8.5.20 Kristeva and the abject 2
(Sjoholm p106-108)
‘Abjection is not an obsession with filth, but the compulsive search for the in-between, not respecting borders, positions and rules. It may become enjoyment when it appears as the object of the other, i.e. as subjection to a strong symbolic law such as God, the country, etc. In this form it may revere the other and appear repulsive to itself and dejected. The abject of such enjoyment will remain in a fascinated disgust that is both introjected and projected, not capable of separating between self and other.
On a subjective level, the corporeal rejection marks a differentiation between inner and outer world, the body of the self creating its contours. The abject is the symbolic treatment of rejection, at the limit between inner and outer, a remainder that has to be cut off in order for the self to be kept 'pure', the persecutory other. Bodily fluids mark a separation between inner world and outside world; the body acquires a fragile contour through disgust. Modern pathologies such as racism and xenophobia, for instance, are in one way or another functions of abjection. Racism is a privileged example in Kristeva, in that it constitutes perversion of political subjectivity in its denial of necessary 'castration' demanded by the social contract: racism projects the foreign rather than accept it as a necessary component of the political body of the state. Racism is also a liminal area of society demanding a political analysis that takes the need for a radical non-phallic and anti-patriarchal stance towards issues of violence and rejection. In its most consistent form, patriarchy is a closely knit system with converging values in religion, politics and the social sphere.
In Kristeva's cultural history, there is a direct relation between the fragmentation of these values, and patriarchy's disintegration into perverted forms such as fascism, racism and religious orthodoxy. The pathologies linked to it are those of psychotic forms of narcissism and abjection. Incapable of containing the maternal, patriarchy institutes its own grains of disintegration. In Powers of Horror, the immediate relation between the abjected maternal body and paternal fragility is highlighted. The representations of the unconscious are conditioned by history and ideology, reinforcing certain so called 'archaic' fantasies of evil and dark feminine forces.
The language of abjection is less caused by an inherited fear of these forces than imposed by a culture of violence. But more importantly, the abject is a reminder of life itself: the fluids and smelly products that are deflected by the body. An instinctual process of rejection allows for the limits of the body to constitute itself against the threat of its own rejects. The abject is the symbolic treatment of such a rejection, a remainder that the self may attempt to cut off in order to be kept 'pure' from an alterity that is already part of itself, perceived of as a persecutory other. Such an other is, then, not the other with whom I identify but an other who 'precedes and possesses me, and through such possession causes me to be'.30 There are two possible causes behind the abject. On the one hand there is a relation to an other (a maternal relation) that is too strict and restrained, while on the other hand to an other that is too weak. Abjection, then, appears as an attempt not to kill the other but rather to gain life, as an attempt to create an object out of a pit where there is none. The state of abjection sticks with the same repetitive enjoyment thrust under the superego as perversion: "'subject" and "object" push each other away, confront each other, collapse and start again - inseparable, contaminated, condemned, at the boundary of what is thinkable: abject'.31 At the same time, however, the experience of abjection is present in all signification: 'Language learning takes place as an attempt to appropriate an oral "object" that slips away and whose hallucination, necessarily deformed, threatens us from the outside.'
The formation of the object, in Freud's theory, is correlative to the drives. The object is a retroactive construction and response to the narcissistic drive of the subject. The subject of the drives has a capacity of eroticising language, a capacity that is indifferent to symbolic issues of sexual difference. Dominated by the abject, identification of such subjects becomes fleeting and elusive. They become empty, fortified castles, whose desires are shallow and determined by social norms rather than the unconscious object formation of the Oedipal structure. The abjected body is estranged and numb not just in relation to object choice and sexuality, but also language itself. The process of signification is being invested with drives, of imprints of visual impressions as well as the soundmaking process itself. The object presented and re-presented in language is always shot through by the drives, and makes its appearance in conjunction with affects, a result both of the drives and the intellectual operations accompanying the process of symbolisation.
When the object collapses, the process that has been condensing word, image and sound is undone. The fragile self is turned inside out and spat out as the content of which it would try to purify itself from: waste products of the body such as urine, blood, sperm and excrement become the privileged images of phenomena that are not quite representations or symbols, but existing only in the realm of fantasy, attacking the limits of the self as well as the contour of the other. The abject is the eroticised content of a maternal inside, a fantasy shielding the subject from the castration and loss it has to suffer. It is also the experience of a world beyond that loss, putting in question not just the ego but also the object of any affective experience. (p106 -108)
‘The abject is…the compulsive search for the in-between, not respecting borders, positions and rules.
Sjoholm, C. (2005) Kristeva and the political Available at: file:///C:/Users/TEMP/Downloads/1005927.pdf (Accessed 5 May 2020)
‘Abjection is not an obsession with filth, but the compulsive search for the in-between, not respecting borders, positions and rules. It may become enjoyment when it appears as the object of the other, i.e. as subjection to a strong symbolic law such as God, the country, etc. In this form it may revere the other and appear repulsive to itself and dejected. The abject of such enjoyment will remain in a fascinated disgust that is both introjected and projected, not capable of separating between self and other.
On a subjective level, the corporeal rejection marks a differentiation between inner and outer world, the body of the self creating its contours. The abject is the symbolic treatment of rejection, at the limit between inner and outer, a remainder that has to be cut off in order for the self to be kept 'pure', the persecutory other. Bodily fluids mark a separation between inner world and outside world; the body acquires a fragile contour through disgust. Modern pathologies such as racism and xenophobia, for instance, are in one way or another functions of abjection. Racism is a privileged example in Kristeva, in that it constitutes perversion of political subjectivity in its denial of necessary 'castration' demanded by the social contract: racism projects the foreign rather than accept it as a necessary component of the political body of the state. Racism is also a liminal area of society demanding a political analysis that takes the need for a radical non-phallic and anti-patriarchal stance towards issues of violence and rejection. In its most consistent form, patriarchy is a closely knit system with converging values in religion, politics and the social sphere.
In Kristeva's cultural history, there is a direct relation between the fragmentation of these values, and patriarchy's disintegration into perverted forms such as fascism, racism and religious orthodoxy. The pathologies linked to it are those of psychotic forms of narcissism and abjection. Incapable of containing the maternal, patriarchy institutes its own grains of disintegration. In Powers of Horror, the immediate relation between the abjected maternal body and paternal fragility is highlighted. The representations of the unconscious are conditioned by history and ideology, reinforcing certain so called 'archaic' fantasies of evil and dark feminine forces.
The language of abjection is less caused by an inherited fear of these forces than imposed by a culture of violence. But more importantly, the abject is a reminder of life itself: the fluids and smelly products that are deflected by the body. An instinctual process of rejection allows for the limits of the body to constitute itself against the threat of its own rejects. The abject is the symbolic treatment of such a rejection, a remainder that the self may attempt to cut off in order to be kept 'pure' from an alterity that is already part of itself, perceived of as a persecutory other. Such an other is, then, not the other with whom I identify but an other who 'precedes and possesses me, and through such possession causes me to be'.30 There are two possible causes behind the abject. On the one hand there is a relation to an other (a maternal relation) that is too strict and restrained, while on the other hand to an other that is too weak. Abjection, then, appears as an attempt not to kill the other but rather to gain life, as an attempt to create an object out of a pit where there is none. The state of abjection sticks with the same repetitive enjoyment thrust under the superego as perversion: "'subject" and "object" push each other away, confront each other, collapse and start again - inseparable, contaminated, condemned, at the boundary of what is thinkable: abject'.31 At the same time, however, the experience of abjection is present in all signification: 'Language learning takes place as an attempt to appropriate an oral "object" that slips away and whose hallucination, necessarily deformed, threatens us from the outside.'
The formation of the object, in Freud's theory, is correlative to the drives. The object is a retroactive construction and response to the narcissistic drive of the subject. The subject of the drives has a capacity of eroticising language, a capacity that is indifferent to symbolic issues of sexual difference. Dominated by the abject, identification of such subjects becomes fleeting and elusive. They become empty, fortified castles, whose desires are shallow and determined by social norms rather than the unconscious object formation of the Oedipal structure. The abjected body is estranged and numb not just in relation to object choice and sexuality, but also language itself. The process of signification is being invested with drives, of imprints of visual impressions as well as the soundmaking process itself. The object presented and re-presented in language is always shot through by the drives, and makes its appearance in conjunction with affects, a result both of the drives and the intellectual operations accompanying the process of symbolisation.
When the object collapses, the process that has been condensing word, image and sound is undone. The fragile self is turned inside out and spat out as the content of which it would try to purify itself from: waste products of the body such as urine, blood, sperm and excrement become the privileged images of phenomena that are not quite representations or symbols, but existing only in the realm of fantasy, attacking the limits of the self as well as the contour of the other. The abject is the eroticised content of a maternal inside, a fantasy shielding the subject from the castration and loss it has to suffer. It is also the experience of a world beyond that loss, putting in question not just the ego but also the object of any affective experience. (p106 -108)
‘The abject is…the compulsive search for the in-between, not respecting borders, positions and rules.
Sjoholm, C. (2005) Kristeva and the political Available at: file:///C:/Users/TEMP/Downloads/1005927.pdf (Accessed 5 May 2020)