Despite what some commentators suggest, I wouldn't describe myself as a reductionist.
But, as might be imagined, my love of cracks, gaps, fragments, ruins, ruptures, breakdowns, and all those things that belong to what might be termed a gargoyle aesthetic, means that I have little time for those monomaniacs who subscribe to holistic thinking and insist on a smutty state of Oneness in which all parts are reconciled and find their completion.
Thus, it's mistaken to read the multiplicity of posts on this blog and then attempt to understand them as a Whole: the will to a system, says Nietzsche, betrays a lack of integrity.
Thus, it's mistaken to read the multiplicity of posts on this blog and then attempt to understand them as a Whole: the will to a system, says Nietzsche, betrays a lack of integrity.
Ultimately, I'm sympathetic to Blanchot's suggestion that we learn to think about the relationship between literary fragments in terms of sheer difference; as things that are related to one another only in that each of them is unique and without, as Deleuze and Guattari note, "having recourse either to any sort of original totality (not even one that has been lost), or to a subsequent totality that may not yet have come about".
In a passage that captures perfectly the anti-holistic spirit of Torpedo the Ark as desiring-machine, the latter write:
In a passage that captures perfectly the anti-holistic spirit of Torpedo the Ark as desiring-machine, the latter write:
"We live today in the age of partial objects, bricks that have been shattered to bits, and leftovers. We no longer believe in the myth of the existence of fragments that, like pieces of an antique statue, are merely 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. We no longer believe in the dull grey outlines of a dreary, colourless dialectic of evolution, aimed at forming a harmonious whole out of heterogeneous bits by rounding off their rough edges. We believe only in totalities that are peripheral. And if we discover such a totality alongside various separate parts, it is a whole of these particular parts but does not totalize them; it is a unity of all of these particular parts but does not unify them; rather, it is added to them as a new part fabricated separately."
In addition to the artistic implications of this, a number of logical, ethical, and political consequences also follow; ones that, to me at least, appear far more attractive (and more radical) than those that follow on from holism which, unfortunately, is a concept invoked here, there, and everywhere within contemporary culture - even by people who should know better (i.e., people with the ability to be critically self-reflective).
We hear about holistic models of everything; healthcare, education, science, spirituality, etc. Even politicians talk about the need for joined up government. Again, to quote Nietzsche: I mistrust all systematisers - but today it's become impossible to ignore them.
These advocates of holistic thinking speak in fuzzy terms about inclusion, integration, and harmony. But such idealism builds churches and concentration camps; it erases real difference, fears otherness, and ultimately wants to subordinate the individual to a superior Whole (the Party, the State, Humanity).
I find the thought of One Love, One World, One People, nauseating. If this makes me a reductionist, or a nihilist, then so be it ...
We hear about holistic models of everything; healthcare, education, science, spirituality, etc. Even politicians talk about the need for joined up government. Again, to quote Nietzsche: I mistrust all systematisers - but today it's become impossible to ignore them.
These advocates of holistic thinking speak in fuzzy terms about inclusion, integration, and harmony. But such idealism builds churches and concentration camps; it erases real difference, fears otherness, and ultimately wants to subordinate the individual to a superior Whole (the Party, the State, Humanity).
I find the thought of One Love, One World, One People, nauseating. If this makes me a reductionist, or a nihilist, then so be it ...
See: Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus, trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem and Helen R. Lane, (University of Minnesota Press, 1983), p. 42.
This is also, of course, a prima facie argument for anti-statism and, indeed, anarchism: the 'govenrment of the self by the self', the irreconcilabilty of true individuals, and the infinite distances between them (which, as Rilke tells us, may paradoxically allow them to commune).
ReplyDeleteWhat is interesting is Deleuze and Guattari's statement of the problem (and response to such) as a matter of 'belief' - highlighting, perhaps unintentionally, that, as Patricia Berry has argued, we are always in a myth. As such, we affirm Jung's model of individuation here as crucial: the individual's reflective dialogue with the transpersonal in service of what Kierkegaard called becoming oneself (or, as we would prefer, ourselves).
PS If there are 'monomaniacs', presumably there are also 'multimaniacs' (or, oif the reader prefers, 'fragment fanatics')?
ReplyDeleteCorrect me if I'm mistaken, but didn't Jung fetishise a notion of wholeness [Ganzheit] when it came to the individual?
ReplyDeleteHardly a schizo model of selfhood such as Deleuze and Guattari posit in their work.
We were making a point about the language of 'belief' (subject to translation), not really drawing a parallel between D & G and Jung - whom we read in any case through Hillman (who, as a radicalised Jungian, ultimately argues for a polycentric and disintegrationist model of the psyche).
ReplyDelete