Gene & Dave, D&G's work is addressing the same problems, (and isn't that difficult to understand, honest) but puts affect outside the subject as a kind of follow on from the start point of getting rid of the signifier (a terrible, terrible, over-simplification, sorry but it's late and this is email). The first volume of Capitalism & Schizophrenia 'Anti-Oedipus' is in most part their definition of the problem with psychoanalysis, which they frame in a more parseable discussion in Liberation (Oct 80) (that's now in the book 'Negotiations'). The problem with Psychoanalysis being similar to what Marx saw in the economic theory of Smith and Ricardo, 'Adam Smith and Ricardo discovered the essence of wealth in productive labour but constantly forced it back into representations of ownership. Its the way it projects desire back onto the domestic stage that accounts for the failure of pyschoanalysis to understand psychosis, for it's coming to feel at home only with neurosis, and understanding neurosis itself in a way that misrepresents unconscious forces'.
The (partial) and mostly political solution within the book is schizoanalysis, a militant libidino-economic libidino-political analysis. A tool which can hopefully create a revolutionary machine that 'can harness desire and the phenomenon of desire to prevent it being manipulated by the forces of oppression, of repression, and so threaten, even from within, any revolutionary machine'. I wish the whole text was online, because its so clear and feeds into the D&G definition/usage of 'affect', and how 'A Thousand Plateaus' was produced with the tools of 'Schizoanalysis. 'Schizoanalysis has one single aim -- to get revolutionary, artistic, and analytical machines working as parts, cogs, of one another.' 'Anti-Oedipus' is considering the links between Capitalism and Psychoanalysis and revolutionary movements and Schizoanalysis on the other. 'Revolutionary schisis as opposed to the despotic signifer' Post-Structuralism is a very different toolbox, and it's a toolbox that constantly mutates on you. Definitions themselves change. which isn't that surprising an event when you kill off the signifier . Aspects like that are hard to grasp at first, but I believe are natural, and liberating thought patterns for an artist. I'm a Post-Structuralist though, so I tend to read papers where the use and definition of the word 'affect' is as it appears in the Simon O'Sullivans paper that I linked in this thread (and it's usually closely linked to 'percepts' and 'sensations'). So 'Gestures of affect and intervention' strikes me as a very D&G term (because I'm me, univocal, but still me), in that affect sits outside of the subject and could be creating an intervention by generating a deterritorialising flow. Which, of course, is another word that could be unpacked by a Deleuzian in many possible ways. I tried a fair few years ago to expand on the ideas in Simons paper, while framing my own work (it was primarily produced as part of my Masters) by using Post-Structuralist assemblage theory to describe a metaphysical machinery underneath the 'affects' Simon describes https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6eC4MskmoLib2NlQ1hNQmRWdjA It's a bit scattergun as it originally started life as a dialogue, or ideas piece, with some fellow anarchists I was working with at the time on defining creative freedom. Gene, I would be very, very interested in reading the work you are describing when it's available . I feel very indebted to you as your work and ideas have had a profound impact on how I think. I can say the same for many other contributors, past and present, I've mostly lurked on over several decades. - Stray. On Mon, Feb 17, 2020 at 9:49 PM Dave Tetzlaff <[email protected]> wrote: > Gene: > > The common words closest to the typical academic use of “affect” would be > “feeling” or “emotion”. > > It’s a common term in psychology. The APA defines it: > > > n. any experience of feeling or emotion, ranging from suffering to > elation, from the simplest to the most complex sensations of feeling, and > from the most normal to the most pathological emotional reactions. Often > described in terms of positive affect or negative affect, both mood and > emotion are considered affective states. Along with cognition and conation, > affect is one of the three traditionally identified components of the mind. > > For example, you may hear depressives described as having “flat affect”: > "characterized by a lack of reaction to emotional stimuli, and can include > a monotone voice or lack of expression in the face.” > > However, the typical use in academia is a bit more specific, if not in > overt definition then in it having become jargon associated with certain > theoretical/critical positions. > > These uses of “affect” are mostly tracable to 80’s 90’s Cultural Studies, > especially to Larry Grossberg, and reflect ideas drawn from British > Cultural Studies (Stuart Hall) way more than Deleuze and Guatteri (in part > because so few perople can m,ake heads of tails of them). I’d say what the > term represents in terms of intellectual history is an attempt to move away > from strict Marxist political economy on one hand and Frankfurt School > critical theory on the other – both of which were seen as not giving enough > credit to the oppressed and too pessimistic. > > From at least the 1930’s on, a problem for left theory has been “Why don’t > the masses rise against their domination? Why do they continue to act > against their own material interest?” The only answer political economy > could offer was some form of material force, which seems a stretch perhaps, > but more importantly didn’t seem to point to a path forward, beyond > expecting the masses to finally somehow magically wake up to the material > realities of injustice and throw off the chains of capital. Of course, > Adorno and Horkheimer (and, for that matter Debord and the other > Situationists) had an answer to why the masses stayed passive, but their > portrait of a Cultural Industry capaable of narcotizing the public into a > sort of soft-fascistic passivity. These thinkers generally prescribed some > kind of Avant Garde cultural practice as an antedote (yay Brecht!!), but > perhaps some Frameworkers will understand why some people were skeptical > Malcolm LeGrice films could bring about the revolution. ;-) > > The central principle of British Cultural Studies is that popular culture > – quite apart from being merely the sort of pure domination machine > diagnosed by Adorno – was rather “a site of struggle”, that it bent itself > to the interests the ruling class, but also to the genuine interest of the > people — the both were required to achieve the status of “popular”. So “the > popular” was always contested terrain, open, then, somehow, to being used > for or swung toward progressive ends. > > Which left the question of exactly how this struggle was waged, where you > could find the expression of those genuine interests of “the people”. One > major answer, in short, was “affect”. The political-economy frame is > ultra-rationalist, it calculates benefit and detriment in pretty stark > economic terms and rarely puts emotion/feeling into the equation at all. > The Frankfurters, of course, distrusted emotion/feeling as too easily > manipulated by fascism. So Cultural Studies is in many ways a more humanist > turn (in the sense of marxist-humanist) in finding those somewhat fuzzy > emotions that represent stakes, the feelings that this whatever MATTERS, > are essential to the struggle. > > > I don’t know if "gestures of affect and intervention” was used in taht > context, but it sounds like it fits, anyway. > > All that being said, while it’s laudable to want to reach out for new > conceptual tools, the jargon that tends to with them is usually best > discarded in favor of expressing those ideas in terms that let you be you > and connect to your audience. > > _______________________________________________ > FrameWorks mailing list > [email protected] > https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks >
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