| Abstract: | 感情（affect）為近年文學與文化理論新興之重要研究議題。尤其在以身份認同政治為出發點之意識型態分析論域裡，九零年代中期後對於環繞身份認同衍生之焦慮、憂鬱、羞辱等感情面向之興趣，在影響力上逐漸凌駕九零年代初給予邊緣身份認同某種先驗之攪擾性或顛覆性光環之批評潮流。酷兒理論（Queer Theory），在這個理論界中所謂的「感情轉向」（The Turn to Affect）扮演著舉足輕重之角色，蓋酷兒理論的重要支柱沙菊克（Eve Sedgwick）對於恥辱與憂鬱兩種情緒之長期關注，對於文化或批判理論近十年來之走向產生之影響可謂無遠弗屆。然而沙菊克理論中的反社會傾向，卻與酷兒理論中另一長老芭特勒（Judith Butler）的傅柯式權力分析理路，產生明顯之衝突，在酷兒理論中形成無法抵消的兩股張力。芭特勒在《性別麻煩》（Gender Trouble）及《權力的心理生命》（Psychic Life of Power）等著作中指出，正統（normative）異性戀認同必須依賴伊底帕斯的「正確」性別認同，而此一決定認同正確與否之原則乃是一個既歧視女性亦排拒同性情慾父權象徵體系。因為象徵體系之介入，使得伊底帕斯期的男性主體在閹割恐懼下被迫放棄對父親之愛慕與渴望，轉而形成同性認同，慾望母親之外的異性。故芭特勒主張，異性戀父系認同之形成，從一開始，即為對失落父親此一可欲客體之悼念憂傷之情所穿刺。對芭特勒將情感政治化之立場，沙菊克自開始即不表贊同。沙菊克認為情感類似政治結構中之本質矛盾且曖昧之殘餘物，可能顛覆，亦可能反動，因此必須獨立於社會脈絡外就其本質分析。職此，沙菊克援引心理學家湯普金斯（Silvan Tomkins）及克萊恩（Melanie Klein）理論，討論羞辱或憂鬱之情緒，然而觀照視角則多聚焦於去脈絡化之人際關係中。沙菊克對於芭特勒或多數後結構派性別理論者（尤其是八零年代末九零年代初以傅柯式權力分析為主要批評策略者）提出之批判雖得到廣大迴響，亦在人文學界引起許多反彈之聲，許多論者以為沙菊克之作法無疑大開倒車，無法對於具體之社會政治脈絡產生有效之分析與批判。本研究擬以沙菊克本人之理論進程與轉向進行深入之分析與爬梳。蓋沙菊克早期對偏執恐懼（paranoia）與恐慌（panic）等感情進行之分析，與當時性別運動或方興未艾之酷兒政治具有明確之連動性與對話性，此一政治感情之投注尤其體現在其經典之作《衣櫃認識論》（Epistemology of the Closet）中，彼時她對異性戀主體於文學文本中所展現之幽微同性情慾之精闢分析，有別於後期作品中她對於憂鬱或羞辱等情感之分析，蓋至此她已逐漸將分析軸心自同性感情關係或異性戀男性對同性關係之恐懼，轉向羞辱或憂鬱主體本身背離社會轉向自我或個人關係的封閉世界。此一情感轉向對於流向制式教條之「解構」型政治分析，雖具有某種積極之導正或針砭性之意義，卻往往將酷兒理論去政治化與去脈絡化，使酷兒研究陷入某種群體政治與個人情感之論述兩難或膠著狀態。本研究擬透過對於沙菊克情感轉向之細部分析，討論沙菊克本人之情感論述中（包含其去政治化、去社會化、論本身憂鬱症之自傳性作品）對於社會或其所處身之實際歷史脈絡所流露之矛盾情緒（ambivalence）。透過對沙菊克矛盾情緒之解析，本研究無意回歸將感情過份政治化之理論路徑，而實是冀求透過辯證式的邏輯思考，在不可互相化消的個人感情與政治社會脈絡的衝突面找到更加合情合理之平衡點。
Affect has been a widely discussed or debated topic in recent literary and cultural theory. The field of ideological criticism (which is most often associated with a particular minoritized identity), above all, has been increasingly drawn to a critical model which is essentially different from the theoretical trends in the early 90s. Rather than treating a minoritized identity as something inherently disruptive or subversive of a given norm (e.g., whiteness, heteronormativity, etc.), this model instead takes interest in a myriad forms of affects revolving around a minoritized identity, such as anxiety, melancholy, and shame. In this so-called turn to affect in theory, queer scholars have, in particular, played an indispensable role. Eve Sedgwick’s long-term preoccupation and engagement with such negative affects as shame and depression has produced a far-reaching influence on the critical and theoretical trends in the past decade. The anti-social disposition as revealed in her affect theory, however, comes into conflict with the Foucauldian approach taken by the other founding figure of queer theory –Judith Butler. In both Gender Trouble and The Psychic Life of Power, Butler argues that normative heterosexual (male) identity presupposes an Oedipal libidinal line-up which in its turn requires both a sexist and heterosexist prohibition against homosexuality to be its prerequisite. With the advent of such a Symbolic proscription against homosexuality, the subject is forced to renounce his/her libidinal attachment to a same-sex parent, which is then turned into the legitimate Oedipal form of identification. In other words, it is the unconscious, ongoing melancholy attachment to one’s same-sex parent that Butler holds is at the base of one’s normative gender identity. Contra Butler’s politicization of affect, Sedgwick maintains that affect is something irreducible to the politics of identity, for it is quintessentially ambivalent – sometimes subversive, yet at other times reactionary. Sedgwick’s approach, therefore, is one that sees affect as correlative with an interpersonal relation which exists in a closed circuitry independent of a broader social/historical context. Drawing on the works of such psychologists as Silvan Tomkins and Melanie Klein, Sedgwick situates shame or depression mostly in a decontextualized interpersonal network that presupposes a reciprocity of affective give-and-take. Her critique of the psychic power model as represented by Butler and her followers, though widely echoed and favorably received by a great number of critics, has also come under attack in the humanities given her atavistic appeal to an outdated humanistic assumption potentially antagonistic to any gesture toward socio-political analysis. Instead of choosing to take side with either of these positions, my critical intervention into this debate begins with a focused, genealogical analysis of Sedgwick’s turn to affect. Her early writings, especially those that took as its subject matter paranoia and homosexual panic, formed a more dialogical relation with the then burgeoning queer and AIDS activism. Such an affective investment in the socio-political found its way into her seminal work The Epistemology of the Closet, whose trenchant analysis of the homosexual panic as seen in the presumably “heterosexual” male subject was actually motivated by a 1990s queer politics committed to an epistemological project that challenged the notion of desire as a fixed and stable entity. Her growing interest in shame, on the contrary, marked out a point of departure from her earlier critical habitus, for at the moment that she situated shame at the level of the individual and the interpersonal, the closed circuitry with which she enframed her human actors had also boldly pronounced an anti-social statement. Though this affective turn have indeed helped queer theory to steer clear of its earlier, over-simplistic interpretive predisposition to construe everything in terms of subversiveness or political edginess/backwardness, it also tends to neutralize the political by suspending or leaving uninterrogated the social-historical context. Tracing Sedgwick’s turn to affect, this study intends especially to focus on her ambivalence and contradiction which cannot do without a humanist understanding of intersubjectivity based upon the pre- or anti-post-structuralist belief in the fixity of identificatory boundaries, as revealed most vividly in her autobiographical work A Dialogue on Love. Through my critique of Sedgwick’s pitfalls, I, nevertheless, do not intend to endorse the position that overpoliticizes affect; rather, it is my hope that by giving a thorough consideration of where Sedgwick falls short, one can manage to find a logical fulcrum that holds in view, instead of cancelling out, the ostensibly conflicting and irreconcilable terms of the dialectic between the personal/affective and the social/political. |
