Impossibility of 'Auto-Critique'

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Hi Angela:
>this might also give pause to think about to what extent assuming the
>stance of woman with whip is at all an emancipatory, or even
>transgressive, one.
>
>especially in leftist circles, where the fantasy of sacrificing one's
>self entirely to the demands of the Other in the name of the Good
>(I.e.., masochism)  finds refuge in all sorts of postures, these
>references to pain and
>discomfort are nothing more than a play to the masoch's fantasy
>perhaps.

I agree that leftist circles may be overpopulated by men who are bossy
bottoms, which is another reason to object to 'auto-critique.'

BTW, I don't think that S/M is 'emancipatory' or 'transgressive' at all. It
does, however, serve to neatly theatricalize the invalid and yet persistent
problematics of non-Marxist Western philosophy that revolve around the
Individual/Civil Society (e.g. Subject/Object, Self/Other, and
Freedom/Determination).

Coming back to philosophy per se (as opposed to S/M as a theatricalization
of invalid problematics), I don't think that Sade and Sacher-Masoch can be
put into a symmetrical opposition. They open different lines of inquiry:
the former involves the questioning of moralism while the latter may lead
to the investigation of social reproduction in terms of a dialectic of
submission and authority. See Kaja Silverman's _Male Subjectivity at the
Margins _, for instance, about the latter.

Yoshie