In this article, I discuss the paradoxes of the body's civilising processes in dialogue with Norbert Elias's sociological theory. As a premise, I contend that modernity's civilising rationality has taken the body, the senses, and emotions in such a fragmented manner that we sometimes lose sight of the dimension that body and person are indivisible. I will analyse the social consequences of the body and person dual concept. In presenting this discussion, the text is divided into three sections. The first, "Education and civilised bodies", analyses the historical movement to standardise behaviours; the second, "Education and inferior bodies", discusses the problem of how to civilise differences; the third, "Education and decivilised rebel bodies", analyses the impact of social movements and the emergence of collective corporality and the body's decivilisation process. The tension amid civilised bodies, the body and person dual concept, and the process of decivilised bodies is so strong that we are now seeing the resurgence of conservative political groups in several countries, including Brazil. This movement has been guided by reactionary demands against social achievements, and is focused directly on the corporality of populations, such as advocacy for the exclusion of immigrants from different ethnic backgrounds and colours; changes in labour rights; and the exacerbation of prejudice against the landless, the homeless, black people, women, and at-risk youths.