SEXUAL ABERRATIONS
i'm curious about the "overvaluation" of the sexual object (16) in this essay. He doesn't go very far into it, but the overvaluation of the whole body -- an "extension" of the overvaluation of the genitals" -- obscures even the subject's intellectual capacities, making the subject "submit to the [sexual object's] judgements with credulity": "thus the credulity of love becomes an important, if not the most fundamental, source of authority."
There's a lot of claims being made here: the "overvaluation" of the object's whole body sounds like people's tendency to love "even their beloved's flaws"; Freud implies that a subject's intellectual capacities or capacities for rational judgement are related inversely to "the credulity of love" or the libido; there's also the notion that love can become a fundamental source of authority. This question of authority in its relation to overvaluation needs further investigation, I think. That idea has a lot of implications.
INFANTILE SEXUALITY
many of us have been noting the (quite alarming) passage on the infant's treatment of his own feces, which first seem an extension of himself and represent a sort of "gift" (as they entail the same regulatory structures as the withholding/giving of any gift) and later take on the meaning of "baby" (babies being "born through the bowels"). Apart from the symbolic shift in the account here of the significance of the baby's own feces -- it is first an extension of his body, then (or perhaps simultaneously) the "gift" if is own body, then the meaning of "baby" itself -- apparently Freud (in an essay written three years later) attached another meaning to the infant's feces: "The connections between the complexes of interest in money and of defaecation, which seem so dissimilar, appear to be the most extensive of all" (Freud, "Character and Anal Erotism"(1908), 172).
This fascinating essay extends the "gift" metaphor and presents an unconscious connection between feces and money: "In reality, wherever archaic modes of thought have predominated or persist—in the ancient civilizations, in myths, fairy tales and superstitions, in unconscious thinking, in dreams and in neuroses—money is brought into the most intimate relationship with dirt. We know that the gold which the devil gives his paramours turns into excrement after his departure, and the devil is certainly nothing else than the personification of the repressed unconscious instinctual life"; "It is possible that the contrast between the most precious substance known to men and the most worthless, which they reject as waste matter (‘refuse’), has led to this specific identification of gold with faeces";"Every doctor who has practised psycho-analysis knows that the most refractory and long-standing cases of what is described as habitual constipation in neurotics can be cured by that form of treatment. This is less surprising if we remember that that function has shown itself similarly amenable to hypnotic suggestion. But in psycho-analysis one only achieves this result if one deals with the patients’ money complex and induces them to bring it into consciousness with all its connections. It might be supposed that the neurosis is here only following an indication of common usage in speech, which calls a person who keeps too careful a hold on his money ‘dirty’ or ‘filthy’"
In a letter to Wilhelm Fleiss from around 1897 to 1902: "“I can scarcely detail for you all the things that resolve themselves into … excrement for me (a new Midas!). It fits in completely with the theory of internal stinking. Above all, money itself. I believe this proceeds via the word ‘dirty’ for ‘miserly’”.
From "History of an Infantile Neurosis"(1918):"It is equally agreed that one of the most important manifestations of the transformed erotism derived from this source is to be found in the treatment of money,1 for in the course of life this precious material attracts on to itself the psychical interest which was originally proper to faeces, the product of the anal zone. We are accustomed to trace back interest in money, in so far as it is of a libidinal and not of a rational character, to excretory pleasure, and we expect normal people to keep their relations to money entirely free from libidinal influences and regulate them according to the demands of reality"(71)
This presents new questions on the status of the gift in Three Essays. Keeping in mind the radical (albeit, as we've seen, questioned) difference between gift economies and money economies, I'm wondering what differences Freud would make of the two. Is he simply being imprecise in one of the essays? feces can't really be the gift and money: we've been learning that the shift from economy to the other is a disjunctive shift between two disparate, though related, forms of economy.
I'm wondering if Freud first saw feces as "gifts", then corrected himself three years later when realizing they have more in common with money. Another option would be that for the infant, his own feces are "gifts"; but the "gift" character of feces develops into a "money" character when the infant grows up; Freud's own examples in the essay of miserly and constipated neurotics are only images of adults.
Pablo
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Marguerite's Questions
1. Freud keeps bringing up the notion of love in relation to sexuality, and I am wondering how such an abstract emotion fits into the formation of sexual objects and fetishes.
2. How do we go from the taking of nourishment to the orgasm?What is the connection between eating and sex, and is there any validity to or conclusion to be drawn from the link between the two?
3. Does pleasure always give rise to a need for greater pleasure?How does this fit in to a discussion of commodification and object desire?
4 (Essay on Fetishism). Freud describes the fetish as standing in for something (the mother's imagined phallus) that a boy once believed in and doesn't wish to forego. How does this fit in to a discussion of nostalgia?
--Marguerite
2. How do we go from the taking of nourishment to the orgasm?What is the connection between eating and sex, and is there any validity to or conclusion to be drawn from the link between the two?
3. Does pleasure always give rise to a need for greater pleasure?How does this fit in to a discussion of commodification and object desire?
4 (Essay on Fetishism). Freud describes the fetish as standing in for something (the mother's imagined phallus) that a boy once believed in and doesn't wish to forego. How does this fit in to a discussion of nostalgia?
--Marguerite
Monday, November 10, 2008
Questions
Fetishism
How is the assignation of value in commodity culture potentially analogous to the object choice of the fetish?
Three Essays
I. Freud posits a definition of the normal beginning with an exploration of the abnormal: “The importance of these abnormalities lies in the unexpected fact that they facilitate our understanding of normal development” (7). What groups does this classification of “normal” exclude and what effect does this have on the applicability of Freud’s ideas?
II. “Whoever can solve this riddle [of infantile amnesia] would, I think, have explained hysterical amnesia as well” (41). Here, Freud posits an understanding of the abnormal as rooted in the normal, reversing the binary established in the first essay. How does this and other binaries (for example male/female, dirty/clean) function, and how are they variously destabilized and strengthened?
III. The section of the third essay entitled “The Finding of an Object” (88) suggests that human sexuality requires external physical supplement in order to achieve sexual satisfaction. How can this object, endowed with both personal and cultural significance, function like a commodity?
--Nicole
How is the assignation of value in commodity culture potentially analogous to the object choice of the fetish?
Three Essays
I. Freud posits a definition of the normal beginning with an exploration of the abnormal: “The importance of these abnormalities lies in the unexpected fact that they facilitate our understanding of normal development” (7). What groups does this classification of “normal” exclude and what effect does this have on the applicability of Freud’s ideas?
II. “Whoever can solve this riddle [of infantile amnesia] would, I think, have explained hysterical amnesia as well” (41). Here, Freud posits an understanding of the abnormal as rooted in the normal, reversing the binary established in the first essay. How does this and other binaries (for example male/female, dirty/clean) function, and how are they variously destabilized and strengthened?
III. The section of the third essay entitled “The Finding of an Object” (88) suggests that human sexuality requires external physical supplement in order to achieve sexual satisfaction. How can this object, endowed with both personal and cultural significance, function like a commodity?
--Nicole
Questions on Freud
Part I: The Sexual Aberrations
It seems to be that Freud has absolutely no idea how to account for or explain bisexuality. What is the object and aim of bisexuals? Freud's argument seems unable to account for this sort of attraction separate from genitals. His use of the word "object" seems to focus more on the sexual organs, which are parts of a body as opposed to the entirety of the human form.
Part II: Infantile Sexuality
Freud claims that infantile sexual manifestations have three characteristics: they are attached to some vital somatic function, they do not have a sexual object (auto-erotic), their aim is dominated by an erogenous zone. So is infantile sexuality the first instance of the individual objectifying parts of the self? Do humans develop first by understanding pieces of themselves and then the whole? I'm trying not to delve into Lacan.
Part III: The Transformations of Puberty
Does viewing the mother as the first sexual object, according to Freud, lead to greater cases of inversion in females? In general, I'm wary of theories that suggest that parents are responsible for exposing their children to sexual and non-sexual love. It doesn't follow that puberty itself is responsible for fueling the transformations necessary to turn libidinal energy from the self/the mother to another individual of the opposite sex. Also, the bit about women changing their leading erogenous zones after puberty is false.
"Splitting of the Ego in the Process of Defense"
If repression is the inevitable result of the ego splitting, how is this an effective defense mechanism employed by the mind? Seems to me that repression, more times than not, leads to worse consequences than acting on that desire.
--Nupur
It seems to be that Freud has absolutely no idea how to account for or explain bisexuality. What is the object and aim of bisexuals? Freud's argument seems unable to account for this sort of attraction separate from genitals. His use of the word "object" seems to focus more on the sexual organs, which are parts of a body as opposed to the entirety of the human form.
Part II: Infantile Sexuality
Freud claims that infantile sexual manifestations have three characteristics: they are attached to some vital somatic function, they do not have a sexual object (auto-erotic), their aim is dominated by an erogenous zone. So is infantile sexuality the first instance of the individual objectifying parts of the self? Do humans develop first by understanding pieces of themselves and then the whole? I'm trying not to delve into Lacan.
Part III: The Transformations of Puberty
Does viewing the mother as the first sexual object, according to Freud, lead to greater cases of inversion in females? In general, I'm wary of theories that suggest that parents are responsible for exposing their children to sexual and non-sexual love. It doesn't follow that puberty itself is responsible for fueling the transformations necessary to turn libidinal energy from the self/the mother to another individual of the opposite sex. Also, the bit about women changing their leading erogenous zones after puberty is false.
"Splitting of the Ego in the Process of Defense"
If repression is the inevitable result of the ego splitting, how is this an effective defense mechanism employed by the mind? Seems to me that repression, more times than not, leads to worse consequences than acting on that desire.
--Nupur
Questions
Freud Questions:
Essay 1:
In a footnote added in 1924 to the bit about sadomasochism, Freud notes that he decided to assign sadomasochism to "a peculiar position" among the "'perversions'". Could this peculiar position, at least for the sadistic aspect (which I know, he says is inseparable in many from the masochistic, but bear with me) come from the unique need of sadism for an object that can feel pain? In other words, is sadism the only "perversion" that can't be moved over into a fetish in any way, since it so entirely depends on the idea of a conscious victim? Are we skilled enough commodity fetishists that we've given objects a strong enough theory of mind to really enjoy hurting them, sexually?
(See: office space?)
Essay 2:
This is a fact-based question: In the section, "characteristics of erotogenic zones", Freud says, "A child who is indulging in sensual sucking searches about his body and chooses some part of it to suck - a part which is afterwards preferred by him from force of habit; if he happens to hit upon one of the predestined regions (such as the nipples or genitals) no doubt it retains the preference."
Do babies suck their own nipples/genitals, and if so, does that persist? It seems like those are zones usually reserves for the mucous membranes of others to suck, whereas we get our own fingers and toes. Mechanically, it just seems difficult, and Freud saying that seems to take any significance away from the hands/feet as sole (ugh, bad pun) self-suck recipients.
Essay 3:
Is an analogue of sexual tension the driving force behind capitalism? I think it works especially in the idea of startups hoping to get big, court investors, then sell out when their brand is strongest. Is an ostensible democracy, like ours, then like the feminine quality freud describes, being forced to change its masculine monarchic character through repression at the puberty of revolution while the markets get to keep on forging ahead. Sorry, a little stretched, just stick to the first part, maybe.
Handout, #2:
I really don't understand the a-ha moment that Freud seems to be chuckling at with the "Glanz auf der Naze" thing. The idea of the change in language re-interpreting the fetish seems to cast it as a kind of mantra the kid would mutter to himself for a while before thinking it was something sexy, and during that muttering phase, he moved to Germany, and things got all wacky.
By the same token, if I was a baby, growing up in France, and fetishized grapefruits - pamplemousse - then went to northern Maine during the start of a strange environmentalist initiative, would I suddenly lust after pampered moose? Is language, and therefore its puns, what governs our sexuality?
-Sam
Essay 1:
In a footnote added in 1924 to the bit about sadomasochism, Freud notes that he decided to assign sadomasochism to "a peculiar position" among the "'perversions'". Could this peculiar position, at least for the sadistic aspect (which I know, he says is inseparable in many from the masochistic, but bear with me) come from the unique need of sadism for an object that can feel pain? In other words, is sadism the only "perversion" that can't be moved over into a fetish in any way, since it so entirely depends on the idea of a conscious victim? Are we skilled enough commodity fetishists that we've given objects a strong enough theory of mind to really enjoy hurting them, sexually?
(See: office space?)
Essay 2:
This is a fact-based question: In the section, "characteristics of erotogenic zones", Freud says, "A child who is indulging in sensual sucking searches about his body and chooses some part of it to suck - a part which is afterwards preferred by him from force of habit; if he happens to hit upon one of the predestined regions (such as the nipples or genitals) no doubt it retains the preference."
Do babies suck their own nipples/genitals, and if so, does that persist? It seems like those are zones usually reserves for the mucous membranes of others to suck, whereas we get our own fingers and toes. Mechanically, it just seems difficult, and Freud saying that seems to take any significance away from the hands/feet as sole (ugh, bad pun) self-suck recipients.
Essay 3:
Is an analogue of sexual tension the driving force behind capitalism? I think it works especially in the idea of startups hoping to get big, court investors, then sell out when their brand is strongest. Is an ostensible democracy, like ours, then like the feminine quality freud describes, being forced to change its masculine monarchic character through repression at the puberty of revolution while the markets get to keep on forging ahead. Sorry, a little stretched, just stick to the first part, maybe.
Handout, #2:
I really don't understand the a-ha moment that Freud seems to be chuckling at with the "Glanz auf der Naze" thing. The idea of the change in language re-interpreting the fetish seems to cast it as a kind of mantra the kid would mutter to himself for a while before thinking it was something sexy, and during that muttering phase, he moved to Germany, and things got all wacky.
By the same token, if I was a baby, growing up in France, and fetishized grapefruits - pamplemousse - then went to northern Maine during the start of a strange environmentalist initiative, would I suddenly lust after pampered moose? Is language, and therefore its puns, what governs our sexuality?
-Sam
¿questions?
1. I was wondering what people thought about the implications of Freud's theory of overvaluation of the sexual object. What does the over-investment of desire towards the sexual object and what Freud calls the "intellectual infatuation" with the object at hand create in terms of the subject's own perception of his relation to the object? Is the appreciations an obscuring? Does overvaluation have to exist at a primary level for people to exist with one another on a continual basis?
2. Freud's mentioning of scopophilia among children (p.58) and his earlier mentioning of sight as subsidiary to touch made me wonder how the relation between possession and viewing in modern media forms can be seen as a sort of pseudo-possession. Does this imply that looking can become a sort of power relation in terms of soothing the subject who cannot actually access the object of desire?
3. I am confused by Freud's claim under the 'The Barrier Against Incest' that states that children's sexual impulses towards their parents "are as a rule already differentiated owing to the attraction of the opposite sex"(p.93) in contrast to his claim later on that inversion is prohibited mostly by " authoritative prohibition by society." It seems as though he waivers as to whether object choice is meaningful or whether it is arbitrary. I guess the question is, can you clear this up for me?
4. The creation of a fetish as a masking of the lack of a penis acts as a means to obscure reality and accept reality at the same time. If this duel process is the case in terms of investing oneself in an object of desire, are all sexual object choices in some ways an acknowledgment of a personal lack on one hand, and a desire to obscure the personal lack, as if by association with the other one becomes it, on the other hand?
- george w.
2. Freud's mentioning of scopophilia among children (p.58) and his earlier mentioning of sight as subsidiary to touch made me wonder how the relation between possession and viewing in modern media forms can be seen as a sort of pseudo-possession. Does this imply that looking can become a sort of power relation in terms of soothing the subject who cannot actually access the object of desire?
3. I am confused by Freud's claim under the 'The Barrier Against Incest' that states that children's sexual impulses towards their parents "are as a rule already differentiated owing to the attraction of the opposite sex"(p.93) in contrast to his claim later on that inversion is prohibited mostly by " authoritative prohibition by society." It seems as though he waivers as to whether object choice is meaningful or whether it is arbitrary. I guess the question is, can you clear this up for me?
4. The creation of a fetish as a masking of the lack of a penis acts as a means to obscure reality and accept reality at the same time. If this duel process is the case in terms of investing oneself in an object of desire, are all sexual object choices in some ways an acknowledgment of a personal lack on one hand, and a desire to obscure the personal lack, as if by association with the other one becomes it, on the other hand?
- george w.
Questions on (for) Freud
1. Do the two xeroxed essays offer competing definitions of the fetish or complementary ones? Is there a relationship between trauma and the displacement of value?
2. I want to look at a footnote at the end of section 1 of "The Sexual Aberrations" on pg. 15. Are there any wider implications for Freud's belief that moderns are distinguished from ancients in believing that the sexual object must be a good object rather than the sexual object being good because it is a sexual object? How did this change occur? Why would Freud put it in a footnote instead of the body of the text?
3. What are the two "sources" of the infant sexual aim? Does Freud think pleasure works from the inside out or the outside in during infancy? Does this change as the individual ages?
4. If the fetish is the wrong sexual object, what is the wrong sexual aim? Why don't we have a word for the "dangerous" fore-pleasure that undoes end-pleasure? Can you imagine any implications of Freud's fore-pleasure in economic exchange?
---Andrew
2. I want to look at a footnote at the end of section 1 of "The Sexual Aberrations" on pg. 15. Are there any wider implications for Freud's belief that moderns are distinguished from ancients in believing that the sexual object must be a good object rather than the sexual object being good because it is a sexual object? How did this change occur? Why would Freud put it in a footnote instead of the body of the text?
3. What are the two "sources" of the infant sexual aim? Does Freud think pleasure works from the inside out or the outside in during infancy? Does this change as the individual ages?
4. If the fetish is the wrong sexual object, what is the wrong sexual aim? Why don't we have a word for the "dangerous" fore-pleasure that undoes end-pleasure? Can you imagine any implications of Freud's fore-pleasure in economic exchange?
---Andrew
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