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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.
strange, I just checked this blog today for the first time in ages…
Very strange.
Strange, I was going to say, “vicarious” (smile).
Maybe you could toss out unexpected commentary, now and then, to keep us on our toes, instead of trying to maintain a steady stream of scholarly commentary?
Glad you’re back safely!
By the way Paul, there is a social aspect to all the intellectual sharing that academic blogging brings about, and you were one of my favorite people to have met. I wish I could keep posting just to keep up those kinds of relationships, getting to know people of like mind, but it does appear that the time for this blog has dimmed.
As to being safe, the political strife in Thailand was/is far overblown. Its the way that the camera/report always eroticizes and intensifies moments in history.
Perhaps I’ll set up a looser blog and do some thoughts.
Yes, do set up a ‘looser’ blog…
(hi Mark).
Hi Paul. Not yet ready for another mariold round with the ouroboros of Palindrome.
KVOND, you mean the revolution WILL be televised?! (joke). Reading a little red book on my commute. No, not Mao. Latour and Lepinay’s 87-page THE SCIENCE OF PASSIONATE INTERESTS: AN INTRODUCTION TO GABRIEL TARDE’S ECONOMIC ANTHROPOLOGY. I promise: no more quotes, since this bar is closed.. Well, just one more round (Tarde writes : )
“The eminently psychological nature of the social sciences … would have given rise to fewer objections had the distinction been made between two psychologies that are normally blended into one… it is useful to note that the objects of the self can be either natural things, unfathomable in their hermetically sealed inner depths, or other selves … The latter objects of the self … give rise to an entirely exceptional relationship between them and it… However [for] material substances of any sort … [their] forms can only be guessed at by hypothesis, and only their outward sign is perceived”.
Hey old friend Mark. I’m not sure what do to with such a quote. I would say, I’m tired of the hypostasis of “fathomless depths” and other silly things that scholasticists like to dream up to justify their own poetry. Objects are not “deep” nor “hollow”. We inhabit them (and persons) regularly, as a pure matter of how we live and organize ourselves. We inhabit objects, and them us, there is no other way.
And yes, the revolution has been televised. If you watch that film I believe it has been captured, in all its frivolity, brutality and seriousness.
this blog doesn’t look that dim.
mark: i’m looking for you on google…do you have an ‘institutional address’?
pbains at xtra.co.nz
Well, they say where three are gathered in my name…
Paul, you can reach me at crosby_m at rocketmail.com
I’m curious whether WordPress makes the email address one must enter available to the blog owner?
KVOND, you don’t have to do anything with my Tarde quote, but I should have realized that it might reopen memories of “Fascist Bindings in Latour” (even though the quote is from Gabriel Tarde over 100 years ago, and not from Latour). I posted this quote because it seemed to show how Tarde, at least, does not seem to have a flat ontology. It also seemed very appropriate to a recent discussion of Mario Crocco’s PALINDROME with Paul and Adrian over at IMMANENCE: http://aivakhiv.blog.uvm.edu/2010/02/weird_life_shadow_biospheres_dark_ecologies.html
But, perhaps Paul and I can continue that discussion via email, rather than via extensive graffiti on other people’s blogs.
I watched the first video in this post 2 days ago. I know it’s supposed to be surreal, but on my small PC screen, with the lighting of the video, I couldn’t follow anything in it, or make sense of the commentary. I’ll try again, here (at my real institution) where I have a larger display.
Mark,
Perhaps my experience of the films will not be yours. The three films all fit together for me, something quite Full-jacket about it, the way that protest can flash into violence, the unsophistocated somewhat amateur but very real report of the reporter. Its the happenstance that comes through, with a kind of lunar lighting. But perhaps you would have had to have been in Bangkok – or some familiarity with Thai politics -recently to feel it, the cultural ambiguity between festival and riot.
You are perfectly free to graffiti on this blog. That’s what blogs are made for.
Let me know if a larger display makes a difference.
amen brother.
I was able to watch half of the Thai protest videos on my newer Dell machine at work (until the 2nd one got hung up – probably a protest from our network firewall?) At home, however, on this Eee PC, the sound is completely distorted – extremely surreal, like bird-song! Anyway, the message of the videos seems clear: opposition protests as sporting events (sometimes as violent as Thai kick-boxing ?)
Today I read your LONG dialogue with Reid at PLANOMENOLOGY. Clearly you’re not both working with the same definition of Capital. Reid is obviously talking primarily about financial capital, the sort of Ponzi schemes benefiting few at the expense of many. To me it seems a Hegelian relapse the way some Marxians create a dualism between Capital and Labor. Latour & Lepinay’s Intro to Gabriel Tarde is constantly ridiculing both the Marxists and the Objectivist social Darwinists.
Here’s Gabriel Tarde on capital, freshly read on the tread home this evening:
“To distinguish land, capital and labor, does not elucidate much for us… What is land if not the ensemble of physical / chemical and living forces which act on each other and through each other … What is labor, if not an ensemble of human activities doomed to repeat indefinitely a certain series of learned acts, taught through apprenticeships, for example, whose contagion tends also to radiate ceaselessly? – And what is capital itself, if not, in what, in my view, is its essence, a certain group of given inventions … In my view, there are two elements to be distinguished in the notion of capital: first, essential, necessary capital: that is, all of the ruling inventions … second, auxiliary, more or less useful capital, the products which [help] to create other products”.
Remember, Tarde is writing in 1902, long before most theories of information, and certainly before any concept of immaterial labor or biopolitics.
Maybe Reid also recognizes this, but is suggesting that the machine has spun out of control, like a runaway AI that wants to pave over the universe with computronium for generating ‘Hello World’ smiley faces! Sometimes I’m afraid that this is where Nihilism Unbound ultimately leads, when Left and Right Cosmicists find common ground, streaking off to Infinity and Beyond with Prometheus Unbound..
Yes. Reid says the sky is falling. I am curious about this insistance, and suspect that whenever I find it, whether in politics or religion, it has very little to do with the Sky or Falling – one huge projection. I reject that we are dealing with different defintions of Capital, mine simply subsumes his.
As for Thai politics and muay thai, yes, there is something to this. I actually was in Thailand because my wife was training and fighting in muay thai. There is a certain graceful and bizarre stillness to Thai muay thai (as opposed to western versions). A peaceful rest, upon which explosion can possibly happen. It seemed that the video captured this purity of violent and sometimes respected opposition.