[lbo-talk] Butler

[Carrol Cox]

I'm sorry. I copied this into a word file to write out some sort of
response, but I couldn't find anything it it that was evicence. It
assumes that the castration complex exists, and it assumes that a
100-year old botched diagnosis by Freud is of interest today (except as
an exhibit in intellectual history). The text draws a series of
connections betwen various items -- which is how theoretical analysis
should proceed. Except tha tnone of the items discussed have any
existence.

I want evidence that there is any reason to take the castration complex
seriously? I doubt that there is.

 
> Here's a start, from Raz Yosef's "Homoland" (GLQ, 2000:3). More later!
> 
> > In a dazzling analysis of the Wolf Man case, Lee Edelman argues
> > that the anus
> > evokes castration anxiety in the male subject because it marks on
> > his own body
> > the anatomo-phantasmic potential of being in his mother’s place.

This is not a good start.

a)The Wol Man  Case belongs to myth and legend, not to an argument in
2008. If it were to be used, one would have to cite a recent redoing of
it by a psychoanalyst who acknowledged the errors of the original.

b) Since the existence of the "Castration Complex" is precisely what is
at issue, _explanations_ of  how something evokes are hardly relevant.
You can't assume what is at issue.

c) From "because of" the claim is just weird, not evidence for anything
except the private meditations of the writer.

Carrol