File spoon-archives/deleuze-guattari.archive/deleuze-guattari_1996/d-g_Apr.96, message 22


From: Jeffrey C Osborne <josborne-AT-runet.edu>
Subject: Re: becoming and death
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 1996 08:27:00 -0400 (EDT)


As Foucault points out in his reading of DIFFERENCE AND REPETITION and 
LOGIC OF SENSE, death or, rather, dying serves as the example par 
excellence of the pure event with which becoming is ultimately tied.  The 
BwO, like death, is a moment of pure singularity which cannot be 
represented by anOther.  It is the moment, for the subject, that defines 
and dismantles its identity.  The event of death is at once  the meaning 
of our singular subjectivity and the abyss of meaning in general.

To be honest, I have read neither of these works, being only recently 
introduced to Deleuze-Guattari.  I know that they pass over Heidegger in 
their analysis of phenomenology but I think he is crucial in formulating 
a certain conception of death that we must confront (the concept and, 
perhaps, the actual death, too).  The subject is  only the subject 
after constituting its singularity based on the realization of the 
singularity of the Other through death.  The Other never closes in on the 
subject but always remains at an interminable distance and it is this 
very distance (difference) which presents, makes present, the Self.

Perhaps this can be related (carried back to) what D-G say in AO:  "For 
desire desires death also, because the full body of death is its motor."  
Death is the becoming of the subject insofar as it is the moment of 
singularity where the terrain and the map coincide and become 
indistinguishable, where being finally catches up to subjectivity.

I am interested in this subject and hope that the thread remains alive. If I
 am wrong, or naive, in my 
speaking about this, it is only because of an unfamiliarity with a 
lot of their work and because there is a lack of people talking about 
this around me.  And so, I stick my neck out (but not too far) for the 
sake of learning.  

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