Search

To purchase or authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8608.2007.00501.x Byline: Ruud Kaulingfreks (*), Rene ten Bos ([dagger]) Abstract: This paper takes issue with what seem to be standard practices of at least some organizations that use models in their ad campaigns. These organizations know that many of their models have had drug problems but refuse either to tolerate this or to help them. Some organizations have, allegedly in the name of a responsibility for the health of their customers, rather opted for a firm condemnation of the practices in which models such as Kate Moss apparently engage. This raises questions about hypocrisy. The paper uses Levinas's concept of the face critically to describe what might be going on in the conflict between Moss and some of the companies she worked for. Moss is arguably understood by these companies as a role model who should not engage with drugs or street life. Against these more or less patronizing tendencies, the paper claims that it is not so much the face but processes of defacement that should trouble us from a moral perspective. The face, it is maintained, is not only ethical but also has a materiality. In opposition to what is maintained by at least some scholars of Levinas, art, literature and history have alerted us over and over again that the face is anything but indelible. Some examples from art show us the versatility and vulnerability of the face. The gossip and hype about what came to be known as the Kate Moss affair stands, it is argued, in a long misogynic tradition of defacement. Author Affiliation: (*)Lecturer in Organizational Development, University for Humanistics, Rotterdam, The Netherlands ([dagger])Professor of Philosophy & Organizational Theory, Nijmegen School of Management, Radboud University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands

This article discusses the ideas presented by Peter Sloterdijk in his books "Sphären I" and Sphären II." It is noted that Sloterdijk's work about "Sphären" (spheres) can best be seen as an extended discussion about the possibilities of human togetherness. Almost 1700 pages are devoted to a variety of subjects that are all related to the question of whether there have been and still are conditions that encourage solidarity between people. Basing his argument on the Platonic idea that ideal forms of togetherness are related to a life in a perfect, geometrical sphere, Sloterdijk contends that human life, for all its historical or anthropological heterogeneity, has nearly always been lived within "spheres."