Machinic Filiations, and Binary Alteration
Ok, I posted this in response to some comments on the previous post, but im not sure if you all are looking at those posts. So here it is again, with further comments.
Let me clarify... the "impossibility of 'reducing' desiring machines coded flows (singular infinitives)" This is the same problem that troubled Heidegger in Letter on Humanism, and elsewhere. The idea that no thought can be expressed without language, and in the process of expressing a thought you confine and domesticate that thought, "code" it if you will, into something that can carry a relative meaning. That is, if you aren't making sense then you are schizophrenic, or psychotic or something, but you might have something profound to say, the thought might exceed the logical conventions of standard language. Hence the impasse most philosophers who are worth their salt run into... they have no word that can best characterize their thought! So D&G attempted to broach this problem by literally making up words as they went along, thought was never to take a secondary position to language, but visa versa, language was the instrument of thought. The techne is to be destroyed, in the sense that thought does not always positively result in praxis. This is another complex problem... thought can be profound especially when it is in excess of praxis, and especially when it is not merely "ontological" as Heidegger said, that is when its not merely concerned with representing objects or beings. This is the overarching social context that we as Westerners find ourselves in... we are mired with Being, ontologies, objects, things, but we have little understanding of how thought can surpass ontology, and often times ontology needs to be transformed! Let's face it consumer capitalism, the sprawling middle class, SUV's, are reaping incredibly destructive effects upon the world we currently inhabit including less privileged people who inhabit that world.... so things need to be changed, desperately, praxis is needed, however thought should not be reduced to merely the instrumentality of language... Thought should not be domesticated to this dungeon of singular signs.
So Machinic filiations must be said to include language itself which forms the basis of our relations with others and even our self. An untimely meditation... "god is dead", the world is not ready for this thought, and this was exactly what Nietzsche was lamenting... thats why the madman who spoke it was considered mad in the first place! But this doesn't mean that the thought is psychotic, or schizophrenic... does it? Of course not! Just that the thought is expressed in a manner that is not yet ready to be distributed, circulated, and ultimately understood in a common way.
This is NOT to set up a "binary alteration" in the sense that we have lived "With god" for thousands of years and now we'll try to live in exactly the opposite fashion. To think this is a residue from structuralism. However, if this dialectical upheaval of a binary in favor of the minor term is NOT the stated goal of the boys (D&G) then what exactly are they up to... and what was Nietzsche up to for that matter! I think its the notion of how embedded with language and "discursive formations" philosophy has become. to the point where as a discipline it must justify itself as scientific, or relegate itself to the status of a voodoo religion. Then again, I think philosophy often times over-emphasizes language and the possibility of transformation at the level of discourse... which I see as "selling out".
Let me clarify... the "impossibility of 'reducing' desiring machines coded flows (singular infinitives)" This is the same problem that troubled Heidegger in Letter on Humanism, and elsewhere. The idea that no thought can be expressed without language, and in the process of expressing a thought you confine and domesticate that thought, "code" it if you will, into something that can carry a relative meaning. That is, if you aren't making sense then you are schizophrenic, or psychotic or something, but you might have something profound to say, the thought might exceed the logical conventions of standard language. Hence the impasse most philosophers who are worth their salt run into... they have no word that can best characterize their thought! So D&G attempted to broach this problem by literally making up words as they went along, thought was never to take a secondary position to language, but visa versa, language was the instrument of thought. The techne is to be destroyed, in the sense that thought does not always positively result in praxis. This is another complex problem... thought can be profound especially when it is in excess of praxis, and especially when it is not merely "ontological" as Heidegger said, that is when its not merely concerned with representing objects or beings. This is the overarching social context that we as Westerners find ourselves in... we are mired with Being, ontologies, objects, things, but we have little understanding of how thought can surpass ontology, and often times ontology needs to be transformed! Let's face it consumer capitalism, the sprawling middle class, SUV's, are reaping incredibly destructive effects upon the world we currently inhabit including less privileged people who inhabit that world.... so things need to be changed, desperately, praxis is needed, however thought should not be reduced to merely the instrumentality of language... Thought should not be domesticated to this dungeon of singular signs.
So Machinic filiations must be said to include language itself which forms the basis of our relations with others and even our self. An untimely meditation... "god is dead", the world is not ready for this thought, and this was exactly what Nietzsche was lamenting... thats why the madman who spoke it was considered mad in the first place! But this doesn't mean that the thought is psychotic, or schizophrenic... does it? Of course not! Just that the thought is expressed in a manner that is not yet ready to be distributed, circulated, and ultimately understood in a common way.
This is NOT to set up a "binary alteration" in the sense that we have lived "With god" for thousands of years and now we'll try to live in exactly the opposite fashion. To think this is a residue from structuralism. However, if this dialectical upheaval of a binary in favor of the minor term is NOT the stated goal of the boys (D&G) then what exactly are they up to... and what was Nietzsche up to for that matter! I think its the notion of how embedded with language and "discursive formations" philosophy has become. to the point where as a discipline it must justify itself as scientific, or relegate itself to the status of a voodoo religion. Then again, I think philosophy often times over-emphasizes language and the possibility of transformation at the level of discourse... which I see as "selling out".