Transgression and conservation: rereading Georges Bataille

In this article, I read one of Georges Bataille’s most famous ideas, that of transgression, with a renewed focus on its structural implications for the human subject. Whilst Bataille’s discussions of erotic excess, violent transgression, obscenity and the threat of death are provocative and intoxicating, his anthropological philosophy of the human constitution repeatedly contextualises transgressive tendencies alongside the enduring structures and boundaries that define humanity. My reading examines key texts to elucidate a thorough explication of Bataille’s transgression, its relationship to taboo and its defining role for humanity, to claim that there is in fact a tendency towards conservation in even the most explosive and challenging of topics through which Bataille explored humanity.

在这篇文章中，我读到了乔治·巴塔耶最著名的观点之一——越界，并重新关注它对人类主体的结构影响。虽然巴塔耶对色情过度、暴力越界、淫秽和死亡威胁的讨论具有挑衅性和令人陶醉，但他关于人类构成的人类学哲学反复将越界倾向与定义人类的持久结构和边界放在一起考量。我的解读审视了关键文本，以阐明对巴塔耶越界的全面解释、它与禁忌的关系以及它对人类的决定性作用，并主张在巴塔耶探索人类的即使是最具爆炸性和挑战性的主题中，实际上也存在一种保守的倾向。