From: "michelle phil lewis-king" <king.lewis-AT-easynet.co.uk>
Subject: RE: dialectic(can philosophers read deleuze?)
Date: Sun, 17 Jan 1999 00:06:02 -0000


M.(norm?) sent back:
>
>
>
>
> > > >  I think it fair enough to read Derrida's reading of
> Bataille's reading
> > > > of Hegel..
> > >
> > > That's not the issue.  Is it fair to read Deleuze
> > > through Derrida's reading of Bataille on Hegel?
> >
> > It's an approach.
>
> Avoiding the question.  At this rate, you
> should look into politics.
>
No, it is not yet a question of reading Deleuze through  other writers but
of seeing what I think he  does everywhere. In Derrida's Bataille's case:
'Blimey! That's what Deleuze does but without the guilt ect.' I'm not saying
he writes the same thing. Just approaching how it might operate as a
proceedure.

"This writing (and without concern for instruction, this is the example
it  provides for us, what we are interested in here, today) folds itself
in  order to link up with classical concepts- in so far as they are
inevitable  ("I could not avoid expressing my thought in a philosophical
mode. But I  do  not address myself to philosophers" Bataille:
Methode)-in such a way  that  these concepts, through a certain twist,
apparently obey their habitual  laws; but they do so while relating
themselves, at a certain point, to  the  moment of sovereignty, to the
absolute loss of their meaning, to  expenditure  without reserve, to what
can no longer even be called negativity or loss  of  meaning except on its
philosophical side; thus, they relate themselves  to a  nonmeaning which is
beyond absolute meaning, beyond the closure or the  horizon of absolute
knowledge."
  Derrida. Writing and Difference pp267-8.

 (besides I didn't inhale)

Blanchot is closer to Deleuze, D. quotes him regularly on the 'impossibility
of thinking that is thought' I make a link between this and Bataille's
"impossible".. Bataille's atheology is unbearably guilty and tortuous
however... too much Hegel I would imagine.

> > > As Deleuze makes very little reference to either
> > > Bataille or Derrida (and indeed what few references
> > > he does make are critical, or at least emphasize
> > > the difference between his enterprise and theirs),
> > > the answer appears to be no.
> > >
> > Its an impression. I think Deleuze writes like Bataille.. the problem is
> > Nietzsche and Hegel.. I haven't got to a result I can judge .
>
> "The signifier is always the little secret which has
>  never stopped hanging around mummy and daddy. [...]
>  The little secret is generally reducible to a sad
>  narcissistic and pious masturbation: the phantasm!
>  'Trangression', a concept too good for seminarists
>  under the law of a Pope or a priest, the tricksters.
>  Georges Bataille is a very French author.  He made
>  the little secret the essence of literature, with
>  a mother within, a priest beneath, an eye above.
>  It is impossible to overemphasize the harm that the
>  phantasm has done to writing (it has even invaded
>  the cinema) in sustaining the signifier, and the
>  interpretation of one by the other, of one with the
>  other.  'The world of phantasms is a world of the
>  past', a theatre of resentment and guilt."
>
> 			Dialogues [English], p. 47

well, yes, Bataille was completely caught up in Psychoanalysis. I didn't say
he and Deleuze said the same things.

>
> "As for the method of deconstruction of texts, I
>  see clearly what it is, I admire it a lot, but it
>  has nothing to do with my own method."
>
> 			Deleuze, at the 1972 Cerisy
> 			conference on Nietzsche
>
As I said Deleuze isn't Derrida.

> So: is it fair to read Deleuze through Bataille or
> Derrida's reading of Bataille?  Probably not -- if
> Deleuze's intent has any weight.
>
>
> > > > Bataille's 'going beyond' is drawn by Derrida as a kind of
> > > writing and a
> > > > kind of laughter.. I don't think I'm alone in considering that
> > > d+g wrote
> > > > beyond the pale of conventional philosophy and its sense.. that they
> > > > were writers in an extra sense... whose writings are full of humour.
> > >
> > > Hey, I'm full of humor too.  Does this mean I can
> > > write whatever I like about Hegel and have people
> > > on this list accept it because my laugh-a-minute
> > > ecriture is beyond the pale of conventional philosophy?
> > >
> >
> > probably. They have the power to produce it.
>
> You mean "probably, they are ignorant enough to
> buy it".
>
Hey.. why knock it if someone can make it work for them? Might be more
productive than your usual lead.

> > > > >I'd prefer to let Deleuze speak for
> > > > >himself
> > > >
> > > > he can't, he's dead.
> > >
> > > You underestimate the power of the written word.
> > >
> > You fetishise it.
>
> Couldn't leave the bar without one for the road,
> eh?
>
>
> Cordially,
>
> M.
>
phil.