The anthropologist Joshua Reno summarizes Douglas thus:
[J]ust because something provokes my disgust does not mean that I can blame inherent qualities that the thing possesses. This was the ultimate lesson of Mary Douglas’ seminal 1966 book Purity and Danger, which became a touchstone for the social constructivist alternative to common sense: though appearance may suggest otherwise, things are judged ‘polluting’ because of how they fit within encompassing systems of social classification.… For something to be ‘waste’ it would have to be defined as such in the active imaginations of human beings, who in doing so perform their social distinction from one another, just as they distinguish wasted from more valued items (see Frow 2003). If one begins with the constructivist paradigm, it makes little sense to speak of ‘waste’ apart from uniquely human powers of symbolic valuation at all. (3)
Prompt: Do you agree with Reno’s summary of Douglas? Do the readings from Kristeva and Freud differ from Douglas on these terms? What different perspectives do they articulate, and how different are they from Douglas’s view of waste? Respond in the comments section below.
Work Cited: Reno, Johshua, 2014. “Toward a New Theory of Waste: from ‘Matter Out of Place’ to Signs of Life.” Theory, Culture & Society 31(6): 3-27.
I do agree with Reno’s summary of Douglas. Reno feels that Douglas is saying that things are viewed as pollutants because of their social classification and humans who define waste or pollutants as such, then show their own social classification. Douglas supports this claim primarily through examining how religion corresponds with cleanliness. Douglas starts off her piece by stating that today, people associate dirt with disorder as “an attempt to relate form to function” (page 3). Shortly after she reminds us how beliefs that stem from this line of thought can then affect society or social behavior. She also uses numerous example such as the Syrian attitude toward pigs- an animal that can either be viewed as unclean or perhaps sacred depending on which class of people or religious group one is a part of. Douglas is ultimately arguing that different levels of pollution or waste or filth will have different meaning to different people from different walks of life. The other readings by Kristeva and Freud don’t necessarily disagree with Douglas, but whereas Douglas suggested a more sociological reasoning behind why people view waste in a certain way, the other writers remind us that there are also psychological criteria as well. Kristeva purposefully speaks from the first person, discussing how many feelings towards waste come from within and Freud mentions that waste has other emotions and feelings stemming from our own childhood and upbringing. Psychology and sociology often stand in for the individual and the group respectively and one influences the other and vice-versa. It makes sense that a person’s beliefs or feelings towards what is considered clean or unclean (or pure or impure) would stem from their own experiences as well as what part of the world they’ve grown up in.
Reno captures much of Douglas’s argument accurately but glosses over a significant distinction in Purity and Danger. First, however, what he gets right: objects are deemed waste not through “inherent qualities” but through “social classification.” As Douglas writes, “Dirt, then, is never a unique, isolated event … Dirt is the by-product of a systematic ordering and classification of matter, in so far as ordering involves rejecting inappropriate elements” (36). In other words, waste does not hold “unique” qualities; rather, it is inconsistent with the system itself. Whether modern or primitive, we exercise our “active imaginations” (as Reno puts it) through rules and rituals that operate as “symbolic systems” to achieve this (36).
This distinction between modern societies and primitive cultures, however, is one that Reno’s summary does not address. While Douglas’s argument remains universal (all cultures classify dirt through “systematic ordering”), “moderns” and “primitives” do so in different ways, with different systems. Where the former classify waste via hygiene and pathology, the latter employ religion to create patterns “with greater force and more total comprehensiveness” (36, 41).
Kristeva both complicates and supports the notion of waste determined by social systems. On one hand, Powers of Horror locates the construction of waste—as an example of abjection—in the human psyche: “even before being like, ‘I’ am not but do separate, reject, abject” (13). In other words, we must cast out the unwanted in order to become ourselves (or, at least, fashion images of ourselves). On the other hand, though, she writes that abjection “is anchored in the superego,” and argues that “unshakeable adherence to Prohibition and Law” is necessary to “hem [it] in” and “thrust [it] aside” (15–16). In this respect, Kristeva may have more in common with Douglas than at first glance.
I agree with Reno’s summary of Douglas – current society will view cow-ding as pollution,impure. However Dougkas’ Purity and Danger (9) cow-dung is a cleansing agent. The cow is views as sacred a god, in fact many gods and to cleanse oneself in its waste is a religious ritual. it’s a purification of oneself, to be part of a group, a way of living mainly for the Havik women. (33) The ritual baths of the Havik Barhaim , and the caste system; 3 degrees of religious purity by bathing and separating oneself from direct touch of lower caste.
Kristeva and Freud views differs on waste- leaning more towards impure thoughts. (P13) The love of a parent- mother, the sone loves her however he fears the love, and rejects all that he’s given and removes himself. (3) The lack of cleanliness disturbs the social issue order where as Douglas lack of cleanliness was a religious ritual a coming together Kristeva and Freud waste is physical energy, within oneself the “I” casting aside the fear, the shame to be oneself. Faith (78) Wasted energy must be expelled I order to survive.
I agree with Reno’s summary on Mary Douglas. Reno says that pollutants are viewed as pollutants depending on where you are from and the culture you are raised in. Douglas provides evidence of this when talking about pigs. She points out that pigs can be viewed as important and sacred in some societies and in others they are considered dirty animals. Freud’s view is more directed toward individual cases and how people were raised and personal experience can define filth, Kristeva is similar and talks in first person, she hones in on the struggles within ones self in approaching objection (pg4) to rid of filth.
Reno’s summary seems to be a fair one. Douglas describes dirt as “the byproduct of systematic ordering and classification of matter,” which implies that dirt is part of the system itself; whereas Kristeva’s emphasis is on the destabilization of systems by the abject: a breakdown of the I/Other boundary. For Douglas, the anomalous (dirt or waste) clarifies “the outline of the set in which it is not a member” (36). But there are echoes of Kristeva in Douglas, notably Kristeva’s attention to tactile experience. Douglas uses Sartre’s essay on stickiness to articulate a definition of the anomalous: a viscous substance, somewhere between solid and liquid, is “a trap, it clings like a leech; it attacks the boundary between myself and it” (39).
There are also echos of Freud in Purity and Danger. According to Raitt, Freud was concerned with the economy of the psyche, and believed that the mind is “devoted to throwing out excess energies in an attempt to ensure that its internal environment stayed exactly the same” (74). Similarly, Douglas argues that “Uncomfortable facts which refuse to be fitted in, we find ourselves ignoring or distorting so that they do not disturb these established assumptions” (38). But for Freud, the “waste” of the psyche manifests in the unconscious as repression or psychosis, and ultimately in the death drive as a means to escape the barrage of untotalizable experience; the center cannot hold, and the system of the self ultimately collapses. For Douglas, dirt or waste helps to perpetuate an ever-evolving societal system.
I do agree with Reno’s summary of Douglas. From Douglas’s writing, it can be inferred that Inherent qualities of what you deem disgusting do not determine if it really is “disgusting.” In fact, it is societies or cultures that come up with their own classification. The example of how cows’ feces was considered holy by a certain group of people, whereas it is deemed dirty waste illustrates this point very well. Waste itself does not hold any unique quality, and it is up to humans to valuate a thing, a person, even a concept, and give them symbolic meanings.
While Douglas focuses more on society, religion, and solidarity in general, Fraud and Kristeva focus on human psychology. They treat waste as something human must produce or emit in order to become a better person. Kristeva even calls abjection “a kind of narcissistic crisis” (14). However, there is one part in Kristeva’s writing I would like to point out where she talks about what causes abjection is society. She writes it is not “lack of cleanliness or health that causes abjection but what disturbs identity, system, order” (4). People who completely deny morality is not considered abject, but things and people who are in between are. This idea somewhat links to the part where Douglas talks about anomalies with the example of an infant dipping his hands into a jar of honey.
Reno acknowledges Douglas’ argument of the notion that cleanliness is ultimately forcing our environment to conform to an idea created. Reno contends with Douglas’ view that “pollution beliefs” have their basis in a system of societal distinction based on ideas that result in the separation of a society. Douglas claims that these pollution beliefs “reinforce social pressures,” (3) and therefore define moral values and social rules. Douglas’ continues in mentioning that she doesn’t agree with the societal hierarchy practice of distinguishing something as disgusting because it results in the separation of a people which then in turn, justifies those deemed “clean” and “unclean.” Douglas attest these notions from a sociological perspective blaming a culture “which is richly organized by ideas of contagion and purification.” (5) Whereas both Freud and Kristeva speak from a psychological perspective arguing that individual importance when it comes to distinguishing something as abject. Kristeva speaks in first person and places emphasis on the “I” and argues that her idea of abjection “separates me from them.” (2) Freud places emphasis on the “I” when speaking of the behavior of the individual and his/her notions of one’s behavior relating to the idea of waste as a part of bodily functions. Ultimately, there is a mutual relationship between Douglas’ sociological perspective of the idea of waste and Kristeva’s and Freud psychological perspective.
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I agree with Reno’s description of Mary Douglas’ Purity and Danger (1966). In the assigned excerpt, Douglas claims that no thing can be categorized as absolute dirt, because ”it exists in the eye of the beholder” (2). Rather, she mentiones that people tend to influence one another’s behaviour by reinforcing beliefs to impose social pressure in order to set certain moral values. As society is impacted by external factors, anything that differs from what is expected is considered to be dangerous for the society and judged ”polluting”. In her analysis between clean and unclean, she calls for organizing the environment, as being ”unclean” means being out of place or order. This idea further extends to the topic of taboo, under which a person is no longer consider holy, but impure as the social boundary is not respected and their act is thought to be a supernatural danger. On the other hand, Kristeva talks about abjection or that which is repressed in human’s psyche. Like Douglas, she argues that disrespect toward social borders is the cause of abjection and she supports Freud in his view that unexpressed desires manifest themselves unconsciously. Furthermore, unlike Douglas, Freud states that bodily cleanliness is not a waste, but something of order. His perspective agrees with Douglas’ view when he says that “dirt is matter in the wrong place” (821), as it reminds if the need to re-order the environment.
Reno’s summary of Purity and Danger seems accurate. For Douglas, things are deemed waste only in relation to culturally specific social systems: “Where there is dirt there is system. Dirt is the by-product of a systematic ordering and classification of matter, in so far as ordering involves rejecting inappropriate elements” (36). Waste, then, reveals little about the matter or concept itself. Instead, what is considered waste illuminates the patterns, binaries, and ideologies implicit in the specific culture or social system. In representing what does not fit in an accepted, ordered worldview, waste—disorder—lays bare the system.
With her description of the corpse in The Powers of Horror, Kristeva echoes Douglas. For Kristeva, the corpse reveals “what [we] permanently thrust aside in order to live” (3). The corpse is “death infecting life,” or a dissolution of a set boundaries implicit in our social system (4). People avoid dead bodies, then, not because they are dirty and carry disease, but because the sight of them “disturbs identity, system, order” (4). Corpses are considered waste because they encroach on our accepted patterns, they reveal a mortality far beyond our own.
For Freud, “dirt is matter in the wrong place”; waste, specifically psychological waste, is similarly made up of that which does not belong, that which does not sit well within an ordered social system or worldview (Freud 820). Freud’s primary focus is on the psychological effect of the “ambiguities” and “anomalies” that Douglas outlines in “Secular Defilement.” Freud notes that “any impression which the nervous system has difficulty in disposing of by means of associative thinking or of motor reaction becomes psychical trauma” (Raitt 78). Such impressions, anomalies that do not fit in the accepted pattern, have the potential to cause trauma and distress, perhaps because there is discomfort in feeling the system shake beneath us.
Reno’s summary of Douglas’ work is accurate but incomplete. It doesn’t address the context-specificity of Douglas’ critique and, in this sense, it fails to deliver an account of the historical value of her work. More than giving a descriptive account of material states of affairs, Douglas is also leveling a critique of widespread mispractices in the fields of anthropology and comparative religion.
In the first chapter, Douglas gives us a survey of developments in the two fields. She details the major figures, the threads of influence between them, and the assumptions they hold in common despite their varied viewpoints. She challenges their claims and exposes the prejudicial conditions that made their scholarship appear authoritative. It’s this historical account and critique that allows her to articulate her own normative prescriptions about how we should proceed moving forward. She succinctly summarizes the normative edge of her analysis as follows: “we shall not expect to understand other people’s idea of contagion, sacred or secular, until we have confronted our own” (29)
Freud offers an interesting case in the background of the history she sought to critique. On the one hand, Freud’s “unconscious” seems to offer some utility for Douglas’ thesis since it enables us to think and speak about the built-in biases that shape and distort one’s experiences. On the other hand, Freud seems to see his own investigations as being immune to such biases when he states “I cannot say at this date what particular occasions began to give me an impression that there was some organic connection between this type of character and this behavior of an organ, but I can assure the reader that no theoretical expectation played any part in that impression” (1) [emphasis added]. Hence while Freud seems to be on board with the project of examining symbolic implications of our own ideas about waste, he seems reluctant to acknowledge the condition that Douglas describes when she states that “all our impressions are schematically determined from the start,” and that “[a]s time goes on and experiences pile up, we make a greater and greater investment in our system of labels. So a conservative bias is built in” (37). And so, even though there are resources in Freud for perhaps strengthening Douglas’ project, I think it’s safe to say that Freud too would be cut down if he had been included in her analysis.