Notes on: Braidotti, R (nd). Lecture given
online to the Deleuze and Guattari in Africa
Conference.http://lecturenet.uu.nl/Site1/Play/4fa3737d76404b6c8109e509563bdffa1d
Dave Harris
The stress will be on affirmation. This
looks an unlikely topic given widespread political
conflict and oppression, but we need to think
affirmatively, and to pursue the ethical and
political implications.
Deleuze's practice can be seen as based on his
notion of immanence rather than
transcendence. The two concepts divided
French thinkers, with Foucault, Canguilhem,
Bachelard and Spinoza on one side, and Levinas,
Derrida and Kant on the other. The immanent
faces a paradox in that it is embedded in the very
terms and conditions of which the thinker needs to
be critical, and faces particular problems
formulating sustainable alternatives. It is
better, however, in supporting resistance
p[because alternative systems are immanent in the
same conditions etc]. The position argues
that we are ourselves based on the need to grasp
the problems that locate us, rather than turning
to any external points or perspective from which
to launch critique. There is an inherent
relation between critique and creation in the
approach. This is seen in What is Philosophy,
in the argument that there are parallels between
art, science and philosophy, and in the stress on
affirmative affects, including passions and
ethical implications.
There is a link with the feminist politics of
location, grounded activism. Location is
seen as offering embedded and embodied 'counter
memories' to oppose dominant conceptions.
Locations offer a materialist site for the
coproduction of subjectivity. This grounds
power relations. Location therefore relates
to memory as well as to particular spaces, and
memory can be seen to embody the locations of
belonging: something intergenerational, even
interspecies if we except that DNA is a kind of
memory. Freud also appointed to the
importance of unconscious memories, memories of
things which are not even personal. This
means we can remember injustices that have
happened to other people, and this is a part of
belonging and of wanting to think critically, a
whole ecology of belonging.
Deleuze reads Bergson
on memory, and gets from Foucault the idea of
power as both negative and positive, and as
multiply located: we can therefore develop a
cartography of power. Counter memories
provide a basic source of resistance to the
[claimed self sufficiency and universalism] of
present circumstances.
Actual concrete power locations also have an
immanent dimension. This has led Deleuze and
others to a particular critique of the dialectic,
and to the rejection of a pejorative notion of
difference. [Although this has general
ontological implications for both reality and
philosophy], we can see this better in social and
human relations. [At the general
philosophical level first] instead of the usual
critique of the self/other dialectic, for example,
Deleuze offers us a monism, and he wants to assert
the positivity [and ubiquity] of difference [seen
best in Difference
and Repetition]. At the social
level, the dialectic always seems to be used to
support hierarchies, where the different is
somehow inferior. This comes out with
Deleuze and Guattari [for example in Thousand Plateaus - eg chapter 9]
arguing that 'Man' becomes the standard
majoritarian category against which others are
judged as inferior: this can clearly support a
range of oppressive policies from Nazism to
colonialism. Spivak has called this
'epistemic violence'. It is clear that
radical politics has often drawn support from
these 'others of modernity' and this is brought
about a crisis in the subject, and new becomings
of minorities. Critics have used
cartographies of power aimed at the very
categories in use, the notion of the human, for
example, and this has resulted in affirmative
alternative subjectivities - a multi
layered, nomadic, productive affirmation.
The monist ontology sees matter itself as
intelligent, and self organizing. It draws
from Spinoza rather than Hegel, and much support
for this was introduced by the book by Macherey [Hegel
or Spinoza, I think]. After this book,
Spinoza became popular even with Althusserians
[see for example Althusser].
The approach offers what Deleuze calls a univocity
of Being, where matter 'modulates' [producing
'modes', or types of matter, eventually -- organs
and entities] similarly, the subjective is a
source of positivity for Spinoza, through his use
of the term conatus [deployed by Bourdieu as well,
wherein mean something like the tendency of human
beings to dynamically reproduce social
conditions]. For Spinoza conatus means an
ontological drive to express human capacity,
desire in the broad sense, pursuing that freedom
provided by what a body can do. The body
here should be seen as a relational, full entity,
and not like the material residue once we have
extracted cognition, as in Descartes. Much
conventional thought sees the negative aspects of
social life overwhelming the positive ones, as in
social contract theories which presuppose some
innately violent mass of people. Spinoza
admired the liberal democracy he found in
Holland.
It is from Spinoza that Deleuze and Guattari
derive the notion of the state as a mechanism of
capture, something that reduces conatus [e.g. in Thousand
Plateaus -- eg
chapter 13]. Deleuze would not fully
support the full Spinozan optimism of Negri and Hardt on the
revolutionary potential of 'the multitude'[I am
not so sure about Guattari though].
D and G's neo-materialist philosophy and their
notion of a relational and ethical bond emerges
from a position that says we are all made of the
same matter, and change happens beyond the
dialectic. We are interrelated in multiple
ways. This includes relations with the
environment, and is what prompted Guattari to
write his work on ecosophy, [I haven't read this
yet] proposing a relation between the
psychological, the social and the natural.
This presupposes a collectively distributed
consciousness, a relational bond which is not
synthetic [in the kantian sense] but transversal
{see Guattari's Chaosmosis
on the therapeutic benefits of the transversal] .
We can find implications in the work on modern
neuroscience especially Domasio [I've never read
him, but he is all over the Web -- keen on the
emotions, it seems] who takes Spinoza as an
influence. Again the emphasis is on nomadic
relational movements of becoming. The
subject is actualized by these relations, but it
is more than just a performance. We have to
take an approach that 'dramatizes'[a reference to
Deleuze's own comments on his method in Desert Islands?],
to see the subject as actualized desire.
Critical theory therefore stresses not only the
negative and oppositional - but also is well aware
that it is impossible to abstract the self from
the situation. Ethically and politically we
ourselves are part of the problems. When we
oppose capitalism, colonialism or patriarchy, we
cannot do this from a position that abstract
herself from the situation and adopt some external
position. We are ourselves part of the
problems. Foucault expressed very well some
of the dilemmas on his promotion to an elite
professorship - he wrote a paper on power to
critique the professorial status of demi god,
judge, legislator of truth, or kantian judge of
thinking. He promised to reveal the
combinations of power and desire in professorial
discourse, but then expressed an ethical
obligation to reverse this critique, or rather
move beyond it to become affirmative. [I think
this is 'The Order
of Discourse'].
There is a clear criticism of hegelian Marxism
here. Critical theory is right to focus on
social injuries and pathologies, but it needs to
reverse the position. It cannot wait for
some automatic dialectic to do so, but should
attempt to transform social situations as a
praxis, led by an ethics of affirmation.
Here, the ethical commitment to expand human
capacity produces the politics. We need to
make this shift to affirmation if we want to make
politics more than just a matter of radical
posturing, and to commit ourselves to making an
alternative.
Deleuze's admiration for [Melville's character]
Bartleby, [in Essays]
and his persistent slogan 'I prefer not to' shows
the stance to take, to maintain a critical
distance, but not just to negate. Nietzsche
is also an important source on the negativity of
the priest, the judge or the herd [and Deleuze
also admires Artaud's stance on being done with
the judgement of God - - again in Essays,
for example ]. We want to encourage the
desiring subject, desiring to extend their powers
in a form of relationality, and this is the notion
of affirmative empowerment is an ethical
ideal. Critical analysis should be aimed at
developing the knowledge of modes of belonging [so
that we can better choose the affirmative
ones]. This offers a more direct [pragmatic
for Guattari?] need to work with existing
conditions.
This position is not oppositional in the
conventional sense either [restricting politics to
the parliamentary opposition for example?].
It is about new possible futures. We should
seek to bring into use what is so far unused,
something which is [real but] not available in the
present [this is why we need to investigate the
virtual, including its possibilities which have
not yet been realized]. This will
require a collective mobilization of cognitive,
affective and ethical thought. We need to
think of how to concretize possibilities, building
a network, or constructing rhizomes. We need
new philosophical tools to increase the ability to
analyse and implement possibilities. This is
what Spinoza argued would produce an 'adequate
knowledge' of conditions [going beyond the merely
empirical] to uncover the sources of what Foucault
calls 'counter truths', the desire to actualize
virtual possibilities. We should not forget
that non human others are crucial here as
well. Apparently Spinoza was much admired by
early thinkers on Gaia.
There is a similarly dynamic view of affect,
including its negative or traumatic powers.
Again, some psychotherapists have drawn
implications from Spinoza rather than Freud
to argue that these negative aspects block and
rigidify a creative process. The point is to
get people to learn to act again, to affirm.
This involves a break with conventional psychology
and a break with identity politics. Affects
should be seen as depersonalized, more like a
geometry of forces and power rather than human
feelings. We are talking here about a
nomadic subject rather than the classic liberal
one, the subject as a group, a multitude.
People need to be empowered to take on the
negative aspects of the world the persuade them
that they are incapable, inferior and so on.
This is where Nietzsche's 'will to power' can be
seen as expressing the power of life itself
[nothing to do with Nazis, Deleuze insists].
This power of life itself is what acts and we
inhabit it [leading to lots of debate about
whether Deleuze and Guattari are 'vitalists' --eg
here].
The usual objections to this monist position are
that it encourages passivity and
acquiescence. There is a clear danger of
complicity with the present, with
compromise. We can see this for example when
professors think that universities are autonomous,
but really they are saturated by the market
economy. Incidentally, discussing
professorialism would be a typical immanent to
application. Such accusations are behind the
criticisms of Badiou,
Hallward [apparently in Think Again,
2004] and Zizek,
although 'he is not a serious thinker'. We
know the dangers, for example when green
capitalism is used to simply enhance corporate
performance, or when climate change celebrities
appear at Papal conferences. Spinoza has
also been condemned as a mystic, as interested in
a rather aristocratic politics rather than
tangling with the real brutalities of power.
These are caricatures, however. Deleuze
clearly addresses the danger of rhetoricians
engaging in discussions of the 'beautiful soul'
ignoring the brute realities of struggle [eg
Preface to Difference
and Repetition (xviii)]. Radical immanence
is supposed to provide a cartography of the
immediate context. We can then develop what
Deleuze calls structures of differentiation, based
on praxis to operationalize the virtual, and this
will necessarily call for an ethics and
politics. Deleuze is producing an adequate
cartography based on Foucault on power. It
is perfectly true that Thousand Plateaus
is indeed widely read by management and even the
military, and is found everywhere except in
universities. But this does not indicate a
complicity with existing power. It is widely
read because it is the correct analysis of modern
capitalism, much better than hegelian readings on
the interrelationships of technology,
territorialization, the speed of financial
interventions and so on. [But Zizek argues that the work
is so general, abstract, philosophical and
mystifying that it necessarily invites more
concrete readings, and it is inevitable that the
most powerful groups will get their readings in
first. Can anyone actually imagine a
popular audience for Thousand Plateaus?].
We can end with some points on subjectivity.
Deleuze and Guattari would disagree with people
like Latour who want to
see the human subject be made indistinguishable
[from technical 'actants']. It is a matter
of analyzing the processes of
subjectivation. Again this is necessary for
praxis, because we need to overturn the conditions
leading to current passivity and pathology in
order to release affirmative forces. The key
process here is becoming, which produces all sorts
of disruptive actions opposing the over coding of
capitalism. Bergson's work again is
important on the historical actualizations of
virtual subjectivations. Nietzsche provides
the basis for the notion of the freedom that is to
be extracted - it is not something natural.
Again we need to understand current conditions to
liberate the affirmative aspects of subjectivity.
There are many examples inspired by this
affirmative ethics, which cannot be pursued
here. In post colonialism for example,
writers like Glisson have been working on
indigenous epistemologies, ways of understanding
the world which are properly 'other', not just
'other than 'European male conceptions. He
discusses the processes of Creolization [Guattari is
rather good on how majority languages inevitably
get Creolized]. He takes Bergson on time
rather than adopting a conventional history.
He also challenges the notion that the original
trauma of colonization continues to be the
decisive event. Then there is work on
environmental theory, on the 'anthropocene'.
Monism here is very helpful in helping us think of
multiple reconstructions of the ways of being
human: one implication is for disability studies,
another for radical pedagogy [apparently, she has
contributed herself here], and another for the
notion of new humanities, including digital
humanities. Overall, these are examples of
how we now have dared to act to reverse power in a
global here and now.
[By way of criticism: (1) I am not sure you can
just equate what D&G describe as dynamic
'difference' with the usual social differences
like those between straights and others. D&G
identify differences in reality itself --
intensive and extensive differences between
forces, events and assemblages. Same point applies
to identifying becoming with belonging. (2) it is
not just Negri and Hardt's optimism that is not
supported, but Braidotti's optimism too? In
particular, there are strong strains of
individualist liberation, and liberation only in
thought in D&G (more in D than G) -- and can
G's practice in 'unblocking' the psychotic become
an immediate political project?. (3) There may be
no passivity and acquiecscence in D&G but
there is an awful lot of caution, certainly not a
simple affirmation. (4) Both Spinoza and D&G
are acknowledged as having yielded different
readings, including oppressive ones, but it is not
enough just to propose an activist optimistic one
instead of 'caricatures'. There are real
ambiguities. Zizek's point about the vagueness and
generality of the project inviting pro-capitalist
readings cannot just be dismissed by attacking him
ad hominem. (4) While we are here,
Braidotti's account of Foucault's inaugural (if
that is what she is referring to) is also a bit of
a special reading according to my notes at least
-- eg his 'affirmation' is not support for a
vitalist politics but an acknowledge,ment that
discourses have potentials as well as
constraints?.
Overall,the whole piece could be read (unkindly)
as 'special pleading' where people are being
selectively read to support an already established
feminist/queer/performative/posthuman/eco
politics?]
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