A most common source of error regarding Georges Bataille's theoretical postulates is in holding that his categories of heterogeneity and homogeneity are somehow moral or ethical categories. While they may start off appearing that way, their necessary dialectical interactions make the overall view much more complicated.
Let me try to explain. Heterogeneous and homogeneous coincide to some measure with some of the ways we have become accustomed to thinking about morality. Heterogeneity pertains to that which isn't regulated by social mores. Homogeneity is the opposite. To the degree that our temperaments incline us to glorifying hard work, plain talking and social agreement over nonconformity we might also be inclined to consider that homogeneity is the ultimate human good. Conversely, to the degree that we enjoy pleasure, consumption, unpredictability and a self-determined life, we might tend in the opposite direction, proclaiming that these things are a measure of the human life well-lived. Yet, to interpret the categories in narrow isolation like this is to miss understanding how these both necessitate each other.
If I was to write a computer programme, I could probably do very well with categories of heterogeneity and homogeneity. (I am not a computer programmer, but I know a little about computer programmes.) So, I would write the computer programme using conventional computer language. Language is homogeneous. Any computer which can understand the computer language I am using will be able to decode what I am telling it to do. Yet, computer programmes must also be able to handle "exceptions". An "exception" occurs when the data that the user or environment feeds into my computer cannot be handled by the programme because the data falls out of the range of a particular set of normative values. In the case of "an exception", the particular data will have to be handled in a special way, in order for the programme not to break down at the point of trying to handle the exception. So, a different rule is written in for "an exception".
Bataille's category of heterogeneity doesn't mean, "Yay! Yippee! Glory in difference!" . All it means is that in terms of a regulated human social order, an exception has been discovered. What society does with its exceptions can vary. Bataille points out that exceptions from productive labour are built into our very social systems, so that sometimes we can break free and party, slaughtering a few head of goat if we are so inclined. That is a process which expresses heterogeneity: action for its own sake (at least in appearance -- since in many instances, homogeneous society makes good secondary use of its exceptions, as in the case of war, which can lead to profit-mongering; or as in the case of the proletariat being allowed holidays, so that they might work all the productively during the year!)
Besides being a category of "the exception", heterogeneity is a category of expenditure. We expend the money we have worked to acquire whilst in the homogeneous mode. So, most of the time, humans move between homogeneous and heterogeneous modes. Whilst we're in the homogeneous mode, we and everybody else knows what the task at hand is that we are required to fulfil. Writing a thesis, for instance, is work done primarily in the homogeneous mode -- this is because one must use a common and recognisable set of terms to communicate, one aims to create a product with a recognisable form and function, and one aims to further knowledge that is (theoretically) accessible to everyone. Yet to the degree that I follow my own instincts, and create the thesis according to my own sense of pattern and purpose, uncertainty enters into the picture, and there will be heterogeneous (unpredictable) aspects to my thesis, as a result.
So heterogeneous and homogeneous categories are much more complex than moral categories. They depict the way that human societies function. Unless one is a character in a book of fiction it would usually not make much sense to proclaim to someone, "I am heterogeneous!" or "I am homogeneous!" since it is the normal human condition to move between both modes, without necessarily recognizing that one is doing so.
Marechera was a different story. I think that one can say that his life was lived within the heterogeneous mode. This was most unusual.
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