What to dump?

The asshole theme must be going around…. Frank Paynter emailed me a pointer the other day to the You’re an Asshole filmstrip, and Shelley has a philosophical entry about assholes (her maxims being “The world is full of assholes” and “sometimes you’re one of them”). In German, incidentally, Arschloch is a worse swear-word than shit or fuck, even though shit comes out of assholes and assholes can be fucked (verb & adjective, both). Scheisse and beschissen are routine, salonfähige words, i.e., fit for polite society, while ficken is a merely archaic reference to the agricultural practice of plugging stuff that can germinate into the earth. Arschloch on the other hand carries true venom, perhaps because the asshole, with its powerful sphincter muscle, can go on strike, betray you, or even fight back…

I think it’s a gatekeeper problem, actually. That muscle has control, and it’s very well connected to all sorts of pleasure centres, which is why it’s so interesting as a two-way street (“why don’t we do it in the road” — John Lennon). When I was a graduate student I had a friend who once told me that his sessions with his psychiatrist were getting out of control, for him, because whenever it came time really to delve deeply into his sexuality and to discuss his mother (and let’s just say she sounded like she could make Joan “no-more-wire-hangers” Crawford look like Mother Goose), he felt this compelling urge to “take a dump,” and he’d have to interrupt his session to go and do just that. So, there I was, an academic who had read most of what George Bataille (anal fetishist) had ever written, and I didn’t know the expression “take a dump.” “Take” a “dump”? What the hell is that supposed to mean? (…Oh, have a bowel movement, I see! )

Lately I have immersed myself in readings about usability. (Note that I’m referencing Wikipedia, which now includes Shelley Powers, who, together with Frank’s email inspired this …entry.) I believe that assholes have to be thought of in terms of affordances (another Wikipedia reference!), which of course puts the sphincter muscle’s abilities front and centre (particular in terms of constraints). “Taking a dump” is a rather rude way of describing the affordances of the asshole, which is after all capable of delivering warm, well-formed objects, although, like so many initially shiny things, they grow cold rather quickly, and fact is: no one wants them, eventually not even their producer. Naturally, this can be upsetting, but it needn’t be — we must learn to “dump” that sort of cathexis. The problem with the people we describe as “assholes,” however, is that they are upset, and their gatekeeper then becomes too fixated on keeping things in or under control (lest the world disrespect their objects). Perhaps this explains why people-who-are-assholes have shit for brains.

Coda: My inner asshole, to which I am attached via the things I ingest, including the written word, tells me that Shelley should indeed be in Wikipedia because her contributions merit it; she’s an excellent writer and a terrific photographer; she’s a theorist and a practitioner. And I’d like to see more women included: I’d like to see Janine Benyus have more than a “stub” entry, and I’d like to see Margaret Wertheim, along with scores of other women who merit an entry, included. But I think that Shelley’s suggestion that Jeneane Sessum or Halley Suitt merit an entry was a momentary lapse into the realm of the “shit for brains” world of assholedom: Shelley, what were you thinking? Retailing information isn’t exactly culturally notable, is it? Which is exactly why the inclusion of Robert Scoble (or some of the other male bloggers) is laughable, too. Those guys shouldn’t be in Wikipedia. Whether any of these people are swell is completely irrelevant: as I said, shiny well-formed things don’t hold one’s attention for as long as their producers believe. Blogging-as-retailing-information is too close to the equivalent of taking a dump, and if that’s going into Wikipedia, pardon me if I flush….