Delueze Study:

[d63]

Dear Diary Moment/rhizome 12/21/2018:

As I make the transition to the second stage of my project (from Eugene Holland’s analysis of Schizoanalysis to Buchanan’s reader’s guide to the Anti-Oedipus), I find my initial instincts confirmed right off the bat as concerned what was to come: that I would find my immersion in Buchanan’s book a little more productive (that I would relate to it more ( in that he tends to apply the theory to more concrete situations which is the primary agenda by which I find theory useful and worth pursuing. (Hence the project I have committed to.) I mean it’s like we were separated at birth and bound to the same destiny: Deleuze.

Holland’s book was productive. It really was. But he rarely applied schizoanalysis to real world situations and preferred to work with abstract models very similar to those of Lacan. And this always leads to same old question: what does that have to do with the price of tea in China. The main thing that made it work for me was my own need to apply it to the day to day.

But Buchanan (in a Žižek-like way (goes right to references I can easily understand (including Naomi Klein who I am fully familiar with (which is important given that one of the main blocks for Americans trying to understand Deleuze (w/ & w/out Guatarri (is the references he tends to use which are generally an aspect of French culture and a general comfort with it.

At the same time, I consider the order beneficial in that I can’t wait to see how Holland’s more abstract understanding (or what I got from it (of the 3 syntheses: connection, dysjunction, conjunction (bounces off of Buchanan’s and his application of it to the movie Jaws. And I would note here that Buchanan’s understanding of the syntheses is what led me to see them as a residual effect of a basic storyline –the creative act never seeming that far from the back of Deleuze’s mind.

I’m, yet again, excited with this project (this immersion (if you can’t tell.

[Jakob]

"connection, dysjunction, conjunction"

To wit, bijection

[d63]

Dear Diary Moment/rhizome 12/23/2018:

As I go deeper into Buchanan’s reader guide to the Anti-Oedipus, I’m struck by the difference in approach he took as compared to Holland’s as concerns the model that appears to be at core of the book: the three syntheses of desire/the unconscious and the 5 paralogisms as well as the illegitimate uses of the 3 syntheses that the 5 paralogisms include. And while this might, at a more nominal level, lead to confusion, at a more personal one for me it’s kind of a relief in that (given the clear authority of Buchanan and Holland on the subject (you’re given limited license to read yourself into it. And I truly believe this was exactly the result that D&G were after: the very endgame of their use of a more obscure/oblique/even poetic style of exposition.

And in that spirit, I would like to offer my own highly blue-collarized/clearly superficial version of the model. And I would start with the 3 syntheses (and I am primarily working from its analogical connection with Kant’s 3 syntheses of understanding (apprehension, reproduction, and recognition:

The connective in which the brain (via the senses and desire (collects a series of small objects and pieces them together.

The disjunctive in which the growing complexity of the constructs evolve into conflicts and forms of anti-production.

And, finally, the conjunctive in which these disruptions come to a head and everything settles into an unstable but comparatively livable state –that which Holland described as the emergence of the subject (what we think of as the self (as a kind of aftereffect.

Next I would approach the 3 illegitimate uses of the syntheses which, again, constitute the first 3 of the 5 paralogisms of psychoanalysis:

The illegitimate use of the connective in which it is seen as working towards a fixed end.

The illegitimate use of the disjunctive in which everything is fixed into binaries: man/woman, heterosexual/homosexual, white/not-white, etc., etc..

And, finally, the illegitimate use of the conjunctive in which the subject that emerges from all this sees itself (even deludes itself on the matter (as the initial cause of the synthetic process and makes the mistake of seeing itself as a fixed thing with a fixed identity: white, black, gay, heterosexual, etc., etc..

As far as the 5 paralogisms, all that is left are the last 2:

The displacement of confusing the ban on incest as an actual description of desire: as a ban on some impulse that the subject might have had in the first place but might not have either -that is until the ban was brought to their attention.

And the top-down/backward approach in which psychoanalysis admits that there are elements of the Oedipus at work in society as a whole, but subscribe it to an aftereffect of the subject’s familial experience –Capitalism’s way of wiping its hands clean of our experiences of neurosis, hysteria, and paranoia when, in fact, it is the very source of it.

Anyway: that’s just my take. But it’s the steppingstone I have to work from.

[d63]

“It is an error in logic, Deleuze and Guattari argue, to assume it is possible to deduce the nature of what is prohibited from the prohibition itself. For a start, it means assuming that what is prohibited is in fact a real desire, something that we actually long to do, and would not hesitate to do were we not restrained by law. BY the same token, it assumes that the prohibition is put in place solely to prevent or at least inhibit from being performed those acts society deems 'improper'. But the reality is, desire is not that 'guilty' and the law not that 'innocent'."-from Buchanan's reader's guide to the Anti-Oedipus

This, of course (at least to my fellow Deleuzians), is a reference to what Buchanan referred to as the paralogism of fictitious desire and Holland the paralogism of displacement. And it is the easiest for me to relate to. I, for instance, have never desired my mother. At most, I sympathized and empathized with her enough to make her the pole against which I opposed individual issues I had with my father –that is while actually loving him for what he did give me. It was more of a hybrid than an either/or choice. And whatever a psychoanalyst might read into this, I hardly see in it a universal justification for over-coding it with the Oedipal model, of making it about my desire for my mother. I mean while that kind of thing might work on PornHub (which usually involves a stepmother), I hardly feel the DESIRE to watch my mother have sex on video.

That said, we really get at the fault in Freud’s theory when we look at the evil spawn of the Oedipus: the notion of wish fulfillment in dream theory. And in the process of doing so, we may get at the practicality of D&G’s agenda of unleashing desiring production into social production. Say you find yourself in dream in which you’re naked in a bathtub with your mother. Freudian theory would argue that it was about some buried desire: an example of primal repression. But enter Sartre’s Vertigo of the Possible which (something you feel whenever you come to the ledge of a high place (is not so much a matter of a fear of falling as much of a fear of throwing one’s self over. It’s just a spontaneous recognition that the option is available, much as being naked in a tub with your mother is. In other words (sans the Oedipus), we can see dreams as the kind of desiring production described by D&G.

We can see it as a kind of bricolage in which the desiring productions at work randomly take various objects of the mind and juxtaposes them together, see what combinations work for it (attract to the BwO), and retain them for further juxtaposition.

[d63]

One of the points that Buchanan makes in his reader’s guide to the Anti-Oedipus is that Deleuze and Guattari reverses Freud’s more arborescent model of the unconscious: that in which unruly thoughts inhabit this dark realm at the roots of consciousness and always work at (and sometimes/maybe often actually succeed at (breaking into the conscious world and manipulating it via the social and political. D&G, on the other hand, argue that it is the social and political that (mainly through the Oedipal (manipulates the unconscious by manipulating desiring production.

And there is some actual empirical backing for their position. As a New Yorker article brought to my attention, many in the mental health field have noted an increasing number of the mentally ill suffering from what has been dubbed The Truman Show Complex. Much like Jim Carrey’s character in the movie, they see their selves as always being observed. But what goes even further to the heart of D&G’s position is the conclusion this leads to (that generally accepted among the mental health community): that mental illness (desiring production completely unleashed (provides the framework while culture provides the content. It even becomes more prescient when you consider that D&G argued that the best approach to clinical schizophrenia (psychosis (was the psycho-biological and chemical. They rejected the notion that the cure simply laid in digging into the subject’s past.
*
Another way of getting at the nature of the unconscious and desiring production is to (every once in a while (just step back and look at how thought works. It’s not as organized as the analytics would have us believe. It’s more like having a flock of birds hovering safely above you and having individual ones suddenly swoop just above from various trajectories and in different combinations. Some, via language (how would I know what I thought if I didn’t write?), do seem to organize, then fall apart or trail off in order to make room for other combinations.

It only begins to feel more organized as it gets absorbed into the symbolic.
*
The thing about philosophy is that it always feels like someone on acid trying to explain their high…. … .. .

[d63]

Another example of Deleuze and Guattari’s reversal of Freud’s model in which the subconscious percolates up (from the bottom up as compared to D&G’s more rhizomatic model of a feedback loop between the subconscious and the social (into the social is something I have a front row seat to as a progressive living in Nebraska (and here I am inspired by Buchanan’s lean towards the political/social and our shared issues with Capitalism): the way people seem completely saturated with corporate values, the way they seem completely incapable of thinking “outside of the box”.

I mean it: every argument you hear them make for conservative values seems to assume Capitalism like some natural force or something. It’s like a Land of Lotos eaters that, when in crisis, always refer their solutions back to the Lotos. It’s like they’re watching TV ads that suggest we live in a golden age thanks to producer/consumer Capitalism, and actually believe it. Even the democrats, who show a certain degree of distance from profit seeking behaviors, still seem to succumb to market based solutions: see carbon credits and the Affordable Care Act. Still (foolishly or not), I maintain my hope in the democratic platform way over the republican which constitutes little more than lip-service to corporate values.

And this could only be if social pressures (the products of social production (had wormed their very way into the individual psyche and its underlying subconscious and manipulated the desiring production at work in it. Hence: D&G’s agenda of unleashing desiring production into social production as compared to the Freudian agenda of social production containing desiring production.

[d63]

Dear Diary Moment/rhizome 1/7/2019:

Today the model/the cognitive map of the Anti-Oedipus (under the guidance of Buchanan –w/residual effects from Holland (took, yet again, another step closer to crystallization, especially as concerns the Body w/out Organs. I have already noted that the BwO emerges in the connective synthesis and initiates the disjunctive synthesis.

But what today’s reading of Buchanan’s reader guide opened me up to was the “why” of that emergence (as well as give me a better understanding (in reverse (of Freud’s primal repression which was problematic for me: in other words, I didn’t actually get it until I got D&G’s understanding of it. As Kyle from South Park put it: I had a thought today. I realized that the reason the BwO (its functional/machinic agenda (emerges in the connective synthesis is to contain desiring production in its unruly state. Hence D&G’s association of it with primal repression which makes no sense at a conscious level: has no meaning. And it is that lack of meaning that allows secondary/social forces to impose meaning on it via the binary (man/woman, straight/gay, black/white, even the subject/BwO (on/off attraction/repulsion choices that the BwO tends to work in.

In other words: this is the point at which social forces (most notably producer/consumer Capitalism (start to impose their selves on the subconscious realm of desiring production and route it into acceptable forms of social production.
*
As I said yesterday: the poetry of philosophy only really sets in when the individual has assimilated the model to such a depth that they find their selves instinctively applying it to the day to day. And I am starting to see that with the 3 syntheses.

Me writing this for instance: I saw a blank space; I had to fill it; I connected thoughts and words freely (the connective of course (until certain impasses emerged (the disjunctive:

“What am I trying to say?”

“Where am I wrong?”

“How will I correct it?”

(The BwO’s regime that emerges being to write a successful post.)

And, finally, the conjunctive experience of being done: of being able to say “I did this” when, in fact, it is the product of a lot of random forces.

[Meno_]

the reason the BwO (its functional/machinic agenda (emerges in the connective synthesis is to contain desiring production in its unruly state. Hence D&G’s association of it with primal repression which makes no sense at a conscious level: has no meaning. And it is that lack of meaning that allows secondary/social forces to impose meaning on it.


Hello again.



Could You clarify this reasoning?

We did meet years ago and engaged earlier. I would like to re-engage.In particular, to Your phrasing, (" the reason the BwO (its functional/machinic agenda (emerges in the connective synthesis is to contain desiring production in its unruly state. Hence D&G’s association of it with primal repression which makes no sense at a conscious level:)

Could we discuss how the containment is transformed per desiring production? Is this a negation of the Freudian idea of symbolism on a sub conscious level, thereby transferring through more conscious levels? Or is it an exclusively primary process with no shadowy aspects?

To my mind, this would appear to be the crux of this argument, however I may be wrong.

And finally, would You have difficulty with partial analysis, as opposed to not having read most or all relevant interpretations by You of key relevant issues arising out of it and forming a basic outline?

[d63]

I have, of late, come to question (that is in a ironic way (the internal contradictions of Deleuzianism –w/ and w/out Guattari: the sense that his work, process, and the effects of it has a way of turning on itself: autocritique as D&G put it. For instance, one of the things that Deleuze always seemed focused on was the democratization of philosophy –that is as compared to the classical hierarchical approach. Ironically, this was the point of his rather oblique and seemingly esoteric approach to exposition and meaning: he wanted us to figure it out for ourselves in our own way. The problem, however, is that much of the discourse that goes on around him tends toward the reterritorialization of Deleuze: the question of what he means. Even more significant is the way our reverence for him tends to turn him into a guru figure perfectly equivalent to the paternal in the Oedipal triad that he and Guattari attempted to undermine.

(And do not get me wrong: I still consider Deleuze a part of my holy triad along with Rorty and Žižek.)

What I am arguing here is that Deleuze wandered into the same conundrum that every thinker who works from the nihilistic perspective has: that which recognizes the ungroundedness of things –that is even if they fail to recognize it at work even though the ungroundedness of things is what undermines the dogma of the authoritarian: the nihilistic perspective’s worst enemy.

I truly believe 2 things about Deleuze. First: he truly wanted to (in a truly Promethean way (democratize knowledge and give everyone access to it. He was a lot like Marx in that sense. And despite popular notions: there was hardly an elitist bone in his body. Secondly: he wanted to do it in a rockstar/Promethean kind of way. His ego was there. And it is the legacy of that ego that left us with the paradox of being a liberating force (the Promethean (while trying to not be THE Liberator –that is while falling into the role.