At one point during his account, Corbett, through his discussion with Josh, a young boy who struggles with total competition with his brother who is eight years his senior, learns of the younger brother's defense mechanism that immediately positions itself when the combination of the other brother and the idea of preference is mentioned. By wanting to win the blue knife game, which the other brother usually does, Josh inherently wants to be like his sibling, but nevers admits to it, and in fact opposes the idea entirely. He engages in a cycle of aggression and resistance, as the male proclivity of dominance brings about a need to win, while his persistent losses results in a construction of shelter, followed by aggressive reconstruction of his power. Without intervention, this cycle prolongs until the child internalizes this anger, targeting the object of his emotions as something that arises from within his body rather than from the actual source of attack.
This shift between narcissistic desire and phallic defense, as noted in the essay, is represented by the object of rather simple games that Josh plays: the reach for the blue knife and the destruction with the block bat. These objects as mechanisms of phallocentric construction and deconstruction acknowledges the young boy's introduction to castration anxiety, that the only way to achieve masculinity and pride is to be in possession of the most effective representative in comparison to other surrounding males. But this claim fails to include individuals like Thomas Beatie, for whom such terms as castration anxiety does not apply. Thus, such anxiety, without the modifier, that befalls the boy can arise purely psychologically.
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