precariousness of the subject, perhaps can only be articulated in a vocabulary that is energetic or ecological, one which allows us to think, however deceptively, beyond the subject as centre of the visible world.
It seems to me that the totality of what is swallows me, and if it swallows me, or since it swallows me, I can’t distinguish myself from it; nothing remains, except this or that, which are less meaningful than this nothing. In a sense it is unbearable and I seem to be dying. It is at this cost, no doubt, that I am no longer myself but an infinity in which I am lost…
(ibid, 114).
The enigma of the ‘oceanic’ feeling then, is perhaps not enigmatic at all, but rather a very precise description of a most imprecise feeling.
References
Bataille, G (1988a) “Letter to X” in The College of Sociology, pp. 89-93. Hollier D, editor.
Wing B, translator. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
——— (1988b). Inner Experience. Boldt LA, trans. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
——— (1989). Theory of Religion. Hurley R, trans. New York, NY: Zone Books.
——— (1991). “The Object of Desire and the Totality of the Real” in The Accursed Share, vol. II & III, pp. 111-119. Hurley R, trans. New York, NY: Zone Books.
Baugh, B (2003). French Hegel: From Surrealism to Postmodernism. New York, NY: Routledge.
Bersani L (2010). Is the Rectum a Grave? And other essays. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Deleuze G (1983). Nietzsche and Philosophy. Tomlinson H, trans. London: Althone Press.
Deleuze G, Guattari F (1983) Anti-Oedipus. Hurley R, Seem M, Lane HR, trans. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
——— (1988) A Thousand Plateaus. Massumi B, trans. London: Althone Press.
Derrida J (1987). “To Speculate – On Freud” in The Postcard, pp. 257-409. Bass A, trans. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
——— (1996). Archive Fever. Prenowitz E, translator. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Freud S (1914). “Remembering, Repeating, Working-Through,” The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. XII . Strachey J, trans. and ed. London: Hogarth Press.
——— (1915). “Instincts and their vicissitudes,” SE, vol. XIV.
——— (1920). “Beyond the Pleasure Principle,” SE, vol. XVIII.
——— (1927) “Future of an Illusion,” SE, vol. XXI.
——— (1930). “Civilization and its discontents,” SE, vol. XXI.
Land N (1992). The Thirst for Annihilation: Georges Bataille and Virulent Nihilism. New York, NY: Routledge.
Liberston J (1990). “The dualist materialism of Georges Bataille.” Yale French Studies, 78, pp. 124-39.
Lyotard, JF (1993). Libidinal Economy. Grant IH, trans. London: Althone Press.
Macdonald M (2014). Hegel and Psychoanalysis. New York, NY: Routledge.
Vermorel H, Vermorel M (1993). Sigmund Freud et Romain Rolland correspondence (1923-1936). Paris: PUF.
–