From: "michelle phil lewis king" <kinglewis-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: dialectic (can non-philosophers read?)
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 08:19:44 PST





m. sent back.
>
>On Thu, 28 Jan 1999, michelle phil lewis king wrote:
>
>> >> Rather than a poly-centred substance, writing simply becomes
>> >> fetishized as the expression of a single authentic voice (letting
>> >> Deleuze, Nietszche speak for themselves, listening to Hegel as the 
>> >> only authority on Hegel.)
>> >
>> >Reading Hegel seems to me the best route to
>> >understanding Hegel.  This does not amount to
>> >"fetishizing" the Voice of the Author.  Let 
>> >me put it this way: would you rather someone
>> >read your posts to understand (or appreciate)
>> >you, or read my posts about you? 
>> >
>> You are not getting my point. Reading a writer specifically as one 
voice 
>> is to fixate and priviledge that voice above what they have written. 
>
>I'm not getting your point because you're
>repeatedly erecting straw men. 

I have never
>suggested "reading a writer specifically
>[as opposed to what? generally?] as one
>voice".  Moreover, since it's *reading* that
>we're discussing, whatever I could supposedly
>"fixate" on would have to be "what they have
>written".  As you are so fond of pointing out,
>all these authors are dead -- so I can't
>use their voice in any way.

So, why have you kept trying to?

>Nothing I have said in here endorses or implies
>that Hegel, Deleuze, Bataille, or Derrida, etc.
>speak in "one voice".  I am of course aware
>that an author's works do not necessarily form
>a cohesive unity and can be marked with many
>diverse patterns and lines of thought.  I
>have pointed out that what little Deleuze has
>written about Bataille is fairly unfriendly.

Thank you, that was useful.

>This does not mean that they have nothing in
>common, as I have agreed that they share a
>general interest in the "extra-textual".

 I would say that they foreground an a-signifying semiotic.

>since there are no other sorts of remarks, and
>as an interest in the "extra-textual" is quite
>general (including decidedly non-Bataillean
>figures like Searle and Grice), it seems rather
>dubious to say that Deleuze's approach to writing
>is like that Bataille's.

I'd say that Deleuze's interest in the operation of the unknown in a 
language based on a-significant 'writing' as described by Derrida is 
profound. And this has definite parrallels in Bataille.(and Blanchot and 
Klossowski). At no point did I indicate that this parallel excluded 
anybody else. Exclusion is your 'modus operandi'. I tried to demonstrate 
to you through quoting large chunks of 'a-o' that  Derrida's 
non-signifying graphism is the basis of the primitive ' assemblages of 
enunciation'  which are subjugated and dismissed by imperial 
representation.

  None of this reasoning
>requires or implies reading Deleuze as "one
>voice".  Please stop chasing shadows of your
>own casting.
>
The continual demand to keep going back to the author's voice as a 
guarantee is precisely what Guattari puts in question in m.r pp76.
The "position of the subject changes radically when a-signifying 
semiotics come to the forefront.".. The world of mental representation 
or 'reference', then no longer functions to centre and over encode 
semiotics. Signs are involved in things prior to representation. Signs 
and things engage one another independently of the subjective control 
that agents of  individual utterance claim to have over them. 
 A collective agency of utterance is then in a position to dprive the 
spoken word of its function as imaginary support to the cosmos. It 
replaces it with a collective voice that combines machinic elements of 
all kinds - human, semiotic, technological, scientific etc. The illusion 
of specific utterance by a human subject vanishes.. "
 They share an interest in a writing not subjugated to an authors voice. 
In a writing which does not signify a discursive voice, but in which 
such a voice operates along with everything else. They are interested in 
what doesn't 'fit in' to discourse. They are interested in giving equal 
acceptance to "all desire whether it makes sense or not, by not seeking 
to make subjectivation fit in with the dominant significations and 
social laws".

simply that you were attempting to dismiss the difficult operation of a 
non-signifying arche-writing which (for example) I think Deleuze takes 
further in the notion of Kleists war machine (a kind of writing 
evidently dismissed by Hegel).

The number of concrete 'straw points' which you manage to construct from 
my breezy approach and shifting shadows is almost creative.
 
It is precisely the 'shadows' which interest me and which are involved 
and broken by my readings. Are they what you wish to 'dismiss'? I am the 
one sticking close to d+g's actual texts.. consistently having to 
correct your  impression that Guattari dismisses Derrida's contribution 
when rather he specifies that there is a difference between a 
non-signifying and a signifying arche ecriture, specifying that the 
signifying arche-writing is the basis of empire while the other (in 
Derrida's sense) "engenders all semiotic organisation".

"(b) Semiologies of signification. On the other hand, all their  
substances of expression (of sound, sight and so on) are centred on a 
single signifying substance. This is the 'dictatorship of the 
signifier'. That referential substance can be considered as a written 
arche-writing, but not in Derrida's sense: it is not the matter of a 
script that engenders all semiotic organisation, but of the appearance- 
datable in history- of writing machines as a basic tool for for the 
great despotic empires."m.r pp75

To make irresponsible non pedago-logical departures as I have done is 
for me a 'better' one than one that can be justified in a classroom 
context. It is simply that; a departure. The departure of an 'err-ancy'. 
In terms of a discourse centred around logical progression this 
departure is clearly worse than one which is responsible to rigours 
capital. It is a temporary illumination based on a lie.
 
" It proceeds like a wandering thought on the possibility of itineracy 
and of method. It is affected by nonknowledge as by its future and it 
ventures out deliberately."



>> Hegel subordinates his writing to his voice. So we don't have a lot 
of 
>> choice in his regard. To read him is to hear him. Writing has to 
submit 
>> to his voice. He evidently would not accept a writing which was not 
>> directly phonetic. I gather (good word) that much of his thought 
comes 
>> to us through his students slavishly copying down his words at his 
>> lectures. (Contrast this with Deleuze who welcomed his 'students' 
>> inattention.) Much of Saussure's thought evidently comes down to us 
>> though the notes made by his students. It is utterly necessary to get 
as 
>> close to 'His Master's Voice' as we possibly can in order to 
understand 
>> what he actually said. But whether this understanding can help us 
think, 
>> write, speak and act creatively is another question. Is understanding 
>> or creation better?
>
>I see you've added false dilemma to your 
>schtick.  At this rate, I could teach a
>whole logic class around just your posts.
>
You've read this as an addition when I'm simply questioning the basis of 
your odd leading questions. I just don't understand the meaning or 
context of the word better. I'm beginning to glimpse that it is 
something to do with becoming a teacher of some kind.. I didn't ask to 
be lumbered with pedagological responsibilities. On a related note I 
find the expression like duh! particularly unintimidating. Rather an 
indication that I'm following the right (errant) track. Facing up to a 
particular kind of stupidity. It might be helpful for you to read 
'Foucault's 'Theatricum Philosophicum' on this 'point'.

>> >> The writer Nietzsche's 'ignorance' of Hegel is vital because it
>> >> places his scratchings beyond,below,ect the State signifier 
>> >> 'Philosophy'.
>> It is vital in the same way as a glitch or mistake in Francis Bacon's 
>> painting practice enabled him to take unknown figural turnings that 
>> indicate a beyond to painting without leaving its experience.
>
>That's wonderful for Nietzsche (if it's the
>case).  But it doesn't license us to pronounce
>judgment on Hegel's thought without having
>read his work fairly.  That's like saying that 
>Bacon's serendipitous mistake allows us to 
>ignore the fundamentals of painting.
>
Bacon's serendipitous mistake is a fundamental of modern painting.

>> >> Writing, thinking becomes another kind of operation. Sovereign 
>> because it is
>> >> not subjected to spoken discourse, to reciprocity. To stupid q+a 
>> sessions.
>> >
>> >It doesn't seem very sovereign -- it's following
>> >Derrida's heavy philosophical machinery.
>> >
>> I don't think Nietzsche followed Derrida's machinery as you choose to 
>> call it. I simply can't imagine him submitting to a q+a session. 
(Though 
>> there is a nice photo of him being whipped by Lou Salome.)
>
>I don't think Nietzsche thematizes writing
>vis-a-vis speech in anything approaching the
>way Derrida does.  He certainly had no great
>love for Socrates, but he didn't have any
>great esteem for "writing" as a "sovereign"
>process.  That's all Bataille/Derrida.
>

so 'Thus Spake Zarasthustra' is the true account of  the words of a 
prophet rather than an unrestrained  operation of writing a character 
not wholly subject to Nietzsche's voice?

>> >I agree with your general point of comparison
>> >(as I said before): both Derrida and d+g point
>> >to an extra-textual field working through 
>> >language.  But I disagree about your specific
>> >renderings of this (very general) similarity:
>> >that d+g's notion of writing owes much to Derrida's
>> >archi-ecriture; or that either notion enables
>> >us to ignore Hegel in writing about him, much less
>> >to go "beyond philosophy".
>> >
>> I haven't done that much rendering beyond quoting you passages from 
a.o 
>> where D+g clearly work with Derrida's notion of a general writing 
(not 
>> at that point even formalised as an arche-ecriture). Of course it is 
>> general.. 
>
>But what about your specific claims that "blimey,
>that's what Deleuze is doing but without the
>guilt [re: Bataille]" or that Deleuze's reading
>of Hegel is "beyond" philosophy, a "scandal" as
>Bataille's works are?
>
As I said then that was a (comic) flash of intuition that energises my 
reading in time..a leap of faith.. it is not something I'd feel 
confident 'teaching' to a class. I had no idea that narrow academic 
criteria were the basis of this list.

I maintain the impression that d+g's ambition in a.o to include desire 
in economic and political analysis is somewhere  in the region of 
Bataille's practice in 'La Part Maudite'.. though should not be read as 
the same operation. (D+G are very critical of b's notion of depense). 
You of course are perfectly entitled to read this connection as utter 
drivel while I continue (in time) to examine how each text sheds light 
on the other. An examination that has no pedagological pretensions 
whatsoever in contrast to your preening.

I would be interested to hear your opinion as to why the'Anti-Oedipus'
is not a 'scandal' in terms of classical philosophy.

>> There is an abscence of solid ground in this script, just shifting 
>> movement. This structureless operation (not a notion as such) is a 
>> production/product which would be foreclosed by Absolute Knowledge. 
Its 
>> animation Sentenced.
>
>Sigh.  You need to move "beyond" second-hand,
>biased, sloppy readings of Hegel.  Then you
>might become aware of the emphasis Hegel places
>on the free, ungrounded, anti-structural nature
>of the Begriff. 
>
As I said to Nathan a long long time ago I'm doing just that.

>> >> I'd say the danger of your line of crude pragmatism is that
>> >> it has a 'Passion for abolition." and a fixation on Clarity 
>> >> and Power. [...] You've become a 'new knight' with a mission 
>> >> terrorising with one line 'mots d'ordre' and too hastily drawn
>> >> conclusions. You think you have understood everything. Micheal 
>> >> the self appointed judge, dispenser of justice. Your fixation 
>> >> on power is manifest in your love of the closed
>> >> system of the 'q+a' session and your futile desire to 'dismiss' 
>> >> others from what you'd implicitly like to be a closed list, 
>> >> an artificial debating chamber. [...] The only power you have is 
>> >> the force of your words and this is no power at all. 
>> >
>> >Like, duh.  If I were your power-drunk bogeyman, 
>> >I wouldn't waste my time replying to your clumsy
>> >assumption of the psychiatrist's chair.  I leave 
>> >the completion of this example of modus tollens
>> >as an exercise for the reader.
>> >
>> I was not attempting a psychology of a Micheal simply reading your 
>> actions as manifested in this exchange through d+g's description of a 
>> 'dangerous character'.From what I 'know' of you the mask seems to 
fit.
>> Like. If you act like a bogeyman you'll be perceived as one.
>
>And if I had unlimited patience, I would
>point out that your "reading" is atrocious
>and false.  Let it suffice to say, again,
>that imaginative assertions do not a just
>reading make.
>
Its a scandal I know.

"With deterritorialised assemblages, each sphere of valorisation erects 
a transcendent autonomised pole of reference: the Truth of logical 
idealities, the Good of moral will, the Law of public space, the Capital 
of economic exchangism, the Beautiful of the aesthetic domain.. This 
carving up of transcendence is consecutive to an individuation of 
subjectivity, which itself is divided up into modular faculties such as 
Reason, Understanding, Will, Affectivity...The segmentation of the 
infinite movement of deterritorialization is accompanied by a 
reterritorialization, this time incorporeal:an immaterial reification. 
The valorisation which in the preceding illustration, was polyphonic and 
rhizomatic, becomes bipolarised, Manicheanised, hierachised and, in 
particularising its components, tends, in a certain way, to become 
sterilised. Dualisms in an impasse, like the oppositions between the 
sensible and the intelligible, thought and extensity, the real and the 
imaginary, involve a recourse to transcendent, omnipotent and 
homogenetic instances: God, Being, Absolute Spirit, Energy, The 
Signifier... The old interdependence of territorialised values is thus 
lost, as are the experimentation, rituals and bricolages which led to 
their invocation and provocation - with the risk that they would reveal 
themselves as evanescent, dumb, without "surety" and even dangerous. 

Transcendent value presents itself as immovable, always already there 
and thus always going to stay there. From its perspective, subjectivity 
remains in perpetual lack, guilty a priory,or at the very least in a 
state of "unlimited procrastination".Chaosmosis pp102.

Guilty as charged.
phil.


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