ABSTRACT
The dialectics of Adler and Hegel play a role in the transubstantiation of animality and uncon-
trolled passions, but how? In fact, this ontological turn necessitates the negation of what is con-
stituted as inert matter, specifically slave/flesh, to subvert the passions and the body and ‘climb
out’ of the fleshy/messy matter (Fanon, 1961, p. 216). This transcendence is supposedly made
possible by sublating passions and the body to reason. Those mired in materiality (flesh) and
unable to self-rule are presumed dead and ontologically impossible: ‘the object with a void-
based invention’ (Fanon, 1961, p. 216; see also Marriott, 2012, p. 48). The ritual of slaughtering
for blood and manure marks the fantastical boundary drawn between animals and humans and
distinguishes between categories of ‘human’ and corporeal violence and vulnerability: those
understood as bestial cannot be protected by law, especially when the sovereign right to kill
becomes a moral necessity, a duty prescribed to the sovereign person.
