What are the motifs and themes in Totem and Taboo?

[Henggao]

Discuss the Importance of Language as it pertains to control

What is control?
What is the role of language as it pertains to control?
What is the relationship between language and taboo?
What is the role of totems as pertains to control?

[Phillip]

actually wrote something about this in the past. The dialectic is the language that controls. Playing on Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents the control is a form of guilt, in this case in T&T taboo, and through generations it is language that communicates this. Here is what I jotted down sometime in the past.

"Freud describes totem itself as dialectic between a small group or clan, usually blood related, of a tribe and a particular animal, plant, or force of nature that stands in a particular relationship to the clan. The animal (I will use an animal as the example of totem through out the text) that is totem to the clan serves as protector, tutelary spirit, and embodies the tribal heritage of the clan. The clan as totem is forbidden to kill the animal as totem. The fact that the clan and the animal are both totem is very important. They are tied together and the well-being of one inter-subjectively influences the well-being of the other. The prohibition of totem also covers both aspects of totem: animal and clan. Members of the clan are not only forbidden from killing the animal of totem, but also forbidden from partaking sexually (incest) of other members of the clan as totem. Violation of either brings about automatic punishment. Freud describes taboo as sacred and consecrated as well as dangerous, forbidden, and unclean. Taboo is a prohibition that lacks justification and, like Pinker’s forgotten rules, is of unknown origin. Freud further describes taboo as the phenomenon that forbids the strong inclinations of the unconscious. The convergence of totem and taboo appear to be in Freud’s analysis of incest. It is incest that is prohibited in the clan as totem and it is incest that becomes the taboo which gives the clan its first rule and thereby a beginning of a social structure. The dialectic between totem and taboo evolves as the clan as totem and the taboo are carried forward. As the social begins to develop the heritage of the previous generations taboos are pass to the next generation. Additionally, individuals rise up in the clans, tribes, and societies and become leaders such as priest or kings. The dialectic between totem and taboo continue as the leader who instructs the totem’s next generation becomes taboo. The transformation occurs within the dialectic between the expanding clan as totem and the need to strengthen and even personify the taboo. In the example of incest the totem finds harmony while providing stability and structure for a clan. In another example, that of exiled males returning to kill the father and take the mothers and sisters of the totem, we see that the dialectic is ruptured, because the taboo is broken, then recreated and re-established by the returning males. I will discuss this recreation of the world or totem in Eliade’s work. Even this rupture is dialectic with the past. If it were not it could not re-establish the totem and taboo. Freud himself reveals the dialectical structure of such concepts when he discusses totem and taboo in relation to his own concepts of “projection” and “ambivalence.”"

[Henggao]

P.D. wrote: "actually wrote something about this in the past. The dialectic is the language that controls. Playing on Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents the control is a form of guilt, in this case in T..." Thank You

[Henggao]

Henggao wrote: "P.D. wrote: "actually wrote something about this in the past. The dialectic is the language that controls. Playing on Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents the control is a form of guilt, in t..."
What is the role of language as it pertains to Taboo?

[Phillip]

In very simple terms. We enculturate with language. Taboo is taught (mostly through language). So we use language to pass down taboo. Taboo controls. Thus language controls.

[Henggao]

Thank you P.D.
This has been very helpful to me.