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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.
I haven’t looked at Nietzsche’s writings in ages, but isn’t hatred the mode of ressentiment par excellence? I could be totally wrong (I never liked Nietzsche much, and never spent much time thinking about him), but I always thought that one of the distinguishing features of Noble morality — at the level of affect at least — was an absence of hatred, and a respect for one’s enemy/opponent. (you find this again in Schmitt). Only a slave can really hate.
Alexei,
I think you are very right (as I recall the adventures of slave morality), and it is to the point that I was trying to make. Hatred for Nietzsche is essentially a form of jealousy and passivity. In this actually he shares much with his twin Spinoza.
The question is, as Larval hates the ressentimentors (as he imagines them), is this not a form of ressentiment? And ultimately, is not this an objection to enjoyment itself.
This is of course no small order of question (and Larval Subjects isn’t even the subject here). What weighs in the balance are the entire politics of metaphysics which follow.
For instance…
An interesting parallel to hatred perhaps can be found in the mere oppositional nature of what apparently qualifies Speculative Realists. As Larval himself says, it is not upon what SR philosophies agree upon so much as what they are against…
The speculative realists are more united by what they oppose, than by the philosophical claims they share in common. In short, all of the SR positions share the thesis that the human and human phenomena have no special place within being and are opposed to the thesis that we must start with an analysis of something pertaining to the human (mind, history, language, power, signs, etc.) to properly pose questions of ontology.
http://larvalsubjects.wordpress.com/2009/07/04/speculative-realism-does-not-exist/
In the context of Larval Subject’s hatreds an oppositional framework for philosophizing sound interesting, and makes one wonder if it might be the enjoyments of human-first philosophies that drives some of this oppositional philosophizing.
[This union of oppositional fronts for SR is accomplished in violation of Harman’s recent dictate that one should not like a philosopher because you like his/her conclusions.]
The human-being should not enjoy itself as centralized, a sin of its egotism no doubt. And I find myself in resistance to just those kinds of pleasures. There are very good reasons for being suspicious of them. But, if we are to change the minds of those we disagree with, it is for us to not only point out some categorical error they have made (some supposed illicit, perhaps Kantian correlation), as if policing their thought structures, but one must also create theoretical pleasure domes into which their human-centric enjoyments can move.
But there is much else behind at least Larval Subject’s rejection of a certain body of philosophical reasoning, for instance some things linked to what he calls the Minotaurs of textuality (that enjoyment), the continental preclusions of objection outside the text. The pleasures of the Minotaur are to be renounced…but should they be resented?
Meh.
I personally have no problem with a bunch of people who share little more than a particular theoretical orientation getting together and working through a problem space. I don’t even think they need to make room for what they perceive to be the dilettantish preoccupations of other thinkers. That’s what Plato did when he founded the Academy (and instructed everyone to burn democritus’s work, whenever they found it), what Aristotle did with his Lyceum, what the romantics did, what Russell and Moore, The Logical Positivists, and the Frankfurt School did. Great. There’s nothing wrong with opposing something per se. It’s just a good idea to know what you’re talking about when you oppose something. I mean, shadow boxing is fun, but it makes you look ridiculous when you do it in public, and you’ll sound delusional if you start telling onlookers that you’re engaged with some great evil in the process.
Ultimately the only defense that bad readings of texts ever have is something like the minotaur complaint, which is just a fancy way of saying someone has lost sight of the forest for the trees (and which is only legitimate when a given claim has — already — been shown to be false on factual grounds, and someone insists on defending with respect to the text that proves it wrong in the first place). That whole bestiary is just a nice way to disarm anyone who disagrees. BEsides, as someone else has mentioned, the folks who complain the most about being hounded by unfounded allegations are the first ones to hurl them at others…
These remark aside, I agree that the significant problem to be dealt with emerges when some kind of opposition becomes a form of no-saying (which is strangely ever-present in LS’ posts: so-and-so says X, but — no — it must be Y; the Law commands, but — no — it creates desires to the contrary, and therefore produces what it forbids, etc.). Ultimately it’s just not interesting. And frankly, who really cares? I know what I know, and work on a few things besides. With some luck, maybe I’ll be big in Japan.
Alexei: “That’s what Plato did when he founded the Academy (and instructed everyone to burn democritus’s work, whenever they found it), what Aristotle did with his Lyceum, what the romantics did, what Russell and Moore, The Logical Positivists, and the Frankfurt School did. Great. There’s nothing wrong with opposing something per se.”
Kvond: I agree with your references, but SR does not seem to fit nicely with such examples. The logical positivists largely agreed with each other on positive grounds (not on oppositional grounds), and were just trying to work the exact nature of such a position. SR rather (which operates more like an internet brand name) is composed of a kind of pure oppositionality, each of the thinkers disagreeing radically with each other almost as much as they are with what they are opposing.
So when Graham says against those that like Foucault:
“I also fear that people often like him because they agree with his conclusions, which in fact is not one of the best reasons to like a philosopher. That’s treating a philosopher like a useful screwdriver or hammer instead of as a philosopher: “He advances my political agenda.””
I am unsure how this differs from how or why he likes Meillassoux. Instead of an outright “political agenda” it seems to be something of a metaphysical one. We all agree correlationalism must GO! As there is no unifying assumption or base, it is really something more of a political (in the microworld of published philosophies), or maybe even commercial, movement.
Alexei: “Ultimately the only defense that bad readings of texts ever have is something like the minotaur complaint, which is just a fancy way of saying someone has lost sight of the forest for the trees…That whole bestiary is just a nice way to disarm anyone who disagrees.
Kvond: I see something more than this “disarming”. It is also an attempt to rally emotional support through the essentialization of others. It is the process of degrading those that object to. There is no coincidence that fantastical monsters are those chosen. Perhaps you would see this as trite, but of course just this kinds of thinking is what inspires Graham to feel justified in violating all sorts of boundaries of electronic communication and discourse. Graham at least sees energy suckers as people to be defeated at all cost.
Alexei: “These remark aside, I agree that the significant problem to be dealt with emerges when some kind of opposition becomes a form of no-saying (which is strangely ever-present in LS’ posts: so-and-so says X, but — no — it must be Y; the Law commands, but — no — it creates desires to the contrary, and therefore produces what it forbids, etc.). Ultimately it’s just not interesting. And frankly, who really cares?”
Kvond: Interesting observations, and they dovetail some with my own contention that when we too vigorously oppose something we end up producing the very thing we oppose. What is missing of course is dialogue itself, and the realization that investment guides position. There is a great deal of oppositionality in Larval Subjects, something I feel is exposed in his list of hatreds. Not only is he quite opposed (apparently), but also quite sensitive to be being opposed (which in turn expresses itself in a kind of odd sort of quixotic academic sycophancy).
Well, i don’t want to nitpick examples too much, but I don’t think the positivists did actually agree with one another on positive grounds, as you’ve put it. Any consenss seems to have come out of a shared misreading of the tractatus — and even that didn’t really last that long. But the details don’t really matter. As far as I’m concerned, being against something is as good as any other rallying call. But at some moment in time, once you’ve gathered the tribe, you need to get on with the positive work. At that point, being ‘against’ isn’t enough — and taking shots at stuff one doesn’t even care to understand is simply philistine. One might as well simply burn the book and get it over with. On that point I think you and I are in agreement.
As for Harman’s work, I don’t know what to say, really. I’m not impressed (but who am I anyway, and who cares what I think?). What I dislike about it the most, is that it pattenly refuses to engage with anything but its own concerns. It’s hermetic, and strangely authoritarian: accept these premises or quit reading (there’s one point in the Guerrilla Metaphysics after criticizing Husserl’s 5th or 6th Investigation — when the one most relevant to Harman’s work is actually the 3rd one, the one dealing with mereology — where Harman says something like either show that the argument isn’t valid or accept it, where I throw up my hands and say, well there goes any real engagement). But past that, I don’t know. There’s a terrible tendency, to be sure, to try to make someone else’s work ‘relevant’ to our own (Serres discusses this in terms of the figure of the parasite in his book by that name). But if we hate the conclusion, why would we bother with it (save to destroy it)? Again, I see no way around this issue. One has to find something compelling in order to take it up. Whether it’s a theoretical orientation, a method, or a conclusion doesn’t seem to matter much to me. But that doesn’t mean one should uncritically or dogmatically accept these things. And I know no good philosopher who is uncritical in this respect.
At any rate, you’re right. There is a conspicuous lack of any actual intellectual intercourse (as my bad translation of Marx’s German Ideology would have it), any real dialogue. So much the worse for the interwebz and the hopes of blogging I guess. Frankly, I’m too bored with arguing with folks who don’t really want to argue, who simply be recognized as a ‘fellow intellectual,’ or as ‘a better intellectual,’ to even feign interest in polemics or discussions. that’s a mug’s game.
For my part, I’m beginning to think that a new erotics is needed. Maybe a new Mysterium, a new mythology of intelectual pursuit is needed.
Alexei: “For my part, I’m beginning to think that a new erotics is needed. Maybe a new Mysterium, a new mythology of intelectual pursuit is needed.”
Kvond: I like this very much. Perhaps it can be connected to Sloterdijk’s notion of a Thymotics.
Alexei: “What I dislike about it the most, is that it pattenly refuses to engage with anything but its own concerns. It’s hermetic, and strangely authoritarian: accept these premises or quit reading”
Kvond: Hmmm. I agree that it is quite hermetic in foundational assumptions (aside from assigning itself the very important position of overthrowing the evils of Correlationism), it cannot think outside of Husserl/Heidegger. I found it of lingering interest until I realized that dialogue really isn’t on the agenda. But when I finally read his essay on “Vicarious Causation” I truly realized it was all rather hoaky. The hoard of scientific causation was simply tossed out without any substitution other than a rather creative imagination of Husserl/Heidegger pyrotechniques, leaving one to realize that one is reading a kind of science ficiton, or really philosophos-fiction. I kind of feel that he betrayed the trust of an earnest reader. For all Harman’s criticism of others (for instance his recent dismissal of Foucault because Foucault never talks about non-human to non-human object interaction), he is remarkably thin in talking about objects at all, except in only the wildest and most anthropomorphic of ways.
Alexei: “So much the worse for the interwebz and the hopes of blogging I guess. Frankly, I’m too bored with arguing with folks who don’t really want to argue, who simply be recognized as a ‘fellow intellectual,’ or as ‘a better intellectual,’ to even feign interest in polemics or discussions. that’s a mug’s game.”
kvond: I do think that the blog-world needs to be worked through. It is a rich resource and process. You are right though, “fellow intellectual” seems to be a running aim here, strangely, it is just the kind of preoccupation that drives the professionals of philosophy.
I know next to nothing about Sloterdijk, so maybe there’s an interesting connection to be worked through there between an new erotic of understanding (something Walter Benjamin went on about in a few places), and tymotics. Might be an interesting subject indeed.
Alexei,
This is my wide-ranging post on Sloterdijk:
https://kvond.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/an-achillean-economy-the-economy-of-thymotics-and-anger-sloterdijk/
It includes two links to reviews of his “Anger and Time”. In the context of the present discussion is his critique of Leftist politics which work on “banking” anger and resentment. He argues for a non-internalized righteous anger, an expressiveness.
A friend of mine actually translated Zorn und Zeit (as Rage and Time) for Columbia UP. It should be out shortly (although I gather you read German, so that probably doesn’t matter). Given your interest in things Greek, the first chpater of the book might interest you, since it starts with a really neat reading of Achilles. Anyway, I’ll definitely take a look at your post. Maybe there’s some more work to be done.
Wonderful news! (I do not read German at all). It is definitely in conjunction with the reading of Achilles that my interest lies. I look forward to your friend’s publication. Do you have any idea when it’s coming? Google shows no results, and I really would like to look at that chapter in particular.
I’m not sure when it’s planned for release. I was under the impression that the translation had been finished some 6 moths ago, but a quick look at CUP’s website doesn’t have it listed either. This might have something to do with the fact that a new edition was just recently published in Germany, and if SLoterdijk has expanded his book, the transaltion might also need to be amended. Who knows. In any case, I don’t expect CUP will release any news until december.
Sorrowful. But thanks for the guess. Knowing me I suppose I’ll be onto other interests by then. But perhaps I’ll cycle back to it in a few years.
Is this post on hatred by Levi a recent one?
If so he seems to have taken it down.
Its from yesterday, July 4. If you google ” “Two Things I hate” Larval Subjects ” you can see the original post time in the preview that Google offers.
Thanks for that.
I too went to look for the post on Larval Subjects, discovering that Sinthome has taken it down. I presume he had second thoughts, either about the ideas expressed in the post or about presenting them for public scrutiny.
I suppose we must be thankful for the small window into the nature of his hatreds, however briefly opened. I don’t think we are mislead into taking them as honest expressions.
One more contextual contribution for his dysaffinity for “trolls” (and, as we might imagine, Grey Vampires and Minotaurs as well).
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