. . . . . . • Organs without Bodies - Gilles Deleuze • |
So, on the one hand, Manuel DeLanda, in his excellent compte-rendu of Deleuze's ontology, affirms the logic of the "disappearance of process under product," the logic which relies on a long (also Hegelian-Marxist!) tradition of reification. "This theme of the disguising of process under product is key to Deleuze's philosophy since his philosophical method is, at least in part, designed to overcome the objective illusion fostered by this concealment." [1] And, the proper level of production is also unambiguously designated as that of virtualities: in and beneath the constituted reality, "the extensive arid "qualitative" properties of the final product," [2] one should discover the traces of the intensive process of virtualities - Being and Becoming relate as Actual and Virtual. How, then, are we to combine this unambiguous affirmation of the Virtual as the site of production which generates constituted reality, with the no less unambiguous statement that the virtual Is produced out of the actual?
Multiplicities should not be conceived as possessing the capacity to actively interact with one another through these series. Deleuze thinks about them as endowed with only a mere capacity to be affected, since they are, in his words, "impassive entities - impassive results." The neutrality or sterility of multiplicities may be explained inthe following way. Although their divergent universality makes them independent of any particular mechanism (the same multiplicity may be actualized by several causal mechanisms) they do depend on the empirical fact that some causal mechanism or another actually exists. /.../ they are not transcendent but immanent entities. /.../ Deleuze views multiplicities as 'Incorporeal effects of corporeal causes, that is, as historical results of actual causes possessing no causal powers of their own. On the other hand, as he writes, 'to the extent that they differ in nature from these causes, they enter, with one another, into relations of quasi-causallty. Together they enter into a relation with a quasi-cause which is itself incorporeal and assures them a very special independence.' /.../ Unlike actual capacities, which are always capacities to affect and be affected, virtual affects are sharply divided into a pure capacity to be affected (displayed by impassible multiplicities) and a pure capacity to affect. [3]
The concept of quasi-cause is that which prevents a
regression into simple reductionism: it designates the
pure agency of transcendental causality. Let us take
Deleuze's own example from his Time-Image: the emergence
of cinematic neorealism. One can, of course, explain
neorealism by a set of historical circumstances (the
trauma of World War II, etc.). However, there is an
excess in the emergence of the New: neorealism is an
Event which cannot simply be reduced to its
material/historical causes, and the "quasi-cause" is the
cause of this excess, the cause of that which makes an
Event (an emergence of the New) irreducible to its
historical circumstances. One can also say that the
quasi-cause is the second-level, the meta-cause of the
very excess of the effect over its (corporeal) causes.
This is how one should understand what Deleuze says about
being affected: insofar as the incorporeal Event is a
pure affect (an impassive-neutral-sterile result), and
insofar as something New (a new Event, an Event of/as the
New) can only emerge if the chain of its corporeal causes
is not complete, one should postulate, over and above the
network of corporeal causes, a pure, transcendental,
capacity to affect. This, also, is why Lacan appreciated
so much The Logic of Sense: is the Deleuzian quasi-cause
not the exact equivalent of Lacan's objet petit a, this
pure, immaterial, spectral entity which serves as the
object-cause of desire?
One should be very precise here in order not to miss
the point: Deleuze is not affirming a simple psycho-
physical dualism in the sense of someone like John
Searle; he is not offering two different »descriptions«
of the same event. It is not that the same process (say,
a speech activity) can be described in a strictly
naturalistic way, as a neuronal and bodily process
embedded in its actual causality, or, as it were, "from
within," at the level of meaning, where the causality ("I
answer your question because I understand it") is pseudo-
causality. In such an approach, the material-corporeal
causality remains complete, while the basic premise of
Deleuze's ontology is precisely that corporeal causality
is NOT complete: in the emergence of the New, something
occurs which CANNOT be properly described at the level of
corporeal causes and effects. Quasi-cause is not the
illusory theatre of shadows, like a child who thinks he
is magically making a toy run, unaware of the mechanic
causality which effectively does the work - on the
contrary, the quasi-cause fills in the gap of corporeal
causality. In this strict sense, and insofar as the Event
is the Sense-Event, quasi-cause is non-sense as inherent
to Sense: if a speech could have been reduced to its
sense, then it would fall into reality - the relationship
between Sense and its designated reality would have been
simply that of objects in the world. Nonsense is that
which maintains the autonomy of the level of sense, of
its surface flow of pure becoming, with regard to the
designated reality ("referent"). And, does this not bring
us back to the unfortunate "phallic signifier" as the
"pure" signifier without signified? Is the Lacanian
phallus not precisely the point of non-sense sustaining
the flow of sense?
One should therefore problematize the very basic
DUALITY of Deleuze's thought, that of Becoming versus
Being, which appears in different versions (the Nomadic versus the State, the molecular versus the molar, the
schizo versus the paranoiac, etc.). This duality is
ultimately overdetermined as "the Good versus the Bad":
the aim of Deleuze is to liberate the immanent force of
Becoming from its self-enslavement to the order of Being.
Perhaps the first step in this problematizing is to
confront this duality with the duality of Being and
Event, emphasizing their ultimate incompatibility: Event
cannot be simply identified with the virtual field of
Becoming which generates the order of Being - quite the
contrary, in The Logic of Sense, Event is emphatically
asserted as "sterile," capable only of pseudo-causality.
So, what if, at the level of Being, we have the
irreducible multitude of interacting particularities, and
it is the Event which acts as the elementary form of
totalization/unification?
Deleuze's remobilization of the old humanist-
idealist topic of regressing from the "reified" result to
its process of production is telltale here. Is Deleuze's
oscillation between the two models (becoming as the
impassive effect; becoming as the generative process) not
homologous to the oscillation, in the Marxist tradition,
between the two models of "reification?" First, there is
the model according to which reification/fetishization
misperceives properties belonging to an object insofar as
this object is part of a socio-symbolic link, as its
immediate "natural" properties (as if products are "in
themselves" commodities); then, there is the more radical
young Lukacs (et al.) notion according to which
"objective" reality as such is something "reified," a
fetishized outcome of some concealed subjective process
of production. So, in exact parallel to Deleuze, at the
first level, we should not confuse an object's social
properties with its immediate natural properties (in the
case of a commodity, its exchange-value with its material
properties that satisfy our needs). In the same way, we
should not perceive (or reduce) an immaterial virtual
affect linked to a bodily cause to one of the body's
material properties. Then, at the second level, we should
conceive objective reality itself as the result of the
social productive process - in the same way that, for
Deleuze, actual being is the result of the virtual
process of becoming.
Perhaps the limit of Deleuze resides in his
vitalism, in his elevation of the notion of Life to a new
name for Becoming as the only true encompassing Whole,
the One-ness, of Being itself. When Deleuze describes the
gradual self-differentiation of the pure flux of
Becoming, its gradual "reification" into distinct
entities, does he not effectively render a kind of
Plotinian process of emanation? Against this "idealist" stance, one should stick to Badiou's thesis on
mathematics as the only adequate ontology, the only
science of pure Being: the meaningless Real of the pure
multitude, the vast infinite coldness of the Void. In
Deleuze, Diffence refers to the multiple singularities
which express the One of infinite Life, while, with
Badiou, we get multitude(s) without any underlying One-
ness. In Deleuze, Life is still the answer to "Why is
there Something and not Nothing?," while Badiou's answer
is a more sober one, closer to Buddhism AND Hegel: there
IS only Nothing, and all processes take place "from
Nothing through Nothing to Nothing," as Hegel put it.
In his notional determination of the constituted
reality to be undermined by the shift towards the virtual
space of becoming, Deleuze condenses the two levels
which, for Heidegger in Sein und Zeit, form the most
elementary ontological opposition, that of Vorhandene (present-at-hand) and Zuhandene (ready-at-hand): for
Deleuze, this standard attitude simultaneously considers
objects as isolated positive entities occupying a
particular location in abstract geometric space, as
objects of contemplative representation, and as objects
perceived through the standpoint of the subject's
existential engagement, reduced to their potential use
within the horizon of the subject's interests, projects,
desires, and so on. (For Heidegger, as well as for the
late Husseri, the elementary metaphysical gesture is
precisely the withdrawal from the immersion into a
concrete life-world to the position of abstract
observer.) The fact of this condensation does not imply
any direct criticism of Deleuze: it can easily be shown
that what he defines as the proper conceptual work of
philosophy (or, at a different level, the work of art)
undermines BOTH our immersion into the life-world and our
position of abstract observers of reality. When a
philosopher produces a new concept, or when an artist
renders an affect in a new way, liberated from the closed
circle of a subjectivity situated in a given positive
reality, he shatters our immersion in the habitual life-
world as well as our safe position as the observer of
reality. We lose our position of abstract observers; we
are forced to admit that new concepts or works of art are
the outcome of our engaged production - yet, in the same
gesture, philosophy or art also undermines our immersion
in the habitus of a particular life-world. [4]
Is this opposition of the virtual as the site of
productive Becoming and the virtual as the site of the
sterile Sense-Event not, at the same time, the opposition
of the "body without organs" (BwO) and "organs without
body" (OwB)? Is, on the one hand, the productive flux of
pure Becoming not the BwO, the body not yet structured or
determined as functional organs? And, on the other hand,
is the OwB not the virtuality of the pure affect
extracted from its embeddedness in a body, like the smile
in Alice in Wonderland that persists alone, even when the
Cheshire cat's body is no longer present?: »'A11 right,'
said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly,
beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the
grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had
gone. 'Well! I've often seen a cat without a grin,'
thought Alice; ' but a grin without a cat! It's the most
curious thing I ever saw in my life!'" This notion of an
extracted OwB reemerges forcefully in The Time-Image, in
the guise of the GAZE itself as such an autonomous organ
no longer attached to a body. [5] These two logics (Event as
the power which generates reality; Event as the sterile,
pure effect of bodily interactions) also involve two
privileged psychological stances: the generative Event of
Becoming relies on the productive force of the "schizo," this explosion of the unified subject in the impersonal
multitude of desiring intensities, intensities that are
subsequently constrained by the Oedipal matrix; the Event
as sterile, immaterial effect relies on the figure of the
masochist who finds satisfaction in the tedious,
repetitive game of staged rituals whose function is to
postpone forever the sexual passage a 1'acte. Can one
effectively imagine a stronger contrast than that of the
schizo throwing himself without any reservation into the
flux of multiple passions, and of the masochist clinging
to the theater of shadows in which his meticulously
staged performances repeat again and again the same
sterile gesture?
So, what if we conceive of Deleuze's opposition of
the intermixing of material bodies and the immaterial
effect of sense along the lines of the Marxist opposition
of infrastructure and superstructure? Is not the flow of
becoming superstructure par excellence - the sterile
theater of shadows ontologically cut off from the site of
material production, and precisely as such the only
possible space of the Event? In his ironic comments on
the French Revolution, Marx opposes the revolutionary
enthusiasm to the sobering effect of the "morning after":
the actual result of the sublime revolutionary explosion,
of the Event of freedom, equality, and brotherhood, is
the miserable utilitarian/egotistic universe of market
calculations. (And, incidentally, is not this gap even
wider in the case of the October Revolution?) However,
one should not simplify Marx: his point is not the rather
commonsensical insight into how the vulgar reality of
commerce is the "truth" of the theater of revolutionary
enthusiasm, "what all the fuss really was about." In the
revolutionary explosion as an Event, another Utopian
dimension shines through, the dimension of universal
emancipation which, precisely, is the excess betrayed by
the market reality which takes over "the day after" - as
such, this excess is not simply abolished, dismissed as
irrelevant, but, as it were, transposed into the virtual
state, continuing to haunt the emancipatory imaginary as
a dream waiting to be realized. The excess of
revolutionary enthusiasm over its own "actual social
base" or substance is thus literally that of an
attribute-effect over its own substantial cause, a ghost-
like Event waiting for its proper embodiment. It was none
other than G.K. Chesterton who, apropos of his critique
of aristocracy, provided the most succinct Leftist
egalitarian rebutal of those who, under the guise of
respect for traditions, endorse existing injustice and inequalities: "Aristocracy is not an institution:
aristocracy is a sin; generally a very venial one." [6]
Here, we can discern in what precise sense Deleuze
wants to be a materialist - one is almost tempted to put
it in classic Stalinist terms: in opposition to the
mechanical materialism which simply reduces the flow of
sense to its material causes, dialectical materialism is
able to think this flow in its relative autonomy. That is
to say, the whole point of Deleuze is that, although
sense is an impassive sterile effect of material causes,
it does have an autonomy and efficiecy of its own. Yes,
the flow of sense is a theater of shadows, but this does
not mean that we should neglect it and focus on "real
struggle" - in a way, this very theater of shadows is the
CRUCIAL site of the struggle; EVERYTHING is ultimately
decided here.
William Hasker perspicuously drew attention to the
strange fact that critics of reductionism are very
reluctant to admit that the arguments against radical
reductionism are false: "Why are so many non-
eliminativists strongly resistant to the idea that
eliminativism has been conclusively refuted?" [7] Their
resistance betrays a fear of the prospect that, if their
position fails, they will need reductionism as the last
resort. So, although they consider eliminativism false,
they nonetheless strangely hold onto it as a kind of
reserve ("fall-back") position, thereby betraying a
secret disbelief in their own non-reductionist
materialist account of consciousness - this being a nice
example of a disavowed theoretical position, of the
fetishist split in theory. (Is their position not
homologous to that of enlightened rational theologians
who nonetheless secretly want to keep open the more
"fundamentalist" theological position they constantly
criticize? And, do we not encounter a similar split
attitude in those Leftists who condemn the suicide-bomber
attacks on the Israelis, but not wholeheartedly, with an
inner reservation - as if, if "democratic" politics
fails, one should nonetheless leave the door open for the
"terrorist" option?) Here, one should return to Badiou
and Deleuze, since they really and thoroughly reject
reductionism: the assertion of the "autonomy" of the
level of Sense-Event is for them not a compromise with
idealism, but a NECESSARY thesis of a true materialism. [8] And, what is crucial is that this tension between the two
ontologies in Deleuze clearly translates into two
different political logics and practices. The ontology of
productive Becoming clearly leads to the Leftist topic of
the self-organization of the multitude of molecular
groups which resist and undermine the molar, totalizing
systems of power - the old notion of the spontaneous,
non-hierarchical, living multitude opposing the
oppressive, reified System, the exemplary case of Leftist
radicalism linked to philosophical idealist subjectivism.
The problem is that this is the only model of the
politicization of Deleuze's thought available: the other
ontology, that of the sterility of the Sense-Event,
appears "apolitical." However, what if this other
ontology also involves a political logic and practice of
its own, of which Deleuze himself was unaware? Should we
not, then, proceed like Lenin in 1915 when, in order to
ground anew revolutionary practice, he returned to Hegel
- not to his directly political writings, but, primarily,
to his Logic? What if, in the same way, there is another
Deleuzian politics to be discovered here? The first hint
in this direction may be provided by the already-
mentioned parallel between the couple corporeal
causes/immaterial flow of becoming and the old Marxist
couple infrastructure/superstructure: such a politics
would take into account both the irreducible duality of
"objective" material/socio-economic processes taking
place in reality as well as the explosion of
revolutionary Events, of the political logic proper. What
if the domain of politics is inherently "sterile," the
domain of pseudo-causes, a theatre of shadows, but
nonetheless crucial in transforming reality?
NOTES
[1] Manuel DeLanda, op.cit., p. 73.
[2] Manuel DeLanda, op.cit., p. 74.
[3] Manuel DeLanda, op.cit., p. 75.
[4] What is a concept? It is not only that, often, we are
dealing with pseudo-concepts, with mere representations
(Vorstellungen) posing as concepts; sometimes, much more
interestingly, a concept can reside in what appears to
be a mere common expression, even a vulgar one. In 1922, Lenin dismissed "the intellectuals, the lackeys of
capital, who think they're the brains of the nation. In
fact, they're not its brains, they're its shit."(Quoted
in Helene Carrère D'Encausse, Lenin, New York: Holmes &
Meier 2001, p. 308.) As Badiou did apropos of Sartre's
(in)famous claim that "anti-communists are dogs," one
should, instead of shamefully ignoring this statement,
take the risk and elaborate the underlying CONCEPT of
shit.
[5] One of the metaphors for the way mind relates to body,
that of a magnetic field, seems to point in the same
direction: "as a magnet generates its magnetic field, so
the brain generates its field of consciousness"'(William
Hasker, The Emergent Self, Ithaca: Cornell University
Press 1999, p. 190). The field thus has a logic and
consistency of its own, although it can persist only as
long as its corporeal ground is here. Does this mean that
mind cannot survive the body's disintegration? Even here,
another analogy from physics leaves the gate partially
open: when Roger Penrose claims that, after a body
collapses into a black hole, one can conceive the black
hole as a kind of self-sustaining gravitational field -
so even within physics, one considers the possibility
that a field generated by a material object could persist
in the object's absence. (See Hasker, op.cit., p. 232).
[6] G.K.Chesterton, Orthodoxy, San Francisco: Ignatius
Press 1995, p. 127.
[7] William Hasker, op.cit., p. 24.
[8] There is nonetheless a specific seductive charm in a (similar to Dennett concerning qualia), the position of
blatantly DENYING our most "immediate" experience. Is
this not the ultimate paradox: that the materialists
whose standard starting point is the defense of immediate
material reality against all transcendent claims end up
denying our most immediate experience of reality?
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