The Big Toe Reconsidered

Swollen Big Toe: Male Subect: 62 Years Old (2025) 

Photo by Stephen Alexander à la Jacques-André Boiffard [1]

  

"Le gros orteil est la partie la plus humaine du corps humain …" [2] 

I. 

 

Don't ask me what I've done, because I don't know what I've done; I was just innocently sitting when, suddenly, the big toe on my left foot seemed to painfully click and lock, preventing me from moving it. 

 

That was three days ago: and now the toe is red and swollen as well as remaining stiff and acutely painful. Ice hasn't helped and neither has the attempt to keep weight off it. So, there's nothing to do but pop another paracetamol and reconsider what it was Bataille once had to say about le gros orteil - the most human part of the human body ...

 

 

II. 

 

First of all, in case anyone is wondering why Bataille makes this claim for the big toe, it's because, he says, no other element of the human body "is as differentiated from the corresponding element of the anthropoid ape" [20]. 

 

That's debatable [c] and I can already hear Heideggerians screaming Es ist die Hand - nicht der Fuß! that is the fundamental thing that makes us human and enables us to engage with (and think) the world [d]. But it cannot be denied, however, that man, as an upright creature who walks on two legs, has a different type of big toe to the ape that spends a considerable amount of time climbing trees. 

 

Man's big toe allows him to literally stand his ground and to glory in his own erect being. 

 

And yet, perversely, man holds his foot - big toe and all - in contempt: for man is a creature who has his head "raised to the heavens and heavenly things" [20] and despises the fact that his feet remain caked in mud.

 

If he could, man would swap feet for wings, so that he might elevate himself still further and become even more like an angel, less like an ape; this despite the fact that within the body "blood flows in equal quantities from high to low and from low to high" [20].

 

It's just unfortunate, as Bataille notes, that the binary division of the universe into a "subterranean hell and perfectly pure heaven" [20] remains an enduring misconception; "mud and darkness being the principles of evil as light and celestial space are the principles of good" [20].

 

For as long as this remains the case then man will continue to curse his dogs and direct his rage against an organ he sees as fundamentally base: 

 

"The human foot is commonly subjected to grotesque tortures that deform it and make it rickety. In an imbecilic way it is doomed to corns, calluses, and bunions, and if one takes into account turns of phrase that are only now disappearing, to the most nauseating filthiness [...]" [21] 

 

Bataille continues:

 

"Man's secret horror of his foot is one of the explanations for the tendency to conceal its length and form as much as possible. Heels of greater or lesser height, depending on the sex, distract from the foot's low and flat character. Besides, this uneasiness is often confused with a sexual uneasiness; this is especially striking among the Chinese, who, after having atrophied the feet of women, situate them at the most excessive point of deviance." [21] 

 

That's the funny thing with feet - the more obscene we imagine them and the more immoral we think it to view them in their naked naked nakedness - the more they excite our interest [e]. Some may privilege the hand - and fingers can certainly be useful - but it's the foot that matters more in Bataille's view; even if the toes have come to signify base idiocy in comparison to the doigts de la main.      

 

 

III. 

So far, I have to admit that re-reading this essay by Bataille and writing this post has done precious little to alleviate (or distract from) the pain in my big toe ... It hurt before I began; it still hurts now; and I very much suspect it will continue to hurt even after I press the publish button, reminding me of my mortality. 

 

For as Bataille points out, it doesn't take much to remind us of the fact that our bodies are frail and prone to damage and disease; even the grandest of grand human beings - one who might imagine himself a god amongst men - is quickly brought crashing back down to earth "by an atrocious pain in his big toe" [22]. 

 

In other words, feet have evolved not only so that we might stand upright and walk, but to remind us that we are allzumenschliches and will, sooner or later, return to the filth from which we emerged; thus the "hideously cadaverous and at the same time [...] proud appearance of the big toe" [22] [f].    

 

 

Notes

 

[a] I'm thinking of Boiffard's two photos of a big toe belonging to a thirty-year-old male subject, used to illustrate Bataille's essay 'Le gros orteil' in Documents 6 (Nov. 1929): click here. 

      Born in 1902, Boiffard was a hard-working medical student before meeting André Breton in 1924 and deciding to dedicate himself to Surrealism. Having worked as Man Ray's assistant for five years, Boiffard then became closely associated with Bataille and the circle of writers involved in Documents (he had by this date already fallen out - like so many others - with Breton). 

      Following his father's death in 1935, Boiffard resumed his medical studies and abandoned his career as an avant-garde photographer. Serving as a radiologist at the Hôpital Saint-Louis in Paris from 1940 to 1959, Boiffard died in 1961.

      If little remembered today, Boiffard's images remain clever manipulations of scale and point of view, transposing multiple exposures and contrasting brightly lit objects - including body parts - against darkened backgrounds, making them monstrously unfamiliar. 

      For an excellent discussion of his work, see Jodi Hauptman and Stephanie O’Rourke; 'A Surrealist Fact', in Object:Photo: Modern Photographs: The Thomas Walther Collection 1909–1949, ed. Mitra Abbaspour, Lee Ann Daffner, and Maria Morris Hambourg (The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2014). This essay can be read as an online pdf: click here. 

 

[b] This is the opening line to Bataille's essay 'Le gros orteil', in Documents 6 (Nov. 1929), pp. 297-302. Reprinted in Œuvres complètes, Vol. 1, ed. Denis Hollier (Gallimard, 1970), pp. 200-04. 

      I'm using the English translation by Allan Stoekl; 'The Big Toe', in Visions of Excess: Selected Writings 1927-1939, ed. Allan Stoekl (University of Minnesota Press, 1985), pp. 20-23 and all page numbers given in part II of this post refer to this work. 

 

[c] It's certainly the case that apes do not possess big toes like humans; that while we have a big toe aligned with other toes and which has evolved to play a vital role in walking, chimps and gorillas, etc., have opposable big toes (i.e., a bit like thumbs) that can be moved independently and used for grasping and climbing. 

      However, it's arguable that what makes the human being uniquely different from other apes is not the big toe, but the large brain inside our heads that enables us to perform advanced cognitive functions such as abstract thought and complex problem-solving. 

      Coincidentally, it might interest readers to know that scientists have recently discovered that our big toe was one of the last parts of the foot to evolve; see the article entitled 'Evolution and function of the hominin forefoot', by Peter J. Fernández et al, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 115, No. 35, pp. 8746-8751 (August 2018): click here.   

 

[d] See the post of 1 June 2019 - 'You Need Hands' - in which I discuss Heidegger's thoughts on the importance of the hand: click here. 

 

[e] I understand that this is not true of all feet or all people; although, interestingly, foot fetishism (or podophilia as those in the know like to say) is the most common form of body partialism (and even amongst those sophisticated individuals who redirect desire away from the flesh and on to objects, a large number have a penchant for shoes and other forms of footwear). Foot fetishism seems to be one of those things more common amongst men than women. Whilst the origin of such is a matter of dispute, clearly Bataille is of the opinion that the erotic allure of feet is linked to their anatomical baseness (abjection); i.e., pleasure is derived from touching something that, even if they are perfectly clean and pretty, still get their sacrilegious charm from the fact that they are often dirty and easily deformed.

      For an early post published on the transsexual consummation of foot fetishism (25 July 2013), click here.   

 

[f] Bataille thinks it only fair to add that the big toe is not specifically monstrous as a form - unlike the inside of a gaping mouth, for example. It is only "secondary (but common) deformations" [22] that have given the big toe its ugly and inhuman - yet exceptionally comic - character. 

 

 

For a follow up post to this one - on gout - please click here. 

Reflections on the Typewriter 2: How Derrida Put Down His Pen and Learned to Love a Keyboard

He may have bought a computer, but nothing 

could convince Derrida to get a desk lamp

Photo: Joel Robine / Staff AFP

Derrida certainly takes a more relaxed position on the question of handwriting and technology than Heidegger and, as we shall see, his experience of moving from pen to Mac via a typewriter, is a familiar one.

Whilst conceding that Heidegger's reaction to the typewriter is perfectly understandable within the context of his philosophical project, Derrida also describes it as dogmatic and makes two very obvious points that Heideggerians might like to consider:

Firstly, when writing in a traditional manner we are still using technology - be it a pen, pencil, or piece of chalk. And secondly, typing is also a manual activity and using a typewriter or laptop doesn't, therefore, negate or bypass the hand. Have anyone's fingers ever moved with more joy and speed and than those of a skilled touch-typist?

It might therefore be argued that typing doesn't diminish thinking, degrade the word, or threaten being to the extent that Heidegger asserts and that the typewriter is not some kind of doomsday machine.*

Finally, Derrida makes the following (rather touching) confession: 

"I began by writing with a pen, and I remained faithful to pens for a long time [...], only transcribing 'final versions' on the machine, at the point of separating from them [...] Then, to go on with the story, I wrote more and more 'straight onto' the machine: first the mechanical typewriter; then the electric typewriter in 1979; then finally the computer, around 1986 or 1987. I can't do without it any more now, this little Mac, especially when I'm working at home; I can't even remember or understand how I was able to get on before without it."

Apart from the dates, this is essentially the story of my own progression in writing. It took me a long time to make the transition from pen and paper to screen - I wrote a Ph.D. thesis and made over half-a-million words of notes in the old-fashioned manner before I bought my first laptop - but, like Derrida, I eventually came to love the machine for both the amazing amount of time it saves and the freedom it brings "that we perhaps wouldn't have acquired without it".

I'm not sure I agree with Derrida, however, when he says that working on a computer doesn't fundamentally change what is written, even if it does modify the way of writing - and I must admit this remark surprises me, suggesting as it does that we can separate content and style and that the former is somehow resistant to mechanical transformation.

If, as Derrida also says, we know very little, if anything, of the internal demon of the new writing-machines, how can we know what changes they are capable of instigating?

*Note: Heidegger himself concedes that "the typewriter is not really a machine in the strict sense [...] but is an 'intermediate' thing, between a tool and a machine". Having said that, however, he does also note that it's production is conditioned by machine technology. See: Martin Heidegger, Parmenides, trans. Andre Schuwer and Richard Rojcewicz, (Indiana University Press, 1992). 

Jacques Derrida, 'The Word Processor', in Paper Machine, trans. by Rachel Bowlby (Stanford University Press, 2005), pp. 19-32. Click here to read as a pdf online.

To read part one of this post on Heidegger, click here. 

To read part three of this post on Nietzsche, click here.

Reflections on the Typewriter 1: The Case of Martin Heidegger

Heidegger at his desk sans typewriter 

I mentioned in a note to a recent post that Heidegger was no fan of the typewriter; that he believed it tore writing away from the domain of the hand, which, along with the word from which it sprang, is the essential distinction of Dasein.

It is neither coincidental nor accidental, says Heidegger, that modern man - enframed as he is by technology - should sit before a keyboard and write with a machine (first the typewriter, then the computer). Now the word is no longer able to come and go by means of the writing hand; it's processed and passed along by mechanical forces, becoming merely an item of information and communication. This not only endangers thinking, it threatens the destruction of the world. 

Today, says Heidegger, the handwritten text is not only regarded as antiquated, it is undesirable; something which, full of individual character, disturbs the homogeniety of the professional and commercial world and disrupts the ability of the reader to read quickly with the eye alone. The person who still writes by hand today is seen as either a loser, a madman, or a rebel; carrying a pen is almost as suspect as carrying a concealed weapon.

When writing was withdrawn from the origin of its essence, concludes Heidegger, and transferred to the machine, "a transformation occurred in the relation of Being to man" - and this wasn't a change for the better, no matter what advantages or conveniences were gained.

Should we, therefore, abandon the typewriter and the computer and the mobile phone with which we text and tweet and begin again to write by hand? Or is it not already too late; has technology not become so entrenched in our history and evolution - so much part of ourselves - that it is now of little or no importance that a few eccentrics choose to renounce and avoid it?

See: Martin Heidegger, Parmenides, trans. Andre Schuwer and Richard Rojcewicz, (Indiana University Press, 1992), pp. 80-81 and 85-86. Click here to read the relevant sections online. 

To read part two of this post on Derrida, click here. 

To read part three of this post on Nietzsche, click here.  

Simian Aesthetics 1: The Case of Congo the Chimp

Congo and one of his more mature works

Everyone knows that monkeys make great copyists. We even have a verb in English, to ape, meaning to mimic someone or something closely (albeit in a rather clumsy, sometimes mocking manner). But what isn't so widely known is that they can also be original artists, producing works that have real aesthetic value and interest in and of themselves and not merely because they are produced by the hairy hand of a non-human primate.  

Take the case of Congo, for example, who, with the help of the zoologist and surrealist Desmond Morris, developed a lyrical style of painting that has much in common with abstract impressionism.

Congo first came to Morris's attention in 1956 when, aged two, he was given a pencil and paper. It was obvious the young chimp had innate drawing ability and a basic sense of composition. In addition, Congo had a very clear idea of whether a picture had or had not been completed: if a work was taken away that he didn't consider finished, he would scream and work himself up into a tantrum; but once he considered a work to be done, then he would refuse to work on it further, no matter what inducements were made.

Within a couple of years Congo had made several hundred sketches and paintings and during the late 1950s he made frequent TV appearances, showcasing his talents live from London Zoo alongside Morris. Congo became even more of a simian cause célèbre when the Institute of Contemporary Arts mounted a large exhibition of his work (along with that by other talented apes) in the autumn of 1957.

Discussing this event in a recent interview,* Morris explained that the importance of the show lay in the fact that it was the first time that zoology and fine art had come together in order to examine the evolutionary roots of man's aesthetic delight in images. Morris also recalls how originally nervous the ICA were about the exhibition, worrying, for example, that other all too human artists might find the idea absurd and insulting. Thankfully, it was decided by ICA founders Roland Penrose and Herbert Read that the show had to go on. 

And, as it turned out, critical reaction to the exhibition within the art world and wider media was mixed, but mostly on the positive side. Indeed, when Picasso heard about Congo, he immediately showed interest and hung one of the chimp's paintings on his studio wall. Later, when asked by a journalist why he had done so, Picasso went over and bit him.

Joan Miró and Salvador Dalí were also impressed by Congo's work. The former delighted in the intelligence of composition and the latter compared Congo's attempt to control his brushstrokes favourably to the random splashing of Jackson Pollock, saying that whilst Pollock painted with the hand of an animal, Congo painted with a hand that was quasi-human.**

Sadly, Congo's brief but glittering career as an artist ended with his death from tuberculosis in 1964, when he was aged just ten years old. His legacy, however, lives on, and in 2005 Bonham's auctioned a number of his paintings alongside those by Renoir and Warhol. Amusingly, whilst the works of these illustrious human painters didn't sell on the day, Congo's sold for far more than expected, with an American collector snapping up three works for over $25,000. 

We arrive, finally, at the obvious question: Is a picture painted by a chimpanzee really a work of art?

For me, the answer has to be yes and to argue otherwise does seem suspiciously like speciesism. Of course, as Desmond Morris acknowledges, this is not to say Congo was a great artist or that his work deserves the same critical attention as that given to work of the human artists named above. But neither does it deserve to be dismissed as rubbish. Ultimately, Congo's fascinating canvases are, as Morris says, "extraordinary records of an experiment which proves beyond doubt that we aren't the only species that can control visual patterns".    

Notes

*A transcript of this interview in which Morris discusses the controversial exhibition Paintings by Chimpanzees (1957) can be found on the archive page of the ICA website: click here. The transcript is the third of a three part series based on an interview by Melanie Coles with Desmond Morris at his studio in Oxford, 2016 (ed. Melanie Coles and Maya Caspari).

See also Desmond Morris's study of the picture-making behaviour of the great apes in relation to the art produced by humans; The Biology of Art, (Methuen, 1962). 

**Heidegger, of course, wouldn't allow this statement to pass unchallenged, believing as he did that the human hand is what distinguishes man from all other beasts, including the ape. Thus, according to Heidegger, whilst chimps possess prehensile organs capable of holding and manipulating objects, they do not have hands in the unique manner that humans being do. Indeed, for Heidegger, there is an ontological abyss between Pollock's hand and Congo's. I shall discuss this at greater length in a forthcoming post.

Readers interested in part two of this post on simian aesthetics - the case of Pierre Brassau - should click here.