Cultural narcissism and the symbolic meaning of yoga
The culture of narcissism
Three questions are crucial to understand this process of diffusion and build up of critical mass. First we need to know why female celebrities took up yoga in the first instance? Secondly why do people – in this case mainly women – copy their idols? Thirdly how come that the combination of celebrity driven yoga, mass media and fitness culture gave yoga the critical mass required to reach popular culture? To answer this I suggest we investigate the process of cultural narcissism. This was a notion launched by C. Lasch in The Culture of Narcissism in 1979 and further elaborated in 1984 in The Minimal Self The notion culture of narcissism’ immediately had a huge impact in wide cultural and intellectual circles. The theory of cultural narcissism can explain many aspects of the emergence of discourses like fitness and celebrity, which in their turn explain the spread of the yoga discourse into mass culture.
Then there may be pain, numbness, paresthesias, and Bound Angle Pose Yoga weakness in one or both upper limbs in dramatic cases, weakness to the point of near Bound Angle Pose Yoga paralysis. Since the neck is such a compact and dynamic region, even swallowing can be impaired. As if this were not enough, the shoulders and arms are held up by connections with the head and neck, placing the full weight of anything lifted by the arms on the cervical vertebrae. And though all this weight bearing might tend to make the muscles taut and solid, such tightness can compromise the nerves of the brachial plexus. In addition to pinching nerves, the main effect of arthritis in the neck is limited range of motion. This is particularly obvious with rotation, a motion that is so vital to everyday activities. In what follows we not only address cervical range of motion directly but also offer some poses that integrate thoracic and cervical motion, coordinate their movements to maximize twist, and divide up the strain of shearing forces. Yoga can do little to reduce swelling in the neuroforamina.
