Date:        Thu, 12 Jan 95 13:53:55 EST
From: Karen Ocana <CXKO-AT-musica.mcgill.ca>
Subject: making it with death and libidinal materialism


making it with death and libidinal materialism

what interested me most in land's article on deleuze & guattari
(sideline: land is rather disparaging of guattari, whom he sees as
having suffered at the hands of castrating lacanian
analysis...although i've heard the opposite from others--ie, that
it was guattari who cured deleuze of lacan) and the death drive is
his articulation of a 'new' materialism, and (backtracking to the
sideline), a reappraisal of the relationship between psychoanalysis
and philosophy, which is rabidly antilacanian. while he doesn't
mention or quote any feminist materialists (cixous, gallop,
irigaray, grosz--more or less antilacanian--and angela carter on
the literary angle) whose work i'm interested in, common ground
abounds: returning matter to mater, to a
selfengendering/unengendered undomesticated SEXUAL mater...being
done with daddy (applause!), all dished up with the unmistakeable
aroma of cyberpunk. land effects--trashing philosophy, in favour of
genealogical thinking.

although quite taken by some of land's arguments, on the whole, it
leaves me skeptical; what i find most repellent is his view of
matter--as just flowing of itself unproblematically. "Wherever
there is labour or struggle there is a repression of the raw
creativity which is the atheological sense of matter, and which -
because of its anegoic effortlessness - seems identical with
dying." (*Making it with Death...*, _Journal of the British Society
for Phenomenology, 24,1,01/93). it makes me want to scream! THERE
IS STRUGGLE IN MATTER. Living is a fight to the death. MATTER IS
RIFE WITH CONFLICT. It's not the same conflict, the same struggle,
the same effort as the Protestant work ethic which you probably
imbibed as a kid, Nick. It's got to do with, how shall i put it?
polyvirality--the multiplicity of forces, forces in combat. This is
not just a social phenomenon. It ain't the petty conflict of
viennese nursery pap, or artaud's daddy-mommy, it's an impersonal
kind of struggle. or is this too commonsensical a view? Heraclitus
didn't think so, and I don't think his view was simply
anthropomorphic. Matter is, by definition, anegoic, it has no
"Ich", no "I", but does this necessarily imply that there is no
labour? no conflict? that it all just flows merrily along? One need
not be taking a psychologistic view to say that creativity strives.

Then there is Land's championing of a Spinoza who knows nothing of
caution. I was under the impression that Spinoza's motto is CAUTION
[while i haven't a reference handy, i'm certain of this. perhaps
someone else has a reference to offer.]. Desire, Spinoza's life-
unto-death force, is not opposed to caution. however, it's not the
caution of common sense, it's the caution of passion, of the half-
second, our animal instinct, passion *tout court*, and here, i must
contradict myself--it ought to, by definition, come effortlessly to
animals like us. or rather, caution may come effortlessly to
animals--material beings--but this does not wipe out the effort.
caution is a built-in motor or body or brainpart. it's part of the
functioning of animal machines: call it the instinct of
selfpreservation. this instinct does not preserve the ego, it
preserves the life of the animal, the animal-assemblage. life does
not equal ego, nor does life equal death. life forces are
extinguished, when they are overcome by other forces--enemy forces.
each life force is a combination of forces, of part-forces which
have a certain half-life. YADA YADA YADA.

in any case, there is enough controversy in land's article to make
it well worth pursuing; it is especially recommended to those
interested in neonazism.

(thanks again to john sellars for this article; john, i've lost
your address, or i would have written you directly. keep in touch.
as it happens, i was unable to find the *Journal for the British
society for phenomenology*, in MUSE; but then i found that, thanks
to you, i already had a copy.)

love,
           karen 

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