Bokun Tarihi

by Dominique Laporte

Written in Paris after the heady days of student revolt in May 1968 and before the devastation of the AIDS epidemic, History of Shit is emblematic of a wild and adventurous strain of 1970s' theoretical writing that attempted to marry theory, politics, sexuality, pleasure, experimentation, and humor. Radically redefining dialectical thought and post-Marxist politics, it takes an important--and irreverent--position alongside the works of such postmodern thinkers as Foucault, Deleuze, Guattari, and Lyotard.

Laporte's eccentric style and ironic sensibility combine in an inquiry that is provocative, humorous, and intellectually exhilarating. Debunking all humanist mythology about the grandeur of civilization, History of Shit suggests instead that the management of human waste is crucial to our identities as modern individuals--including the organization of the city, the rise of the nation-state, the development of capitalism, and the mandate for clean and proper language. Far from rising above the muck, Laporte argues, we are thoroughly mired in it, particularly when we appear our most clean and hygienic.

Laporte's style of writing is itself an attack on our desire for "clean language." Littered with lengthy quotations and obscure allusions, and adamantly refusing to follow a linear argument, History of Shit breaks the rules and challenges the conventions of "proper" academic discourse.

Genres: History, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Sociology, Psychoanalysis, Politics, Anthropology

152 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Dominique Gilbert Laporte was a French writer and psychoanalyst, author of the book Histoire de la merde ("History of Shit").
In 1981 he received his doctorate in psychoanalysis from the University of Paris VIII, where he also taught in the department of psychoanalysis.
He wrote numerous articles on psychoanalysis, theology and art published in Le discours psychanalytique, Art press. and many other magazines. He worked frequently in the psychoanalytic journal Ornicar?.
Along with writing his own works, poems and essays, he was the editor of the French edition of the study by John G. Bourke “English Scatalogic Rites of All Nations: A Dissertation upon the Employment of Excrementicious Remedial Agents in Religion, Therapeutics, Divination, Witch-Craft, Love-Philters, etc. in all part of the Globe", first published in 1981 year.
He was friend with Michel Foucault and Edmond Jabès.

Reviews

[Alialiarya · Rating 4 out of 5]

تاریخ مدفوع یک فرمان سلطنتی را مبنای سخن‌اش قرار می‌دهد، فرمانی بر علیه بو و کثیفی، فرمانی محکم(که این میزان تحکم‌اش عجیب است) برای تمیزی. از پس این فرمان کتاب در تلاش است میان بخش نهان این فرمان با فلسفه، ادبیات، تاریخ و پزشکی ارتباط برقرار کند. متفکران فرانسوی در پرداخت روایات‌شان در عجیب‌ترین منطق‌ها و مبناها ویژه‌اند. راست‌اش در ابتدای خوانش کتاب برای‌ام کمدی بود. اما هر چه جلوتر رفت و از هوش و ذکاوت نویسنده بیش‌تر مطلع شدم(ارجاع می‌دهم به عکس‌هایی که در پایان هر فصل انتخاب کرده) کتاب برای‌ام ویژه‌تر شد. تاریخ مدفوع بدون درازگویی و شلوغ‌کاری‌ ایده‌های عجیب اما قابل تامل نویسنده‌اش را شرح می‌دهد. ممکن است با بخشی از کتاب موافق نباشید یا برای‌تان غیرمنطقی باشد اما یک تجربه‌ی حقیقی فکر کردن است

داشتم فکر می‌کردم چقدر از این نوع فرمان‌ها در تاریخ ما وجود دارد که متفکران می‌توانند به سراغ‌اش بروند

[Jenn(ifer) · Rating 3 out of 5]

On a recent trip to San Diego, I acquired a bookmark made entirely from recycled elephant shit.

I shit you not.

They try to make it sound all cutesy by calling it poopoo paper (http://new.poopoopaper.com/), but let’s call it what it is, shit paper.

Interestingly enough, throughout history, shit has had many uses, most of which we would turn up our noses at today. "That which occupies the site of disgust at one moment in history is not necessarily disgusting at the preceding moment or the subsequent one." I’ll get to that in a bit.

But first, to navigate this philosophical treatise on shit, you might want to get yourself a “Jump to Conclusions Mat” like this here…:



…because Laporte, he likes to jump to conclusions.

Ain’t That Some Shit!

The first chapter “the luster of scybala” begins by describing a royal edict which changed the social, cultural and environmental climate of France in 1539: ‘The Royal Edict of Villers-Cotterets.’ It was the first edict in Paris to privatize the management of waste. There would be no more throwing of shit into the street! All residences and inns were required to install cesspools, lest their property be confiscated! Escándalo! No more breeding of swine, goslings, pigeons, sows, etc in the city limits!

That same year, a French royal edict decries the use of the Latin language in official documents. All edicts henceforth will be written in no other than the maternal French. No shit.

What do these two edicts have in common you ask? Allow Laporte to use his wonderful powers of jumping to conclusions to tell you! Laporte describes parallels between laws related to waste removal and the systematic cleansing of the French language. In the introduction, Rodolphe el-Khoury describes Laporte’s own writing style in Shit as “a backhanded attempt to reverse the deodorization of language by means of reeking syntax.” Either that or he’s just a shitty writer. "From the golden age to the golden sun of the French monarch to the classical age, language draped herself in lamé and moved forward like a slut"

Eat Shit and Die

I’m sure you’ve heard that old chestnut. But what is the veracity of that statement? Very little! In fact, in ancient Rome, shit has been used to cure disease! It has been used as a cooling balm for burns, a cleanser for festering wounds. Eat shit and heal!

Beauty and shit

Want to preserve a youthful complexion? Make a nice mask out of shit and apply daily. Ancients believed that the beautifying power of shit is equal to that of the Fountain of Youth (*cough* non-existent *cough*). Potions purported to whiten the skin where made out of, you guessed it, shit.

***
Laporte throws several fascinating ideas at you, however he doesn't go anywhere with them. It's like he's crapping out all of these interesting ideas and it becomes the onus of the reader to make gold out of shit.

I will leave you with this to ponder: "To produce is literally to shit. 'Do you in fact produce anything with all your riches.' Leroux demands of Malthus. 'No, it is nature that produces everything, and when you get to the bottom of all your means of production, industry sends you back to agriculture and in the end, to your manure."



*******
3 scybala out of 5

Someone should really wash my mouth out with soap.

[Dream.M · Rating 3 out of 5]

همه چیز از دو فرمان سلطنتی در سال ۱۵۳۹ شروع شد. ۱_ استفاده از کلمات لاتین در اسناد رسمی فرانسه ممنون. ۲_ فاضلاب های خود را از خیابان های پاریس جمع کنید.
بقیه کتاب تلاش نویسنده ، دومینیک لاپورت، است برای ایجاد ارتباط بین این دو فرمان و نظریات فلسفی ، اقتصادی و زبانشناسی اش.
امتیازم جدی نیست، چون به سختی میتونم ادعا کنم فهمیدمش

[Amirsaman · Rating 4 out of 5]

قرن شانزدهم در فرانسه بود که شاه فرمان داد مدفوع‌تان را از کوچه‌وخیابان جمع کنید و در خانه‌ی خودتان ذخیره کنید. به زعم لاپورت این قضیه منجر شد به خصوصی‌شدنِ بوی مدفوع؛ آغازی برای به فردیت رسانیدن سوژه‌ها در دولت مدرن.
پس بوی بد، جز لاینفک خصوصی‌سازی فضولات است. بوی وایتکس، برعکس، بویی عمومی است، وایتکس را از هر مغازه‌ای که بخرید همان بو را می‌دهد. اگر (بوی) مدفوع ماحصلِ زیستنِ من است و اثباتی است بر حیات، (بوی) وایتکس برای حفظ این زندگی است و تاکیدی است بر مرگ.

مدفوع هر فرد مختص به او است، همانند اثر انگشت - بنابراین می‌تواند ایفای نقش کند در آفرینش سوژه‌ی فردی. قرن‌ها پس از فرمان پادشاه فرانسه، همچنان قوه‌ی بویایی ابزاری است در جهت فردی‌سازی؛ (کارکرد وایتکس، عدم سرایت بیماری بقیه به من است). بو، عنصر مشترکی است که رابطه‌ی ناگزیر مرا با دیگران به حداقل می‌رساند و فاصله‌ی این رابطه هم مدام توسط مواد بوداری مثل وایتکس و الکل، علامت‌گذاری می‌شود. در این منطق، ماسک‌ها با کاهش بو، لحظاتی از آرامش خیال را فراهم می‌کنند، با فراموش کردنِ وابستگی اجباری انسان‌ها.

سفیدکنندگی وایتکس، استعاره‌ای است از حضور دولت در خانه‌های ما، در امر خصوصی ما؛ چون همان‌طور که لاپورت معتقد است، دولت همان اربابی است که «روح مرا با پاکیِ خود نجات می‌بخشد» و تنها دولت است که می‌تواند ما را از کثافت خودمان برهاند. فرد از بوی شرم‌آور خود به دولت پناه می‌برد، با طرح‌هایی مثل فاضلاب کبیر همگانی. تمدن‌های قدرتمند تاریخ با فاضلاب‌های معروفشان شناخته شده‌اند. تمدن فاضلابی است که پسماند را کنترل می‌کند و دولت تمدن است، پس دولت فاضلاب است.
به همین قیاس، دولت کرونا است. دولتی که حاکم بلامنازع علم و واکسن است (با حکم راندن بر مجرای فاضلاب خود، یعنی دانشگاه)، به ما از نحوه‌ی کنترل ویروس می‌گوید، به ما آمار می‌دهد، و تصمیم می‌گیرد چه مقدار هزینه برای نجات انسان‌ها مقرون به صرفه است.

حال که فقط علم فریادرس است، هدایتگر علم مدرن، یعنی دولت می‌نشیند در جایگاه خداوند. نماینده‌ی او، فرشته‌ای امین، شبکه‌ی خبر است؛ و شنیدن هر آمار جدیدی از تعداد کشته‌شدگان ویروس، نیایش سه‌گانه‌ی فرد مؤمن است به درگاه دولت.
در سیر پیشرفت تمدن، نقش حس بویایی کمتر و کمتر شد و حس بینایی مهمتر. بنابراین ویروس کرونا ضدتمدن است: کمتر قابل مشاهده است و بیشتر با بویایی قابل تشخیص است - کر‌بویی (که روی دیگر بو داشتن است) از نشانه‌های تشخیصی آن است.

[Fateme Beygi · Rating 5 out of 5]

{این معرفی پیشتر در سایت نبشت، بخش کتابستان منتشر شده است.}

قطعاً اگر به همه‌مان بگویند «مدفوع» یک تصویر مشترک و یک مصداق کلی به ذهنمان می‌آید. حال اگر ازمان بپرسند که چه شد مدفوع انسان به چیزی کاملاً شخصی بدل شد، آن‌قدر شخصی که از کف خیابان‌ها به کنج خانه‌ها بیاید و به اشتراک گذاشتنش باعث شرم شود، ممکن است جواب‌های مختلفی به این سؤال بدهیم.
برای خیلی این بدیهی است که «مدفوع» چیزی زننده و زشت است و باید آن را پنهان کرد و برای برخی آنچنان هم چیز عجیب و غریبی نیست؛ چون ما از وقتی که به دنیا می‌آییم، آن را با خود داریم و بعدتر نیز با انگشت‌های کوچکمان به کشفش دست می‌زنیم، پس باید به چیزی که از خودمان بیرون می‌آید، عادت کنیم: «انکار مدفوع چیزی جز تأکید بر حضور آن نتیجه‌ای ندارد.»
تا به حال شده به این فکر کنید که چرا «مدفوع» باید شبیه به یک «تابو» یا یک عنصر نامطبوع باشد که نباید خیلی درباره‌اش حرف بزنیم. چرا آن را مثل طلا یا ثروت ندانیم، بالاخره این چیزی است که همه‌مان آن را داریم و تولیدش می‌کنیم. شاید جواب این پرسش‌ها را بتوانیم با شناخت تاریخچه‌ی احداث فاضلاب و پیامدهای مختلف آن در ملل گوناگون بیابیم.
دومینیک لاپورت در کتاب «تاریخ مدفوع: تبارشناسی سوژه‌ی مدرن» به مطالعه‌ی سیر زندگی بشر پیش از وجود فاضلاب و بعد از آن در ارتباط با دولت‌ها و حکومت‌ها می‌پردازد. لاپورت فرمان سلطنتی ویله-کوتره: «هر کس مدفوع خودش» را آغازگر روندی تاریخی می‌داند که به شکل‌گیری و ترسیم حدود و ثغور «من» در دو حوزه‌ی عمومی و خصوصی انجامید. او در این راستا با تکیه بر رابطه‌ی انسان با مدفوع خویش، مدفوع آدمی با ساختار بیرونی و رابطه‌ی نظام‌مند فرد با جامعه و فرد با دولت به این موضوع می‌پردازد که چطور کنترل فرایند دفع «مدفوع» تأثیری چند لایه و عمیق بر روابط انسانی و روابط اجتماعی و سیاسی می‌گذارد. او «مدفوع» را برابر با طلا و ثروت می‌داند و دولت را معادل فاضلاب؛ مردم تولید می‌کنند و دولت جمع‌آوری و کنترل می‌کند. در نظر لاپورت بنا کردن فاضلاب به معنای پدیدآوردن سیستم گسترده‌ی کنترل‌گری و سودآوری برای دولت یا حکومت است و آدمی که خود تولیدکننده‌ی این گنج است، از بازی‌های بیرونی ماجرا بی‌خبر مانده و خواسته یا ناخواسته به این ساختار و نظام تن داده است و همین تن دادن اوست که این سیستم را پابرجا نگه می‌دارد و به آن قدرت می‌بخشد.
لاپورت در شش فصل کوتاه و خوش‌خوان طلای زباله، نظافت جلوی خانه‌ی خود، چیز استعماری، بو نمی‌دهد، بزک، آنچه شکسپیر ازل گفت... با بهره‌گیری از آرای مارکس و آلتوسر پژوهش خود را بر روانکاوی فروید و لکان استوار می‌کند و با استفاده از روایت جذاب و لحن طنازانه‌ی خود، انتقادات سیاسی-اجتماعی‌اش را نسبت به انواع حکومت‌ها و جریان‌های پنهان از دید و آگاهی مردم بیان می‌کند.
«حداکثر امید ما این است که با غریو خنده‌ای، برخی نقاب‌ها را از چهره‌ی قدرت ��نار بزنیم.»
عنوان درشت «تاریخ مدفوع» بر زمینه‌ی قهوه‌ای برای یک کتاب ممکن است شما را به عنوان مخاطب در یک فضای دوقطبی قرار بدهد؛ یا از این انتخاب زیرکانه به وجد می‌آیید و علاقه‌مند می‌شوید تا بدانید در این کتاب چه خبراست، یا این انتخاب صریحانه شما را دلزده می‌کند و به خیالتان که قرار است در این کتاب با چیزهای تند وتیزی طرف باشید که به مذاقتان خوش نمی‌آید؛ اما باید گفت حتی اگر مخاطب کتاب‌های سیاسی-اجتماعی نباشید و از دنیای اصطلاحات آن سر درنیاورید، ترجمه‌ی خوب قاسم مؤمنی، همراه با عکس‌های تاریخی، ارجاعات مداوم، پانویس‌ها و پی‌نوشت‌های هر فصل خواندن این کتاب از نشر «دمان» را برایتان به تجربه‌ای دلچسب بدل می‌کند.

[Emma Rayward · Rating 5 out of 5]

Never have a read an entire book about shit, and now it's all I want to do. I love shit.

[Aura E. · Rating 4 out of 5]

”We dare not speak about shit. But since the beginning of time, no other subject — not even sex — has caused us to speak so much. The unnameable is enfolded by strange rumor, which combines the most immaculate silence with the most prolix chatter”

Jos oot koskaan halunnu ajatella paskan poliittisia ulottuvuuksia ja symbolista merkitystä (eurooppalaisen) yhteiskunnan historiassa, tää kirja on sulle.

Lisäpisteitä super kauniista taitosta, yks tyylikkäimmistä lukemistani kirjoista.

[Nina Misson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Did you ever wonder if there's a corelation between the civization and its attitude towards excrement? Neither did I. It is an interesting point thought, that Laporte makes, that society is obssessed with its own fecies like with nothing else. The difference between the Roman conqueror, he says, and the wild native is, that the civilised Roman builds latrines to keep his white toga clean, but the crude savage lives in his own shit. Something new I learned is that they had a feces tax in Byzantium at some point. And this where the phrase "money doesn't stink" come from. Another point Laporte makes is that the rulling class made laws for dealing with feces ("clean before your own doorstep"), but didn't have to uphold them themselves (France, 18th century); apparently the aristocracy was only offended by the lower classes stink, but their own, not so much. Written after the student revolt in 1968, this is an interesting read, but I'm still not sure on how seriously it's meant to be taken.

[Reiko · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just up my Hershey Highway.

[Siv30 · Rating 3 out of 5]

לסקירה מפורטת בעברית ואנגלית, קישור לבלוג שלי -

https://sivi-the-avid-reader.com/היסט...

[Johan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is quite a remarkable book that traces the will of certain authorities to clean up physical spaces from shit, excrement and other bodily fluids from mainly urban centres but also how a parallel to this can be seen in how language has been tried to be cleaned up. Laporte talks about the language of the King, symbolised within the law, holy scripture and through commerce that has to be cleansed from influences like local dialects and the like. He also looks at how shit has been domesticated via his analysis of a royal edict from 1539 that basically dictated ”to each his own shit”, waste was supposed to be kept inside one’s own home until it could be taken to a proper place, throwing it outside onto the streets was deemed unsuitable for a city trying to be kept clean by the authorities.

Laporte also makes an interesting thesis in linking shit to gold. He sees how especially human excrement has been valued as the best fertiliser available, alas shit is turned into gold in the fields of agriculture. This can also be noted how in the past perfumes and even even skin bleaches could be derived from animal shit, even a field of medicine, ”stercorary medicine” utilised urine and shit to cure a long list of ailments. He also brings up, through a discussion about Kant’s works, how the olfactory sense is regarded as the lowest, most animal of the senses, how civilisation hates stenches and smells and often tries to disguise these through various means like perfumes and the addition of ”good smelling” substances to cesspools.

The book brings in a whole range of interesting starting points into the study shit, which can be noted in its title as a ”Prologue”. It is rather intellectual, uses quite difficult language and is influenced by psychoanalysis (Freud) but I would still recommend it as a very rewarding book.

[arnulfo. · Rating 4 out of 5]

a thorough account of all things numero dos and its associations w/ humiliation, humor, tragedy. heavy stuff. but enjoyable.

surprisingly.

[Friday · Rating 1 out of 5]

I learned about shit and stuff! and an academic view of shit!

[Lea · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great bathroom read.

[Shulamith Farhi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laporte uncovers an archive that troubles the standard narrative where either the poor are filthy, or money stinks. Beneath the politics of hygiene is a subterranean movement linking Vespasian, Swift and Lerroux, calling into quetion the Kantian judgment that "the beautiful does not smell." A highlight of the book is the analysis of the famous Freudo-Marxian equation between money and feces, tracing the purification of money as it loses the aroma of its origins, still faintly present in gold-money, and becomes transparent in crystal-money.

[Amin Sabbaqqian · Rating 4 out of 5]

:)))) کتاب جالبی بود در سبک مورد علاقه من. به نظرم ارزش بیشتر از یه بار خوندن رو هم میتونه داشته باشه

[Amir Rafiey]

هیچی نفهمیدم

نخوانیدش

[Subam Kathayat Chhetri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clever analysis of 'everyday shits' !

[Io Perl-Strahan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like viewing history from the underside, and I think it is important to track the emotional/physiological state called aversion across time (which is to deconstruct and denaturalize it) as someone invested in the transgressive. Happened to read this alongside delillo's Underworld which also proposes a world as an effect or at least a co-emergence of waste management. Trash as the truest substance.
I didn't love Laporte's writing, found much of it repetitive and verbose. Could have been half as long or less.

[Berrak Hotan · Rating 5 out of 5]

İnanılmaz bir kitap, bokun evcilleştirilmesine şahitlik ediyoruz.

[Gamze Gül]

tekrar okuyacağım.

[Frederick · Rating 3 out of 5]

A difficult book to read but, at least, the central thesis, the history of how Europeans, particularly French, treated their own waste is a history of the rise of the individual and individualism. It is not easy for us moderns to understand how differently people viewed themselves and their identity in relation to their social milieu than we do. The change in how human waste was handled is thought of as a catalyst for a change in our identity. The book is shocking at times in its assessment at how human waste was used as perfume and as medicine in the past. It can get pretty gross. The translation from the French is good but the subject matter is difficult to endure.

[Joe]

Waste theory seems to be split between new materialism that emphasizes its mobility, ontologies of porosity, and sophisms of containment and psychoanalytic approaches focused on abjection a la Kristeva.* Both useful but Laporte should be revisited because his approach is markedly different: he thinks through the relationship between the state, law, and collective (as opposed to the individual) psychology re: shit.

*Where the word "abject" is used sloppy. Not all waste is abject. Sometimes a turd is just a turd.

[Michael Shilling · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think if American people read French theory they would be the better for it.

[Kimb · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book had so much potential to be interesting, but the author is just so unbearable he ruins it. Maybe it’s better in the original French?

[Jake · Rating 5 out of 5]

History of Shit is an eccentric little text, published in 1978 by French psychoanalyst, Dominique Laporte. Although Laporte’s ideas are often messy and half-baked, his book is rich and imaginative, making all sorts of witty connections between high and low culture.

Laporte’s unique approach to Freud and Lacan has certainly influenced the development of later critical theory, particularly work that applies psychoanalysis to cultural studies and the semiotics. Joel Kovel, Sander Gilman, and Slavoj Zizek immediately come to mind here. Yet I’m also reminded of Richard Dyer’s important contribution to critical race theory, White. In that text, Dyer ripped a page from Laporte’s playbook when he argued that: “[o]bsessive control of faeces and identification of them as the nadir of human dirt both characterize Western culture: to be white is to be well potty-trained.” Before we know what it means to be civilized, we must first muck around in our own filth.

That was certainly true for Freud, who conceptualized “civilization” as a project with three distinct impulses: the desire to order, the desire to clean, and the desire to beautify. Laporte agrees, and he extends this triad to the question of human waste, which he interprets as a primal site through which “cleanliness, order and beauty” are practiced and negotiated. “Everything is contained in everything, each thing contains both the principle and its opposite […]”, he writes. Life contains death; cleanliness contains dirt; order contains chaos; beauty contains ugliness – and production contains waste.

In fact, waste cannot be conceived apart from human activity. As Laporte claims, “[t]o produce is literally to shit.” All production is, therefore, intrinsically wasteful. There is always some loss, some by-product, which cannot be strictly accounted for in terms of use-value. Laporte is quick to note that this sense of loss has created an ambiguous and anxious relationship in the capitalist societies of the West between their civilization and their waste. And since “shit” is the basest, most abject form of human waste in the West, it has come to epitomize waste itself.

By the 19th and 20th-centuries, various social hygiene movements began to see waste – or, essentially, shit – as a problem to be solved and a hurdle to be overcome. According to the utilitarian logic of capitalism, “[…] that which falls out of production must also be put to use; the gain-in-pleasure must be made to enrich civilization in a sublimated form.” As such, although all production is intrinsically wasteful, not all waste is intrinsically productive. Waste needs to be made productive through a process of sublimation.

Laporte's understanding of sublimation is something akin to a purifying ritual. For instance, a human being cannot defecate directly on the vegetable garden. That would be unacceptable and uncivilized. Before fecal matter can be utilized, it must be converted from shit into fertilizer. On the surface, this sounds like the same thing, but it is something entirely different. Fertilizer is created through a highly rational and ritualistic process which removes shit from sight, distances it from the producer, treats it chemically, and reintroduces it to the consumer (once producer) in a vaguely alien and unrecognizable form. Thus, it is not only shit that is magically transformed through sublimation – the producer becomes a consumer of their own product, which was formerly abject waste. Abjection can become beautiful, even life-affirming, if it passes through some sort of purification process; likewise, a producer can become a consumer if they enter into a sublimated exchange. However, the purely abject is just that – abject. It is as intolerable as the purely productive and the purely wasteful. One must also consume in order to be civilized.

Therein lies the brilliance of Laporte’s text and his recognition of “the politics of waste”. The very scaffolding of Western civilization is revealed in what we consider waste, and through our subsequent relationships with those waste products. He makes the interesting point that the more obsessed a society is with purity, hygiene, cleanliness, beauty and order, the more fascist it tends to be in nature (e.g., Nazi Germany). Too much superego destroys the animal inside the human being, but, in so doing, it also destroys everything that makes the human being human. Oddly, Laporte’s work reminds us that everybody shits – and we’re probably better off for it.

[E · Rating 5 out of 5]

- truly great and exciting but doesn't amount to much in the end
- still: a firestarter, an incitement
- true value in Laporte's ambition: “All we can hope to do is remove a few masks with the roar of our laughter, laugh them off the figures of power.”

Quote 1: To the black man, the white man looks and smells like a corpse. To the white man, the black man has the color and odor of shit. Their mutual hatred is based on a reciprocal recognition: the white man hates the black man for exposing that masked and hidden part of himself. The black man hates the white man’s need to pull himself up from the earth. (The conqueror pulls himself from his native soil to till the soil of another, to exploit its capacity for production and, in so doing, cultivates it and cleanses its inhabitants.) The black man sees in the white man’s need the blind arrogance of one who thinks himself immortal. But he who brings civilization can- not help but feel immortal. This is why he smells like a corpse: he is constituted by the return of that repressed “remnant of earth,” which clings to him as much as to any man.

2: Since the sixteenth century, capitalism has persistently trapped the city in the Möbius strip of a discourse whose very unity is predicated on a division that can only be dialectically related. On one side lies the rich man’s discourse, which associates the poor with the vile, the vulgar, the corrupt—in other words, with shit. On the other side lies the poor man’s law, which suspects cor- ruption within luxury and wealth at the source of stench. Needless to say, both the discourse of the master and that of the slave can smell the Jew a mile away, and their olfactory sense is all the keener when it comes to the black man. If rich and poor cling to similar racist views, it is because a capitalist dynamic locks each into place as the other’s filth.

3: A history of the therapeutic properties of shit has yet to be written. Ideally, it would be followed by a second volume devoted to the cosmetic properties of shit, which was once used on ladies’ faces and hair.

4: Bread, for example, “is excluded from the seraglio’s menu because it would produce digestions un- suited to coprophagia [shit-eating].”

5: Once when he [Aedh], not yet King, came through Othna Muru, he washed his hands in the river that goes through the middle of the town. (Othna is the name of the river, and from it the town—i.e., Othna—is named.) He took a handful of water to put on his face but one of his men stopped him:
“O King,” he said, “do not put that water on your face.”
“Why?” asked the King.
“I am ashamed to say,” he said.
“What shame can there be in speaking the truth?” asked the King.
“This is it,” he replied: “the clergy’s privy is over that water.”
“Is it there,” asked the King, “that the cleric himself goes to defecate?”
“It is indeed,” said the youth.
“Not only,” said the King, “shall I put it upon my face, but I shall also put it upon my mouth, and I shall drink it (drinking three mouthfuls of it), for the water into which his feces go is a sacrament to me.”

[Szabolcs Sebestyén · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I first saw this book, I thought: “I have to read this!”, and I did. I expected some historical overview of shit disposal over the millennia of humanity, but got much more than that. Laporte was a psychoanalyst and here he takes a post-modern view on human excrement. To be honest, I still don’t know whether it’s just a parody or a serious essay.

He starts by examining a royal decree from 1539 which regulated the disposal of shit in Paris. It essentially privatised shit, since it was banned to throw shit to the street anymore. Household must have installed cesspools to avoid fines and confiscation of goods. Then it must be collected because shit has value as a fertiliser (here he compares shit with gold). Laporte’s thesis is that this decree was important to define the functions of the state and the individual. In the same year another decree stated that all official documents must be written in French instead of Latin. Laporte makes a parallel between cleaning the streets and the language. Hilarious.

He has several other interesting ideas. For example, humans are different from animals from the point where we feel shame when we leave our stinky excrement in a public place. Shitting became something you do alone in that little room, with closed doors. Laporte connects this to our weakest sense, olfaction, which is the one that is the most animal one. Humans hate bad smell, that’s why created perfumes and added some artificial smell to cesspools.

The parts where he describes the use of shit in history to maintain beauty and youth, or for good health are disgusting and funny at the same time.

I don’t want to spoiler more, it’s a great read. I didn’t expect an essay which suggests that public shit management played such a big role in creating the modern state, individualism, capitalism, and language.

The essay is not an easy read, the translation must have had a hard time. The narrative is not linear, there are jumps, and Laporte uses lengthy quotations. Overall, it can’t be considered as a scholar work because he doesn’t underpin strongly his arguments. However, it is certainly entertaining and well written.

There are many great sentences in this book, but one of my favourites is
"We dare not speak about shit. But, since the beginning of time no other subject—not even sex—has caused us to speak so much.”

[Aram · Rating 2 out of 5]

در پشت جلد قهوه‌ای کتاب بخشی از مقدمه‌ای به قلم رودولف الخوری نوشته شده استک:«در این کتاب … مفهوم فرد را به سرنوشت فضولات انسانی گره می‌زند و، به شکلی مقبول ژرژ باتای، تاریخ مدفوع را به تاریخ مدفوع ذهنیت بدل می‌سازد و «والاترین» اشکال آگاهی را با «پست‌ترین» محصول انسانی تلفیق می‌کند.»

واقعیت کتاب هم تقریبا همین است، کتابی که باتوجه به چیزی که ارائه می‌دهد زیادی طولانی و پرچانگی بوده‌است، شما با زبان، دولت، بو، بهداشت، نظرات فرویدی، برداشت‌های کم عمق از تمدن و دین و فرهنگ روبه‌رو خواهید شد.

شروع عالی‌ای نویسنده برای این مدخل و ظاهرا مقدمه براثری بزرگتر انتخاب می‌کند: فرمان سلطنتی ویله کوتره در ۱۵ اوت ۱۵۳۹ که درباره بهداشت است و الزامات و جریمه‌ی آن، به نحوی که نویسنده بی‌هیچ مقدمه‌ای ابتدا سعی می‌کند که به شما نشان دهد که با مسئله و موضوعی کاملا جدی و چندلایه و تاریخی روبه‌رو هستید.

درباره مدفوع کتاب و متن‌های زیادی نوشته شده است، از پزشکی تا کاربردهای فرهنگی و گاه دینی آن اما تجربه‌ای که با دومینیک لاپورت داشتم به نحوی منحصر به فرد بود جایی که نگاه سودگرایانه و فردگرایی تا بررسی سرسری تاریخی مدفوع در اروپا را به هم گره می‌زند و با خصلت دولت و تمدن گره‌ش می‌زند و سعی می‌کند که این را منطبق کند با مسیر تکاملی و رشد انسان و وسواس (یا به تعبیر مسخره فروید خباثت‌مان -که در این کتاب هم مترجم به این مسئله اشاره می‌کند-) و محصولی را به ما تحویل می‌دهد. واقعیت این‌جاست که این اثر هم به مثابه مدفوع لاپورت است که از نوشته‌های قبلی او به وجود آمده. اثری که با زبان و جمله‌های طولانی و عموما بیهوده لاپورت برای شکاف موضوعی که مطرف می‌کند تنها مسئله‌ای که درست نشناخته است را تشریح می‌کند.

قسمت لذت بخش خواندن این کتاب حقیایق تاریخی بامزه‌ای بود که بیان می‌کرد که عمده‌ی آن‌ها هم در در فصل یکی مانده به آخر یعنی «بزک» جای داشت، فصلی که می‌توانم بهترین بخش کتاب بدانم و بعد از آن هم فصل آخر کتاب که کاملا لاپورت حرف‌ش را رک می‌زند و دست از جراحی ناموفق زبان بر می‌دارد و مستقیما به دولت و تمدن می‌پردازد البته با نگاه فرویدی‌اش.

کتابی نیست که به کسی معرفی کنم یا دوباره مرورش کنم. همین. موفق باشید.

[Ömer Gökalp · Rating 3 out of 5]

Antropoloji türünde okuduğum ilk kitap olabilir. Okuması zor bir kitap. İsmi sizleri aldatmasın. İçerisinde dışkıdan başlayarak insanlık tarihine, simyasına, kimyasına, psikolojiye, modern ve alternatif tıbba, tarihe, heykele, tabloya, epistemoloji ve daha bir çok konuya değiniyor. Yine de isminden de anlaşılacağı üzere biraz midenizin kalkmasına sebep olabilir. Tecrübe edilmesi gereken bir eser.
Dışkı ve idrarın eski tarihlerde bir tedavi ve hatta kozmetik ürünü olarak kullanıldığını ve bizlerin iyi, kötü ve mide bulandırıcı olana dair algılarımızın nasıl değiştiğini iyi anlatan bir kitap.
Kitaptan bazı alıntılar:
-Kesinlikle kibar dil ile argo doğru orantılıdır; üslup kendi değerini kalıntıyla ölçümlenmeyecek kadar artırarak zarafetle dilin doğru kullanımını zorunlu kılar.
-Arındırıldığında dil, Freud tarafından da belirtildiği gibi medeniyetin üç gereksinimine tekabül eder; temizlik, düzen ve güzellik.
-'Herkes kendi kapısının önünü temiz tutmalı.': Aldatıcı bir cümle, anlık bir atasözü.
-Güç dahi meşrulaştırıldığı ve ilahi olduğu zaman saftır.