Abjection in the Modern World

abjection, n.
1.
     a. The state or condition of being cast down or brought low; humiliation, degradation; dispiritedness, despondency
     b. The action or an act of casting down, humbling, or degrading; an act of abasement, esp. of oneself.
2. That which is cast off or away, esp. as being vile or unworthy; refuse, scum, dregs. Chiefly fig. of persons. Obs.
3. The action of casting out or away; rejection.
      -Oxford English Dictionary

     Sigmund Freud was the first person to theorize that humans construct their identities through rejection, specifcally the rejection of certain taboo pleasures. At a certain point, Freud argues, children come to the realization that their incestuous yearnings for their parents are wrong, and it is at that point that they can become a productive and social memeber of society. If they never reject these things, then they will not acclomate to the world "properly" and they may very well come to some type of crisis of identity with respect to the society from which they find themselves to be an outcast.
     Julia Kristeva, a social theorist, builds off of Freud's ideas and puts them on a social scale. Not only do individuals construct their identities through repudiation of sexual yearnings amongst other things, but so does the society itself . In Imperial Leather Anne McClintock notices that abjection was very much a part of the imperialist project that was really picking up steam throughout the nineteenth century. The Brits essentially constructed and attempted to preserve the idea of Britishness by rejecting and expunging everything that they felt they were not. Therefore, in order to keep British identity pure and intact society put stigmas on various groups that they came into contact with.For instance, propoganda tried to show that the Irish were almost equal to African slaves, African men were often compared to the intellectual status of women in the empire, and African women were seen as a source of all things evil, including lust and disease. This is not an adequate summary of the argument, but I use it only as a way to bring me to my point.
     Abjection has continued since 1800s and still continues today. Racism and segregation were used in America in order for whites to preserve what they thought was a "true" American. In the 1950s, communism was abjected in order to preserve the heart of America. So what about today?
     It seems that one of the largest groups that is still abjected today are homosexuals. After coming to accept so much variance in our culture, people still feel the urge to reject a certain class of people. America hopes to see itself as good, wholesome, god-fearing people and accepting homosexuals into the mix does not follow into that plan since god is apparently homophobic.
     When will society stop being so insecure? When will abjection end? Will it ever end? Is rejection, repudiation, and hatred an inherent part of social society?
    I don't have any of the answers. All I know is that one day it will be inevitable that homosexuals WILL be included into the scheme of things, but then it seems that the focus of abjection will necessarily have to change. Once the heartland figures out that homosexuals really aren't that bad it seems that American identity will necessarily fluctuate and change. As a result, our morals and beliefs will change. My fear is, who's next? What will "we" collectively decide that we no longer want in our society in order to reinforce the reflection that we would like to see of ourselves? Mike Judge's film Idiocracy theorizes that intellectuals will be one of the next groups as one of the doctor characters diagnoses Luke Wilson with an illness that includes, "talking like a fag." While it is a silly movie, it makes some good points and it shows abjection in full force. In the same way that the British imperialists saw African facial features as symptoms of a lack of evolution rather than biological diversity, the doctor in the film attributes articulation to something inherently wrong within the person rather than attribtuing it to something external.
     I'm excited for the inclusion of more marginalized sects of society, but I am scared of what that means for the rest of us.