[__]~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ \ / ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[__]
[] Erik Davis (oo) Cernunnos sez (cribbing the Fall): The only []
[] erikd@xxxxxxxxx __ thing real is waking and rubbing your eyes. []
[__]==================== ww ==============================================[__]
On Thu, 7 Apr 1994 l200-cm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
...
> Several of us on the list have been questioning the role of
> metaphor in MP because of its speculative possibilities.
I don't follow you here--are you questioning the viability of metaphor
within a speculative system? Or are you saying that metaphors ineluctably
lead to speculation, which is something to be avoided? I think for D&G,
speculation in this sense would not be the rarified systemic knowledge
unveild to dispasionate reason, but could be read as "the creation of
properly philosophical concepts." If metaphors serve as a mediators of
concepts (see Stivale's latest post) then so what?
At least my
> interest (one of my interests, if I can articulate it 'right now')
> is to press the text on the 'totalistic' nature of "rhizome" and then
> to ask if a 'positive' philosophy can exist which is not speculative.
Once again, a clarification: are you trying to press on the rhizome as if
it were totalistic, which the authors clearly say it is not? And once
again, what do you mean by speculative? D&G ground their positivty in
their refusal to wield the negative as some tool in quasi-Hegelian
progression (which certainly is a speculative philosophy). For them ,as
with Derrida, difference is always already present, and hence you need no
recourse to some grand abstract Negative in order to think (ie, create)
differentiated philosophical concepts--like the rhizome. The rhizome is
not totlaizing becuase, unlike the dialectic, it does not suck everything
into its universal spiral. Nor do D&G ever claim that the other pole of
their quasit dualism (arborescence, striated space, teh State form, etc.)
"doesn't exist." They don't even claim that it shouldn't exist, for it has
uses, and "never believe that a smooth space is enough to save us." If you
acknowledge your enemy, but then decide to ignore it altogether rather
than try to "negate" it or suck it into your trap, is that "totalizing"? I
think not. Is it positive? Absolutely--<absolutely>.
> (Furthermore, a philosophy which goes far beyond humanism in its natural
> scope.) I think this question is still very much up for grabs in MP.
> For that reason, I'm not so certain that an extension of "rhizome"
> logic from one cultural realm to another is the most illimunating gesture.
Illuminating for who? What are we illuminating? How MP "works"? What their
concepts mean? Or what their concepts "are"--ie, the nature of concept in
MP? Are you saying that such garbled translation (and I assume you're
referring to the use of rhizome within a hypertextual or cyberspatial
discussion) is inauthentic, or just boring? I have a concept (or rather it
came from an entity that I composed myself with: MP). Let's say it is the
rhizome. Ienter into other relations, with other domains, let's say the
Internet as both an object of knowledge, a social-politcal field, and an
experiment. I enter into a relation with that complex field; I boot up the
rhizome (or rather, the rhizome boots itself up--"I" did nothing, there it
was before me, reconstituting the field without altering any of its
particulars (ie, non-philosophical differentials: the spcifics of the net:
gopher sites, qualities of nodal.modal conneciton, procrastinating university
students, etc.). What have I <not> illumined in this process?
> It seems to be treating the rhizome very much as a metaphysical concept
> and its very ease of transfer makes the concept 'itself' both reified
> and suspect (at least as a critical tool).
Here's the rub. On the one hand, the curious notion that if a tool fits,
if my becoming-wolf is "too easy" (must be the drugs), or if the
becoming-digital of the concept "rhizome" is too easy a transfer, then
something must be "suspect." Why? Because a Grade-A "metaphysical" concept
will, by virtue of its universalizing tendency, easily consume all that
lies in its path, like a hungry virus? Perhaps. But nowhere do D&G say "we
are not philosophers." Just because they factor difference ineluctably
into their notions of identity, does not mean they abandon ontology, or
the construction of ontological forms. Does that make them "suspect"? Of
what crime? Secret agents from the noumenon? Must critical tools be so
tentative that they dissolve in our fingers before we even try them out? I
find suspect the pervasive use of the trope "suspect"--are we such
critical paranoids that we refuse just to ride on a concept for a spell or
two? (It moves way too fast to be reified--or rather it is reified the way
the image of a fractal is reified--it freezes onto a page, I can put it on
a t-shirt, but if I look closesly I find myself lost in a dizzying
infinity, but an infinity <with defintion>. Must that definition be
dissolved as a reified crust on the previously "critical" quasi-concept?
Perhaps as we go on in
> reading MP the centrality of "the rhizome" will fade and we may find
> it to be a "quasi-concept" similar to the Derridean trace. Even here,
> however, I would suggest that it may be problematic to speak of a
> "quasi-concept" outside of human experiences of finitude.
>
Now you've lost me. Are you saying that you find D&G's positive project
loses validity because they do not highlight "human experiences of
finitude"? How did the human come suddenly back into this discussion--or
are you saying the human was here all along, and we've been ignoring him
in a way that renders are discussion, uh, "problematic?" The rhizome
enters me; I cannot disentangle myself from a dying body, from forgetting
and delusion; did the rhizome then not really arise?
------------------