Deleuze for the desperate #12 Faciality

A summary of the discussion in Plateau 7 on faciality, signifiance and subjectification, deterritorialization and biunivocalization. The transcript also expands some points: www.arasite.org/deltrans12facty.html

[@RobertKuusk]

This series is, as we say, "based"

[@DaveHarrisreDeleuze]

Sorry Robert Kuusk -- comprends pas. I am an old English bloke not at all woke. Rephrase please?

[@RobertKuusk]

Dave Harris Cool and hip, but in a transgressive way. Compare with "sticking it to the man"

[@DaveHarrisreDeleuze]

Thanks very much Robert Kuusk

[@somaticjet2717]

@@DaveHarrisreDeleuze I think it means “based in fact/truth/wisdom/righteousness” as a moral good. But it can be used sincerely, ironically or post/meta-ironically (ironic superposition ie. Both at once). It’s also the opposite of cringe (cringeworthy). But being cringe can be based because it’s based to be yourself regardless of what others think.

[@Secondisotope]

@@somaticjet2717 Based comes from Lil B "Based" God, which itself probably comes from Free *Base* drugs.

[@adamgist2897]

The public cries out for a new Deleuze for the Desperate episode

[@DaveHarrisreDeleuze]

Funny you should say that, Adam Gist -- I'm currently thinking about how to manage another one or two on language in the Great Work. Thanks for the encouragement

[@carystough3745]

who's still bumpin this in 2020

[@DaveHarrisreDeleuze]

Sorry -- I'm an old white Brit. What does bumpin mean?

[@carystough3745]

@@DaveHarrisreDeleuze It means I'm still playing it LOUD. Thank you so much for your videos...they've been one of my most favorite and shared resources

[@DaveHarrisreDeleuze]

@@carystough3745 OK mate.No worries. I wasn't being aggressive or anything -- just curious. Thanks for the kind words. Best of luck

[@iOnlyHereForTheBeer]

Yes! I've been waiting for you to upload a new part of this series.

[@DaveHarrisreDeleuze]

Thanks for your patience -- I had a glitch or two with my health but all is well again

[@DaveHarrisreDeleuze]

Thanks for the encouragement

[@SUAVEcritic]

instead of searching for drugs on the streets, I search for Deleuze on youtube

[@DaveHarrisreDeleuze]

I know what you mean. I sometimes have to lie down in a dark room --but I am an old bloke. Best wishes, Dave

[@bilgemill]

I'm a history undergrad, but I have a deep interest in philosophy because of the importance I place on the philosophy of history - after all, the mission of "discovering and presenting the truth(s) about the past" carries loads of methodological, epistemological, and other -ological baggage. I'd love to get a good enough grasp on Deleuze to sketch out a viable Deleuzian historiography, and your videos are definitely helping me move towards that - so, thank you!
Sorry to hear you weren't well, but I'm glad you're doing better. :)

[@DaveHarrisreDeleuze]

You are welcome James Nee. Good luck with the struggle

[@snackspositive]

How's your project been doing?

[@helenbee5442]

So happy to watch another one of these, I was beginning to think there would be no more. I find your insights on D&G interesting, helpful, useful and amusing. I also enjoy the visuals; I know the territory well as I live in SW Devon, and am intrigued by this strange and surreal entwining of the realms of local geography and continental philosophy. Sorry to hear you have had health issues, I hope you are on the way to wellness. Thank you.

[@DaveHarrisreDeleuze]

Many thanks Helen Bee.

[@DaveHarrisreDeleuze]

Thanks a lot Helen Bee --very encouraging. I wonder if we will ever meet on a walk or something?

[@JohnDoe-oi7nt]

Thank you for these! And I wish you good health :)

[@DaveHarrisreDeleuze]

Thanks John Doe

[@watcher8582]

Thank you!

[@DaveHarrisreDeleuze]

You're welcome, Watcher

[@nts4906]

Nietzsche talks frequently of wearing different masks. The idea that one could ever embody and present a singular, true face to society and others, such that one could receive legitimate or genuine recognition is a tempting, but impossible ideal to achieve. One is always wearing a sort of shifting mask, like Rorschach's mask in Watchmen, that holds no inherent singular truth, but instead is like the surface of a lake between the depths of of the subject and the spacial planes of linguistic signifiance. This is what I got from this.

[@DaveHarrisreDeleuze]

Yes -- the idea of humans wearing masks is well-illustrated in Goffman's work on the presentation of self, but without much attention to language. For D&G, there is the issue of how faciality contributes ( or did once) to dominant forms of signifiance too -- there were master signifier-type faces too, as in the face of Christ. I'm a bit less happy with their stuff on the face as a signifying system -- black hole and white screens and all that. I don't see why it should still be privileged

[@jamesferry1523]

"Josie Klein"? I think we mean to say "Melanie," no?

[@DaveHarrisreDeleuze]

Almost certainly, James Ferry, thanks

[@sebastianjimenezgalindo4094]

Great series. What is the name of the publication on subjectivity and auto ethnography? Thank you.

[@DaveHarrisreDeleuze]

Thanks Sebastian Jimenez Galindo. I have a couple of pieces available on my Researchgate entry. The easiest single published piece is Harris, D.E. (2018). Collaborative Writing as Educational Research: a Deleuzian Critique, International Journal of Sociology of Education, 7(1), 24-48. doi: 10.17583/rise.2018.2881. Any comments would be welcome.

[@sebastianjimenezgalindo4094]

@@DaveHarrisreDeleuze Thank you!

[@heartache5742]

your summary of proust was very mean
and it didn't manage to out-deleuze deleuze himself with his excellent "proust and signs" which you really should have read

[@DaveHarrisreDeleuze]

Thanks Emma Ulyánova. I was being a bit flippant about Proust, but I read Proust himself as being rather flippant about the way French bourgeois have to focus on just specific features of people's faces in order to rationalise their feelings about them -- a nose, a moustache. The English upper classes judge people in the same trivial way, I should add. I know D&G want to extend the discussion into a face as a whole component of semiotic. I have read Deleuze on Proust and enjoyed it, and you can read my notes on the book on my website here (www.arasite.org/delproust.html). I have briefer notes on Guattari on Proust ( in the Machinic Unconscious) here (www.arasite.org/machincunconsc.html). I have also read Proust's Recherche...(in English) , again rather flippantly, and in the spirit of a British comedy show called Monty Python, which featured an absurd game show in which contestants had to summarise Proust in 30 seconds. My summary,which took weeks rather than 30 seconds, for what it is worth is also on my website here (www.arasite.org/summarizeproust.html). I am sorry again if my irreverent style offends. Very best wishes.

[@heartache5742]

@@DaveHarrisreDeleuze my complaint was that when reading your summary i noticed several occasions when your interpretation was a lot more cynical than the one presented in "proust and signs"
notably, deleuze managed to spin "sodom and gomorrah" into an insightful commentary on the relations between the sexes

[@DaveHarrisreDeleuze]

@@heartache5742 Yes -- that is a fair comment. You are right