While slouching may not be sinful, it can create an atmosphere of disregard, carelessness, and sloth. It favors bad habits that may facilitate vice. Hence, people can combat these horrible consequences by living up to standards of propriety that favor effort and consideration in a well-ordered society.

One great tragedy of radical individualism was the loss of all the social skills and practices that help make living together in society more agreeable, uplifting and, virtuous.

The Revolution of the Sixties was not just a complete change of sexual mores. It also overturned all the social manners and practices that kept everything upright and proper. Things like posture were swept away as superficial and burdensome.

If the primary purpose of life is to “do your own thing,” what difference does it make in how you appear before others? If the supreme rule is “if it feels good, do it,” what is wrong with slouching if it feels better and more “natural” than standing erect? If there is no practical benefit from standing up straight, let everyone decide what will be done.

Individualism lets each one invent an autonomous narrative: “It’s none of your business if others stand straight or slouch.”

It Does Make a Difference

Such logic rules the postmodern world. However, like so many other myths that have dominated the culture since the sixties, the one that posture does not matter is falling apart.

Science is proving that how one stands does make a difference. People are not autonomous islands. How one behaves when with others can have both personal and social consequences.

Defining Posture

Posture can be defined as the proper positioning and carriage of the limbs and the body as a whole. When standing, posture counteracts the pull of gravity, which constantly pulls the body downward and out of balance.

An erect and balanced bearing facilitates the efficiency and ease of bodily movement. It creates a center of gravity that relieves stress and strain and maintains balance. Because it must work against gravitational forces, good posture also takes a lot of effort.

For this reason, parents and educators took care to instill good posture habits in children. They would constantly tell them to stand or sit up straight as a proper way to present themselves and feel better.

Good Posture from an Individualist Outlook

Numerous studies support the benefits of good posture. Ironically, some arguments are precisely from an individualist perspective of self-interest.

Thus, if the sole criterion for doing things is the pursuit of happiness, the studies say that bad posture will not deliver this happiness. It is bad for a person’s physical and emotional health.

This egoistic outlook focuses only on self, but it is compelling. It is a good starting point from which more social and moral reasons can be broached later.

The Physical Benefits of Good Posture

After generations of slouching, more health officials are saying that posture is not a look-good, feel-good thing. However, it does offer numerous health benefits. For example, a recent one-page article in The Wall Street Journal reports that those with good posture will have better circulation, respiration, digestion, and bladder functions.

Physical therapists note that maintaining a healthy posture places the body in a state of equilibrium that is proper to its nature. There is nothing unnatural about good posture. However, it can feel “unnatural” because it requires effort and constant attention. That effort, like all worthwhile things, allows the body to reach its full potential by working with it, not against it, to achieve the best possible positions for movement.

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