The abscissa and the ordinate

"The difference of the sexes and the difference of the generations constitute the abscissa and the ordinate of every human being, the two fundamental givens which cannot be muddled up without there following from this a profound [(tout entier)] disintegration [(désorganisation)] of the human being. . . . .  [I]f such behaviors are not, as some are claiming explicitly, deviations, but variations, . . . then the very boundary between nature and culture must be re-defined."

     Marie Balmary, Le sacrifice interdit:  Freud et la Bible (Paris:  Grasset, 1985), 35, 559-582 [!], as quoted in  Agnès Villié, "La gender theory ou la négation de la différence sexuelle," Bulletin de littérature ecclésiastique 110, no. 1 (Jan-Mar 2009):  69 (55-80), translation mine.  See also Villié, 75-76, 79 ("A society that loses a sense for the reality of the difference of the sexes and of the bond between the generations, from which [loss] it does not seem possible to be delivered without grave damage to humanity, tends to lose also freedom of thought").