[Reminder] The State of Abjection
Julia Kristeva’s theory of abjection suggests that the formation and maintenance of both individual subjectivity and group identity depends on the management of a psychological and corporeal imperfection that our enculturation requires we repudiate. What is abject in ourselves we disavow, and through transference shift onto the Other who, in turn, becomes the guarantor of our bounded selfhood and our group identifications. This ideal state, defined through metrics of subjectival coherence themselves based on a fantasy imposed by the logic of late capitalism – the fear of lack and of loss that today drives unprecedented levels of industrial and corporeal incorporativity – is one whose attainment haunts and motivates us.