[][][] And if there is still one hellish, truly accursed thing in our time,
it is our artistic dallying with forms instead of being like victims burnt at
the stake, *signaling through the flames.* -Artaud [][][]
greg polly writes:
<<2. I know better than to keep repeating this, but: isn't there somebody
out there among the academic left that can see *some* problem, however
minimal, with constructing an "anti-fascist" ethic with _The Will to
Power_ as an ur-text? >>
I'm not accustomed to answering for having read and found important any
thinker, but rather my interpretation, application, and critique of them. I
don't have any particular interest in being an orthodox Deleuzian, but
perhaps I would have a difficult time finding a better *ur-text* than the
Will to Power to read Deleuze through... One might think then I'm sort of a
prick? Judging by the response though, it would seem I've pricked, spurred
you? I think you can go through N's critique of socialism and find almost
point for point the same critiques made by Marx&Engels in the Manifesto of
"socialism so-far". They escape moralism, as does N, through the enterence of
interest.
Regarding soupy fusions, I would say that yours is exactly my point, perhaps
I am saying you should reserve your criticism of my criticism, and ask what
the implications were of the original suggestion. I have an awful tendancy to
look at things as malignant until proven benign, but that's a relatively
useful way of analyzing, and recognizing the unanalyzed layers of
legitimization and operating interests of capital, at least at this point in
history. ... we must be careful not to allow ourselves to be seduced, to
believe ourselves so quickly outside of Oedipus, and therefor back to the
mother when in fact we should be returning to the level of the partial drive,
to the demand. If I raise the question to whence do we return and how? I
would think this a question on the same plain as D&G's project... Wine or
Zima on my breath, it is about constantly destroying and *re-constructing*
identity, not about its elimination, so sic those bacchants on me brother. If
I balked at the suggestion it was because out of context of the constant
reconstruction, (what I have called "fictionalization of subjectivity", I
find that we are essentially returning from an Oedipal situation to the
imaginary mama-soup, this was exactly my concern. Where I would disagree with
D&G as I understand them at present, is that I believe, Freud demonstrated
exactly this understanding in Three Contributions, (that the drives were
partial and dispersed in origins) and Instincts and their Vissitudes, (that
they are diverse in their ends), Oedipus is a *description* of the dominant
social model, one which is subject to historical change, but has a specific
geneology within western culture, a lineage which seems dominant now only
because of its suitability to the life forms of the dominant class, its
interests, and in the cunning of history, conincides with the social,
techonological, moral, strains which are historically tied to the ascension
of this class. Oedipus is not a prescription of psychic health... Freud's
tounge seemed pretty far in his cheek when he illuded that it might be.
Whether it is an inescapable organization is a real question to be wresteld
with, and I have posted repeatedly elsewhere that it is exactly the attempt,
the description of the project in AO that I love about D&G, my reservations
lie with the MP, which I see as being to speculative, I certainly reserve my
dismissal of it until I've come up with something better. I do not have so
much respect for D&G, not do I think they would want it, that I would not
hope to surpass their strategies. The elimination of names would be reactive,
to constantly fictionalize them, to eliminate *only in order to
create/imagine new names* means to enter into the constant engineering,
destroying and re-emerging of a fiction of self. {This by the way seems the
essense of the Dionysian, the high *and* the hangover, N's point in BT, only
in opposition to the Apollonian does it make anything. (he ultimately
eliminates the need for apollo in later works, the apollonian becomes the
productive/resurective moment of dionysus)}.
This is neither self as gestalt or self as immanent *in* a lifes work, but
self as the work itself. Art is like an organ severed from the body, it dies
and decays. If you can rush it to the gallery or the stage before it goes
limp you have done well, occasionally the patterns of mold and bacteria have
their own charm we must be satisfied with.
<<4. Would DG agree that we should "actively produce the fiction of
subjectivity"? Don't they break with this whole pomo fixation on "fiction"?
(Somebody who knows, talk about this please.)>>
Yes, because in exactly this process the nature of reality as opposed to
fiction breaks down. reality is only the fiction, ideology of the ruling
interest. This is destroyed as transcendent on this very anvil. (see esp.
Plato and the Simulacrum)
<<5. Assuming we were to agree that we should not deny subjectivity but
actively produce its fiction, still, there are a myriad of fictions that
we could produce. So why is it such a necessity to produce a fiction of
atomistic individuals who can be "held responsible" for their productions
(whether through a name or through the work-as-a-gestalt)? >>
Yes, but better to produce a fiction of being multiple than of not being. We
must remain partial not merge into one internet-list-voice. I get to say a
lot of things here that would not usually come out of my mouth, I get to play
at taking several positions. Who has the most partial machines (quantum of
force?) gets the most votes in democracy of fragments which never hope to
become whole? If I create a subjectivity for my right hand and another for my
left, how would this function? How would this become more useful to both than
to remain slaves identified with the master imago of the body? One has to
work on a pragmatic level as well... I can't imagine how, perhaps I will
begin... the extent to which I am unable to apply these concepts to actual
political practice is my poverty every bit as much as yours and DG's... if
someone has a real applicable plan of action, I can only hope they might
intend to share in their wealth.
(just reminds me of one of my favorite passages in the will to power where he
says the Bourgeoisie is the poorest class in Europe because they do not know
what riches are for.)
<<The anecdote
about signatures in the drawing class only makes me think: yes, but what
if the point isn't to produce an individual work that is to be competitively
*graded*?>>
Despite the fact this was a rather tounge in cheek example, I think part of
the point was to ask what happens when someone says my standards exceed those
of any competition with others... something like you can't learn to be an
artist, you can only strive to be a better one. Again I think that I was
challanging exactly what you believed I was upholding. You c an find the
anecdote as "self-serving" as you like, you haven't seen the drawings, on one
hand nothing terribly special, certainly nothing I'm building a career on
today. But then, a low level art class where I spent ten or twenty hours on a
drawing other did in one... the investment of time, the progress, the
dedication was really evident in comparison to the real mediocricy I was
surrounded by, certainly I was making myself singular then... what can this
teach us of making ourselves plural?
[][][] Seamus [][][]
[][] What does it mean that our interpretation has projected a
*contradiction* into existence? -Nietzsche. [][]
------------------
it is our artistic dallying with forms instead of being like victims burnt at
the stake, *signaling through the flames.* -Artaud [][][]
greg polly writes:
<<2. I know better than to keep repeating this, but: isn't there somebody
out there among the academic left that can see *some* problem, however
minimal, with constructing an "anti-fascist" ethic with _The Will to
Power_ as an ur-text? >>
I'm not accustomed to answering for having read and found important any
thinker, but rather my interpretation, application, and critique of them. I
don't have any particular interest in being an orthodox Deleuzian, but
perhaps I would have a difficult time finding a better *ur-text* than the
Will to Power to read Deleuze through... One might think then I'm sort of a
prick? Judging by the response though, it would seem I've pricked, spurred
you? I think you can go through N's critique of socialism and find almost
point for point the same critiques made by Marx&Engels in the Manifesto of
"socialism so-far". They escape moralism, as does N, through the enterence of
interest.
Regarding soupy fusions, I would say that yours is exactly my point, perhaps
I am saying you should reserve your criticism of my criticism, and ask what
the implications were of the original suggestion. I have an awful tendancy to
look at things as malignant until proven benign, but that's a relatively
useful way of analyzing, and recognizing the unanalyzed layers of
legitimization and operating interests of capital, at least at this point in
history. ... we must be careful not to allow ourselves to be seduced, to
believe ourselves so quickly outside of Oedipus, and therefor back to the
mother when in fact we should be returning to the level of the partial drive,
to the demand. If I raise the question to whence do we return and how? I
would think this a question on the same plain as D&G's project... Wine or
Zima on my breath, it is about constantly destroying and *re-constructing*
identity, not about its elimination, so sic those bacchants on me brother. If
I balked at the suggestion it was because out of context of the constant
reconstruction, (what I have called "fictionalization of subjectivity", I
find that we are essentially returning from an Oedipal situation to the
imaginary mama-soup, this was exactly my concern. Where I would disagree with
D&G as I understand them at present, is that I believe, Freud demonstrated
exactly this understanding in Three Contributions, (that the drives were
partial and dispersed in origins) and Instincts and their Vissitudes, (that
they are diverse in their ends), Oedipus is a *description* of the dominant
social model, one which is subject to historical change, but has a specific
geneology within western culture, a lineage which seems dominant now only
because of its suitability to the life forms of the dominant class, its
interests, and in the cunning of history, conincides with the social,
techonological, moral, strains which are historically tied to the ascension
of this class. Oedipus is not a prescription of psychic health... Freud's
tounge seemed pretty far in his cheek when he illuded that it might be.
Whether it is an inescapable organization is a real question to be wresteld
with, and I have posted repeatedly elsewhere that it is exactly the attempt,
the description of the project in AO that I love about D&G, my reservations
lie with the MP, which I see as being to speculative, I certainly reserve my
dismissal of it until I've come up with something better. I do not have so
much respect for D&G, not do I think they would want it, that I would not
hope to surpass their strategies. The elimination of names would be reactive,
to constantly fictionalize them, to eliminate *only in order to
create/imagine new names* means to enter into the constant engineering,
destroying and re-emerging of a fiction of self. {This by the way seems the
essense of the Dionysian, the high *and* the hangover, N's point in BT, only
in opposition to the Apollonian does it make anything. (he ultimately
eliminates the need for apollo in later works, the apollonian becomes the
productive/resurective moment of dionysus)}.
This is neither self as gestalt or self as immanent *in* a lifes work, but
self as the work itself. Art is like an organ severed from the body, it dies
and decays. If you can rush it to the gallery or the stage before it goes
limp you have done well, occasionally the patterns of mold and bacteria have
their own charm we must be satisfied with.
<<4. Would DG agree that we should "actively produce the fiction of
subjectivity"? Don't they break with this whole pomo fixation on "fiction"?
(Somebody who knows, talk about this please.)>>
Yes, because in exactly this process the nature of reality as opposed to
fiction breaks down. reality is only the fiction, ideology of the ruling
interest. This is destroyed as transcendent on this very anvil. (see esp.
Plato and the Simulacrum)
<<5. Assuming we were to agree that we should not deny subjectivity but
actively produce its fiction, still, there are a myriad of fictions that
we could produce. So why is it such a necessity to produce a fiction of
atomistic individuals who can be "held responsible" for their productions
(whether through a name or through the work-as-a-gestalt)? >>
Yes, but better to produce a fiction of being multiple than of not being. We
must remain partial not merge into one internet-list-voice. I get to say a
lot of things here that would not usually come out of my mouth, I get to play
at taking several positions. Who has the most partial machines (quantum of
force?) gets the most votes in democracy of fragments which never hope to
become whole? If I create a subjectivity for my right hand and another for my
left, how would this function? How would this become more useful to both than
to remain slaves identified with the master imago of the body? One has to
work on a pragmatic level as well... I can't imagine how, perhaps I will
begin... the extent to which I am unable to apply these concepts to actual
political practice is my poverty every bit as much as yours and DG's... if
someone has a real applicable plan of action, I can only hope they might
intend to share in their wealth.
(just reminds me of one of my favorite passages in the will to power where he
says the Bourgeoisie is the poorest class in Europe because they do not know
what riches are for.)
<<The anecdote
about signatures in the drawing class only makes me think: yes, but what
if the point isn't to produce an individual work that is to be competitively
*graded*?>>
Despite the fact this was a rather tounge in cheek example, I think part of
the point was to ask what happens when someone says my standards exceed those
of any competition with others... something like you can't learn to be an
artist, you can only strive to be a better one. Again I think that I was
challanging exactly what you believed I was upholding. You c an find the
anecdote as "self-serving" as you like, you haven't seen the drawings, on one
hand nothing terribly special, certainly nothing I'm building a career on
today. But then, a low level art class where I spent ten or twenty hours on a
drawing other did in one... the investment of time, the progress, the
dedication was really evident in comparison to the real mediocricy I was
surrounded by, certainly I was making myself singular then... what can this
teach us of making ourselves plural?
[][][] Seamus [][][]
[][] What does it mean that our interpretation has projected a
*contradiction* into existence? -Nietzsche. [][]
------------------