1 The Oedipus fission ? Guy Maruani When Physics discovered the elementary particles of the atom, until then assumed to be indivisible, it entered the realm of Metaphysics. But the analytical method, which postulated and proved that the atom is not the smallest pebble with which the universe is built, did not stop at this theoretical explosion of the atom; it led to its actual explosion. Pure energy, pure destructiveness. The atomic bomb is not metaphysical, it is a threat to the survival of humankind, threat as quickly forgotten as it was understood. It is common knowledge that the first men who made tools by breaking big stones into smaller ones, invented the analytical method. Then, along the centuries, philosophers who used, intellectually, the analytical method supposed that the universe was made of the smallest unbreakable elements, the atoms. Considering the human mind, the psychoanalytical method established by Sigmund Freud supposed, in a similar way, that a universal element, the unconscious representation of gender difference and of generational difference under the guise of the Oedipus complex, was unbreakable. Let us just see if the Oedipus complex has not been broken by a semantic bomb alongside the explosion of the atomic bomb. For two thousand years, one principle of Roman law was a pillar of Western societies: Mater certissima, pater tamen incertus, the mother is undisputable, the father is always dubious. Among Jews, though the Talmud insisted much upon the part of the father in conception so as to minimize as much as possible the risk of incest by ignorance of the filiation, it seems that the 2 Diaspora hazards helped determine that one was jewish if born from a jewish mother. So, again, mater certissima. But those were the good old days… In the 1980s I wrote, in many psychiatric papers and even in a largely circulated French encyclopedia1: Technology has invested the field of human reproduction in two steps. First a denegative move, through bottle-feeding, the expansion and generalization of contraception and medical abortion. And then a performative step, with all the techniques of extra-corporeal fertilization, which will sooner or later succeed in the complete manufacturing of babies in laboratories, and with the surgery and endocrinology of sex change. Hence sexuality is unbound - provided it does not serve reproduction. The body is a mere object, on the condition that it bears no filiation. I was astounded then by the absence of reaction to those assessments, neither from fellow psychoanalysts nor from lay readers… And today what I insisted was coming has become simple evidence: . More and more people are single, at least half the group of adults in big cities. . More and more couples have recourse to medicalized extracorporeal fecundation. . Homosexual marriage has gained the same statute as husband to wife marriage. . Transsexualism is largely regarded as a human right, not the expression of mental trouble. Everyone is supposed to be free to pick his or her or its gender. . Gender equality is often translated as gender sameness. Unisex as a model. All this in developed democratic countries and for the majority of the society while, for the immigrant minorities, as well as in their 1 see References 3 countries of origin, it is considered anathema and criminal. Still they are caught in the evolution, even Iran has a women’s soccer team. What did science and technology do to create such a radically new situation? They destroyed the balance between Nature and Culture implied in our stressed Roman law. Who is the mother now ? The woman who gave her ovocyte, the woman whose womb held the embryo during nine months or the woman who nursed the child? Mater tamen incerta. Who is the father? The man whose DNA is inherited by the child. A ‘one-night stand’ as they say, can drive one to the obligation of paying a pension for the welfare of a child neither wanted nor cared for. Pater certissimus. The consequences of this reversal are innumerable. This is the dawn of a novel humanity. For example the biggest prohibition, the mother-son incest, as inscribed in the negative blueprint of the OEdipus complex, becomes a much more complicated affair once the mother is not defined by biology. Another example derives from the progress in Genetics. Soon it will be very easy and cheap to check one’s genome, and I suspect it will become mandatory in a regulated society, genetics will become eugenics. As we know, today it is highly inadvisable for a person with a family history of some genetical disease to marry a counterpart of the opposite sex coming from the same ethnic group, a totally unrelated partner is recommended to level off the probabilities. But what will happen when we will have certainties? No free choice at all! And we may understand that if Biotechnology is the rule, if children are to be manufactured and -pending artificial wombsto be implanted in surrogate mothers, the so-called right for everyone to be a parent, including homosexual couples, is the perfect banner, is the trojan horse to pervade what used to be 4 normality, to promote a new product, that is state-of-the-art, latest model, top of sales, engineered embryo. It is not fate anymore, it’s a market ! Of course in this hypothesis, already a situation for many people, who is a mother? who is a father? What is female? What is male? What does it mean to be a woman or to be a man? We might have to refer back to Anatomy, as long as it is determined by Nature and not by plastic surgery… ‘Anatomy is Destiny’ Napoleon used to say (according to Freud). Can we guess that visible body differences and invisible hormonal and brain differences will continue to influence the way men and women are affected by their sexuality? After the explosion of the OEdipus complex, no one knows… References : MARUANI G. , Californie, les enfants de l’électronique et du matriarcat , in Le comportement parental, Génitif , 1982 , 4 , 5-6 : 63-69 . MARUANI G. , Plus-value, technologie et fécondité, Génitif, 1985, 6, 4 : 5-12 . MARUANI G. , Autrui et la découverte de soi , in MARUANI G. et coll., Être, bien-être, mieux-être, 1985, Paris, Larousse, pp 583-669 . MARUANI G. , Femme d’aujourd’hui, homme de demain ? La nouvelle génitalité, Prospective et Santé, 1986, 39 : 49-55 . MARUANI G. , Le couple, une perversion sexuelle désuète ? , Psychologie Médicale, 1986 , 18 , 3 :423-425 . MARUANI G. , L’articulation corps/esprit et le sexe fantasmatique, Génitif, 1987, 8, 3-4 :1-15. MARUANI G. , Inconscient collectif et maladies sexuelles transmissibles, Génitif, 1987, 8, 1/2 : 118-122 . 5 MARUANI G. , Mind your brain, test-tube baby ! , in Materialität der Kommunikation, GUMBRECHT H.U. & PFEIFFER L. (Ed.), 1988, Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp (book chapter in german translation), pp.584-598. MARUANI G., Biotechnologie et Holocauste in Bioéthique et Droit, DRAI HARICHAUX M. (Ed.), 1988, CURAPP / CNRS, Seuil, pp 255-261 . R. & MARUANI G. , Iatrogénitalité , L’Évolution Psychiatrique 1989 ,54 , 2 ; 355-364 . MARUANI G. Métaphores économiques de l’état amoureux, dissonance et réverbération , Psychiatrie Française, Juin 1989, 3 : 13-15 , traduit en japonais in Kokoro no rinshō, a ra karuto, 1990, 3, n° 30 : 129-132. Dr Guy Maruani practiced and taught Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis in Paris and Brussels. He founded the scientific journals Génitif (1979-1990, Paris) and Psychothérapies (1981 to this day, Geneva).