Masochism: Coldness and Cruelty
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"Bergler's general thesis is entirely sound: the specific element of masochism is the oral mother, the ideal of coldness, solicitude and death, between the uterine mother and the Oedipal mother."--Masochism: Coldness and Cruelty (1967) by Gilles Deleuze |
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Présentation de Sacher-Masoch: Le Froid et le cruel (1967, English translation: Masochism: Coldness and Cruelty) is a book on Leopold von Sacher-Masoch and masochism by Gilles Deleuze.
It offers a detailed reconstruction of masochism that challenges Freud's reductionist 'sado-masochism'.
Gilles Deleuze examines the work Leopold von Sacher-Masoch and shows that masochism is something far more subtle and complex than the enjoyment of pain, that masochism has nothing to do with sadism; their worlds do not communicate, just as the genius of those who created them - Masoch and Sade - lie stylistically, philosophically, and politically poles apart.
It was published by Les Éditions de Minuit and translated into English by Jean McNeil. In the Foreword Deleuze says that Masoch has a particular way of "desexualising love while at the same time sexualizing the entire history of humanity". The book attempts to "cut through" the various forms of expression and content that are the artistic creations of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. It also attempts to develop a problematic of masochism in contradistinction from sadism, concluding that the two form of pornology are non-communicating, and cannot be integrated into Sadomasochistic entity.
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The Language of Sade and Masoch
Deleuze starts off by first moving from the clinical practice of associating proper names to diseases (Parkinson's and Roger's disease for instance). However, sometimes it is the patient's name that denotes the illness, as in the case of Masochism and Sadism. History of medicine, says Deleuze, can be regarded as a history of the illness (leprosy, plague) that dies and changes over time, and a history of the symptomatology. However, it is difficult to attribute a disease to Sade and Masoch, but a symptomatology and signs that they describe. It is no longer a matter of pain and sexual pleasure only but of bondage and humiliation as well. Therefore the project is one that moves beyond the purely clinical realm.
However, the differences in Sade and Masoch are not of complementarity but of constituting completely different worlds. Sade uses a language of descriptions that aim at demonstration, whereas Masoch uses the description for a higher function, one of persuasion and education.
The Three Women
Father and Mother
The Art of Masoch
Humor, Irony and the Law
Contract and Ritual
Sadistic Superego and Masochistic Ego
Notes
Not es 1. Krafft-Ebing himself points out the existence of "passive flagellation" independently from masochism. Cf. Psychopathia Sexualis ( revised by Moll, 1 963 ). 2. Georges Bataille, Eroticism, Engl. tr. M. Dalwood ( Calderbooks, 1 965 ), pp. 1 87, 1 8 8, 1 89. 3. Krafft-Ebing, Psychopathia Sexualis, pp. 208'9. 4. Cf. Appendix Ill. 5. To cut off a pigtail would not seem in this instance to imply any hostility toward the fetish; it is merely the necessary condition of its constitution. We cannot allude to hair despoilers without drawing attention to a psychiatric problem of historical importance. Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis, revised by Moll, is a compendium of cases of the most abominable perversions for the use of doctors and jurists, as the subtitle indicates. Assault, crime, bestiality, disembowelling, necrophilia, etc., are all treated with the appropriate scientific detachment, without passion or value-judgment. With case 396, however, the tone changes abruptly: "a dangerous pigtail fetishist was spreading anxiety in Berlin .... " And this comment follows: "These people are so dangerous that they ought definitely to be subject to long-term confinement in an asylum until their eventual recovery. They do not by any means deserve unqualified leniency .... When I think of the immense sorrow caused to a family in which a young girl is thus deprived of her beautiful hair, I find it quite impossible to understand that such people are not confined indefinitely in an asy135 C O LDN ESS AND CRUEL TY !urn .... Let us hope that the new penal law will remedy this situation." Such an indignant explosion against a relatively harmless perversion seems to indicate that powerful personal motivations lay behind the author's departure from his usual scientific obj ectivity. When he reached case 396, the psychiatrist allowed his feelings to get the better of him - let this be a lesson to us all. 6. Letter to his brother Charles on 5 th January 1 869 ( quoted by Wanda). 7. Maurice Blanchot, Lautreamont et Sade (Minuit, Collection "Arguments," 1 963 ), p. 30. 8. Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, The Complete Psychological Works ( Hogarth, 1 955-64 ), Vol. VII, p. 1 5 9. 9. "The instincts and their vicissitudes," in Papers on Meta psychology, Collected Papers ( 1 946 ), Vol. IV, p. 71. 10. Cf. Appendix I. 11. Cf. Bachofen, Das Muterrecht ( 1 861 ). An example of a work owing much to Bachofen's ideas is the excellent book L 'initiation sexuelle et l'evolution religieuse, by Pierre Gordon ( P. U. F., 1 946). 1 2 . Cf. Appendix I. 13. E. Bergler, The Basic Neurosis (New York: Grune, 1 949). 14. Theodore Reik, Masochism in Sex and Society, Engl. tr. M.H. Beigel and G.M. Kurth (Grove Press, 1 962 ), pp. 21, 209. 15. Pierre Klossowski, "Elements d'une etude psychanalytique sur le Marquis de Sade," Revue de Psychanalyse, 1933. 16. An illustration of the difference in nature between the two prostitution fantasies, the sadistic and the masochistic, may be found in Klossowski's tale Le Souffleur: cf. the contrast between "L'Hotel de Longchamp" and "les lois de l'hospitalite." 1 7. The author's use of"the symbolic (order)" or (the order of) the real should be understood in the context of the fundamental distinction established by Jacques Lacan between three "orders" or dimensions: the Symbolic, the Imaginary and the Real . (Translators' note.) 1 8 . Cf. Jacques Lacan, La Psychanalyse, I, pp. 48 ff. As defined by Lacan, the mechanism of repudiation or foreclosure, Verwerfung, operates in the sym- N OTE S bolic dimension and in connection with the father, more specifically "the name of the father." Lacan appears to look upon this as a primary and irreducible operation which is independent of all maternal influence; the distortion of the mother's role would on the contrary arise as a result of the symbolic "repudiation" of the father. Cf. however the article by a follower of Lacan, Piera Aulagnier, "Remarques sur Ia structure psychotique," La Psychanaiyse, VIII, which would seem to restore to some extent to the mother an active role as symbolic agent. 19. Reik, Masochism, p. 1 8 . 20. Cf. Appendix III. 21. Maurice Blanchot, Lautreamont et Sade, p. 35. 22. Reik, Masochism, pp. 44-9 1. 23. Cf. Appendix II. 24. Pagisme: form of masochism where the subject imagines h e i s a pageboy attending the woman. 25. This is the essential thesis of Institutions Republicaines. 26. On the elusive character of the obj ect of the law, cf. J. Lacan's commentaries relating both to Kant and to Sade: Kant avec Sade ( Critique, 1 963 ). 27. Civilization and its Discontents, Complete Psychological Works, Vol. XXI, pp. 1 25, 1 2 8. 28. Theodore Reik, Masochism. "The masochist exhibits the punishment but also its failure. He shows his submission certainly, but he also shows his invincible rebellion, demonstrating that he gains pleasure despite the discomfort .... He cannot be broken from outside. He has an inexhaustible capacity for taking a beating and yet knows unconsciously he is not licked" (pp. 1 45, 163). 29. Revue Bleue, 1 8 88. 30. On the link between agrarian and incestuous themes and the role of the plough, cf. Salvador Dali's brilliant text in Mythe tragique de /'Angelus de Millet, Pauvert. 31. Masoch's tale is a relatively accurate account of the life of Sabattai Zwi. Another account may be found in Gratz, History of the Jews, where the hero's historical importance is emphasized. 32. Letter to his brother Charles on January 8, 1 869. 137 COL D N E SS AND C R U E LTY 33. B. Grunberger, in "Esquisse d'une theorie psychodynamique du masochisme," Revue Fran�aise de Psychanalyse ( 1 954 ), disagrees with Oedipal interpretations of masochism, but he replaces the "murder of the Oedipal father" by a pre-genital wish to castrate the father, regarded as the true source of masochism. In any case, he does not accept the maternal-oral etiology. 34. "The instincts and their vicissitudes" in Papers on Metapsychology. 35. This second explanation, which was offered by Grunberger, traces masochism back to a pre-Oedipal source. 36. These three aspects are formally distinguished in an article written in 1 924, "The economic problem of masochism," but they are already indicated in the first interpretation. 37. Reik, p. 1 86. 38. Musil, The Man without Q!}alities. (Translator's note: this passage does not seem to be included in the English translation of this work. ) 39. Klossowski, Un si funeste desir (N.R.F.), p. 1 27, and La revolution de !'Edit de Nantes (Minuit), p. 15. 40. Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious, Complete Psychological Works, Vol. VIII. 41. Cf. Daniel Lagache, "La psychanalyse et Ia structure de Ia personalite," La Psychanalyse, 6, pp. 36-4 7.
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