The history of feces

Author: (French) Dominique Laporte / Country: Mainland China
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2006-07-01
Features: The French title of this book, Histoire de merde, includes the word "Introduction," and indeed, this small volume only provides a framework, leaving one to anticipate more detailed analysis. However, Laporte did not have the time, as he died in 1984 at the young age of 35. In academic terms, Laporte belongs to the generation of the May 1968 movement, younger than figures like Foucault, with a primary focus on psychoanalysis. As a thinker who matured in the 1970s, his critique of power has always been a central concern, equally reflected in his co-authored work, National French: Policies and Practices of the French Revolutionary Language.
Between excrement and power, Freud serves as an intermediary. In Freudian theory, the formation of the human subject is closely tied to one's relationship with the body and with feces. The subject is also the subject of power discourse—the French word "sujet" carries both the meaning of "subject" and "subordinate," so the subject in state discourse is also the state's citizen. Like Foucault, Laporte's critique targets power discourse.
"Born between excrement and feces" is a recurring phrase in Laporte's book. The lower body concentrates the human reproductive and excretory organs, and their relationship is complex. The first three stages of infantile sexuality—oral (oral stage), anal (anal stage), and phallic (phallic stage)—are stages of autoerotic satisfaction. Afterward, the Oedipus complex emerges, and sexual desire shifts toward external objects. During the anal stage, feces are detached from the body but still perceived as part of it. Infants play with feces without noticing their odor. The sense of disgust toward feces marks the formation of the subject. If one remains narcissistic at the anal stage, it may lead to what is known as an "anal personality," a fascination with feces. Laporte frequently mentions the sadistic Marquis de Sade, whose name is the root of the word "sadism," and whose novels exhibit tendencies toward coprophilia, urophilia, and flatulence.
Similarly, eating feces—such as the practice of the holy woman Saint Marie Aracoque, who tasted the feces of patients and was revered for it—Laporte, is a sufficiently sharp maneuver. He wants to bypass what is called "great civilization" and stir up the sewers of civilization.
Around power and discourse, Laporte finds a starting point in France in 1539. King Francis I issued the Villers-Cotterêts edict, which mandated that French replace Latin as the language of national administration and official documents. That same autumn, the king ordered the relocation of livestock within Paris and required households to build latrines and properly dispose of waste, sewage, and feces. National language policy and national sanitation policy were established simultaneously, but Laporte focuses on the state discourse that followed. France's earliest sanitation policy required households to clean their doorsteps, pile garbage at the base of walls, and each household had its own latrine. A process was initiated, gradually confining feces to the private sphere.
In language, a movement to purify the language also began. The state, as public power, became the embodiment of purity. Emperor Vespasian taxed urine, but his son Titus objected. The emperor took the tax money and had Titus smell it, asking if it smelled. Titus replied that it did not, but admitted its origin. Once money entered the state treasury, it was purified of its "copper stench." Re-establishing a connection between power and excrement is the book's main theme. Laporte playfully claims that the essence of the glorious Roman civilization was its sewer system, citing Bloom's insight from Ulysses that civilization follows where the toilet follows.
Feces, once confined to the private sphere, were further individualized, belonging to their owners—a process corresponding to the individual consciousness of modern society. Similarly, burial methods transitioned from communal graves to individual tombs. For Laporte, feces and corpses are both flesh of death, and their individuation belongs to the same process.
Like Sade, a figure such as him is fascinated by death as much as by feces. He can present excrement as a treasure or regard a loved one as feces or a corpse, torturing them. Laporte's mockery is merciless. Another example he gives is the medieval theological debate over the "theory of the Eucharist digesting into feces." In Christianity, the Eucharist ritual uses bread and wine to represent Christ's flesh and blood. Thus, what happens to the Eucharist after digestion becomes a major issue. Proponents of the theory argued that if Christ's body and blood became real in the bread and wine, and if the recipient ate it unchanged, then Christ's flesh and blood should undergo the same transformation as the body.
Laporte's humor often relies on implication, sometimes excessively exploiting verbal puns. For instance, he criticizes the state for depriving individuals by promising "distribution according to need," using the French word "besoin," which means both "need" and "bowel movement," to easily shift to feces.
In fact, the title of this book, "merde," translates to "shit," which means not only "excrement" but also a curse, akin to "damn it" or "fuck." According to Laporte's view of Roman civilization, civilization is nothing but "shit." So, this book discusses the history of civilization and power discourse, and its title implies a "history of bullshit civilization."
In Histoire de merde, Laporte delves into a wealth of cultural contexts, making the humor somewhat challenging to follow. Dongguozi asked Zhuangzi where the Dao was, and Zhuangzi replied that it was everywhere, even in ants, grasses, earthenware, and excrement (Zhuangzi: Chapter 22). For Dominique Laporte, power is everywhere, and excrement is the key to dissecting it. Perhaps we can imitate Zhuangzi and say, "Power lies in excrement and urine."