Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2000 12:48:00 -0500
From: "Charles J. Stivale" <ad4928-AT-wayne.edu>
Subject: Re: Capitalism - neutral toward it.


At 01:27 PM 2/17/00 +0000, you wrote:
>Hi, Charles,
>Thanks, the refs to literature and life are really helpful. may i ask a
>question re something that has been bugging me for ages? i  can see D's
>point the shame of being a Man in the sense of the co-ordinates of a
>specific construction of masculinity- a non-univesal that thought it was
>universal and thus also agree with Inna's comments. What happens to the
>differences between men in  becoming-woman? do you think it would be
>plausible to suggest minor becoming-men? also would it be plausible to
>suggest a minor becoming-man (or men) of women. i realise this makes the
>error of bi-univocity-but want to posit some intermediary, perhaps
>transhumant possibilities at this point in the argument (while reatining a
>committment to univocity. i think there might be problems i have not thought
>of with this-so would appreciate pointers on any glaring ones.
Well, if you look at the Abecedaire, at the end of G comme Gauche (L as in
Left), Deleuze states firmly that becoming-man does not exist.

First he is talking about May '68:
Deleuze: Yes, but there are lots of people that have made no repudiation.
It's almost a given, the answer is quite simple: May '68 is the intrusion
of becoming. People have often wanted to view it as the reign of the
imaginary, but it's not at all imaginary. It's a gust of the real in its
pure state (une bouffée du réel à l'état pur). It's the real that arrives,
and people don't understand that, they say, "What is this?" Real people, or
people in their reality, it was astounding, and just what were these people
in their reality? It's a becoming. Now, there can be bad becomings, and
it's what historians did not understand well, and that's understandable
since I believe so strongly in the difference between history and
becomings… May '68 was a becoming-revolutionary without a revolutionary
future. People can always make fun of it after the fact, but there were
phenomena of pure becoming that took hold of people, even becomings-animal,
even becomings-children, becomings-women for men, becomings-men for women.
All this is in a very special domain that we have been pouring over since
the start of our questions, that is, what is a becoming? In any event, May
'68 is the intrusion of becoming.

Then, he goes on to explain to Parnet what it means to be Leftist (de gauche):
On the basis of that [their perception], they're Leftist, on the basis of
their sense of address, postal address. First, you see the horizon. And you
know that it cannot last, that it's not possible, [the fact that] these
millions of people are starving to death, it just can't last, it might go
on a hundred years, one never knows, but there's no point in kidding about
this absolute injustice. It's not a matter of morality, but of perception
itself. 
So if you start with the edges, that's what being on the Left means, and
knowing how, and say what one might, knowing that these are problems that
must be dealt with. It's not saying simply that the birth rate has to be
reduced, which is just another way of keeping the privileges for Europe.
[Being on the Left] is really finding arrangements, finding world-wide
assemblages. Being on the Left, it is often only Third World problems that
are closer to us than problems in our neighborhoods. So it's really a
matter of perception, more than being a question of "well-meaning souls"
(belles âmes), that's what being on the Left is for me, first of all.
And second, being on the Left is a being by nature, or rather it's a
problem of becomings, of never ceasing to become minoritarian. That is, the
Left is never of the majority as Left, and for a very simple reason: the
majority is something that presupposes - even when one votes --  that it's
not the huge quantity that votes for something, but the majority
presupposes a standard (étalon).   In the West, the standard that every
majority presupposes is: 1) male, 2) adult 3) heterosexual (mâle), 4) city
dweller... Ezra Pound, Joyce say things like that, it was perfect. That's
what the standard is. So, the majority by its nature, at a particular
moment, will go toward whomever or whatever aggregate will realize this
standard, that is, the supposed image of the urban, heterosexual, adult
male such that a majority, at the limit, is never anyone, it's an empty
standard. Simply, a maximum of persons recognize themselves in this empty
standard, but in itself, the standard is empty: male, heterosexual, etc. 

So, women will make their mark either by intervening in this majority or in
the secondary minorities according to groupings in which they are placed
according to this standard.  But alongside that, what is there? There are
all the becomings that are minority-becomings. I mean, women, it's not a
given, they are not women by nature. Women have a becoming-woman; and so,
if women have a becoming-woman, men have a becoming-woman as well. We were
talking earlier about becomings-animal. Children have their own
becoming-child. They are not children by nature. All these becomings,
that's what the minorities are…

Parnet: Well, men cannot become-men, and that's tough! 

Deleuze: No, that's a majoritarian standard, heterosexual, adult, male. He
has no becoming. He can become woman, and then he enters into minoritarian
processes. The Left is the aggregate of processes of minoritarian
becomings.  So, I can say quite literally, the majority is no one, the
minority is everyone, and that's what being on the Left is: knowing that
the minority is everyone and that it's there that phenomena of becomings
occur. That's why, however great they think they are, they still have the
scandal of their doubts about the outcome of elections. All that is well
known.


Not sure if this clarifies anything for you, but I am glad to provide the
copy.
CJ Stivale