To: <deleuze-guattari-AT-lists.driftline.org>
Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2007 10:22:16 +0200
Subject: Re: [D-G] Tune of the little child - Childhood and Fear - Lacan and


Hello Dr. cb,



NEUROLOGY; BAD CONSCIOUSNESS; FEARS AND LONG CHILDHOOD

I agree perfectly with you, that the real important insight and issue is,
that neurological pains and negativities
 in thinking and feeling are bound do build something like bad consciousness
and fears which gives
the easy to rule or socialization and normalization of people to the mega
machine, the division of work and the common
habits.

But, even for the good functioning of the mega machine: There is to much
fear an bad consciousness.
This to much bad consciousness make efforts of liberating from it to crude,
brute and has easy the social
consequence of  becoming some freak or outsider or to come in general
opposition to the mainstream of society.
And people suffer much to much and have unnecessary conflicts within
themselves and with others.
And the power of thinking and acting of people, their real freedom, stays
very limited or is without connection to others.

Thinking about it, I got the impression, there are really very, very few who
are interested in such
an amount of fears.


I think this insight is also the liberating force of the philosophy of the
Anti-Oedipe and Mille Plateaux.
In the Anti-Oedipe, the Oedipus complex is taken for that operation -
TURNING NEUROLOGY IN BAD CONSCIOUSNESS.
Now the Oedipus complex functions on the basis and background a long
dependency in the
weakness of the childhood of man.  To be more precise, the operation of
building a bad consciousness
has its basis and background in this long childhood. The Oedipus complex is
the hypothesis Freud worked out, but it may  work also in other ways.

The long habit of being dependent, to have to ask someone for permission if
you want to do something,
and the habit of having fear  because one is always confronted with
situations, circumstances and
information "one is to  little for", an  indeed, there is much you cannot
comprehend as a child.
Now, the learning by incorporating through long training by habits is a very
convincing and solid mean
to have an considerable effect. This is in my eyes the real "empiricist" or
Anglo Saxonian tribute to philosophy.
And look, Deleuze and Guattari are also fans of this procedure.

If you are adult you always expect  that there is some law or some right or
some permission you
have to obey or to struggle with, if you want to do something and you always
expect that you have to ask the "experts"
if there is a question, for only the "experts" know. This also concerns the
feelings and conflicts in your
soul and with your partners, you have to ask psychologists who will explain
you, what is "really going on"
and what you and your desires really are, driven by the hard to know
unconsciousness.
And if they do not know further, then come the neurobiologists and
psychiatrists with their medicine drugs.
This is the limitation of acting and thinking concrete.

If we accept this, it is no wonder that the bad feelings of and structures
do not, fall if the theory of Oedipus is not
longer convincing by critique.
The long childhood stays.
So, it is no wonder that "to make Oedipus dead" was a task to big for D&G.


The desire of liberating from experts and autonomous gives a tendency,
 to make the notions of psychology so simple and easy to understand, that
everyone can handle them.

This is perfectly done in Spinozas "Ethic".

Guattari critiques the mathematician Rene Thom in "The machinistic
unconsciousness", that the application of mathematics
 is to complicated for human praxis - I mean human to human.



STRIVE TO DEATH

First, the references (Deleuze Guattari and Lacan) concerning the "Strive to
death or tendency of sell destruction"
At all times it has bothered and still does, that people are doing so much
unfavorable to themselves,
especially if one takes in account the revenge of people badly treated by
them.
Also the keeping health of the body of mind is cultivated very little
compared to
the knowledge and even cheap possibilities.
This strong tendencies have puzzled man of "reason" of all times.
First one thought you only have to tell them the right knowledge and the
undeniable
advantages and avoidance of pain and suffer and they will to it at once.
This does not happen. This comes even stronger out since the invention and
massive practice
of psychoanalysis and other psychological talk techniques. Freud himself,
strongly influenced by natural science and neurology and strongly impressed
by the first world but also
by his in a way little quote of healings with his patients.
The psychoanalytic cures are during very long (10 years are not seldom) and
it is very rare that you can say
the complex has really vanished.
So this is the problem to explain, added by the problem of dying not only on
cell aging, but
other sicknesses.
AS you can image, psychologist and psychiatrists are searching for a deep
and massive explanation
for such hard obstacles.  "The strive to death", going back to Freud,
finally stops at biology or neurology
or even chemistry and physics.
But the connection to physics gives why to get something of the "non organic
life" - of silicium for example,
which is envisioned by Deleuze and Guattari.

At is it probable, that this long Email is not fully read:
Kundalini Yoga does a lot against aging, especially by
enhancing the numbers and quality of the synapses in the spinal cord, here
especially
behind the navel(Mainipura) and, very very important in the neck, where a
lot of nerves to an from
the head an running. The tendency in general to let overtake the Neocortex
the functions of the body, combining it with the limbic and autonomous
system are supported and enhanced by
the asana and panayama practices, especially concerning the spinal cord.
This gives a better "Body without organs" - the nerve cells acting together
as a whole network
regardless their function for the organs.
As  in "How to make a Body without organs" in Mille Plateaux is sated by
Deleuze and Guattari:
"You have to make you an body without organs, it is a question of age and
youth, of life and death"
Affirming that you see, the place of Kundalini Yoga in enhancing the
happiness of mankind by improving health and giving longer
and more intensive life
 is in a way really central.
Apart from looking the division of function of the brain expresses also the
ability to subside
functions from one part of the brain to another or easy to
build up new function sup to sense enhancing and "new senses".
I can tell you, this all takes really place as an effect of long term
regular yoga practices.



BODY WITHOUT ORGANS

In a letter "Letter to Uno: How we work together as two",
Deleuze declares he and Felix Guattari had different interpretations of the
notion "Body without organs" till the end.

there are two references to the body without organs in Deleuze Guattari.
The first is the second section of the first chapter of the Anti-Oedipe and
the second
is the already cited "How to make a body without organs" from Mille
plateaux.
In the Anti-Oedipe  the BWO also functions as "anti production" in the
analogy
with "The Kapital" (as described by Marx).


LACAN AND EY ON SELF DESTRUCTION AND PSYCHIC CAUSALITY

As you referred to Lacan/ `Feud and Deleuze and especially Guattari are
strongly influenced
by Lacan (categorized asl"Left-Laacanism")
the text to "strive to death" or "tendencies of self destruction" I read
is: "Talk  concerning the psychic causality", from 1946 in Ecrits III.
Here he reports about his dissertation which handles a case a paranoid
psychosis as
self punishment. He also discusses the very important and in France very
influential
neurobiological theory of his teacher Henry Ey of a functional disorder and
dissolution of the  "I" on a neurological level as
reason for schizophrenia. There is also very important considerations of
phases of "traumatic" identifications as subjectvations driven by
neurobiological
brain processes. In the eyes of Lacan, Henry Ey and other neurbiologists
deny a psychic causality and try to understand all out of neurology,
the psychology  is more an effect of this brain chemistry and brain
electric.



THE LONG WEAKNESS IN CHILDHOOD AS FEAR DRIVEN SUBJECTVATIONS

The picture of the child singing a tune in order to build some own world is
very poetic and lies
at the root of the definition of the ritournelle.
It is out of some "conditio humana" or living being at all, most animal are
flight animals and the others are haunters.
It is also at the very root of psychogenesis and subjectvations, Freud stars
with noticing the very long time
of depended childhood vastly dominated by lack of information, knowledge and
economical dependence.
This has lead to stories that the Dschenings Khan as ruler of the world
still feared his old mother - as she could beat him as
a helpless child.
This argument is actually taken up in favor for the child by Arnold
Schwarzenegger, a former Mister Universum,
rich and success politician and actor, in the debate about proposal for a
law concerning
the right of physical punishment of childs by its parents. His Republic
party
widely disagrees with him in this point   and gives the proposal  no chance
to be realized . He
brings  some personal experience going into the conviction.
So it has in my eyes still some point.
The strategy of "trapping the young foxes", to structure a child or person
at times it has no chance to defend because the task goes far beyond its
abilities - maybe because of
a subjective state of acute vulnerability and crisis -
is at the very heart of anti human behavior.
Therefore it is also some protest concerning the treatment of people which
have more
often such crisis.
Her the attempt to get the phases of under control,
regarding time  and intensity is understandable.
Far more effective and better looks the attempt to develop sure and solid
techniques to handle such phases of subjectvations
whenever they occur.



CHAOSMOSE AND THE POLITICS OF FEAR

The fear of the child is generalized in two ways:
First philosophical by Deleuze following Kant : We only want to bring some
order to chaos, which has its
origin in the unbearness of the experience of the chaos such.
This come s also out in the book on Foucault of Deleuze, and the notion
of "Chaosmose" which Guattari takes for his last book.

The second, more political one is "The politic of fears", which is also a
title of
Massumi and is indeed at the very core of existence of modern man.
Already the old one knew: "The mind is moved by hope and fear" (for example
Spinoza).
Freud in his writings starts indeed noticing the whole education and
building of the character
of the human being is determined by the fact of his long childhood with its
dependence  on the parents and lots of fears - there is so much we do not
know as child and
we do not even know which effects it could have, so there is lot of fear.
This effect becomes greater, like nowadays the experience through cultural
and
technological development is far less obvious, natural and elf explaining
gas in former times.


CONSTRUCTIVISM AND THE MEGA MACHINE

This is a little bit how I understand the "Mega machine" comes in.
There is a remark of Nietzsche on Spinoza that Spinoza has put on amour
with his complicated larine mathematic like demonstrations.
This indeed had function, but you got often little impression what Spinoza
felt and thought.
On his ring the was "caute" - Be aware.

Now the style of Spinoza has become in a certain way
the way of expression of the scientific world, which made
the difference between the things one like to express and the expression
itself
often very technical and "artificial".
In an earlier email I expressed that this is also the case
for the language of Deleuze and Guattari.
Now in a certain way it is not technical enough, for, as you rightly remark,
the bridge to the notions
of neurobiology is not made - which would help understanding a lot.
I see the reason for this in the attempt to use mostly concepts from mind or
free of
a mind - body relation and second in the attempt to cover over indvidual,
group and social feelings and actions directly
without going back to the bound to an individual brain.
Like the notion of a Mega machine.
Here you are right, that one often has the feeling it is not oneself who
expresses oneself, but a position in a mega machine setting:
As a teacher I have to say to you as a pupil that  taxes are necessary.
Probably either  teacher nor the pupil is real interested in taxes.
But probably both have the feeling that it is important and one has to know
about in order to know what
is going on in society and politics and survive and orientate in it.
This is what Marx called "Entfremdung" - to get foreign to oneself.
This notion played a big role in his early writings which in turn played a
big role in the
western, especially German reception of Marx.


PATHIC AND "BECOMING FOREIGN" (HEGEL AND MARX)

21st CENTURY SCHIZOID MAN (SONG BY ROBERT FRIPP WITH KING CRIMSON IN THE
1970ies)
- SCHIZOPHRENIA EXPRESSING THIS TENDENCY OF MODERN SOCIETY AND TECHNOLOGY
AND ALSO THE



SUBJECTVATIONS ON THE LEVEL OF SOCIAL PSYCHIC REALITY
(DELEUZE AND GUATTARI IN ATNTI OEDIPE 1972)



 Things are really a bit complicated, of course there are a lot of narrative
ways from tradition,
in India the Mahabarata, Sufi tales, poetry in a lot of forms,
Philosophers like Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, La Rochefoucauld.
But one cannot deny that the development of science, especially psychology,
sociology
and neurobiology has brought a lot of insights which are hard to express in
an adequate way
by narratives - especially concerning quantities.
This has lead to incorporate mathematics, often statistics.
The mathematical notion of a manifold taken up by Bergson and Deleuze
is an attempt to build a bridge to mathematics on a conceptual level - a way
to carry the insights over in both directions.


But, and this is really important in neurobiology, the fear is often neural
driven,
are effects from the brain chemistry. This is the reason why most people
take drugs, medical or others and make sports. yoga or other things with
high
effects on the brain. the believe in talking cures" like psychoanalysis is
very little.
This is also the reason why morals could possibly exchanged by medicine,
yoga or other techniques
- (brain)somapsychich techniques.

On the other hand, by thinking right and make good strategic decisions
concerning friends, work,
milieu, interests, habits one can reach a happy life and overcome fear much
easier.



But now it is really enough for today.

greetings Harald Wenk
-----Original Message-----
From: deleuze-guattari-bounces-AT-lists.driftline.org
[mailto:deleuze-guattari-bounces-AT-lists.driftline.org]On Behalf Of
.+oot8am wakeup
Sent: Mittwoch, 4. April 2007 08:34
To: deleuze-guattari-AT-lists.driftline.org
Subject: Re: [D-G] Deleuze, electronic music and Deleuzian theory of
body


Hi,

I confess to know nothing of death drives. I have read about them and
think they are strange explainations for phenomena that can be
explained clearly without resorting to them.... tho I am intrigued by
your comments about the whistling of children in fear.

Without thnking toomuch I'd look for some scaleable relationships.
especially b/c the Body is without organs I tend to see BwO as a scalable
type. It is important that DyG present the BwO against the megamachine; and
territorialization of human psychology can be cruel and self-destructive
like some "Lucifer Effect" described by Zimbardo's Stanford Univ.prison
experiments. (listen to Zimbardo interview at DemocracyNow.Org)
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/30/1335232

the destructive effects are so additive/recursive and are so connected to
language and the passions which languaage describe mentally. it escalates
often in perverse negative narrative of emotional roll-playing, completely
organic and separate from those hazzards presented by the megamachine.
Indeed the megamachine is born from this and that already is. So there is
allways biopower reflecting zoepower to some degree. Now I believe the
destructive aspects of the BwO are concentrated by the megamachine and all
psychology can do is help systematized real experience as territory. But if
you want to look at the BwO perhaps its materialist aspects are best, which
is the brain, the neurology, can it provide literal reference?

The aging-process and the brain is probably the biggest territory in
institutional neurbiology. Howard Hughs and his crackpot schemes to live
forever are really the 1940's origin of America's over-funded & yet high
ranking neurology technology industry. Becoming conscious of how our minds
fall apart is such an anti-hinduistic vision but it seems a valid one ever
since history has slipped through the looking glass of ww2. even the
historical myths are literal validations of these processes. I dont intend
to refer to a some bicameral breakdown here, but there is a clear hydraulic
quality to how the mind sees itself, mythologizes itself as consciousness,
whether it be a consciousness that seeks procreation, survival, or suicide.

-cb
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