Perversion the Social Relation

i88E. L. McCallumthe coherence of the individual subject, not to mention the illusory fullnessof subjects' social mediations through story and self; analyzing perversionin this way reveals important aspects of the nonindividualisticdimension of the social.This coming apart provokes me to offer what might best be called aperverse reading of the drive and to think further about the particle, forparticles are elements or components of a larger phenomenon that canonly be discerned as things come apart. To make these two apparentlydisparate things cohere, however, I will read them through the figure ofcontamination, a perversion particularly predisposed to both the drive—as an organization of forces outside the ego—and the particle, since,whether radioactive, chemical, or even linguistic, contamination boilsdown to an introduction of unwanted foreign particles into a systemor conglomeration. This introduction of outside elements threatens tobreak down—or pervert—the system, as in the case of ecological contamination,or at minimum destroy the presumption of wholeness thatthe previously untainted conglomeration—for example, a contaminatedlanguage or cultural practice—had held.If we perceive particles as having some kind of (implicitly organized)motion to them, rather than being purely static entities, we might callthat movement propelling. For instance, if one has particles of, say, hairspray or paint, that one seeks to remove from a can and apply to a surface,one requires the use of a propellant. The German word for propel istreiben, preterite form Trieb. So another aspect of looking at perversionin a social schema from a particular angle focuses our attention on therole of Trieb, commonly translated in anglophone psychoanalytic contextsas "drive," although not infrequently as "instinct." The problemwith either "drive" or "instinct" is the associations of subjectivity andwill, perhaps less so with instinct than drive, since the former's associationwith animals' or organisms' motivating force subverts the affinityto consciousness that "drive" might evoke. It is as if "drive" or Triebsomehow provides the glue that holds the particles together, the forcethat directs them.The drive, however, is not the same as perversion, because perversionis on the side of desire. Rather, what I mean by perversion is this effect ofor emphasis on fragmentation, partiality, coming apart, dispersion. I'mcurious as to how that structure could still be allied with or organized by