Different Subjectivity

~ Clarissa

That’s an interesting question but it’s impossible to discuss because people get triggered.

People in primitive tribes have a completely different subjectivity from ours. They are people. But they are people in a very different way than we are people. Their subjectivity, their way of being who they are inside their minds is unreachable to us. And ours is to them. The idea of being traumatized belongs to our very Western sensibility. They idea of a child as we perceive it, ditto.

And it’s not just primitive tribes. Our fellow Westerners who lived 200 years ago also were completely different in the way they experienced themselves. Our children are less mature at 25 than theirs were at 10. And this is not a bad thing. Ours need a lot more room inside their minds. They need more time to grow into that room.

A subjectivity begins to form before birth. So a Western not even an 8-year-old but an infant absolutely does perceive an invasion into their genital area as traumatic because these children already have the kind of subjectivity where bodies are autonomous and highly individualized. Whether they remember it or can verbalize it is entirely beyond the point.

In the linked discussion, Hanania is the closest to the truth but he’s still off by a mile because he’s unaware that his entire conceptual framework of society versus individual is very contemporary Western.

Can you psychoanalyze a member of a primitive tribe? Of course, not. Because that part of me that gets psychoanalyzed when I go to an analyst is entirely absent from his mind. He doesn’t need it. He wouldn’t survive if he did. In the same way, he has parts of his mind that I don’t.

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Published by Clarissa

37 thoughts on “Different Subjectivity”

  2. I’d agree that not every tribal ritual that would be abuse in our culture is abuse in theirs. But “childhood trauma is cultural” is the motte; the bailey is “and that’s why our culture should stop getting mad about the adults who just want to ‘love’ kids because then it would be totally great for everyone” and that’s exactly where an increasing number of people would like our society to end up.

    Not every tribal thing is not harmful to its people just because it’s tribal and not Western. “Sick Societies” is one book about maladaptive practices among various indigenous tribes.

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    1. It’s absolutely true that these people would use it in such a way. But the online reason that is possible is that we are too shy to say that our culture is superior. I’m not shying away from the word primitive. We should go back to using it widely.

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      1. I expect if “primitive” were to become widely used it would become interchangeable with “pathological.”

        -YZ

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  3. So a Western not even an 8-year-old but an infant absolutely does perceive an invasion into their genital area as traumatic because these children already have the kind of subjectivity where bodies are autonomous and highly individualized.

    What do you think about circumcision? I think it’s an insane thing to do to a baby.

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        1. I guess, at a stretch, you could argue that it doesn’t take away as much sexual function as the more extreme versions of FGM? Still pretty cruel thing to do to a kid, IMO.

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          1. The consequences are beside the point, though. The very intent to mutilate a baby is as barbaric and primitive than any retarded african tribal ritual. So this statement of Clarissa’s applies equally to muslims and jews as well.

            They are people. But they are people in a very different way than we are people. Their subjectivity, their way of being who they are inside their minds is unreachable to us. And ours is to them. 

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    2. “What d:o you think about circumcision? I think it’s an insane thing to do to a baby.”

      Circumcision is much less traumatic a procedure to the patient when done on newborn infants than at any older age. The infants have no recall of the operation when they grow older.

      Whether you think circumcision is desirable and beneficial to males is a totally separate cultural and medical issue.

      Dreidel

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      1. “They don’t feel anything” isn’t a winning argument, exactly. And completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. We’re talking about the alienness of communities who look at a newly born baby boy and the first thing that comes to their mind is “you know what this baby needs? his foreskin sliced off!” lol

        They have different ways of being, as clarissa says. And I can accept that argument.

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  4. In Israel one has to do circumcision to a male child, unless one wants to make this child very different and potentially ashamed about it since a very young age.

    I do not have a son, so didn’t have to make this decision yet.

    I do know that children hate to stand out (as ‘non Jewish’ too despite being born an Israeli Jew).

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    1. one wants to make this child very different and potentially ashamed about it since a very young age.

      That’s essentially how tribes work. All tribes. Members follow the tribe’s rules and rituals to signal their membership and to avoid standing out. The Xhosa tribal slicing off a boy’s foreskin is employing the same logic.

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      1. That’s essentially how tribes work. All tribes. Members follow the tribe’s rules and rituals to signal their membership and to avoid standing out. 

        Many rituals of nation states and of small local communities conservatives want to preserve work in the same way. Make one conform, or consider leaving.

        Many liberals are against paying some of prices demanded by communities and criticize it. One would expect to find greater understanding among conservatives rather than the approach “our prices are 100% just, those of others mark them as unpeople.”

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        1. We agree on everything! Yes, every community has it own rituals that make sense to them but not to others. This is how nation states are formed. People are different etc. etc.

          We’re just saying that people who do FGM and circumcision on their children (like african tribals, jews, and muslims) are people in the sense that they are human. But they are people in a very different way than we are people. 

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          1. I disagree that the Jewish people may not be considered a part of the Western civilization because of circumcision.

            We live surrounded by Muslims and they do have a different, not Western culture.

            Israeli Jews surrounding me at work and etc are not less civilized than you and others on this blog and in the West.

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            1. Most Americans do it. Which is why I don’t express myself about it or pursue the topic at all. I’d be glad if we could move on from this discussion because people get really upset and I don’t want that.

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              1. Dang. I thought it was a minority even of Americans when my kids were born (we declined obviously), but I just looked up the numbers and we’re still at like 60%. That’s shocking.

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              2. I’m not entirely certain how this happened and why. I understand when people do it for religious reasons and have no beef with that. But it’s become a completely normalized thing for people who aren’t Muslims or Jews. Why, I have no idea.

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              3. Something to do with Corn Flakes. Not even joking.

                There was a huge wacky “health and wellness” movement back in the late 19th century. John Harvey Kellogg and the Graham dude who invented graham crackers, were both part of that scene. They were hugely against masturbating, felt it was unhealthy, and that eating sufficient fiber would cure it. Kellogg himself probably impotent. Had like twenty adopted children.

                Anyway, for reasons obscure to modern folks, the mania for circumcision in non-jewish white people in the US originated there, and seems largely held in place now by the profitability of the procedure, plastered over with some handwavium about reduced infections, without a lot of evidence. Originally it was 100% to discourage boys from masturbating. For their health, of course.

                -ethyl

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              4. I read this in my office and started heaving with laughter. Had to run to close the door. What a crazy story!

                One more reason for me to hate cornflakes, then. 😆😆

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      2. If it’s unclear, I do feel unjustly insulted by the comparison with those primitive tribes, just like Clarissa would, if somebody pointed at the internal problems in Ukrainian society and said “They are people. But they are people in a very different way than we are people.”

        Israel is one of the most developed states in the world, and obviously Israeli Jews can participate and even develop the field of psychoanalysis. 🙂

        On another topic, I am glad our kidnapped citizens will return home. Hope though that it wouldn’t mean Hamas staying in power in Gaza and planning next 7/10. Because if yes, much of this war and sacrificies we made, would be in vain.

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        1. Israel is one of the most developed states in the world

          Israelis really want us to believe it is this amazing technologically advanced startup state or whatever but it’s by almost every metric the single biggest welfare state on the planet and has been since its invention, and it would implode almost immediately without the backstop of the entire West behind it.

          Your similarity with Africa doesn’t end at circumcision.

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  5. I do not think that choosing to not make a potential son stand out negatively makes me

    people in a very different way than we are people. Their subjectivity, their way of being who they are inside their minds is unreachable to us

    In America or Europe, I wouldn’t do that. In Israel the situation is different, and the way it would affect a child among peers and in the future among potential romantic partners is different too.

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    1. IKR?

      And yet we’ve kept doing it for over a hundred years now. Failure of original intent is no obstacle: we just come up with new justifications.

      -ethyl

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      1. ” yet we’ve kept doing it for over a hundred years now”

        I tend to think of it as a very non-urgent issue. No one’s seriously trying to convince those who do it for religious purposes to stop and while there’s not much evidence about reduced dangers of infection there’s no real evidence of impaired function either.

        It’s not in the same universe as procedures that women in some countries undergo specifically to reduce sexual function and/or desire.

        In a sense it’s mostly an esthetic decision…

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        2. there seems to be evidence that it reduces sensation, thus requiring more athletic stimulation to achieve orgasm, which negatively affects the sex act for women

          Amanda

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            1. Not exactly.

              From what I’ve heard, the main problem isn’t the necessary length of time required, but rather that the fellow may be less able to conclude while also being *gentle*. That may ring some ladies’ bells, but certainly not all.

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        3. It’s not in the same universe as procedures that women in some countries

          This is, as the young people say, cope. “My reasons for mutilating babies is different from their reasons.”

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