D&G: What is Philosophy?

Image by Dick Whyte

One of the things I like about Deleuze is that he never gave up on philosophy. That is to say, he never had any problem with calling himself a philosopher and of happily subscribing to an intellectual tradition stretching back to the Stoics. 

This, by his own admission, didn't make him better than others of his generation who seemed slightly embarrassed by the title of philosopher, or felt guilty if their work too might be shown to belong to the history of Western metaphysics, but it did make him the most naive or innocent.

But what is philosophy for Deleuze? He answers this question very clearly and very beautifully in his final book written in collaboration with Félix Guattari, entitled - appropriately enough - What is Philosophy? In this text, Deleuze argues that philosophy, science, and art all have the essential task of mediating chaos and that each discipline does so in a manner specific to itself as a way of thinking and creating.

First and foremost for D&G, philosophy is neither concerned with the contemplation of ideas, or their communication; rather, it is concerned with the creation of new concepts. This is its unique role and why the philosopher might best be described not as the lover of wisdom, so much as the creator of concepts. 

This is not to deny that the sciences and arts aren't equally creative. But only philosophy creates concepts in the strictest sense of the term (as singularities or events, never as universals). In giving philosophy such a distinct history and role, D&G are not claiming any pre-eminence or privilege for their own work; they fully acknowledge that there are other equally important, equally profound ways of (non-conceptual) thinking. Science and art are not inferior modes of ideation, but they mediate chaos differently (with the latter defined not as a void of disorder, but a virtual realm of infinite possibilities).

Science, for example, in contrast to philosophy, is concerned with inventing functions that are then advanced as propositions in discursive systems to be reflected upon and communicated as such. It wants to find a way to give chaos fixed points of reference and to slow things down; to make chaos a little more predictable and, if you like, a little more human. Philosophy might like to give style to chaos (i.e. a level of consistency) via the construction of a 'plane of immanence', but it is happy to retain the speed of birth and disappearance that is proper to chaos.

Again, this is not to denigrate the work of physicists and mathematicians and D&G are at pains to stress that they find as much admirable experimentation and creation within Einstein as within Spinoza.

As for art, it takes a different approach: if philosophy is all about concepts and science all about functions and their elemental components known as functives, then art is concerned with percepts, affects, and sensations. D&G write:

"Percepts are no longer perceptions; they are independent ... of those who experience them. Affects are no longer feelings or affections; they go beyond the strength of those who undergo them. Sensations, percepts and affects are beings whose validity lies in themselves ... They could be said to exist in the absence of man because man, as he is caught in stone, on the canvas, or by words, is himself a compound of percepts and affects. The work of art being a sensation and nothing else: it exists in itself."

- Deleuze & Guattari, What is Philosophy? trans. Graham Burchell & Hugh Tomlinson, (Verso, 1994), p. 164.

Obviously the work of art is created by the artist, but it stands or falls on its own; i.e. it exceeds the life of its own creator. Further, it draws the artist (and the viewer, reader, listener) into a strange becoming - producing them as much as they produce it and giving everyone a little chaos back into their lives.

If, as we have noted, philosophy adventures into chaos via the plane of immanence and science via a plane of reference, then art constructs a plane of composition: this, for D&G, is definitional of art. But by this they refer not merely to technical composition (which could just as well be the concern of science), but an aesthetic composition concerned with sensation. Thus art, like science and philosophy, is a unique way of thinking and of opening a plane within chaos. It is obviously related to science and philosophy, but should not be thought of as an aesthetic mish-mash of these practices. D&G conclude:

"The three routes are specific, each as direct as the others, and they are distinguished by the nature of the plane and by what occupies it. Thinking is thought through concepts, or functions, or sensations and no one of these ... is better than another ... The three thoughts intersect and intertwine but without synthesis or identification."

- Ibid., pp. 198-99. 

Ultimately, we should be grateful for the gifts that they bring us: unlike religion, which has done nothing except open a great umbrella between us and reality in an attempt to protect mankind from chaos. But that's another post ...

Towards a Doctrine of Non-Necessity

Whilst I'm perfectly happy for philosophers to discuss the concept of necessity (be it logical, empirical or transcendental in nature), or spend many long hours thinking through related ideas of determinism and contingency, it increasingly seems to me that many of the malicious and often murderous stupidities that confront us in this life are, for want of another word, completely unnecessary. 

Nationalism, racism, homophobia, misogyny, sectarianism and all those forms of what Nietzsche memorably termed "scabies of the heart" [GS 377] are things that we could happily do without and the absence of which would instantly make the world less ugly and unpleasant.

Hopefully it's clear that I'm not speaking here as a liberal idealist of some description. For as Nietzsche also says, one has to be "afflicted with a Gallic excess of erotic irritability" [GS 377] to dream of embracing all humanity with fraternal affection and, despite having been born in Paris, I'm simply not French enough.

So no, I do not love mankind. If anything, it's because I'm too indifferent and ultimately too uncaring to spend time hating that I'm led towards a nihilistic doctrine of non-necessity. It's insouciance and a certain cool irony that saves us from that violent rage and ressentiment that grips those who subscribe to a puffed-up politics of identity and self-assertion.    

The Tears of Zena X (Written in the Style of Roland Barthes)

Photo by Peter Zelei: gettyimages.com (158635665)

The slightest tremor of emotion, whether of happiness, anger, or disappointment, always brings her to tears. For she has a particular propensity to cry and even once wrote a prize-winning letter to Cosmopolitan defending her right to weep in the workplace. 

By releasing her tears without constraint, she follows the dictates of her little body, which is a body forever at the point of liquid expansion. She enjoys the feeling of tears running gently down her face: they are comforting not only to her heart, but delightful on her tongue.

Usually, when people cry, they are addressing their tears to someone else. By weeping, they want to capture attention and perhaps bring pressure to bear upon others. Tears can thus be a sign rather than an expression of feeling. But Zena often cries for her own reassurance; to prove to herself that she is still alive. 

And sometimes, late at night, when there is no one around to witness her grief, she finds herself upset by random objects and events, including the contents of her vegetable drawer. Indeed, she recently confessed: I once looked at a carrot and cried.

In Memory of Valerie Solanas

Mary Daly was right to say that anti-feminism is merely the political expression of misogyny. And doubtless the above is intended as a piece of anti-feminist polemic, although, ironically, it echoes the writings of Valerie Solanas fighting her one woman war against male power in the SCUM Manifesto.

Could it be that Pat Robertson is secretly part of the Men's Auxiliary, working diligently to undermine the credibility and authority of his own type? Sadly, probably not. 

But it's because of pricks like him that I support all women who desire to happily idle away their time in ways of their own choosing (including infidelity, infanticide, paganism, socialism, and lesbianism); women who know that sometimes you have to scream to be heard - and sometimes you just have to pull the trigger.

W.I.T.C.H.

In his reading of The Scarlet Letter Lawrence offers an interesting theory of how women like Hester Prynne become witches and fall into a state of moral and sexual corruption, or what religious people call sin.

According to Lawrence, when the female soul "recoils from its creative union with man", it becomes possessed by malevolent forces and starts to exert an invisible and insidious influence in the world. The woman herself may remain "as nice as milk" in her daily life and continue to speak only of her love for humanity, but she becomes subtly diabolic and sends out "waves of silent destruction" that undermine the spiritual authority of men and their social institutions. 

Thus it is, continues Lawrence, that our forefathers were not altogether fools in their fear of witchcraft and the burning of witches not altogether unjustified.   

 

What do I think of this curious contribution to sexual politics? Not much. It's obviously untenable and hateful in its misogyny. One is reminded of the televangelist Pat Robertson, who also claims that women who desire autonomy and independence are intent on practicing witchcraft, smashing capitalism and becoming lesbians. 

The only difference is that Lawrence recognises that evil is as necessary as goodness and that we ultimately need witchcraft as a power of malevolence in order to destroy "a rotten, false humanity" that wallows in its own idealism and phallocratic stupidity.   

Note: for quotes from DHL see Studies in Classic American Literature, CUP, 2003, pp. 89 and 93.

On Taking Flight

Scott Fitzgerald was right about at least one thing: a clean break is something you can never return from as it effectively abolishes the past. And to flee, I would suggest, is to endeavour to make a break of this kind; to leap like a demon from one world into another.

Unfortunately, a lot of people don't seem to understand this idea very well and so fail to value it very highly. They mistakenly believe, as Deleuze points out, that fleeing is a cowardly avoidance of commitments and responsibilities, or marks some sort of retreat into a fantasy life. 

But nothing could be further from the truth and, ultimately, nothing is more active than flight. Furthermore, despite what the good people say, it also takes courage to paint your wagon rather than accept the comforts of home. 

It should be understood, however, that nothing I have just written necessitates travelling to faraway lands, or even having to move: lines of flight involve journeys in intensity and, if you know how, you can run even when standing still.

There's simply no point in heading for a tropical paradise if you are going to be yourself when you get there. And yet leaving your job, your car, and even your friends and family behind, is far easier than abandoning one's own precious ego and losing or escaping from the face.        

On Therianthropes and Furverts

If we ignore the genetic possibilities that are beginning to present themselves, we are left with only two options in our quest to transplant man back into nature and become-animal. 

The first is to experiment with the molecular bestiality outlined in the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari which is conducted at the level of forces rather than form, but which is nevertheless a real procedure which has nothing to do with fantasy (even if it's very often tied to literature).

The second, is to continue at the molar level to investigate possibilities of animal transformation subscribed to by those for whom metamorphosis is crucial. For many pagans, for example, this idea is central within the magical world of shamanic religious practise; whilst for many fetishists, costumed pet-play is a popular niche activity within the erotic arena. 

If, in the former realm the sexual element is sometimes played down in order that the spiritual aspect can be emphasized, nevertheless in both these worlds we find people who like to dress up and imitate animal behaviour, often in a heavily stylized and ritualistic manner.

Whatever we might think of this acting out, the key is it seems to enable participants to temporarily escape from the confines of their humanity - and, indeed, their underwear; metamorphosis seems to be a sweaty and somewhat uncomfortable process that invariably involves the violent discarding of clothes at some point.

To transform into an animal is thus not only liberating in that it allows one to live momentarily without bad conscience and to do things that are normally forbidden or frowned upon, but it promises also an altered state of being. Thus some therianthropes take animal transformation very seriously indeed, insisting that they genuinely possess the spirit or soul of an animal and that shape-shifting is far more than a type of role-play.

For me, I have to say, it all gets a bit much. And if, on the one hand, I admire the courage and mania of those who travel to the very limit of what it is to be human and defiantly declare themselves to be beasts, on the other hand I can do without the asceticism and judgemental snobbery of those therianthropes who regard other members of the furry community as frivolous sexual deviants lacking in respect for the animals they like to dress up as. 

When push comes to shove, I'd sooner hang about with those individuals content to make animal noises in the bedroom, rather than those who howl at the moon. That is to say, I prefer those with zoosexual tastes rather than occult leanings; furverts rather than therianthropes. 

Proposition 7

Wovon man nicht spechen kann, 

darüber muß man schweigen 

 

Many years ago, when I used to be harangued on a weekly basis at a pub in Chiswick by an ardent  Wittgensteinian, I used to believe that the aphoristic-sounding proposition 7 of the Tractatus was profoundly true. If any logical tautology came close to the beauty of poetry, this was surely it.

But now I feel very differently and I view proposition 7 as a religious prohibition which is no more subtle than a hand placed over the mouth. Wittgenstein attempted not only to close his own work with this line, but shut down any further philosophical investigation into the manifest 'mystery' of the world. 

In other words, like Kant before him, Wittgenstein sought to preserve a space for faith. As Ray Brassier argues, his attempt to identify and enforce the limits of language and knowledge is ultimately nothing more than a thinly veiled exaltation of mystico-religious illumination over conceptual rationality.

Like Heidegger, that other great crypto-theologian of twentieth century philosophy, Wittgenstein makes so much unthinkable, unspeakable, unquestionable, and hence unanswerable - except to those who receive divine inspiration in such matters - that we can read proposition 7 as no more than a succinct rephrasing of something found in an ancient Hebrew text, the Wisdom of Sirach:  

Do not seek knowledge of the sublime; do not look into things that are hidden from you and are not of your concern; pay heed only to that which is taught unto you by the law-givers.  

- Sirach 3: 21-2 

 

The Human Body Does Not Exist

Chelsea Charms (2009) 

I have been thinking again of Marc Quinn's sculptures of individuals who have magnificently transformed their flesh, their sex, and their humanity via techniques including plastic surgery, hormone treatment, and cosmetic enhancement (tattooing, piercing, skin bleaching, etc). 

If fascinating and rather beautiful as neo-classical objects - particularly those worked in marble of Thomas Beatie and Chelsea Charms - they nevertheless fail to amaze as much as the real bodies upon which they're based. Ultimately, those who have turned themselves into living works of art have little need for statues to be erected in their honour.

That said, Quinn's work nevertheless succeeds in obliging the viewer to consider important questions not simply to do with biology, gender, and sexual artifice, but also celebrity and race: the Michael Jackson pieces, for example, remind us that he was the first truly transracial as well as transsexual superstar - "better able even than Christ to reign over the world and reconcile its contradictions", as Baudrillard put it.

Perhaps understandably, Quinn was keen at the time of his exhibition (SS 2010) that it not be thought of as simply a postmodern freak show. But surely it was the physical abnormality and inherent queerness of his subjects that prompted Quinn to ask them to pose in the first place and Catman, Dennis Avner, now sadly deceased, happily worked within this tradition as a performer.

For me, the only illegitimate response came from those who insisted that the point of Quinn's exhibition was to show that, despite everything, we're all the same under the skin. 

Why I Love the Photography of Sally Mann

Sally Mann: WR Pa 53, (2001)

I recently heard the photographer Vee Speers described as a Sally Mann for the digital age. To be honest, I'm not quite sure I know what this means. But what I do know is that whilst the former has produced some very striking and beautiful images, not least of all those of children contained in the series entitled The Birthday Party, her work lacks the outrageously disturbing and provocative character of Sally Mann's. 

I still vividly recall the shock of seeing a retrospective of Mann's work three years ago at the Photographer's Gallery in London, entitled The Family and the Land. This, her first solo show in the UK, included pictures from Immediate Family (naked children), Deep South (naked vegetation), and What Remains (naked corpses). 

The strange, elementary worlds of childhood, landscape and violent decomposition were all brilliantly captured by Mann using antique cameras and techniques so that the images retained their full and often gruesome black and white immediacy. In this sense - and only in this sense - her work might be branded obscene. For there is nothing teasing or titillating in her work; the pictures don't ask to be read erotically any more than they need to be located within some kind of reductive moral context.

Having said that, it's true that the distance of the spectator's gaze is often abolished as in pornography. But Mann is at her very best when the bodies on display are presented in close-up and there is a total collusion and confusion of elements; when faces quite literally become landscapes, as in the untitled but classified picture WR Pa 53, (2001).

It's been said by those who dislike her work, that Mann's photographs ultimately fail to communicate anything and make no positive contribution to society. And it's true that, if anything, they contaminate and corrupt our world of adult human order. I for one didn't come away from the exhibition feeling that I'd learnt anything about the 'innocence of childhood' or the 'beauty of the swamps' - thank God!

Critics who continue to insist on their right to uplift and enlightenment from art, do so because they don't know what else to say and mistakenly believe that banality is better than an open confession of paralysis in the face of something genuinely shocking.

It is, we might conclude, the virulent anti-humanism of Sally Mann's work that accords it greater potency than anything so far produced by Speers. Only Mann has dared to show us the full horror of the human face as lunar surface to be mapped, rather than kissed. And only Mann reminds us not only that little girls have vaginas, but that the vagina itself is nothing other than a freshly dug grave.