{"id":1709,"date":"2009-01-28T21:01:07","date_gmt":"2009-01-29T02:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/?p=1709"},"modified":"2009-03-19T21:32:51","modified_gmt":"2009-03-20T02:32:51","slug":"melancholia-part-1-of-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/2009\/01\/28\/melancholia-part-1-of-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Melancholia part 1 of 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Salih, Sara. Judith Butler<\/span>. Routledge, 2002. p 53<\/p>\n

In \u2018Mourning and Melancholia\u2019 Freud distinguishes between mourning, which is the reaction to a real loss, usually the death of a loved one, and melancholia. Since the melancholic does not always know what he or she has lost and is in fact sometimes unaware of having \u2018lost\u2019 anything at all, Freud regards it as a pathological condition resembling depression. He argues that, instead of \u2018getting over\u2019 and accepting the loss, the melancholic response is to take the lost object into the ego by identifying with it.<\/p>\n

Identification is a concept that is central to Freud\u2019s theories of the structuring of the mind into ego, superego and id and, as you might expect, denotes the process and effects of identifying with others, often as a response to loss.<\/p>\n

Introjection is the process whereby the subject takes objects from the outside world into itself and preserves them in the ego, and is closely related to identification. In fact, identification takes place through introjection as an object is metaphorically \u2018installed\u2019 in the ego, and Butler will argue that introjection is not the only way in which identification takes place.<\/p>\n

In The Ego and the Id <\/span>Freud no longer regards melancholia as a pathology or mental illness, but he now describes all ego formation as a melancholic structure. Freud claims that in the process of ego-formation a child\u2019s primary object-cathexes are transformed into an identification, a formulation that is not as complicated as it might sound once you have deciphered the Freudian terminology. Initially the infant desires one or other of its parents (these are its primary object-cathexes), but the taboo against incest means that these desires have to be given up. Like the melancholic who takes the lost object into heror himself and thereby preserves it, the ego introjects the lost object (the desired parent) and preserves it as an identification. \u2018[A]n object which was lost has been set up again inside the ego \u2013 that is . . . an object-cathexis has been replaced by an identification\u2019, Freud writes (1923: 367). The ego is therefore a repository of all the desires it has had to give up, or as Freud puts it, \u2018the character of the ego is a precipitate of abandoned object-cathexes and . . . it contains the history of those object-choices\u2019 (1923: 368).<\/p>\n

Salih, Sara. Judith Butler.
\nFlorence, KY, USA: Routledge, 2002. p 53.<\/p>\n

Mourning<\/strong>: the response to a real loss.<\/p>\n

Melancholia<\/strong>: the response to an imagined loss. Object-cathexis: the desire for an object; in this case, one\u2019s mother or father.<\/p>\n

Identification<\/strong>: the process by which one comes to identify with someone or something; in this context, the object that has been lost. Identifications take place through introjection or incorporation.<\/p>\n

Introjection<\/strong>: the process whereby objects from the outside world are taken into and preserved in the ego.<\/p>\n

Incorporation<\/strong>: Dispositions: the process whereby objects are preserved on the surface of the body (Freud does not discuss incorporation in \u2018Mourning and Melancholia\u2019 or The Ego and the Id). whether, from birth onwards, you desire members of the same or the opposite sex.<\/p>\n

Salih, Sara. Judith Butler.Routledge, 2002. p 54.<\/p>\n

If your primary desire is for your mother, you will introject the figure of your mother and establish an identification with her; conversely, if your primary desire is for your father, you will substitute your impermissible object-cathexis for an identification with him. Freud is not sure what determines the primary object-cathexis \u2013 i.e. why the infant desires one parent rather than the other \u2013 but he gets around this problem by attributing the direction of the infant\u2019s desire to what he calls dispositions.<\/p>\n

By \u2018disposition<\/strong>\u2019 he appears to mean the infant\u2019s innate desire for a member of the opposite or the same sex, but Freud expresses some hesitation on this subject in his description of the development of the \u2018little girl\u2019. Freud writes that, after relinquishing her father as a primary love-object, the girl \u2018will bring her masculinity into prominence and identify with her father (that is, with the object that has been lost) instead of with her mother. This will clearly depend on whether the masculinity in her disposition \u2013 whatever that may consist in \u2013 is strong enough [i.e. to identify with her father]\u2019 (1923: 372). It would seem that object-cathexes are the result of primary dispositions, i.e. whether one is innately \u2018masculine\u2019 or \u2018feminine\u2019 to start with, and, as you might expect by now, Butler refutes Freud\u2019s somewhat tentative postulation of innate sexual \u2018dispositions\u2019.<\/p>\n

Salih, Sara. Judith Butler.
\nFlorence, KY, USA: Routledge, 2002. p 54.<\/p>\n

Melancholic Heterosexuality <\/span><\/p>\n

Now let us look at what Butler does with Freud. Butler is interested in the \u2018dispositions\u2019 Freud glosses over somewhat hastily, but, rather than accepting that they are innate, she wants to know how \u2018masculine\u2019 and \u2018feminine\u2019 dispositions can be traced to an identification, and where those identifications take place. In fact, Butler asserts that dispositions are the effects of identifications with the parent of the same\/ opposite sex rather than the causes of those identifications; in other words, desire does not come first. \u2018What are these primary dispositions on which Freud himself apparently founders?\u2019 she asks, noting the \u2018hyphenated doubt\u2019 (\u2018\u2013 whatever that may consist in \u2013\u2019) with which he interrupts his assertion (GT: 60). While Freud describes ego formation as a melancholic structure because the infant is forced to give up its desire for its parents in response to the taboo against incest, Butler argues that the taboo against incest is preceded by the taboo against homosexuality<\/strong> (although curiously, she does not specify her source here) (GT: 63). This seems to imply that the child\u2019s primary desire is always for the parent of the same sex \u2013 after all, why do you need a taboo if there is nothing to prohibit?<\/strong> \u2013 and although Butler argues that the law produces the desire it subsequently prohibits, she is still unspecific as to why one desire is produced and repressed before another. \u2018Although Freud does not explicitly argue in its favour, it would appear that the taboo against homosexuality must precede the heterosexual incest taboo\u2019, writes Butler (GT: 64) and, although she reiterates this assertion several times in this section, the qualifiers she introduces here (\u2018Although Freud\u2019, \u2018it would appear\u2019) resemble the \u2018hyphenated doubt\u2019 that she notes in Freud\u2019s description of dispositions. All the same, the assertion that the taboo against homosexuality precedes the incest taboo is crucial to Butler\u2019s argument that gender and sex identities are formed in response to prohibition.<\/strong> Rather than regarding gender or sex as innate, Butler asserts that \u2018gender identity appears primarily to be the internalization of a prohibition that proves to be formative of identity\u2019 (GT: 63). Since the \u2018prohibition\u2019 to which Butler refers is the taboo against homosexuality, it is clear that for Butler all gender identity is founded on a primary, forbidden homosexual cathexis or desire.<\/strong> If melancholia is the response to real or imagined loss, and if<\/strong> heterosexual gender identity is formed on the basis of the primary loss of the same-sexed object of desire, it follows that heterosexual gender identity is melancholic. <\/strong>Butler\u2019s Foucauldian appropriation of Freud\u2019s theories of mourning, melancholia and ego formation and her argument that heterosexuality is founded on primary homosexual desire constitute one of Gender Trouble\u2019s most important achievements and, since the theory of melancholic gender identities and identifications underscores so much of her subsequent work, I will quote Butler at length here by way of summary:<\/p>\n

If feminine and masculine dispositions are the result of the effective internalization of [the taboo against homosexuality], and if the melancholic answer to the loss of the same-sexed object is to incorporate and, indeed, to become that object through the construction of the ego-ideal, then gender identity appears primarily to be the internalization of a prohibition that proves to be formative of identity.<\/p>\n

Further, this identity is constructed and maintained by the consistent application of this taboo, not only in the stylization of the body in compliance with discrete categories of sex but in the production and \u2018disposition\u2019 of sexual desire . . . dispositions are not the primary sexual facts of the psyche, but produced effects of a law imposed by culture and by the complicitous and transvaluating acts of the ego ideal (Judith Butler. Gender Trouble<\/span> 63-4, cited in Salih, 56).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Salih, Sara. Judith Butler. Routledge, 2002. p 53 In \u2018Mourning and Melancholia\u2019 Freud distinguishes between mourning, which is the reaction to a real loss, usually the death of a loved one, and melancholia. Since the melancholic does not always know what he or she has lost and is in fact sometimes unaware of having \u2018lost\u2019 … Continue reading “Melancholia part 1 of 2”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78,86,87,85,82,96,97,94],"tags":[109],"class_list":["post-1709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-butler","category-gender","category-incest","category-melancholia","category-performativity","category-phallus-butler","category-psyche","category-sexual-difference","tag-whoa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1709"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2433,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1709\/revisions\/2433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}