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Lacan and Zizek talking shit
In a couple places (I've most recently stumbled upon it in his "The Matrix, the two sides of perversion") Zizek agrees with Lacan on the passage from animals to humans.
"Lacan was right in claiming that we pass from animals to humans the moment an animal has problems with what to do with its excrements, the moment they turn into an excess that annoys it".
Now I know they have a dog problem in Paris, and perhaps also in Ljubljana, but have neither Lacan nor Zizek crossed paths with a cat? For a cat their excrement is very much an excessive problem; they take care to dispose/mask it, and they won't eat near where they shit.
This is so obvious it boggles my mind that Zizek would say such a thing. I can't locate where Lacan says it, but isn't it basic to Lacanian theory that it is the Symbolic, the order of language, and perhaps its emergence via the death drive, that marks the passage into the human? Zizek, of course, also argues this consistently.
By RIPope | November 21, 2005 | Permalink
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I'm not sure where Lacan says that either, but I do know that this idea of the passage from animal to man is one of the main themes in Bataille's work, and undoubtedly, Bataille was an influence on Lacan.
I don't think the point in this sort of argument is to make a strict distinction between man (a being possessing shame) and all other animal forms of life (as being totally without shame), so I'm not sure Zizek would disagree with your example of cats. I think the main point would be simply to show that a necessary, constitutive factor of human subjectivity (as, yes, opposed to most animals...) is a high degree of shame when it comes to bodily functions -- shitting, sex, etc. This is easy to ignore in philosophical definitions of man as, say, 'animal rational'... instead, according to this line of thought, man is more like 'animal +shame,' for indeed, to someone like Bataille, rationality, reason, work -- all the stuff humanity prides itself on -- are results of man's attempt to impose some image of dignity or transcendence on his physical reality. Thus, these things are impossible without this drive to cover up the shitty physical excess. If cats, however, seem to partake in the same sorts of covering up as humans then sure, why not?
As for the passage to humanity being the death drive/symbolic law, I think the constitution of shame is pretty much a part of that... who do we want to cover up our shit from if not the other (or the other that is the superego) who might otherwise see that I am actually dirty, disgusting, unclean? Shame is an immediate result of the symbolic injunction of the law.
Posted by: chris n | Nov 22, 2005 5:20:28 AM
Yes, No, but who am I to say?
On that last, I've read little Lacan (and that years ago), and no Zizek. So I don't know what I'm talking about, sorta.
On yes, I do think shame is central. In the recent months I've been doing a lot of thinking (and a little writing) about one of the Winnebago Trickster tales (as collected and presented by Paul Radin). In this one Trickster gets his penis chewed to pieces by a chipmunk that's been taunting him. What interests me is not so much the hidden meaning of the tale itself, but the occasion of its telling. This is a sacred tale, to be told only by someone authorized to do so and, of course, it is told in a public occasion -- through Radin doesn't discuss the parameters of that occasion in his commentary.
What interests me is simply that this is told publicly and is sacred. The content of the tale is in range of the material in that Penn & Teller documentary about "The Aristocrats." Why do we tell such stories in special circumstances?
On no, these days there's a lot of work on human origins by anthropologists, archaeologists, psychologists, and biologists. It's worth reading. If you're seriously interested in human origins you need to read some of this stuff, I'd recommend Steven Mithen's The Singing Neanderthals. It's clearly written and packed with information from archaeology, anthropology, primate ethology, psychology, and neuroscience.
But Mithen doesn't say anything about shame, nor has the topic registered in this larger body of recent work. These folks do not seem to be even remotely curious about why people would tell sacred tales about a culture hero with a large penis that gets chewed up by a chipmunk.
Awareness of death is a bit different. It's not a big topic, but there is archeological evidence about burial practices and so the topic enters in that way. There doesn't seem to be much interest in wondering how awareness that one WILL die affects one's actions in the present.
I think if you really dig into the primate literature you will find information about mourning among primates. I've not done the dig myself, put I've run across anecdotes here and there.
Posted by: Bill Benzon | Nov 22, 2005 8:44:07 AM
Are wild cats the same way?
Posted by: Adam Kotsko | Nov 22, 2005 10:17:32 AM
They're preditors and must hide their scent so prey don't knowl they're around.
I think.
Posted by: Bill Benzon | Nov 22, 2005 12:19:18 PM
For a cat their excrement is very much an excessive problem; they take care to dispose/mask it, and they won't eat near where they shit.
I have no clue regarding the substance of what is to follow...
Igge, our older and bigger cat, is rather vengeful. If we don't wake up early enough to feed him, he will start smashing his paws into the blinds or rubbing his paws quickly against a glossy surface. It makes a tonne of noise. Similarly, if he's downstairs and we're upstairs, it's his expectation that if he cries, then one of us will have to go downstairs, pick him up, and carry him back upstairs. He's a bastard. He really is.
Now, at the time of this story, we only had three pets: Mickey, an older dog, and Calvin, a younger cat. (We have since taken in Minnie, a younger dog.) When we moved to Toronto from Ottawa and discovered that our apartment sucked, the part of town sucked, and Toronto sucked, we started spending more time at my family's cottage whenever it was possible.
We started getting more adventurous: we used to feel fine leaving the cats along for two or three nights, but once we extended it to four nights (five days). Igge was angry. Really angry.
So, our apartment: it was technically a two bedroom (i.e., two rooms in which one could conceivably sleep), but one of those rooms was used as an office. It also had a futon, upon which I occasionally slept. Mickey also had a bed (a square of foam, really) in the room. And, we had the bed in the bedroom.
Igge would sleep on all of them when it suited his mood.
But, because we we were gone for so long, he got really angry and got revenge in a way only a cat could: not only did he piss on each of the beds (a common cat trick), but he also shat on all of the beds. Real big ones, too.
It was a real interesting exercise in cat psychology: he understood vengence, he understood where we slept, he understood that we wouldn't sleep in shit and piss, and he understood we weren't there to stop him. Smart guy.
Moral of the story: cats use shit as a weapon. Another moral: bring your cat on vacation. (It turns out that while Igge loves going on vacation, Calvin hates it: he'll foam at the mouth the whole way there, and often crap and piss on himself. Showering him afterwards is a great time.)
As for the philosophy of crap: see Dominique Laporte (1993[1978]) History of Shit, Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
Posted by: Craig | Nov 22, 2005 12:58:38 PM
It is the collective refusal to acknowledge excrement that is irritating: there are acres of sludge and sewage that require large-scale bureaucracies and businesses, but it is all ignored, invisible. Away from the plumbing paradises of urban America, sewage poses a real problem: many cities in say Montana have problems with the tap water contaminated not only with shit from humans but from cattle and wild animals as well. And sewage is often a disease vector--hepatitis, cholera, dysentery, etc.
China holds a national toilet convention each year but that sort of thing would unlikely occur in the hyper-victorian culture of the USA. At some point in the dystopia, sewage/sludge from aninals and people might be an essential fuel as well.
Posted by: Luc | Nov 22, 2005 1:00:16 PM
My cat even passed through the mirror stage, very clearly, and has since experienced nothing but lack. It's been nothing but therapy, neediness, and biting since then :)
Posted by: Kenneth Rufo | Nov 22, 2005 4:07:53 PM
My cat never got out of the mirror stage, but can only bat at its image wildly.
Thanks for the references everyone.
Actually, one could make the case that we are NOT feeling so much shame anymore at our own shit. Did anyone know that the vegetables they ate today were quite likely grown in human shit? Yes, that's right, we produce so much shit these days that governments don't know what to do with it, so they (at least in Canada) are subsidizing farmers to use human feces as manure.
That's not human! It boggles the mind. Of course, it remains human to the extent that we keep this otherwise completely disturbing fact institutionalized, out of sight and mind.
Posted by: RIPope | Nov 22, 2005 8:43:58 PM
Mirror recognition has been extensively studied in primates. Apes can recognize their image in mirrors, monkeys can't. For a reference see:
http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/2000_benzon01.shtml
Look at footnote 1. If you google "mirror neuron" you'll come up with a ton of references to so-called "mirror neurons," which have been all the rage in neuroscience the past few years.
Posted by: Bill Benzon | Nov 22, 2005 9:28:57 PM
Gadzooks! What have we here—Cat blogging? Down that path lies the inside-the-Beltway-responsible-Dem cant of people like Kevin Drum and Brad de Long.
I agree with those here who say the insight here has to do with shame rather than excrement per se. It's just that excrement occupies a place of privlege among things humans are ashamed of.
Posted by: et alia | Nov 25, 2005 2:19:15 PM
Why are comments being closed on the above 2 threads?
And I see nothing wrong with cat blogging. Meow.
Posted by: Kenneth Rufo | Nov 25, 2005 3:45:32 PM
As far as my post goes, it was never open to comments. Saves time.
Posted by: et alia | Nov 26, 2005 1:38:38 AM
That's your reason for posting and not allowing feedback, disagreements, or other replies? Because it saves time? Whose, I wonder? And why is it your responsibility to save it?
I'm sorry, but you've written a post with at least one line that makes little sense given some fairly obvious problem with antecedents, and incorporated a notion of culture I find somewhat awkward, and you've done so under the banner of _Long Sunday_ and then refused comments because it saves time?!?
You know what else saves time? Not fucking posting.
Posted by: Kenneth Rufo | Nov 26, 2005 6:37:45 AM
Obviously, it isn't saving your time, but that's not my fault. Also, it isn't my responsibility but my choice to save it. If you want to disagree, etc., with it, there's always trackback. We've had some problems with cute people whose idea of debate is to use sexist insults and who commitment to anonymity includes the use of proxy servers and other techniques that make IP banning worthless. I didn't want to deal with that to begin with, so I didn't allow comments.
Enough thread hijack. Getting back to your cat's mirror stage...
Posted by: et alia | Nov 26, 2005 9:09:30 AM
Speaking of thread-jacking, this may interest some people if they haven't seen it yet:
http://www.adamkotsko.com/weblog/2005/11/zizek-and-badiou.html
Posted by: Matt | Nov 27, 2005 2:08:44 PM
The subject of cats and their feces came up recently on the evolutionary psychology list. Here's a post (the first part is a reply to the post quoted in the second part):
This interpretation is corroborated by the fact that some carnivores (e.g.
wolves) try to hide their own (strong) body odor by wallowing in the feces
of their prey (e.g. deer). The effect would be equivalent to a kind of
olfactorial deceit (and possibly even attract prey). On the other hand, it
is well known that many species (e.g. foxes, martens) deposit their feces at
elevated places (e.g. mounds) without covering it which indicates a function
in territorial behavior. However, as far as I know (hope to be wrong) there
exists no study that would have investigated this interesting question in a
systematic and comparative way.
There is also an alternative explanation. In contrast to cats dogs posses an only quite inexact visual control of the movements of their paws which makes that their pawing behavior is correspondingly ineffective. Dogs obviously try to hide their traitorous "bequest" but simply are unable to do it better. Among other things this would explain why cats are by far the more successful predators in biotopes (e.g. savanna) where they compete with other carnivores. To counter this evolutionary disadvantage some non-catlike carnivores hunt in groups (e.g. wolves, hyaenas; coyotes).
Adolf Heschl
Institute of Zoology
University of Graz
Austria
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: evolutionary-psychology@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:evolutionary-psychology@yahoogroups.com] Im Auftrag von Fred Britton
Gesendet: Dienstag, 13. Dezember 2005 20:51
An: J.K. Niemelä; Elaine Morgan
Cc: evolutionary -psychology
Betreff: Re: [evol-psych] cats
No one has yet mentioned the possiblity that the
covering up of the smell, which seems to be most
obvious consequence of burying feces, is so that
potential prey won't be scared out of the
area. After all, cats are carnivores, preying on
species who have every reason to use very trick
in the book to avoid being eaten, including
avoiding areas which have any tell-tale odors of
those who seek to make them their next meal.
Posted by: Bill Benzon | Dec 14, 2005 8:48:40 AM
More:
Good question! All answers I am aware of are speculative, but the
explanation that cats by hiding their feces hide their presence is not a bad
one. Foxes hide -cache - bite-sized pieces in the soil and by so doing
effectively protect that food from competitors. Once in the soil, the odor
is captured. Leaving feces about would probably spook off small mammals, the
primary food of cats. The counter argument is that cats spray - some - of
their urine on shrubs thereby advertising their presence! I am not aware
that the expected prediction for small mammals has ever been tested.
However, for large prey, deer, antelope etc, the presence of some predators
triggers an exodus. Hunting dogs in Africa, by showing up, panic prey from
horizon to horizon. A pack of wolves settling close to our house cleared out
the landscape of deer in about 3 months. Cougars showing up lead to exodus
of mule deer. How voles, a major and favorite food source of cats, react to
food-scent is unknown to me. If cats did not hide their scat but left it
open in enclosed spaces such as caves, or grain bins, the stench would be
overpowering! Meat-based carnivore scat is very smelly! Vegetation based
scat, as found in bears, is not smelly. Oddly enough, black bear, by staying
with the prey they killed till it is all consumed, limit their meat-based
feces pretty well to the kill site. Having finished eating their prey they
walk out to meadows, feed on vegetation, and leave veggie-based scat for us
to admire. The above habit by bears kept us a long time from recognizing
that bears were effective carnivores, because virtually all their meat-based
feces is found where - in hiding - they consumed their prey.
Val Geist
* * * * * *
I have had and bred many animals in my life, including, among others, llamas
and alpacas, peafowl, Afghan Hounds, and Maine Coon and Norwegian Forest
cats.
When I saw the Subject Line - "Cats", I thought, "Hey - I'll have some
answers for this topic!" - but the truth is, I don't have any good answers
at all, and nor do I remember ever seeing this topic discussed on the many
cat lists to which I belong.
So, I have been thinking about it for the last few days. I have finally,
tentatively, decided this is perhaps as complicated a subject as it might be
for humans - fraught with all sorts of psychological issues.
It also brought to mind, Survivorman, Les Stroud. I don't know if any of you
have seen the show, "Survivorman" on TV. Les is a rather interesting man. I
have done a bit of "survival" stuff myself - driving my young children
through the deserts and Outback of Australia, as well as a number of other
similar adventures, and so I have been in touch with Les and interested in
his show. One of the things he did on a programme where he was marooned in
Northern Canada's lake area, was to purposely "mark" his territory by peeing
all around. He wasn't at all sure whether this would attract or repel
animals, but he took a chance on repel. He actually is shown doing it on his
show - discreetly.
Back to the cats: I think, as someone else suggested, that there are many,
many instincts and motivations behind cats' peeing and pooping. I'll never
forget once, when I moved, making my new bed for the first night in my new
home, with a lovely new comforter. I went up to go to bed, and there was a
lovely brown "gift" in the middle of the floral comforter. Why? In the whole
house, many rooms, kitty litters set out - why on my bed? I took it as a
gesture of complaint and fear - "What are you doing to us? Am I safe here?"
and so forth - who knows? I am sure, however, that they can certainly use it
as a statement. I only ever let my most emotionally healthy and compliant (
I can't believe that i am equating emotional health with compliance - but
that's another topic for another day...maybe our personal religion
thread...) cats in the house these days.
Some of the problems I have encountered:
Never leave a plastic bag, or paper bag, on the floor, or even on a table -
someone will invariably pee on it. For a writer, this is a serious problem
- but I have learned I cannot leave paper around.
Watch out at gates or doorways. I am not sure what this is about, but it
might be a "let me out of prison" plaint. The males, in particular, seem to
like this. Even outside, where my males have special winterized quarters, I
find offerings near the gates. There is NO need for this, as their space is
about 50'x50' for only a few cats. This may well also be a marking of the
perimeters thing, as well as an escape hint.
Some will use the kitty litter, and are even neat outside. Others are awful,
and may leave a mess anywhere, and do so again and again.
My llamas and alpacas were wonderful - they would create mounds - where they
all defecated. Very neat, and very communal - but then, the whole lama
family is very communal.
Some of the cats will do the same, at least outdoors, choosing specific
places which they will all use - but that's in artificial situations, such
as in their cat garden enclosures. Sometimes there they will cover,
sometimes not. Outside, in the yard, they usually cover, and usually do it
in private places, such as behind bushes. On the other hand, the geese who
live around here will leave their deposits in the middle of the driveway or
on top of the grass, with no attempt to hide or cover.
As to whether the marking is meant to scare other animals away - well, I
wonder if it isn't nearly always a mixed agenda. One species may be scared
off, another might think, "dinner", another might be attracted and become
dinner. I would imagine that animals in the wild are usually balancing and
juggling for the best survival and other advantages.
I have one cat I can allow in the house at any time. She is never messy,
doesn't break any house rules (like don't sit on my papers), and she is very
clean. But, if I allow others in with her, she is not so easy. My brother
has one cat who is the same, but she is the only cat, and has no competition
or relationship issues. So, maybe today's socialized cats have the same
issues we "socialized" human beings have, and maybe their digestive and
eliminative systems and habits have come to mimic ours, and to be like the
emotional.
If a human goes in to the bathroom, and if there is a kitty litter kept in
there, I find that the cats will follow us in, and use the kitty litter at
the same time we do. Bonding? There is a myth that cats are independent, but
that isn't my experience at all. I think that how much they are
"independent", and how much they relate to each other and to humans, may, as
with human being, depend on how well they are socialized. My cats are
usually thrilled to have us around. They may fuss with each other, as humans
do, but they also take care of each other, grooming, helping with child
birth, nursing each other's kittens, and much else. They exhibit fear,
affection, excitement, boredom, shame, and a whole range of emotions we can
recognize. It seems to me to not be a very great stretch to think that their
elimination issues are also psychologically motivated. This doesn't, of
course, preclude other more primitive deep wiring from the African
savannahs.
I have 50 some acres here, and I rarely see kitty messes outside anywhere.
However, in the house, or in their cat gardens, or in smaller situations
where they might feel they have to compete for attention, or deal with
fusses with each other, such as hierarchies which determine who gets food or
water or attention first, then anything can happen. Sick cats will usually
let you know something is wrong also by making a smelly mess where you'll
see and smell it and be able to take care of whatever problem there might
be.
Julienne
Posted by: Bill Benzon | Dec 15, 2005 9:34:40 AM
I am tempted to say that you are reading his statement far to literal. For Zizek, as I have interpreted, excrement is not (or, at least, not limited to) one's literal excrement, but rather, those libidinal drives that are far to excessive for us that we must be 'castrated'. If you take this interpretation, you can extend this farther back than Lacan towards Freud. It is not that we produce shit and it must be dealt with - it is that within ourselves resides a superfluous nature that must be dealt with.
Posted by: Mr. Iosity | Mar 18, 2008 11:40:31 PM
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