Stumbling toward a Democratic Theory of Incest

Abstract

Prompted by the prominence of incest themes in the U.S. literary canon, the author raises and explores the idea of a “democratic theory of incest.” To that end, the paper uncovers, tracks, and documents the interest in incest throughout the Western canon of political thought. It then presents and addresses a “standoff” in theoretical circles today: whereas many nonliberal political theorists have continued and developed the canonical interest in the politics of incest, contemporary liberals have largely dropped out of that extended discussion. By way of a re-reading of Freud’s Totem and Taboo along with an analysis of John Sayles’s 1996 film, Lone Star, the paper outlines a possible way out of a poststructuralist versus liberal theory impasse over incest, thus proposing movement in the direction of a democratic understanding of incest concerns.