Struggles With Philosophy

Moving to Wordpress

2008-09-05T18:24:00.001+01:00

Hi All,

I have decided to move to wordpress. Thanks for all the comments here at blogspot. Struggleswithphilosophy can now be found here.

Social constructivism video lectures

2008-09-04T16:02:00.002+01:00

For those of you interested in International Relations Theory, which I am, Danial Nexon has posted some introduction lectures on his Blog, here.

These video lectures are introducing the main features and beliefs of social constructivism, which are worth watching. I'm in the process of composing a critique of social constructivism and proposing International Relations Theory moves onto Complexity Theory. I use DeLanda's Assemblage Theory to construct my argument and will post draft editions of the paper on the blog.

More Deleuze books online

2008-08-24T18:10:00.003+01:00

Fark Yaralari has put up an impressive list of Gilles Deleuze books and secondary literature on Deleuze that is available to download. There is also books from Kant, Lacan, Gadamer, and many others.

I would advise downloading them while you can. The website is here.

thanks to Continental Philosophy for bringing this to my attention.

A Thousand Plateaus Online

2008-08-17T19:40:00.001+01:00

Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus is available to download as a pdf file from here.

Some Quick definitions of Deleuzoguattarian Concepts

2008-08-12T22:15:00.010+01:00

Here are some brief definitions of Deleuzoguattarian concepts I have composed. I have attempted to write them for two reasons. Firstly, to attempt to produce simplified definitions for my benefit. Secondly, to introduce user-friendly definitions for people that are unfamiliar with Deleuze and Guattari. The definitions are written in a style that should correlate these concepts to complexity theory.

Any suggestions/corrections are welcome:-

Radical Constructivism – the term radical constructivism does not come from Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guatttari. It is a term I have borrowed from Deleuzian academic Hanjo Berressem (University of Cologne) that denotes a departure from social constructivism. The term should also not be confused with Ernesto LacLau and Chantal Mouffe's project of radical constructivism, whose project is still limited to discourse and deconstruction analysis.

Overall, radical constructivism argues that social constructivism has not gone far enough in its constructivist project. The problem of social constructivism is it has only focused on how humans or language construct the world. The result is social constructivism is anthropocentric (i.e. human oriented). Radical constructivism argues for an expanded programme of thought in order to concentrate on how the world is literally constructed. It is this commitment of radical constructivism that ensures its non-anthropocentric credentials. The aim of radical constructivism is to remove dualisms that act as boundaries and separations of life (e.g. Culture/Nature, Subject/Object, Mind/Body). Overall, radical constructivism is an attempt to escape what Frederic Jameson calls the ‘prison-house of language’ and humanism. Such approaches are ‘human, all too human’ (Nietzsche) and not true to the earth.

Body without Organs (BwO) – A field, or a multitude, of intensive processes. These intensive processes cause the metamorphose of the Earth. BwOs, for example, are found in cultural, geological, and biological environments. Weather systems provide an ‘easy’ example of a BwO functioning in the world. These weather systems are bands of various intensities that behave differently in different intensities (e.g. different air pressure). The idea of the BwO demonstrates the importance of intensive processes in the production and transformation of the world. Deleuze and Guattari argue that zero intensity in a process is a non-productive process.

Becoming – Represents the nonlinear directional movement of the world, encapsulating the dynamical characteristic of life and avoiding a linear or teleological interpretation.

Assemblages – an emergent property generated from a machinic becoming. These assemblages are composed of various heterogeneous components. If these assemblages are described as stratified they are hierarchical assemblages, and if these assemblages are described as meshworks they are non-hierarchical assemblages. These two types of assemblage, one stratified and the other rhizomatic, should be considered as ideal indicators of assemblage. In concrete (i.e. real) assemblages the vast majority are composed of hierarchical and non-hierarchical components. The concept of assemblage is also constructed to avoid an approach that relies on essentialism or totalities and (should) ensure a bottom-up analysis.

Abstract Machine – In the becoming of life Deleuze and Guattari aim to explain the immanent morphogenetic capabilities of the flows of matter and energy.
‘Ideally’ there is only one (mega) abstract machine. This abstract machine would be pure-matter and not physical or semiotic and not connected to anyone single entity (i.e. assemblage). However, the single ‘mega’ abstract machine risks becoming a totalising explanation if various different abstract machines do not emerge and are explained. It is for this reason that abstracts machine can be said to emerge at particular dates and construct new realities.

Deleuze Camp

2008-08-02T21:05:00.004+01:00

I am travelling to the Deleuze Camp 2 (PDF) at Cardiff University for next week, so the blog will pretty quiet.

I will leave you with a quote from Deleuze and Guattari's "What is Philosophy?"

Human Rights are axioms. They can co-exist on the market with many other axioms,
notably those concerning security or property, which are unaware of or suspend
them even more than they contradict them: "the impure mixture or the impure side
by side," said Nietzsche. Who but the police and armed forces that co-exist with
democracies can control and manage poverty and the deterritorialization-reterritorialization of
shanty towns? What social democracy has not given the order to fire when the
poor come out of their territory or ghetto? Rights save neither men nor a
philosophy that is reterritorialized on the democratic State. Human
rights will not make us bless capitalism. A great deal of innocence or cunning
is needed by a philosophy of communication that claims to restore the society of
"consensus" to
moralize nations, States, and the market. Humans rights say nothing about the
immanent modes of existence of people provided with rights. (1992, p107)

Ray Brassier's Doctoral Thesis 'Alien Theory'

2008-07-23T21:38:00.006+01:00

I am a little behind the pace, but here is a link to Ray Brassier's Doctoral Thesis 'Alien Theory: The Decline of Materialism in the Name of Matter.' Hopefully, it can serve as helpful introduction in the 'new' school of speculative realism and the concept of nonphilosophy.

This is the synopsis for the dissertation:

The thesis tries to define and explain the rudiments of a ‘non-philosophical’
or ‘non-decisional’ theory of materialism on the basis of a theoretical
framework provided by the ‘non-philosophy’ of François Laruelle. Neither
anti-philosophical nor anti-materialist in character, non-materialism tries to
construct a rigorously transcendental theory of matter by using certain instances
of philosophical materialism as its source material.
The materialist decision to identify the real with matter is seen to retain a
structural isomorphy with the phenomenological decision to identify the real
with the phenomenon. Both decisions are shown to operate on the basis of a
methodological idealism:- materialism on account of its confusion of matter and
concept; phenomenology by virtue of its confusion of phenomenon and logos.
By dissolving the respectively ‘materiological’ and ‘phenomenological’
amphibolies which are the result of the failure to effect a rigorously
transcendental separation between matter and concept on the one hand, and
between phenomenon and logos on the other, non-materialist theory proposes to
mobilise the non-hybrid or non-decisional concepts of a ‘matter-withoutconcept’
and of a ‘phenomenon-without-logos’ in order to effect a unified but
non-unitary theory of phenomenology and materialism. The result is a
materialisation of thinking that operates according to matter’s foreclosure to
decision. That is to say, a transcendental theory of the phenomenon, licensing
limitless phenomenological plasticity, unconstrained by the apparatus of eidetic
intuition or any horizon of apophantic disclosure;- but one which is
simultaneously a transcendental theory of matter, uncontaminated by the bounds
of empirical perception and free of all phenomenological circumscription.

transforming 'academic' resources?

2008-07-21T17:54:00.004+01:00

*Apologies for the lack of philosophical content in this post. My present thoughts have been directed towards the production and dissemination of 'academic' knowledge

Correctly, or incorrectly, websites, or more accurately, online databases, such as Wikipedia are regarded as nonacademic resources. To reference Wikipedia in an essay, dissertation, or article is to commit a sin. It would be far wiser to stick to referencing peer reviewed articles. To a certain degree I find this view, or situation, problematic. Instead of academics wishing Wikipedia did not exist, could not a greater effort be made to raise the standard of entries and discussion? I would never suggest that Wikipedia should replace academic articles, but I would suggest that there should be a greater effort on the part of academics to embrace and transform Wikipedia. I put forward these reasons:

Students, while they might not reference it in their work, do use Wikipedia as a reference site. It serves a ‘first stop’ site of reference for many topics or philosophers. This is a crucial point of learning. It is therefore important that the introduction is informative and of a high and accessible standard.

Academic journals, while (usually) of a high standard, have a limited readership. They are rarely read outside academic circles and often have a subscription fee. In contrast, Wikipedia is free access, has a larger readership, and offers an opportunity for academics to communicate outside academia.

The non-peer review problem of Wikipedia can be overcome. For example, if some academic, or academics, are writing an entry for a philosopher they could communicate this with other academics. These academics could read, review, and ‘correct’ the entry. It would also offer an opportunity for non-academics to ‘peer-review’ the entry.

Wikipedia, unlike journal articles, is a hypertext and allows the opportunity for non-linear reading. Cross references to other topics can be added to the article, which can help to demonstrate the interconnections the topic brings to the forefront. For example, an entry discussing ‘developmental theory’ could establish a hyperlink to ‘dependency theory.’

These are only a few suggestions and arguments for adopting a stance towards ‘embracing’ Wikipedia. Ideally, the position that Wikipedia is a non-academic resource could become a non-argument. Electronic writing and the arrival of digital media have transformed the world and this means academic writing requires a certain degree of transformation. Books and Journals are never to be completely replaced, but these are products of print culture and the gutenberg press. Arguable, there requires the growth of more websites like the Standford Encycloepedia of Philosophy. Instead of writing an article why not composev a podcast to download? As new mediums emerge there requires more experimentation, the removal of ingrained, and historically constituted, prejudices towards the ‘correct’ method of producing knowledge. A pragmatic attitude that realises the historical contingencies of the present would be more beneficial.

Video of Rick Roderick

2008-07-10T17:29:00.003+01:00

I found this video of Rick Roderick. In it he discusses how he got interested in philosophy and in particular Critical Theory.

The ‘Fashionable’ Thinker and Returning to the ‘Unfashionable’ Thinker (Part 1)...

2008-07-10T14:00:00.002+01:00

Philosophy, like most other social things, is susceptible to trends and fads. A philosopher, or a philosophy, emerges onto the scene capturing the attention of various scholars, publishers, and academic disciplines. During this period we have the ‘fashionable’ thinker. Literature is produced on understanding, acclaiming, defending, dismissing, and critiquing the ‘fashionable’ thinker. Predictably, philosophy moves on and finds another ‘fashionable’ thinker and the last ‘fashionable’ thinker is less of an influence in the press machine and our thoughts. This discarding and removal of the popularity suggests, or at least implies, that we have learnt, critiqued, and understood the entire corpus the thinker had to offer (or the philosopher has been proved wrong). In other words, in order to move on to the next fashionable, the last ‘fashionable’ thinker s laid to rest (the gift of death?). Of course, the work and thoughts of the thinker is never truly dead and it would be more accurate to propose it has a zombie existence as the living dead.

When a fashionable thinker becomes unfashionable, does this provide an opportunity to return to their work, focusing on what they have offered away from the limelight and gaze of fashion? The problem of the limelight of fashion is people rush to accept, defend, dismiss, adore, hate, (mis)understand, love, and critique the fashionable thinker. In short, a pressure is forced upon members of the philosophy community to have a view, or stance, directed towards the fashionable thinker. It is almost not acceptable to not have a view on them. We cannot remain silent on them. (Maybe remaining silent on them could provide a form of resistance against the fashion markets of philosophy?). During this fashion fad (forced) views are produced and a lot of misunderstanding and ill-informed opinions are disseminated. Critiques and dismissals of the fashionable thinker come across as reactionary, failing to have engaged (in-depth) with the work. This stance is the stance where people know they do not like the thinker, but cannot really explain (in depth) why they do not like the thinker. Followers and defenders of the fashionable thinker are also too quick to adore and defend. Their work misses out on the warnings and carefully argued points made from the fashionable thinker. These followers tend to produce a dogmatic type of thought that is never present in the philosopher themselves (e.g. Marxists become worse than Marx).

Speculative Realism New Blog

2008-07-07T20:17:00.003+01:00

News of a new blog in the blogosphere that focuses on the (newish) episteme of "Speculative Realism". This looks a welcome introduction and promises to provide invaluable material and discussion for the growing interest in this school of thought. Something i admit to being behind the pulse.

The blog is called "Speculative Heresy"

Intensive learning over Extensive learning

2008-07-04T13:20:00.003+01:00

Throughout my time being taught at university the courses I have participated in privilege extensive teaching methods over intensive methods. The idea of extensive teaching is the approach of covering a lot of topics and material during a semester or two. This means there is courses like – Globalisation, Introduction to International Relations Theory, Terrorism, Global Politics and Culture, Political Theory…Without a doubt these courses are invaluable and help to ‘introduce’ a lot of topics about the subject. However, and this is a major problem, these type of courses lack the ability, and capability, for intensive teaching and studying. Issues and topics are merely ‘touched’ upon before the next topic has to be introduced. I cannot remember being offered a course like the ones run by David Harvey and Herbert Dreyfus. Both these lecturers take one book (Harvey = Marx's Capital & Dreyfus = Heidegger's Being and Time) and only address this book in the course. The advantage is the students get to experience an intensive method of learning that will enable to engage at the depth required for these classic and demanding texts. I often laugh when I look back at some of my course handouts and the reading lists they have attached to them. The list often contains books that would themselves require a course to fully appreciate their purpose and method. (I remember seeing Michel Foucault’s Archaeology of Knowledge listed as secondary reading for a first year course on Introducing Global Politics!) I tend to think that students could learn a lot more about the world if they fully read and understood one (master) text than having to skim into a multitude of articles and books that address, for example, the topic of ‘Globalisation.’ Of course, the problem would be the politics of selecting this text.

David Harvey's Lectures on Karl Marx's Capital

2008-06-25T22:35:00.004+01:00

thanks to Larval subjects for bringing attention to these video lectures from David Harvey on Karl Marx's Capital, which can be watched here.

Complexity in International Relations Theory

2008-06-16T13:22:00.003+01:00

Nick, at Accursed Share, has posted an interesting and relevant post about issues relating to the structure/agency problem in International Relations Theory.

I am in agreement about the need to consider multiple interacting systems in International Relations theory. There still seems to be a desire to simplify actual events, and the complexity of them, into all-encompassing theories that accounts for the change before it happens (e.g. the eternal wisdom of neo-realism). A lot of the approaches still fail to cope with the issue of emergence and lack the capacity to identify system-generating processes. They seem to always assume that the system is already there (Waltz and W endt) ! However, historical approaches like world systems theory do acknowledge the importance of historical analysis, but lack, i feel, a non-linear understanding of History (althought this is emerging in world systems theory).

There is also the problem of organismic approaches to the state, which is most prominent in Alexander Wendt's recent work, which tries to propose a quantum hypothesis of consciousness. While it is all very interesting Wendt seems to be appealing to an essential and totalising (human) condition to propose his theory of the state as a person. His example of how a state functions is connected to the idea of a beehive composed of homogeneous units (i.e. individuals). The problem I feel with Wendt’s approach is his model of the stats is based on what DeLanda refers to as a ‘relations of Interiority’, which is a result of arguing the state is a superorganism (like a beehive). I tend to think Wendt needs to consider the state more from a ‘relations of exteriority’ approach, which could account for heterogeneous components (i.e. assemblages) interacting with one another. For example, lobbying power in some states is a crucial factor for understanding the actualisations that occur in Global politics. One only needs to consider the lobbying power in encouraging the U.S. to not sign the Koyota protocol. However, this is not to claim that the U.S. (as a state) is a homogeneous person in favour of rejecting the protocol. There are plenty of assemblages that are present (and also emergent) in the U.S that lobby and protest in favour of environmental policies. This means the state is more like Deleuze's idea of the wasp and orchid interacting (heterogeneous components) than a beehive (homogeneous organic beings).

I would also propose that anthropocentricism is a problem in the discipline of International Relations. This seems to be a difficult topic because it would appear that humanity is the cause of International Relations (IR). However, could IR, in an attempt to learn from the natural sciences (particularly complexity theory) think, for example, about the significance of such things as weather systems producing events in international politics? The example of the recent cyclone in Burma would illustrate that humanity is not the ‘centre’ of global politics.

An Either/Or Question?

2008-06-09T14:58:00.004+01:00

I was watching a Manuel DeLanda lecture online and he put forward a question which he argues sets you on a philosophical path that you cannot come back from . In the terminology of Badiou we can describe the question as a truth event from which we then produce knowledge from a fidelity to that event.

the question is:

'Do you think that Eskimos has 27 different words for snow because

a) they label snow differently 27 times

b) they interact with snow differently

I am still to decide if DeLanda is putting forward a Zizekian 'forced choice' or a question that one should answer and stay committed to that position for producing knowledge.

I would be interested to know what side of the fence you are sitting on?

New Blog Pole - Idealism

2008-06-06T14:09:00.005+01:00

After the recent success of the last blog pole, which asked you for your favourite 19th century philosopher, there is another pole uploaded for the next month and a half.

This time I have decided to go over to the 'other/enemies' side. Struggleswithphilosophy's will leave its normal materialism behind and dedicate a pole to the idealists. The pole asks you for your favourite idealist philosopher.

Massumi New Journal - Inflexions

2008-05-30T12:28:00.003+01:00

There is a new journal started by Brian Massumi called inflexions. Here is the description of it from their website:

"Inflexions is an open-access journal for research-creation sponsored by the Sense Lab. It publishes articles, short texts of various genres including poetry and ficto-theory, images, sound, and other multimedia content. We invite writing and/or other forms of expression actively exploring such issues as: (inter/trans/non) disciplinarity; the emergence of new modes of collaboration; micropolitics and the life and death of institutions; creativity, subjectivity and collectivity in cultural production; the ethics of aesthetics; the aesthetic as ethics. The goal is to promote experimental practices combining research and creation in such a way as to foster symbiotic links between philosophical inquiry, technological innovation, artistic production, and social and political engagement. Of continuing concern will be how these efforts may renew and recast relations between the concrete and the abstract, perception and conception, the body and technology. We hope the journal will become a tool for thinkers, builders, artists, informal groupings, and institutions to develop a mutually sustaining and enriching dialogue around these issues."

I have had a look at some of the first articles and the contents are worth a read and of high quality. From what I can tell the journal is free to access.

A return to V for Vendetta

2008-05-21T18:46:00.003+01:00

I have decided to return to my analysis of the film V for Vendetta. A topic i have previously discussed here, here, and briefly here. There has also been an excellent discussion about the film at Steve Shaviro's blog here and another one at I Cite here.

This post considers the active and reactive forces in the film and puts forward a (short) argument for a revolutionary Overman that affirms life.

Introduction

In Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s Empire (2000) a passage, dedicated to Friedrich Nietzsche, discusses the need for new barbarians, ‘We need a force capable of not only organising the destructive capabilities of the multitude, but also of constituting through the desire of multitude an alternative’ (Hardt and Negri, 2000: p214). In order to construct the alternative Hardt and Negri claim there is a necessarily violent and barbaric passage. This passage is termed positive barbarism (2000: p214-215). After reading the passage I thought about the film V for Vendetta, a film that depicts a (barbaric) revolution removing the powers of fascism. In an interpretation of the film the paper proposes that positive barbarism requires a (Nieztschean) revolutionary Overman, which is represented in the character V. I argue it is the Overman’s role to overcome those forces that repress themselves and the masses. The paper relies upon Gilles Deleuze’s distinction between active and reactive forces in Nietzsche and Philosophy, which provides the possibility for an ethical evaluation of life. The importance of Deleuze’s Nieztschean ‘ethical’ vision of the world is the ethical task for the revolutionary Overman becomes to overcome the reactive forces that deny and negate life. I analyse the reactive forces that repress the masses in V for Vendetta and discuss how V overcomes them through a project of self-creation.

Active and Reactive Forces

According to Nietzsche, in Genealogy of Morals, our contemporary morality has emerged from the triumph of a slave morality (1996). Slave morality has triumph over the noble morality. While the latter is active and affirmative the former is reactive and negative. Nietzsche argues the triumph of slave moral, which promotes pity, denial, and humility, represents a transvaluation of morals that has replaced noble moraity. The significance of slave morality’s triumph is it’s creation of the idea of evil. Before slave morality prevailed, noble morality functioned under concepts of good and bad, defining ‘good’ as life affirming capacities and ‘bad’ as simply lacking life affirming capacities. However, in slave morality there is now the concept of evil, which seeks to inhibit those activities that represent evil. An example is institutional Christianity, which seeks to inhibit homosexuality as it views this as an evil activity. A mode of affirming life is given identity only to be denied and rejected.
The importance of Nietzsche’s genealogy of (western) morality is it provides Gilles Deleuze the opportunity to differentiate between active forces and reactive forces. For Deleuze active forces and reactive forces value life from different perspectives. Generally the former view life as affirmation and inspire creativity, while the latter view life negatively and limit the powers of life, ‘active forces are creative, because they seek to exercise themselves, to make whatever can be made of themselves…reactive forces operate by cutting active forces off from their own power’ (May, 2006: 66). One of the key components of reactive forces is ressentiment. According to Nietzsche ressentiment ‘says to no to an ‘outside’, to an ‘other’, to a non-self’: and this is no creative act’ (Nietzsche, 1996: 22). Ressentiment, which is a component of slave morality, constructs the enemy as evil, which serve to define their group as the good: ‘imagine the ‘enemy’ as conceived by the man of ressentiment. This is the very place where his deed, his creation is to be found – he has conceived the ‘evil enemy’, the ‘evil man.’ Moreover, he has conceived him as a fundamental concept, from which he now derives another as an after-image and counterpart, the ‘good-man’ – himself! (Nietzsche, 1996: 25). Life, or certain forces of life, is judged evil, resented for their existence, which permits for a differentiation between good and evil,

Good and evil are new values, but how strangely these values are created…they are not created by acting but by holding life back from acting, not by affirming, but by beginning from a denial. This is why they are called uncreated, divine, transcendent, superior to life. But think of what these values hide, of their mode of creation. They hide an extraordinary hatred, a hatred for life, a hatred for all that is active and affirmation in life (Deleuze, 2005: 114).

Importantly, and a point addressed later in the paper, the morality of good and evil produced from slave morality can actually function to repress life instead of ‘freeing’ us.
According to Paul Patton the differentiation between active and reactive forces provides the possibility for an ethical evaluation:

Nietzsche terminology the reversal of values means the active in place of the reactive (strictly speaking it is the reversal of a reversal, since the reactive began by taking place of the active). But transmutation of values, or transvaluation, means affirmation instead of negation – negation transformed into a power of affirmation, the supreme Dionysian metamorphosis (Patton, 2000: 66)

If a transvaluation of values is to occur then the focus has to be on the removal the reactive force(s) that negate life. In people, communities, historical periods…there are combinations of active and reactive forces and we are compose of forces that go to the limit of what we can do and forces that seek to limit what we can become (May, 2006: p67). The task is to identify the historical contingent reactive forces that are limit life through a negation. Ressentiment is one type of reactive force that negates life through imposing an image of evil. It is the presence of ressentiment that I will now analyse in V for Vendetta.

Ressentiment in V for Vendetta

Overall, the reactive forces in V for Vendetta limit the active forces through creating an enemy. The enemy are given the identity of immigrates, homosexuals, and Muslims. These active forces are now a group identity that represent the ‘threats’ and the ‘enemy’ of the UK, and it is these (active) forces that are resented. Muslims, immigrates, and homosexuals are now the ‘other’ that the population of the UK must not become. It is these forces, which are now identities, that are the outside and non-self of the UK. Commander Prothero’s, on his television show fuelled on ressentiment, clearly defines the UK identity through negation:

Prothero to audience: ‘immigrants, Muslims, homosexuals, terrorists! Disease ridden degenerates, they had to go!’

These are the ‘evil enemies’ that Britain resents, which in turn makes Britain ‘good.’ Prothero’s rant is illustrative of reactive forces fuelled on ressentiment. Affirmation of difference and the opportunity to become is denied and negated through constructing an image of evil. Homosexuality, for example, is denied as an (active) force of becoming. It has now become an identity associated to the non-self of the United Kingdom.
Flashbacks in V for Vendetta inform the viewer that the ‘evil’ enemy were removed from the public during the period termed reformation. State apparatus forces, in scenes reminiscent to Nazi Germany, capture and confine the ‘evil’ non-self of the population. The masses become segmented into a gregarious binary division of either/or that judges and limits what the population came began. We learn of the character Rose’s life leading up and during her confinement at Lanmark Disciplinary Centre. Rose’s story is of young girl becoming lesbian women and we learn of her experiences and encounters. On the whole, her homosexuality is an active force of affirmation that is part of her self-creation. She fails no shame or does not deny her homosexuality. However, even before the period of reformation there are forms of micro-ressentiment that attempt to limit her affirmative homosexuality. At school the teacher informs Valerie that homosexuality is a phase she will grow out of, while her parents’ ressentiment is more intense and results in them denying Valerie as their daughter. These flashback scenes are correct to acknowledge the presence of mirco forms of ressentiment, representing an already present ‘micro-fascism’ that is latter organised into a powerful macro-fascism of state apparatus.
Ressentiment’s negative formation of good and evil creates a perverse situation where a parasitic relationship is constructed. Evil, or at least the threat of evil, always has to be present for there to be good. The good becomes an organism whose life is dependent on the energy provided from there being an evil. In V for Vendetta the state owned media represent the parasitic relationship. The news constantly runs stories about the evil non-self, Prothero rants about the ‘degenerate others’, and entertainment shows, such as Storm Saxon, contain images of terrorist Muslims. Fear, entertainment, and tranny are used to remind the population that they are ‘God fearing Englishment’ (Prothero). The parasitic relationship of ressentiment limits what the masses can become. Their identity can only be affirmed from firstly denying themselves that what represents the non-self. It is negation before affirmation. Arguably some of the characters feel this repression and limiting on becoming more than others. Deitrich (Stephen Fry) is an example of the repression. While he is a popular television host Deitrich’s denies his homosexual desires and even host young attractive women at his home. Crucially, it is not only the state apparatus that coerce his denial but also an internalisation of authority, or what Nietzsche would call bad consciousness. Nietzsche defines bad consciousness as when ‘all instincts that do not discharge themselves outwardly turn inward – that is what I call the internalisation of man…that is the origin of the “bad conscience”’ (Nietzsche, 1996: 65). Deitrich internalises the identity of the masses that is constructed on ressentiment of the non-self to discipline his body and enforce restraint. The internalisation of the identity for Deitrich and extends the power of ressentiment. In a revealing line Deitrich states, ‘when you wear a mask for so long, you forget the person behind it.’ Detrich does perform an act of resistance (which causes him his life) on his the television show in a sketch of High Chancellor Sutler as the ‘terrorist’ V.

The emergent Overman? The complex emergence of the overman

Any paper, or political project, that advocates the Overman is required to be careful of not providing a model for the Superman. The Superman is the nightmare fascist overcoming of mankind that was evident in Nazi Germany. It was not so much an overcoming of mankind but the replacement of one image of man with another more reactive image of man. The Aryan race became the superman image for Nazi fascism. This (crude) interpretation of Nietzsche Overman fail to realise the task is not to replace one image of man with another, but actually destruction the image of man to realise those affirmative forces. V for Vendetta provides a crude interpretation of the Overman as Superman. The ‘superman’ identity of white-hetrosexual-christian-british becomes the ‘superior’ homogeneous identity for the masses. In this situation the difference of the ‘multitude’ becomes repressed through identity. The fascistic interpretation of the Overman as superman, both in V for Vendetta and Nazi Germany, forgets that the main lesson of the Overman is that man must be overcome. All images of what man is are replaced and destroyed with affirmative projects of self-creation. It is for this reason that Nieztsche argues the Overman is a ‘higher type.’ The Overman is merely a ‘higher type’ because their existence is beyond ressentiment and reactive forces. They accept the responsibility of life without God or higher values (Spinks, 2003: 116). The Overman does not view man as an identity they view man as an immanent process. Creation precedes identity as ‘the very concept of “human” is reactive insofar as it posits an unchanging identity with which our values ought to accord.’ (Spinks, 2003: 116). If a (fixed) identity of man is rejected then we need to consider how the Overman emerges from life. Following Nietzsche’s advice to stay turn to the earth I believe it is important to understand that the Overman is an emergent property produced from interactions and encounters in life.
The term emergent property comes from complexity theory and argues that interaction between (at least) two ‘things’ can result in the emergence of a new property. A simple example is the interaction of hydrogen and oxygen to produce the quality water (H20). The importance of the interaction demonstrates the necessity relations of exteriority to exist for new properties to emerge into life. In an attempt to stay true to the earth it also avoids an argument of appealing to superterresterial factors.[1] The character V can demonstrate that Overmen, which resist and destruct reactive forces, do not come from the supperterresterial but actually emerge from life.
V’s emergence into an Overman is a product of his interactions. It would be a mistake to view his self-creation as a project of solitude detached from life. Throughout the film there are important interactions that create V as an Overman and a lot of these interactions are a result of the reactive forces. Firstly, because V is in Larkhill Disciplinary Institution we know that he is a victim of the binary segmentation of the non-self and self of the British identity. It is in the disciplinary institution that another two important interactions occur. As mentioned above the disciplinary institution uses those confined as trail subjects to create a cure for the virus released into the ‘free’ population. It is from this experimentation that a cure is produced and V gains his ‘super’ human strength. I would argue that this interaction is only important for the comic style of the film, which follows in the tradition of superhero’s gaining their strength from some unfortunate experience (e.g. Spiderman, X-Men, Incredible Hulk…). We therefore do not need to accept an argument that the Overman requires superhuman strength. More important for V’s emergence as an Overman is his interaction with Valerie at Larkhill. Valerie is located in the next cell and until her death she sends V bibliographical notes of her life written on toilet roll. It is possible to argue that Valerie is herself an Overman, and in her notes to V she disperses the virtues of her self-creation. Her homosexuality is fiercely unapologetic and without bad conscious. In one of her letters describing her last girlfriend Valerie writes, ‘for three years I had roses, these where the happiest years of my life, and I apologise to no one.’ There is a joyous and affirmation politics to Valerie’s active life, which illustrates a movement beyond good and evil and towards good and bad. It is her love (which is true to the earth) that empowers her. Valerie does not question if her homosexuality is morally good or evil, but rather explores what is good and life affirming for her. Arguable it is these active forces that promote a life and politics of affirmation that are crucial for V’s metamorphosis into an Overman. It is these notes that he later declares frees him of the hate and contempt that fuelled his body.

[1] I define superterresterial factors as transcendent ideas appealing to superior forces beyond those found in life (e.g. a transcendent God)

Bibliography:

Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy, trans by Hugh Tomlinson (London: Continuum, 2004)

Gilles Deleuze, Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza, trans by Martin Joughin (New York: Zone Books, 1992)

Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (London: Harvard University Press, 2000)

Todd May, Gilles Deleuze: An Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006)

Paul Patton, Deleuze and the Political (London: Routledge, 2000)

Lee Spinks, Friedrich Nietzsche (London: Routledge, 2003)

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals, translated by Douglas Smith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996)

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Portable Nietzsche, ed and trans by Walter Kaufmann (London: Penguin, 1954)

thoughts on writing

2008-05-03T22:12:00.006+01:00

Larval Subjects wrote an interesting blog entry about style and writing, which has inspired these two aphorisms on the topic of writing.

1) If we perceive that a mode of writing is superior to another form of writing then we have become reactive. In short the judgement removes, or limits, the virtual power of writing as a becoming. For Nietzsche reactive forces negate life, saying no to life, and creating an evil. Modes of writing that are perceived to be abhorrent, difficult, or sub-standard are judged as evil, only to become resented. One only needs to think about how the writing of Baudrillard and Derrida (and others) is resented. For example, if I feel writing ought to communicate then writing that does not communicate is resented. The resentment can even emerge into bad conscious. The writer can internalise guilt if they feel their writing is not written in the correct mode. The effect of judging modes of writing is we stratify writing. Writing becomes a hierarchical phenomenon that is classified into standards. If writing is to function as a becoming that affirms life then experimentation should be favoured. If we give strong preference to a certain mode of writing then we negate life through imposing reactive forces.

2) A demand for communication inhibits writing. When we require communication from writing we are not empowering writing, we are actually negating the virtual power of writing. It is similar to demanding an artist only produce fine art portraits. Communication is only one style and aspect of writing and in some situations communication is not desired.

A rant about (contemporary) academia

2008-05-03T11:02:00.001+01:00

*Update: it seems like i am not the only person ranting about academia.

Larval subject has ranted about bureaucracy and I Cite has critiqued academic's 'jet set' lifestlye.

Just a list of things I do not like about the world of academia:

Careerism
Amount of bureaucracy
Discussion and communication fuelled on resentment
Liberal image and conservative materiality
Prestige given to journals
Ranking of Universities
RAE judgement
Egotism

Feel free to add to the list. I am sure I have missed out a few things.

Thoughts on Simulacrum

2008-04-17T15:28:00.005+01:00

[*Sorry about the missing references for this post]

Arguably, simulacra have been misunderstood, in philosophical terms, since Plato. For Plato the production of simulacrum represents the move away from the real and into unreality. Overall, Plato regards simulacrum as merely pretenders of the real that appear as (bad) copies of the real. For example, if I photograph a chair and then paint a picture from that photograph, in a Platonic world, I am continually moving away from the real and into unreality. The Platonic world can therefore provide a hierarchical ordering of reality and realness. Firstly there are the Platonic ideas. These Platonic ideas are the essences of an object that are never realised in the actual world. Secondly, there are the copies that are closest to the essence of the Platonic ideas. For example, a ‘real’ wooden chair is the closest the actual world can come to the Platonic idea of a chair. Thirdly, there are the copies of the copies, which are the simulacrum. For example, a poet who writes about a chair in their poem is producing a simulacrum in the Platonic world. The poet is further away from the Platonic idea of a chair than the carpenter who constructs the chair. This understanding of simulacrum still persists in contemporary academic literature, and is found in the work of Frederic Jameson and Jean Baudrillard. Even if both contemporary scholars agree that simulacrum are dominant in today’s world they both define simulacrum as moving away from the real. This is evident in Jameson’s example of photorealism to define simulacrum and Baudrillard’s argument that we have lost the real and entered into a virtual world of simulation and hyperreality.
In contrast to the Platonic trend of defining simulacrum as the move away from the real, Deleuze argues simulacrum is the (continual) production of the real. On the whole, Deleuzian simulacrum is defined through the task of reversing Platonism, which aims to remove the idea that there are Platonic ideas. The problem of Platonic ideas is it represents an essentialist perspective that generates a privileged and narrow idea of the real. As Deleuze writes ‘the motive of theory of Ideas must be sought in a will to select and to choose. It is a question of “making a difference” of distinguishing the “thing” itself from its images, the orginal from the copy, the model from the simulacrum.’[1] In other words, I should recognise that the chair I sit on is more ‘real’ than the chair I read about in the poem. Against this Platonic world Deleuze argues there is no essential real that serves as the Archimedean point to define everything else. For Deleuze there is only the continual, and creative, production of the real, which is summed up in the maxim ‘everything is production.’[2] This means a chair in a poem or painting is no less real than the chair I use to sit on. Instead, each chair affirms its difference and realness through its presence, which has been generated from a necessity and contingency. Steven Shaviro explains this ‘implosion’ of the real and the simulacrum in terms of the various cartoons and comics of Batman:

Batman is a simulacrum. There is no Platonic Idea of Batman, no model that all the all iterations of Batman would conform to more of less, and in relation to which they could hierarchically according to degree of their resemblance. There is no best of all possible Batmans, no iteration which can be judged more perfect than the rest. Rather, the disparity between the different iterations of Batman, their distance from one another, is itself the only common measure between them. Each Batman arises independently, as a unique “solution” to a common disparity or problem…In the absence of any Platonic criterion, or any Leibnizian God, there is only the disjunctive synthesis which affirms each iteration, one at a time, in its divergence from the rest. This means that any particular Batman is entirely contingent, although the synthesis itself, with its affirmation of all these multiple iterations, responds to a necessity.[3]

Overall, Shaviro is expressing the important point that one Batman cannot be privileged as the real Batman that the rest copy. Instead each Batman is created as a result of necessity and contingency. In Deleuzian terminology it is a disjunctive synthesis that produces each Batman simulacrum. The notion of a disjunctive synthesis is used to account for how the heterogeneous flows of life generate a self, which in this case is the self of Batman. In other words, a disjunctive synthesis is required to produce a simulacrum, and this disjunctive synthesis is entirely contingent and necessary.

[1] Gilles Deleuze, The Logic of Sense (Continuum: London, 2004) p291
[2] Giles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus (Continuum: London, 2004) p4
[3] Steven Shaviro, God or the Body without Organs (http://www.shaviro.com/Othertexts/God.pdf, accessed 12th March 2008) p17

Books on ontology?

2008-04-17T00:23:00.003+01:00

Hi there,

I was wondering if anyone could recommend books that focus on the subject of ontology? Especially any books that review the move to consider existance without essense and the transcendence of language. In other words, the move away from the linguistic turn.

Recommended Audio Lectures

2008-04-10T23:06:00.005+01:00

I found these audio lectures of Herbert Dreyfus. The lectures are from his course on Heidegger's Being and Time. I can highly recommend them as they have even convinced me to give Being and Time another go. Lets hope I have more luck understanding it this time.

The lectures can be downloaded from here.

Sesame Street Philosophy

2008-04-07T22:00:00.001+01:00

Short and funny video:

Difference and Repetition- Reading Notes (Part 1)

2008-04-01T18:13:00.006+01:00

In preparation for the Deleuze camp, at Cardiff University (4th-8th August 2008), I thought I had better get reading, in more depth, some Gilles Deleuze.

The book I have decided to start with is Difference and Repetition. Sorry about the lack of critical thoughts. At present I am more concerned with understanding the book. Any thoughts, corrections, and critiques are welcome.

These reading notes are from p1-5 ‘introduction’. I am using the 2004 Continuum edition that is translated by Paul Patton.

Deleuze begins by stating that ‘repetition is not generality’ and the two need distinguished. In defining generality Deleuze claims it has two major orders, ‘the qualitative order of resemblances and quantitative order of equivalences’ (p1). It figures from this definition that repetition needs to avoid resemblances and equivalences. In generality I have the ability to express a point of view that can substitute or exchange a term. For example, I can use any human, as a particular, to express the generality that man is mortal. It is here, I believe, that generality, for Deleuze, is in the paradigm of the general and the particular. This means a generality will state a ‘fact’ about a particularity, and this particularity will have that generality.
To define repetition Deleuze writes ‘repetition is a necessary and justified conduct only in relation to that which cannot be replaced’ (p1). It is here I figure that Deleuze is aiming to remove repetition from the idea of the general and the particular, as Deleuze claims repetition ‘concerns non-exchangeable and non-substitutable singularities’ (p1). At this point Deleuze does not provide a substantial definition of a singularity, but does provide empirical examples. One of these examples is how we cannot exchange or substitute twins with one another. This means, I think, that Deleuze wants repetition to be connected with something unique and singular, ‘as Peguy says, it is not Federation Day which commemorates or represents the fall of Bastille, but the fall of the Bastille which celebrates and repeats in advance all the Federation Day’ (p2). In other words, the fall of the Bastille was a unique and singular event, and not in the order of generality. It is from here Deleuze provides his differentiation between Generality and Repetition:

‘Generality, as generality of the particular….
Repetition as universal of the singular’ (p2)

After the definitions of generality and repetition Deleuze then proceeds to associate generality with the orders of the laws, and consider the phenomenon of scientific experimentation. In this section Deleuze is careful to argue that we do not fall into the trap of connecting repetition with (natural) law. For Deleuze there requires a recognition that scientific experiments are conducted in a ‘closed environment in which phenomenon are defined in terms of a small number of chosen factors’ (p3). However, natural, or real, phenomenon occur in a open or ‘free state’ where ‘everything reacts on everything else’ (p3). In sum, we may state that scientific experiments have the ‘luxury’ of setting the conditions of the experiment. I think the point of this section is scientific experiments cannot, for Deleuze, provide the idea of repetition as unique and singular. The only repetition these experiments find is the general laws of nature, which once again brings us back to the scenario of the general and the particular. This unacceptance of the repetition of the natural can help to explain the move of repetition from the natural sphere to the moral sphere.
For Deleuze repetition in the moral sphere dreams of finding a law, or laws, that is sanctified and makes reiteration possible. Some moralists, according to Deleuze, create the ‘Good’ by aiming for a repetition that is not a ‘law of nature but a law of duty’ (p4). In other words, ‘we’ create principles, such as, for example, do not kill, that can (and ought) to be repeated as a duty. These principles are formed in the mind (i.e. idealism). Deleuze finds this an unacceptable definition of repetition as it still leaves us within the realms of generality, and, if we remember, repetition is not generality. The reason repeating principles is a generality is it is acquiring a habit. Or more accurately, the habit of acquiring habits. In addition, this form of repetition bring us back to resemblance and equivalence, the two concepts Deleuze does not want to associate with his definition of repetition. It is resemblance as we conform to a model and equivalence because we have the same elements of action once the habit is acquired (p5).

Google and Attractors (Part 3)

2008-03-22T23:32:00.007Z

If we are to believe Claire Colebrook, who claims, in Understanding Deleuze, we are in post-linguistic era, we need to develop theories and approaches that are not language dependent. This means we cannot use discourse analysis or propose a model for communicative action. I do not claim that these approaches are not helpful or should be abandoned. Instead the problem of these approaches is that language is always assumed to be present. In other words, language becomes the transcendent principle and according to Deleuze and Guattari we need to think immanently instead of transcendently. Where can we then turn? In this post I would like to suggest complexity theory can help us out the language impasse. To achieve this I will concentrate, once again, on Google’s search engine. A topic I have discussed previously here and here. In this post I will argue that the language we enter into the search engine functions as a chaotic attractor.
In simple terms an attractor helps to explain the behaviour of a (real) system. For example, if there is a bowl and we put a marble in the bowl, then the point at where the marble rests is referred to as the attractor. However, this example could suggest that attractors are deterministic, in the sense that the outcome is always the same, or that attractors are singular, in the sense that there is only one attractor in a system. Both of these claims are untrue and we need to be careful of proposing determinism. Another example can demonstrate that attractors are not deterministic and multiple. Imagine a game of football/soccer. In the game there are two goalposts situated at each end that act as attractors. As Brian Massumi writes: ‘The field is polarized by two attractors: the goals. All movement in the game will take place between the poles and will tend toward one or the other. They are the physical limits.’[1] Importantly, the goals do not decide the result of the game, but they do determine the movements and variations within the game. The goalposts, as attractors, literally feed into the game.
So how then is this relevant for understanding how Google functions as a search engine when we enter keywords? From a language perspective we could suggest that we are creating what Sassure would term a linguistic sign. This would argue that the keywords entered into Google are the signifier and what is returned from Google is the signified. Both of them together compose the linguistic sign. However, this is exactly the type of thinking we are trying to avoid. There are two clear problems with this type of thinking. The first, as I have mentioned above, is the failure to represent a post-linguistic mode of thinking. To think in terms of linguistic signs means language is a necessary component. The main issue I have with this problem is that language is not always a component of life. In other words, things occur without language (e.g. geological stratification). The second problem Sassure's linguistic sign does not inform us how Google functions as a machine. This is the advantage of replacing the linguistic sign with the idea that the keywords are attractors. Attractors have the benefit of helping to provide an explanation for when a system reaches a stable point. If we return to the football example, we can see how the goals explain how the game settles after 90minutes. Of course, the goals, as attractors, do not fully explain the result of a game. There are other relations of exteriority that require recognition: players, ball, referee, rules…However, the attractors in a system are not there to offer a full explanation, and instead the focus of the analysis should concentrate on how the attractors affect the behaviour of a (dynamic) system. In the case of the keywords entered into Google these influence the behaviour of the sorting machine and explain the emergence of a settled state. In this system the settled state is the website created after a search is executed (i.e. the return page). The point is each time we enter keywords into Google.com we are providing the sorting machine with an attractor. The attractor enters into the system of Google, which can be thought of as the algorithm(s) Google use to download, index, and rank online documents. On the whole, maybe it would be more accurate to realise we are not entering a signifier into Google, but actually entering an attractor. In addition, attractors, in a nonlinear world, continually influence the behaviour and movements of systems throughout the world.

[1] Brian Massumi, Parables For the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation (London: Duke University Press, 2002) p72

Good and Evil versus Good and Bad

2008-03-21T12:53:00.004Z

According to Deleuze, in Nietzsche and Philosophy, Nietzsche holds an important distinction between active and reactive forces. One of the defining characteristics of reactive forces is they create a distinction between good and evil. In other words, they create a hierarchy. An example of reactive forces is what Nietzsche terms resentment, and is associated with 'slave morality'. The problem with resentiment, as a reactive force, is it says No to life, it is a negation instead of affirmation. We can think of the command 'Thou Shalt Not' as a illustration of reactive forces. The problem of resentment, according to Nietzsche, is we are unable to admire (or even love!) our enemies:

'How much respect has a noble person for his enemies! and such respect is already a bridge of love. After all, he demand his enemy for himself, as his distinction; he can stand no enemy but one in whom to be honored. Conversely, imagine "the enemy" as conceived by a man of resentment - and here is precisely is his deed, his creation: he has conceived "the evil enemy", "the evil one" - and indeed as the fundamental concept from which he then derives, as an after image and counterinstance, a "good one" - himself.' (The Portable Nietzsche, p452)

In other words, resentment, as a reactive force, generates an evil (the other), which produces a good (us). It is hard not to realise that resentment is (omi)present in today's world. Is the war on terror not a war fueled on resentment? We have the axis of evil as the other, and the "good one" as the 'civilised' west (or even the 'coalition of the willing'!)

The problem with resentment is it not only causes a group to resent others as evil, it also acts to repress those who resent. As Deleuze and Guattari would say it is 'desiring our own repression.' An example from a film can illustrate the process of desiring our repression through resentment.

In V for Vendetta a fascist government gets (democratically) voted into the UK government. On the whole, the fascist government gains power through an emergence of resentment of the other, which is viewed as evil. Once the fascist party is in power the removal of the other from the UK occurs. Anyone who is not white and heterosexual is removed from the UK. Through removing the other the British people repress themselves. Instead of affirming life they negate life through creating a majoritarian identity. The majoritarian identity functions as an inhibitor on what people can become. This is the important (ethical) point to realise. That resentment, as a reactive force, represses those who resent.

deleuze's ethics

2008-03-17T16:55:00.003Z

I am in the process of trying to construct an idea of Deleuzian ethics. So far it seems we can find Deleuze's ethics from his understanding of Spinoza, his reading of Nietzsche's eternal return, and Nietzsche's division between active and reactive forces.

here is a quote from Deleuze's 'Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza':

'For according to Spinoza, Good has no more sense than Evil: in Nature there is neither Good nor Evil...But because there is no Good or Evil, this does not mean all distinctions vanish. There is no Good or Evil in Nature, but there are good and bad things for each existing mode...As Nietzsche put it, "beyond good and evil...at least this does not mean 'beyond good and bad'"...The distinction between good things and bad provides the basis for a real ethical difference, which we must substitute for a false moral opposition.' (p253-254)

As DeLanda would say, we need an ethics of assemblage, which should move beyond abstractions and into real experiences/differences. this is thinking ethically.

Any (more) philosophy Blogs?

2008-03-01T18:10:00.002Z

I was just wondering if there was any (good) philosophy blogs you could recommend that are absent from my Blog role.

I have tried checking through Technorati, but most of the returns are not really worth a reading.

New Blog Pole

2008-02-27T10:30:00.003Z

Hi All,

Struggles with Philosophy has a new blog pole running. This time it is asking for your favourite 19th Century Philosopher. The choices are:

Friedrich Nietzsche;
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel;
Soren Kierkegaard;
Gottlob Frege;
John Stuart Mill;
Karl Marx.

the voting box is on the top right of the website.

Let me know if I have missed out any of your favourites.

Nice Interconnected Quotes

2008-02-26T21:30:00.003Z

'Always Historicize' Frederic Jameson

"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people." Karl Marx

"God is Dead" Friedrich Nietzsche

"Marx got it wrong! Opium is the opium of the people. we have now become materialists" Rick Roderick

New philosophy blog

2008-02-26T20:59:00.003Z

News of a new blog from John Protevi:

'In other news, I’ve got a newish group blog I’m trying to promote called “Meta-Philosophy: Reflections on the Practices and Institutions of Philosophy.”

As the title indicates, we’d like to provide a forum for discussion of issues relative to philosophy in the world and in the university. Here is the URL:

http://proteviblog.typepad.com/metaphilosophy/

DeLanda and Protevi Discussion

2008-02-22T11:25:00.006Z

I came across this excellent discussion between Manuel DeLanda and John Protevi, which is called Deleuzian Interrogations (PDF file).

It is interesting how Protevi argues the philosophy division should not be drawn between "continental vs analytic", but instead "realist vs anti-realist". So who are the non-realists? DeLanda, when speaking about literary criticism and cultural studies departments, lists the non-realists as social constructivists, idealists, and postmodern semiotics. Now this is interesting, as throughout DeLanda's writings, and presentations for the European Graduate School, he firmly claims Deleuze is a realist. In Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy DeLanda writes:

"When confronted with Deleuze's orginal texts this audience (i.e. analytical philosophers) is bound to be puzzled, and may even be repelled by the superficial similarity of these texts with books belonging to what has come to be known as the "post-modern" tradition. Although as I argue in these pages Deleuze has nothing in common with that tradition" (p3)

DeLanda latter goes onto claim:

There are philosophers who grant reality full autonomy from the human mind, disregarding the difference between the observable and the unobservable, and the anthropocentricism this distinction implies. These philosophers are said to have a realist ontology. Deleuze is such a realist philosopher, a fact that by itself should distinguish him from most post-modern philosophers which remain basically non-realist (p4)

Now, with the idea/argument Deleuze is not a post-modern philosopher I completely agree. If anything, his books are aimed moving 'us' through the post-modern impasse. However, throughout DeLanda's books there is usually kind references to Michel Foucault. The question is where does this leave Michel Foucault on the realist/anti-realist divide?

Stratification (Part 2)

2008-02-21T15:13:00.006Z

A follow up to a previous post:

'Philosophy needs a nonphilosophy that comprehends it' (What is Philosophy? Delueze and Guattari, p218)

For Deleuze and Guattari there ‘occurs upon earth a very important, inevitable phenomenon that is beneficial in many respects and unfortunate in many others: Stratification.’[1] Stratification, a machinic process, produces hierarchies. These hierarchies are not abstract, but materially present. The example of geological stratification demonstrates stratification is not an abstract phenomenon, but something that continual occurs in everyday life. This led me to think about search engines, and in particular Google’s PageRank.

At one point in the 1990s the whole of the Internet could be contained within a single mainframe of a computer. Once this was no longer possible a critical threshold was passed, and a problem was encountered. The problem was how to find websites on the WWW? This was how the phrase ‘surfing the Internet’ came about, ‘using the Internet used to be (and in some cases still is) like looking for a needle in a haystack, and basically what one did in order to find something was ‘surf’ from one site to another until one found it.’[2] Print culture also attempted to combat the problem of finding ‘stuff’ on the WWW. Books, Magazines, and Newspapers would print lists of ‘useful’ websites. Then along came search engines. These search engines allow browser to input keywords, and then return websites relational to these keywords. However, the returning of these websites is a stratification process. For example, Google use a software programme called PageRank, made by Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. In simple terms, PageRank uses the vast link structure of the WWW to judge the importance of an individual’s page’s value. It is here I want to remember Delezue and Guattari’s argument that stratification is a process of double articulation. The idea of double articulation is there is (at least) two distinct, yet interconnected, process of stratification. The first process is the gathering of ‘things/materials’. Google do this each day as their vast machinic assemblage downloads the Internet everyday. The second process is the ordering of these ‘things/materials’ into hierarchies. Google do this every time a search is entered into Google.com. The websites are returned in ranked ‘layers’ after the search is performed. In real terms PageRank judges the websites, and reinforces Deleuze and Guattari’s strange, and important, claim hierarchies/strata are judgements of (an immanent) God.
Is this stratification beneficial of unfortunate? I have my own views, and do not want to impose them. Instead, I suggest you go to http://www.google.com/, enter a search, and think about how the websites are ranked? What is first? What is lower ranked? What is excluded?

[1] Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus p45
[2] Ian Buchanan, “Deleuze and the Internet” Australian Humanities Review Issue 43 2007

Life Returns to the Accursed Share

2008-02-20T18:34:00.003Z

Good news. After a period of inactivity life has (re)emerged on the accursed share blog. the quality of content has always been high, and this is no different from the last couple of posts. Time permitting, I hope to reply to them in more detail than the comments I have left.

Philosophical Frontiers Journal

2008-02-19T18:08:00.001Z

The Journal Philosophical Frontiers is now available online.

It can be reached here.

from waht I can make out it is free to access.

Towards Media Studies 2.0?

2008-02-19T11:49:00.002Z

An excellent account of media studies, and an argument for media studies 2.o. can be read here.

[...]MEDIA STUDIES 2.0Responding to his critics in his 1968 Playboy interview, McLuhan acerbically commented, ‘for all their lamentations, the revolution has already taken place’. Whether his critics ever later grasped that is a moot point but everyone in media studies today faces an equivalent challenge: something is happening and the only important question is do you know what it is?I began to notice it when I thought about my son’s media world compared to my own at his age. The only difference between the world I grew up in and my parents was that I had two more TV channels and my better-off friends had colour TV. Within the decade the same friends would have a VCR too, though we had to wait till the late 1980s until prices fell for it to be anything other than a luxury. This was a world of separate and more limited forms: the telephone (that you didn’t own) was screwed to the wall and couldn’t take photographs; you couldn’t get the radio on your television; films didn’t have special features, games or Easter eggs and no-one tried to hack into your television to steal your money or identity. Between my childhood media world and my son’s there is a chasm[...]

How are you Stratified?

2008-02-15T21:27:00.006Z

'Perhaps rocks hold some of the keys to understanding sedimentary humanity, and all their mixtures' (A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History, Manuel DeLanda, 1997: p70)

Sorting machines are all around us. These sorting machines function to stratify life through taking a multiplicity of heterogeneous ‘things’ and ordering them into stratified layers. These stratified layers act as hierarchies, because the sorting machines organised the heterogeneous ‘things’ into ranking layers. Sorting machines are present in both natural and cultural environments. To demonstrate that sorting machines are both human and non-human I will describe a natural sorting machine, and then consider human sorting machines. However, as nature and humans live in flat ontology, which means they co-exist, the separation of humans and nature is an ideal separation that no longer exists. The separation is merely used to imply that sorting machines are not only a dynamic of human habits.
An example of a natural sorting machine, which could occur without human presence, is the process of geological stratification. In geology, the process of stratification means rocky materials are layered into strata, which are stacked on top of each other. The problem is these strata are not pre-formed, as ‘pebbles do not come in standard sizes and shapes, some kind of sorting mechanism must be involved here, some specific device to take a multiplicity of pebbles of heterogeneous qualities and distribute them into a more or less uniform layers’ (DeLanda p59-60). This means geological strata literally have to be constructed, and this construction requires (at least) two distinct operations. The first operation is the gathering of the rocky materials. According to DeLanda, rivers, which gather the rocky materials that (eventually) form the strata, act as verifiable hydraulic computers. Rivers transport the rocky materials from their point of origin to the bottom of the oceans, where the materials accumulate. In the river the rocky materials are sorted as various pebbles reacts differently in the water transporting them, as the various grain sizes, and intensity of the river, will determine the rate of transportation for the rocky material. The second operation of geological stratification is the collection of the loose pebbles into a large-scale entity, known as sedimentary rock. In this operation there is cementing of the components into a new emergent property, which now has properties of its own. Substances in the water, such as silica or hematite, penetrate the sediment, and, eventual, cause stratification, which produces strata. (See A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History, DeLanda, p59-61).

In A Thousand Plateaus Deleuze and Guattari make the strange, and important, claim that strata are judgements of God (ATP p45). This claim is plausible because stratification is the formation of hierarchies in the world by sorting machines. These social machines form strata, gathering different heterogeneous components, and processing them into a rank and/or order. These ranks and orders are the judgements of God. The question is therefore how do these judgements function in everyday social life? Two practical examples can illustrate the continual of judgements of ‘God’ as life is stratified by sorting machines. The first example is codification of educational (undergraduate) degrees. On the whole, the University system stratifies the educational experience into a hierarchical ranking system. This allows universities to award different levels of degrees (e.g. First Class: Second Class; Third Class). Therefore, the students proceed through the ‘university machine’ so they can become stratified. It is expected that this stratification will reflect their ‘academic knowledge’ and further their potential employability. The second example of Stratification is how Tesco use information gathered from consumers using their clubcards. This information flows into the Tesco organisation, and allows them to classification their consumers. Consumers can be classified, for example, as value customers, which means they predominantly purchase Tesco Value products, or classified as finest customers, which means they predominantly purchase Tesco Finest products. The consumers of Tesco, through using their clubcard, are transformed in larger-scale entities, which Tesco create and use for management of their business. In both Universities, and Tesco, there is judgement of ‘God’, which means a form of hierarchal stratification is occurring. It is therefore important to understand how various sorting machines are forming strata in life, both in the human and natural sciences.

New chapter from Shaviro

2008-02-14T20:54:00.002Z

Sorry about the lacks of posts recently, the PhD work has had to take priority at the moment.

Shaviro has posted another draft chapter, which discusses Whitehead's God. From the draft chapter's I have read from Shaviro they are all worth a reading and of high quality.

Existence as a game of chance

2008-01-28T22:39:00.000Z

In Nietzsche and Philosophy Deleuze discusses the importance of thinking about existence in terms of a game. This game has two moments and compounded with a third term. The first moment is the affirmation of becoming, the second is the affirming the being of becoming, and the third term is the player. Importantly, as with all of Deleuze’s philosophy, this game should be considered as immanent production. To describe the game of existence Deleuze considers it in terms of a dice throw. The first moment is when the dice are thrown and the second is when the dice fall back. The dice are thrown from the earth and the sky is where the dice fall back. However, the earth and the sky should not be regarded as two separate worlds, but rather two moments of the same world. Just like midday and midnight.
The significance of the dicethrow is the game brings chance into affirmation. Through throwing the dice the player is affirming chance as the dice are thrown into the sky from the earth. The problem for Deleuze is the player who does not know how to play the game: ‘The bad player.’ The bad player is the player who regards throwing the dice as a purpose, ‘the bad player counts on several throws, on a great number of throws. In this way he makes use of causality and probability to produce a combination that he sees as desirable. He posits this combination itself as an end to be obtained, hidden behind causality’ (p25). The bad player plays for himself. He uses reason and causality to obtain a desired end. He continually roles the dice and resents not obtaining his desired goal or being the purpose for playing. The bad player does not realise that ‘the universe has no purpose, that it has no end to hope for’ (p25). In short the bad player denies the continual affirmation of chance as the game is played to give it a purpose. For example, to play the game as a bad player would believe man is both the end and the purpose. The problem is this approach fails to realise man is part of the game.
Another problem is each dice throw is a different dicethrow. It is not a question of considering several dicethrows as part of the same act, but rather concentrating on each single dicethrow as the dicethrow is the eternal return of difference. Each dicethrow is thrown from the earth into the sky, an individuation, where the eternal return is the second moment. When the dice fall into the sky all the parts of chance are affirmed. I am tempted to say this is when something emerges. However, when something is affirmed in the eternal return it is a singular throw. If we do not view the dicethrow as singular then the act becomes part of the discourse of identity, where each dicethrow is done for the same purpose.
Lastly, the player should be view as tied to the space of the dicethrow. The dynamics of the game mean the dice require the player to throw them (or to pass a force through them). Deleuze states this point in Difference and Repetition, ‘a dynamic space must be defined from the point of view an observer tied to that space, not from an external position’ (p29). Literally, the player ought to be regarded as being plugged into the game. This means the player and the game are part of the single sense that is being realised/actualised.

New online Deleuze Journal

2008-01-22T20:54:00.000Z

From my knowledge here is a new online Deleuze journal.

I've not read any of the papers yet, but the first edition is full of established Deleuzian scholars: Paul Patton; Brian Massumi; Ian Buchanan; John Protevi; Keith Ansell Pearson; Roland Bogue...

Books of 2007?

2008-01-18T16:01:00.000Z

As we emerge into 2008 I was wondering what every ones favourite books or journal articles they have read in 2007 were. These do not have to been published in 2007, but ones you have read in 2007.

Mine were:

1) Manuel DeLanda: 'A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History'

2) Georges Bataille: 'The Accursed Share: Vol 1'

3) Jean Baudrillard: 'The Intelligence of Evil or the Lucidity of the Pact'

The Production of Silence through Noise

2008-01-16T19:40:00.000Z

Ibitsu and Beamer have been engaging in an interesting discussion about silence. These entries can be read here (ibitsu) and here (beamer). I was struck by a line from ibitsu where he writes ‘indeed, linguistically silence is always a very noisy matter’ as ‘the fragility of logocentrism which never lets silence be silent, silence must always be noisy.’ From my understanding the noise of linguistics is also the production of silence, and a noisy silence. To write is therefore the production of noise and the production of silence. They are two entangled processes of writing.

This is not an abstract issue, but a day-today issue. For example one only need concentrate on the (re)writing of historical narratives so history can function to produce the present. Composing historical narratives is not merely the act of providing a mirror image to the past. Instead composing historical narratives is a far more complex and political practice that may actively entail silencing the past. My presumption is historical narratives are written in order to bring linguistic noise to past historical events, but in bringing this noise they also produce silence. I mention this factor as the noise and the silence of these historical narratives can bring attention to how history works in the present.

For example, read these Caribbean historical narratives from the all-inclusive hotel chain Superclubs: Jamaica; Dominican Republic; and the Bahamas. Notice how bringing noise to the past Superclubs also silence the past. All the historical narratives write as if Caribbean history only began when Columbus discovered the ‘new world.’ The pre-Hispanic Caribbean is silenced as the white/male/European perspective is emphasised. In all these narratives the noise would suggest the destination were devoid of human inhabitants before 1492. There is no mention of how the indigenous inhabitants help to make the Spanish as much as the Spanish invented these destinations.

The historical narrative continue in this style, which attempts to silence the pre-Hispanic Caribbean, silence slavery, and silence forms of resistance to colonialism and/or imperialism. Instead the noise of the narratives aims to describe the destination in terms of the benefits the visitors have brought to them. Of course, this noise, and production of silence, is used to remove feelings of guilt and unease about visitors visiting the Caribbean. Which 0f course is beneficial to Superclubs as they are in the business of bringing consumers/visitors to their Caribbean destinations.

Yet the silence is also what haunts their historical narratives. When they create noise to produce silence the silence can emerge as counter-actualisation of noise. A noise Superclubs try to silence. The aim is not to moralise or claim an objective superiority when reading a historical narrative that silences the past through narrating the past, but instead to provide (counter) historical narratives that bring noise to the silence in the text. This noise can act to destabilise the production of silence as historical narratives silence the past.

Zizek writings online

2008-01-15T21:41:00.000Z

Thanks to notebook eleven for bringing this website to my attention www.lacan.com. Especially the list of links for Zizek writings.

Of note are:

ZIZEK OMNIBUS
New on lacan dot com
http://www.lacan.com
http://www.lacan.com/lacan1.htm
CENSORSHIP TODAY: VIOLENCE, OR ECOLOGY AS A NEW OPIUM FOR THE MASSES
Part 1 - http://www.lacan.com/zizecology1.htm
Part 2 - http://www.lacan.com/zizecology2.htm
THE LIBERAL UTOPIA
section I: Against the Politics of Jouissance - http://www.lacan.com/zizliberal.htm
section II: The Market Mechanism for the Race of Devils - http://www.lacan.com/zizliberal2.htm
IDEOLOGY
I. No Man is an Island… - http://www.lacan.com/zizwhiteriot.html
II. Competition is a Sin - http://www.lacan.com/zizdesolationroad.html
III. To Read Too Many Books is Harmful - http://www.lacan.com/zizchemicalbeats.html
ON ALAIN BADIOU AND LOGIQUES DES MONDES
http://www.lacan.com/zizbadman.htm
PHILOSOPHY:
1. Introduction - Spinoza - http://www.lacan.com/zizphilosophy1.htm
2. Kant - Hegel - http://www.lacan.com/zizphilosophy2.htm
3. …and Badiou! - http://www.lacan.com/zizphilosophy3.htm
Leninism Today: Zionism and the Palestinian Question - http://www.lacan.com/zizbarabajal.html
RELIGION:
Cogito, Madness and Religion: Derrida, Foucault and then Lacan - http://www.lacan.com/zizforest.html
Madness and Habit in German Idealism
Discipline between the Two Freedoms: part 1 - http://www.lacan.com/zizdazedandconfused.html
Discipline between the Two Freedoms: part 2 - http://www.lacan.com/zizstairwaytoheaven.html
Only a Suffering God Can Save Us
section 1: Hegel - http://www.lacan.com/zizshadowplay.html
section 2: Kierkegaard - http://www.lacan.com/zizmarqueemoon.html
Radical Evil as a Freudian Category - http://www.lacan.com/zizlovevigilantes.html
Religion between Knowledge and Jouissance - http://www.lacan.com/zizsmokeonthewater.html
Do We Still Live in a World? - http://www.lacan.com/zizrattlesnakeshake.html
HOW TO READ LACAN
1. Introduction - Bibliography - http://www.lacan.com/zizhowto.html
2. Lacan Confronts the CIA Plot - http://www.lacan.com/zizciap.html
3. Lacan Turns a Prayer Wheel - http://www.lacan.com/zizprayer.html
4. Lacan with Wide Eyes Shut - http://www.lacan.com/zizkubrick.htm
5. Lacan as Viewer of Alien - http://www.lacan.com/zizalien.htm
6. Lacan as Viewer of Casablanca - http://www.lacan.com/zizraphael.htm
7. Lacan Plays with Bobok - http://www.lacan.com/zizbobok.html
8. Lacan as a Reader of Bouyeri - http://www.lacan.com/zizbouyeri.html
Woman is One of the Names-of-the-Father (Lacan’s Formulas on Sexuation) - http://www.lacan.com/zizrwoman.htm
The Most Sublime of Hysterics: Hegel with Lacan - http://www.lacan.com/zizlacan2.htm
Connections of the Freudian Field to Philosophy and Popular Culture - http://www.lacan.com/zizlacan3.htm
Kant and Sade: the Ideal Couple - http://www.lacan.com/zizlacan4.htm
Lacan: at What Point is He Hegelian - http://www.lacan.com/zizlacan1.htm
CINEMA:A Pervert’s Guide to Family - http://www.lacan.com/zizfamily.html

Image over Word

2008-01-11T12:45:00.000Z

In his article 'War as Game' James Der Derian claims the reporting of the second Gulf War meant 'once again, the image won out over the word.' The argument is an extremely relevant point, which points towards the dominance of visual images in the contemporary world. To a certain extent this can be traced to the emergence of television as a popular home entertainment appliance. One only needs thinks of the importance of television in the Nixon vs Kennedy debate to consider the political influence visual images play. In this debate the majority of radio listeners had felt Nixon had won the debate. However, in comparison those who watch it on television, who saw a underweight Nixon recently out of hospital, felt Kennedy won the debate. This youtube video is a useful insight into the importance of the medium. watch here.

I mention the importance of visual images in politics as this has once again played an important role in politics. Hilary Clinton's tears, whether real or unreal, was a significant image used to win the recent New Hampshire election. So far her image in the media was unemotional and lacked compassion and those tears helped to overcome this image.

There is a larger, and more significant point to be made, and that is I really could not tell you what any of the main candidate policies are. I do admit I have not been following the elections closely, but when I do listen to them being reported the news is only about poll ratings or the candidates images rather than what they standing for. Maybe Baudrillard was not wrong to claim that we have moved into the simulation of politics as the image wins over the word.

The Politics of Fear and the Democrats

2008-01-08T10:51:00.000Z

Do the Democrats use fear as a technique to play out a Zizekian 'forced choice' of democracy to ensure the 'correct' neoliberal candidate?

According to Something Different they are. Read the argument here.

Beer and Philosophy

2008-01-04T00:16:00.000Z

Zoepolitics has written a nice entry about beer, good and evil, and philosophy. A very interesting post and I can recommend reading it here.

I like the idea about a self overcoming of viewing beer as either good and/or evil. My own 'philosophical' view would be to regard beer from a material Spinoza sense. Which would consider the (virtual) capacity for the beer to affect (not effect) a mode/body. The consumption of beer could therefore be beneficial to one and/or a society/culture. However, there is also those immanent imperceptible becomings where one can pass a critical threshold that means the body no longer consumes the beer, but rather the beer consumes the body - alcoholism.

Gift-Giving in Jamaican Tourism

2007-12-21T00:05:00.001Z

I've been reading a bit of Geogres Bataille and Marcel Mauss recently - especially their concept of 'the gift.' However, I am trying to work the idea of gift-giving into describing some features the Jamaican Tourism Board run on their website. Here is what I have composed so far. I'd be happy to hear comments/criticisms as this is the first time I've used Bataille and Mauss as a resource:

As always, sorry about the spelling and grammar:

Gift-Giving and Jamaican Tourism

On the Jamaican Tourism Board (JTB) website there are two feature’s ‘Be a Jamaican for a Week’ and ‘Meet the People.’ These features I argue are examples of what Marcel Mauss and George Bataille refer to as (contemporary) Gift-giving.[1] For the purpose of this argument, I will define the concept of ‘gift-giving’ in reference to Bataille’s differentiation between a restrictive economy and a general economy. I will then describe the ‘Be a Jamaican for a Week’ and ‘Meet the People’ features advertised on the website to explain how they function as acts of gift-giving. My particular observation is the JTB use the website as part of a strategy to generate a general economy of exchange that coexists with the restricted economic of Jamaican tourism. I will also examine how the Internet is used as a forum to provide a counter-gift to the gift giving practices. This is done through tourists writing review of their experiences of consuming the gift. In general, the practice of gift-giving provides the possible option for ‘contact zones’ of exchange to occur within Caribbean tourism that do not construct the region as merely a commodity for consumption.
In Accursed Share Bataille argues ‘there is a need to study the system of human production and consumption within a much a larger framework’[2] as ‘economic science merely generalizes the isolated situation; it restricts its object to operations carried out with a view to a limited end.’[3] For Bataille, and Mauss, economic rationalism cannot explain all the practices of production and consumption. This type of approach concentrates on a restrictive economy which tries to rationalise (individual) actions from an economical rationale. For example, a person would only expend their energy on an activity if it was an economical prudent decision. In contrast, a general economy is the practice of (cosmic) expenditure that ‘is to go against judgements that form a basis of a rational economy.’[4] This type of expenditure is also a practice of affirmation where ‘to affirm that it is necessary to dissipate a substantial portion of energy produced, sending it up in smoke.’[5] An example of (non-human) expenditure is the sun, which expends its energy, giving life to earth, without asking anything in return.[6]
The act of gift-giving is part of Bataille’s vision of a general economy. Following Mauss, Bataille forms the concept of gift-giving through examining ‘pre-modern’ practices of exchange. One of the main forms of gift-giving is the custom(s) of potlatch. Bataille uses various practices of potlatch, from the tribes of Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and Kwakiutl, to form a concept that is opposed to Western theories of ‘barter.’ Potlatch is classified as a general economy practice while bartering is practiced within a restrictive economy. Practices of potlatch are generally constituted and defined through giving generous gifts. For example, a tribe may expend there energy (i.e. their wealth) to produce a festival for other tribes to consume. The expenditure of wealth, which is not (necessarily) economic wealth[7], is fundamental for the concept of gift-giving. The consumer does not then consume the expenditure of wealth as a commodity, but rather as a gift.
However, despite gift-giving lacking a capitalist and functional logic there are beneficial reasons for expending energy through gift-giving as ‘the gift would be senseless (and so we would never decide to give) if it did not take on some meaning of an acquisition.’[8] For Mauss there is both joy and freedom in gift giving, ‘once again we will shall discover those motives of action still remembered by many society and classes: the joy of giving in public, the delight in generous artistic expenditure, the pleasure of hospitality in the public or private’ and ‘we shall come out of ourselves and regard…giving as a liberty.’[9] Gift-giving, while not economically beneficial or rational, can be beneficial for those expending the energy as they produce a gift to give to the world. At a general level the gift can be something more than its materialism, becoming a symbolic valuable as people customs, which can generate emotional attachments to these practices.[10] Such attachment between the gift and the giver means, for Mauss, ‘to give something is to give part of oneself.’[11]
Mauss and Bataille’s gift-giving concept is not without problems. One of the main problems is how Mauss and Bataille use it to create binary oppositions of exchange: pre-modern exchange and modern exchange; Western exchange and Non-Western exchange; capitalist exchange and non-capitalist exchange. Another problem is gift-giving, as an example of a general economy, can be viewed as being constructed through a naive nostalgia, arguing for a return to primitive societies. My belief is gift-giving does not necessarily need to be attached to a specific period, but can emerge, in the contemporary world, as a practice of exchange. However, the subsumption of capitalism means it is no longer plausible to regard gift-giving as a radical other to the restrictive (capitalist) economy.[12] Instead gift-giving has to be understood as entangled in the exchanges and practices of the restrictive economy. This is how interpret the gift-giving features advertised on the JTB website, where they are not radically separate to commodity (i.e. restrictive) tourism, but rather an example of general economy practices/exchanges occurring within the flow of commodity tourism. I therefore classify gift-giving as contact zones created between ‘Jamaicans’ and ‘tourists’ where an exchange occurs between the two that does not involve them exchange cash. If this occurs then it no longer becomes gift-giving, but rather the tourist purchasing a commodity.
The ‘Be a Jamaican for a Week’ and ‘Meet the People’ are regarded as important aspects of the JTB website. Both of them feature predominantly as hyperlinks on the homepage. Crucially, to regard them as gift-giving exchanges, the JTB do not offer them as products for economic purchase (i.e. commodities). Instead the websites present them as gifts to be consumed. The result is a contact zone between tourist and Jamaican is arranged through these features, but not one where capital exchange dominates the exchange. Instead the two features generate a general economy from the restrictive economy of tourists vacating in Jamaica. The intention is these gift-giving features can (hopefully) provide an inter-change that is beneficial to Jamaica as the Jamaicans give something of their self. Part of the benefit, which associates with the JTB’s desire to create a multi-dimensional Jamaica, is the tourist will experience an exchange that generates an opinion beyond viewing Jamaica as only the Sun, Sand, and Sea.
In the ‘Be a Jamaican for a Week’ the tourist is encouraged to partake in Jamaican cultural activities when visiting the island. The activities listed are: attend a religious service; share Sunday dinner with a Jamaican family; watch or play a cricket match; ‘reason’ or have some ‘veranda talk’; Go a dance; lick two domino; and go a market. Through suggesting these activities the JTB offer them as gifts to be consumed by the tourist, which also offer part of Jamaica. The tourist is meant to ‘get to know our people and culture.’[13] The hope of the JTB is a Jamaican, as a gift of expenditure, can offer the tourist these activities as Jamaican culture. Jamaicans can therefore offer their wealth (i.e. energy and customs) to the tourist. For example, while it may not be economically beneficial for a Jamaican family to give Sunday dinner to a tourist it provides a contact zone of another form.[14] The tourist is immersed into an exchange of customs, food, and habits that are emotional as well material. However, the ‘Be a Jamaican for a Week’ does list some activities that could occur as an exchange of capital, which would remove the gift element and classify it as a commodity. For example, the tourist may consume one, or more, of the activities as a commodity (e.g. being a spectator at a professional cricket match). ‘Be a Jamaican for a week’ is not exclusively promoting a gift-exchange or the purchasing of Jamaica through commodities. It instead they provide suggestions that could either involve the exchange of gifts or commodities.
The JTB website also provides a medium to continue the ‘Meet the People’ program that was launched in 1968. The idea of the program is to provide a platform ‘for travellers seeking insight into the Jamaican experience and the warm welcome of a Jamaican friend.’[15] The JTB act as ‘matchmaker between visitors and Jamaicans’ and is offered to both adults and children visiting the island.[16] In the program people, who are already travelling to Jamaica, can sign-up to spend some of their time with resident Jamaicans. In this time the tourist can participate in a wide range of activities that ‘are uniquely Jamaican…that only locals can create’ through being ‘teamed up with Jamaican hosts or volunteers.’ [17] The website also allows potential participates to sign-up for ‘meet the people’ online. Importantly, for conceptualising in gift-giving terms, the program is offered as a free experience for the tourist to consume.
Throughout the ‘Meet the People’ website (http://www.meetthepoeplevisitjamaica.com/) a discourse of gift-giving figures predominantly. The JTB refer to it as ‘our treat to welcome you to Jamaica and share the sights, sounds, and flavours of our majestic island paradise.’[18] The use of paradise as reference to Jamaica reverses the normal associations of Jamaica (and the Caribbean) as paradise. Instead of Jamaica being the paradise of those who travel, which allows them to escape the ‘civilised’ world, paradise is used as a territorial signature. The territorial signature places the emphasis that Jamaica, as a ‘majestic paradise’ is not the property of those visiting, but rather the territory of (resident) Jamaicans. Jamaica, as a paradise, is then offered as a gift, which also implies it should be respected as a gift. The discourse of gift-giving continues as the JTB write ‘this program is made possible by the generosity of Jamaicans’ and ‘remember it’s our treat.’[19] Once again the ownership of the gift is emphasised as the JTB refer to it as ‘our treat’ and ‘generosity of Jamaicans.’ The idea is that Jamaicans, through expenditure, provide ‘meet the people’ as something to give as part of themselves, but also something ‘uniquely Jamaican.’ The tourist then consumes Jamaica not as a commodity, which they have purchased, but rather as a gift they have signed up for. As with ‘Be a Jamaican for a Week’ the ‘Meet the People’ program is not a radical other challenging restrictive economic exchanges. The tourist will have (probably) already purchased their holiday, or travel arrangements, to Jamaica, and only signed-up to ‘Meet the People’ as an additional extra. However, the exchange, or contact zone, created between the tourist and Jamaica is one of a general exchange. This is an important aspects, which suggests ‘Jamaican’ activities, customs, traditions, and life is not (entirely) for sale as a commodity. Instead it can be offered as a gift, and even a gift with a personal characteristic, as the volunteers in the program can provide a personal gift to the tourist rather than a standardised product (e.g. all-inclusive hotels). This characteristic provides one of the key ideas behind Bataille’s notion of the gift, which views intimacy as a crucial component

[1] See Marcel Mauss, The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange (Norfolk: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1974) & Georges Bataille, The Accursed Shared: Vol I translated by Robert Hurley (New York: Zone Books, 1991)
[2] Georges Bataille, The Accursed Shared: Vol I p20
[3] Georges Bataille, The Accursed Shared: Vol I p23
[4] Georges Bataille, The Accursed Shared: Vol p22
[5] Georges Bataille, The Accursed Shared: Vol I p22
[6] ‘The sun gives without ever receiving…Solar radiation results in superabundance of energy on the surface of the globe.’ Georges Bataille, The Accursed Shared: Vol I p28-29
[7] Wealth can be more generally defined as having energy to expend and not merely capital wealth, and what is important is how this wealth (i.e. energy) is spent: ‘the excess energy (wealth) can be used for the growth of a system (i.e. organism); if a system can no longer grow, or if the excess cannot be completely adsorbed in its growth, it most necessarily be lost without profit; it must be spent, willingly or not, gloriously or catastrophically.’ Georges Bataille, The Accursed Shared: Vol I p21
[8] Georges Bataille, The Accursed Share: Vol I p69
[9] Marcel Mauss, The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange p67-69
[10] A engagement ring is an example of a material item taking on symbolic and emotional meaning.
[11] Marcel Mauss, The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange p10
[12] Hardt and Negri argue subsumption is now a total effect, where all social relations are subsumed by capital, see Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri, Empire (London: Harvard University Press, 2000)
[13] ‘Be a Jamaican for a Week’ Jamaican Tourist Board (http://www.visitjamaica.com/home/home_feature.aspx?guid=de4b2176-79d1-4cf4-8f88-d7abac8a008a, 24th September 2007)
[14] Importantly, the family does need to buy the (additional) food for the guest, but this type of gift-giving is similar to a party where all the drink, food, entertainment and so forth are supplied by the organiser, which makes economic exchange at the party meaningless or relatively unimportant. This means other types of exchanges occur (e.g. communication, music, customs…)
[15] ‘Meet the People’ Jamaican Tourist Board (http://meetthepeople.visitjamaica.com/home/default.aspx, 30th September, 2007)
[16] ‘Meet the People’ Jamaican Tourist Board
[17] ‘Meet the People’ Jamaican Tourist Board
[18] ‘Meet the People’ Jamaican Tourist Board (Italics added by myself)
[19] ‘Meet the People’ Jamaican Tourist Board (Italics added by myself)

Deleuze Poll

2007-12-21T00:00:00.000Z

Hi all,

The new struggles with philosophy poll is up and running. this time I've decided to ask your favourite Gilles Deleuze book. I'm sorry I could not put more of them available to vote on, but there is only a limited space. However, I think I have put the main ones up. Although I would have liked to include the Cinema books.

the threat of blogs...

2007-12-16T22:42:00.000Z

I’ve been amusing myself with watching some Bill O’Reilly clips on Youtube. Rather than speak about his style of interviewing or political beliefs, which are most commonly discussed, I was curious about his thoughts on blogs. He basically regarded blogs as where the far left would generate and spread conspiracy theories. What interested me about this point was it demonstrated the broadcast model of the first media age feels threatened by the second media age. What I mean is the ideological interpellation that Althussar identifies becomes difficult as mediums are more participatory and not only Debord’s ‘Society of Spectacle.’ In other words it makes the flowing of a hegemonic discourse more problematic as different mediums enter into everyday life. I found it funny to hear O’Reilly dismiss these blogs, which came across as TV being threatened by the Internet. Also related, it is interesting to note that paper circulation has fallen in the UK and USA. This is not to claim ‘TV is dead’, but rather imply (some) assemblages are in what DeLanda terms as phase transitions. It will be interesting to see how these phase transitions play out, or ‘solidify.’

*The second media age is a concept created by Mark Poster in 1995, which is basically used to argue that ‘new media’ are entering us into a new period.

Political Ontology - living in the web

2007-12-15T15:45:00.000Z

Larval has written an interesting post about the interconnection of folding and unfolding, or what I understand as metamorphosis. I will not be able to do justice to the contents of the post, which can be read here. In terms of my interest I would like to focus on this section:

But if the fly is nothing but folds or weavings of the web, a product or creation of the web in the robust sense that an origami bird is not other than the paper out of which it is made but is itself continuous with that paper as a topological variation of its substance, then how can creations of the fly be anything but creations, foldings, weavings of the web of social relations? That is, how can they be anything but ways of strengthening the web.

There is great appeal in thinking politically about the point larval is making. This is what I call 'plateau thinking', where a quest for a transcendental signified, or essence, is rejected in preference of accepting immanent existence at this point in time. In other words, we are continual within the middle of a flux (or difference) without a teleological purpose causing the flux. Questions of agency, and transformation, then require focusing on how we can (intensively) fold and unfold that which is already present. Abstraction gives ways to experimentation. An example, which DeLanda uses, is adding fertilizer to the soil in order to help grow crops. Adding a certain amount will be beneficial while passing a certain critical threshold will poison the soil and kill the crops. The relations between the soil, crop, and fertilizer will be strengthened only if the ‘correct’ amount of fertilizer is added to the assemblage. However, this is not implying that the correct amount becomes a law, or atemporal figure. Instead the correct amount is dependent on ontology, which means the soil type/mixture, crop type, ecosystem, fertilizer type/mixture…would all be (quasi)causal interconnected dynamical factors.

The difficulty, and danger, of this type of thinking, which gives preference to ontology, is experimentation offers no promises or guarantees. This is because the web is all interconnect and open to other (cosmic) forces. For example, the field (i.e. territory) containing the soil, crops, and fertilizer may be destroyed from a weather system. In this sense the field has been opened too much to the forces of detteritorialisation. Deleuze and Guattari realize this factor and throughout warn against excessive openness and practices:

There in fact botching the BwO: either on fails to produce it, or one produces it more or less, but nothing is produced on it, intensities do not pass or are blocked. This is because the BwO is always swinging between the surfaces that stratify it and the plane that sets it free. If you free it with too violent an action, if you blow apart the strata without taking precautions, then instead of drawing the plane you will be killed, plunged into a black hole, or even dragged toward catastrophe (A Thousand Plateaus, p178).

The political impetus then is to focus on how experimentation can occur within the web, which will fold and unfold the web, without risking excessive detteritorialisation, and can instead strengthen the web.

A brief thought on the culture industry

2007-12-14T13:47:00.000Z

‘Those listening to light music are depoliticised’ (p55)

For Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer media technologies are regarded as part of the culture industry. The development of mass media, such as radio and television, has served the ideological purposes of capitalism. Rather than class antagonisms causing a dialectical conflict within society the masses are pacified through the culture industry. A master-slave dialectic is created where the culture industry (master) dominates the masses (slave) through the commodification of all cultural products. Crucially Adorno believes the culture industry is an attack on freedom through standardisation; ‘It [the culture industry] proclaims: you shall conform…The power of the culture’s industry’s ideology is such conformity has replaced consciousness.’ (p104). Individual freedom (consciousness) is lost as the masses conform to the purchasing of cultural products produce by the culture industry (e.g. going to the cinema). Adorno approach to media analysis would be to understand how the serve the ideological purpose of the culture industry.

Adorno’s concept of the culture industry ought to be admired for two reasons. The first is for the recognition that media should not be detached from the economic situation. Products, which are part of the culture industry, are ‘tailored for consumption.’ (p99). The second is his argument that the media can produce, or at least alter, (popular) culture. In other words, media companies and industries serve as an important aspect of understanding the production of culture.
However, Adorno’s concept of the culture industry fails on three accounts. The first is his argument that media, as part of the culture, creates a depolitical population. This negative and simplistic account removes any political potential media technologies may offer society. The second, and related to the first, is Adorno’s separation between the media and the masses. For him the media works through a broadcast model where there is a distinction between producers and consumers. This position seems untenable in the second media age (see Poster, 1995) where there are multiple producers and consumers. The consumers are no longer only consumers, but also producers. In this sense the distinction between the media and the masses is lost as it becomes entangled into an integrated relationship. The individual is now an active participant in the decentred technologies of new media. Another problem is Adorno and Horkheimer claim there is only one culture industry. My belief is this forms a top-down approach that fails to account for the specific types of cultural industries. Transformations within the culture industry, as emergent properties, are relatively unimportant for Adorno and Horkheimer as these only serve to further the dominance of the culture industry. For example, counter or sub-cultures are disregarded through failing to move beyond capitalism and being consumed by the culture industry. My belief is these alterations within the culture industry are important for transforming the coexistence and relations of the ‘masses’ with each other. While they may fail to transcend the limits of capital they can generate important transformations.

*All references are from T.W. Adorno 'The Culture Industry' (London: Routledge, 2001)

Habermas Wins

2007-12-04T16:31:00.000Z

Habermas, i think deservedly, won, with 35% of the votes. While I have never been drawn to his project(s), and view his separation of the lifeworld troublesome, I can understand why his work is one of the greats in 20th century thought. I also admire his effort to save the project of modernity and enlightenment.

My vote went to Walter Benjamin. Maybe this is because i situate myself in media studies, and Benjamin was able to consider how the 'medium is the message'. In addition, he avoided the high humanist critique of media seen in the work of Adorno and Horkheimer. While not being uncritical of mechanical, or film, (re)production, Benjamin could argue there were beneficial circumstances to this development.

I am undecided what the next poll will be, but I'll post it in a few days.

materialism

2007-12-01T02:54:00.001Z

just a short comment, but how cool does DeLanda make materialism without relating it only to political economy.

Before reading Deleuze and DeLanda I think i was in the idealist mindset, only because i thought materialism could not answer questions about social constructivism. However, the materialism that DeLanda produces from Deleuze helps to avoid a lot of idealism and put the focus on ontology before thought/beliefs.

Here are a links to the lectures.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKIsA8yhP58
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52IAUvfXHaQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1ujGqlvNew&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN_G7kmE2VU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7Z48KTYdIw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2Ye5YaclTk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE6mcoAi-XY&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-aHOKZjlfc&feature=related

I also think DeLanda's reading of Deleuze should avoid people thinking his philosophy is postmodern. If anything Deleuze is the most realist thinker i have ever come across.

Baudrillard Abstract

2007-11-27T16:38:00.000Z

Here is my abstract for the paper I will be giving at the Baudrillard workshop that is happening tomorrow at Newcastle University:

Title: International Relations of Deterrence Machines: Taking the Trivial Seriously

Abstract: Baudrillard, throughout his career, took consumption seriously and in the spirit of continuing to take consumption seriously this paper argues the discipline of International Relations (IR) now needs to consider international tourism as a body of study. My main argument is there requires an understanding of what Jean Baudrillard labels ‘deterrence machines’ in global tourism. For Baudrillard these deterrence machines do not function upon a true or false dichotomy, but rather creates a (false) reality principle of distinguishing between the real and unreal. (In)Famously Baudrillard provides the example of Disneyland, as a deterrence machine, which serves to convince people that inside Disneyland is fantasy and imaginary, while outside Disneyland, the USA, is the real. The paper extends this observation to examine how the Caribbean is produced as a deterrence machine in what Mark Poster has called ‘The Second Media Age.’ The focus is on how people, through consumption, and second media age technologies, encounter Caribbean tourism as product to create their self-identity. The result is time has moved on from Descartes’ ‘I think, therefore I am’ to Massumi’s ‘I Shop, therefore I am.

Against ID cards

2007-11-24T16:26:00.000Z

Thanks for Thom for this news.

For British citizen's you can sign up to a petition against bringing in ID cards (here). Personally, I feel they are a great waste of money, and not something I want to trust to as part of the state apparatus.

Baudrillard and Simulacrum

2007-11-16T15:04:00.000Z

In an interview Baudrillard reveals the strain of thinking about simulation, 'I stopped working on simulation. I felt I was going totally nuts.' I can understand why Baudrillard would say this, as I am working on an essay about Baudrillard for the workshop at Newcastle.

Here is a short section from it. i would be happy to hear comments. My main purpose is to try and make Baudrillard into a (sort of) Deleuzian, which should hopefully remove the perverse platonism in Baudrillard:

In Merrin’s assessment, the majority of Baudrillard’s commentators have simplistically critiqued, and misunderstood, the concept of the simulacrum (see Best and Keller, 1991). For Merrin they fail to grasp that Baudrillard adopts a critical stance towards the simulacra, which privileges the symbolic. This means to challenge Baudrillard ‘we must oppose him not with the real but with the simulacrum, not rejecting but accepting, employing and escalating its force to challenge his work’ (Merrin, 2005: p30).
One of the few works I have found attempting to turn Baudrillard against himself is a short essay by Brian Massumi. Written from a Deleuzian perspective Massumi is able to argue simulation both replaces a real that did exist and is all there has ever been. The result is Massumi adopts a paradoxical position of believing simulation is both transhistorical and historical. To understand simulation, for Massumi, means focusing on how ‘simulation takes as its point of departure a regularized world comprising stable identities. But these “real” entities are in fact undercover simulacra’ (Massumi, 1987). Simulation is then a process of immanent becoming, with no foundational referent, but rather an appropriation of reality to alter and metamorphosis life. There is only ‘simulation upon simulation’ (Massumi, 1987).
However, for Baudrillard the referent, or what we call reality, is the symbolic, which is outside the process of the dominant semiotic processes. The symbolic is excluded from the semiotic, as the symbolic is an external threat to the semiotic, which can cause a rupture in the semiotic. Yet, Lyotard, and Merrin, have both critiqued the privileging of the symbolic as producing another simulacrum. Lyotard has labelled this privileging of the symbolic as the creation of a ‘good’ savage simulacrum, which holds nostalgia for the past in order to challenge the present. I completely agree with Lyotard’s assessment, and the ‘good’ savage is nothing other than another simulacrum. However, simulacrum become crucial, as it is through the production of simulacrum that life is lived. The production of simulacrum should be regarded as the creation of habit, the creation of machines, the creation of assemblages, and so forth. Baudrillard recognises this, claiming ‘the simulator produces’ (Baudrillard, 1983: p5). Simulacra may then also be a form of empowerment, and not only to be regarded as domination.
It is my belief Baudrillard’s orders of simulacra are aimed to comprehend different blocs of becoming. These blocks of becoming are how life is produced. The names attached to these blocs of becoming are arbitrary and unimportant. What is important is the recognition that something different is occurring, ‘becoming produces nothing other than itself. We fall into a false alternative if we say that you either imitate or you are. What is real is the becoming itself, the block of becoming, not the supposedly fixed terms through which becoming passes’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 2004: p262). Baudrillard is then proposing the orders of simulacra to argue, in comparison to other ages of production (counterfeit and industrial production), the affirmation of the contemporary world is different. This is why Baudrillard is complementary to Walter Benjamin and Marshall McLuhan, who were both able to understand the significance of new mediums entering into production processes.

When theory meets practice

2007-11-14T15:24:00.000Z

There is an intereting article here, which describes how the israeli defence have been influenced by recent theories and philosophy.

Baudrillard Workshop at Newcastle University

2007-11-13T12:58:00.000Z

If you'd like to spend some time in Newcastle, here is an event that might be of some interest to you:

Baudrillard & International Politics

Geography, Politics, and Sociology Workshop
28th November 2007
1-6pm
Bedson Building Room 1.48
Newcastle University

Plenary Speakers:

Paul Hegarty (University of Cork),
author of ‘Jean Baudrillard: Live Theory’

William Merrin (University of Swansea),
author of ‘Baudrillard and the Media’

Aim: To consider the (ir)relevance of Jean Baudrillard for understanding international politics. A selection of presentations, from academics and postgraduate candidates, will be given on the topic. In addition, after the presentations, there is time scheduled for a roundtable discussion.

The workshop is free to attend, and we envision a lively interaction between participants. Due to a limited capacity, could you please contact Mark Edward (m.d.edward@ncl.ac.uk) if you would like to attend. Deadline for registration is 22nd November 2007.

New Blog Pole

2007-11-05T18:06:00.000Z

I am happy to announce the latest blog pole for struggleswithphilosophy. This month the pole is on the Frankfurt School, a group of thinkers that have inspired and interested me for a few years.

On another note, I am slowly making my way through Badiou's Being and Event, and also Hallward's Badiou: A Subject to Truth. Nick, from the accursed share, has writing a nice entry about the issues of Badiou's immanent ontology and politics, while comparing it to the immanent ontology of Deleuze (and Hardt & Negri). I have yet to formulate my own opinions on Badiou, but I have so far found his denial of the virtual, and the formulation of nothingness (the void) in contrast to the way I view ontology, which concentrates on the ontology of the present. I find this works towards a more affirmative way of thinking. I'll write a more detailed entry once I finish the reading and have developed coherent ideas.

more stuff on academic publishing

2007-11-04T11:22:00.000Z

Steve Shaviro has writing an interesting blog post regarding publishing rights for academic authors. In the end of the post he makes an interesting point:

In particular, it’s pathetic that academics in the “humanities” don’t have the sort of network for distributing their research online in the way that scientists and certain groups of social scientists do. Putting up pdfs on my own website will have to suffice for now.

This brings me back to another post I wrote regarding the insignificant use of the Internet in disseminating academic research/writing on the web (read here). From Shaviro's position there could also be the advantage of authors having more control over their work, rather than the publishers. This could allow the author to reproduce their work in other forms of the media (e.g. blogs), giving access to more people, without worrying if copyright infringements are occurring. It is not as if the quality of the papers submitted would fall in quality. A group of established academics could even set up their own blog that would accept articles, through email, for a particular subject/discipline. Once the articles are peered reviewed then the articles could be uploaded as pdf files for readers to download. The advantages are the blog is free to set up and the access to students/academics/non-academic readers is free.

Draft Intro chapter - Second Media Age and cognitive mapping

2007-10-30T22:42:00.000Z

Mark Poster’s ‘Second Media Age’

The above example (coming soon as blog entry) is used as a narrative to suggest the Caribbean has entered into what Mark Poster, in 1995, has termed the Second Media Age. This second media age, while not a new concept, is something Caribbean Studies has so far paid little attention towards. In order to address this situation the dissertation intends to provide the reader with a cognitive map of how the Caribbean is being produced in the second media age. In this section I want to concentrate on describing and defending Mark Poster’s concept.
In general, the second media age differentiates itself from the first media age through being more interactive. This is due to the first media age being based on a broadcast model, creating the circumstances of film, radio, and television having a small number of producers sending information to a large amount of consumers.[1] This meant a film, for example, could reach a significant amount of the world’s population. These people would then be consumers of what Guy Debord referred to as the spectacle. In academic terms, the broadcast model of the first media age generated a debate between those arguing for the democratic possibilities (McLuhan, Benjamin, & Enzensberger), and those arguing the immanent dangers to liberty and freedom (Adorno, Habermas, & Jameson).[2] While these debates composed interesting insights for media and cultural theory, the development of new media technology has, to a certain extent, shifted the foundations of the debate as ‘new media may be seen as creating a major force that is uncontainable by’ theories of the first media age.[3] The limitations of the first media age theory then require exposure through beginning with the critics of the broadcast model – Duhamel, Adorno, and Habermas.
For Duhamel the invention of mass cinema held no benefits for consumers: ‘a pastime for helots, a diversion for the uneducated, wretched, worn-out creatures who are consumed by their worries…, a spectacle which requires no concentration and presupposes no intelligence.’[4] As part of the broadcast mode, cinema, from Duhamel’s perspective, created nothing more than a spectacle for the viewer consume. His opinion echoes a high humanist critique, which installs a boundary between art, which he enjoys, and everything else (film, radio, and television) to valueless entities.[5] This view is shared by Adorno, and to a lesser extent Habermas. For Adorno, as Poster points out, the broadcast model unsettled a perceived autonomy of the subject. The reactions to television and radio are not those of the ‘liberal’ subject, but are instead the hegemonic view of the masses. In simple terms, the first media age was nothing more than a cultural industry, producing homogeneous people unable to think for themselves, ‘For Adorno and Horkeimer the broadcast model of the first media age was the practical equivalent to fascism.’[6] The result, for Adorno and Duhamel, is they ascribe to a view of equating the first media age as the production of homogeneous masses. They therefore subscribe to the view that art should be classified as separate from the first media age as only art can preserve heteronomy.
Like Adorno and Duhamel, Habermas’ The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere concludes with a similar position. His main fear is the disappearance of the public sphere as the first media age emerges into society. The problem is the retreat of what he calls the lifeworld, which provides the opportunity for communicative action and deliberative democracy. However, in his latter work, Habermas is able to argue there is an emancipatory potential for the media through bringing information to a larger audience. Yet, this still allows for a yes/no response on the part of the individual, and is certainly far away from his proposed ‘ideal speech situation’.[7]
The critics of the first media age are then concerned with a centralist media structure, where producers have the power to disseminate information/propaganda to a large amount of consumers. Their view of the first media age is not too different from Marx and Engel’s claim that ‘the ideas of the ruling class are every epoch the ruling ideas.’[8] In this scenario the ruling class would be the producers in the first media age, who the creators of ideology, (re)producing values and structures to homogenise the masses, which ultimately pacifies (class) antagonisms. The result is the ‘freedom’ of the viewing subject comes under threat from the first media age.
While not being naïve, there were also defenders of the first media age, who were able to argue for ‘emancipatory’ potentials and possibilities. Marshall McLuhan, for instance, considered the first media age as part of the larger epoch of the electronic age. In his (in)famous maxim, ‘the medium is the message’, McLuhan adopts an approach to media technology that focuses not on the content but rather on the medium. The main argument is ‘media technologies carry distinct temporal and spatial specificities to which correspond definite frameworks of perception.’[9] The implication of McLuhan’s ‘theory’ is electronic mediums/media will reshape perceptions of the world. The electronic age is therefore one of integration through the implosion of previously established boundaries/fragmentation created through past mediums (e.g. print). One of the advantages of McLuhan’s argument against the centralist media structure, identified by Adorno, Duhamel, and Habermas, is opposing the simplistic structure they propose. For McLuhan these critics are unaware of the significance of the electronic age. Rather than experiencing the homogenisation of the masses, McLuhan argue the electronic age would see a re-tribalisation of people through electronic mediums, which presents a more decentralised understanding of media technological. However, as should become clearer when I define the second media age, McLuhan’s position is easier to defend in the contemporary world through the emergence of digital technology and the Internet.
Another cautious defender of the first media age, and quite different from McLuhan, was Walter Benjamin. In contrast to Duhamel and Adorno he ‘manages to avoid disdain for the cultural products disseminated by electronic media.’[10] The autonomy of the subject is therefore not completely lost as the cultural industry removes possibilities for communicative action. This is because the first media age, for Benjemin, has an egalitarian property, which provides the opportunity to bring art into the everyday life of people. The consumer of art, through film, radio, and television, is also a critical consumer through having the ability to question, contemplate, and challenge what they see and hear. His interpretation of the media then provides the idea that there is a play of forces present, which means he neither dismisses nor celebrates the arrival of the first media age. The result is Benjamin’s response to the broadcast model is certainly not a one way dissemination of the producers to the consumers as argued by Adorno and Duhamel.
For Poster these debates have become ineffective as media technology has developed and the broadcast model is no longer the only media model. The second media age, which is defined through multiple producers, distruburtors, and consumers means ‘an entirely new configuration of communication relations in which boundaries between these terms collapse.’[11] The issue then becomes one of trying to come to grips with the model of the second media age, which means considering: cyberspace, the Internet, virtual reality, and digital technology. Instead of considering the problem of the relation between the spectacle (film, television, and radio) and the consumer, the main problem becomes one of conceptualising the issue of interactivity. To illustrate this point David Holmes distinctions of the first media age and the second media age can help out:

Table 1.1 The Historical distinction between the First and Second Media Age:[12]

First Media Age (broadcast) Second Media Age (Interactivity)
Centred (few speak to many) Decentred (many speak to many)
One-way communication Two-way communication
Predisposed to state control Evades State control
An instrument of regimes of stratification Democratizing: facilitaties universal
and inequality citizenship
Participants are fragmented and constituted Participants are seen to retain their
as a mass individuality
Influences consciousness Influences individual experiences of
space and time

Despite oversimplifying the differences between the first and second media age Holmes’ table is able to capture the differentiating aspects of the two periods. Through identifying the interactivity of the second media age Holmes, and Poster, understand ‘the imminent appearance of bidirectional, decentralized media, such as the Internet.’[13] Whereas the first media age created an interface of the spectacle to consume, the second media age technologies have a more ‘democratic’ interface, which means the producer and consumer division implodes into one another. Even Benjamin’s sympathic understanding of the first media age is only plausible from comprehending media through a broadcast model. His thesis of The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction relies on considering the reception of the consumer, and not how the consumer could be part of the productive process, which is a key element in the second media age.
The answer to considering the interface and interactivity of the second media age, for Poster, is to develop theories (and ontologies) that rethink the relation between media technologies and humans, which ‘allows their mutual imbrication to be investigated.’[14] The works of Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, and Donna Haraway are those most likely to advance the possibility of comprehending the social landscape of the second media age.[15] This is why I have elected to construct a Deleuzian ontology, which will introduce the reader to the machinic thought of philosopher Gilles Deleuze (and psychoanalysis Felix Guattari) through the concepts of: becoming; machines; and assemblages. The advantage of this machinic thought is the ability to provide a posthumanist ontology[16] that can consider the new assemblages of the second media age ‘that erase the humanist subject and bypass the human/non-human opposition.’ [17]
The concept of the second media age is not one without its problems and requires a defence of choosing this concept to ground the dissertation. The first main problem comes with the question of periodisation, something Poster has also considered. The use of periodisation could suggest a clear division between the first and second media age, which implies the first media age is over and/or surbordinated to the second media age. Used in this fashion the period of the second media age serves as totalising concept. In conjunction with Mark Poster I intend to avoid any such totalising periodisation through implying the Caribbean has entered into a new age:

Yet the insertion of a period may suggest not a passage from one state of being to another but a complexification, a folding of one structure upon another, a multiplying or multiplexing of different principles in the same social space. Periods or epochs do not succeed but implicate one another, do not replace supplement one another, and are not consecutive but simultaneous[18]

The second media age is not to be thought of a new distinct evolutionary stage of human development, but rather the emergence of new media technologies the form assemblages to coexist and produce the Caribbean. Adopting such an approach allows for recognition that the emergence of something new does not imply the disappearance of that which went before. The period of the second media age then has to coexist and is not a privileged reference point for explaining all things producing the Caribbean.
The concept of the second is also used in the spirit/technique of what Levi-Strass terms as bricologe. As Derrida writes, ‘the bricoleur, says Levi-Strauss, is someone who uses “the means at hands,” that is, the instruments he finds at his disposition around him, those which are already there.’[19] The implication is a new discourse is not created, but rather transformed and altered through borrowing and extending another person’s concepts. The metaphysics of the presence (i.e. contemporary discourses) can then offer methodological tools as an analytical gesture for the researcher and the reader. The intention is therefore to borrow from another in order to create a unique use for the instruments around him. The advantage of bricolage is the dissertation does not claim to be engineered out of nothing, but rather borrowed, repeated, and altered from other discourses available.
The main reason for choosing the concept of the second media age is I believe it to be an empirical concept. While the concept is formed/disseminated through language it aims to represent the shifting dynamics of experiences of media. The concept is then an example of what David Hume would term as a Copy Principle, which is when an idea (the second media age) is derived from an impression or impressions.[20] The idea then relates to the outside world, and intends to consider how ‘we’ are experiencing the world differently. Poster then attempts to contemplate the world from an affirmative perspective through creating a concept that relates to a change (becoming) in the world. This type of empiricism is defined through not trying to find the ‘universal or eternal, but to find the conditions under which something new is produced (creativeness).’[21] The basic assumption of the second media age is therefore the state of things have transformed from what they were. The coherence of the second media age then must come from experiences elsewhere that reinforce, challenge, and alter the concept. The empirical sections of the dissertation should be thought of providing this (in)coherence to Poster’s concept, which brings it into contact with actual experiences of the second media age producing the Caribbean.

The Second Media and ‘The Need for Maps’

If it is accepted that the Caribbean (and the world) is in the second media age, which is not a totalising period, but rather one that has emerged into life, then the question arises: how to study the second media age? For his book Poster considers three perspectives: ethical-political; enlightenment; and cartography. The ethical-political dimension aims to consider the opportunity for transformation through ‘the ability of humans to change their circumstances.’[22] Research of this type would then aim to examine the second media age to establish the progression of political and ethical circumstances. The enlightenment notion tries to overcome the ‘confusion about the nature of domination and the character of alternatives’[23] through providing knowledge about the second media age. While cartography is the attempt to provide an ‘analysis of the conditions, or as Frederic Jameson says, a “cognitive mapping,” rather than insisting on the revolutionary character of agency.’[24] Despite the three study perspectives of the second media age having interconnects, this dissertation will largely concentrate on providing the reader with a cognitive map of how the Caribbean is produced in the second media age. This is with the hope of not connecting the analysis to any political project or ideology.
In his influential essay, Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Frederic Jameson concludes with a section entitled ‘The Need for Maps.’ Discussing Kevin Lynch’s ‘The Image of the City’ Jameson suggests an alienated city is a place people are unable to map in their mind. The city is a mystery for the people. They cannot map either their location or the urban totality (e.g. the infrastructure). To overcome these circumstances a process of disalienation is embarked upon. This process becomes the practice of exploring and mapping the city. The benefits are the mapping allows the people to become (more) aware of their surroundings as they discover places then never knew existed. These places then become part of their mind as a cognitive map is created. As a city is never ‘finished’ then the process of creating a cognitive map is never complete, and is a continual process requires taking into account the becoming of the city.
It is my belief that Caribbean studies provides various cognitive maps that allow the becoming(s) of the Caribbean to be mapped. However, at present, Caribbean studies is alienated from the second media age is the same way that people are alienated from Jameson/Lynch’s city.[25] There appears a general unawareness of specific conditions, which involve second media age technology, that are relevant for the Caribbean. The dissertation is then part (and only part) of the process of disalienating Caribbean studies from this period. It is a map for the reader to create, or at least add to, their cognitive map of how the Caribbean is produced in the second media age. To achieve this map, which connects with the empirical natures of Poster’s concept, empirical data is analysis as a form of cartography.
However, the practice of cartography should always recognise the dangers and prejudices in mapping. The colonial experience of the Caribbean is evidence of this characteristic. In Consuming the Caribbean Sheller provides multiple examples of the colonists mapping the region, ranging from the cartography of botanical species and racial/ethnic categories. As form of Orientalism the white Europeans were also able to claim ‘superiority’ through mapping racial classification as form of social Darwinism that ‘seemed to accentuate the “scientific” validity of the divisions of races into advanced and backward.’[26] The mapping of ‘information’ was then a crucial art of establishing and maintaining power relations in colonial times for Western hegemony. In addition cartography is also a form of making things invisible as will as making things visible. The cartographer is unable to map all the details of a given field into their map. For example if a cartographer concentrates on proving population statistics of a given area then there may not be ‘room’ to add the geological information of the area (e.g. mineral composition). The map then selectively brings information to the forefront while other detail is absent. The consequence is there no inherently ‘correct’ map of a landscape, as this depends on the prejudicing certain empirical date over other data. I will return to this problem when I discuss the empirical data of this dissertation, which I intend to argue are legitimate prejudices for mapping the production of the Caribbean in the second media age.
In respect to these problems of cartography it may seem more appropriate to avoid mapping. A legitimate view could declare: has not the Caribbean suffered enough from cartography! While I am sympathetic to this view I also believe cartography is beneficial and almost something necessary. The aim of this cartography is to neither to condemn or celebrate the second media age, but rather analyse the conditions producing the Caribbean. This ‘type’ of cartography is similar to Michel Foucault’s in Discipline and Punish, which was able to map particularly disciplinary procedures used to produce docile bodies. The reader then ‘receives’ a cognitive map of these disciplinary procedures and can use the map as a tool to consider and research other aspects of society. The map also does not need acceptance on the part of the reader, who can challenge the empirical data, the method of cartography (style), the political implications, ethical considerations, and the absences (what is missing?). Producing a map is therefore not an objective exercise, but rather a critical exploration and experimentation on both the part of the author and reader.
[1] Mark Poster, The Second Media Age (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995) p3
[2] Mark Poster, The Second Media Age p1
[3] Mark Poster, The Second Media Age p18
[4] From Scenes de la vie future (1930), as quoted by Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” Illuminations, trans. Harry Zohn (New York: Schocken, 1969) p239
[5] Mark Poster, The Second Media Age p5
[6] Mark Poster, The Second Media Age p6
[7] Mark Poster, The Second Media Age 12-13
[8] Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The German Ideology edited by C.J. Arthur (London: Lawerence Wishart, 1970) p64
[9] David Holmes, Communication Theory: Media, Technology, and Society (London: Sage, 2005) p39
[10] Mark Poster, The Second Media Age p14
[11] Mark Poster, The Second Media Age p1
[12] David Holmes, Communication Theory: Media, Technology, and Society p10
[13] Mark Poster, The Second Media Age p19
[14] Mark Poster, The Second Media Age p19
[15] Mark Poster, The Second Media Age p19
[16] Posthumanist ontology simple means that humans are not the privileged centred for existence, which therefore avoids subject-oriented theoretical/ontological perspectives. The result is humans do not disappear, but they are no longer in the privileged place they took from god when Nietzsche declared ‘god is dead’
[17] Mark Poster, The Second Media Age p19
[18] Mark Poster, The Second Media Age p21
[19] Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference (London: Routledge, 2006) p360
[20] In David Hume’s lexicon impressions corresponds to both feeling and experience. This means that an idea has to be an idea of something. See Harold Noonan, Hume (Oxford: OneWorld, 2007)
[21] Gilles Deleuze, Dialogues II (London: Continuum, 2002) vi
[22] Mark Poster, The Second Media Age p22
[23] Mark Poster, The Second Media Age p22
[24] Mark Poster, The Second Media Age p22
[25] As the literature review shall demonstrate this view has a certain hyperbolic claim. To a certain extent, the creating of a cognitive map in the second media age has already started. However, this map is so far from being sufficient.
[26] Edward Said, Orientalism: Western Concepts of the Orient (London: Penguin, 1995) p206

Foucault Wins!!!

2007-10-30T14:56:00.000Z

After looking like Gilles Deleuze was going to cruise the poll, Michel Foucault ends up the winner with 40% of the vote. Thanks for everyone who took part. While these polls mean nothing they are none the less interesting.

As may not come a surprise my vote went to Deleuze. However, rather than try to legitimate my vote I’ll try to explain why I put each thinker in the poll.

Jean Paul-Sartre: I think the biggest compliment you can pay to Sartre is he not only attempted to think, but he also attempted to live his thinking. While I have never felt a close affinity to Sartre, and the existential ‘movement’, I do admire his (latter) effort to work against the facticity of the world in order to change it through forging a group (particularly in ‘search for a method’). This coming from a guy who said hell is other people!

Michel Foucault: From my perspective Foucault has helped me to understand complex technologies of power. His work serves as a helpful tool for analysing the present, especially liberal democracies. It may seem a bit of a tautology, but I think Foucault was correct to say that where you find knowledge you will find power. There is also the added advantage that Foucault was able to define power not only negatively, but also as empowering.

Jacques Lacan: Unfortunately most of my knowledge of Lacan comes from secondary reading (Zizek & Deleuze/Guattari). Yet, this seems to some the benefit of Lacan. From Zizek’s reading Lacan continues the Freudian tradition, while the other (in Anti-Oedipus) views Lacan as moving away from a Freudian understanding of the unconscious. While not a fan of psychoanalysis Lacan’s triad of the symbolic, imaginary, and real do provide useful tools for analysing the ‘social’.

Jacques Derrida: Probably the most controversial philosopher of 20th century France. (In) Famously associated with the idea of deconstruction, which caused so much outrage. I think his type of thought was almost necessary to demonstrate the slippery nature of language, and also to provide a compelling case against Habermas’ notion of ‘ideal speech’, which would only work if communication were possible.

Louis Althusser: Simply included for the reason of being the greatest 20th Century Marxist thinker to come from France. Maybe only Henri Lefebvre could challenge Louis for this position.

Gilles Deleuze: Maybe more of a 21st century philosophy for the English speaking among us. It was probably Paul Patton’s translation of Difference and Repetition, in 1994, that helped Deleuze get the justified recognition he deserved. Without a doubt his metaphysics will propel him into the canon of greats: Plato, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Heiddeger…even if this was a canon he didn’t much like. I also feel Manuel DeLanda’s interpretation of Deleuze as a realist will help to move beyond defining Deleuze as a poststructuralist/postmodernist.

Luce Irigaray: I simple admire her attempt to merge Derrida and Lacan to construct her feminist thought.

The New form of Orientalism

2007-10-24T17:16:00.000+01:00

There was insightful and short article in today's Guardian that caught my attention. It was written by Soumaya Ghannoushi, director of research at IslanmExpo, entitled 'Return of the Muslim Other'. The focus concentrated on the recent rise of right-wing politics in Europe. This paragraph from the article should give an indication of the content:

The far right is on the ascendancy in many parts of Europe. Beyond its explicit party political expressions, this assumes a more worrying form. What had been traditionally confined to the margins of dominant political discourse is progressively penetrating its mainstream, with parties of the centre absorbing much of the far right's populist rhetoric. This underlies the complaint by Jean-Marie le Pen, leader of the racist National Front, that Nicolas Sarkozy had "stolen his clothes". Across the Channel, the Tory candidate for the London mayoralty, Boris Johnson, believes that "to any non-Muslim reader of the Koran, Islamophobia - fear of Islam - seems a natural reaction".

What Soumaya points out is there an attempt from the right-wing to construct some cultural essentialism in order for Europeans to define themselves and create a Muslim Other. There is a lot of legitimacy in this argument and it seems we have learned nothing from Edward Said's Orientalism. Political Theorists like Samuel P. Huntington are clear examples of 'academic/populist' attempts to create cultural essentialism. From this type of thinking people are grouped into crude molar identities (e.g. civilisations) without a regard to the dynamic nature of culture and identities. Rather than deal with the complexity of the issues these right-wing thinkers make the basic argument of West/Europe = Good & Rational and Muslim/Oriental = Evil and Irrational. There also seems to be a clear disregard for historically understanding, or even the acknowledgment that colonial or cold war phenomenon could have played a part in contemporary problems of the world. Nor can they envision benefits for a multi-cultural Europe or USA. Once again S.P. Huntington leads the way in this sort of argument, which can be read in his book 'Who Are We?America's Great Debate'. Maybe it is time to stop trying to cling onto essential identities, and rather put the focus toward who we can become?

Deleuze conference and Camp

2007-10-16T18:07:00.000+01:00

Hi,

sorry about the lack of activity on the blog recently. The draft edition of the PhD is taking far too much of my time. Hopefully, I'll post sections of it soonish on the blog. In the mean time here is news of a call for papers for a upcoming conference on Deleuze:

The first international Deleuze Studies conference'One or Several Deleuzes?'Cardiff University, Wales, UK August 11-13, 2008CALL FOR PAPERSThe incredible body of research on Deleuze's work that has emerged in the past two decades - well over 130 books and literally thousands of articles - has created a situation in which it is no longer possible for a lone scholar to keep pace with new developments in the field. As scholars in disciplines as far flung from each other as musicology, organisational studies, philosophy and cultural studies embrace Deleuze this problem grows ever more intractable.Compounding matters further, Deleuze scholarship spans most languages. In the process there has appeared a highly contested variety of Deleuzes - there is the political Deleuze, the apolitical Deleuze, the philosophical Deleuze (who is a Kantian, a Nietzschean, a Spinozist, a Stoic, etc.), the phenomenological Deleuze, the activist Deleuze, and so on. Sponsored by the journal Deleuze Studies, the aim of this conference is to bring all these Deleuzes into communication.

Participants include:Hanjo Berressem
Ronald Bogue
Claire Colebrook
Gary Genosko
Eugene Holland
Dorothea Olkowski
John Protevi
James Williams
Convened by Ian Buchanan Tim Matts and Aidan Tynan

Send panel proposals and abstracts to buchanani@cardiff.ac.uk Registration, accommodation options and program updates will be posted on theweb at:www.cardiff.ac.uk/encap/

Graduate Students may also be interested in attending Deleuze Camp 2 - 'Whenfar too much Deleuzeis barely enough!'.

Burma and Internet Access

2007-10-01T15:53:00.001+01:00

It appears the war of communication is not going well for the population of Burma as the Junta further restrict the dissemination of the Internet.

The Guardian reported today that 50% of the online reports from Burma to the rest of the world are being blocked by the regime. In terms of blog reporting the news is worst. Their activity is down to about zero, and only a few continue to publish via third parties. The result is the Junta are keeping their Internet access running while blocking access to the public.

It is at times like these I feel a slight appeal to Habermas' communicative action. Not in the appeal that I think communication takes place through intersubjectivity, but rather the significance of machinic connections, and their potential to create something different. Maybe Habermas' communicative action can be re-written from a Deleuzian perspective, arguing for 'free' access to rhizomatic forms of media to destroy/remove those who censor information by cutting and blocking the flows.

academic stuff: publishing and the flows of knowledge and capitalism

2007-10-01T14:02:00.000+01:00

When I was attending the University of West Indies as part overseas institutional visit for my PhD I was struck by the lack of journals subscriptions the institution had. Of course, this has a lot to do with the limited funds available. It was one of those experiences that allowed me to realise how rich a lot of North American and Western European universities are.

However, I felt the larger point was the form of censorship and exclusion money plays in academia. Money = knowledge, and if you don't have money then no knowledge! all is not lost though; why is the capabilities of the Internet not used?
Take the example of introduction books for disciplines, whose twofold purpose is to introduce the discipline and (hopefully) serve as a nice little money earner. I am sure lecturers at universities could produced various chapters and publish them on a joint website. Why could there not be, for example, a website dedicated to 'introductions to International Relations: Main theories and Concepts'. I don't think it would suffer in quality if it did not go through the traditional flows of publishing as academics could review each other. There could also be a discussion forum for both students and academics (and even the non-academic world).

There also needs to be a lot more free quality online journals that do not have subscriptions. From my reading I concentrate more on 'The International Journal of Baudrillard Studies' and 'The International Journal of Zizek Studies'. Both of these are free to access and peer reviewed. Why do we need the press machines (Blackwell; Routledge; Macmillan...) to flow information in the age of the web? Could academics not use the web more productively to free the interconnections of knowledge/information and capital(ism)?

I know this probably sounds Utopian, but I do feel traditional modes of publishing are too ingrained in academia. Maybe this, in the UK, has something to do with how the RAE rate/judge academics.

Burma in the Second Media Age

2007-09-26T12:15:00.001+01:00

As Mark Poster points out, technologies of the second media differentiate themselves from the first media age. Whereas the first media age was defined as having few producers disseminating to a large number of consumers, the second media age is defined as having multiple producers and consumers. The obvious example of the second media age in practice, with multiple producers and consumers, is the Internet. I mention this because of the recent events in Burma and the important role of media technology.

One of the crucial struggles, apart from the protests, is the dissemination of information, pictures, and videos. It is through these that the people of Burma can hope to provide 'real time' coverage of what is occurring. While it is estimated that under 1% of Burma's population have access to the Internet, which is also censored, the cyber-bloggers of Burma have been able to exploit loopholes. The BBC website has an article on this practice here.
However, the Burma Junta have realised that the flow of information reaching the outside world is going to be a problem, and I recently heard they are closing down Internet cafes. The other problem, as Mark Poster discusses in his recent book, is that the Internet is not immaterial, and a lot of material technology is required for access to the WWW (phonelines, mobiles, PCs...).
It was even report on the 18th September that the Junta cut off mobile phone service to foreign reporters, which can be read here.

At present, I don't have much to say, but only wanted to bring attention to the significance of the medium in Burma, which I will certainly be paying attention to find how it plays out.

The blog's first pole

2007-09-19T14:21:00.000+01:00

Struggles with philosophy has decided to create a recurrent pole.

The first topic is the who is the greatest french philosopher/thinker of the 20th century. Please don't be offended if your one is not there, i have tried to include what i view as the main philosophers. However, as with all polls of this nature some people are (unfairly) excluded: Maurice Merleau-Ponty; Marcel Mauss; Claude Levi-Strauss; Jean Baudrillard; Jean-Francois Lyotard, Henri Bergson...

the next pole will be on the greatest philosophy to come from the Frankfurt school tradition.

On another point, I had noticed the comment settings were set to only authorised members only, so sorry if anyone has been trying to comment over the last few weeks. It should be working now.

draft section - machinic heterogeneous of the Caribbean (part 2)

2007-09-17T22:08:00.000+01:00

Here is the second part of my Deleuzian ontology for my PhD. The first section can be found here. As always, sorry about the poor grammer, the majority of my blogs are created to put rough stuff out before the editing process.

the third section should appear in a couple of weeks.

Deleuzoguattarian Machines:
As DeLanda points, a Deleuzian ontology is an ontology ‘where individuals do exist but only as the outcome of becomings.’[1] The important question is what are these individuals? This is where Deleuze’s ‘machinic thought’ is important, which argues the individuals are Deleuzoguattarian machines.[2] However what I term as Deleuzoguattarian machines is different to the conventional (mis)understandings of machines. To demonstrate this I compare and contrast Deleuzoguattarian machines with the definition of machines and machinery in Karl Marx’s Capital.[3] I then proceed to outline the three main characteristics of Deleuzoguattarian machines.
In Capital Marx dedicates a chapter outlining his thoughts on understanding machinery in modern industry.[4] As expected, Marx approaches the topic in relation to the mode of production, analysing the role of machinery in industrial capitalism. The economy is used to understand the place of machinery in the modern world. This leads him to state that ‘like every other increase in the productiveness of labour, machinery is intended to cheapen commodities, and, by shortening that portion of that he gives, without equivalent, to the capitalist.’[5] Machines are then part of the expansion of capitalism, and Marx connects them with the industrial revolution. The purpose of the machinery is to increase production and surplus value without increasing wages. This could even cause men to be replaced by machinery in the factory place where machines are construct to do the jobs human’s previously done.
The machinic thought of Deleuze is both influenced and critical of Marx’s definition of machines and machinery. It is inspired as Marx is able to acknowledge that machines play crucial roles in production process, recognising the creation of new machines transforms the working place. However, Deleuze is highly critical of Marx’s approach for being limited by economic determinism and attempting to separating humans from machines. Machinic thought critiques the idea that machines are only in the factory (for the purposes of capitalism) to argue ‘everywhere it is machines – real ones, not figurative ones: machines driving other machines, machines being driven by other machines, which all have the necessary couplings and connections.’[6] There are all types of heterogeneous machines for Deleuze: organic, political, territorial, economic, cultural, technical, natural, and so forth. Importantly these types of machines do not have their own discrete realms, and are part of the sample interconnected plane. This plane is what Deleuze terms as the plane of immanence [reference to WIP] and why Deleuze’s philosophy is an attempt at monism.
In Anti-Oedipus Deleuze (and Guattari) set out three clear characteristics of Deleuzoguattarian machines, which importantly connect them to a productivist ontology, but (crucially) not one tied to a mode of production. This is what allows Deleuze to claim ‘everything is production.’[7] These characteristics are: the production of production; the production of recording/coding; and the production of consumption.
The first characteristics of Deleuzoguattarian machines is ‘every machine functions as a break in the flow in the relation to the machine to which it is connected, but at the same time it is a flow itself, or the production of the flow, in relation to the machine connected to it.’[8] Deleuze terms this phenomenon as the law of production of the production. Each interruption and flow between machines is production and regarded as a bloc of becoming. Deleuze gives the example of the various desiring machines in the human body and the associative flow: ‘the anus and the flow of shit it cuts off, for instance; the mouth that cuts off not only the flow of milk but also the flow of air and sound; the penis that interrupts the flow of urine but also the flow of sperm.’[9] However, in respect to analysing the production of the Caribbean in the second media age, the law of production of production does not only need to be associated with the human body. Brain Massumi demonstrates how technical machines can be conceptualised in this characteristic of Deleuzoguattarian machines. In a brief section he describes the example of a saw, used by a wood worker, which is interrupted by wood.[10] This example helps to consider how the machine connecting, flowing, and interrupting can also involve inhuman machines. (reference Claire colebrook’s inhuman definition).
The reason for Deleuze illustrating this characteristic is to avoid machinic thought considering machines as being single objects, and to turn the focus onto the becoming of machine. This is achieved through reflecting on: what is flowing between machines; what machines are interrupting; and what productive qualities emerge from these flows and interruptions. In sum, it is the machinic bloc of becoming that is important, which concentrates on the exteriority of relations through understanding the coexistence and alliance of machines. This is termed as an assemblage later in the ontology.
The second characteristic of Deleuzoguattarian machines is ‘every machine has a sort of inbuilt code into it, stored up inside it.’[11] This is would Deleuze terms the production of recording/coding. The idea of machines having codes is important for asking functional questions about machines. However, when Deleuze claims that machines have codes it should be regarded as an interconnected dualism. The example of a clock can demonstrate the interconnected dualism, which has both a technical and social code. A clock’s technical code is inbuilt so the clock can measure uniform time, and the also produces a social code for assuring order in cities and societies.[12] The clock is therefore coded to measure time and also codifies society. The important feature about code is the determine, to a certain, extend how machines interact with one another.
One of the simplest ways to consider how codes function in technology (and life) is to consider a PC and software. The software codes the PC and allows it to function in a certain manner allowing particular tasks to be executed. A user of Microsoft Window, for example, therefore relies on the software package to provide the PC with an inbuilt code. The code is what Massumi refers to as the functional limitation of a things (e.g. machine) relations, as the codes of machines are important for the productive emergence as machines participate/connect with one another.[13] However, codes are not permanent features, and have the potential to be decoded and/or recoded. The decoding (and recoding) transformation of a code opens the opportunity for new experiences and sensations, which can cause society and life to be produced differently.
The third characteristic of machines is the production of consumption, where a residual subject is produced ‘functioning as a part adjacent to the machine.’[14] As Deleuze points out, this residual subject is a particular type of subject that has no personal or specific identity. This subject consumes and consummates other machines, and is born anew from these processes. The residual subject is therefore a productive subject as the act of consuming and consummation produces a difference, and alters things from what they were. One of the crucial differences between a Deleuzian subject and other ‘theories’ of subject is Deleuze’s subject does not need to be a human subject.[15] The subject is more of a machine than it is a human.
The Deleuzian residual subject perceives other machines and is altered from its capacity to be affected by these machines. Of course, the code of the residual subject is importance for (partially) determining how it is affected by other machines. However, the use of the word perceives is problematic as it leads thought to consider perception as a human quality.[16] Following A.N. Whitehead Deleuze prefers to adopt the term prehension rather than perception, which removes the anthropocentric connotations of perception. For Deleuze prehension is an attribute of an individual singularity (the residual subject), which has the ability to prehend (‘perceive’) other machines. A division is created between the prehended datum and the prehending one. The prehended datum is the data that the prehending one (the residual subject) passes through and consummes. Through consuming this prehended datum the predending one is born anew and a difference is created in the prehending one.[17]
The importance of Deleuze’s residual subject as a prehending one is that the subject is ‘trapped’ within time. This means the residual subject is produced through specific blocs of becoming that are historically contingent. The residual subject is therefore a subject that connects with Deleuze’s overall philosophy of immanence and rejects any definitions of the subject that call for transcendence. This means forces of subjectification are explained in terms of the immanent materials and energies of life and not some timeless and essential understanding of the subject. The result is the residual subject, through prehending, undergoes experiences of individuation, and these experiences are crucially productive.
This concludes the section on the characteristics of Deleuzoguattarian machines, which is now summarised. In general the machinic thought of Deleuze argues for a (re)conceptualisation of machines from the conventional (mis)understanding of machines. Humans are not separated from machines, but are regarded as compositions of machines – both external (state machine) and internal (bodily machines). Deleuzoguattarian machines provide a productivist ontology that does not concentrate on the mode of production. Instead the productivist ontology removes production from its economic determinism and is replaced by the maxim that ‘everything is production.’ [reference needed]. The Deleuzoguattarian machine have three main characteristics: the production of production; the production of codes/recording; and the production of consumption. However, to fully understand the machinic thought of this ontology the concept of assemblage now requires description.

Assemblages:

In an interview Deleuze states the main unity of A Thousand Plateaus is the concept of the assemblage.[18] The idea of an assemblage is a complex one and has recently been expanded upon recently for understanding society.[19] One of the main advantages of the concept of assemblage is its versatility, which is capable for accounting for any number of micro-, meso-, and macro-level phenomena. In order to define the concept and connect it with the machinic thought of the dissertation I firstly describe it through negation (what it is not), and then define it through affirmation (what it is).
Following J.Macgregor Wise it is easiest to define an assemblage through describing what an assemblage is not:

An assemblage is not a set of predetermined parts (such as pieces of a plastic model aeroplane) that are then put together in order or into an already-conceived structure (the model aeroplane). Nor is an assemblage a random collection of things, since there is a sense that an assemblage is a whole of some sort of that expresses some identity and claims a territory[20]

The key point is assemblages are not predetermined or random, but rather blocs of becomin. In terms of machinic thought an assemblage can be described as interconnection of different machines to form a non-essential singularity. The assemblage is classified as a singularity because it is a unique assemblage of heterogeneous parts, but can not be classed as random as ‘there is also a contingency to the arrangement itself.’[21]
Deleuze develops the concept of assemblage to free thought from essentialism and totalities. In terms of assemblages being against totalities Manuel DeLanda differentiates between theories of relations of interiority and theories of relations of exteriority. Where the relations of interiorty, following the philosophy of Hegel, take organisms as their prime example, relations of exteriority approach concentrates on the coexistence and alliance of heterogeneous components. The relations of the heterogeneous components, which can be regarded as the Deleuzoguattarian machines, are not logically necessary, but only contingently necessary. Once again the Deleuzian example of the relations between the wasp and the orchid can demonstrate this point. In the relations of interiority approach the relation between the wasp and the orchid is understood as a constitutive whole, displaying an organic unity as it is logical for this relationship. However, in the relations of exteriority approach the wasp and orchid is considered as a contingently obligatory relationship of heterogonous parts, which is not logical but a result of their close co-evolution. This means assemblages are not totalities, but only arrangements of contingency as a result of blocs of becoming. Importantly this allows for new emergent properties[22] to emerge in an assemblage and also for component parts to be detached from one assemblage and plugged into another where its interactions are different.[23]
To avoid essentialism assemblage theory constructs a bottom-up approach and concentrates on causal interventions in reality. In accordance with the concept of becoming there are no essential traits but rather morphogenetic processes, which mean there are no timeless essences but rather ‘the idea of progressive differentiation.’[24] This means assemblages have the power to differentiate and become something different.[25] The result is assemblages can open themselves to new experiences, sensations, tastes, feelings, emotions, understandings, technologies and so forth. This is also true of machines entering into different assemblages from the ones they were in. An example is a person who learns to ride a bicycle, which results in them opening up their assemblage to new experiences. It also serves to indicate a machine (the bicycle) has been removed from one assemblage (the shop) and plugged into another assemblage (the persons).[26]
The bottom-up approach of assemblage theory is adopted to avoid totalising top-down approaches. The problem with the top-down approaches is they tend to talk of a system rather for accounting for how such systematic properties emerge. The analysis of capitalism from the Marxist tradition is an example of this top-down approach where they ‘place real history in a straight-jacket by surbordinating it to a model of a progressive succession of modes of production.’[27] Frenand Braudel’s historical analysis of capitalism has shown this model to be wrong; as from the its beginnings capitalism was monopolistic and oligopolistic, which means ‘real’ capitalism did not only emerge in the nineteenth century with the industrial revolution.[28] If a bottom-up approach, which would analyse singular and unique assemblages of capitalism, were considered then the successive stages of capitalism could not be proposed. This is a crucial point of the machinic thought of Deleuze (and Guattari) in generally, where an explanation does not come from explaining actions through a system, but rather how a system (or systems) emerges from causal interventions in reality, which are historical contingent and non-essential.
As DeLanda points out, the bottom-up approach could assume that individuals are the bottom-most level. This could risk constructing the individual in an atomistic way (e.g. the rational individual). However, assemblage theory avoids this situation as ‘persons always exist as part of populations within which they constantly interact with one another.’[29] As noted above the machinic ontology of Deleuze avoids taking an individual’s identity (human or inhuman) for granted through proposing a residual subject. The result means the individual in assemblage theory must be shown to emerge.[30] If this type of emergent individual was not assumed in the Deleuzian ontology then the bottom-up approach becomes a top-down approach through constructing a pre-given idealised subject (rational actor). The major problem is this individual is removed from the processes of becoming through their assumed transcendent features.[31]

Why this Deleuzian ontology:

The above lays out the Deleuzian ontology and now the purposes of constructing this ontology require attention. I firstly constructed the Deleuzian ontology for the ability (and danger) of saying ‘Yes’ to existence. This is crucial if the aim of the dissertation is to analyse how the Caribbean is produced in the second media age. It would be nonsensical to examine the empirical data without creating an ontology that affirms the existence. Secondly, the Deleuzian ontology is an attempt to create a materialist ontology that does not follow the materialism of [orthodox] Marxism, but is none the less materialist. It rejects the dialectic movement of history that unfolds through the antagonistic contradictions within the mode of production, and instead affirms specific blocs of becoming. Thirdly, the Deleuzian ontology is capable of studying how machinic identities are (trans)formed through various forces of continual inviduation. This can be termed Deleuzian sociology, where Deleuze follows the sociology of Gabriel Tarde, and argues the micro-textures of production are what needs attention. This sociology approach stands in opposition to the Durkeimiam tradition, who focus was on more on collective representations.[32] The Deleuzian ontology also avoids totalizing claims through concentrating on certain micro-textures of production, and using these as the empirical evidence, which, in turn, avoids discussing things in general.

[1] Manuel DeLanda, Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy (London: Continuum, 2002) p106
[2] As should become clearer later the differentiation between machines and assemblages becomes a relative distinction, where can both be regarded as unique individuals that have underwent processes of individuation (i.e. blocs of becoming). However, it is necessary to discuss Deleuzoguattarian machines separately from Deleuzian assemblages in order to emphasise the characteristics of these machines.
[3] Karl Marx is chosen because Deleuze’s philosophy, especially post-Guattarian, is influence by Marx, and also because Marx’s thought is representative of ‘conventional’ notions of machines.
[4] Karl Marx, Capital: An Abridged Edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) p229-298
[5] Karl Marx, Capital: An Abridged Edition p229
[6] Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus p1
[7] Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus p4
[8] Gilles Deleuze, Anti-Oedipus p39
[9] Gilles Deleuze, Anti-Oedipus p39
[10] Brian Massumi, A User’s Guide to Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Deviations from Deleuze and Guattari (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992) p10-p15
[11] Gilles Deleuze, Anti-Oedipus p41
[12] Gilles Deleuze, Anti-Oedipus p155
[13] For Massumi emergence is a two-sided coin, one side is the virtual, which is the autonomy of relation, and the other actual, which is the functional limitations. This allows his to conceptualise the importance of affect in the production of emergence. ‘Emergence is a two-sided coin: one side virtual (the autonomy of relation), the other in the actual (functional limitation). What is being termed affect in this essay is precisely this two-sidedness, the simultaneous participation of the virtual in the actual and the actual in the virtual, as one arises from and returns to the other. Affect is this two-sidedness as seen from the side of the actual thing, as couched in its perceptions and cognitions. Affect is the virtual as point of view, provided the visual metaphor is used guardedly. For affect is synesthetic, implying participation of the senses in each other: the measuring of living thing’s potential interactions is its ability to transform the effects of one sensory mode into those of another…the autonomy of affect is its participation in the virtual. Its autonomy is openness.’ Brian Massumi, Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, and Sensation (London: Duke University Press) p35. There is far too much detail in this quote that requires explanation, especially the role of Deleuze’s definition of the actual and the virtual. The quote is merely included to reinforce, implicitly, the significance of codes in machinic interactions, where participation are (partially) determined by these codes, and should be considered in terms of relationality. This is because these codes face an infinite amount of different participations.
[14] Gilles Deleuze, Anti-Oedipus p44
[15] For example, In Freud the subject is a human oedipal subject, in Derrida the subject is a human one created through a language act, in Habermas the subject is produced in human intersubjective communication, and Zizek’s subject is human through his (re)called for the Cartesian cogito. While having large divergences they all share a commonality of proposing the subject from a humanism and Deleuze is able to avoid this tendency.
[16] Reference a phenomenology of perception as an example of this tendency
[17] For Deleuze’s discussion of prehension see Gilles Deleuze, The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque (London: Continnum, 2006) p87-89
[18] Gilles Deleuze, Two Regimes of Madness: Texts and Interviews 1975-1995 (New York: Semiotext(e), 2006) p176-178
[19] See J.Macgregor Wise, “Assemblage” 77-87 in Charles J. Stivale, ed., Gilles Deleuzes: Key Concepts (Chesham: Acumen, 2006), Manuel DeLanda, A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity (London: Routledge, 2006)
[20] J.Macgregor Wise, “Assemblage” 77-87 in Charles J. Stivale, ed., Gilles Deleuze: Key Concepts p77
[21] J. Macgregor Wise, “Assemblage” 77-87 in Charles J. Stivale, ed., Gilles Deleuze: Key Concepts p77
[22] Emergent properties are unique properties that emerge when components are ‘joined’ together
[23] Manuel DeLanda, A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity p10
[24] Manuel DeLanda, Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy (London: Continuum, 2002) p16
[25] Deleuze makes this argument for the eternal return of difference most clearly in Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition (London: Continuum, 2004)
[26] DeLanda actual provides the example of learning how to swim, which would change a persons habitual assemblage. I have altered this example to the included the introduction of the bicycle to demonstrate a new machine entering an assemblage. This is a crucial point, as the technologies/machines of the second media age have entered into assemblage that produce the Caribbean. Manuel DeLanda, A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity p50
[27] Manuel DeLanda, Markets and Anti-markets in the World Economy (http://www.t0.or.at/delanda/a-market.htm, accessed on 18/07/2007)
[28] For arguing that capitalism has always been oligopolistic and monopolistic Frenand Braudel uses the assemblages of Venice in the 14th century and Amsterdam in the 17th century. This is because there is evidence of coexistence of commercial, industrial and financial capitalism, which runs counter to the argument unfolds in totalising stages. See Fernand Braudel, Civilisation and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century. Vol 2 (New York: Harper and Row, 1982) p229
[29] Manuel DeLanda, A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity p32
[30] ‘But more importantly, while the identity of those persons taken for granted in microeconomics, in assemblage theory it must be shown to emerge from the interaction between subpersonal components.’ Manuel DeLanda, A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity p32
[31] An example of this flaw is in the philosophy of Kant, who, while opening his philosophy to the properties of time, was unable to extend this to the subject, and is why he created a (timeless) transcendental subject, which suffers from not (fully) considering how the subject emerges.
[32] ‘Durkheim’s preferred objective of study were the great collective representations, which are generally binary, resonant, and overcoded. Tarde countered that collective representations presuppose exactly what needs explaining, namely, “the similarity of millions of people.” That is why Tarde was interested in the world of detail, or the infinitesimal: the little imitations, oppositions, and inventions.’ Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus p240-241

Deleuze's book on Hume

2007-09-16T23:09:00.000+01:00

Deleuze's first book is available from here. the title is Empiricism and Subjectivity and is on Hume. I have yet to read it, but looking forward to, especially as Deleuze rarely mentions Hume after this book, but does often allude to empiricism.

thanks to notebookeleven for the link

nice short blog entry on Baudrillard

2007-09-11T16:43:00.000+01:00

There is a nice blog entry on the work of Jean Baudrillard and specifically his concept of the hyperreal. I think this is a nice summary of the concept that both indicates the valuability and limitations of it.

I have always found there is something appealing to Baudrillard's writing, and I think that his work, especially post-1980 Baudrillard, may come across superficial, but this is because the world he sees is superficial, which appears a pretty accurate statement about late/contemporary capitalism and the world of advertisement. This is why Baudrillard can produce such hyperbolic statements as 'the truer than truer' that could come from a tv advert or tv programme. Of course Baudrillard should not be taken at complete face value, but when considering such things as the consumer society; media; technology; marketing; and capitalism there is a lot of content in his superficiality.

Foucault Quote

2007-09-11T01:04:00.001+01:00

I came across this nice quote from Foucault in a interview entitled 'Question of Method' in volume 3 of the essential work - Power:

'I wouldn't want what I may have said or written to be seen as laying claims to totality. I don't try to universalize what I say; conversely, what I don't say isn't meant to be thereby disqualified as being of no importance...I like to open up a space of research, try it out, and then if it doesn't work, try again somewhere else...My book aren't treatise in philosophy or studies of history; at most, they are philosophical fragments put to work in a historical field of problems.' (p224)

The attraction of work not either being totalising or neither unimportant becomes an appealing trait for social science research. Three particular reasons stood out. One, there appears a lot of modesty in this method and perspective, claiming research is not the final and complete word on the subject matter, but rather arguing particular research has significance and relevance. Second, and related to the first, the fragmentary nature of the research hints at the perspectivism a particularly piece of research inherently contains. I tend to think of this as the place of discourse analysis and deconstruction, which don't claim to totality, but rather pose relevant issues and concerns about language, especially when other thinkers basically put a lot of their faith in the possibility of communication as a route to emancipation. Third, the emphasis on experimentation and possible failure, where the researcher actually experiments with a particular theory or method, for example, in order to produce research, but also crucially to transform themselves and society.

Chantal Mouffe audio and Ernesto Laclau review

2007-09-10T20:46:00.000+01:00

Here is an audio lecture from Chantal Mouffe, which is pretty good for an outline of her position and philosophy, and also for understanding the difference between her approach and delibrative democracy.

I also found this review of Ernesto Laclau newest book.

Angry and bemused Naipaul

2007-09-04T21:53:00.000+01:00

thanks to Thom for this link.

V.S. Naipaul has produced a strange request, calling for all English departments in universities to be closed down, which would release some workforce. This is probably due to the problem of criticism that he receives from literature scholars, as suggested by Neelam Srivastava (Newcastle University). There is something worry about this and almost authoritarian, which suggests he just wants people to read and pay for his books without serious in-depth analysis. Read and Pay, but do not think or analyse it!

There is also another curious claim of Naipaul which says universities should only deal with '"measurable truth". This seems a dangerous path, and is set against the idea of intellectual freedom, creating a strategic research agenda working on the rules of exclusion. Never mind how contestable the concept of truth is!

Last there is the critique of jargon in academia, which he describes as "a way for one clown to tell the other that he is in the club". to a certain extent I would agree with this statement, but language always consists of jargon, and sometimes creating jargon helps the reader to think as it is creating something new, and maybe a new way of perceiving. While Naipaul may think the jargon is concealing vacuous thinking, the jargon can be beneficial and is not only created to hide behind. The solution is if you are unwilling to engage in the author's language game then don't bother reading them and getting upset!

draft section of PhD- machinic hetrogeneous of the caribbean

2007-09-03T21:42:00.000+01:00

I am in the painful process of composing draft chapters for my PhD, and thought I'd post some of the sections on my blog. This one is the construction of my Deleuzian ontology for the Caribbean, which uses Deleuze's concepts of becoming, machines, and assemblages. In sum the dissertation is arguing the Caribbean has entered into the second media age (Poster, 1995), and a cognitive map (Frederic Jameson) of how the Caribbean is being produced in the second media age is required for Caribbean Studies, which can be achieved through deleuze's empiricism and machinic ontology first laid out in Anti-Oedipus.

As always all comments are welcome. The following is introducing the chapter and starting to discuss Deleuze's concept of becoming. As this is a rough section please forgive the grammar.

The Machinic Heterogeneous of the Caribbean: Deleuzian Ontology

‘a philosopher is not only someone who invents notions, he also perhaps invents ways of perceiving’
Gilles Deleuze

‘It is when you decide what exists that you tie your thought to being’
Alain Badiou

‘I am not a man I am a machine’
Maximo Park

Introduction:
To understand how the period of the second media age[1] is producing the Caribbean, and in order to provide a cognitive map, a Deleuzian ontology is appropriate for the dissertation’s purpose. The following section is dedicated to constructing the Deleuzian ontology, created from the three Deleuzian concepts: becoming; Deleuzoguattarian machines; and Assemblages. In simple terms these concepts are used to construct an ontology that argues the Caribbean is in the process of becoming, which is composed of Deleuzoguattarian machines that form assemblages. The second media age therefore represents a new becoming of the Caribbean, as machines of the second media age are part of the assemblages that produce the Caribbean. To qualify this statement each of the Deleuzian concepts that form the ontology require a clear description. These concepts are described separately, which should help the reader understand their complexity and their practicality for contemplating the Caribbean in the second media age. Where possible I shall provide empirical examples that reinforce the ideas of the concepts in an attempt to avoid this section being overly abstract. The ontology of the dissertation can best be described as a machinic ontology connected to the concept of becoming.
The structure of this section follows the following outline. Firstly, there is a brief discussion/defence of electing to choose a Deleuzian ontology, which asserts that Deleuze’s philosophy is a practical philosophy, and one that is capable of understanding the significance of technology in producing the Caribbean without assuming a social or technological deterministic position. Secondly, the concept of becoming of is described, which argues the Caribbean ought to be conceived as a movement, which is a productive flux. Becoming is then opposed to other (philosophical) concepts of movement, which argues becoming is more appropriate for understanding how the Caribbean is produced. Thirdly, the three main characteristics of Deleuzoguattarian machines are introduced: production of production; production of code; and the production of consumption. As the name of these features suggest, Deleuzoguattarian machines argue for a productivist ontology, but one that crucially understands production differently from the economic theories that focus on the mode of production. Fourthly, Deleuze’s concept of the assemblage is explained to complete the three concepts of the dissertation’s ontology. Assemblages are required as a concept because Deleuzoguattarian machines are not discrete entities, and instead the emphasis is on how machines connect with one another to form assemblages. The concept of assemblages, following Manuel DeLanda, can then provide a theory of society, ranging from: single persons; networks; organisations; governments; cities; and nations.[2] One of the main reasons and attractions for using the concept of assemblage, which is explained below, is that is avoids essentialism and totalities, as machines can enter, be removed, or be de/re-coded in assemblages. Fifthly, I briefly relate the dissertation’s ontology to Antonio Benitez-Rojo’s Deleuzian ontology in The Repeating Island.

Why Deleuze? :
Arguably, there are more reasons for avoiding Deleuze, than there are trying to construct a Deleuzian ontology, aiming to understand how the Caribbean is produced in the second media age. Such reasons, for example, could be composed of the following: the idiosyncrasy of his style is too heterodox for practical research; his philosophy is non-relevant for the Caribbean; his philosophy is nothing beyond vitalism; his philosophy is a mathematical one; and he is a philosopher of de-materialism and spirituality.[3] While each of these critiques, or readings, of Deleuze’s philosophy are not without merit, they suffer from either concentrating too narrowly on certain aspects, or miss the practicality of Deleuze’s philosophy. Even though this Deleuzian ontology is only constructed around three Deleuzian concepts, it avoids a narrow reading of Deleuze, and (should) indicate the practicality of his thought, which becomes relevant for the Caribbean.[4] As this section of the dissertation makes clear below, Deleuze’s philosophy is curious and fixated with the new and novel, which is a relevant issue for producing a cognitive map of the Caribbean in the second media age, as this is a new and novel period for the Caribbean. Importantly, there is also the ability of Deleuze’s philosophy to contemplate the role and significance of technology in society.
There are two false positions that should be avoided when considering and analysing technology in social sciences: social determinism and technological determinism. Social determinism, in simple terms, would argue the role of technology is unimportant, and explains things from the social perspective. This views technology as inert and without agency, and would stress the social formation of a society or an event has nothing to do with technology. One only need think of Columbus’ voyages of ‘discovery’ to realise this position is untenable, as the technological development of the Portuguese navy allowed them the possibility of crossing the Atlantic ocean. In many respects, events or social formations are made possible from the technological developments of a society or culture, which opens up the possibilities of new experiences. In constructing a machinic ontology, the philosophy of Deleuze is able to account for this property of life, and understands the significance of new machines becoming part of the social.
However, while realising technological development creates new experiences for life, this does not mean the role of technology should be understood from a technological deterministic position. This perspective, in simple terms, would remove agency from the social and argue technology is the agent that requires analysis to understand social. The social is therefore only produced as a result of the technologies, and what occurs is a reverse humanism, where the objects (the technology) are given complete primacy over the subject (the human).[5] Deleuze collapses the distinction of machines being separate from humans, which is explain below, and creates an ontology that gives the primacy of production neither to human, technical, or natural machines, but can only be understood in terms of how these machines form assemblages with one another.

Deleuzian Movement: The Becoming of the Caribbean

For Deleuze movement is a crucial component of his philosophy. This movement is a specific type of movement and is termed as becoming. For Deleuze, following Bergson, there is no pre-existing identities (beings), but rather a productive life flux, drawing on the materials and energies of the world. This means things (Deleuzoguattarian Machines) are historical constituted and there are no timeless essences to ground beliefs (e.g. God, Human nature, Platonic ideals) as these are all in the process of becoming. Becoming, as a movement, also has no fixed end or predetermined goal (telos), nor any logical order for becoming as becoming progresses ‘not from a logical order, but following alogical consistencies or compatibilities’ as ‘no one, not even God, can say in advance whether two borderlines with string together or form a fibre, whether a given multiplicity will or will not cross over into another given multiplicity.’[6] Becoming, as a concept, relies on the opportunity or chance for things to occur, which means movement is not predetermined. The future, which the present moves into, is therefore conceived as an open whole in terms of providing infinite potentialities. While this may appear an abstract, or vague, a relatively simple example can demonstrate becoming in process, and how it becomes a practical and actual phenomenon.
Imagine an apple falls from a tree to a ground composed of soil. At that point the apple has a duration, or identity, as an apple. This would focus on the present materiality of the apple, taking into account its substance and form. However, in terms of becoming, the apple is in a flux, and Deleuze terms this ‘pure becoming’[7], where the apple has had an infinite amount of identities previously, and will be an infinite amount of identities in the future. For example, the previous amount of identities of the apple comes from the forces that produced the apple: the sun; the rain; the fertiliser in the soil; the farmer producing an orchid field; and so forth. Importantly is it recognised there is a multiplicity of forces that have assembled to produce the apple. In terms of the future of identity of the apple this is open to the infinite/open whole, and, for example, could become energy for a human which can lead to producing other things. Yet, as Deleuze states about becoming; ‘what is real is the becoming itself, the block of becoming, not supposedly fixed terms through which that becoming passes.’[8] This is an important aspect of becoming, and Deleuzian philosophy, which does not attach itself to transcendent notions or fixed terminology, but rather the actual blocs of becoming and their productive features. The metamorphosis of life, and the Caribbean, is therefore crucial for the concept of becoming, as the concept encourages thought to focus on the experiences and blocs of becoming occurring. The concept of becoming also demonstrates a Dionysian affirmation of life, where creation and destruction are on the same plane[9] as transformation and alteration cause destruction through their creation.
The example therefore demonstrates that becoming is not an object focused approach (e.g. identity), but rather a focus of coexistence and alliance. This illustrates that things are not separate or in a vacuum, and form consistencies and compatibilities with other things – the apple forms a compatibility with the ecosystem. However, these consistencies are not essential, but historically produced features that can alter or change. Deleuze’s provides the famous example of a wasp’s compatibility with an orchid, where the wasp becomes part of the orchid’s reproductive apparatus.[10]
The choice of providing the empirical example of the apple to describe the movement/process of becoming was also elected to demonstrate that becoming is not an anthropogenic centred movement. In contrast becoming can occur as a human mind-independent property of life. Deleuze, in Anti-Oedipus, takes the position to the extreme, arguing that consciousness of man is a historical product of becoming, and may have not of occurred if the contingencies of history were different. This point is also stressed in his book on Nietzsche.[11] The significance is becoming, as a productive force, is not a human centred concept, but a decentred concept, focusing on various bloc of becoming. The reason why this decentred concept of becoming is relevant for understanding how the second media age produces the Caribbean becomes most evident in the Google chapter. This is because search algorithms are now created as part of the second media age, which are used to move through, search, and databank the Internet. These forces of becoming, analysed later, are important as the search algorithms are part of the blocs of becoming that produce the Caribbean through the Google organisation.

[1] The concept of the second media age is from Mark Poster, The Second Media Age (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995)
[2] See Manuel DeLanda, A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity (London: Continuum, 2006)
[3] Hallward – dematerial/spiritual, Badiou-vitalism, DeLanda – maths (ISVP)
[4] The reason why I believe this ontology avoids a narrow reading of Deleuze is that the three concepts of the ontology are crucial for understanding any Deleuzian ontology which considers all of his main published books. This is contrary to Manuel DeLanda and Alain Badiou, where the former argues Difference and Repetition is Deleuze’s main book for his ontology, and where the latter critiques Deleuze from mainly reading his earlier pre-Guattarian books.
[5] This reverse humanism is seen in the work of Jean Baudrillard. However, we should read this as a science fiction, which is intending to warn people of the dangers of society becoming ever more reliant on technology through the risks of a new master/slave dialectic emerging where humans become the slaves of the technology machines, as seen in the popular trilogy of the Matrix.
[6] Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus (London: Contiuum, 2004) p276
[7] Gilles Deleuze, A Logic of Sense (London: Continuum, 2004) p3
[8] Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus p262
[9] For Deleuze’s clear Nietzscheanism see Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy (London: Continuum, 2004) Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition (London: Continuum, 2004) & Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus
[10] Gilles Deleuze, A Thousand Plateaus p11
[11] ‘Nietzsche knew the hour had come…to remind consciousness of its necessary modesty is to take it for what it is: a symptom; nothing but a symptom of a deeper transformation and the activities of entirely non-spiritual forces’ from Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy p39

Another Draft chapter from Shaviro

2007-08-30T21:28:00.000+01:00

Steven Shaviro has posted another draft chapter from his forthcoming book, and can be found here.

The focus of the chapter is on Deleuze and A.Whitehead's emphasis on creativity, novelty, innovation, and the new, which is at the centre of both their philosophical speculation. As with most of Shaviro's chapters I've read so far he tries (convincingly) to argue Deleuze and Whitehead's philosophy needs to be understood from Kant and the emergence of post-Kantian philosophy. This is clear from one of his footnotes, which expresses 'I am arguing, however, for a more generous reading of Kant - one that is warranted by the overall pattern of Deleuze's borrowing from, and criticisms, of Kant' (p13).

The only (slight) concern from this, and other, chapters is the omission of references to Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus. I only mention this because Shaviro goes into great detail about Deleuze's ontology, but never, from my knowledge, discusses Deleuze's machinic ontology. Reading other Deleuzians, especially Manuel DeLanda, they appear to erase Anti-Oedipus, putting it down to the 'bad' influence of Guattari, which was sorted out and corrected for A Thousand Plateaus. I feel this could be a worrying trend as it risks Anti-Oedipus being marginalised from a Deleuzian image of thought.

Cheney in 1994 on Iraq

2007-08-27T18:30:00.001+01:00

I wonder why he didn't keep to this logic???

Upcoming Blog Carnival

2007-08-25T20:32:00.000+01:00

There is a blog carnival happening on the 1st September. The subject is dedicated to the critique of the post-modern condition - within the framework of the discourse.

You can submit an article here.

Paul Patton's Deleuzian freedom (Part 2)

2007-08-23T21:54:00.000+01:00

Here is the second section of Patton's Deleuzian concept of freedom. Part 3 will appear soon(ish):

Patton on the concept of freedom and V for Vendetta:

Freedom, in terms of life, for Patton is considering life as a series of points at which decisions are made or events are experienced, where critical points are the ‘events’ that ultimately determine the shape of a life. Following Deleuze and Guattari, Patton argues these ‘events’ can be considered in terms of different lines, which produce identity, and are relational to the concept of freedom (or actualisations of freedom). These lines are molar lines, corresponding to rigid segmentation (e.g. man/female), molecular lines, corresponding to fluid overlapping forms of division, and lines of flight, that are paths where things change and become transformed. Rather than use Patton’s example of F. Scott Fitzgerald to illustrate the different lines and critical points (events) of experience, I shall describe them using the film V for Vendetta and the main character V, and then relate them to critical freedom.
In the film V for Vendetta the United Kingdom is ruled by a fascist and totalitarian state, which has gained power through the use of politics of fear. This, mainly, has been achieved through releasing poisonous chemicals on the population, which the government only has the cure for, and then blaming these attacks on terrorists. However, the previous war on terror (in reference to the present one in the ‘real’ world,) is also linked into how the party gain governmental power. They therefore create the sensation of fear within in the state, and claim they can offer security against this terror. This is done through more politics of fear and the curtailing of civil liberties. Those thought to terror the UK are basically regarded as anything non-white, non-heterosexual, and non-British. This describes the molar lines, which represents the segmentation found in bureaucratic and hierarchical institution, ‘creating’ molar identities such as the binary ‘terror threat’ and ‘non-terror threat’, which affirm molar freedoms through molar identity. It also demonstrates that molar lines of segmentation are not fixed, but rather transform through challenges and events, even if this occurs in a reactionary manner.
The character V, who starts/brings the downfall of this government, is a victim of government testing in their attempt to find a cure to the poisonous chemical. These people are some of those rounded up in the reformation and regarded as terror threats. V is the only one to build up a resistance to the poisonous chemical and from him the cure is created. However as a side effect V gains super-human strength, and (more importantly) undergoes other experiences that change him and represent the second line of experience (the molecular line). Now this should be taken at the literal level. The body of V, which holds his mind, goes through physical alterations, through a mixture of the testing and a fire that breaks out at the lab. There are also the other (molecular) transformations of V, where V is changed as a person from reading notes given by the women in the next-door cell. As a culminate effect all the molecular changes that happen to V in the testing facility create a different person, and importantly, a new person emerges that finds new things to care about. This leads onto the third line – the line of flight.
From his experiences in the testing lab V becomes committed to bringing down the government, and creates this trait as an abstract line, which is created from a break of who he was and the character V that emerged from the testing lab. In many of the senses V’s subject is the same person after as a before, but not in the sense that matters for the liberal concept of freedom. V no longer has the same interests nor the same desires and preferences. As Patton notes about Fitzgerald and can be said about V is ‘his goals are not the same, nor are the values that would underpin his strong evaluations’[1] as V and Fitzgerald experience, in their own way, a ‘clean break’, which is what interests Patton, Deleuze, and Guattari. The ‘clean break’ for V is also a clean break from the molar lines of the state, as he no longer associates himself with these values and virtues, and instead creates his own virtues and values, which arguable weigh heavier on him than the molar ones. There is a lot of similarities between Deleuze and Guattari’s line of flight, which can be related to the manifestation of critical freedom, and Nietzsche’s overman, which will be the focus of the next section.
However, at this point there may seem a linear progression between the three lines from the manner I have written about the subject, where the order is molar -> molecular -> flight. This should not be viewed in this style as the three lines co-exist, and are not ever finalised (i.e. they are open concepts).

[1] Paul Patton, Deleuze and the Political p85

(Or can we call him an overman???)....

Baudrillard, Aphorisms, and Research

2007-08-20T22:21:00.000+01:00

I am in the process of writing a paper on Baudrillard and International Politics, and want to argue Baudrillard can offer the discipline/subject a lot if we read him as a writer of aphorisms (especially post 1980 Baudrillard). These aphorisms within Baudrillards texts can trigger thinking through their creation of sensation in the reader, which fills them with the desire to produce research, even if this sensation is one of disgust. In particular I create the paper form a small aphoristic section in Simulations, which argues Disney Land is a deterrence machine. I then transform this insight/opinion into considering and examining the International Relations of tourism through analysing Caribbean tourism websites.

It is in the early stages, and here is the first section I have written. The other sections will be posted as I write them. (comments are gratefully received):

Reading Baudrillard as a writer of aphorisms:
The various controversial and antagonistic interpretations of Baudrillard, demonstrate reading Baudrillard is no easy task. Such readings have either encouraged us to forget Baudrillard, to concentrate on his earlier work and dismiss the later for its rejection of Marxism (Kellner), or to read Baudrillard from the radical Durkhiem tradition (Hegarty & Merrin). This paper does not intend to argue for one of these suggestions as being the ‘correct’ interpretation of Baudrillard, but rather constructs another way of (productively) ‘interpreting’ Baudrillard and furthering Baudrillard’s multiplicity. This interpretation argues Baudrillard, especially post 1980 Baudrillard, can be read as a writer of aphorisms, which can propel ‘Baudrillardian’ research that goes beyond Baudrillard.
Nietzsche, one of the greatest writers of aphorisms, wrote ‘he who writes in blood and aphorisms does not want to be read, he wants to be learned by heart’ and ‘aphorisms should be peaks, and those to whom they are spoken should be big and tall of statue.’[1] Aphorisms may lack the complexity of other forms of writing, but have the appeal of projecting short sharp blasts of arguments and opinion that disturb the reader, forcing a pause that instigates thinking. It is these (unsettling) pauses that Baudrillard creates in his writing the paper finds attractive, arguing these aphorisms offer a wealth of insights into International Politics. Instead of interpreting Baudrillard’s oeuvre, the aphoristic reader of Baudrillard waits in anticipation of that moment when the reading is paused, creating a sensation of disgust, interest, amazement, confusion… which then has to be thought through. The reader is then fixated on a particular statement or section from Baudrillard, which remains lodged in their thoughts. In short, the reader should feel intensely about their pause. This pause, which instigates thinking, creates what Deleuze and Guattari term a line of flight from the text, forcing the reader to think about (other) experiences of the world, and how one can use this aphoristic section to understand/contemplate the world – even in areas that Baudrillard did not intend or consider.
As expected, there are many dangers in reading Baudrillard as an aphoristic writer, and the greatest danger (or critique) is the accusation the reader avoids reading Baudrillard carefully or without rigor, completely misses his point(s). In addition large sections of Baudrillard’s writing are left aside and even disregarded as the reader concentrates on these aphorisms. However, while this critique is fair, it also fails to consider how aphorisms, or more accurately, reading Baudrillard aphoristically, avoids creating an idle reader of Baudrillard. The main danger of the idle reader is that they endless repeat Baudrillard without creating something new. Instead, the reading is propelled into thinking through the Baudrillardian aphorism, which provides the starting point of research. Baudrillard then merely provides a statement, opinion, or principle that research can build from. This means the research, while starting from Baudrillard, does not need to necessarily emerge as Baudrillardian.

[1] Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Penguin: London, 1969) p67

Paul Patton Deleuzian 'freedom' (part 1)

2007-08-13T22:09:00.000+01:00

As an earlier blog stated I am co-authoring a paper reviewing Deleuzian inspired politics. At present I am reading Paul Patton and his Deleuzian concept of freedom. This is the first part, which looks at Patton's critique of two classical concepts of freedom. The next section, which I will post at a later date, will describe Patton's concept of freedom.

Patton on the concept of freedom:
As part of Patton’s philosophical and political project he considers how Deleuzian philosophy can alter and construct one of the fundamental concepts of Anglo-American political philosophy: freedom. Patton’s Deleuzian freedom is constructed through encountering two classical definitions of liberal freedom. The first is the negative freedom of Isaiah Berlin, and the second is the positive freedom of Charles Taylor.
Negative freedom is defined as the ‘area of non-interference’, where the subjects are left to do or be what they are able to do or be.[1] This concept of freedom contains two elements. Firstly, a majoritarian subject, who represents a ‘normal human being’ with ‘desires, goals, and capacities for action which fall within the range of normality for a given time and place’[2], and, secondly, the presence of external limits to the subject. The result of Berlin’s spatial concept of freedom is it lies between two agents – the subject and the external limits. Freedom is therefore ‘a matter of where the line is drawn at any given moment’ and ‘presupposes a static subject with capacities and interests.’[3]
In contrast, positive freedom, defined by Charles Taylor ‘is based upon a more complex concept of the subject as action as an individual capable of “strong evaluation.”’[4] This involves the subject internalising limits and ‘exercising control over one’s life.’[5] Talyor therefore implies that the control over ones life ‘demands that one have a sense of one identity…on the basis of which one can discriminate between one’s authentic or essential desires.’[6] Talyor’s concept of freedom critique’s Berlin’s negative freedom as it already presupposes ‘this kind of qualitative judgement about the purposes or kinds of action that are significant to persons.’[7] The result, for Taylor, is that negative freedom is only possible because of positive freedom and the characteristics of ‘strong evaluation.’
However, Patton critiques Taylor’s concept of freedom for remaining tied to the concept of the subject as a given. This ‘concept of positive freedom overlooks the importance sense in which a person is deemed free only to the extent that they are able to distance themselves from the structure of values with which they grew up and acquires others.’[8] Taylor is therefore unable to understand, or contemplate, how ‘ freedom must allow for the possibility that agents will act in ways that lead them to alter their desires, preferences, and goals.’[9] While Talyor may argue that ‘strong evaluation’ in the subject can transform and affirm freedom, he does not consider how forces may cause this ‘strong evaluation’ to occur. In other words, the important point to ask is how people, or groups, are affected, or have the capacities to be affected, that transforms and re-evaluates their desires, preferences, and goals. This could occur, for example, when a mono-cultural society receives an influx of immigrants who hold different values and beliefs, which may challenge both the core beliefs of the newcomers and the residents.[10] Patton’s main critique of Taylor is his inability to consider the forces of what Deleuze (and Guattari) term subjectivication.

[1] Isaiah Berlin, ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’, Four Essays on Liberty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969) p16
[2] Paul Patton, Deleuze and the Political (London: Routledge, 2000) p83-84
[3] Paul Patton, Deleuze and the Political p84
[4] Paul Patton, Deleuze and the Political p84
[5] Charles Taylor, ‘What’s wrong with negative liberty?’ in Charles Taylor, Collected Papers II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985)
[6] Paul Patton, Deleuze and the Political p84
[7] Paul Patton, Deleuze and the Political p84
[8] Paul Patton, Deleuze and the Political p84
[9] Paul Patton, Deleuze and the Political p84
[10] Paul Patton, Deleuze and the Political

recommended new blog

2007-08-12T18:23:00.000+01:00

Have just found this blog site through Steve Shaviro's blog, and highly recommend it. It is called worlds of possibility, and is written by Steve Colgan.

Check it out. there is some interesting blogs on evolution, organic, and inorganic life.

Baudrillard Quote, Cool Memories 1990

2007-08-10T19:36:00.000+01:00

I read this quote from the second edition of Jean Baudrillard's 'Selected Writings' (ed, Mark Poster):

'If we consider the superiority of the human species, the size of its brain, its powers of thinking, language, and organization, we can say this: were there the slightest possibility that another rival or superior species might appear on earth or elsewhere, man would use every means at his disposal to destroy it. Human's won't tolerate any other species - not even a superhuman one: they see themselves as the climax and culmination of the earthly enterprise, and they keep a vigorous check on any new intrusion in the cosmological process. Now there is no reason why this process should come to a halt with the human species, but, by universalizing itself (though only over a few thousand years) that species has more or less fixed it that an end be put to the occurrence of the world, assuming for itself all the possibilities of further evolution, reserving for itself a monopoly of natural and artificial species.' p223

Now there is a lot in this quote, but what struck me, unsurprisingly, was the closeness of Baudrillard to Deleuze, which comes from their indebtedness to Nietzsche. I do not have the time at present, but I think the connections (and deviations) between Deleuze and Baudrillard has so far been unexplored, and a worthwhile event. Either I have not come across a book that takes this analysis, or maybe one still does not exist? This is why the next few months the blog's main focus is (attempting) to find connections and deviations between these two french thinkers. You never know, there might even be a book that emerges out of this!

Call for Abstracts for Baudrillard Workshop (Newcastle University)

2007-08-08T20:27:00.000+01:00

Just in case any one out there may be interested:

Baudrillard and International Politics
Politics
Newcastle University
Wednesday November 28th, noon-6pm

The translation and publication of Jean Baudrillard’s The Gulf War Did Not Take Place (1995) marked the first significant awareness of Baudrillard’s work among international politics scholars and was the source of a highly engaged debate. In the years since, Baudrillard’s work on the media, simulation, hyperreality, terror, and technology has continued to provide unique insights into contemporary international politics and the discourses in which it is framed.

International politics staff and graduate students at Newcastle University are hosting a half day workshop to explore the value and relevance of Baudrillard’s work for international politics studies and seek papers on the following (and other) themes:

Technology/Media/War
Terrorism
Technology/Simulation/Security
Political discourses of hyperreality
Baudrillard on the USA
The political commitments of Baudrillard’s early scholarship

We envisage presentations will be of approximately 20 minutes duration with plenty of time set aside for general discussion. It is our intention to produce an edited collection focusing on Baudrillard’s contribution to the study of international politics and so wish to solicit papers that are not committed to other projects.

Please forward 250 word abstracts to either Mark Edward (M.D.Edward@ncl.ac.uk) or Simon Philpott (Simon.Philpott@ncl.ac.uk) no later than Friday, September 28th 2007.

Some quotes from Brian Massumi

2007-08-06T22:05:00.000+01:00

If the politics of Deleuze and Guattari seem implicit or are lost in their rhetoric then Brian Massumi comes across explicitly. Here are some quotes from his 'Introduction to Capitalism and Schizophrenia' book about gender and singularities:

"Man" and "Woman" as such have no reality other than that of logical abstractions. What they are abstractions of are not the human bodies to which they are applied, but habit forming attractors to which society expects it bodies to become addicted.' (p86-87)

'No body is "masculine" or "feminine"' (p87)

'A body does not have a gender: it is gendered' (p87)

'Gender is a form of imprisonment, a socially functional limitation of a body's connective and transformational capacity' (p87)

'The ultimate goal, for Deleuze and Guattari, is neither to redefine, misapply, or strategically exaggerate a category, nor even invent a new identity. Their aim is to destroy categorical gridding altogether, to push the apparatus of identity beyond the threshold of sameness, into singularity.' (p88)

Some thoughts:

From reading through Massumi's Deleuzian politics and the quotes specifically the main attack is set against the system of the general (the category) and the particular (the entity). It is not that Deleuze and Guattari don't see benefits of feminism, where they argue for a becoming of women in A Thousand Plateaus, but is just that they want rid of categories that are abstract and try to code behaviours of particulars that are 'members' of a general category. This is why Deleuze and Guattari view language as prescriptive and not referential, where someone can say 'its a boy!' as a means of using particular bodies designated for the general categories. For Deleuze and Guattari each species and each body is a unique singularity, and such designations of 'male' and 'female' should be destroyed in favour of realising each singularity undergoes and obeys far more complex rules of formation. In short, each singularity undergoes its own highly individual historical formation, which the logic of the general and the particular fails to recognise. While Deleuze and Guattari do understand gender does play an active role in todays' society, they argue for an ethics that opposes the general and the particular as they feel these are systems of over-coding and determinism.

One afterthought:

Deleuze and Guattari do not argue this from a social constructivist position, as Manuel DeLanda makes clear in this public lecture at the European Graduate School.

Jean Baudrillard

2007-08-03T16:00:00.000+01:00

I'm in the begining of (co)organising an event looking at the (ir) relevance of Jean Baudrillard for political-thought/politics. We are at the point of thinking about panel presenters and would be grateful for suggestions of Baudrillardian influenced academics - specifically in the United Kingdom or Ireland due to funding limitations.

We are looking for people to speak on:
- The Discourse of Politics and the Reality of Politics
- The (Marxist) Politics of Early Baudrillard
- Baudrillard on the USA
- Baudrillard on War

The event should be taking place at Newcastle University, either late November or early December

an insight into (neo) conservative thought

2007-07-25T15:50:00.000+01:00

Thanks to Larval Subjects to bringing attention to this interesting and insightful article. Just makes you want to bang your head against the wall ( or should we just laugh at them?)...

I am standing waist-deep in the Pacific Ocean, both chilling and burning, indulging in the polite chit-chat beloved by vacationing Americans. A sweet elderly lady from Los Angeles is sitting on the rocks nearby, telling me dreamily about her son. “Is he your only child?” I ask. “Yes,” she says. “Do you have a child back in England?” she asks. No, I say. Her face darkens. “You’d better start,” she says. “The Muslims are breeding. Soon, they’ll have the whole of Europe.”
I am getting used to these moments – when gentle holiday geniality bleeds into… what? I lie on the beach with Hillary-Ann, a chatty, scatty 35-year-old Californian designer. As she explains the perils of Republican dating, my mind drifts, watching the gentle tide. When I hear her say, ” Of course, we need to execute some of these people,” I wake up. Who do we need to execute? She runs her fingers through the sand lazily. “A few of these prominent liberals who are trying to demoralise the country,” she says. “Just take a couple of these anti-war people off to the gas chamber for treason to show, if you try to bring down America at a time of war, that’s what you’ll get.” She squints at the sun and smiles. ” Then things’ll change.”....
You can read the rest here

A bold move by Michael Hardt

2007-07-23T00:34:00.000+01:00

I've been watching the new online lecture from Michael Hardt presented at the European Graduate School, and I have to admirer the man's guts. His recent move is to (re)conceptualise the concept of love for political purposes. The main reason for this manoeuvre is he feels love gets 'us' out of the impasse between arguing for archaism or dictatorship of the prole (Zizek's Leninism), which, for Hardt, are both unacceptable. Yet Hardt's concept of love is interesting, one that challenges people to conceptualise love away from conventional/everyday uses. In sum Hardt believes love can provide the new 'political training' to produce another world. At present i'm a bit skeptical but I agree with Hardt that love requires a political relevance outside the couple, or love based on sameness (identity), and instead an attempt to love difference, or what Deleuze calls singularities.

ask for help - Deleuze article

2007-07-18T12:16:00.000+01:00

I'm away to start co-authoring an article reviewing the recent trend in Deleuzian politics, which will analyse not Gilles Deleuze but scholars that have been influenced by him (and Guattari). This will not look to access who has read Deleuze correctly, but rather how they have 'used' Deleuze for the purpose of politics.

At present we are going to analyse:
Manuel DeLanda; Paul Patton; Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri; & Nicholas Thoburn (and maybe Claire Colebrook)

The aim would be to consider their convergences and divergences.

Is there any main player we are missing out? We know we can't be too extensive, but any suggestions would be appreciated.

Parts and Whole - something to think about

2007-07-17T20:30:00.000+01:00

In Anti-Oedipus Deleuze and Guattari write one of the most important sections in the book under the title of 'The whole and the parts'. In this section they lay the grounds for the concept of assemblage, so predominant in A Thousand Plateaus, and also allows DeLanda to construct an assemblage theory in his 2006 book. Deleuze and Guattari write;

'we live today in the age of partial objects, bricks that have been shattered to
bits, and leftover. We no longer believe in the myth of the existence of
fragments that, like the pieces of an antique statue, are waiting for the last
one to be turned up, so that they may all be glued back together to create a
unity that is precisely the same as the original unity. We no longer believe in
a primordial totality that once existed, or in a final totality that awaits us
at some future date'(p45-46)

Their point is clear, if we are to think of a whole and parts, we cannot think in terms of a closed whole or totalising whole, and instead the whole should be considered as an open whole, a produced whole; 'the whole itself is a product, produced as nothing more than a part alongside other parts'(p46).The whole is therefore nothing other than an assemblage, and this assemblage has component parts that can be removed and plugged in elsewhere.
In a online lecture to the tate Delanda gives a nice example of this. In New York there is a factory that produces spider silk for its strength. However, the problem is you cannot domestic spiders for factory life. To solve this problem the factory took the genetic code from the spider that allowed is to produce the silk and literally plugged this into goats, and hey presto spider goats! Well not quite. The goat produces this silk in their milk, and then the workers separate the milk from the silk. The point of this example is that the whole of the goat, or its identity, is contingent upon component parts, and these component parts are not essential to some ‘goatness’. This is how we should think of all wholes, as assemblages that are historically contingent, with no essential features. Yet there is something more important about thinking about wholes as assemblages, which have component parts. This turns the focus to relations of exteriority, coexistence, and alliance. The famous example of the wasp and the orchid from Deleuze and Guattari demonstrates this focus on relations of exteriority between component parts of an assemblage, where the assemblage in this example could be an ecosystem. Assemblages studies can therefore understand territory/coded rhythms (refrains) without essentialising or totalising these. Assemblages can be understood for features of attractors, which could be seasonal, strange, multiple, and so forth. Yet, as Deleuze and Guattari write in A Thousand Plateaus a machine can plug into an assemblage and alter the territory/rhythm.
The last point, and something DeLanda mentions a lot, is can there be a shift towards an ethics of assemblage, which would considered things in terms of good and bad, and not good and evil (moral essentialism)? This notion of course comes from Spinoza. An example would be adding fertiliser in a soil, where adding too much would kill the crops (bad) and adding a certain amount would help the crops to grow (good). this would led thought to consider critical thersholds within assemblages, and not in a linear causality, but a non-linear causality, accounting for complex feedbacks.

More DeLanda lectures

2007-07-14T12:15:00.000+01:00

Sorry about the lack of posts recently, all my writing time has been taken up elsewhere, so the blog has had to suffer. working on two posts at the minute 1) Defending a whole and a parts approach 2) Discussing Affective labour and Caribbean Tourism

Until then I have found more Delanda lectures on youtube:
You can find the first one here. enjoy.

A reply to 'when a boat is or is not a boat'

2007-06-13T22:34:00.000+01:00

In a recent blog entry K-punk has asked the question of when is a boat a boat? In attempt to answer this question I want to remove it from the linguistic nature of the question, which is directed at asking when the signifier can, or cannot be, attached to the signified. This assumes there is some natural ‘boatness’ form that functions under the ideas of ideal type or natural kind. The problem with this approach is it gets caught in trying to understand the social conventions (idealism) of labelling a boat and neglects to focus on the deeper physical process that are far more important for creating and destroying the boat. In short, the linguistic focus concentrates on identity, where I want to shift the focus to becoming.
Rather than thinking of how a boat is created in language I feel the focus should be to concentrate on the non-discursive factors that are involved in creating and destroying a boat. Far from a boat being an eternal archetype a boat is a product that is produced through a process of individuation. Every boat is a becoming that is produced at a particular point in time through the use of intensive forces. This, for example, could be the pressure of the saw used to saw the pieces of wood, or the force of the hammer used to insert the nails into the wood. However, far from arguing that the boat is a final cause of these intensive processes it is instead a duration that contains its form for a particular amount of time. Other intensive forces may cause this boat to transform and become other. This could be the pressure of waves from the sea or the speed from a projectile thrown at the boat. The important point about this is the focus turns away from thinking about a particular instance and a general type to one of the relation between the whole and the parts. This puts the focus on casual relations rather than the linguistic conventions of asking when a boat is a boat. There are therefore no natural traits for a boat being a boat, but rather the understanding of the intensive morphogenetic processes that can give rise to and destroy a boat. This can be some up by a quote from DeLanda discussing Deleuze:

Deleuze, of course, would not deny that there are objects in the world which
resemble one another, or that there are entities which manage to maintain their
identity through time. It is just that resemblances must be treated as mere
results of deeper physical processes, and not as fundamental categories on which
to base an ontology (ISVP, 2002, p38-39)

From this position I am therefore uninterested in when language allows me to call something a boat or not, but rather more interested in the ‘deeper physical processes’ that have created the boat, maintain its duration, and destroy it to become other. This seems more advantageous as starting from identities risks relying on some essence (e.g. the essence of a boat that allows me to call an object a boat) and instead recognise identities are mere results of other forces, which are not fixed or essential.

Deleuze conference at the Tate

2007-06-12T22:23:00.000+01:00

I just come across this on the web and well worth a look. The tate had a two day conference on Deleuze and posted it online here. Speakers include DeLanda, Hallward, Badiou, and much more.

More DeLanda stuff

2007-06-10T21:28:00.000+01:00

sorry about the lack of posts recently. I'm overseas for fieldwork (without my books) and my memory is nothing without constant referal to them. I think Nietzsche would be proud about my power to forget! Anyhow, for the time being here is more DeLanda stuff.

his anotated bibliography can be found here, and a 3 hour presentation given to the tate can be found here.

Shaviro on Whitehead & Deleuze

2007-06-05T00:55:00.000+01:00

Steven Shaviro has posted a draft chapter of his article on Deleuze's encounter with Whitehead

The paper is well worth a read, especially for people like me who have never read any Whitehead.