Deleuze Studies:

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d63
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Re: Deleuze Studies:

Post by d63 »

One of the things that comes up in James Williams secondary text on Difference and Repetition is Deleuze’s concept of the block. And if I’m reading it right, it has to do with the subject’s (the place where thoughts take place (finite capabilities in the face of the infinite. It comes down to the limited capacity of concepts to include the infinite multiplicities of causality contributing to any given event.

And if you think about it in a genealogical sense, this may well be at the bottom of Deleuze and Guatarri’s distinction between the molar and the molecular. The molar, as Brian Massumi describes it, is a kind of blur effect of the molecular that allows us to actually comprehend what is before us. And the best way to describe it, as Massumi did, is through its negative effects. If you look at how minorities have come to be accepted (especially in the case of TV ads (it has generally been in terms of their being legitimate producer/consumers: basically molarizations defined by white heterosexual males.

Take, for instance, the TV series Will and Grace which made homosexuality more acceptable. Let’s take a look at how it made it work: taking an attractive male that happened to be homosexual and presenting him as someone who was perfectly as capable of producing and consuming as anyone else. In other words, he was made acceptable by presenting him within the perimeters of producer/consumer Capitalism and the tyranny of the functional. He was molarized: blocked from the infinite. And the same goes for minorities you see in TV ads who often come off as yuppies or hipsters who happen to have dark skin.

And none of it, of course, gets to the molecular aspects of reality: the actual complexity of the players involved. But given our finite position in the scheme of things, how could any of us actually contain, in our heads, the infinite?

And this is where the molar steps in and proves useful –even heroic. We as the intellectually curious TRY to capture the infinite only to find our efforts frustrated. Still, we have to try. Now imagine a comedian trying to do the same thing: saying something funny about the other then backtracking with: but on the other hand. Comedy is about the war rally: that which confirms unity among those with common belief systems. Think Bill Maher, John Oliver, and Samantha Bee here.

But then this may well have been why Deleuze made the distinction between humor and satire.
d63
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Re: Deleuze Studies:

Post by d63 »

“There are of course, many other important works that have appeared in recent years, but I will focus on these because they take Difference and Repetition as one of their principal sources. Each of these studies takes the book in different directions to mine, demonstrating the limitations of my selections and the promise of others.” -Williams, James. Gilles Deleuze's Difference and Repetition: A Critical Introduction and Guide (p. 229). Edinburgh University Press. Kindle Edition.

And I would also add:

“In each case, I will study passages from the conclusion of Deleuze's book, adding insights from interpretations of Deleuze's work that have appeared since the first edition of my book in important studies by Anne Sauvagnargues, Daniel W. Smith, Miguel de Beistegui, Levi Bryant, Joe Hughes and Henry Somers-Hall (Every order is a selection with its dark precursors and emergent illusions.).”

:then note that I have both Hughes’ and Levi Bryant’s book, have read both all the way through and done so several times with Hughes’. And as concerns Hughes’ book: you know you’re up against something deep and obscure when you have to read the secondary text several times only to find yourself still confused.

That said (and speaking of osmosis), the quote pretty much backs up my initial instincts as concerns the secondary text on Difference and Repetition: that it’s like reading several different readings of the same text. And this, of course, is exactly what Deleuze wanted: various individuations of the series and events involved in Deleuze’s text.

Furthermore (and thank you osmosis), Williams, towards the end of his book, confirms my metaphor: that of a beautiful Mademoiselle that will lead you to believe that you can have her, yet slip away when you approach her. Hence the not altogether explainable (sometimes frustrating), yet compelling attraction I feel towards Difference and Repetition. I hate myself for wanting to go forward with it; yet can’t walk away.
d63
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Re: Deleuze Studies:

Post by d63 »

Difference, Repetition, Ball Joints, and Other Drivers:

“Thus we make things the same, even the most simple things, against the background that they could be very different (I can't believe the bolt failed . . .). So each bolt, each simple same thing, matters because it carries with it the possibility that it could be different.” -Williams, James. Gilles Deleuze's Difference and Repetition: A Critical Introduction and Guide (p. 35). Edinburgh University Press. Kindle Edition.

Just to offer a personal analogy (as a steppingstone and not to fix what Deleuze was talking about), I would turn the issue of repetition and difference to the issue of driving. I, myself, tend to drive like most of your grandparents: slow. I will even take the slower routes on regular streets as compared to the faster routes of interstates. And this may well be (perhaps because of Deleuze or perhaps other reasons (because my faith in repetition has decreased while my faith in difference has increased. And the same dynamic might be at work in my increasing fear of heights in the overlap between the potentially self destructive forward flight (connect and forget (of Deleuze (that which was fully expressed in The Anti-Oedipus) and Sartre’s Vertigo of the Possible (and I am paraphrasing here from memory) :

“The Vertigo of the Possible, then, is not so much a fear of falling into the abyss as throwing one’s self in.”

My children, however, have tended to drive like their full faith was in repetition. They assumed, given the repeated environments they were driving in, all variables involved would repeat their selves: that all other drivers would act in expected ways and the mechanics of their automobiles would continue to repeat what they had always done. My son, however, discovered difference when his ball joints broke twice on him: once on the interstate and another time in the neighborhood. I have, personally, experienced difference in other drivers when my first Spark got totaled by a young man who was paying more attention to his senorita than the red light in front of him.

Luckily, no one has gotten hurt so far. But, in a blue-collarized way (and I think Deleuze would agree with me here), it does give you a sense of the danger of an over-exaggerated faith in repetition. At the same time, I’m equally sure that Deleuze would see my recognition of difference and concerns about it as a kind of neurosis and prelude to a paranoid/fascist center.

I mean thank god (whatever it is (I stake my faith in the difference described above.
mantadina
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Re: Deleuze Studies:

Post by mantadina »

Hy,

I am doing my PhD in sociology and I am struggling with understanding Deleuze. To be more precisely, I don't quite understand the teravalet model:
The tetravalent systemisation works along two distinct axes comprising the four types of valence: first, between the intermingling machinic assemblage of bodies, actions and passions (content) and that of a collective assemblage of enunciation of acts and statements (expression); and
second, between territorial stabilising lines of articulation and that of deterritorialising lines of flight (Deleuze and Guattari 1988, 88).

Pls help :)
d63
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Re: Deleuze Studies:

Post by d63 »

mantadina wrote: Thu Jul 27, 2017 9:44 am Hy,

I am doing my PhD in sociology and I am struggling with understanding Deleuze. To be more precisely, I don't quite understand the teravalet model:
The tetravalent systemisation works along two distinct axes comprising the four types of valence: first, between the intermingling machinic assemblage of bodies, actions and passions (content) and that of a collective assemblage of enunciation of acts and statements (expression); and
second, between territorial stabilising lines of articulation and that of deterritorialising lines of flight (Deleuze and Guattari 1988, 88).

Pls help :)
I wish I could, Mantadina. But you're clearly above my pay grade. I'll help you anyway I can. But you have to keep in mind that I'm self taught as concerns Deleuze and Guatarri. The best I can offer are my informed instinctive responses.

But I'll do the best I can. Thanks for even asking.

Looking at it now, I would look towards the materialistic aspect of it (the death of the subject (that sees us as creative things interacting with with other creative things: like nodes in a system of exchange. One point I am confident on is that Deleuze (via Bergson (saw not just humans as creative, but nature as a whole.

I hope that helps.

Once again: flattered you would even ask.
d63
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Re: Deleuze Studies:

Post by d63 »

"Last but not least, the major enemy, the strategic adversary is fascism (whereas Anti-Oedipus' to the others is more of a tactical engagement). And not only historical fascism, the fascism of Hitler and Mussolini -which was able to mobilize and use the desire of the masses so effectively- but also the fascism in us all, in our heads and in our everyday behavior, the fascism that causes us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us." -from Michel Foucault's preface to The Anti-Oedipus

Approaching Deleuze and Guatarri’s Anti-Oedipus for the nth time (via the book itself and Buchanan’s reader guide), it suddenly strikes me how relevant the book is to the present political climate –especially in America as concerns our present president. What makes it especially relevant is how D & G stress that fascistic experiments are not the result of who happens to obtain power, but rather a social environment that is conducive to it. And let’s face it: Trump is not the cause of the problem; he is a symptom. He is, rather, little more than a node in a vast rhizomatic network of machinic production. And we cannot stress the import of this enough since addressing Trump alone (through impeachment or whatever other means (will not solve the problem.

For instance, while it is Trump who publically turns to Gordian Knot solutions, it was private citizens looking for those kind of solutions that got him in. In fact, it is this basic human need for simplicity that lies behind the whole alt-right movement and their propensity towards such solutions. And this leaves us with a vicious feedback loop (a snowball effect (that starts with Trumps simple answer to a sluggish economy: deregulation and the withdrawal from the Paris Treaty. But as most scientists note, the first effects of global warming will lie heavily on third world countries close to the equator. So what do we think is going to happen when those areas become so uninhabitable that its occupants are forced to migrate north? What it will likely do is legitimize the alt-right position (the fascism (through excessive illegal immigration. And don’t think of it as some thought-out conspiracy. Think it, rather, as ignorance propping itself up through a kind of accidental Orwellian staged event.

On the uptick, though, Trump may well end up renewing interest in the work of Deleuze and Guatarri –especially the Anti-Oedipus. It may well result in the Deleuzian century that Foucault joked about.
d63
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Re: Deleuze Studies:

Post by d63 »

"To be anti-oedipal is to be anti-ego as well as anti-homo, willfully attacking all reductive psychoanalytic and political analyses that remain caught within the sphere of totality and unity, in order to free the multiplicity of desire from the deadly neurotic and Oedipal yoke. For Oedipus is not a mere psychoanalytic construct, Deleuze and Guattari explain. Oedipus is the figurehead of imperialism, "colonization pursued by other means, it is the interior colony, and we shall see that even here at home... it is our intimate colonial education."" -from Mark Seem's intro to The Anti-Oedipus

"Depression and Oedipus are agencies of the State, agencies of paranoia, agencies of power, long before being delegated to the family. Oedipus is the figure of power as such, just as neurosis is the result of power on individuals. Oedipus is everywhere.

"For anti-oedipalists the ego, like Oedipus, is "part of those things we must dismantle through the united through the united assault of analytical and political forces." Oedipus is belief injected into the unconscious, it is what gives us faith as it robs us of power, it is what teaches us to desire our own repression." -ibid

First of all, I gotta say it again: while the e-book technology is cool in how you can easily copy and paste quotes from the book, there is still something to be said for having to physically write out a quote from another writer. You just seem to assimilate the content as well as the style all that much more.

Secondly, I want to (in this window (frame these quotes in terms of a recent article I wrote for Philosophy Now (publication pending or, more likely, not gonna happen): In Defense of the Nihilism and the Nihilistic Perspective: https://trollersandtyrants.blogspot.com ... &type=POST

It seems to me that Seem is getting at the spiritual aspect of nihilism in terms of the Anti-Oedipus. We basically broach the possibility of a Zen Nihilism when we say things like:

"To be anti-oedipal is to be anti-ego as well as anti-homo, willfully attacking all reductive psychoanalytic and political analyses that remain caught within the sphere of totality and unity, in order to free the multiplicity of desire from the deadly neurotic and Oedipal yoke.”

It’s basically what we do when we begin to tap into the underlying nothingness of things. I mean isn’t that what Zen is about? Dissolving the ego? And what would the ego dissolve into but nothingness? And in this sense, D & G work explicitly in the psychotic mode I describe in the article:

“The psychotic mode is a strategy of retreat. The individual, having no real criteria by which to judge action, recedes into their own semiotic bubble with its own vocabulary and systemic constructs –think the rules of grammar here. At its most extreme, it recedes to a point where the Symbolic Order is incapable of interacting with it while it is incapable of interacting with the Symbolic Order. The most obvious example, of course, is the schizophrenic walking down the street engaged in their own discourse, either with their self or some imaginary other. But it also takes on more watered down and socially understandable (if not acceptable) forms. Drug addicts and alcoholics, for instance, also recede into their own bubbles with their own systems of meaning (vocabulary) and rules of interaction (rules of construct). They too create their own semiotic systems that seem alien to the general Symbolic Order. We also see this at work in the more socially acceptable and productive form of the avant garde, that which addresses various conventions and power discourses and seeks to change flaws and injustices in the Symbolic Order.”

What D & G seem to be getting at (via their materialistic model (is an egoless state in which we see ourselves as nodes (not individuals with egos that might try to take control (in a de-centered system of exchange. And they do so in relation to the Symbolic Order as defined by Lacan. Once again:

“We also see this at work in the more socially acceptable and productive form of the avant garde, that which addresses various conventions and power discourses and seeks to change flaws and injustices in the Symbolic Order.”

This, of course, points to the very problem Rorty saw in the subject/object dichotomy: as long we maintain it, we continue to see ourselves as some kind of lord over the object, authorized to pass judgment on it. But by Rorty and D & G’s model, we rid ourselves of such erroneous models, and see ourselves as systems with various subsystems interacting with other systems with their various subsystems.
d63
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Re: Deleuze Studies:

Post by d63 »

"It is at work everywhere, functioning smoothly at times, at other times in fits and starts. It breaths, it heats, it eats. It shits and fucks. What a mistake to have ever said the id. Everywhere it is machines -real ones, not figurative ones: machines driving other machines, machines being driven by other machines, with all the necessary couplings and connections. An organ-machine is plugged into an energy-source-machine: the one produces a flow that the other interrupts. The breast is a machine that produces milk, and the mouth a machine coupled to it. The mouth of the anorexic wavers between several functions: its possessor is uncertain as to whether it is an eating-machine, an anal machine, a talking-machine, or a breathing-machine (asthma attacks). Hence we are all handymen: each with his little machines. For every organ-machine, an energy machine: all the time, flows and interruptions. Judge Schreber has sunbeams in his ass. A solar anus. Judge Schreber feels something, produces something, and is capable of explaining the process theoretically. Something is produced: the effects of a machine, not mere metaphors." -from the Anti-Oedipus

Today I want to speak from a position I am most comfortable with: that as a guy trying to be a good writer who also enjoys the philosophical process of going from empathy to outright sympathy. I’ve always kind of “gotten” the Anti-Oedipus. It’s why I’ve returned to it as well as Deleuze. (Perhaps it’s the challenge or something. And I mean it: damn the French and their weird obscure philosophies anyway!) But having approached this book for the nth time, I am starting to see how truly beautiful the writing is in this book. I would note, for instance, the disjunctive effect of:

“For every organ-machine, an energy machine: all the time, flows and interruptions. Judge Schreber has sunbeams in his ass. A solar anus.”

Here we get a dissonant effect similar to a Stravinsky or Schoenberg piece. This, to me, creates a kind of Jouissance (that kind of push/pull effect (that defines true greatness. Depth, intensity, and lightness of touch. I would also note how D & G manage a subtle humor by looping back to previous points:

“Not man as the king of creation, but rather as the being who is in intimate contact with the profound life of all forms or all types of beings, who is responsible for even the stars and animal life, and who ceaselessly plugs an organ-machine into an energy-machine, a tree into his body, a breast into his mouth, the sun into his asshole: the eternal custodian of the machines of the universe."

I would especially focus in on “the sun into his asshole” which refers back to “Judge Schreber has sunbeams in his ass. A solar anus.” We can also see this in “a breast into his mouth” which not only refers to the breast machine connecting with the mouth machine, but the complex sexuality involved as well.

The main thing to understand for now is that in order to get at the expositional aspect of the book, you first have to understand the aesthetic aspect of it. You have to turn content into form via form.
d63
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Re: Deleuze Studies:

Post by d63 »

"When Claude Levi-Strauss defines bricolage, he does so in terms of a set of closely related characteristics: the possession of a stock of materials or of rules of thumb that are fairly extensive, though more or less a hodgepodge -multiple and at the same time limited; the ability to rearrange fragments continually in new and different patterns or configurations ; and as a consequence, an indifference toward the act of producing and toward the product, toward the set of instruments to be used and toward the over-all result to be achieved."

"Hence the coupling that takes place within the partial object-flow connective synthesis also has another form: product/producing. Producing is always something "grafted onto" the product; and for that reason desiring production is production of production, just as every machine is a machine connected to another machine." –both from D & G’s Anti-Oedipus

Of course, my method of operation (or method of madness –take your pick) is becoming more obvious here. I mean the way my trajectory is going, it may come to randomly picking a paragraph out of whatever book I’m reading and just bouncing off of it with my own thoughts. But it seems appropriate in terms of my relationship to philosophy: not as a philosopher (I simply don’t have the training), but as someone trying to be a good writer who happens to like the philosophical process: that of turning empathy into sympathy, thereby assimilating theory to the point you can play with it. In that spirit, I would ask the reader to consider everything I write (especially on these boards (as a journal entry describing a philosophical process.

I mainly bring this up because what I am about to do is relate what I get out of these quotes to articles (unpublished articles (as well as articles I want to write. This may come off as self-promoting. But that is not my intention –that is despite the fact that I will also include links to articles I have written. It is merely to point out (in a dear diary kind of way (that I am finding some support for my instincts. My appeal to authority (and that is exactly what it is), however, is not meant to confirm my conceptual play as the final word. I consider it a form of play. And that is all I ever want it to be. Anyway:

"Hence the coupling that takes place within the partial object-flow connective synthesis also has another form: product/producing. Producing is always something "grafted onto" the product; and for that reason desiring production is production of production, just as every machine is a machine connected to another machine."

I would first reference the reader towards my concept of Efficiency: http://moretha.blogspot.com/2017/08/eff ... ticle.html

Then I would point out that one of the main reasons Efficiency has stuck with me is that along the way is that it has found some confirmation and articulation (as well as expansion (through two of my holy triad: Deleuze and Rorty. I see it as a synthesis of the two as Deleuze (as well as Guattari (provide the de-centered, rhizomatic network in which Efficiency works while Rorty’s pragmatism (I consider myself drawn to French theory while being equally drawn to the Anglo-American style of exposition (provides a more accessible approach to it.

But the main reason I bring this quote into it is that it points to one of the main points I want to make about Efficiency: that the idea is to produce output that can produce output down the line: to produce production. This is the very point of minimizing the differential between the resources put into an act and those gotten out: to put off heat death as long as possible. There is only so much energy in the universe. So it makes perfect sense to engage in every act in a way that will ensure further acts.

"When Claude Levi-Strauss defines bricolage, he does so in terms of a set of closely related characteristics: the possession of a stock of materials or of rules of thumb that are fairly extensive, though more or less a hodgepodge -multiple and at the same time limited; the ability to rearrange fragments continually in new and different patterns or configurations ; and as a consequence, an indifference toward the act of producing and toward the product, toward the set of instruments to be used and toward the over-all result to be achieved."

This one is dear to me because of an article I want to write on my next output phase:

Bricolage: the Ultimate Epistemology

This is Deleuze as the philosopher for which the creative act is never that far from his mind. (And let us not leave out Guattari as anyone knows who has read The Anti-Oedipus Papers.) And as Deleuze argues (via Bergson: nature, as a whole, is creative. Bricolage is the very process (by using what is at hand (by which all things change –including a creative process. As I will point out in the article, we only need look at dreams which have been scientifically pointed out to play an important role in brain plasticity. Think about it: the brain does a random inventory of its contents and randomly juxtaposes one mental element on another until it finds patterns that resonate with and seduces it. Then it stores those patterns as an element it can juxtapose with other random elements.

And let us note here the important role that chancing (as described in Deleuze’s Logic of Sense ( seems to be playing here.
d63
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Re: Deleuze Studies:

Post by d63 »

"Just as a part of the libido as energy of production was transformed into energy of recording (Numen), a part of this energy of recording is transformed into energy of consummation (Voluptas). It is this residual energy that is the motive force behind the third synthesis of the unconscious: the conjunctive synthesis "so it's...," or the production of consumption." -from the Anti-Oedipus

I want to return to this with different intentions than yesterday. But before I do, I want to show a little integrity in pointing out I was, to some extent, wrong when I said:

“First of all, I would thank Mr. (or is it Professor? (Dr. perhaps? (Buchanan for doing the footwork of extracting and giving me (for the mere price of a book: his reader’s guide to the Anti-Oedipus (the three syntheses of Anti-Oedipus: the connective, the disjunctive, and the conjunctive. As dialectic of the unconscious, it’s been useful to me. And it’s not like D & G make an effort to lay them out in any organized manner. They just kind of fold it all into their aesthetic approach to exposition.”

I was right to thank Buchanan for pointing out the triad to me. Without doing so, it might have passed by me yet again. Where I went wrong was:

“And it’s not like D & G make an effort to lay them out in any organized manner. They just kind of fold it all into their aesthetic approach to exposition.”

One could almost believe in a higher power in the way fate seeks to make a fool of you. And as fate would have it, I came across 4 sections: 3 of which are dedicated to each individual synthesis and one at the end to sum them up. Yes, I’m a little slow on the uptake; but at least I’m getting there.

That confession out of the way, I want to get at the element of Lacanian Jouissance involved in the three syntheses: connection, disjunction, and conjunction. But I first have to explain my understanding of Jouissance as I got it from a graphic guide: Lacan for Beginners. And thumb down your nose if you will. But I have found the concept very useful, not just in my own thought, but in the way I interpret the work of not only D & G, but Slavoj Zizek as well.

Jouissance, as many of you might know, is about sexual ecstasy: the experience of pleasure. But Lacan makes it a little more complex than that. He first points out that in the act of sex, we experience pleasure at a conscious level while experiencing discomfort at a subconscious level. The example he gives is that of engaging in sex then, right when the male is about to climax, pulling out the penis and clamping down on it. This, of course, would create discomfort –not to mention blue-balls. Then he goes on to reverse this and point out that many psychological symptoms (since they tend to be repeated (are a matter of experiencing discomfort at a conscious level while experiencing pleasure at a subconscious one. And it makes perfect sense since people with such maladies tend to repeat behaviors that give them discomfort. Why else would they?

But it goes even deeper, and more subtle, than that. If you think about it, sex is a process of working towards a thresh-hold that will take you out of a place you are really enjoying at the time. It’s like you’re going in two directions at the same time. And this can lead to a kind of push/pull experience that underlies much of what we experience, including D & G’s dialectic of the three syntheses: connection, disjunction, and conjunction. I mainly see it in the latter two. Disjunction speaks for itself. Conjunction expresses it through consumption and “consummation” –both of which feel like orgasm. As was pointed out in a footnote:

"The word consommation has a number of meanings in French, among them consummation (as of a marriage); an ultimate fulfillment or perfection; and consumption (as of raw material, fuel, or products).”

And I hope to elaborate on this. But my window is closing. Before I go, I would also note the feel of Jouissance in:

"Delirium and hallucination are secondary in relation to the really primary emotion, which in the beginning only experiences intensities, becomings, transitions. Where do these pure intensities come from? They come from the two preceding forces, repulsion and attraction, and from the opposition of these two forces."

And it is from the opposition of repulsion and attraction that we experience Jouissance.
d63
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Re: Deleuze Studies:

Post by d63 »

"How can people possibly reach the point of shouting: "More taxes! Less bread!" As Reich remarks, the astonishing thing is not that some people steal or that others occasionally go out on strike, but rather that all those who are starving do not steal as a regular practice, and all those who are exploited are not continually out on strike: after centuries of exploitation, why do people still tolerate being humiliated and enslaved, to such a point, indeed, that they actually want humiliation and slavery not only for others but for themselves? Reich is as a thinker at his profoundest when he refuses to accept ignorance or illusion on the part of the masses as an explanation of fascism, and demands an explanation that will take their desires into account, an explanation formulated in terms of desire: no, the masses were not innocent dupes; at a certain point, under a certain set of conditions, they wanted fascism, and it is this perversion of the desire of the masses that needs to be accounted for." -From D & G's Anti-Oedipus (pg. 29)

To be honest, while this has always been a section of the Anti-Oedipus that I have assimilated the most (through both original and secondary text (in fact, one my favorite quotes (and I have quoted it often (has been and remains:

“As Reich remarks, the astonishing thing is not that some people steal or that others occasionally go out on strike, but rather that all those who are starving do not steal as a regular practice, and all those who are exploited are not continually out on strike….”

(I now have mixed feelings about it. It is, of course, a concern we all share –that is because people do seem to seek their own oppression. And I cannot speak for people in other advanced nations. But there is a lot here that does not jive with the American experience of emergent fascism –especially as it is coming to a head under Trump. It becomes immediately suspect with:

"How can people possibly reach the point of shouting: "More taxes! Less bread!"”

This is by no means the call of the right. In fact, it is the opposite. And I do, without qualification, attribute the American propensity for fascism with the right. While there are fascist impulses in the left (I’ve experienced them in myself as well as others), the left simply does not have the pull with the Capitalistic regime to be as dangerous.

For the right in America, it is more about empowerment through more money in their pocket. It is more about how they could be doing great if it wasn’t for the undesirables: immigrants, welfare mothers, tax and spend liberals, etc., etc... In this sense (and at the risk of making the same mistake as Bill Maher), I would argue that Malcolm X’s house-slave dynamic actually works better in that no tyrant works in a vacuum. What they must do, rather (much as Trump is doing with the military), is create a cushion between themselves and those who will suffer with well compensated acolytes. And this worked as well for Stalin as it did Hitler. I would also note:

“….after centuries of exploitation, why do people still tolerate being humiliated and enslaved, to such a point, indeed, that they actually want humiliation and slavery not only for others but for themselves?”

The problem is that, in America, anyone who has watched the TV show COPS can see that humiliation and slavery are mainly aimed at the undesirable other: in this case, white trash and minorities –or rather non-producer/consumers. We see this at work, as well, in a guy who stood outside a Trump rally and waxed wishfully about the day he could go to the Mexican border, buy a 25$ permit and get 50$ per confirmed kill.

At the same time, I would not totally dismiss D&G’s, as well as Reich’s, deeper and more desire based understanding. It would be hard to maintain that self-interest is purely to blame when you have food stamp recipients in Louisiana expressing nothing but hate for the federal government. But couldn’t we blame that on ignorance and illusion?

The point is not to dismiss D & G’s model of social production and the folly it can lead to. I have every intention of pursuing it further myself. All I am saying is that we have to be a little wary of theoretical overreach and recognize that simpler and more accessible models (such as Malcolm X’s house slave dynamic (are as worthy of consideration, that simply because a conceptual model is more subtle and complex (the radical purely for the sake of the radical (we must accept it as the right explanation.
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