Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1999 06:59:40 -0800 (PST)
From: Paul Bryant <levi_bryant-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Relativity


Hi Dan-- 

Thanks for your thorough response...  Just a few remarks and questions.

---Daniel Haines <daniel-AT-tw2.com> wrote:
>
> Paul Bryant wrote:
> > 
> > It has been claimed on a number of occasions that Deleuze's
> > perspectivism is not a relativism.  I agree with this assessment,
but
> > am interested to hear why others might think this is the case.  In
> > order to answer this question it seems necessary to determine the
> > presuppositions of relativism that Deleuze does not share, and
clarify
> > what is meant by perspectivism in Deleuze. 
> 
> Paul,
> 
> interesting question....  if you'll humour my ignorance of delueze
> "solo" and I can assume here that your comments apply to deleuze &
> guattari as well (and if you'll tell me sometime where the term
> "perspectivism" is coming from, as I've not encountered it) then I'll
> offer a few muddled thoughts...

I'm taking the term "perspectivism" from N&P and _Leibniz and the
Baroque_.  Deleuze develops a rather nuanced account of perspective in
the latter.

> first off, i think the obvious point is that d&g cover a lot of the
same
> ground that relativism does/did/has, challenging dominant
significations
> and cultural narratives, undercutting power's claim to be grounded
in a
> moral or natural world-order;  but equally, the difference is that d&g
> refuse the main relativistic conclusion, which is that we cannot
> ultimately order or select from different viewpoints in relation to
any
> set criteria of truth, or of selection! I think this would be just the
> same as their dismiisive attitude towards "postmodernism" = it is the
> "impasse" of a particular narrative, its bankruptcy - not something we
> therefore necessarily have to concern ourselves with... the kind of
> relativism I assume you mean is closely linked to that "postmodern
> impasse", right? 

Yep, exactly...  Which isn't to say that pomo should be ignored. 

> to put it a different way - I take relativism to be a conclusion drawn
> from the observation that different cultures/societies/ultimately,
> different "people" - have different experiences/interpretations of
> experience;  more critically, perhaps, I would liken it to the moment
> when the cultural bubble that protects a society bursts - the moment
> when a culture realises its own specificity... and realises that the
> framework of the world, the whole rationale which gives living a
logic,
> is part of a culture and not of the universe itself - that it is
equally
> possible to do things completely differently without terrible
> consequences.

This is an intriguing way of putting things.  Is there a chance that
this realization in itself becomes a terrible consequence?  I'm
thinking about the role jouissance and the Real might play here in the
Lacanian edifice as a means of describing class strife, ideology
(which is a bad word among D&Gers), and cultural conflicts.
 
> but, important though this realisation is/was (I say 'was' as I would
> place this as a specific historical moment in western culture) it on
the
> one hand doesn't go far enough, and on the other goes too far!  it
> doesn't go far enough because it remains tied to the premise of "one
> true account" - but, seeing there are many accounts, positions
itself as
> a relation to the lack of this "one true account" - "there is no one
> true account 'therefore' we cannot be sure of anything" ... it remains
> tied to UNITY, the ONE, and bemoans its absence....  

I like this...  Hadn't thought of putting it that way myself.  Where
might this yearning for the "one" come from, and what sort of
refractory effects might that desire have in the field of the socius?

> on the other hand, it goes to far, because while "everything" may be
> relative in human cultures (although, actually that is a dubious claim
> too!), if we drop below the cultural level, "we" are clearly all human
> animals who share, basically, everything in common ( i realise this
is a
> great affront to everyones collective dignity), and our common
> biological systems, as well as ethnological and behavioural traits
> certainly do not support the conclusion tha everything is relative. 
> Different understandings of similar phenomena do not actually make
that
> phenomena in itself questionable... ( Nor, when it comes down to it,
> does cultural data support relativism- there is no human culture that
> has beliefs so divergent that they disable it from responding
> effectively to its enviroment with much less than total efficiency....
> on a contigent timescale, at least.)

I'm a little more hesitant with respect to these remarks, but I'm not
sure why.  In what way are we able to reduce cultural systems to
biological systems?  Is it a clean reduction, or are there certain
interests involved (something on the order of Foucault's epistemes). 
What does it mean to say that were all the same?  Ok, I'm pulling out
classic pomo charges, but I guess I'd like to see stronger arguments
supporting such a view...  Which is perhaps impossible insofar as the
reply I tend to get from pomo theorists is "well, that's just a
theory." or, "we can think about it differently."  There's no real way
to counter those sorts of remarks insofar as they fly to the heights
of meta-speculation where nothing can be said at all and all validity
claims dissipate like a morning mist in the sun.  What a bad taste
they leave in my mouth!

> something along these lines, i think, is flowing through d&g... their
> broader notion of what we need to consider - as in your example of the
> way the cannot make the individual the basis for anything - means they
> see that cultural relativism is a fairly slender base to assert any
> universal relativism.  On the contrary, they employ the concept of
> stratification to show that "homeostatic"-type control systems produce
> repetition (equilbrium) on all different levels of organisation...
that
> habit produces constants...   

So basically you're talking about the way threads or patterns develop
in limited systems here?  Something like what chaos theory describes
perhaps? 

> I am well aware of the use of "concepts" as tools, and the ambiguity
> involved in treating d&g as systematic thinkers... but I actually see
> d&g as offering, in the end, an all or nothing propositon... these
> concepts are not truly debatable, but to be used, as machines: and
> machines determine their own use by the way they are made, which is
> identical with how they function... which is not to say I accept their
> proposition, necessarily... but I think on this list there is a
tendency
> - related I think to an engagement with derrida &, baudriallard, and
> centered (or (un)centered!) on the concept of rhizome - to see d&g as
> "postmodern" and therefore to assume that they "couldn't possibly" be
> offering a systematic philosophy, or a totalised narrative... 
possibly
> I'm asking for trouble, but I think it's pretty obvious that they are
> offering a systematic (but rhizomatic) philosophy... ( because they
have
> a different idea of what a system is... because they understand that
> there are OPEN systems, rhizomes, multiplicities that can grow, and
> which change as the grow...) and are therefore not at all
> relativists....

Fully agreed here...  What's at stake is a reconceptualization of what
is meant by system and the conditions under which a system can be
defined and examined.  There are surprising similarities to Hegel
here, but D&G yield a very different view of systems insofar as they
toss of the abstraction that Hegel is guilty of.  Basically the
similarity I have in mind is the manner in which the Hegelian system
is a fractal pattern that repeats itself throughout the entirety of
its unfolding.  Perhaps D&G go beyond this fractalization by showing
how the fractal itself can change through random and disruptive
events, pushing things off in new trajectories.  Threads forming knots
that yield new knits.
 
Thanks for the reply Dan,

Paul
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