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Ode to Man
Tho’ many are the terrors,
not one more terrible than man goes.
This one beyond the grizzled sea
in winter storming to the south
He crosses, all-engulfed,
cutting through, up from under swells.
& of the gods She the Eldest, Earth
un-withering, un-toiling, is worn down,
As the Twisting Plough’s year
into Twisting Plough’s year,
Through the breeding of horse, he turns.
& the lighthearted race of birds
all-snaring he drives them
& savage beasts, their clan, & of the sea,
marine in kind
With tightly-wound meshes spun
from all-seeing is Man.
Yet too, he masters by means of pastoral
beast, mountain-trodding,
The unruly-maned horse holding fast,
‘round the neck yoked,
& the mountain’s
ceaseless bull.
& the voice & wind-fast thought
& the passion for civic ways
He has taught, so from crag’s poor court
from under the ether’s hard-tossed arrows
To flee, this all-crossing one. Blocked, he comes
upon nothing so fated.
From Hades alone escape he’ll not bring.
Tho’ from sickness impossible
Flight he has pondered.
A skilled one, devising of arts beyond hope,
Holding at times an evil,
But then to the noble he crawls,
honoring the laws of the Earth, &
Of gods the oath so just,
high-citied.
Citiless is the one who with the un-beautiful
dwells, boldly in grace.
Never for me a hearth-mate
may he have been, never equal in mind
He who offers this.
Ode to Man
A BwO is made in such a way that it can be occupied, populated only by intensities. Only intensities pass and circulate. Still, the BwO is not a scene, a place, or even a support upon which something comes to pass. It has nothing to do with phantasy, there is nothing to interpret. The BwO causes intensities to pass; it produces and distributes them in a spatium that is itself intensive, lacking extension. It is not space, nor is it in space; it is matter that occupies space to a given degree—to the degree corresponding to
the intensities produced. It is nonstratified, unformed, intense matter, the matrix of intensity, intensity = 0; but there is nothing negative about that zero, there are no negative or opposite intensities. Matter equals energy. Production of the real as an intensive magnitude starting at zero. That is why we treat the BwO as the full egg before the extension of the organism and the organization of the organs, before the formation of the strata; as the intense egg defined by axes and vectors, gradients and thresholds, by dynamic tendencies involving energy transformation and kinematic movements involving group displacement, by migrations: all independent
of accessory forms because the organs appear and function here only as pure intensities. The organ changes when it crosses a threshold, when it
changes gradient. "No organ is constant as regards either function or position, . . . sex organs sprout anywhere,... rectums open, defecate and close, . . . the entire organism changes color and consistency in split-second adjustments." The tantric egg. After all, is not Spinoza's Ethics the great book of the BwO?
Ode to Man
But human power is extremely limited, and is infinitely surpassed by the power of external causes; we have not, therefore, an absolute power of shaping to our use those things which are without us. Nevertheless, we shall bear with an equal mind all that happens to us in contravention to the claims of our own advantage, so long as we are conscious, that we have done our duty, and that the power which we possess is not sufficient to enable us to protect ourselves completely; remembering that we are a part of universal nature, and that we follow her order. If we have a clear and distinct understanding of this, that part of our nature which is defined by intelligence, in other words the better part of ourselves, will assuredly acquiesce in what befalls us, and in such acquiescence will endeavour to persist. For, in so far as we are intelligent beings, we cannot desire anything save that which is necessary, nor yield absolute acquiescence to anything, save to that which is true: wherefore, in so far as we have a right understanding of these things, the endeavour of the better part of ourselves is in harmony with the order of nature as a whole.
Thanks for posting the PDF, it does look like a slim volume, I might be tempted to read it instead of doing work…
Read it. It is very good.
Balibar’s little book on Spinoza is first rate. I would say the thesis that we’re always already social is the key axiom underlying all Marxist thought. So there’s a real sense in which Marx is a kind of Spinozist, though I’m not sure if he ever directly read Spinoza. Balibar’s other book on Marx is also very good. There’s a reason there are all these Spinozist Marxists out there such as Balibar, Negri and Hardt, the autonomia folk coming out of Italy, etc.
I’ll also add that I find it surprising when you say that most people ignore Spinoza’s political thought and focus only on his metaphysical claims. You’re right, of course. However, it always seems to me that philosophers like Lucretius or Spinoza are political thinkers first and metaphysical thinkers second. By this I mean that the reason Lucretius and Spinoza get so worked up about metaphysical issues is that they believe we have to know the true nature of reality to form an adequate politics and ethics. This is what makes Negri’s book so terrific. Although it is often a plodding read, his careful analysis of Spinoza’s historical context reveals the set of political concerns underneath his apparently arid metaphysical speculations.
To your first point, yes, but there is a substantial difference between Marx and Spinoza, and this is where Marx wants to privilege “consciousness” as a categorical distinction between humans and animals, and from this draw a “reproduction of physical existence” versus a “mode of production,”categorical distinction which Spinoza would not abide:
From German Ideology:
“Man can be distinguished from animals by consciousness…[humans] begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence”
“This mode of production must not be considered simply as being the reproduction of the physical existence of the individuals. Rather it is a definite form of activity, a definite mode of life on their part. As individuals express their life, so they are”
As I’ve pointed out elsewhere, this nature vs. culture thinking, its categorical humanism, threatens a binary which places women potentially on the wrong side of the split.
Spinoza is quite specific. Human beings do not form a kingdom within a kindom.
To you second comment,
LS: “However, it always seems to me that philosophers like Lucretius or Spinoza are political thinkers first and metaphysical thinkers second. By this I mean that the reason Lucretius and Spinoza get so worked up about metaphysical issues is that they believe we have to know the true nature of reality to form an adequate politics and ethics.”
Kvond: I think that this is very true. It is really hard for us to conceive (or at least for me to) of just what kind of termoil was going on in the mid 1600s. Plagues everywhere, friends dying. Naval and land wars. No royality for the first time in the Dutch Republic. A huge boom in economic growth impowering a for-centuries oppressed group (Sephardic Jews), meteors appearing the sky, prophesies thought to be fullfilled regarding the end of the world, a distant living messiah in the form of Sabbatai Zevi, the discovery of any number of exploding scientific paths of inquiry. If ever there was a need to “get things straight” it was then. Spinoza’s sense-making goes right down to the smallest detail of society for him.
LS: This is what makes Negri’s book so terrific. Although it is often a plodding read, his careful analysis of Spinoza’s historical context reveals the set of political concerns underneath his apparently arid metaphysical speculations.
Kvond: I agree. And I too found his prose difficult, but I have to say that – and I have read it many times because I always felt that I was missing some very important aspects due to that style – once one adapts oneself to the writing, and is familiarized with what he is trying to say, I actually found the style pleasing, expressive, beautiful. I took me a very long time though to get to that place. I always feel that I want to recommend that book to people, but it carries its own impenetrability at its surface, and who wants to wish that effort upon them.
This, I think, is a complicated issue. The Marx of the German Ideology is the early humanist Marx. He later became critical of this position by the time of Capital. I agree categorically with your critique of nature versus culture binaries. A lot of the work I’ve been doing has been to undermine this sort of dichotomy.
I’m not sure I understand your point about women. That said, the early socialist movement had a pretty bad track record with women, tending to privilege male workers issues over gender issues. The nice thing about Marx’s philosophy (Balibar contests the idea that there is a “Marxist Philosophy), is that it is an open and evolving way of thinking. It’s more a technique for analyzing the world and conditions than a set of defined propositions (though sadly Marxists haven’t always approached it in that spirit). Along these lines, one productive project might be to form a Spinozistic Marxism to correct the sorts of problems you outline here.
This is great stuff. Thanks for posting it (the book) and for the insightful discussion.
Great ai, I hope you enjoy the book or some portion of it.
Thanks for putting up these excellent PDFs, K. Enjoying the discussion, too. It’s been probably 8 years since I read the Tractatus but it’s coming back to me slowly…
Glad you liked it all.
I think that the key is not so much in the Tractatus (which was designed to adress a very specific political problem: biblical authority at a time of a rising, liberal Republic of freedoms), but in the Ethics, where Balibar concentrates his focus in chapter 4 (and in the diagram).
Anyone interested in Spinoza & Marx — and materialist political philosophy — ought to look at the terrific journal, ‘Rethinking Marxism’ (edited in USA but currently published in the UK, via Taylor & Francis). I also recommend highly the free online journal, ‘Borderlands’. You will see some of the same people in each journal — like Jason Read, who was writing on Negri well before ‘Empire’ appeared; and Warren Montag, whose written excellent articles, and a book, on Louis Althusser; among others. Btw, ‘Rethinking Marxism’ also hosts a conference at UMass/Amherst every 4 years — the next RM conference is Nov 2009.
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