05/28/2021
A critique of Georges Bataille that I’ve heard is that shit, a supposedly heterogeneous element, can be put to use, that it can be useful, that is homogeneous. But this isn’t really a critique of Bataille. Why is shit heterogeneous? This is a question that is posed as a critique of Bataille. But there is no critique, only misunderstanding.
Bataille never claims that shit, for example, is always heterogeneous. Rather, Bataille holds that shit is heterogeneous only when its relation to a system is that of being unable to be used, assimilated, etc. by that system.[1]
For Bataille, “[t]here is nothing inherently heterogeneous … in shit or anything else. It is the relation of that element, that object, to a system in which it cannot be given a stable position that makes it ‘rotten.’ Its excluded rottenness is necessary to the coherence of the system”.[2]
Bibliography
Kennedy, Kevin. Towards an Aesthetic Sovereignty: Georges Bataille’s Theory of Art and Literature. Palo Alto, CA: Academica Press, LLC, 2014.
Stoekl, Allan. Bataille’s Peak: Energy, Religion, and Postsustainability. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2007.
References
[1]: Kevin Kennedy, Towards an Aesthetic Sovereignty: Georges Bataille’s Theory of Art and Literature (Palo Alto, CA: Academica Press, 2014), 26.
[2]: Allan Stoekl, Bataille’s Peak: Energy, Religion, and Postsustainability (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2007), 21.
