acts of violence … Our public fears are endlessly debated in terms of probabilities: chances of meltdowns, cancers, muggings, earthquakes, nuclear winters, AIDS, global greenhouses, what next? There is nothing to fear (it may seem) but the probabilities themselves.

Ian Hacking, The Taming of Chance (4–5)