Deleuze’s Intensive Reading (II): ‘A World of Pre-individual, Impersonal Singularities’

Just a few months later, in his interview with Jeannette Colombel, Deleuze would reiterate all these ideas about intensive reading and the process that means to give voice to the singularities that the philosopher is aimed to uncover. In such interview, Deleuze would also remit to the disciplinary constrictions that the history of philosophy imposes to the philosopher, referring to all these singularities as non-textual values that should be considered too in regard to the work of an admired author. As he refers, this would implicate to put on scene the differences traced by him, ie, a ‘staging’ of those singularities that individuate his thought, in a way to alternate the aim of ‘history’ for a conceptual ‘theatre’ of philosophy.

“We are uncovering a world of pre-individual, impersonal singularities. They are not reducible to individuals or persons, nor to a sea without difference. These singularities are mobile, they break in, thieving and stealing away, alternating back and forth, like anarchy crowned, inhabiting a nomad space. There is a big difference between partitioning a fixed space among sedentary individuals according to boundaries or enclosures, and distributing singularities in an open space without enclosures or properties. The poet Ferlinghetti talks about the fourth person singular: it is that to which we try to give voice… Philosophers often have a difficult time with the history of philosophy; it’s horrible, it’s not easy to put behind you. Perhaps a good way of dealing with the problem is to substitute a kind of staging for it. Staging means that the written text is going to be illuminated by other values, non-textual values (at least in the ordinary sense): it is indeed possible to substitute for the history of philosophy a theatre of philosophy… Precisely, by virtue of those criteria of staging or collage, it seems admissible to extract from a philosophy considered conservative as a whole those singularities which are not really conservative: that is what I did for Bergsonism and its image of life, its image of liberty or mental illness.” (DI, 142-144).

In the same vein Deleuze takes his chance to emphasize again the love and admiration he had for Spinoza and Nietzsche, although not at all for Hegel: we can see how Deleuze implicates the reason why he never wrote a word about him: of course, he did not love nor even admired his work in any sense. But this should mean not that he did not read him intensively, on the contrary: it is because Deleuze did apply an intensive reading of Hegel that he took the decision to betray the history of philosophy by not writing a word about him, implying for him that Hegel’s work is not worth to be taken as ‘philosophy itself’:

“If you don’t admire something, if you don’t love it, you have no reason to write a word about it. Spinoza or Nietzsche are philosophers whose critical and destructive powers are without equal, but this power always springs from affirmation, from joy, from a cult of affirmation and joy, from the exigency of life against those who would mutilate and mortify it. For me, that is philosophy itself… Why not Hegel? Well, somebody has to play the role of traitor. What is philosophically incarnated in Hegel is the enterprise to “burden” life, to overwhelm it with every burden, to reconcile life with the State and religion, to inscribe death in life —the monstrous enterprise to submit life to negativity, the enterprise of resentment and unhappy consciousness. Naturally, with this dialectic of negativity and contradiction, Hegel has inspired every language of betrayal, on the right as well as on the left (theology, spiritualism, technocracy, bureaucracy, etc.)” (DI, 144).

It is interesting to see how Deleuze underlines the negativity of Hegel’s ‘singularities’ with respect to life and its affirmation, suggesting that the “language of betrayal” that his work inspires is what exceeds Hegel himself. From Deleuze’s point of view, therefore, to give voice to these negative ‘singularities’ would mean to betray making them speak, and thus in this sense he decides to not give such Hegelian language any voice, as a way to effectuate a counter-affirmation of life that would betray the history of philosophy and its disciplinary constrictions. In this specific regard, it is also interesting to note how Deleuze considers that Hegel’s work incarnates all these constrictions historically imposed to the philosopher, as part of the same “monstrous enterprise” that submits life to negativity. To this point, we can see in which specific sense the word “monstrous” would be used by Deleuze five years later, in his response to Cressole —and specifically, in his famous ‘ass fuck’ quote—.

Deleuze’s Intensive Reading (I): Ars Amatoria, Ars Critica

In his ‘Letter to a harsh critic’, Deleuze explains how he sees retrospectively what he had written as a philosopher not only in regard to the history of philosophy, but also to the process he went through to liberate himself from the disciplinary constrictions that such history traditionally imposes to any philosopher, ie, the process that leaded him to write philosophy in his own name. For Deleuze, this process is intimately related to the intensive reading of the authors he admired and respected, ie, those “who challenged the rationalist tradition in history” especially Spinoza and Nietzsche. But all these ideas that Deleuze exposes and explains in his response to Cressole were not new nor a secret: five years earlier, in 1968, he referred to them in a couple of interviews following the same critical argument. In both interviews, Deleuze describes how this intensive reading means much more a philosophical love than a philosophical buggery ―where Nietzsche and Spinoza, among others, have a very special place in Deleuze’s heart―. So, if we follow the ideas he exposes with this regard in those interviews, we can see how such ideas would be deployed five years later ―even in a more affective fashion―, in his response to Cressole.

For instance, in his interview with Jean Noel Vuarnet, Deleuze affirms that this intensive reading needs to be considered as an assumption that implies new ways of thinking and writing, and that in Nietzsche this implication “presupposes a radically new conception of thought and language because sense and value, signification and evaluation ―terms that Nietzsche introduces to modern philosophy as rigorous notions, ‘the sense of what one says, and the evaluation of the one saying it’, as Deleuze indicates―, bring into play mechanisms of the unconscious” (Desert Islands, 135-136). From Deleuze’s point of view, it is with respect to these mechanisms that the philosopher always get the truth he deserves according to the sense of what he says and to the values to which he gives voice: for Deleuze, it is with respect these mechanisms that the “impersonal individuations or even pre-individual singularities” of the world should be uncovered critically by the philosopher in order to make them speak that what has not been said yet of them. Though, for Deleuze it cannot be but through the intensive reading of the work of an admired author that is possible to reach the singularities that compose and give consistency to his thought:

“First you have to know how to admire; you have to rediscover the problems he poses, his particular machinery. It is through admiration that you will come to genuine critique… You have to work your way back to those problems which an author of genius has posed, all the way back to that which he does not say in what he says, in order to extract something that still belongs to him, though you also turn it against him. You have to be inspired, visited by the geniuses you denounce… In every modernity and every novelty, you find conformity and creativity; an insipid conformity, but also “a little new music”; something in conformity with the time, but also something untimely —separating the one from the other is the task of those who know how to love, the real destroyers and creators of our day. Good destruction requires love… You have to be able to love the insignificant, to love what goes beyond persons and individuals; you have to open yourself to encounters and find a language in the singularities that exceed individuals, a language in the individuations that exceed persons” (DI, 139-140).

We can see how Deleuze is already suggesting in what sense admiration can lead to an intensive reading through which the philosopher is ‘visited’ by the ‘genius’ of the author that is conceptually treated, and that permits him to grasp the problems raised critically by such an author, ie, to elevate himself to those problems so to denounce and enrich them in a way to make them speak the singularities that compose the untimely thought of such an author. In this specific regard, Deleuze considers that the intensive reading leaded by admiration is also way to love and creation.

‘Deleuze and The Lulz: Radical Emergence … for the lulz’ [Unpublished]

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Submitted for the ‘Deleuze and The Lulz: Radical Emergence … for the lulz’.

Žižek’s Intensive Masturbatory Reading of Deleuze

“This is the “truth” of Deleuze’s indirect free speech: a procedure of philosophical buggery. Deleuze even introduces variations into this topic of taking a philosopher from behind. He claims that, in his book on Nietzsche, things got turned around so that it was Nietzsche who took him from behind; Spinoza resisted being taken from behind, and so forth. However, Hegel is the absolute exception ―as if this exception is constitutive, a kind of prohibition of incest in this field of taking philosophers from behind, opening up the multitude of other philosophers available for buggery. And what if we are effectively dealing here with the prohibition of incest? This would mean that, in an unacknowledged way, Hegel is uncannily close to Deleuze. So, in short, why should we not risk the act of taking from behind Deleuze himself and engage in the practice of the Hegelian buggery of Deleuze? Therein resides the ultimate aim of the present booklet. What monster would have emerged if we were to stage the ghastly scene of the spectre of Hegel taking Deleuze from behind? How would the offspring of this immaculate conception look? Is Hegel really the one philosopher who is “unbuggerable;’ who cannot be taken from behind? What if, on the contrary, Hegel is the greatest and unique self-buggerer in the history of philosophy? What if the “dialectical method” is the one of permanent self-buggering? Sade once wrote that the ultimate sexual pleasure is for a man to penetrate himself anally (having a long and plastic enough penis that can be twisted around even when erect, so that it is possible to do it) perhaps this closed circle or self-buggery is the “truth” of the Hegelian Circle.”

Organs Without Bodies

Feyerabend’s Affective Portrait [at AGENT SWARM]

Inspired by the Stories from Paolino’s Tapes: Private Recordings 1985-1993, Terence Blake at his AGENT SWARM has blogged a set of interesting posts that draw an affective portrait of Paul Feyerabend [*, *, *, *, *, *, *, *]. From the start, Terence shares an excerpt from Bertold Bretch’s Three Penny Opera sung and recited by Feyerabend himself. For Terence, the image that synthesizes such excerpt contains a good part of Feyerabend’s whole philosophy:

“‘And the ones stand in darkness and the others stand in the light. We only see those who stand in the light, those who stand in the darkness you don’t see’. Feyerabend describes the scene, where you see a few people in the light, jumping around and there is a huge number of people in darkness, being born, dying, laughing and crying. This, according to Feyerabend, is humanity. Not just the elect in the light, but all the others who go unsung and unnoticed. When intellectuals talk about “humanity” they just mean other intellectuals, in the First World.”

Terence’s aim is to consider Feyerabend as a thinker who refers to the arrogance of the intellectuals that speak in the name of humanity, the ‘insatiable lumivores’ ―as Terence calls them―: ‘who pose as spokesman for an abstraction, and who cultivate their intellect (and their power) at the expense of their humanity’. Regard to this, Terence also suggests in which sense this view can be paired with Deleuze’s foucaultian remarks on the indignity of speaking for the others, and underlines how ‘sometimes the context is completely silly’:

“Sometimes it is advisable to avoid an exchange as the context forbids any real thinking and we are faced with just sad old ego talk: no real communication, no openness, caricatural binary oppositions, hectoring and bullying, oversimplification, aggressive declarations and emotions that replace the subtle and nuanced intensities of thought. One should just walk away, or at the worst smile and say ‘Yes, yes, of course.’ Sometimes it can be necessary to stay put and speak up, because even if a dialogue is impossible the monologue of the self-elected is inacceptable, one must show, to others and even to one self, that alternatives exist, that other voices are possible.”

Blacked out [18-01-2012]

Deleuze, Fichte, and Nietzsche: on Life [and schizosophy]

The Anarchist Without Content has posted on his blog a largely punctual quote by Keith Ansell Pearson that illustrates the philosophical relation traced between Deleuze, Fichte and Nietzsche, all with respect to the empirical meaning of life and the experience of its event. I don’t know if The Anarchist felt motivated by the discussion I had these days with John Mullarkey regarded to Laruelle’s non-philosophy ―posted HERE at Schizosophy―, and where I bring such experience as my prime objection against false radicality in philosophy. However, his sensible quotation suits perfectly as a punctual complement for my arguments. This is a synthetic extract of the quote:

“In a short piece entitled ‘Immanence: A Life…’… Deleuze argue that the transcendental field needs to be mapped out as a ‘life’ the involves neither subject nor object but rather ‘an absolute immediate consciousness whose very activity no longer refers back to a being but ceaselessly posits itself in a life’… This, says, Deleuze, is the immanence of the late Fichte. It is the impersonal but singular life of the individuating haecceity (the ‘beatitude’ in the title of Fichte’s work). This is a germinal life since it is not positing life in a ‘simple moment’ confronting a ‘universal death’ but rather a life that is ‘everywhere’, contained ‘in all the moments’ that a ‘living subject passes through’, a life of virtualities, events, and singularities… where beatitude is related to the achievement of supersensible death ‘in life and through life…’, which speaks of the praxis of a relational self as its peculiar ‘sublime vocation’. The self-expressive life of the spiritual is one in which the universe can no longer be thought in terms of the circle ‘returning to itself, that endlessly repeating game, that monster which devours itself so as to give birth to itself again as it already way’; rather, there is ‘constant progress to greater perfection in a straight line which goes on to infinity’. This is because ‘All death is nature is birth…in dying does the augmentation of life visibility appear…It is not death which kills, but rather a more living life which, hidden behind the old life, begins and develops’… it is not, therefore, for Fichte a question of living ‘according to nature’ simply because this is not even what nature does. The only ‘law of life’ is, in Nietzsche’s almost Fichtean language, ‘self-overcoming’.”

Those who followed my discussion with John would immediately identify the implications that the quote is delineating. Whether he felt inspired or not, I want to thank The Anarchist anyhow for posting this quote with such an opportune timing. And for those who want to read more about the work of Keith Ansell Pearson, who is one of the very few well-formed Nietzschean-Deleuzians around, you can download some of his essential works, HERE.

‘Can We Think Democratically?’ Discussing Non-Philosophy with John Mullarkey

This discussion might be of interest for those who are interested in Schizosophy. It really started a few months ago when John posted in his Facebook page, a picture of what then was the new incoming Laruelle’s Anti-Badiou book. As the expectations around the book were emerging, many of the commenters there were already celebrating what then was prefiguring as a radical critique of Badiou’s philosophy. In my case, as I have always been critical of how Badiou has cancerously interpreted and prefixed Nietzsche’s philosophy in terms of anti-philosophy, it just stroke me how Laruelle’s intention to boomerang Badiou’s taste on prefixes seemed to be just another intriguing but not so impressive enterprise of false radicality. With that respect, I just wielded a critical comment charged with the usual frankness and straightness that I always like to garnish with no big offense:

“Laruelle’s pale fad of prefixing whatever he likes (which is also a very Badiouan practice) seems to confirm itself just as a false radicality: in this occasion, ascribing himself to a repressed Badiouism.. What should we expect from a Heideggerian that thinks he can overcome Heidegger faking Nietzsche’s epistemic break? Seems to me that, with this new book, Laruelle is prompt to be just another bureaucrat of the Badiouan text. Both too depotentialized to my taste!”

Several minutes after that, John intervened with a sarcastic comment, asking me if I have read the book already. Of course, he was kind of kidding me. I took his comment just like that, and explained him that, just as the others, I was also on my right to chant a sort of an intrigue of predestination, ala Barthes, which might not be after all difficult to recreate with respect to Badiou and Laruelle’s prefixing tendencies. I expressed John my views about how false radicality is the blinded spot of lots of institutional ‘philosophers’ who can only feed the text at any costs, ‘radically’, but without really breaking anything in epistemological terms. In response, John defended Laruelle’s non-philosophy commenting that:

“As to whether Laruelle is a radical break or not, I think the idea of using philosophy as raw material, and non representationally, may well not ‘look like’ anything radical in as much as it ‘looks like’ more philosophy. But if you look at this usage anew (revision it) as a practice that performs its theory, then it promises something quite different (ie its novelty is more of a figure-ground thing – you don’t see anything new in the image, only a new configuration of foreground and background).”

This response of John really got my attention, because while it seemed to advocate in favor of Laruelle’s non-philosophy, it was at the time also reinforcing my critical point, unexpectedly for him, so I replied to the question explaining my view:

“I really don’t think that ‘using’ philosophy in any sense would lead to a radical rupture: it is not merely a question of non-representation, it’s a question of practical sense. It is precisely the ‘use’ that the institutional philosophers/ academics do of philosophy what shall be fractured in first place as part of the epistemic break they try to apply. False radicality is a break effectuated inside the text that does not lead to anything substantial but to the conservation of the mechanisms that reproduce it inside its field of production. As I see it, to really apply an epistemic break in philosophy, to make it effective, the philosopher (with no prefixes) needs to apply such a break to his own philosophical activities, to suit it like a sombrero and to deal with its truthful consequences. This objectivification of the own philosophical practice (see Bourdieu) is what institutional philosophers lack the most, in fact, they have found their ways to impose their lack as an apology of their work, an apology that justifies it automatically in their specific field, among partners and compadres. This is a totally endemic practice for philosophy.”

Afterwards, the exchange got interrupted and did not come to a good end, admittedly, because of the intervention of Anthony Paul Smith, a close collaborator of John and also translator of Laruelle’s work, who managed himself to throw a rant about how I was not able to say anything as I had not read the text yet. I tried to explain Anthony in which sense I was sharing and supporting my viewpoint with a broader Bourdieuan criticism against false radicality, and though I was kind of sorry to see how he took it personal instead of getting the point, I concluded my intervention arguing in which sense those reactions and reluctance were sampling the ways of how institutional ‘philosophers’ understand criticism while they’re somehow trapped in the text. If you happen to have John as Facebook friend, you can read the whole debate, HERE. It was not but until John’s most recent article posted a few days ago at the London Graduate School thoughtpiece site, that the discussion I held initially with him continued with more fluidity and detail with respect to non-philosophy. John’s article is an introductory extract of his most recent book on Laruelle’s non-philosophy, at the time that it is also a sort of response to Graham Harman’s review on Laruelle’s Philosophy of Difference. It drew again all my attention to see that John was clarifying a lot of issues regards to non-philosophy, in his way to extend his critique to Harman’s fast-tracked review. In this case, the debate started because of a comment I made there at the LGS thoughpiece site, a comment that then was still left to wait for moderation [*].