Deleuze Studies:

[d63]

"Hey, I've been reading through your posts about Delueze. I have the book "Anti-Oedipus."


How do you apply the the artistic flow, that you learn from Delueze or Derrida, and make it practical for daily life?


From what I remember from your posts, you said something along these lines: we believe in things like afterlifes, higher powers and higher principles. The point from A to B is a given, so we should Play with our minds. Given that the results are an import of individual experiencing them, why would it matter who happened to be having the superior experience?


I don't remember exactly where you said it or I would have quoted directly. "Finding the flow," as you say, "because anything else is a block to the flow of energy.


?: isn't that our main issues with analytics


Is there a mantra for Play, like some kind of meditation that joins one into the now? Or is it feeling or instinct that one coils into?"


Once again, I appreciate the participation, xhightension, along with allowing me the break of working in my comfort zone (that is since you have quoted me here -and I am flattered that you would remember it (while being able to further my present immersion in James William's guide to Deleuze's Difference and Repetition. “

First of all, my points about flow, Play, and our point A to point B developed independently of my studies of Deleuze. But I still think they can apply which just goes to show that when we start out on our philosophical process, we’re never just looking for a philosopher; we’re, rather, looking for our philosopher. Or as has been said (I believe of Lacan: in order to understand him, you have to come into it with a sense (albeit vague sense (of what he means. Beyond that, it is a matter of articulating what it means.

I would start with a quote from the book you are starting with, The Anti-Oedipus:

“It is at work everywhere, functioning smoothly at times, at other times in fits and starts. It breathes, 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 ones, 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, 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.”

And I offer it as an answer to your question:

“The point from A to B is a given, so we should Play with our minds. Given that the results are an import of individual experiencing them, why would it matter who happened to be having the superior experience? “

The answer is that it only matters to the extent that a given node in the complex of exchanges of energy manages to intensify those exchanges. One might also look at it in terms of the model presented in Layotard’s The Postmodern Condition: that of the earth as a ball drifting in an ellipsis with all these ball bearing clacking against each other in acts of displacement. So while it wouldn’t matter who had the superior experience, what would matter is what node happened to create more intense acts of displacement (like shockwaves( while recognizing the role that the other nodes played in that displacement.

This is why Deleuze and Guatarri talk about the machinic and social production described in the above quote: they ask us to take on a conditional materialism that allows us to see ourselves as systems composed of various sub-systems in a general exchange with the various systems in which we are intertwined.

(And I would note here the common ground with Rorty’s pragmatism in that it too seeks to generate this creative energy, in terms of discourse, for the sake of our creative evolution.)

The reason that Deleuze (with and without Guatarri (asks us to adapt this sort of materialism (as well as Rorty’s Pragmatism (is to get us to abandon the old subject/object dichotomy that leads us to believe we are just some conscious being passing judgment on the object before us as compared to one kind of thing interacting with another. Without doing so, we fall into the old platonic/classicist hierarchy based on what proves to be an arbitrary criteria based on the subject's ability to see the object as it actually is: the folly of the analytic approach. This is why both Deleuze and Rorty’s pragmatism is so opposed to representation: by acting as if there is some actual way of accurately representing reality, we set ourselves up for arbitrary criterion (territorializations (power discourses (that act as blockages to the flows of energy that can actually contribute to our creative evolution as a species and our understanding. By seeking to be the one that holds the truth: the accurate representation (the lone genius (as compared to seeing ourselves as part of a process(we only stand in the way of progress.

[d63]

“But if you did what I asked, you might have recognized that difference and repetition were still at work in that, throughout that time, this rhizome (or blog (was an object occupying your space and establishing itself through different instances of itself at different points in time. It may have seemed the same glob of words throughout it all; but it was always in a state of becoming.

And as fun as that little experiment was, it was destined to fail from the start since our involvement in the general symbolic order always draws us back to the sense of difference and repetition entangled in identity.”

And this, as I understand Deleuze, happens at both an individual level and social one –which stands to reason since social systems are inherently composite effects of individual actors. If we return to the evolutionary foundation of our present state (the nonlinear feedback loops between a brain, the body it is working to sustain, and the environment it is doing it in (we might see how it might be evolutionarily beneficial in the immediate sense to recognize certain repeating patterns (if I approach that snake it will likely bite me (while, in the bigger scheme of things (i.e. natural adaption based on random genetic mutations (it would be more beneficial to embrace difference even if it seems to go against our immediate interests: that which we see as repetitive. It is, after all, difference that led us to study the snake in order to create anti-venoms.

Still, nothing could be more immediate to the individual (that which lacks the eternal perspective to see that even rock formations prove fluid in geographical time (than the immediate: that which seems to be perfectly repeated and repeatedly responded to in ways that lead to a perfectly repeated result. This is the strategy of hardcore materialism and scientism and why Deleuze (as well as postmodernism in general (seeks to undermine the privilege given to repetition throughout our cultural history. It is why he makes the connection between natural law (the focus of science (and moral law: Kant’s categorical imperative (in terms of what can be perfectly repeated –or seems to be. It is that “seems to be” that Deleuze is seeking to establish (by any means necessary (as an illusion.

What is at work here is the question asked by Wilhelm Reich and explored throughout most of Deleuze’s work with Guatarri:

What is it about people that seem to seek out their own oppression?

And the human propensity towards that which can be perfectly repeated may hold an answer to that.

[d63]

Now before I go further into this particular rhizome, from a traverse (Deleuze loved that word (reading of Mr. Buchanan’s book, I have to show a little love and appreciation for his willingness to establish connections (a kind of continuum if you will (between the sometimes immersive abstraction of Deleuze (w/ and w/out Guatarri (and the concrete and contemporary: sometimes to the point of pop culture. And I can’t help but see the influence of Zizek in it. Philosophy (or even theory (is useless to me unless I can apply it to the personal and anecdotal.

That said:

“Theory, Deleuze insists, “is exactly like a toolbox. It has nothing to do with the signifier…. A theory has to be used, it has to work. And not just for itself.”

Once again: I find myself drawn to French theory while being equally drawn to the Anglo-American form of exposition. And in the above quote, I see the connection within myself (and my process (the hybrid and fusion (between Deleuze and Rorty’s approach to American Pragmatism. I mean I get it: Deleuze basically dismisses Rorty’s bourgeoisie liberalism in What is Philosophy: dinner and conversation at the Rorty’s. And I’m not sure what Rorty had to say about Deleuze.

Still, I see that hybrid and fusion in my own process.

And what I would say, in Rorty’s defense, is that such an immersion in abstraction as that of Deleuze’s is basically a bourgeoisie luxury. One only need look at our philosophical history to see that. The abstract considerations have tended to be the domain of white Anglo-Saxon males who have a generational advantage. Women and minorities, up until now, have been busy with the more concrete political/social issue of achieving equality.

Now make no mistake about it: I love Deleuze; the guy has changed my life. And he, himself (in the A to Z interview (claimed that friendship is a matter of knowing the other’s madness: which is as much a matter of knowing the other’s faults. And, in that spirit, I would argue that there was a bit of hypocrisy and self contradiction in his dismissal of Rorty.

[d63]

“And what I would say, in Rorty’s defense, is that such an immersion in abstraction as that of Deleuze’s is basically a bourgeoisie luxury. One only need look at our philosophical history to see that. The abstract considerations have tended to be the domain of white Anglo-Saxon males who have a generational advantage. Women and minorities, up until now, have been busy with the more concrete political/social issue of achieving equality.

Now make no mistake about it: I love Deleuze; the guy has changed my life. And he, himself (in the A to Z interview (claimed that friendship is a matter of knowing the other’s madness: which is as much a matter of knowing the other’s faults. And, in that spirit, I would argue that there was a bit of hypocrisy and self contradiction in his dismissal of Rorty.”

“Bernardo Bertolucci’s highly stylized film about May ’68, The Dreamers (2003), is a vivid illustration of the narrow, exclusively Parisian image of the events that has to be overturned is we are to see things in their proper historical light” –Buchanan’s reader guide, pg. 13

As luck would have it (like Deleuze was my guardian angel or something aiding my present immersion (the movie happened to be on one of my movie channels last night, forcing me to forego watching The Big Chill from the beginning to catch it about halfway in. But it was enough to see the significance of it in terms of this exploration.

I would first note how it confirmed the bourgeoisie nature of theory and the radical. The sister and brother were clearly able to engage in the radical experiments they did because they had the luxury of doing so. And this factor haunted their engagement in the protest towards the end. It was as if they engaged in the act of protest merely for the sake of protest. Michael Pitt’s American character gave us the distance that allowed us to see that contradiction while also providing an expression of American intrigue with French culture. We can really see this in Pitt’s grilling of the character Theo as concerned his embrace of Maoism.

What we have to put in mind here is that Bertolucci is Italian and, therefore, an outsider to French culture and see in this the possibility that what we are dealing with are outsider perspectives and the disconnect between how outsiders (Americans as well (see French culture and how French culture sees itself. Hence Professor Buchanan's desire to overturn the perspective.

At the same time, I couldn’t help but note a similar sense of sensibility between Isabelle and the female character at the end of Sartre’s Nausea: that flippant nihilism that alienates the male character in its combination of the power of beauty and desire exploiting the power of radicalism for the sake of radicalism. Nor can I help but connect this with the Kafka chick (please excuse the misogyny of the term “chick”: one who throws herself (in a dreamlike way (at the main character and drifts away just as quickly. But, once again, we could be dealing with an outsider’s perspective of French women.

That said, I’ve basically been sketching around unfamiliar territory here: exploring. I really hope, before this immersion is over, to zero in on this particular part of the book and tinker, tweak, and tighten things up.

[d63]

As my mixed luck would have it, I find myself (in the last 2 days of this immersion (faced with one of the most relatable parts of Professor Buchanan’s book: that which starts on pg. 124 and goes into an application of D & G’s principles (their four theses (to issues presented by Tom Frank’s book What’s the Matter with Kansas. And I say ‘relatable’ because, being a progressive in the Midwest who has watched most of his friends grow into staunch republicans, I have had a front row seat to what is being addressed in this particular section. And because of this, a great deal of my own process has been expended on figuring out why this has happened: likely one of the main sources of my attraction to “that Goddamn Frenchman” (I mean it: damn the French and their weird obscure philosophies anyway (with and without Guatarri. So I could easily spend a whole immersion on the subject.

But for this one, I’ll focus on this proposal to the question that we’re all asking here: what it is about people that seem to seek their own oppression:

“It might seem appropriate, then, to revive the Marxist concept of 'false consciousness' to explain to explain the turn to the right in the US. Without actually using this notion himself, Frank's account of the political metamorphosis of Kansas from a left-leaning, pro-worker, state to a right-wing and anti-worker state, in the space of only a few generations is clearly underpinned by the conviction that the people of Kansas ‘know not what they do’.”

There would certainly seem to be a certain amount of false consciousness involved in it given the mythologies that the true believers (in Capitalism that is (tend to offer as confirmation of their position: the rugged individual that overcomes all obstacles to achieve greatness –a popular motif, BTW, among the supposed Hollywood liberal elite (which as we all know are owned by corporations. But I (in the Deleuezian spirit (would complicate the issue by referring to Buchanan’s quote of Zizek, ‘the unknown known’, and traverse the concept of Jouissance (that push/pull relationship we tend to have with reality (that Zizek goes deeply into in The Plague of Fantasies.

While there is clearly a sense of obliviousness involved in it, I can’t help but feel there is a kind of denial at work as well. It’s as if they know perfectly well that their self indulgent policies have negative effects on others (as well as themselves (that their arguments are weak in the context of discourse that assumes a purpose of working out some compromise that works for everyone. They’re like the old joke: diplomacy is the art of telling the other to go to hell and making it seem like they’ll enjoy the trip. And it is this ‘unknown known’ that results in the hysteria that characterizes their tactics such as that of the Tea Party, tactics that tend to ride on shifting criteria. For example: back when Hillary Clinton was trying to put together a one payer healthcare system under her husband’s presidency, we not only got arguments like ‘who the hell made her president?’, we also got the argument that there was no way a ‘government run’ enterprise could stand up to what the market could do. Now shift a few years later when we were talking about the public option presented by Kerry during his campaign for president. Then the whole argument shifted to a recognition that there was no way that profit seeking healthcare providers could stand up to the public option. In other words, the whole system would ‘collapse’ into a government run operation.

Once again, as Professor Buchanan points out, Capitalism is no longer just an option; it is the only option. And I would propose that what we are dealing with, as concerns Capitalism, is something like a drug or alcohol addiction (a kind of modern day Land of the Lotos Eaters (and the denial (via hysteria (we see expressed in our present social environment. I would only ask that it be considered along with the other theories and models presented as concerns the question we are all trying to answer.

[d63]

“Now, of course, the fact that jazz is primarily an American phenomenon complicates the issue (and I hope to get to that tomorrow (but what I mainly want to get to for now is what America’s obsession with football says about us as compared to other western industrialized nations who are more obsessed with soccer.”

As promised, I want to address this then hopefully (since this is starting to feel like more of a social/political issue (or semiotic similar to Barthes (gravitate back on topic in terms of Deleuze and Guatarri.

(At the same time, in my defense, one can hardly talk or write about any phenomenon without referring to desiring/social production or desiring machines as D & G maps it out. Still, such leeway shouldn’t be abused.)

While jazz is primarily an American invention (which is a sign of hope in terms of the American capacity for open desiring production (we still have to look at how it stands in comparison to American football and take into consideration football’s mainstream status. Jazz (like the blues (basically emerged from an underground sect while football started in the mainstream and remains decidedly there. Furthermore, it was instigated and perpetuated by the less fortunate among us. I would also note that while jazz (as well as the blues (has been adapted by European culture, American football, as far as I know, has not.

That status of classical music, as described in Holland’s analogy complicates my point as well since Europeans have embraced it way longer than Americans have. The only difference is that they (especially the French (have worked their way beyond the hierarchical implications of it. And my point was not to argue that Europeans are somehow immune to the pockets of fascism that can emerge anywhere, including, and most importantly, ourselves. I think here of Zizek’s point in Plague of Fantasies about death camp soldiers who went home to listen to classical music as if to convince themselves they were, after all, civilized people. Nor is this to argue that classical music or American football must necessarily lead to fascism. It is merely to point out that they are desiring machines (forms of social production (that can produce certain effects.

So the point I was trying to get at still stands: the American mainstream obsession with football (and the semiology that surrounds it (and the fascist potential of it (makes America about as in need of Schizoanalysis as any country could possibly be.

That said, I want to finish with a wide swash as concerns D & G’s focus on the schizophrenic as compared to the neurotic. It seems to me that neurosis is what primarily characterizes my once great country as can be seen in the success of Donald Trump. However, this is primarily expressed through the hysteria you tend to see in our rightwing sects, neo-liberals, and lately (as compared to the past when they acted as check and balance to excesses of the left in a reasonable manner (the republicans.

[Arising_uk]

I must admit, this post nicely demonstrates the waffle and bollocks of modern continental philosophy.

[d63]

I must admit, this post nicely demonstrates the waffle and bollocks of modern continental philosophy.

It's only "waffle and bollocks" if you take it too literally.

[d63]

“From the very beginning of this study, we have maintained both that social-production and desiring-production are one and the same, and that they have differing regimes, with the result that a social form of production exercises an essential repression of desiring-production, and also that desiring-production - "real" desire - is potentially capable of demolishing the social form. (116/138)” -Holland, Eugene W. (2002-01-04). Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus: Introduction to Schizoanalysis (p. 56). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.

I would first point out that this is a quote from Anti-Oedipus extracted from Holland’s book.

That formality dealt with, this brings to mind a quote from Picasso (a connection that suggests (call it confirmation bias if you will (what I’ve always said about Deleuze: that the creative act is never that far from his mind. Anyway, Picasso said:

“Taste is the enemy of art.”

But I would humbly propose that this warrants revision. Picasso was a visual artist which commits him to feel over meaning. What Archibald MacLeish said about the poem:

“A poem should not mean but be.”

:holds even more true for the work of art. A work of art, much like a dream, gets most of its meaning from the discourse that goes on around it via the very network of desiring and social production that D & G describe. But Picasso being a visual artist, we can assume him to not be one to clearly define his terms. Philosophy, however, is defined by the attempt to do so –even if it is an often failed one or one, such as that of Derrida’s, that defies meaning for the sake of making meaning.

I would start with the term ‘art’. I would argue that art is, by definition, a social phenomenon defined by publically shared taste. This was, for instance, what Duchamp (as well the dada movement as a whole (was getting at when he hung a urinal in an art gallery to suggest that it became art by receiving the validation of the authority of the gallery or museum.

What I actually think Picasso was referring to was the creative act which is childlike, instinctive, and spontaneously private in nature. One only need experience the process by which the private act of improvisation (bricolage (becomes a work of art in order to get this. Therefore, I believe we can twist Picasso’s statement (in a strangely ironic way (to:

“Art is the enemy of the creative act.”

Unfortunately, in terms of D & G’s model of machinic production, this shows itself to be little more than a momentary stay against confusion: an arborescent calcification in the vast rhizomatic flux they ask us to immerse ourselves in. By their model, we can see, rather, a feedback-loop between the private and the public. While the creative act must begin in an act that any child could engage in and return to it frequently, it still has to engage in the discourse of the public: look what I’ve done, Mom!!!. And it is this discourse with the public that can lead to the blocks in the flows of energy that can deflect those flows into nomadic trajectories. Once again:

“From the very beginning of this study, we have maintained both that social-production and desiring-production are one and the same, and that they have differing regimes, with the result that a social form of production exercises an essential repression of desiring-production, and also that desiring-production - "real" desire - is potentially capable of demolishing the social form. (116/138)”

[Arising_uk]

It's only "waffle and bollocks" if you take it too literally.

So just fiction?

[d63]

It's only "waffle and bollocks" if you take it too literally.

So just fiction?

Call it whatever you want or need to. It will be all the same to those who practice it.

[d63]

“Following Bataille, Deleuze and Guattari insist that societies have always produced a surplus, no matter how dire the circumstances may have appeared and however minimal that surplus may have been: social organization revolves around the determination of how and by whom that surplus will be expended or distributed.”

I would first point out this undermines the myth that Capitalism is the most effective system by which we distribute resources while it claims to have some exclusive, intimate, and exceptional claim to freedom. And this is clearly demonstrated in the following:

“The primary and original function of money, Brown agrees with Nietzsche, is not to facilitate trade but to create and pay debts and thereby both foster and assuage guilt.” -Holland, Eugene W. (2002-01-04). Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus: Introduction to Schizoanalysis (p. 9). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.

And I can vouch for this from a personal/anecdotal perspective given the excruciating psychological effects of having accumulated debt. At another point, Holland also points to yet another mythology of Capitalism: this notion that the system of exchange is one of exchanging equivalences: the blacksmith exchanging his goods with the furniture maker and so on and so on. And this, of course, is the pastoral vision of Adam Smith that neo-liberals attempt to sell us while actually offering us little more than a debt society described by…. unfortunately, couldn’t find it. But this interview of David Graeber is telling:

http://www.ttbook.org/book/transcript/t ... 5000-years

The quote I was looking for is what pointed out that getting ahead in our economy is not so much a matter of having more than the other as making the other accumulate more debt than you. And for shits and giggles, let’s compare Smith’s pastoral model with what we have today:

Let’s imagine a small village with a small number of families: one a family of shopkeepers, another a family of doctors, then a family of farmers, then a family of blacksmiths, and finally a family of carpenters/furniture makers. Now this given system would have all they need and could engage in exchange in a system of equivalences. The problem with this Smithian model is that even if they were exchanging money, it would still be a form of communism. The only real connection they would have with Capitalism is the family of shopkeepers who must bring in their resources from outside sources. And put in mind here that this is the world that Smith lived in. Had he of lived in the disgusting squalor of Engle’s and Marx’s London based on indebtedness to the employer keeping them alive, the Wealth of Nations would have turned out quite different.

And as D & G point out in their genealogy, this dynamic of indebtedness is rooted in the savage societies in which the individual subject was made to feel “indebted” to the group. And what we need to be afraid of here is how Capitalism has hijacked that dynamic in order to alibi and justify itself.

[FlashDangerpants]

That was amusing Arising. But you are just interrupting an answerphone that is talking to itself.

[Arising_uk]

Call it whatever you want or need to. ...

Waffle and bollocks it is then.

It will be all the same to those who practice it.

Faithful to their 'Marxist' roots then.

[d63]

“What the Oedipal family-machine produces is just enough: obedient ascetic subjects programmed to accept the mediation of capital between their productive life-activity and their own enjoyment of it, who will work for an internalized prohibitive authority and defer gratification until the day they die, the day after retiring.” -Holland, Eugene W. (2002-01-04). Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus: Introduction to Schizoanalysis (p. 55). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.

Here we run into the kind of conflicts and contradictions that can occur in the general flux of desiring and social production in the context of D & G’s points about debt. What I’m mainly thinking about here is the paradox of thrift which notes that, on one hand, thrift and saving is encouraged as the way to get ahead or be blessed by the religion of Capitalism. At the same time, living in a debt based economy as we do, if everyone were thrifty and saved until they got too old to actually enjoy it, our economy would implode. The odious aspect of it is that once the individual (in support of our expansion based economy (goes into debt to the point of no longer being able to dig themselves out, they find themselves subject to the Calvinistic finger wag of some kind of moral failure on their part, that referred to as the pathetic fallacy in sociological circles. In other words, our system gives praise (and can only give praise (to the ascetic lifestyle because so few people engage in it as to not present the very real threat it actually presents if practiced universally –a threat Capitalism is perfectly aware is there.

This can be seen in the workings of Alan Greenspan who, being an inflation hawk, always recommended raising the interest rate when the economy got too hot then, upon seeing the effect of this on his country-club buddies, turned to the import of expanding credit.

We can see a similar dynamic in Capitalism’s claim to an intimate and exclusive relationship to freedom in terms of the automaton. On the production side of the equation, the automaton would be perfectly suitable. The problem is that, on the consumption side of the equation, automatons don’t need much: nourishment, shelter, sleep, little more. They are the perfect ascetics. And we can see it all over the semiotics of advertising as well as media in general. On one hand, it offers these paths to freedom which we can buy our way into; while on the other hand, it is always describing to us the perimeters we must stay within in order to have that freedom. Lately, according to most beer commercials, it’s been the hipsters. And to see the most extreme aspect of this dynamic, all you need to look at is an infomercial that happens to have an audience. It’s surreal: an audience cheering at the product the host is selling. We see something similar on game shows.

And we see as much in the world presented in the shows that corporate owned media presents us with (Seinfeld for instance: a world in which no one has to ask what they can afford, but what product to buy. We see a similar dynamic in Modern Family as well –that is as much as I like the show.

Basically what we’re looking at through media is the creation of consumer bots. The scary thing is that most of us (at least the intellectually curious who inhabit these boards (know better. The problem is that we can’t be sure our politicians do. We can’t help but feel that most policy is based on what they see on media.

As D&G point out: Capitalism should, in theory, deterritorialize, yet, always seems work back to reterritorializations.