Comments and Questions to: John Protevi
LSU French Studies
Protevi
Home Page
Classroom use only. Do not cite w/o permission.
March 23, 1999
I.Desiring-production [7-15/1-8]
A.multiplying the unconscious [1-2]:
1.not the [singular]
id [ça], but machines:
a.flow [flux]: energy-source-machine
b.interruptions [coupures]: organ-machine
2.machines of real production:
feeling capable of explanation
B.schizophrenic stroll [8/2]
1.better model [of unconscious
desire] than neurotic
a.movement
b.relation with outside world
2.machines connected to
his bdy
3.lives nature as production
[as life], before man/nature split
4.beyond oppositions, beyond
limit
a. not transgression,
b.but rendering the opposition simply irrelevant
5.Oedipus as repression
of desiring-machines [8/3]
a.why represent all desire/pleasure as sexual and familial?
C.nature as process of production: what schizo experiences
[9-11/3-5]
1.man [industry]-nature
opposition
a.relative autonomy of production / distribution / consumption
b.but this distinction presupposes
(1)capital and division of labor
(2)false consciousness of the capitalist
2.truth of delirium:
a.production is immediately consumption and recording
b.recording and consumption directly determine production from w/in
3.everything is production:
a.production of productions [productions]
(1)actions and passions
(2)[=desiring-machines]
b.production of recording processes [enregistrements]
(1)distributions and points of reference
(2)[on the surface of the BwO]
c.production of consumptions [consommations]
(1)sensual pleasures/anxieties/pain
(2)[=nomadic subject]
4.three meanings of "process"
[10-11/4-5]
a.recording and consumption in same production process
b.no distinction between man and nature: producer/product
c.process is not goal in itself, nor perpetuation of itself
5."schizophrenia is like
love" [11/5]:
a.no specific schizo phenomenon or entity
b.but, universal primary production
D.three forms/stages of the connective synthesis
[11-14/5-8]:
1.coupling: desiring-machines
are binary: "and ..." "and then ..."
a.flow-interruption series extended linearly in each direction
(1)each flow interrupts previous flow, etc
(2)each interruption provides subsequent flow, etc.
b.desire couples flows and interruptions
2.product/producing: production
of production
a.each "product" gives rise to new connections, new desire
b.bricolage:
(1)rearrange fragments continually in new & different patterns or configurations
(2)life = novelty production
3.Body w/o Organs: "an enormous undifferentiated object" [13-15/7-8]:
a.temporary cessation of production
b.d-m make us an organism, but body suffers from this organization
c.the full body without organs
d.death instinct
e.d-m work only when they break down [en se detraquant sans cesse]
f.body w/o image
g.perpetually reinserted in process of production as antiproduction
II.The Body without Organs [Recording on BwO and on socius] [15-22/8-16]
A.repulsion of desiring-machines by the BwO [8]
1.paranoiac machine
2.from opposition of process
of production and antiproduction
B.parallel between d-production and social production
[9-11]
1.phenomenological parallel
2.social production has
its own antiproduction
a.instead of the full BwO
b.we have the "socius": earth/tyrant/capital
3.bewitchment: socius falls
back on production,
a.as surface for distribution of
(1)forces
(2)agents of production
b.appropriating for itself all surplus production
c.production now seems to emanate from the socius
4.socius as surface of recording
of production,
a.giving appearance that production emanates from it
b.capital is BwO of capitalist being
5.attraction-machine
a.miraculating-machine coexists with paranoiac-machine
b.organs are regenerated
C.production of recording: disjunctive synthesis
1.network or grid of new
syntheses
2.logic:
a.traditional oppositional "either-or" [exclusive disjunction]:
(1)decisive choice
(2)immutable terms
b.schizo "either ... or ... or" [inclusive disjunction]
(1)"system of possible permutations
(2)"differences that always amount to the same as they shift and slide
about"
3.psychoanalysis:
a.Libido: connective labor of desiring-production
b.Numen: part of libido transformed into disjunctive inscription
4.theology:
a.divine energy of attraction and inscription of disjunction
b.master or principle of disjunctive syllogism
D.genealogy of desire: does recording of desire
conform to Oedipus?
1.Oedipus as social reproduction,
as domestication of d-production
2.Oedipus as inadequate
for explanation of pshychotic phenomena
3.d-production as binary-linear
is refractory to Oedipal triangle
4.schizo has its own recording
code
a. social code [Oedipus]
b.scrambles all the codes
E.Wolffi's drawings: summary
1.desiring-production as
connection of machines
2.recording-production as
explanation of them, genealogical series
3.schizo-balance:
a.organ-machines attach to BwO
b.but BwO remains slippery and fluid, unaffected, recording surface
III.The Subject and Enjoyment [22-29/16-22]
A.consumption: produced in and through production
of recording
1.a subject can be discerned
on recording surface
a.wanders about on BwO
b.remains peripheral to d-machines
2.libidinal energy [production]
transformed into
a.Numen [recording]
b.and Voluptas [consummation]
3.third synthesis: conjunctive
synthesis:
a."so it's ..."
b.= production of consumption
B.subject-production: "celibate machine"
1.opposition between repulsion
and attraction
2.can only be reconciled
by new machine, "return of repressed"
3.gives birth to a new humanity
or glorious organism
4.subject as mere residuum
beside d-machines
C.characteristics of celibate machines
1.reveals existence of older
paranoiac machine [repulsion]
2.cannot be explained by
miraculating powers [attraction]
3.pleasure from release
of forces
4.produces intensive quantities:
a."I feel" at deeper level than delirium or hallucination
b."really primary emotion"
c.positive intensity vs. zero intensity of BwO
d.from opposition of forces of attraction and repulsion
(1)produces states
(a)stationary, yet metastable
(b)through which the subject passes
(2)nervous states filling up BwO
5.BwO as egg
6.non-representational
a.virtual does not resemble the actual[ized]
b."nothing but bands of intensity, potentials, thresholds, and gradients"
D.handling the schizo
1.psychiatry produces the
autistic, the BwO become dead thing
2.psychoanalysis produces
the neurotic
E.two paths to account for nomadic subject
1.points of disjunction
on BwO form circles that subject traverses
a.subject is defined by states through which it passes
b.e.g.: Beckett's Unnamable, with Murphy, Watt, etc. as subjects
2.attraction-repulsion on
BwO produce states in celibate machine
a.subject is born and reborn in passing through these states
b.cf. Klossowski on Nietzsche: Stimmung as "material emotion"
(1)Nietzschean subject passing through states
(2)identifying names of history with zones of intensity on BwO
IV.A Materialist Psychiatry [29-43/22-35]
A.Intro
1.criticism of Clerambault
as "Feuerbach of psychiatry"
2.materialist psychiatry:
a.introduce desire into the mechanism
b.introduce production into desire
3.three theories of schizophrenia:
ego and body-image
a.dissociation: Kraepelin: explanatory
b.autism: Bleuler: ideational
c.being-in-the-world: Binswanger: descriptive
4.but the schizo is beyond
the ego
5.Freud is stuck with ego
as part of Oedipal triangle
a.psyan discovered desire production, but
b.Oedipus substitutes theatre for factory
6.before being mental state
of autism
a.schizo is process of production of desire
b.how does it become autism?
B.logic of desire
1.traditional: desire responds
to lack
a.Kantian revolution, crippled by relegation of desire to fantasy
b.desire as lack of real object tied to social production system
2.desire produces the real
a.passive syntheses of partial objects, flows, and bodies
b.it is the subject who is missing in desire, not the object
3.desire is a machine and
object is another machine connected to it
4.needs are counterproducts
within real produced by desire
a.lack is created, planned, and organized in social production
b.making all desire fall victim to fear of not meeting needs
5.social production is d-production
under determinate conditions
a.social field is immediately invested by desire
b.libido has no need of mediation to invest production
c."only desire and the social, and nothing else"
C.desire for repression
1.the "fundamental problem
of political philosophy"
2.criticism of Reich: gives
up coextension of social field and desire
3.group fantasy
D.different regimes btw d-machines and tech social
machines
1.operation:
a.tech machines work if not out of order
b.d-machines only run when breaking down
(1)art displays this:
2.antiproduction
a.d-machines produce antiproduction by themselves
(1)fundamental category of economy of desire
(2)d-machines both technical and social
b.tech machines are related to reproduction of process
(1)merely an index of general form of social production
E.autoproduction of the unconscious as a cycle
1.social production derives
from d-production under determinate cond.
2.d-production is social
production first and foremost
F.socius
1.is never a mere projection
of BwO
2.socius codifies flows
of desire
a.territorial machine: primary coding
b.despotic machine: overcoding
c.capitalist machine: decoding and deterritorializing flows
(1)decoded flows:
(a)production: money-capital
(b)labor: free workers
(2)substitutes money for very notion of code
(a)creates an axiomatic of abstract quantities [=value]
(b)further deterritorialization of the socius
i)threatens to destroy the socius
ii)make it a BwO with unleashed flow
iii)thus schizophrenia is produced by capitalist machine
a)schizo = subject of decoded flows on BwO
b)not simply that capitalism drives people crazy
(3)produces schizo energy, but also represses it, recodes it
(a)artificial territorialities
i)[=racisms, nationalisms, genders]
ii)everything returns: cap. ideology as motley painting
(b)by government bureaucracies and forces of law and order
G.neurotic, pervert, schizo
1.neurotic: recodes everything
as Oedipus
2.pervert: creates new artificial
territorialities
3.schizo: seeks limit of
capitalism
a.desiring production as limit of social production
b.these are end points: btw them is process of becoming of reality
V.The Machines [43-50/36-41]
A.Three types of break
1.cutting off of a flow:
a.connective synthesis
b.libido as withdrawal energy
c.production of production
2.detachments from a code
[38-40]
a.schizzes:
(1)heterogenous code of desire
(2)capturing surplus value of a code
b.disjunctive synthesis
c.Numen as detachment energy
d.production of recording
3.subject [40-41]
a.conjunctive synthesis
b.Voluptas as residual energy
c.production of consumption
B.recap [41]
VI.The Whole and Its Parts [50-59/42-50]
A.logic of pure multiplicity: affirmation irreducible
to any unity
B.Klein's failure:
1.forcing every desire into
Oedipal triangle
2.partial objects are not
representations of parental figures
C.break between Freud and Jung:
1.family nature of desire
is in question
2.d-machines and partial
objects are not representational
D."unconscious is an orphan"