Gendered Imaginary and Resistance

Hypatia, Inc.
Body and Gender within the Stratifications of the Social Imaginary Author(s): Alice Pechriggl and Gertrude Postl Source: Hypatia, Vol. 20, No. 2, Contemporary Feminist Philosophy in German (Spring, 2005), pp. 102-118 Published by: Wiley on behalf of Hypatia, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3811166 . Accessed: 28/05/2013 14:28
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BodyandGenderwithinthe Stratifications of the SocialImaginary

ALICE PECHRIGGL TRANSLATED BY GERTRUDE POSTL
Using the notion of a transfiguration of sexed bodies, this text deals with the stratifications of the gender-specific imaginary.Starting from the figurative-thus its interaction with the configurations of a colcreative-force of thepsyche-soma, andphilosolectivebodywill be developed fromtheperspectives of socialphilosophy is the interdependence betweenthe phy of history.At the centerof my discussion individual thesocialized anda collective individual, psyche-soma, bodily imaginary, on theone hand,and thestrataof a genderimaginary on theother.The ontological that bringsaboutsocialmodesof being)as well metaphor (meaningthe metaphor as the dimension as playinga crucialrolefor of politicalactionwill be highlighted theseprocesses.
The body constitutes the core of the gender-specific imaginary-to be understood not in termsof a clearlydeterminable entity but as continuoustransfiguraof the body (or bodies) concerns simultaneouslythe tion. This transfiguration betweensuch heterogeneous realmsas the individual crossingof the boundaries psyche-somacomplex and society or between intimacy and political space, to mention merelythe most relevantones. My examination of this phenomenon of transfiguration centers aroundwhat I call ontological metaphor,a concept to which I will return in what follows. The various formationsof the body are thus to be establishedwithin the tension between the following two levels: the level of the psyche-somacomplex and the level of the collective body. Via the stratificationsof the social imaginary,those two levels are intertwinedwith each other and in continuous interaction.To speakhere about levels is of mere epistemologicalrelevance.It
Hypatia vol. 20, no. 2 (Spring 2005) ? by Alice Pechriggl
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serves to take into account the differentiationbetween the not-yet socialized individual and society. This individual is understoodas psyche-soma,which means the firstnatural stratum in or of a human being. This stratumalways alreadycontains elements of the social, predominantlythe projectionsof the firstsocial authority(the mother)onto the newborn.Society, and here I mean first and foremost the polis as the politically organizedsociety, is understood as collective body-a body commonly imagined and staged as animated and alive. What is actuallyat stakehere aretwo formsof being, wherebyneitherthe differencebetween them nor the conjunctionsand transferences fromthe one to the other can be clearlycircumscribed and, in a logical sense, exhaustively determined.Nevertheless I will try to provide concepts that help to identify and differentiatethese types of being and their formativeeffects. The question posed again and again in relevant discussionsis whether it makes sense to differentiatebetween nature and culture.Attacks against this differentiationand demandsto abolish it respondto a certain legitimatingand ideologicalconcept of naturedeeplyembeddedin our traditionof thought. But the concern cannot be to eliminate conceptual distinctions on the grounds that dichotomies postulate separationswhere perspectivaldistinctions would be preferred. The goal is, rather,to dissolve establisheddichotomies,to soften boundaries,and to renderdividinglines as permeablewherethey get in the way of overlappingareas,circularities,and dialectics.This shouldhappen indepenor ideologicalconsequencesresultingfromthe dently of the practical-political In my view, the ongoing considerationfor the nature-culture-dichotomization. of possible political implications epistemologicalapproaches(I do not speak about dogmas) are philosophically dubious and finally also politically fatal. They rest on the implicitassumptionthat political action is directedby theory and that one must think and write only what seems politically defensibleand worth strivingfor.Thus, thinking and actingobstructone another,which leads to conservativeratherthan revolutionary actions. And howeverrevolutionary such political developmentsof thoughtpretendto be, they resulttoo frequently in the propagationof pseudo-subversive commonplaces,or following a logic of identity and numbers,in a mere listing of fringe groupsthat, by inhabiting the borderland or the queernessof all intersections,promisesubversion. These developments may be politically important; however, on a philosophicalgnoseologicallevel, they hardlygo beyondwhat can be found in Plato'snotion of metaxuor the tritongenos (the third term), or-as revived by a numberof feminist philosopherssince de Beauvoir-in Hegel'sconcept of negativity. What holds true forthe nature-culture dichotomycan also be appliedto the dichotomybetween body and soul or body and mind; they all are in a relation of mutualdependencewith genderdifference.It was mostly ignoredor denied, though, that this dependence, like the conceptualizationof the respective difference itself, is highly ambiguousand in need of interpretation,which is
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to say, it cannot be describedor explained in terms of a cause-effectrelationship; the relationsof hierarchicalcomplementarity, typical for our traditionof thought, renderedthe tropic connection between polarizedconceptual pairs as a logicallynecessarydeterminants.It is, therefore,much moreurgentto call into question the judgmentsand unjustifiedtransferences fromone relationor relationalcomplex to anotherthan to challenge the merelinguistic-conceptual differentiation. Apart from this, the distinction between nature and culture will continue to exist in spite of a plea for its abolishment-linguistically (in naming and in perception) as well as in some sense in the modes of being: the solar system or amoebaswill exist in themselves and in their own way with or without the nature-culture distinction in language.They will exist independently of it, even if unnamed and thus not any longer for us, and as soon as we approachthis diffuse difference in being through the appearanceof the thinking/speaking human, we will make a distinction that will affect the knowledgeof it as well. This is not to pay tribute to an epistemologicaldualism (see Mitterer 2000) but to take into account the tension through which philosophy is made possible at all. Without reflectingupon this tension we will not be able to get at dualismeither.
THE STRATA OF A GENDER-SPECIFIC IMAGINARY
I distinguish-here just roughly-between three strata of the gender specific concreteness imaginary:the stratumof the real in terms of physical-material in and the stratum of somatic-anatomical itself), (the following Castoriadis, and of woman the effective (wirkliche) imaginary:the socially accepted being I man. Finally,a third stratum,one call the transcendent imaginary,is to be distinguished:it is not ineffective, not even unreal in a largersense of "real," screen but neverthelesshypostatized.At its center is what I call the "projection of femininity.' In Projektionsfldchenimaginire) imaginary"(imaginaire-ecran, the relationshipbetween the second level of the effective (wirkliche) particular, by imaginaryand the thirdlevel of the transcendentimaginaryis characterized an asymmetrythat-due to the male hegemonywith respect to the formation of the social imaginaryand its central significations-establishes and further screen imaginary" of entrenchesdomination:the counterpartof a "projection masculinitydoes not exist. Nor does there exist an analogyto the formationsof in termsof a fetishization the female body or the "body-woman" (KOrper-Frau) of the male body imaginaryand the individualssubsumedunder it. In general, while the men can realizethe male body imaginarythroughself-enhancement; female body imaginary-which has been and still is instrumentalizednearly exclusivelyfor the representationof male institutions-is detached from real women. It is a screen of projectionsin a double sense: a screen for men, who
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project onto it their complementaryopposite as the other (sexual being) in a way more homogeneous and easier to deal with than women ever are; this homogenousprojectionignoresthe differencesand contradictionsof women's diverse living conditions and serves as the shielding of institutions (based on male organizationsand male bonding) against the access of real women in that those institutionsare alreadyoccupiedby the imaginaryand hypostasized formationsof femininity. This "projectionscreen imaginary"of femininity is thus characterizedby heteronomy to a much higher extent. The fetishization of the female body is not limited to the sexism found in advertisingor in some artistic artifacts. Rather, it is a central toposwithin the constituting processof entire nations, intrinsicallylinked to the exclusionof women from the spheresof institutions and society formation,especiallyfrom the political sphere;and this toposalso representsthe condition of this exclusionwith respectto the imaginaryas well as the history of institutions. The asymmetry of justmentionedis constitutiveforthe formsof stratification the genderimaginary and the powerrelationsbetween the genders,wherebythe This powerrelationsare at the same time the sine qua non for this asymmetry. transcendentalcircle, so to speak, of the social imaginarycould be disrupted only through a radicaloverthrowof all the layersand levels of the imaginary. This applies above all to those areasthat contribute to an explicit formation of society, such as law,philosophy,the sciences, and politics, but also to those areasthat shapesociety in an implicitfashionand that arenot explicitlyknown as such: the myths, the habitus, the ethos, the countless ways of establishing which reach meaning, poiesis,the collective imagination,and representation, farbeyondthe functionalityof a systemicor lived social reality.This circularity of conditions also makes it difficult to distinguishbetween the gender-specific stratificationsof the imaginary or the stratificationsof the gender-specific The exact boundarybetween a society'simaginary(all the existing, imaginary. somehowcommunicableand acceptedmeaningsand imaginations, phantasms, and their attached affects) and the gender-specific imaginarywithin it cannot be determinedwith certainty.There may be some areas,declaredas "neutral" or "mixed," which, in light of the conditions for participationin and access to the process of society formation,can never be totally abstractedfrom gender connotations and categories.But apartfromsuch areas,the imaginaryis everywhere more or less in direct relation to "genderedness" to (Geschlechtlichkeit), sex and gender,to sexuality and to the polar categorizationsand relationsof meaning that come with it. And it is only becauseof these relationsof meaning and these formationsthat gender difference can be represented,turned into into a networkof genderrelations(therebyclosely phenomenaand transformed of the body and the body-soulrelationship). More followingthe representations precisely,one can talk about two networksof meaning, endlessly intertwined
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with each other or crossingeach other at any time: the meanings of the one network are more explicitly bound to gender,while those of the other relate to it only implicitly or not at all. Characteristicof the unrelatednetwork is that no specific conclusion concerning the organizationand arrangementof genderrelationscan be drawnfrom it; we cannot, for example,logicallyderive or deduce social gender relationsfrom grammaticalgender.Nevertheless, the genderimaginaryextracts its meanings,categories,formsof arrangement,and realmof the social imaginaryand also the other the like fromthis overreaching Gender around. complementarityis not manifest on all levels; there are way such as areas, procreationor the question of origin (the question of descent) where it is unavoidable;others where it is instituted without referenceto the necessityof such an institution (not even to its functionality-which obviously dependson the respectivepoint of view or given purpose);and yet otherswhere realmsis possible,or not gender-marked at all. The a mergingof gender-defined which such as latterarenot limitedto fullyformalized mathematics,2 disciplines from a world and abstract life from for the most part corporeality(which always implythe presenceof genderedindividuals).There are also areaswithin a life world that allow for a mergingor even a certain degree of neutrality.Those areasare all the more importantin the worldof the political, if the goal is to counteractgendersegregationand the relationsof domination that come with it; but above all, these areas are also of importance because an individual is never exhaustivelydeterminedby belonging to a particular gender (just as it is no matterto what extent gender not throughclass or other groupmembership), conditions one's being in a respectivesociety.
POLITICS
But still, it is the sphereof the political and even moresoof explicit politics in which the markingsof gendermanifest themselves most clearlyand in which their segregating effects arethe most powerful.No other spherehas constituted itself as forcefullythrough the tropesof the transcendentgenderimaginaryas power politics and the nation. Likea magicmagneticcontinuity,the sacralizing of femininity runs through all historical screen imaginary" of the "projection ruptures-from the functions of the poliadic goddesses in classical antiquity and ancient Rome to the French revolutionand the myth of Europa.While the transcendent"bodywoman"(Korper-Frau) (fromAthena to Marianneand Germania)-not to be imitated by women-is adoredby the political hero, respect is reservedfor the bourgeoiswoman; the inversionof this respect was pointedly describedby Sarah Kofmanas that which Kant and Rousseauused to keep women out of the political sphere(Kofman1982).After the role of the fromthat of the mother (for transcendentnation-womanhad been transferred or the Nation of France)to the loveror wife of the king, there example,Justizia
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was no need any longerfor bourgeoiswomen to enter an affectiverelationship (or one of effective adoration) with her. In hardly any other sphere (apart fromphilosophyand currenttechno-sciences) are the consequencesof gender asymmetrymore lasting and more efficient than in the sphere of politics. To this day and in spite of all the feminist achievementsthat were unimaginable a hundredyearsago, it has been impossibleto shape politics into the kind of intermixed realm where the gender affiliation of its memberswould become irrelevant(see Kreisky,1995)-be this through such notions as andreia,thus virtuor manliness as the basic virtue of politics, or, based on male bonding, the agonal and polemicalagoraand ekklesia as the spheresof explicit deliberation. Nevertheless, the male body politics of the ancient Greek polls (agonal and at the same time excluding those outside the community of the free and equals, homoioi)has given rise to democracy,to a form of criticism aimed at the subversionof domination, and to the logical as well as political intertwining of the ideas of freedomand equality.(In our Westerndemocracies-more rightfullycategorizedas partial plebiscite oligarchies-freedom and equality have been de facto separatedand the logical-empiricalconnection between them, according to which freedom for all presupposedequal distributionof resourcesand of formativepolitical competence, is acceptedin the best case as utopia.)This creationof universalideasand its concurrentexclusionof women, metics), and slaves constitutes yet another fundamental foreigners(metoikoi, of Western cultural paradox historythat cannot be solvedon the formal-logical level. However,this is not the only paradoxof the dialectics of the Enlightenment;part of it-and this goes against the deterministicpostulatesof Adorno and his epigones who attributedto the (Greek!) logosa necessary tendency towardalienation (Auschwitzhas been programmed into it since Homer,so to also the the creation and disappearance of speak)-is indeterminacyregarding and social The formations. ideas,meanings,practices, (logical) indeterminacy and thus incompletenessof genderrelationsalso opens up the possibilityfor a change of those relations,in that they can neitherbe conceived as corresponding to a materialnecessity nor as determinablefor the future.This obviously has crucial implicationsfor the role of agency (see McNay 2000). The complementary, segregationist,and asymmetrical pact that determines gender as well as sexuality rests on the normativeand imaginaryconnection betweena standardized and genderasymmetry, which-in order heterosexuality to pass as natural-needs "femininityas masquerade" (see Riviere 1991);it is this connection that shouldbe criticizedin queertheorybut insteadis in danger of being blurredin this very process."Femininityas masquerade" is presented to the postulated woman as the most consistent of all appearances;and it is this concept of femininity throughwhich woman can cleanse herself-where tolerated,which is an exception-from engagementwith male hardcorepolitics.3This is not the place to elaborateon the paradoxbetween emphasizing an
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asymmetricalgendercomplementaritywithin the social imaginaryand a tendency, effective since Hesiod, to deny genderdifference.Here I wouldjust like at timeseven gendersegregation, can to saythat asymmetrical complementarity, be viewed as a kind of compromiseor safetymechanism,wherebythe transferring of psychoanalyticcategoriesand phenomena to the social imaginaryis to be handled with care;rather,it should be understoodas something that causes one to reflectabout this paradox. The lesbian,especiallythe one perceivedas masculinewho stagesherselfand is denounced as butch, inflicts a threateningruptureto the assureduniformity of woman as femininity. And, in a sweeping judgment,she is identified-by Kristeva and other psychoanalystswho otherwise do not rigidly adhere to the ontology of development-as the one who allegedly regressivelydenies a view that has been metaphysicallyfixed in the "differenceof differences," a theologizing and conservativeway especiallyby Levinas.4Queer dissidentity (Dissidentitit)claims that it must (but also that it can) evade this mostly insultThe genesis and formation of the gender ing and discriminatingreproach.5 in its political form, is the genesis and formation of a imaginary,especially or throughwhich what preparation finishingdispositive(Zurichtungsdispositiv) Lacanpostulatedas inevitable actuallyseems naturaland inevitable:the masquerade,which-through its access to the phallus (=power)-allegedly assures women's JoanRiviereis lesswell known psychicsurvival.That Lacanplagiarized than the fact that in doing so he left out what she alludedto without making it explicit: the instituation and normativity,but also the alterabilityof these phenomena and connections.6 of the So far,this is the context, in abbreviated form,for the stratifications imaginary. gender-specific
PSYCHE-SOMA AND BODY IMAGE
Now I am going to explore in greaterdetails the level of an individualpsychesoma complex and the connection between psychic formation, body image, of the body from and somatic metabolism.To work out the transfigurations the perspectiveof philosophy as well as the social sciences, it seems essential to reformulatethe logical termini of this complex. In a way, the psyche-soma complex constitutes the core of the processof formingthe body imaginary.It is the location of our powersof imagination,contradictoryin itself and at the This aporetic same time indivisible(see Pechriggl1991).7 psyche-somacomplex Not only does it is a concrete entity as well as an initial self-transformation. house the powersof imagination,but it is also the mediumand source of the (still not fully explained) ability to imagine, namely, to producephantasms, a form images,and ideas. The aporiainherent in this complex is, in particular, intertwinedalthough of being throughwhich psycheand soma are inseparably
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they follow a heterogeneouspattern and are in some way actuallyopposed to each other. It is, nevertheless,still necessaryto distinguishbetweenpsycheand some, a distinction that unfoldsalong severalaxes. One axis relatesto the differentformsof formationand production: while the meaningof the formations producedthroughthe soma as living/lived body (modificationof cells, formsof growth,etc.) is tied exclusivelyto their respectiveplace and respectivematter, the formations broughtaboutby the psychebecome essentiallymeaningfulonly in that they are not bound to a particularplace and in that they are translatable in multiplewayswithout losing the core of their meaning.8Another axis Those the relationship betweendeterminationand indetermination. represents two terms cannot, as has been commonly postulated within the philosophical tradition,simplybe correlatedexclusivelywith the "pure" psyche (that is, on the hand and the as one sensuous perceived spiritual) body on the other; rather,both are in their respective ways determinedas well as undetermined (the physical body as formed organism is for the most part determinable;as lived body, however, it is mostly undeterminable,ontologically diffuse, and intermingledwith the psyche; the psyche as thinking spirit or rational mind is rather part of the determinate sphere, while if taken in the radical sense of the Freudianunconscious, it is, according to common scientific analytic categories,to a large extent undeterminableand intermingledwith the lived body;furthermore,the psyche in this state of being can hardlybe accounted for through cognitive science). The statusof the soma is ambiguouseven beforeit is distinguishedfromthe psyche:although assumedto be informedand formedthrough the psyche, the philosophical traditionfor the most part assignedthe soma to the amorphous sphere. At the same time, it functions as a material and concrete biological entity that follows mostly orderedand systematicschemata and that provides the firstmodel of imaginationfor the developingpsyche.Through metabolism as well as body image, the soma providesthe psyche with a model (or better scheme),which is to sayan imagesketchingan ego out of the partsof an already existing organicwhole. If the organismand the metabolismplay a structuring role for the constitution of the first schemata of imagination and representation, so is it in turn not possible for the physical body (or the lived body for that matter)to exist in itself or for us without a psychic, thus imaginary, representation (see Freud's aporeticbut neverthelesscentral notion of an ideational of the drive). representative
BODY IMAGE AND THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIAL BEING
Body image now not only establishes the formation of the psyche and the ego, but also plays an eminent part in the formationof the social imaginary, And just as importantas the question especiallythe gender-specific imaginary.
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concerning body image is the question concerning the formationof the body with respect to the constitution and structuringof this imaginary.The exploration of the connection between psyche-somaand society has to take into account three dimensions inseparablyintertwinedwith each other.
THE ONTOLOGICAL DIMENSION
Ontology is not understoodhere in a substantial,fundamental,or transcendental sense but concerns being (das Seiende/Sein) and the forms of being. This includes phenomena (what appears to us) in that these provide our immediate access to being. Thus, this dimension always implies the dimensions of perception and knowledge discussed in the next section (this is to say, the distinction is an artificialone but neverthelessnecessary in order to think about these mattersat all). At the same time it is an approach,according to which the powersof imaginationare also taken to be a psychic formative ability,groundedin the soma and constitutive of being, especiallyfor the sphereof social being. The question-to be furtherelaborated-regarding the connection between psyche-somaand society belongs to this realm of social being; this concerns certain models and elements of constitution as well as means of formation-body metabolism,imaginationand meanings,plus their and localizations,strataof history (Geembodiments,bodily materializations etc.-but also moreabstractorganizational schemata architecture, Schichtung),9 and units (quantities,networks,organisms,authorities,agencies,agglomerates, automatons,rhythms, harmonies, flows and epoch, such as pauses, changes, and so on). Relevant for these considerationsis also the question of the more or less formal-logical connections between the mutuallyconstitutingindividual but also producedthrough psyche-somaand society, which can be represented those differentmodels and schemata, following constructivismbut not in its neo-Kantianradicalization. Throughthis processof mutualgive and take,figurationsor formsare createdaccordingto certain schemata.It is therebymuch less clear how to relate-through logical termini-an endogenous,individual of an entire society than how to relatethe body imageof mood to the "mood" an individualorganismto the institution of a national body (Volkskbrper) that rests on organic metaphors-even though the latter relation is incapable of explaining either of the two levels in an exhaustivesense.
DIMENSION AND ITS RELATION TO THE TROPES THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL (ANALOGIES, METAPHORS, HOMOLOGIES)
The tropemost frequentlyused to describe,understand,and shape the relation between a psyche-somaand society is the metaphor.This formation-as one of the collective schemataof perceptionthat have alwaysexisted in the social
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imaginary-takes place within the area of knowledgeand the logos. But it is justas relevantforthe areaof ontology in that this formationof the schemataof perceptiongoes hand in hand with anotherformation,one that includesmore or less noticeable changes within the imaginaryand the concrete institutions of a society, and thus participatesin the creation of the respectivebeing of a society. The various metaphors are used not merely to connect one realm (the psyche-soma)to another (the social-historical)but also serve to establish and create meaning. According to this view the metaphoris not only a rhetorical trope (figureof speech) but ontological in the broadestsense in that it-at the same time and beyond the function of connection-gives rise to new being or new formsof being. In this sense, certain institutionsformedaccordingto the body arebroughtinto existence as new formswithin this social sphereof being. The body therebyfunctions as part of but also as model for those institutions. The consequencesforthe respectiveimaginary, and the formsof organization and waysof functioning that accompanyit, can hardlybe overestimated.The fact that the Aristotelian differentiationbetween the areasof rhetoric,poetis exceeded ics, analytic,ontology,ethics, and politics as well as historiography of does not entail the as a that socithrough ontologicalmetaphor figure thought in the case would be to a as it was the reduced discursivebeing, receptionof ety Foucaultand Derrida.What is claimedhere insteadis the intersectionbetween an ontologicaland a gnoseological(thusepistemological) relevanceof the imaginary-an imaginaryaccompaniedby certain metaphors.This gnoseological level is connected with the ontological level in an immediatesense.
EXPERIENCE
The modalitiesof the use of the bodyas modelor trope-related to and required for the processof knowledge-need to be reflectedin experience because it is through experience that being can appearin all the formsaccessibleto us as object of knowledge.Experienceis of fundamentalrelevancefor the question of the role and statusof the body within the relationof psyche-somaand social imaginary,as well as for the degree of reality and organizationof the formations of the imaginary.The creationof diverseschematais also broughtabout as embodiedand stratified. It is thus the throughthe psyche's being-in-the-world dimension of experience throughwhich the firsttwo dimensionsare mediated in the most relevantway.Although this is not the place to elaboratein greater detail on the notion of experience (see Pechriggl1996), the aspects of central importancefor this topic should be outlined here. The soma is of central relevancein severalways.First,it is an indispensable mediumand element of human life: a human being not only has a body,it also is this (lived) body,just as it also is a psyche-soma. Second, it is a standard,that
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for human beings, but also is, the primarydeterminantfor what is appropriate for what markstheir absolute limit; thus, it is a standardaccordingto which societies can create themselvesthroughorganizing,measuring,and cultivating their naturalenvironment.Third, it is a prelinguisticor nonverbalmediumof articulation(and not only as model) that one may fall back on if the need or occasion arisesand that-in additionto the omnipresenceof the psyche-soma and of gesture in everydaynonverbalcommunication-is relevant for crucial realmsof activity, agency,and performanceof human life (sexuality,modern dance, but also areasmorestronglyintertwinedwith verbalor logical-categorical elements, such as war,sport, theater,classicaldance, and the like). Fourth, it is a socially in/formed and inscribed "material" that carries and contains imaginationsas imagesand markingsof statusbut that also, in a kind of ontological circularityof a social experienceof the lived/living body,is itself always alreadya formedmedium,model,and standardof social creationand meaning; of concern here is anything but a mystifyingapproachto the body that views it as naturalguarantor for authenticityor other substantializing qualities.Finally, central for any social imaginaryis the role assignedto the body with respect to sexuality.The predominantview in this context is the biologicalone that did (and still does) attemptto dissolvethe bond between psychiceros and sexually lived/living body due to its passionatepotential and resultingthreat to order. Within the Westerntradition,this division has been institutionalizedby Plato and radicalizedthrough Christianity.Contraryto this development,contemporarygay and lesbian authorstry to redefinethe connection between psyche and soma anew and thus to re-createand reinvent the transcendingof biology through human sexualitywithout separatingit from eros.1 can be transferred The problemsof the psyche-soma only in a limitedway to the body-imaginary, the imaginaryof society,or the bodily formationof a mass of people. In any case, the dynamic mediumof this limited transferof experience is alwaysto be understoodwith respect to formation.This mediation of the ontologicaland the epistemological dimensionreflectsat the same time the continuous intertwining of psyche and soma, the unavoidableincorporation of psychic activity.1 To illustratethe relationshipbetween psyche-somaand society with respect to the three dimensions listed above, the connection between the stratified of the psyche and the history of the social imaginary history (Ge-Schichtung) serves as an example. Froman ontological point of view, the temporalstrata that constitute the psyche are possible only as concrete forms of this (lived) body,thus throughthe embodimentof the psyche.In that the body throughits confersformand plasticityto the psyche variousformationsand configurations as well as to history, through its very existence it overcomes the dichotomy between eidosand mimema.'2
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At the same time, access to earlierstratacan be gained only throughcertain experiences that help to uncover them (including traumas,mimetic-cathartic dreams,and meditation).Those experireliving of traumasin psychoanalysis, ences involve the entire psyche-somacomplex. Past experiencesfrom within the social-historicalsphere can be reinvented,relived, and imagined through analogous collective or individual experiences. Walter Benjamin tried to and conceptually inconsistent describe this process-albeit in a fragmentary know the spatial stratificaWe "dialectical image"(Benjamin 1999). way-as to it in The fromarcheology(Freudalreadyreferred tion of the social-historical Man Mosesand pointed out the analogyto the psyche),archives,libraries,and or layeredaccordjournal collections where historical material is "stratified" patternstaken fromwriting as a mediumof sedimentation. ing to appropriate The point here is not to talk about the "bodyof history"(Rogozinski1996);13 rather,what is relevant is that the human body serves as a primarystandard for these sedimentationsas well as for the uncoveringof stratathat materialize and structurethe social imaginaryin its continued existence. At the same time this structurerequiresa processof knowledgethat cannot do without the lived experience, even if it be mimetic. within the corporealrealm(includingtheir The fixationof social hierarchies effect on the dominance relationsbetween the genders)is only one aspect of these complex problemsthat-with respectto the somatic as well as the phantasmaticsphere-can be solidifiedbut also opened up for new formations. To returnto the aforementioned problemof a too close connection between I like to discussthe followingaspects that seem and would politics, philosophy crucial.First,the political attitudeor outlook of a personengagedin philosophy cannot be dismissed as soon as she or he starts to philosophize, especially if this philosophizingincludesa critical reflectionof relationsof dominance and thus moves into the areaof theoreticalsocial science or philosophicalanthropology. The political attitude will influence the kind of question(ing),just as the questioningof whateveris consideredas self-evidentby one'senvironment influences and determines the political attitude and ideals of a philosopher. This neither can nor should be avoided.What can be avoided,though, is the attitudeaccordingto which a thoughtor a complexof thoughtsis kept alive for pragmaticreasonseven when the thought proveditself to be rigid,restrictive, inconsistent, and exclusive with respect to certain phenomena;in short, the thoughtrenders somethingas unthinkable.If this happens,this kind of thinking turnsfunctional-pragmatic-in the best case rhetoricalor politicallycorrector it ceases to be philosophical. simplyideologicallynarrow-minded; about the Thinking gender imaginarythrough the notions of stratification and historical layers(Geschichtung) in (quite limited) analogy to the stratified of the history (Ge-Schichtung) psyche goes back to the Aristotelian emphasis
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on the heterogeneityof the formsand areasof being;monotheistictheologians went to great pains to level out these heterogeneousareasof being by talking about the (absolute)analogy of being, accordingto which (allegedlyfor Aristotle) everything can lastly be derived from "theologos,"thus from the one divine logos (see in particularAubenque 1962, 163-206). In the spirit of the heterogeneityof being, it appearsto me that a differentiationbetween formsof existence (includingthe opening up of in-betweenspaces)is just as meaningful as the differentiationbetween forms of being. According to Hannah Arendt (loosely following Aristotle), philosophizingbelongs to the vita contemplativa while political action is part of the vita activa.This might not alwaysbe true, and depending on our point of view, we can perceive ourselvesthoroughlyas acting when philosophizing.But if one considers the relation between those two activities in the sense criticized above and the spheres for which they are valid, the differentiationremainsmeaningful-even if not in an absolute sense (but who, apartfrom dogmaticphilosophers,is interestedin this in any of possibly case?).Philosophymustbe contained within the narrow-mindedness unwanted political implicationsonly as long as it is assigned the power and competenceto guidepolitical action fromabove,so to speak.Justas philosophy once used to be castigatedas the handmaidenof theology, it still is frequently misunderstoodas the commanderof politics; this is why some take as political engagementa politicallycorrect "thinkingafter"(Hinterherdenken)-athinking that follows a few more or less simple dogmas of criticism.This becomes all the morepopularin times when actualpolitical engagementis increasingly rare. Rather than reflect on forms of action and strategyas part of a process of common action and deliberation,it seems to some to be more comfortable and nearly as political to elevate political desiderataand strategiesto epistemological,gnoseological,and ontological principles.This way,political action might be preservedsomewhere;however,it does not produceany results.And if in the process of this narrowingand homogenizingblurringof boundaries between philosophyand politics we in turn limit political action by submitting it to philosophicalprinciples,then we do this for the sakeof those dogmasthat were previouslyused to restrict thinking from a pragmaticperspective.This circularitycontains firstand foremostthe fearof the unforeseeable,especially the unforeseeablethat arisesfrom within the acting plurality. Political principlesand dogmas mostly have the function of strategicconcepts: the planning and coordinatingof actions, the establishingof alliances and political connections, and so on. But as principlesand dogmasthey exceed theirown competence. Reason,so to speak,turns them into obligatoryguiding principlesand tenets: ratherthan noblesse oblige, they postulate"thecommand of reason."Depending on which collective is at stake and which political dogmatismis popularat the moment,these principles and tenets servequareasonas philosophicalguidelinesfor identification(or de-identification) throughwhich
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the dominantor the subversive collective is constitutedand held together(even if the constituting principle is the dissolution of any identity, especially the has a liberatidentity of gender).The practiceand idea of "dissidentification" in as well of as effect, ing psychosocially, especially light an ongoing politically dominance of normativegender and sexual identities;compliance with these identitiesdeterminesin an oppressive waywho will be includedin and excluded from the polis (or this or that association). In addition to transformingthe social imaginary,the vast literatureon this issue might even contributeto this liberatingeffect.And yet froma philosophicalperspectiveit is justas oppressive if those ratherold ideas regarding"dissidentification," despite their originalin in fashion and uncritically some are a mantra-like ity respects, propagated consumedor offeredas the newest and only true philosophy. I think that ontology and gnoseology-in the sense of a heterogeneityof being, in the sense of the inexpressibilityof the totality of being, and in the sense of a polls that must continuously be created anew-do not need any ones-these usuallyturn out to be pseudo-subverdogmas,not even subversive in case. connection of freedom sive any And yet, this creationof an inseparable and equalityfor all requiresongoing new ethical and political reflectionsthat should not be left up to experts or to philosophers.
NOTES
Funk Thisarticle first in thevolume ed.Julika andCornelia Korper-Konzepte, appeared Briick(Tiibingen: for its translation into English. Narr,1999),and has been revised It summarizes some central ideasof my book Corpstransfigures: de Stratifications dessexes/genres andvol. 2, Critique a l'imaginaire (vol.1, Du Corps l'imaginaire civique fora workin progress dela metaphysique dessexes), andoutlinessomequestions about The at the the relationship between and Ecole des book, psyche-soma polis. completed HautesEtudes en SciencesSocialesin Paris,is a criticalfurther of the development andoftenplagiarized notionof the socialimaginary advanced byCornelius pioneering andadvisor of many I Castoriadis Castoriadis, (seein particular 1987). myteacher years wouldalsoliketo mention the influence I attended of NicoleLoraux, whoseseminars formanyyears andwhoseimpressive work aboutthe Greek andthe gender imaginary
polispromptedme to engage in more precisehistoriographicalthought.
1. Inspiteof itsverydifferent of theimaginary, thebookDieimaginierte conception Weiblichkeit Silvia Bovenschen was an outthis by starting important pointforworking Unfortunately-and aspect. unjustly-the bookis nearly forgotten today. 2. Thereare,of course,socio-historical conditions that determine the accessto these areasquiteforcefully in a gender-specific this is not to say,on way.However, of theirstructure andthe abilities forengaging in them,that these grounds necessary areas arein themselves determined bygender.
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3. Otherwise she is insulted as a phallic lesbian, as happened in the 1970s to the declared feminists and lesbians of the journal Question Feministe (co-founded by de Beauvoir), such as Guillaumin, Wittig, and Mathieu, from the truly feminine antifeminists of the group "Psychanalyseet Politique"; contrary to the latter group, the women of the formerhave been hardlyat all (or only selectively)known in the United States, and if then, only as discreet forms of plagiarism(see Wittig 1998). The best known is Monique Wittig, who lived in the United States until her death in 2003. 4. For a different assessmentof this position see within the German context in Giessrau(1997). particularthe introductoryworkby the psychoanalystBarbara 5. The use of the term queertheory,similar to genderin German, has the effect that nobody among the non-initiated understandsthe meaningsof these words,which avoidsconflicts with dissenting positions in advance. 6. See Weissberg(1994), in particularp. 9 of her introduction.For an early essay on this topic by Piera Aulagnier, a student and successor of Lacan at St. Anne, see (2000, vol. Aulagnier(1967,53-89), as well as my criticalcomment in Corpstransfigures 1, 90-97). Although Aulagnier anticipates a few feminist points of critique, she does not further elaborateon them and finally returns to Lacan'spsycho-ontologyof (predominantly female) lack that she had previouslyviewed as primarilya case of libidinal economy originating in masculine desire. In her later works,however, and especially after her breakwith Lacan she escapes this ontologizing trap. to 7. Concerning the psyche-soma complex and recent psychoanalyticapproaches the relationbetween body imageand ego-constitution,see PieraAulagnier(in particular 2001 and 1986). 8. It would lead us too far astrayto explain here in greaterdetail in what respect this fact can be better grasped through the cognitive theory of connectionism than accordingto which imagesand symbolscan be localized throughcognitivist approaches in the brain (see Varela 1990). is a German neologism combining the meaning of his9. The term Geschichtung and stratification(Schichtung), so as to point out a specific aspect of tory (Geschichte) the coming into being of history. 10. A crucial step toward a new formulationof sexual body imaginaryhas been provided by Monique Wittig with her book Le corpslesbien.Another theorist to be Without totally detachinghomosexualmentionedin this regardis Theresade Lauretis. ity from all phantasmsof reproduction,it should neverthelessbe stressedthat because fromSappho to this formof sexualitycannot resultin reproduction,its representatives, Genet, Kavafis,and Wittig, have from time to time created some of the most striking formationsof the connection between sexuality and eros. Over against this, the reproductive-teleologicalfunctionalizationsof sexualitythroughthe bio-logosnot only have it into the Christianagapeor religiouslove; they de-eroticized sexualityand spiritualized furthermorehave condemned and brutallypersecutedthe sexual eros, which escapes the realm of necessity as erotic leisure.The trivializationof sexuality as we find it in the sex industryis but the commercializedother side of this coin that reducesfantasies and the pleasureof imagination to a stereotypicalgadget-sampling. 11. Most discoursesand scientific approachesignore one of the three dimensions (mostly the mediating function of the creative experience) or subsume it under the others.
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in Platoand affectswhatI call the 12. This dialecticcan be foundin particular as it is of mimesis" with respectto the psyche-soma especially problem, "circularity in the Timaeus butalsoin otherdialogues. represented in whichthe author refers hereto the laterworkof Merleau-Ponty 13. Rogozinski to a universal-ontological du extendsthe conceptof livedbody(chair) entity(la chair monde).
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PUF. Laquestion Paris: 1962. del'etre Aristote. Pierre. chez Aubenque, tostatement. Trans. From Piera. 2001.Theviolence ofinterpretation: pictogram Aulagnier, & Francis. Alan Sheridan. Philadelphia: Taylor d'unehistoire. InCorps etHistoire. Vol.4, d'uncorps, .1986. Naissance origine LesBelleslettres. 1985. Paris: Rencontres d'Aix-en-Provence, Psychanalytiques InLedesir etlaperversion. Paris: surlafeminite et sesavatars. .1967.Remarques Seuil. ed.RoyTiedemann. Trans. Howard Eiland 1999. Thearcades Walter. Benjamin, project, Press. Harvard andKevinMcLaughlin. Cambridge: University Dieimaginierte amMain: Weiblichkeit. Frankfurt Silvia.1979. Bovenschen, Suhrkamp. Theimaginary institution Trans. Kathleen Cornelius. 1987. Castoriadis, ofsociety. Blamey. MITPress; Oxford: Cambridge: PolityPress. Narr. Funk andCornelia eds. 1999. Briick, Julika, Tibingen: Korper-Konzepte. DieSehnsucht derFrau nach der Frau: undweibliche Barbara. 1997. Giessrau, Psychoanalyse Munich: Homosexualitat. DTV. Sarah.1982.Lerespect desfemmes. Paris: Galilee. Kofman, Eva. 1995. Der Stoff, aus dem die Staatensind: Zurmannerbiindischen Kreisky, In Das Geschlechterverhdltnis als Gegenstand Fundierung Ordnung. politischer derSozialwissenschaften, eds. ReginaBecker-Schmidt andGudrun-Axeli Knapp. amMain:Campus. Frankfurt Lois.2000. Gender andagency: infeminist thesubject andsocial McNay, Reconfiguring Press. theory. Cambridge: Polity 2000.DasJenseits derPhilosophie: Wider dasdualistische Josef. Mitterer, Erkenntnisprinizip. Vienna: Passagen. Alice. 2000.Corps del'imaginaire dessexes/genres. Pechriggl, transfigures: Stratifications Paris: l'Harmattan. .1996. Erfahrung undGestaltung derWirklichkeit zwischen Realem undImaDiePhilosophin 14:51-69. ginarem. .1991.DerEinfall derEinbildung alsontologischer Aufbruch. InDieInstitution + Kant. desImaginaren, ed.Alice Pechriggl andKarl Reitter. Vienna: Turia world andJoanRiviere: Collected ed. Riviere, Joan.1991.Theinner 1920-1958, papers Athol Hughes. London: Karnac Books. 1996."Wie dieWorte einesberauschten Menschen": Geschichtsleib Rogozinski, Jacob. und politischer In Der Sinndes Historischen, ed. HertaNagl-Docekal. Korper. Frankfurt amMain:Fischer.
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