Labels, cast-offs, and the sacred

Helena Iara loves the labels on her stuffed toys.  She often spends more time studying the labels than she actually does playing with Pinkme the Hippopotamus or her various soft and cuddly frogs.  Now, though we could fear this as a sign of consumerism, I think there is something else going on.  So as we were walking to the park this week, I began to talk to her to try to think about why.

The anthropologist Mary Douglass did a fascinating study of the philosophical origins of the purity laws of the Hebrew Torah, and concluded (in good structuralist fashion, but probably correctly), that the Mosaic law is based largely on definition and categorization, and what doesn't fit in the categories, is an "abomination", impure.  For instance, one defines fish as things that live in the ocean and swim, but mollusks and shrimp live in the ocean, but they don't swim.  Outside of the category, they are impure and not kosher.  Similarly, animals are defined by the way they walk and the structure of their hooves, so pig and camels, with feet divided in a different way, cannot be eaten.

More telling to the idea of the label, is the way that Douglass interprets the ritual of circumcision.  Douglass says that the Hebrews considered the foreskin to be something "left over", an excess on the body.  It was neither of the body, nor not of the body: it didn't fit into the categories.  Thus, it had to be cut off.  Since Helena doesn't have the anatomical experience to understand these categories, I doubt she understood what I was talking about... but then again, I'm not sure how much of any of these talks she understands, even as she's approaching six months old.

Several decades after Douglass wrote Purity and Danger, the Bulgarian philosopher and psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva took up her argument, situating it within wider religious ideas of the ancient world.  In Latin, for instance, the word sacer can mean both "abomination" and "sacred", both what is cast off, and what is most valued.  To a certain degree, this idea makes sense, for though shellfish don't fit in easy categories and definitions, gods don't either.  Bringing the idea of the abomination and the sacred under a single category of misfits, Kristeva talked about the abject, or literally, what is thrown down.

You (and Helena) are almost certainly wondering what any of this has to do with Helena's fascination for the labels on her stuffed animals, but in fact the connection is easier than it appears.  Like the Hebrew idea of the foreskin, the label is something that sticks out, something that doesn't really belong.  It messes up the smooth flow of Pinkme the Hippo's rump.  It isn't part of his body, but it isn't part of the rest of the world, either.  For that reason, it fascinates Helena: not one thing or the other, it defies simple categorization.

I went on to argue to Helena that designer labels serve as our postmodern sacred, and the huge "Dulce and Gabbana" or "Nike" that we wear on our chests stand as a symbol of our fidelity and piety to the great gods of our day, consumption and money.  Maybe or maybe not.  Regardless, labels, the sacred, and the cast off all draw a baby's attention.