Foucault and Function

Recent discussion with Professor Pruchnic has prompted me to consider the text as it functions on two levels.  I must note, briefly, that most texts seem to function on several intersecting levels simultaneously, and that the following should not be read as ignorant of this interaction, seeing as its importance is implicit to any text.  (Note that the terminology I will use may be misleading.  The titles are not meant to define, but, rather, to suggest.)

Informational: The text can be considered, foremost, as an informational resource for the reader.  Most look to a text to inform them; to explain something that the reader didn’t know previously.  Perhaps, the text will subvert that which the reader thought that he or she knew.  One may even look to a text to reaffirm that which is already known; to gather more evidence or sources for an argument.  Such is the means by which scholarship generally proceeds.  The questions become, “what does the text tell you about the subject?” and “how does the text present this information to the reader?”  This seems to be an issue of taking the text literally.  The writer sets out with an informational objective, to explain, to confuse, to question, to argue, to criticize, etc.  This objective shapes the material within the text.

Useful Entirety: I mean, here, to discuss the text as a whole.  Whereas many texts argue a point, present the appropriate information, and suggest some conclusions or remedies, certain texts may actually exist as remedies in and of themselves.  Such is the case with Michel Foucault, as Pruchnic suggests.  Foucault attempted to design each of his works not simply to operate on the informational level, but to be useful to those in particular situations (prisoners?).  Here, the interaction of what I have hastily termed the “informational,” and the “useful entirety,” becomes interesting.  Having the goal of the useful entirety in mind, it seems that one will, inevitably, write the informational differently.  If the end objective is to assist prisoners, then one might effectively contort the text in a means intended to be more useful for them, and not necessarily the reader.  Deception?

This seems to tie in nicely with the difference existing between the Sophist and Socrates.  Whereas the Sophist appears to be selfish, he is actually selfless.  On the otherhand, Socrates, who appears to be selfless, is really only satisfying selfish motivations.  This seems overwhelmingly significant to previous discussion.  If the author has a goal in mind, he may operate as the Sophist.  Although appearing selfish, the author is really attempting to accomplish selfless objectives (Foucault?).  Conversely, the author that may appear to be selfless, in that he/she seems to be concerned with problems facing people, is really only seeking selfish gratification, in that people will perceive that they are ultimately concerned.  Thus, the text might seem concerned, and yet, fail to accomplish the objective.  The text may be inhibited by that which appears to be selfless.

On Trying to Pin Nietzsche to the Dionysian

Reading over a post on the 7007 site (Bodies of Persuasion), I am confronted by the willingness, of the author, to seperate the Dionysian and the Apollonian; to suggest that Nietzsche is ultimately operating to separate the two or that one is preferred over the other.  A quote from the post…

“For Nietzsche, then, the world can be split into two definitive affects: Dionysian and Appolonian. The Dionysian system operated under Dionysis, the god of wine and music, and thrived on self-forgetting and thus, unity–individuals becoming one with others and nature…” (the author goes on to explain the Apollonian)

Although the Dionysian and Appolonian “affects” are different, are these two really definitive?  The language used here suggests a certain disjunct between the two; that the two can be neatly seperated; that they function independently.  Yet, Nietzsche does not seem to be emphasizing such a definitiveness.  Rather, he seems to be suggesting the intimacy of the two, that one is dependent upon the other.  As the post continues, it becomes increasingly problematic.  It suggests that Nietzsche actually prefers one in relationship to the other; the Dionysian over the Socratic. (Note – the bold lettering suggests the addition of my argument)

“When Nietzsche attacks Socrates, he effectually attacks all of Western Philosophy (Agreed – yet, it seems important to remember that Nietzsche identifies the capacity for the return to the tragic in Western culture; that the Socratic will eventually necessitate, ironically, the return to art.  Nietzsche suggests that when one reaches the bounds or limitations of the conquest for knowledge, one will return to the tragic  – 95 – “we shall see how the insatiable zest for knowledge, prefigured in Socrates, has been transformed into tragic resignation and the need for art”). Rather, he believes in the Dionysian tradition, which bends toward unity and tragedy and results in man experiencing a deeper meaning and connection to life and his experiences.”

Specifically, I find the suggestion that Nietzshe, “believes in the Dionysian tradition,” the most problematic.  Is not he continually suggesting, as I mentioned previously, a significant connection existing between the Dionysian and the Apollonian? That we need the world of torment to have the desire for illusion?  This assessment boils down to what I consider an attempt, ultimately, to define the “good,” the “bad,” and the “ugly.”  This methodology ends up degrading the text, because it reduces the ”Socratic” to the bad, and equates the “Dionysian” to a means of tragic relief.  A few notable quotes from The Birth of Tragedy:

“Apollo found it impossible to live without Dionysus” (34)

“The Dionysiac and Appolonian elements, in a continuous chain of creations, each enhancing the other, dominated the Hellenic mind” (35)

In consideration, there is no real definitive distinction between the Dionysian or Appollonian.  This is not really a matter of making a choice between the two.  It is not a matter of distinguishing the Dionysian as preferable.  Rather, it seems more important to consider, to attempt to understand, the complicated relationship existing between the two.  This prompts the question, which Nietzsche eventually proposes.  What aesthetic effect is produced when the Apollonian and Dionysian forces of art are made to work alongside each other? (98)  It seems that Nietzsche is suggesting that the highest goal of tragedy and art is reached by the combination of the Dionysian and the Apollonian (131).

(Note that I am using a combination set featuring The Birth of Tragedy and The Genealogy of Morals, and that the page numbering will be different in other texts)

Moderation (Returning to the Subtle Subversion)

Again, it seems overwhelmingly evident that this text might be misinterpreted (most specifically, in terms of what it seems to be advocating).  Although Deleuze and Guattari propose a certain deterritorialization, and the subversion of several systems (the regime of signs, semiotic systems, strata, etc.) they suggest, in specificity, the approaches which one should avoid.  Deleuze and Guattari confront the simple assumption that excess or excessive measure is the ultimate cure all.  They make it quite clear that a certain “sobriety” is required; that one operate meticulously.  To attempt to rid the body of its organs or to completely deterritorialize is to miss the point entirely.  They suggest that anarchy or “radical” subversion can actually be detrimental or problematic.  In these cases, one will likely experience a new territorialization, or even madness.

Chapter 11 – 1837: Of The Refrain

Delueze and Guattari on the contemporary “valorization of children’s drawings, texts by the mad, and concerts of noise.”  Is the “radical” really that effective (affective)?

“Sometimes one overdoes it, puts too much in, works with a jumble of lines and sounds; then instead of producing a cosmic machine capable of “rendering sonorous,” one lapses back to a machine of reproduction that ends up reproducing nothing but a scribble effacing all lines, a scramble effacing all sounds.” (344)

Chapter 6 – How Do You Make Yourself a Body Without Organs?

On attempting to create a body without organs, and ceasing to be an organism:

“And how necessary caution is, the art of dosages, since overdose is a danger.  You don’t do it with a sledgehammer, you use a very fine file.” (160)

Time and time again, Deleuze and Guattari provide valuable insight into the methodology for creating a line of flight; for allowing deterritorialization to occur; for allowing the body to become a body without organs (BwO).  Yet, despite the diversity and depth of these discussions, they repeatedly return to a more ”subtle” subversion.  Consider the image featured above.  It would be problematic to fill the glass to absurdity; to wildly destratify.  Similarly, it would be foolish to empty the glass of every drop.  Instead, what Deleuze and Guattari are emphasizing, is the necessity for understanding the relationship between “A” and “B.”  Only by researching, understanding, and working with “A” and “B” can one effectively subvert.  One must allow things to be projected along the white wall, and work within the strata.  To attempt to obliterate the letters, and their respective associations, would be to “overdose.”

Considering an Approach

“How very important it is, when chaos threatens, to draw an inflatable, portable territory.  If need be, I’ll put my territory on my own body, I’ll territorialize my body: the house of the tortoise, the hermittage of the crab, but also tattoos that make the body a territory.” (Deleuze 320)

There are many things that I must remain aware of, rather, that I am forced to remain aware of, when I consider the relationship of the body, my body, to an environment.  It will suffice, for now, to suggest a profound transition or transformation; that several unexpected anxieties have arisen relating to my body, and correspondingly, its relationship to Detroit.  The familiar and comfortable has, ultimately, been replaced by the “chaotic,” by annoyance, by frustration, by persistent anxiety.  An unraveling? There exist, for the purposes of this post, two systems or periods of interaction (this is not to suggest that there are not other systems involved):

(5 B.T. – 0 B.T.)- The former system was one of incredible comfort.  The body moved within the system without much disturbance or confrontation.  I learned, I was assured, I moved, and felt myself moving without hinderance. I studied, and slept in my vehicle, and interacted with the environment freely, almost carelessly.  Although territorialized, the body moved provocatively in relationship to what might be consider the chaotic; that which the territorialization is meant to put at a distance.

(0 B.T. -     ) Panic! Reversion. Discomfort. Struggle.  Paranoia rules all (The paranoid sees the operation of the signs in everything).  The underlying threat never really subsides.  Moments of freedom and clarity from the monotony of anxiety and restriction. The territorialization of the body is nearly absolute.  I distance myself physically. Distance propels even greater anxiety.  Deterritorialization?  I am both within Detroit, and outside of Detroit simultaneously. I consider a gradutated means of approach.  The body approaches systematically.  It moves cautiously.

The transition is confronting, and yet, compelling.  I am interested in writing/mapping this transition, with emphasis on the second period, on the second state of involvement. 

Means of Subversion (Continued)

Again, it seems entirely necessary to return to what I previously termed the “subtle subversion.”  Again, “madness” is danger. With the Black Hole and White Wall, as with the Body Without Organs, Deleuze and Guattari emphasize the necessity of working within the system; the system which we are born into (189).  For Deleuze and Guattari, we don’t attempt to get out of the black hole or white wall directly, as we will either go mad, find ourselves reterritorialized, or both (Deleuze 188).  Instead, we launch the necessary threads of deterritorialization along and across the wall, or by means of the black hole. 

Only across the wall of the signifier can you run lines of asignificance that void all memory, all return, all possible signification and interpretation.  Only in the black hole of subjective consciousness and passion to you discover the transformed, heated, captured particles you must relaunch for a nonsubjective, living love in which each party connects with unknown tracts in the other without entering or conquering them, in which the lines composed are broken lines (189).

This form of subversion, is a trope that appears throughout the text; during discussions of means to destratify or to deterritorialize.  Deleuze and Guattari make it clear that to attempt to dramatically empty the body of organs, is to miss the point entirely, or to risk the inherent danger related to that action.  Similar attempts to escape the black hole or to break through the white wall will only result in “madness.”  One must find a different means of encouraging positive deterritorialization.  This suggests the next point.

While the abstract machine seemingly exists as solution, it is also the problem.  The same is true of deterritorialization.  There exist both negative and positive deterritorializations that might be overlooked.  The distinction of negative and positive is an important point of consideraton.  The abstract machine may allow for rapid positive deterritorialization, absolute deterritorialization, but the abstract machine is also responsible for faciality.  The abstract machine has two states:

…sometimes it is taken up in strata where it brings about deterritorializations that are merely relative, or deterritorializations that are absolute but remain negative… (189-190)

This would be the means by which the abstract machine is related to faciality. 

…sometimes it is developed on a plane of consistency giving it a “diagrammatic” function, a positive value of deterritorialization, the ability to form new abstract machines (190)

This is the means by which the abstract machine would allow one to achieve the Body Without Organs.  This is the map or the “diagrammatic,” as it is advocated by Deleuze or Guattari. The abstract macine is both enemy and accomplice, positive and negative.  I only introduce these binaries in order to identify the complexity of the machine.  As Deleuze and Guattari suggested earlier, the most important question is never of right and wrong. The abstract machine is a weapon that subjects, as with the despotic, while simultaneously providing a means for escape.

White Wall/Black Hole

“Thus the black hole/white wall system is, to begin with, not a face but the abstract machine that produces faces according to the changeable combinations of its cogwheels.  Do not expect the abstract machine to resemble what it produces, or will produce.”

The “Face” as black hole and white wall, or even white hole and black wall, is more than merely a face (close-up from Ivan the Terrible): “The abstract machine is therefore efffectuated not only in the faces that produce it but also to varying degrees in body parts, clothes, and objects that it facializes following an order of reasons” (175). In this case, the second image (Pickpocket) shows the hands of the pickpocket; hands which are facialized throughout the film.

A Body Without Organs: Anarchy or Subtle Subversion

Chapter six is strinkingly rich with material for conversation and consideration.  Simply, “How do you make yourself a body without organs?” How does one allow the plane of consistency to evolve?

Deleuze and Guattari denote that there are three strata which inhibit the body from becoming a body without organs.  These strata include the organism, signifiance, and subjectification.

Organisms. Deleuze and Guattari make it quite evident that the enemy of the body is not the organs which compose the body, but, rather, the “organism” (158).  The organism is the judgment of God, or some seemingly greater power that attempts to impose structure: “…in order to extract useful labor from the BwO, [it] imposes upon it forms, functions, bonds, dominant and hierarchized organizations, organized transcendences” (159).  Take the procedure for producing a text: The “organism” could effectively be considered the traditional or conventional means by which we are meant, or told to produce a document.  There exists a substantial insistence on chapters, a climatic point, a conclusion, properly cited references, proper references, etc.  It seems that this system is imposed in order that one can extract labor from the BwO.  These are hiearchized organizations and forms which insist that the message of the text be clear, concise, and efficient: “You will be organized, you will be an organism, you will articulate your body—otherwise you’re just depraved” (159).  “God,” in this particular situation, is a university or curriculum that demands conformity, thus restricting the BwO.  Jeff discusses some of these restrictions in a recent post.

Suprisingly, Deleuze and Guattari’s response is not the one that I anticipated.  Instead of insisting on anarchy, or simply ridding the body of its organs, they suggest a more subtle subversion.  For Deleuze and Guattari, it is more effective to mimic the strata: “You don’t reach the BwO, and its plane of consistency, by wildly destratifying “ (160).  Instead, it is through “meticulous relation” with the strata that ones can cause flows to pass and bring forth intensities.  Here, the system for subversion, for making the body one without organs, is more subtle and calculated.  For, if one is to rid the body completely of organs, by some anarchy, one risks making the body become nothing.

“For a nagual that erupts, that destroys the tonal, a body without organs that shatters all the strata, turns immediately into a body of nothingness, pure self-destruction whose only outcome is death” (162)

Returning to the example of the university and curriculum.  It seems that one can more effectively create the body without organs by working within the parameters, by establishing a relation with the inhibiting strata; the strata that insist on organization and subjection.  For, to completely refute the system, would be to allow the body to become nothing.  Perhaps, this provides an interesting segway into the issue of stereotypes. 

Following stereotypes blindly, might mean that one does not realize their existence; that one accepts them as truth without question, without necessarily knowing the difference.  It seems evident that one is compelled to refute stereotypes, when they are realized for what they are.  Sometimes, though, it seems more effective to play with stereotypes or with generalizations; to mimick the stereotype, only to subvert it.  I don’t mean to suggest that one should just agree with, allow, or accept stereotypes that are particularly derogatory, but, instead, that there are often ways of subverting these stereotypes while mimicking what might be considered strata.  There is a means of subversion that need not be anarchy.

Interesting Rhetorical Moves: Comparing Barthes’ Third Meaning to A Thousand Plateaus

Deleuze and Guattari present a familiar rhetorical move in chapter five of A Thousand Plateaus.  This move parallels that made by Barthes’ in the introduction to Empire of Signs.

If one was to refuse Barthes’ initial suggestions, it could potentially be perceived that Barthes is reverting to stereotypical images of the East and the West in Empire of Signs.  Perhaps he is, but with a different directive. What is interesting about the introduction to his text, though, is that he already confronts this perception.  He provides an interesting refutation to those who will, inevitably, suggest that he is relying too heavily on stereotypes.  In effect, he suggests that he is figuring or writing his own Japan, and consequently, his own East.  He makes it explicit that he is not writing Japan.

It seems that a similar rhetorical move is made in A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia.  Specifically, in chapter five, Deleuze and Guattari continously suggest that they are not “doing history” (Deleuze 121).  Interestingly, in one particular instance in which they make this claim, it is immediately followed by detailed description of the destruction of the Jewish temple:

“We cannot overlook the most fundamental or extensive event in the history of the Jewish people: the destruction of the Temple, in two stages (587 B.C. and A.D. 70)” (122)

As the text continues, they make it evident that they will not just briefly mention the temple, but rather, that they will explore the “whole history,” including, “the mobility and fragility of the ark, then the construction of a House by Solomon, its reconstruction under Darius, etc.” (122)  In effect, it seems that Deleuze and Guattari are utilizing an interesting rhetorical move.  Determining what this move suggests is the more challenging aspect of its realization.  Simply, what does it mean to state continually that one is not doing something, when in fact, it would seem that one is?  For Barthes as with Deleuze and Guattari, this is complicated.  It could effectively be considered a preventative measure in Barthes’ text; a means of defending oneself against accusation (although I believe it is much more significant than this, for it hints at ones perception of space as influenced by the image repertoire).  This does not seem to be the function of the move in A Thousand Plateaus.  Perhaps it is simply to denote that the history is less important than the means by which people effectuate a regime of signs.  Still, it seems more significant than that.  This, as with everything else they have written, needs more thoughtful consideration.

Semiotic Systems and the Abstract Machine

I must note, as a foreword, that the text which follows will likely evolve as part of several semiotic systems.  For I feel that I am incapable of developing a new regime through transformation.  It is likely that any attempt I will make to create what is referred to as an ”abstract machine” will be reterritorialized or attributed a certain physicality, thus making it, once again, a part of one of several existing regimes.  Although Deleuze and Guattari denote that transformation can lead to the development of new regimes (136), I am still struggling to understand how this might be possible.  This is really quite difficult to conceptualize because it refuses advice or suggestion.  It seems that the suggestion of a methodology for approaching the creation of an abstract machine, would subvert the development of that machine, and consequently, absolute deterritorialization.

Deleuze and Guattari are thorough in their deliberation on the predominant regimes of signs.  There exists, as they explain, the presignifying, signifying, countersignifying and postsignifying semiotics.  Although each of these regimes has distinct features, Deleuze and Guattari denote that they are never entirely isolated.  They argue, adamantly, that regimes of signs are never isolated.  No general semiology exists, because the semiotic systems are always mixed.  The regime systems intersect, and continiously transform into one and another. 

Taking “flight” from the established systems…

Deleuze and Guattari seem to emphasize escape from these semiotic systems, if only momentarily, if only it is possible.  The transformation that would enable this escape is referred to as the “diagrammatic” (136).  These transformations blow  apart semiotic systems on the plane of consistency, and can potentially lead to the creation of a new semiotics.  Yet, as the author’s identify, it is difficult to get away from the highly stratified systems (138).  The solution seems to be the “abstract machine.”

“No regime can be identical to that condition of possibility, and no regime has the property of constants” (140)

Traits, not constants, of the abstract machine…

The abstract machine, as proposed by Deleuze and Guattari, is destratified and deterritorialized.  It is not physical or corporeal any more than semiotic (this seemingly provides a nice parallel to Massumi’s introduction to Parables of the Virtual, which was informed by this text.  Specifically, his discussion of putting the incorporeal back into the body…the body moves and senses, and is as much incorporeal as corporeal because of the non-present capacity for variation).  In addition, the abstract machine operates by matter and not by substance.  This distinction refers back to physicality, in that matter is not yet physical in form.  Furthermore, it operates by function and not by form; it is not yet “semiotically” formed (141). 

Most interestingly:

“The diagrammatic or abstract machine does not function to represent, even something real, but rather constructs a real that is yet to come, a new type of reality” (142)

Through transformation a new semiotics can emerge.  The abstract machine and extreme deterritorialization can contribute to a “new type of reality.”  In its entirety, this is provocatively complicated.  It insists that one must take the measure to its extremity, even stripping the content of form (143).  It leaves one wondering how this is to be accomplished.  It seems evident that one need to shatter the existing systems, and to allow the evolution of a new system that completely deterritorializes the regime, yet it is hard to conceive of a means by which this would happen. 

If language and regimes of signs are ultimately based on abstract machines and diagrammatic functions, then everything depends on pragmatics (148):

“‘Behind’ statements and semioticizations there are only machines, assemblages, and movements of deterritorialization that cut across the stratification of the various systems and elude both the coordinates of language and of existence.” 

Considering the “Rhizome”

“A method of the rhizome type, on the contrary, can analyze language only by decentering it onto other dimensions and other registers.  A language is never closed upon itself, except as a function of impotence” (8 – Deleuze)

If it can be assumed that Deleuze and Guattari are advocating both a methodology for forwarding and understanding language, then considering the nature of what they refer to as the “rhizome,” seems entirely necessary.  The rhizome is non-linear, and draws its significance not in and of itself, because this would insist a certain “impotence.”  Instead, language forms a “bulb” which stands or falls in relationship to many things:

“it evolves by subterranean stems and flows, along river valleys or train tracks; it spreads like a patch of oil” (7)

In order to demonstrate an understanding of this methodology, I return again to my work on Drink Movement.  The language that evolved in that text, evolved in relationship to many things.  It developed in relationship to the city of Detroit, more generally; it moved in relationship to political events (Reagan’s fradulent intervention); it moved in relationship to a film repertoire, a framework for understanding social and cultural interaction.  In order to understand the language, one must not consider the language in and of itself, but, instead, in terms of the language’s “connectivity;” the ways in which the rhizome or bulb connected to other things (Note that I use connectivity rather vaguely, based on what I assume the word suggests). 

If the concept of the rhizome is to be considered a means of writing, or a more effective means of positioning a text, then this brings up some interesting considerations.  The “rhizome” insists that one allow one’s text to become connected, for, “any point of a rhizome can be connected to anything other, and must be.”  This goes back, again, to Deleuze and Guattari’s emphasis on plugging the machine, the text, into others machines:

“But when one writes, the only question is which other machine the literary machine can be plugged into, must be plugged into in order to work” (4)

The question of interest, here, is whether one designs a text which encourages connection, or whether one more forcefully plugs the text into others?  Whereas the original rhetoric suggests a more forceful attempt on behalf of the writer to establish greater connectivity, later discussion seems more organic.  By organic, I simply mean that it seems that if one designs the text in a particular fashion, it will move more naturally, with less intervention, into a greater system of comprehension, into a greater system of connectedness.  Perhaps it is both.  Yet, it still leaves the question whether the connections just emerge, which I think that they do, or whether one must force them?

In any event, it seems that Deleuze and Guattari are arguing understanding language in terms of the way it interacts, instead of in terms of ideology, or a closed set.  For, as they denote:

“Literature is an assemblage.  It has nothing to do with ideology.  There is no ideology and never has been” (4)