Talk:Abjection

Awful
This essay is awful. The terms are undefined, it's a narrative, there's no examples, and it its dense and confusing.

The term is first defined as rejection... isn't there an aspect of horror to it though? "Abject poverty"? How can the abject be "taken out of our system while bits of it remain in our selves": that's a contradiction, and implies a second-party actor as well. "The act of "selfing" ("identitying") ourselves is the only common feature of all people" - that's not true! All people have brains, too. And spinal columns. And a cardiovascular system. And, if we exclude the severely brain-damaged, things like thoughts and feelings and emotions are pretty universal too.

There clearly needs to be more than one source used, because either Kristeva is being sorely misrepresented... or Kristeva is full of crap. We feel horror at the sight of a dead body because it's "outside the symbolic order"? Really? I thought it was because it confronts us with our own mortality, and because it violates our mental habit of looking for signs of life in our fellow humans - a corpse is "wrong" because we are genetically predisposed to prefer the living over the dead. Further, we are (perhaps instinctively) wary of dead bodies as being possible sources of infection or disease.

"This act is done in the light of the parts of ourselves that we exclude: un-namely – the mother." What the hell? Total non-sequitor, nevermind that "un-namely" isn't a word. This entire paragraph is again asserting as factual, what is (at best) a tenuous hypothesis about the development of human children's psyche.

Sorry about the rant. I hope I'm not the only one who finds this entire entry worse than useless. --Leperflesh 06:28, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * The concept of abjection is a contradictin of terms by definition. I'll do what I can to 'fix up' the article, but you're dissagreeing with points that you then later agree with. I do not see a problem with most of the points you disgree with, you simply do not understand the defintions I suppose. I'll do what I can to bring it down to an intelligible level I guess. --Thaddius 14:57, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

I have to agree with the first poster. As an intelligent layman I find the article too dependent on psychological terms to understand. Further, when a definition or explanation uses as part of its exposition the word it supposedly defines, I find it worse than useless.mujerado (talk) 02:53, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Abject Objects
Can't objects be abject? Like blood or sperm? People don't want to see abject things because they belong ín the body and not outside? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 89.98.75.222 (talk • contribs).
 * I've just added this to the article, but abject can be in between the object and the subject, the idea that something is alive, yet not. Blood, sperm, excrement, all these things were a part of you or someone else at one time and they have moved from the living world to some kind of congnitive purgatory where their state of being hasn't been rationalized yet, not reaching the concept of object yet. Loose hair is another example, some people refuse to touch hair that is clogging a drain in a shower or a sink out of abjection. As you said, people are much more comfortable with hair, excrement, sperm, and blood when they are in/on the body in the way that 'should' be. There are some who have a sort of seperation anxiety about losing these things too out of fear of abjection. Such is the case of the anal retentive, afraid to let go of their excrement; those who faint at the sight of blood; even cases of people who injest (out of compulsion) their hair/skin/etc. as it falls from their body. The article mentions women and homosexuals as being abject, and while this is true that they can be treated as such, it is rather confusing to mention the object\subject\abject relation so early on. On that matter, I must admit, I do not know much, so I'll leave it be, but I hope what I've mentioned helps a little. --Thaddius 07:33, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

What exactly does being anal retentive have to do with a fear of losing one's excrement? Anal retentive gets its name from the anal stage of development. Also, it has to do with an over attention to details, not any type of fear of loss. Furthermore, the poster Leperfish, above, does not seem to be accepting then denying things. Also, what does it mean for a thing to have a definition that is inhernelty contradictory? You say that someone failed to comprehend the definition and you will make it more inteligible; but do you realize that a contradiction is neccesarily unintelligible. This article is absurd, sadly it's probably not your fault; Kristeva's orginal essay was extremely absurd...if you disagree, please respond with something meaningful, don't simply say that I failed to understand the definitions involved.Phoenix1177 (talk) 07:09, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I fear you misunderstood me. Your 'please respond with something meaningful' comment leads me to think that you do not find my comments helpful. I hope you're not under the impression that I'm going around insulting people's intelligence, because I assure you I'm not (WP:AGF). Please read the following comments under the assumption that I am merely an editor who sometimes finds he can't explain things to people, not out of a superiority complex, but an inability to convey meaning simply though plain text.
 * I don't see why you'd disagree that a lack of understanding of the theory would be a legitimate reason for not understanding the theory, but I do see how you might think that I'm being malicious. I did say after that comment that I would attempt to make the article intelligible (which I admit, I have not done - I find large edits have lost their appeal) and I took my perception of his lack of understanding as a failing on my (and the article's) part, not on his.
 * Your question about my comment on anal retentiveness pertains to the literal meaning behind the term 'anally retentive' (to retain anally) and its origins as a term, and does not actually concern those who are 'anal' (i.e. fanatic attention to detail). I suppose I didn't make myself plain there. Suffice to say the Wikipedia article on anal retentiveness does not go into great detail about any of this (perhaps it could use the attention from someone who is, in fact, anal? <-bad joke), but I'm sure there are outside sources that can help you out with that should you wish to learn more - I am not willing to spend time writing out theories on talk pages (this is my prerogative). I hope that my other examples (fainting at sight of blood, internalization of discarded hair, etc.) conveyed my meaning well enough to maybe save you the trouble of outside research into anal retentiveness?
 * Your criticisms about the article are noted, but sadly this is an article still in the development stage and is on a subject that is of little interest to the general editing public of Wikipedia (I take note of your absence from the list of past edits), and is also the subject of controversy (such is the constant state of a 'theory'). Should you wish to make constructive edits to the acctual article while maintaining neutrality it would be very welcome.
 * Your criticisms of the definition as a 'contradiction' are misinterpreted I think (I know you don't want me to say that, this may be due to my lack of care in my previous wording of the definition. You'll have to forgive me). The definition of abject is NOT the contradiction, it's the abject itself that is the contradiction (please pay close attention to my wording there). It exists between object and subject, living and dead. The abject can be a part of a subject (hair, limbs, etc.) that, after being removed from the subject (most often forcefully) fails to make this transition from subject to object, living to dead, in the mind of the subject, and exists outside of the symbolic order, thus abjection. This is a confusing statement, I know, but I assure you that there is a difference, or at least, Kristeva believes there is a difference. I hope this addresses your concerns on that matter, seeing as how you've brought it up again below. If you still have problems with that definition, that can tie in to my next point.
 * As for your criticisms of Kristeva's essay, I agree that her writing can be a little... convoluted (welcome to the wonderful world of essays on theoretical psychology), but that does not detract from the core theory. Personal disagreements with the author's writing style do not really have an effect on the idea, which, true or not, has still been proposed and is heralded as a legitimate theory by, at the very least, some. It is for this reason that it was included in Wikipedia, because it is the sort of thing that would be part of an encyclopedic lexicon. It isn't really up to editors like you and I to denounce theories (especially based on what we perceive to be poor writing), but should you find sourced criticisms feel free to add them to the article at your leisure. If you do have any more personal criticisms toward the theory and Kristeva's writing style I'm afraid they do not belong on Wikipedia, or this talk page for that matter, and I suggest that you take them up with Kristeva herself (I wouldn't mind sitting in on that actually). And thanks for your interest in the article. :) --Thaddius (talk) 16:40, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Abject in Literature, Huxley
While Huxley doesn't define the term abjection, he uses the word abject gratuitously in his masterpiece Brave New World and the subsequent essays of Brave New World Revisited. When I return to school in January, I can find references if this would help.

I think it's faulty to attribute this word to Kristeva as if she invented its philosophical meaning in some quasi-Hegelian sense. A clarification of this would be nice, and maybe even structuring articles such that the pre-Kristeva usages of abject in literature do not look like they were influenced by her. --Tedpennings 19:38, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

The word abject means existing in a low or downcast state, Kristeva (if she was indeed the one to come up with the idea) just took the word for this idea. Maybe a link to its Wikitionary page?--Absurdity 03:19, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

To the writer of "Awful"
I think that what you wrote about the abjection article being awful is more directed at Kristeva. Have you read "Powers of Horror"? It makes a lot of statements that seem to be contradictions and I *think* that that is part of what Kristeva was trying to do. Habitus2007 (talk) 13:27, 25 November 2007 (UTC)Habitus

I'm sorry, but making contradicitions is the same as making nonsense. My point, if what someone writes somehow requires them to contradict things, they should not bother writing it in the first place. I know this is not the place for it, but Kristeva's essay reads like it was written by a third grader who was using vocabulary from psychoanalysis to make it look smart, but then failed.Phoenix1177 (talk) 12:03, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
 * As I mentioned above (and I feel it needs reiteration because it is important) personal criticisms of the topic of the article are not relevant to the article. Should you wish to 'clean up' the article while maintaining a neutral point of view, it would be very welcome, but personal, unsourced gripes will be deleted. I assume that Habitus feels the same way seeing as how he seems concerned with these complaints being directed at Kristeva herself, not the essay the article discusses.. --Thaddius (talk) 17:38, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Just Passing Through
Neither of the examples under the title "Fiction" are, strictly speaking, works of fiction.

This needs to be a much larger article, and what is here mostly belongs on another page. Consider Johnson's definition: "mean, base, vile, contemptible. / Meanness of mind, servility, baseness."

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.43.211.73 (talk) 21:27, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Feel free to make changes to the article yourself. Your problem with the 'fiction' part can be solved by simply changing the title\header to something like 'abjection in writings on fiction' or something more eloquent. As for suggestions on what to add, be bold. --Thaddius (talk) 14:38, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

On reflection, I was too harsh on this article. I have made some small alterations in an attempt to broaden the subject, and I think that with these the article stands alone well enough. In this spirit I have also merged Abject Art. It was a good suggestion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.132.164.74 (talk) 16:33, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Un-namely?
This act is done in the light of the parts of ourselves that we exclude: un-namely – the mother.

I'm having trouble making sense of this statement. It seems to suggest that the mother is a part of the self (or several parts?), and that the act of abjection is done in the light of the mother. It also implies that calling these parts of self (which are excluded in order to illuminate the act of abjection) by the name "the mother" somehow is not to name these parts of the self. Obviously, most people have a proper human name for their individual mother; is "un-namely" just a cute way of saying that the author of this article doesn't know the reader's mother's name?

Were you trying to say that the act of abjection exemplified by the exclusion of one's mother from one's own identity? If so, I might choose defecation and the cutting of hair and nails as examples that often find an earlier place in a person's memory. In this case, "in the light of the parts..." might be less appropriate than "in the light of our exclusion...".

But perhaps there's a lot of critical theory jargon that has gone over my head here.

Joel (talk) 01:25, 16 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Seeing no explanation, I'm going to go ahead and remove the clause after the colon. If someone can find a way to state this concept in a way that a layperson might understand, feel free.128.115.27.11 (talk) 22:46, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Pornography
The abjection of women in pornography would be worth mentioning in this article, I think. I'll try to get some good citations. --  TyrS  chatties  04:48, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Re the "In Critical Theory" section:
While Mary Douglas's work was important, it is almost certainly wrong to identify her work as the "origin" of the analysis of concepts like "sin", "taboo" and "defilement" in terms of semiotics and the symbolic. At the very least, this statement overlooks the work of Mirceau Eliade, beginning in the late 1940's, and Paul Ricoeur's early works FALLIBLE MAN and THE SYMBOLISM OF EVIL, both first published in 1960. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Meherlihy (talk • contribs) 17:35, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, forgot to sign.... One general note: this article is sadly lacking in rigor. My overall impression is that it's trying to cover way too much ground from too narrow a base of knowledge. It could use attention from a Kristeva expert, a comparative religionist, an anthropologist, an art historian specializing in contemporary performance art, and so on. Meherlihy (talk) 17:44, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

French "abjection" and English "abjection"
Both words mean "cast down," but they differ considerably in nuance. Larousse defines French "abjection" as "Dernier degré de l'abaissement, de la dégradation morale ; ignominie." Oxford refers one to "abject": "(of a person or their behavior) completely without pride or dignity; self-abasing." Carolyn Forché's use of "abject" to quite different effect illustrates this clearly: "I had not yet…conceived of our relation to others as one of infinite obligation; to stand with them in the hour of need, even abject and destitute, in supplication and without need of response." Employing faux amis in translating French theorists is a common source of misunderstanding and conflict. Jackaroodave (talk) 21:39, 11 May 2021 (UTC)