Out "of” the blue: a comment on a preposition
Garnet Butchart

It is the stillest words that bring on the storm.
Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

There is something strange about the preposition "of.” It is so small, so still, and virtually imperceptible, yet it makes all the difference. The paradox is that in making all the difference, this preposition "of” marks that which remains the same: the void or tear in the texture of reality from which the identity of an object comes to be, as it were, "out of the blue.”

The Oxford English Dictionary provides no less than sixty-three entries on the signification of the preposition "of.” The first eleven of these entries are grouped into three general categories that account for the original, primitive sense "away from” or "off.” In the expression of concepts such as division, removal, separation, and derivation, "of” indicates the sense of taking, coming, or arising from something. In this original sense, "of” indicates: (1) motion, direction, distance away from (the departure or emergence out of a situation or condition; position as a result of departure and defined in relation to a fixed entity; a point of time in relation to the following hour, as in US colloquial usage, "quarter of twelve”); (2) liberation, privation, separation from a property or possession (e.g., cure of, purge of, stripped of); and (3) source from which anything originates or is acquired (e.g., descend of, arise of, spring of; purchase of, leave of, hear of).

The next fourteen entries, grouped below into three categories, mark a shift from the sense of "off” or "away from” to the more common sense of "belonging to.” In the expression of concepts such as cause, agent, and material, the preposition "of” indicates a place, origin, or presence to which an action, sense, or object belongs or is properly assigned. In this, its genitive sense, "of” indicates: (1) a starting point (motive, cause, reason, ground of an action, occurrence, emotion, quality; e.g., on account of; perish of, smell of; of custom, of duty; fearful of, proud of); (2) an agent (abandoned of, forgotten of, chosen of); the doer of something (that was kind, mean, clever, brutish of her); an author (tragedies of Shakespeare, rhymes of P-Diddy); and (3) the material, substance, or elements of which an object consists (house of stone, pound of apples); a qualification (in the form of; that fool of a man, that beast of a place).

Through this etymology, we see that on the one hand, "of” plays the role of moving or pushing something "off, away from” something else. For example, "I was purged of that awful disease”; "She took leave of her senses”; "He spoke of a love long lost”; "I was acquitted of all wrong doing.” In each case, "of” separates these terms, removes one from another, expresses their relation purely as a matter of distance. On the other hand, "of” plays the very opposite role of drawing things together, of situating or pulling them into a location to which they "properly belong.” For example, "He died of pneumonia”; "We do this not out of obligation but out of duty”; "She works at the University of Massachusetts”; "Teenagers are full of piss and vinegar.” Here, "of” connects these terms, attributes one to another, expresses their relation as a matter of necessary belonging.

Ultimately, these examples reveal that the dual sense of this preposition ("off, away from” / "belonging to”) indicates at once a temporal difference in the relation between objects and their modifiers (the relation among representatives including nouns and adjectives), as well as a spatial difference in the past, present, and future order of terms. That is, what makes "of” grammatically significant, but also strange, is how this preposition inflects the category of time into space, and the category of space into time.

First, "of” performs a temporal differentiation in its primary indication of movement "off, away from.” Expressing direction, distance, and separation off and away from, "of” situates the relation between an object and its attributes in the realm of duration (time): all present relations between representative terms (nouns, adjectives) will be determined in virtue of all previous occurrences of spacing or moving "off, away from.” Second, "of” performs a spatial differentiation in its more common, genitive sense, "originating at” or "belonging to.” Connecting concepts such as "source” with cause and motive, or "presence” with form and substance, "of” firmly locates an object "there” in the realm of space "because of” or "proper to” some other object, attribute, or cause originating before or preceding it. By indicating both the primitive sense "off, away from,” as well as the genitive sense "properly belonging to,” "of” in this way differentiates via a double articulation, inflecting the temporality of space (division, separation, distance) into the spatiality of time (presence, ground, origin), and visa versa.

The nature of this differentiation is clearly established by Kant in his fundamental thesis about space and time as the necessary conditions for experience. [1] According to Kant, space and time are themselves void, they are "empty.” [2] Space is "filled” by matter which "endures” in time. Time and space are thus substantiated by the forces of "expansion” and "contraction”: a quantity of matter fills space by repelling other matter (through expansion), or by drawing matter into itself (through contraction). By filling space and time in this way, a quantity of matter can thus be measured by its extensive or intensive "magnitude”: a body moves another in one of two directions, either pushing it off and away from (expansion), or pulling it toward and in to (contraction). Just as matter occupies space and time with extensive or intensive magnitude, "of” indicates this exact spatial and temporal relation of difference: expanding "off, away from,” as well as contracting or "belonging to” a proper location.

The difference between the two main sense functions of this preposition can be illustrated by Jacques Lacan's major concept, "desire is the desire of the other.” [3] What does this mean? On the one hand, it means that desire is the desire for the other. That is, the other is some-thing that is desired. On the other hand, it means that desire is that which belongs to the other. That is, desire is possessed by the other. It is precisely the preposition "of” that produces these two possible (literal) interpretations. First, is desire mine? That is, is desire a desire for the other? Is it the other that I desire? If desire is mine - if it is the other to which my desire is directed - then the preposition "of” can be read as pushing me "off and away from” myself and toward the other: i.e., "get over yourself and ask her out.” In this sense, desire is the desire of the other. Second, is desire the other's? That is, is desire something which remains exclusively within the realm of alterity? If desire is that which belongs not to me but to the other, then the preposition "of” connects desire properly with the other, as "belonging to” the other. In this sense, desire is the desire of the other.

But what if these two senses were to be read together? Is desire that which we desire to be the object of? That is, is desire the desire to be desired? If so, then in desiring the desire of the other, we possess that which is not our own: we desire to be desired by the other, to be the object of its desire. [4] In this third and final sense, the genitive "of” becomes doubled. Like a cruel joke, "of” separates me from myself, pushes me "off and away from” what is purely my own (i.e., desire), and simultaneously draws me toward that which is not mine, connects me to that which "properly belongs” to another (desire of the other). In this light, "desire is the desire of the other” means precisely this: I am split from myself in order to be possessed by that which can never be mine. [5] The dynamics of attraction ("belonging to”) and repulsion ("off, away from”) never appear more innocent than they do in the form of this tiny preposition.

While this preposition marks spatial and temporal relations of difference, "of” itself is not an origin, an essence, nor any fixed point. Rather, the shift from, or difference between, one sense function to another reveals a non-positive but nonetheless productive negativity on top of which "of” is written. Understood as a "void” or "tear” in the texture of reality from which the function of signification obtains, this non-positivity has taken many names throughout the history of structuralist theory: "lack,” "surplus,” "absence,” "excess,” "object petit a” - the very "undecidable” upon which any structure is based. [6] As Lacan says, "the subject of a signifier is always another signifier,” [7] which means precisely that signifiers "work” or "mean” by going to work on this void, by accumulating around it in an endlessly failed effort to fill it in, to patch it over. [8] It is in this sense that the possibility of difference (spatial and temporal separation), as well as the possibility of identity (presupposed by signifying acts), are conditioned by one and the same void, gap, or structural discontinuity.

It must be stressed that this non-positivity plays a constitutive role in the preposition "of,” underpinning the dual sense "away from” / "belonging to,” as well as the grammatical function to connect an object and its attributes. As we saw from the OED entries above, "of” marks or stands at the location of this productive negativity, away from which present relations between terms move into future configurations of terms granted as a condition of possibility properly belonging to prior configurations of terms. By the same token, in marking the negativity constitutive of spatial and temporal difference, "of” paradoxically stands before the absolute condition of possibility of identity: the void at the center of any network of signifiers.

Written against the background of this negative kernel in the symbolic field, "of” thereby reveals something in every object that remains more than what that object "is.” [9] Insofar as there remains a void in the structure of objectivity, a tear in reality that prevents the absolute closure of "objective meaning,” the identity of, say, a diamond, is not to be found in any of its positive, physical properties, no matter how fine the cut. Insofar as a multitude of signifiers work to determine the identity of a diamond (signifiers of the economy - a diamond has monetary value; as well as ideological signifiers - a diamond means "unwavering commitment”), this identity is never stable: "it” is never guaranteed.

The unity of the identity of the object must therefore be dependent on something that exceeds its different symbolic representatives, something within the object that, paradoxically, remains the same. What remains the same in every object "is” precisely that which enables as well as defers the foreclosure of any act of naming, identification, etc.: the constitutive void at the core of objectivity, that which sets the limit to any positive constituents. Call it lack, gap, excess, or surplus, this "sameness” is ultimately the brute becoming of any object: all ascribed identities forever remain radically contingent identities, contingent on the negativity latent in the structure of objectivity itself. [10] The result is thus a differential field of identities that are never fully constituted, that remain radically open: hence the possibility that "a diamond lasts forever.”

Inscribed at the heart of presence, "of” in this way exceeds the form of its microscopic appearance, stands as the mark of pure possibility, the indication of sheer occurrence without reference to any "thing” occurring: "out of the blue.”

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[10] Ernesto Laclau, New Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time (London and New York: Verso, 1990), 19.