From Square Boxes To Fluid Plasmas
Let’s not forget that philosophy is, literally speaking, the “love of wisdom” = the production of desire through intellectual activity. What a liberating concept! And yet the way we have been taught to think is through the linearity of the history of philosophy. A series of boxes on a string. Here is the traditional view:
Western philosophy has a long history, conventionally divided into four large eras - the Ancient, Medieval, Modern and Contemporary. The Ancient era runs through the fall of Rome and includes the Greek philosophers such as Plato. The Medieval period runs until roughly the late 1400s and the Renaissance. The "Modern" is a word with more varied use, which includes everything from Post-Medieval through the specific period up to the 20th century. Contemporary philosophy encompasses the philosophical developments of the 20th century up to the present day.
But this is counter-intuitive to the continuous surge of life, to the vibrating intensities of existence, to the chaosmos of living and thinking, to the plasma of perpetual becomings.
When Yusef is battling the concepts of totality and rationality he is trying to stop, isolate, and freeze the flow of emerging streams of creativity. This is understandable and true of all of us in our attempts to create patterns and stable entities. We also know that this desire is rarely qualitative, multidimensional, and inclusive. It is not “a draft, a wind, a day, an hour, a stream, a place, a battle, an illness” (Deleuze: Negotiations, 1995). But it should be.
How do we philosophize as the wind?
We have to approach thinking as the extensive genesis of intensities = the creation of forces, the ongoing repetition of the new, the desiring body without organs.
This involves the painful exercise of the concept of unlearning.
Only when we deconstruct do we create, and only when we discard boxes do we flow with the plasma of becoming.
Blood streams triumphantly through the organism in the spasms of orgasm just as the wind of thinking does.
Dopamine in the body is the cocaine of thinking in the wind.
posted by Orla Schantz at 7:26 PM
7 Comments:
"When Yusef is battling the concepts of totality and rationality he is trying to stop, isolate, and freeze the flow of emerging streams of creativity."
What I am trying to do is get the blog to begin,to commence, which even though we've been going for two and a half years or so, we've not been able to do.
Though the effort is in many ways discouraging, I like to think that once we do get it to begin, we might really have something.
I don't think the flow begins within some way I might find to stylize my thoughts or writing. I think it begins "between" any one of us, or even "between" us and a commentator, say.
In picking up on rationality and totality, I am hearkening back to the very earliest days of the blog, because at the very earliest moments of the blog whatever was "between" us immediately coagulated and congealed and died, and I have found it fascinating to think about this. The "between" deadened and one way or another there was no differential and thus no flow.
--Yusef
Thanks, Yusef, for your interesting response.
You write,
I don't think the flow begins within some way I might find to stylize my thoughts or writing. I think it begins "between" any one of us, or even "between" us and a commentator, say.
This is a fascinating view, i.e. the creation of space, hopefully rich in potentiality because it makes possible the realization of events.
But don't you think space primarily exists on the edges of language? I often find myself trying to wrestle free of traditional language.
Or do you understand "betweens" differently?
Looking forward to your thoughts.
Orla
"But don't you think space primarily exists on the edges of language? I often find myself trying to wrestle free of traditional language."
Why would the edges of language flow? Why do the edges of language present an opportunity to wrestle free of traditional language?
More than asking a question of why, I want to know: how? How would the edges of language flow? How do the edges of language present an opportunity to wrestle free of traditional language?
Rather than finding out that the edge of language is a deterritorialization of language as such, I would like to know: how? How so?
--Yusef
Hi again,
What I was trying to get at was that the "betweens" of which you speak would create some possibilities for potential space that maybe cannot be contained within traditional grammar and language.
We have before tried several genres on this blog that were sometimes beneficial to further concept creation.
Maybe I just need to better understand what you are referring to when you write about the productivity of "betweens".
I appreciate your approach, though.
Orla
"Maybe I just need to better understand what you are referring to when you write about the productivity of 'betweens'."
Excellent point. There's no more reason for me to think you would understand what I was referring to than there was for you to think I would know what you meant when you spoke of the edges of language.
To realize this could be to begin a flow.
--Yusef
Orla wrote: "This involves the painful exercise of the concept of unlearning. Only when we deconstruct do we create, and only when we discard boxes do we flow with the plasma of becoming."
Orla, the philosophical deconstruction as thought out by J. Derrida is not the opposite of a construction. Deconstruction is not a taking things apart, it is not an analysis and not "unlearning".
"The plasma of becoming".
What the hell is that?
Well written article.
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