Not only is the nuclear family as social institution the basis for Oedipalized subjects and Oedipal representations of desire (including psychoanalysis) alike, historically speaking it is only the latest in a long line of social institutions responsible for the construction of fixed subjectivities, and it is in some ways the weakest and the most abstract. Fixed subjects of all kinds arise from an illegitimate use of the conjunctive synthesis that segregates one set of subjectivities from all the others and demands that an otherwise nomadic subjectivity (resulting from legitimate conjunctive syntheses) identify only with members of that restricted set: whites rather than blacks; men rather than women; Christians rather than Jews, and so forth. Instead of the “I am everyone and anyone” of the nomadic subject, the segregated subject believes that he/she belongs to a “superior race” (103–105), identifies himself/herself as essentially different from and better than all the others from which he/she is segregated. Historically, the content or rationale for such segregation has varied considerably: totem, clan, religion, race, nation, sorority/ fraternity, sports team, and so on. But the form of the illegitimate synthesis remains the same: on the basis of a segregation aligning the subject with a superior “us” versus an inferior “them,” a fixed sense of identity arises that rejects as undesirable the multiform possibilities of nomadic subjectivity. (Eugene Holland, Deleuze and Guattaris Antioedipus: Introduction to Schizoanalysis)
Posted on: Sun, 24 Nov 2013 12:42:00 +0000