Abstract
The social context of the human body is discussed as a generalized field of energy and action in which the body reflects and transmits itself as a living part of its wider field of social and cultural action. A definitive feature of the generalized social body is action at a distance. All human action finds its source in the making present and immediate of that which is distant and faraway. Distance is discussed as an immanent absence which keeps human action forever on the move. Distance moves the generalized social body as a field of continuous dispersal and dissemination. The human body is thus viewed as an incomplete part which is forever trying to complete itself in a generalized field that continually recedes from human appropriation. The generalized social body also means that the conventional boundaries between the individual and its context dissolve in a fluctuating field of continuous movement. The ancient meaning of technology is discussed as a means by which the human body translates the mute and anonymous (i.e. distant and remote) matter of the world into meaningful human forms and objects. Technology in this sense is disclosive rather than simply instrumental: it reveals the mute and mutable matter of the world as a distant source of infinite potential. Significantly, the human agent is an ongoing product of this process.