NATURISM
NATURISM. - It is a general orientation of the human spirit characterized by the constant concern to follow nature, positively excluding or merely ignoring any consideration of all that is transcendent. Naturism is a mentality, a *forma mentis*, which pervades every field of man’s cognitive or practical activity: one may therefore speak of naturism in art (realism), in religious and philosophical thought (naturalism), in economics (physiotherapy), in legal theory (natural law), in ethical life (moral naturalism), and even in ascetical life (Pelagianism, Americanism).
At present, the term *naturism* is commonly used to denote a social movement with a medico-hygienic background, arising in reaction to the artificiality of a society that is too mechanical and urbanized, while the term *naturalism* is reserved for other cultural and practical movements.
The contemporary naturist current aspires to achieve a simpler way of life, based on the findings of modern biology. Linking itself to the Hippocratic doctrine of the “healing power of nature” and to the synthetic mentality introduced by the physician of Cos in the treatment of disease, naturalist physicians combat excessive food intake in favor of a largely vegetarian diet, and oppose unhygienic fashion in favor of healthy, non-deforming, and moderate clothing. Their aim is not so much to cure diseases as to prevent their onset by removing, through simple remedies and suitable diets, the organism’s dystonias that would generate morbid phenomena. The most representative figures of this movement are the Rev. Sebastian Kneipp, Birker-Brenner, and Dr. Paul Carton. Recently (1931), the Italian Naturist Union (U.N.I.) was founded in Milan, with its own journal: *L’idea naturista* (since 1931).
It should be noted that the ideal of naturists is not the animal life governed by pure instinct, but the harmonious development of the human person, no less spiritual than corporeal, in accordance with the completeness of human nature. This stands in direct opposition to nudism, which, despite certain affinities with naturism, strives to merge with it in order to justify, under the guise of some valid naturist insights, a tendency foreign to true human nature: the tendency toward animalization.
NUDISM
NUDISM. - Nudism, in fact, represents a shortsighted and one-sided view of naturism, against which naturalist physicians—first among them the leader of French naturism, P. Carton—have raised their voices. Nudism is a system of doctrines and practices aimed at promoting nudity as the most suitable means to improve humanity physically and morally. It claims to rest on theoretical foundations and indeed manifests a mentality formed in the school of Rousseau, positivism, materialism, Nietzsche, and Freud, which draws the ultimate consequences and, in its results, aligns with the postulates of the erotic fever of modern society. While nudist phenomena have appeared at various times in history—from the Adamites of the early Christian era to the sects of the fourteenth century, and the experiments of Villars (1925)—what is symptomatic is the great diffusion it has enjoyed since 1930, first in Germany (where it experienced a revival even after World War II), then in France, and subsequently in the Anglo-Saxon countries, with the formation of groups dedicated to nudist propaganda and practice, such as the Berlin groups *Pelagianer-Bund* and *Lichtfreude*, and the groups along the Seine led by the Durville brothers.
The cornerstones of the nude-naturist conception are the materialistic view of man, according to which no norm should hinder the realization of instinctive tendencies, so that even in the sexual realm, modesty would be an unreasonable taboo of remote and superstitious ages. It is further argued that nudity is immoral due to the morbid curiosity between the sexes, a curiosity allegedly provoked by clothing and which would be removed by its abolition. The utility of nudity is justified by the organism’s need to benefit from heliotherapy. The contradictory nature of nudist moralism is evident, for clothing itself serves to mitigate impressions that, if violent, would lead to the transgression of moral law. It is easily demonstrated that modesty fulfills a primary biological, social, and individual function, and that while heliotherapy undoubtedly benefits the organism, total nakedness is neither necessary nor advisable for this purpose.
Nudism must be regarded as an aberration stemming from a false conception of life and a symptom of cultural decline. The psychologist Howard C. Warren, in concluding a report on nudism, expresses doubt that nudism is a form of “visual rubbing.” Certainly, the tendency toward nudity is both an effect and, from another perspective, a cause of the eroticism of modern society.