We Should All Be Anti-Oedipus
This paper was written for COLT-381: Psychoanalysis and the Arts in Fall 2023. It analyzes subsequent works around Oedipus complex scholarship.
When young students learn about Freud’s Oedipus complex for the first time in their AP Psychology course, their response is always with a little curiosity, but mostly disgust. Similarly, it is understandable for scholars to take on an “Anti-Oedipus” view since it is difficult to prove, but there are valid reasons that interact with the concept of “desire” specifically that add to the lack of support for Freud’s theory. A few decades after Freud’s work on psychoanalysis became mainstream, Gilles Deleuze, a French philosopher, and Félix Guattari, a French psychoanalyst, met in 1968 and collaborated on works together some years later. The book Anti-Oedipus was written in 1972 by Deleuze and Guattari as the first volume of their collective work Capitalism and Schizophrenia, and this work developed the concept of schizoanalysis, specifically through an “Anti-Oedipus” lens, contesting the popular Oedipus complex that originated from Sigmund Freud, widely renowned as the father of psychoanalysis. First, Deleuze and Guattari contest that the Oedipus complex plays a role in reinforcing heteronormative gender and sexuality identities. Next, this repression can be linked to our capitalist society and how capitalism inherently silences people with alternative identities that do not conform to norms. Finally, Deleuze and Guattari propose a new definition of desire as something that evolves constantly.
Anti-Oedipus critiques the Oedipus complex, stating that it is a tool used to repress identities in society. Of course, most people associate the term “Oedipus complex” with psychology and Freud and the incestual associations between the parents and the child, but Deleuze and Guattari argue that the Oedipus complex forces people to conform to its definition and framework, and the influence of Freud’s Oedipus complex is more prevalent in today’s world than previously anticipated. Specifically, the impact of the Oedipus complex can be traced to the institutions of the familial structure, education, and even the government. Beginning with the familial structure, Deleuze and Guattari believe that the Oedipus complex has a role in reinforcing a heteronormative family structure because it emphasizes the heterosexual relationship between a man and woman, and then their child’s subconscious attraction to their parent of the opposite sex and their hatred and envy toward the other parent. Since Freud’s psychoanalytic theories are so popular today, his concept of the Oedipus complex has far-reaching implications since it strictly focuses on distinct, traditional gender roles, which in turn represses people who do not necessarily conform to those gender roles because they may feel confined within those implicit expectations of having heterosexual desires or attraction. Obviously, with the turn of the 21st century there have been numerous developments concerning the concepts of gender, sex, and sexuality, with the developments being more progressive and striving toward inclusivity, so Freud and his beliefs were definitely a product of the early 1900s. Within the Oedipus complex, the assumption that a child has to be attracted to their parent of the opposite sex and resent the other because of that subconscious attraction to the former is rather confining, and this expectation as a whole set, and continues to set, a heteronormative precedent for many years. This kind of pressure to be attracted to someone of the opposite gender is only exacerbated within the toxicity of the patriarchy today. In our patriarchy, men are easily able to gain power and respect in comparison to women, which further feeds into the cycle of toxic heteronormativity perpetuated by the Oedipus complex. Subsequently, this precedent manages to suppress other alternative identities within our society because it implies a very black-and-white, binary approach to understanding gender and sexuality.
Next, Deleuze and Guattari discuss how the Oedipus complex, through the aforementioned repression of alternative gender and sexuality identities, normalizes desire into materialized forms such as wealth or success. Today’s society is very materialistic, so ambitious people who desire being successful or making a lot of money are not frowned upon; even though having a lot of desire in terms of attraction to others is looked down upon, desiring materialistic things in our patriarchal, capitalist society is supported. To continue, Deleuze and Guattari believe that if an individual rejects the Oedipal framework, they can free themselves from society’s restrictive, consumerism-oriented norms, which would essentially open themselves up to alternative ways of living; this could be as simple as not being influenced into buying the same material objects as other consumers. Deleuze and Guattari assert that desire and capitalism are connected by capitalism’s tendency to limit its consumers to a conventional set of desires; capitalism is so successful today because large corporations are effectively able to push their “desires” onto consumers, which then restricts individuals’ sense of self and identity.
Deleuze and Guattari explored the concept of “desire” and how it is a fluid force instead of something that can be turned on or off. Furthermore, they proposed a specific term for those who purposely ignore societal norms: the “schizo.” Essentially, their book called for a revitalization of psychoanalysis, taking a term that generally carries a negative connotation and transforming it into something freeing. To elaborate on the “schizo,” Deleuze and Guattari believed, contrary to Freud, that desire is a fluid force that is always changing. This “desiring-production” implies that desire is ever evolving, and that desire should not necessarily be regarded as something taboo or to survive within a capitalist society, but rather as a force that has the potential to improve society because of all the diverse possibilities it can bring to our world. Specifically, Deleuze and Guattari look to the example of homosexuality, the taboo, deviant counterpart to heterosexuality. Homosexuality has been a taboo topic for many years, especially in the modern West, with many people today still being unaccepting toward the LGBTQ+ community and the prevalence of conversion therapy or homophobic rhetoric in religion, for instance; however, Deleuze and Guattari argue that if people started putting that negative energy into instead embracing these diverse sexualities, desire can be used as an effective tool in bettering our society. In continuation, they argue that by allowing homophobia or being indifferent to it, society as a whole is harmed because this indifference or ignorance sets a precedent for other oppressive practices in the future.
In conclusion, Deleuze and Guattari argue that the Oedipus complex pressures people to fit heteronormative gender and sexuality identities, thereby silencing any nonconforming individuals. In continuation, this repression can be connected to our capitalist society and capitalism is able to control people’s desires, resulting in an homogeneous society as a whole. Lastly, Deleuze and Guattari define desire not as a rigid thing but as a live, interactive force that always evolves and can be used as a tool for improvement.
Works Cited
Smith, Daniel, et al. “Gilles Deleuze.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2022, plato.stanford.edu/entries/deleuze/#AntiOedi.
“The Desiring-Machines by Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari (492ES) — Atlas of Places.” Www.atlasofplaces.com, www.atlasofplaces.com/essays/the-desiring-machines/.
Wikipedia Contributors. “Félix Guattari.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 25 Oct. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%A9lix_Guattari.
---. “Gilles Deleuze.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 13 Apr. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_Deleuze.
