Mazz Affect

8/11/2019 Mazz Affect

1/11

Enchantments

f

Modernity

Empire,

ation, lobalization

Editor

Saurabh

ube

il

Routledge

[| \

Taylor Francis roup

I ,0NDON

NEWYORK

NEWDELHI


2/11

*11 *

Affect:What s it

Good

or?

WilliamMazzarella

Dictionaries

and casual

onversation oth tend to equate'affect'

with'emotion.'

But

affectalsooften shades ver nto

'feelingj

and

as such seems o

point

to a zone where emotion intersectswith

processes

aking

place

at a more corporeal

evel.

Even n it s re-

latively untheorized

nvocations,

affect

carries actile,

sensuous,

and

perhaps

also nvoluntary connotations.This

essay

s

a crit-

ical explora tion of the impli cations of such a category o r

social

analysis. write in the belie f that only those deas hat compel

our

desireaswell as

our

resistance

eceive

and deserve he most

sustained

critique.

Embodied,

mpersonal

Thinking

ffect

Why is affect attracting so much attention in

social and cultural

analysis hesedays?

The

quick,

azy answer s that

the

public

cul-

tures

we inhabit

today

have become

more unabashedly

affective.

From

political

to commercial

discourse,

we are

being solicited n

an

unprecedentedly

ffective, ntimate register.

will

have

more

to

say

about

this

impression

of

heightened

public

intimacy,

but

in order to get

properly

to grips with the analytical implications

of

the category,we shall irst have o dig

a

bit

deeper.

From an analytical

point

of view,

hinking

affect

points

us to-

ward a terrain that is

presubjective

without

being

presocial.

As

such

t implies

a

way of apprehendingsocial ife that

does

not

start

with the bounded, ntentional

subject

while at the

same ime

foregrounding embodiment and

sensuous

ife. Affect is

not the

un-

conscious it is oo corporeally ooted or that.

Nor can t

be aligned

with any conventional conception of culture, since the whole


3/11

292

William

azzarella

point

of

affect,

according

o

its

most

nfluential

contemporary

hc

orists,

s

that

unlike

emotion

t is

not

always

already

semiotical,r,

mediated.

Gilles

Deleuze,

n

an

essay

n

Divid

Hume,

credits

ht,

latter

with

having

discovered

hat

'tffective

circumstances,

rc

exist

and guide

he

principles

of association'

hat

constitute

whar

we

like

to

recognize

as

eason 2001

Irg72l:

a5).

Deleuze

s

thus

confirmed

in his

belief

that

there

s,

n

John

Rajchman's

words,

'an element n experience hat comesbefore he determinatiorr

of

subject

nd

sense' 2001:

15).

_

Drawing

on

and

developing

Deleuze's

uminations,

perhaps

the

most

significant

recent

scholarly

ntervention

has

been

thu

work

of

Brian

Massumi,

particularly

his

essay

The

Autonomy

of

Affect'

which

first

appeared

n

the

mid-t990s

and

was latcr

included

n

Parables

or

the

virtual (2002).

Massumi

characterizes

affect

as

a

domain

of

intensity,

ndeterminacy,

nd

above

all

po

tentiality,

which

the

signifying

ogic

of cultuie

reduces

or, iniis

terms,

qualifiesl

Affect

is both

embodied

and

impersonal.

Thc

appearance

of

personal,

subjective

ife

is,

then,

foi

Massumi

as

for

Deleuze

a

secondary

effect

of

cultural

mediation.

This

is

whv

affect cannot be equatedwith emotion:

An

emotion

s

a subjective

ontent,

he sociolinguistic

ixing

of

the

quality

of

an

experience

which

is from

that-point

onwird

defined

as

personal.

Emotion

s

qualified

ntensity,

he

conven-

tional,

consensual

oint

of insertion

of intensity

nto

semantic-

ally

and

semiotically

ormed

progressions,

nto

narrativizable

action-reaction

ircuits,

nto

function

and

meaning.

t

is nten-

sity

owned

and

recognized

Massumi2002:23).

From

the

standpoint

of

affect,

society

s nscribed

on

our

nervous

system

nd

n

our

fresh

before

t

appears

n

our

consciousness.

he

affective

body

is

by

no

mean

s a

tabula

rasa;

itpreserves

he tracesofpast actions

and

encounters

nd

brings

hem

nto

the

present

s

potentials:

Intensity

is

asocial,

ut

not

presocial

1...]

lie

trace

ol'

past

actions

ncluding

a

trace

of

their

contexts

aie]

ionserved

n

the

brain

and

n

the

l esh' 2002

3o

original

emphasisj.

urther,,

The

trace

determines

tendency,

he

potential,

f not

yet

the appetite,

f9r.lhe_lutonomic

repetition

and

variation

of the

impingement;

(ibid.:

32).

For

all

the

talk

of

'the

body'

in current

culturJtheory,

Massumi

complains,

he

body

rarely

appears

as

anything

much

Affect:

what

is

it

Good

or?

t 293

more

than

dumb

matter

available

or

discipline

and

cultural

inr.tiption,

,Is

the

body

inked

o

a

particular

ubiect

osition

;Vthi"g

more

han

a iocal

embodiment

l

ideolog?'(ibid':

5'

originaiemphasis)'

assumi

wants

nstead

o show

us

a

non-

doJite

body_

perhaps

spastic

ody

by

mainstream

easures,

Uui

titt

an

rreducibly

and

evealingly

ocial

ody.

Most

generally,

Massumi

s asking

i

to imagine

ocial

ife

n

two simultaneous

,.girt.tr, on the 6nehand, registerof affective, mbodiedn-

Iririt'

and,

on

the

other,

a

register

f

symbolic

mediation

nd

discuisive

iaboration.

he

elation

etween

hese

egisters

s'not

one

of

conformity

r

correspondence

ut

ather

of

resonation

r

interference,

mplification

r dampening'

ibid':

25)'

The

mplications

f such

a

position

would

seem

momentous.

It calls

ntb

questionhe

categorial

oherence

f

modes

f

social

inq"itv

.unging

rom

mainstieam

psychologl

(which takes

he

U.i.ugr.r"d'su-*bject

s

ts

beginning

nd

ts

end)

hrough

bour-

t.oir

iil.rut

sociologr

in

which

he

struggle.between

he

ndividual

ind

society

s the

perennially

athetic

heme)

o

Foucaultian

portrt-.turalism

(in

which

po*er

proceeds

bove

all

through

i.o".t."t of subjectivation).n examination f affectmaywell

ioou.

u, into

he

neighborhood

f a

social

esthetics,

f we

under-

stand

y aesthetics

he

ancient

Greek

ense

f

aeslfuesls

r

sense

."p"'i""""'Butitisbydefinitionineducibletoanyanthropolory_

for: xample,

n anthropologr

f

emotion,

r

of

aesthetic

ystems

that

would

seek

o

eiplain

affect

by

situating

t comparatively

within

integrated

ultural

orders'

Seen

hiJ

way,

conventional

ocial

analysis

s always

rriving

too

ate

at he

scene

f a

crime

t

is ncapable

f

recognizing:

ul-

ture

has

lready

one

tscoveringwork,

more-or-less

egemonic

.y-uoti.

qualification

as

already

een

achieved.

he

scholarly

ri.rtft

invariably

misrecognizes

his

secondary

r9{gct

of

c.ul-

tural mediation

s

he

fundamental

tuff

of

social

ife,

missing

the

wounds

nflicted

by

anguage

Deleuze:thoughtbridles nd

mutilates

ife,

making

t sensible'2001

1965]:

6) '

WhenMassumiin.'siststhatheisnotinvokingsome.prereflex-

ive,

omantically

aw

domain

of

primitiveexperiential

ichness'

Q6OZ:29)

think

he should

e

aken

at

his

word.

The

senses,

ute

tne

self,

have

heir

histories.

ut

Massumi's

ork,

like so

much

hat

s

written

n this

neo-vitalist

ein,

also

quivers ith

he

romance

f

a

undamental

pposition

etween,

n

heone

hand'


4/11

294

William

azzarella

the

productive,

he

multiple,

and

he

mobile

and,

on

the

other.

hc

death-dealing

ertitudes

of formal

determination.

As he

puts

t irr

a

moment

of rhetorical

exaltation:

,If

there

were

no

escape,

o

excess

or remainder,

no

fade-out

o infinity,

the

universe

would

be without

potential,

pure

entropy,

death'

(2002:55\.

Faced

with

such

melodrama

one

might

well

object,

with

Michacl

silverstein

(2004),

that

the

radical

binarization

of

conceptual

mediation and affective mmediacy snot only analytically unten

able

but

also

a

contingent

feature

of modein

Euiopean philo

sophy.t

while

I

shall ndeed

be arg'ing

that

the

major

fliw

besetting

contemporary

affect

heory

is ts

romantic (and

complicit)

attach-

ment

to a fantasy

of immediacy

or

as

I

prefer

o

put

ii,

imme_

diation (Mazzarella2006)

-

I

would

nevertheless

Le

to

explore

the possibility

hat

the

'thing'

it

describes

may

help

us

to reihink

the

politics

of

public

culture

n

a

productiveiy

criiical

way.

The

Clan nd

he

Crowd.

Modernity

nd

Affect

The

just-so

story

we

too

often

tell

ourselves

about

the

origins

of modernity takes disenchantmentas ts central theme. n lhis

denuded

airy-tale,

affect

s

progressively

vacuated

rom

an

in-

creasingly

ationalized

bourgeois

world

to

the

point

where pol-

itics

becomes,

n

Paul

Valery's

words,

,the

art

of

preventing

he

::":^er

from getting

nvolved

n

what

concerns

him'

(quotld

in

Maffesoli

1996

[1938]:

154).

The

legitimacy

of

bourgebis

mod_

ernity

seems

here

o

depend

upon

processes

f abstriction

that

are

at once

universalizing

nd vampiric.

The

nevitable

end

point

is

Max

weber's

'iron

cage,'

an

arrogantly

soulless

bureauiratic

'nullity'

ruled

by'specialists

without

spirit,

sensualists

without

heart ' 1998

[1920]:

182).

Political

egitimation

also,

t

seems,

as

aken

he

same

course,

Jiirgen

Habermas

(1989[1962]) narrates he transition from a

spectacular

publicness

of representation '

n

which

the

bodv

of the

sovereign,

itually

emerging

nto public

view,

asserted

nd

con-

firm.ed

he

stability

of the

polity

and

the

efficacy

of royal

power,

to

the rational-critical

legitimation

of the

seCular

dlmocratic

order.

Perhaps

he

most

sensuously

memorable

llustration

of this

transition

-

even

f

it is

mobilized

to

very

different

critical

ends

-

is

Michel

Foucault's

amous

opening

diptyctr

in Discipline

&

Punish (1977

U9751),

which

seeks

o

convince

us,

by

means

of

Affect:What

s

t Good

or?

. 295

aru-",i"

contrast,

hat

between

he

middle

of

the

18th-century

and

he

early

9th-century

the

normative

orms

of

European

sov-

ereignty

shifted

from spectacular

heatricality

to

rationalized,

affeit-evacuated

echnicism.

Out

of

a form

of

rule

in which

the

volatility

of

the

visceral

was

both

a

principle of efficacy

and

1

fatal

structural

flaw,

modern

governmentality

emerged

with

all

the

seamless,

ffectless

recision of a

machine.

Liberalsargue hat the reifyingabstractions f the commodity

form,

modern

citizenship

and

bureaucratic

eason

are

necessary

even

iberatory

-

technologies

n complex,

ndustrial

societies'

Yes,

Newtonian

mechanics

may

once

have

consorted

openly

with

the

poetic

doctrine

of

sympathies

Starobinski

2003

[1999])

and

astrology

may

once

have

nformed

astronomy.

Even

G.W.F'

Hegel's

all-absorbing

Spirit

found some

nspiration

n

17th-century

rn4istr

vitalism

(Beiser

1995).

But

such

nfantile

dalliances

with

affect-intensive

superstition'

had

to be

disowned

for

grown-

up

modernity

to

take

its sober

scientific

orm.

For

their

part,

cri-

tical

theorists

of

modernity

from Karl

Marx

onward

transform

the

Romantic

ament

for

lost aesthetic

ullness

nto

a systemic

polemic

against he bad faith embedded n the discourseof modernity'

Al

Oskar

Negt

and

Alexander

Kluge

note,

'The

tools

used

by

the

rationalistic

disciplines

negate

he

mimetic

foundation

that

is necessary

or

them

to operate'

(1993

11972):24).

The

stage,

hen,

is

set

for a

kind of

return

of

the

repressed,

whether

in the

form

of a

grand revolutionary

reversal

or

a

more

inconclusive,

but

no less subversive,

haunting'

of the

deathly

abstractions

of

modern

knowledge

by the

vitally

embodied

energies

hey

both

require

and

deny.

From

the

psychoanalytic

liberition

theologr

of a

Herbert

Marcuse

or

a Wilhelm

Reich

o

the

teleological

certitude

of scientific

socialism,

affect

will out.

On

this

point,

conservative

ndividualists

oin

hands

with

rad-

ical populists,enablingJos6Ortega

y

Gasset's

emark,

made

n

the

1930s,

o enact

ts

own

prophesy

oday:

The

past

has

eason

on

its

side,

ts own

reason.

f that

reason

s

not admitted,

t will

return

o demand

t'

(1932

1950]:

95).

The

ideological

discourse

of

modernity

not

only

represses

and demonizes

he

affective

but also

romantically

etishizes

t

-

particularly

insofar

as

t

can

be

ocated

at

the

receding

horizon

of

a

iuuug"

disappearingworld,

n anthropological

ther

nthe

glas-sic

sense.

One

might

say

that

what

Michel-Rolph

Trouillot

(1991)


5/11

296 William

azzarella

hascalled

anthropology's'savage

lot'served,

nter

alia,to

assist

the disavowal

hrough

which the

discourse

of modernity

absolverl

itself rom grappling

with its

own

affective

politics.

In this regard,

Emile Durkheim's

The Elementary

Forms ol

Religious

Life

(1995[L912])

s

a

splendidly

subversive

ext. For

starters

Durkheim, quite

consciously

writing

with

and

againsr

the contemporary

igure of

the urban

crowd,

gives

us

something

that n today'spolarized heoretical andscape asbecomealmost

unimaginable:

a

social theory

that is

at

once semiological

anrl

affect-based.

Mulling

over the

proto-structuralist

sign

politics

and the

collective

effervescence

f the

corroborree,

he

strives o

isolate

he

constitutive unctions

of both

the mediations

and the

mania

which

so many

of his

contemporaries

ould

only

recog

nize as

he regressive

ffinity

between

distant

primitives

and

all-

too-proximate proletarian

crowds.

The

Polynesian

category

ol

manalends

Durkheim

a transhistorical,

ranscultural

name for

the sacred

power

of the social.

But

in

stressing ts

volatile

,con-

tagiousnessl

ts

amoral energy,

Durkheim is

also

invoking

the

kind of nonsubjective

sensuous

mimetic

potential

that

seemed

to inform both the primitive communitas and the - precisely

mindless

agitation

of the crowd.

In the

discourse

of modernity,

affect

appears

as

a social

har-

makon,

at once

constitutive

nd

corrosive

f life

n

common. n

the

Durkheimian

bounded clan,

he

harnessing

f

mana for

pur-

poses

f social

egeneration

s

a noisy,

sweaty

but relatively

mech.

anical matter.

But

the organic

complexity

of industrial

societies

seems o make

he self-consciously

modern

deployment

of

affect

much more

complicated.

The

figure

of

the

urban

mob

(when

not

simply sullen)

s

affectively

effervescent,

o

be

sure,

but also

for

that

very

reason

righteningly

unstable

and vulnerable

o the

manipulations

of

demagogues

nd

advertisers

like.

n the

closed

clan the energygenerated

by

proximate

bodies n motion, each

mirroring

the

other's

excitation,

operates

as a

principle

of solid-

arity and

commitment.

But in

the open

crowd thesevery

same

conditions

herald

excess nd

violence.

Crowd agitation

eads

as

regressive,

riven

by

atavistic nstincts

at

odds with

the

brittle

bonds of

civilization.

Collectively

comprising

a howling

feedback oop,

the

mem-

bers of a

crowd,

quickly

shedding

heir

bourgeois

ndividual-

ity,

become

mimetic,

indiscriminately

amplifying

each

others'

Affect:

hat

s

t Good

or?

297

impulses

and

impressions.

Gustave

Le

Bon:

'In

a crowd

every

sentiment

nd

acf

s contagious'

2002[1895]:

).

Composed

f de-

individualized

bodies,

he

crowd

s

a

kind

of

horrifyingly

uncleact

body

sociat,

apable

nly

of the

concrete

ogic of

the

saJag:

mind:

.q

cio*a

thinks

in imagis,

and

the

image

tself

mmediately

calls

up

u t.ti.t

of

other

imalges,

aving

no

logical

connection

with

the

tiirt'

(f

S).

The end

resu'it,

amously,

s a'collective

hallucination'

liOl,l masscognitivemeltdown that,invades he understanding

"nd'pututyres"all

critical

faculty'

(18)' Thus

savage

solidarity

,*pi"ut."us

the

very

antinomy

of

reasoned

udgment,

but

also

us

tt-"

aw

material

of

a new

urban

sociality'2

This

was

the

outcome

that

Sigmund

Freud

would

thematize

in

his Group

Psychology

1959[1921]),3

hen

he

argued

ha t

lhe

affective

bonds

1'love';

hat

were

necessary

or

stable-

ocnl

relationships

not only

required

a

psychically

problemati.c

ub-

limation

of-basic

rives

the

story

of.

iuilization

and

its

Discont-

inii,

tgeg

I19501)

but

were

also

quite

cfgarly

ncompatible

with

.t.ui

tnin6.,g

and

sober

udgmenl.

And

in

his remarkable

work

The

Lauts

ol

l*itotion,

Gabriel

Tarde

prefigured

both

Georg

simmel and

walter

Benjamin

when

he

characterized

ity

life

as

L

singular

mixture

of

anaesthesia

nd

hyperaesthesia'1903:85).

Tarde"

moved

from

this

diagnosis

of

the

affectively

conductive

urban

crowd

to

a striking

formula

for

social

if.e

out

court

as

a

leneralized

condition

ofmimetic

resonance:

society

is imita-

"tion

and

imitation

is

a kind

of somnambulism'

1903

87, riginal

emphasis).

iypicaity

the

crowd,

n

its

guiseas he

paradigmatic

publicso-

cial

orm

oi

-urs

society,

s either

nert

or

hyperactive'

n

eith.er

case

t is eminently

suggestible.a

nd

in

either

case,

nalysts

ake

mass

affect

and

reasonlo

be

radically

ncommensurable,

n

em-

bur.urr-"nt

to

each

other.

oddly,

it seems

hat

this

is the

place

*h.r.

the

witheringly

aristocratic

cadences

f

Le

Bon

coincide

*itt tt

"

populism 6f our contemporary neo-vitalists. n a sim-

pf.,.""rrut

of

moral

polarity

(whicti leaves

he

ontological

grounds

^ot

tt.

argument

untouche-d)

he

crowd's

formerly

unacceptable

unreason

now

reappears

as he

productive,

emergent

puissance

of

ttt"

multitude.

Ortega

y

Gasset

wrote

'The

mass

man

has

no

ult.ntio"

to

spare

or

rieaioning,

e learns

only

in his

own

flesh'

ltSfZltSSOl:'aS;.

ut

he

could,

suspect,

ot

have

guessed

t

he

..t.U*toty

refunctioning

to

which

a

later

generation

of

critics

would

submit

hese

sentiments.s


6/11

298 William

Mazzarella

Comparatively

are s

the thinker

who takes

he

ritual

and/or

professional

oordination

of

affect

-

what

one

might call

,affect

management'

to

be

a

central

principle

of social ife

and

insti

tutional

survival.Elias

Canetti

captures

his

paradoxical

pursuit

when

he writes

that the

only way

to create

social institutions

that

are durable

yet

suitably

suffused

with affective

energy

s

by means

of

'a

conscious

slowing

down of

crowd events' 1984

[1960]:41).Without such itual retardation,he crowdacceler

ates nexorably

owards

orgasmic

conflagration,

he

,discharge

that

is

at once

ts fulfillment

and

ts

undoing. n

the

house

of or-

ganized

eligion,

conversely,

whatever

the church

has o

show, s

shownslowly'

1984

[1960]:

156, riginal

emphasis).

nd

Michel

Maffesoli

notes,

somewhat

over-generally:

Any

effervescences

structurally oundational.

This

s a basic

sociological

ule

hat did

not

of courseescape

Durkheim;

the trick is

to know

how

to use

this effervescence,

ow

to ritualize

t'

(1996

[1983]:

142).

The

language

of ritual

is

the

language

of

power,

nsofar

as

t

enshrines

he dramaturgical

conventions

of

state nationalism

and officially

sanctioned

piety.

But

if

we understand

itual

as

a

species f social mediation,and institutional practicesas a form

of

performative

itual,

hen

we might

also conclude

hat,

contrary

to the ideological

discourse

of rationalized

modernity,

he

labile

terrain

of affect s not in

fact

external

o bureaucraticprocess.

Affect is not, then,

so much a radical

site of othemess

o

be

policed

or

preserved

but rather

a necessary

moment

of any nstitutional

practice

with aspirations

o

public

efficacy.

If I

venture

to say

hat modernity

is

and has

always been

struc-

turally

affective, want

to

be

quite

clear about

what

this

might

mean. I

am not

merely

suggesting

hat the

rationalizing,

dis-

enchanting nstitutions

of modernity

need

to

be

understood

as vulnerable

because

here

always

remains

a vital

'outside'

or

'other'

that exceeds

heir normalizi ng grasp.

t has for example

by

now

become

quite

routine

to argue

(not

least

with reference

to

colonial

and

postcolonial

settings)

hat the

panoptic,

capillary

ambition

of

modern

governmentality

n fact eaves

argeswathes

of

local

lifeworlds

relatively

untouched

and therefore

external

to

its

sway.

Unabsorbed,

hese

dense

hickets

of vernacular

so-

ciality then

perennially

return

as

the

uncanny

repressed

f the

political

order,

unsettling

and

denaturing

claims o

rule by

singular

sovereign eason.

Affect:

What

s

t Good

or? t

299

What

I am

suggesting

ere,

by

contrast,

s that

any

social

pro-

ject

that

is

not

i-por"a

through

force

alone

must

be

affective

in

order

to

be

effeitive

-

i.e.,

ihas

to speak

both

of

Massumi's

'languages'

concurrently:

ntensity

as

well

as.qualificatiol'

lilefic

,"ronui."

as

well

as

propositional

plausibility'

Faced

with

the

g"";"rir"a

requirement

bf

'coherencei

moreover,

speech

an-d

Iocial practicemustattempt to mediate

hese

ncommensurable

ptu".t

tntough

each

otheiso

as

o

make

them

appear

o be

mu-

lually

entail"ia.

1'nit

is

not

just

a

requirement

of overt

discourses

oti"iiti-ution.

Rather,

one

seet

t

too

in the

pragmatics

of

insti

tutloliuf

practice,

where

abstract

institutional

demands

seek

affective

resonance

and

affective

appeals

reach

for

legalistic

justification

-r +L:- ,--oo^r.,ahrc l

Onemightspeakofthisunresolvabledialect icasastructura

flaw

or

a

fiult

line.

But

it is

not

in any

sense

shortcoming.

on

the

contrary,

his

gap'

is a

condition

of

power's

efficacy'

f by

ef-

ficacy

we

mean

tsiapacity

to

harness

ur

attention'

our

engage-

m"ni

u.ta

our

desire.

,"il\r"that

it might

appearthat

I

a.m

herg

i"t"tii"e

to

the

kind

of

psychologistic

anguage

which

is bound'

as

I suglested

above,

o airive too late at the sceneof the affec-

iive

ntJlgut

by

now

it

should

be

clear

that

I believe

hat

affect

is

in

fact

neither

wholly

external

o

the

mediations

of

such

cat-

.goti"t

nor

simply

a disiursive

eft'ect

f

them'

Further'

he

manner

iriwhich

*e

ate

nterpellated

n

our

lives

as

citizens'

consumers

und,

.r.r"uringly,

consumer-citizens

requires

hat

we take

hese

"at"gori",

1,seiq

itizenl

,subject'

glc.)

no.t

only

as

vitaiity-denying

iJ""Trgi""i

obfuscations

ut-as

affectively-imbued,

ompellingly

flawed"social

acts.

When

we

are

thus

addressed'

when

we

are

offered

such

dentities,

our

identification

always'failsi

and

that

which

we

experience

s

our

desire

a

dialectical

movement

across

itt.

g"p

between

affect

and

articulation)

is always

thwarted'

i"t iri"ir"ly this failure is the condition of our continued en-

gage;e.tt.

Ii

is

not

that

public discourse

misses

who

we

'really

irJj

tt

ut

its

categories

are

always

oo

general

or

our

specific

.ip.ti."""

(indeeid, e

only

recognize-

ur'selves'

n

and

hrough

ihft

discursive

mediation).

Rather,

public

discourse

addresses

s

simultaneously

on

two

levels

of

impersonal

generality'

One

is

oUtt.u.t

and

pertains

o

the

formal,

egal

assemblage

f citizen-

,trip

utta

civii

society.

The

other

gets us

in the

gut:

it is

equally

i-p".to.tut

but

also

shockingly

intimate,

and

solicits

us

as


7/11

300

William

Mazzarella

embodied

members

of a

sensuous

ocial

order.

n

relation

o bottr

of these

evels

he

notion

of

the ndividual

as

bounded,

volitional

'subject'

while

ideologically

crucial

-

must

be

taken

as

some

thing

of

a strategic

compromise.

Both

the marketing

of

branded

goods

and

electoral politics

demonstrate

his

principle

at work.

In

either

case,

he

official

justification

for

the

affect-intensiveFactor X (the candidate's'charisma,'the

brand's

compulsion)

that

exceeds

n nstrumental.

rational

appeal

is

the need

or

a

unique

positioning

n

a field

or

functionally

nterchangeable

ommodities.

But

is it not

the

case

that

we respond

powerfully

(with

both

excitement

and

alarml

to

being addressed

t

a level

that

exceeds

ur

judicious

deliber-

ation

as rational

choosers?

n

either

case,

we participate

n a

double

fetishism

hat

projects

his

delicate

ension

bnto

th c

'inherent'

properties

of

the desired

or dreaded

object as

well

as

onto

the'ambivalent'motivation

of the

choosing

ubject.

call

his

a fetishism

since

he

dialectic

n

fact

originatesin

neither

subject

nor

object,

but is

rather

a

structuralproperty

of the

public

cultural

fields

n which

subject

and

object

come

o be for

themselves

nd

for eachother,and in which, at the same ime, their

apparently

miraculous

meeting

as

predestined

partners

(,made-fbr

eacir

other')

is

constantly

staged.

Mediation

nd

Death

Attentive

readers

will

no

doubt

by now

be troubled.

How

can

I

start

with

Massumi

and

Deleuze

and now

blithely

be nvoking

such

unabashedly

Germanic

terms

as mediation

and

dialectics,

especially iven

he

extraordinary

I am

tempted

o say

phobic

_

level

of vitriol

that

the

Deleuzians

reseroe

or precisely

such

concepts?

n their

highly

nfluential

work,

Empire,

Michael

Hardt

and Antonio Negri not only excoriate the dialectic, hat cursec

dialectic ' 2000:

377),butgo

on to

situate

hemselves

n

much

he

same ineage

as

hat

of Massumi,

he neo-Nietzschean

oment

of

Frenchpoststructuralism

again,

with

the

same itarist

orebears)

that refused

what

it

took

to

be

the

totalizing

ambition

of the

Hegelian

dialectic

n

favour

of

,refusal,

resistance,

iolence.

and

the

positive

affirmation

of

being' (ibid.:

57S).

Deleuze

accuses

he

dialectic

of

,prestidigitationl

figuring

it

as a treacherous

emptation

to totalize:

Dialectics

is the

art that

Affect:

What

s

t Good or?

|

301

invites

us to

recuperate

lienated

roperties'

2001

[1965]:

70)'

The comment

needs

o be

historically

situated.

The

generation

of

postwar

French

critical

thinkers

to

which

Deleuze

belonged

grew

up

in a

context

where

being

radical

meant

subscribing

o

lhe twinned

hegemony

of

the

French

Communist

Partyand

post-

Hegelian

existential-phenomenological

hilosophy.

The.extraor-

dinirv influence

of Alexandre

(ojeve's

1930s

ectures t

the

Ecole

des

Fiautes

Etudes

on

The

Phenomenotogy

f Splrll

should

not

be underestimated. 6

he

next

generation's ebellion

consequently

involved

a baby-with-the-bathwater

ntellectual

purge,

n

which

dialectics

was disastrously

educed

o

the

Hegelian

positiue

dialectic

-

that

is,

he

dialectic

hat

is teleologically

oriented

o-

wards a

future

condition

of

fullness,

n

which

all

particulars are

subsumed

without

significant

emainder

under

general

concepts'

The

greatest asualty

of this

reduction

was

he

possibility of

im-

agining

social

and

philosophical

processes f

mediation

as

non-

totatizing

along

the lines

of,

say,

Theodor

Adorno's

negative

dialectici.

For

all the

subtlety

of its elaborations,

he

rebellion

bequeathed

o

the

philosophies

t

spawned

a

crudely

romantic

disfinctionbetween,on the one side,all-encompassingorm (whose

totalizing

ambition

must

be

resisted)

and,

on

the other

side,

he

evanescent

orms

of affective

and

-

it

is often

mplied

-

popular

potentiality

(which

must

be

nurtured

and

celebrated).

This

re-

ductive

binary

opposition

between

(in

Deleuze

and

Guattari's

terminologl),molar'

tructures

nd'molecular'

otentials

ontinues

to inform

Massumian

affect

heory

today

in a

way that

under-

cuts ts

considerable

ower.

At

points Massumi

does

seem

o acknowledge

omething

ike

a

dialLctical

relationship

between

emergence

and articulation,

between

affect

and

qualification.

For

example,

n the

Introduction

to Parables

or

the

Virtual

he notes

that

'Possibility

is

back-

formed

from

potential's unfolding.

But

once

t

is

formed,

t also

effectively

eeds

n'

(2002:9).

And

yet Massumi continues to

insist upon

a radical

distinction

between

vital

potential and

the

death-dealing

work of

formal

mediation.

This

is nowhere

more

evident

than

when, in

a slightly

later

passage,

e

seems

oddly

keen

to

take

at

face value

Hegel's

heory

of

subsumption

at

its

most

megalomaniacal:

If

you apply

a

concept

or system

of

connection

between

con-

cepts,

t

is the material

you

apply

t to

that

undergoes

hange,


8/11

302

William

azzarella

much

more

markedly

than

do the

concepts.

The

change

s

imposed

upon

the

material

by

the

concept'i

systematicity"antr

constitutes

a

becoming

homologous

of

the

material

o

th .

system.

This

is all

very grim.

It

has

ess

o

do

with

,more

to th,

world'than

'more

of

the samel

t

has

ess

o do

with

inventiorr

than

mastery

and

control (2002:

U).

certainly the caricature

of mediation-as-subsumption

s

sketched

here

s

indeed

very grim.

And

the

saddest

rony

is

thar

this

ine

of

thinking,

while

ostensibly'critical,'actually

rants

ht,

would-be

normalizing

institutions

of

modern

govein-mentalit.y

precisely

he

kind

of

totalizing

efficacy

hat

their-own

deological

discourse

claims.T

n the

one

hand,

this position

credits

isti

tutions

with

a seamlessness

hat

they

do

nofenjoy.

on

the

other

-

and

his s

a

crucial point-it

fatally

misidentifierih"ir

power

with

the

possibility

of

such

seamlessness.

rtimately,

t

uies

this

en

tirely

reified

vision

of immaculate

subsumption

o lend plausi

bility

to

the

singular

ntegrity

of its

own

vitil

,alternative.'

For

alr

its claims

o

enable

a

ne.,

radical

orm

of

socio-cultural

analysis,

sucha standpoint n practicepreventsus rom understanditrg n"

workings

of

any

actually

existing

social

nstitutions,

becau"se

r

has

always

already

dismissed

heir

mediating

practices

as

having

compromised

he

potentialities

hat

a more

m-mediate

vitaliti

would

embody.

Much

writing

in

this

tradition presents

tself

rather

narcissis,

tically

as

ntervening

n

an

'insurrectionary'or

insurgent'

manner

into

apparently

authoritative

realms

of

utterance

nd

practice.

But

rather

than

expending

vast

amounts

of

energr recuperating

the

constitutive

nstability

and indeterminacy

hat

attends

al l

signification

as

f it

were

really

hidden,

as

f its

,revelation'

might

enable

some

momentous

ransformation),

would

it

not

be m6rc

illuminating to explorehow this ndeterminacyactualryoperates

in

practice

as a

dynamic

condition

of

our

engagement

with

the

categories

f

collective

ife?

Rather

han positing

he

emergent

s

the

only vital

hope

against

he

dead

hand

of -Jdiation,

wiy

not

consider

he.possibility

hat

mediation

s

at once

perhaps

hehost

fundamental

and

prod'ctive

principle

of

all

roiiul life precisely

because

t is

necessarily

ncomplete,

unstable,

and

provisionati

Mark

Poster's

bjection

o

Maffesoli

deserves

o

be exiended

o the

neo-vitalists

out

court:

His

generous

ppreciation

f

,,new

tribalism,'

Affect:

what

s t Good

or?

303

fails

o

provide

a

materialismof the

mediation,

an articulation

of

the complex

structuring

of everyday

ife'

(2001: 163).

Elsewhere

haveargued

hat'On

the one

hand,

eflexive

ocial

entities

selves,

ocieties,

ultures)

are

undamentally

constituted

(and

not

ust

econstituted)

hrough

mediation.

On the

other

hand,

as

Derrida and

other scholars

suggest,

his

constitutive

medi-

ation

also always

produces

a fiction

of

premediatedexistence'

(Mazzarella 2004: 357).In other words, mediation s the social

condition

of

Lhe

antasy of

immediation, of

a social

essence

(vital

and/or cultural)

that

is autonomous

of

and

prior

to social

processes

f

mediation.

This s by

no meansan

obscure

onsider-

ation:

our everyday

folk'

sense

f our

apparently

given

selves nd

our

places

n

the world de pend

on

preciselysuch

an illusion.

One

might

say hat

he deep

rony of

mediation

s hat

ts consti-

tutive

role in social

ife

depends

pon

its own masking.

Michael

Warner

makes

an

analogous

oint

when

he argues

hat although

publics

only

arise hrough

the circulation

of

texts,

heir

social

efficacy

depends

on their

seeming o

exist

prior to their

textual

constructicln:

Public

speech ontends

with the

necessity f

addressing

ts

pub-

lic

as already

existing

eal

persons. t

cannot

work

by

frankly

declaring

ts

subjunctive-creative

roiect.

ts success

epends

on

the

recognition

of

participants

and

heir

further circulatory

activity,

and

people

do

not

commonly

recognize

hemselves

s

virtual

projections.

They recognize

hemselves

nly

asalready

being

he

persons

hey

areaddressed

sbeing,

and as

already

e-

longing

to the

world

that is

condensed

n their

discourse

(2002:82).

This llusion

of

pre-mediated

xistence

of immediation

-

is,

then,

at once

he outcome

of mediation

and he

means

of ts

occlu-

sion.

It is also a

fantasyshared

by the

most reactionary

political

interests

those

who would

have us commit

to the

primacy of

race,

blood,

and nation)

and, n

a

different

register,

he

kind of

critical

theory

at

issue n my

discussion

here

(where

t becomes

a

principle of comprehensive

efusal, of

perennial

liberation)'

I am

not of course

arguing

hat these

heorists

are

crypto-fascists

(although

that

kind

of accusation

s sometimes

made

from a

Marxist-materialist

tandpoint).

But I do think

that it is

mportant


9/11

304 William azzarella

to note that

the dream of immediation,

far from being radical.

is

in fact largely

complicit with

entirely mainstream

currents

rr

contemporary

public

culture

.

all

the way

from the depoliticizing

sensuous

heodicy

of

consumerist

gratification

o the neoliberirl

will to allow

the

'spontaneous'

logic

of the market to displacc

the

'artificial'

mediations of human

institutions.

WHv

Wr AneAr-lPeRveRse,

n,

THr

Operuoce

r

MassPueLrcrrY

Maffesolinotes

he

derivationof the erm

perverse'from

the Latin

per

uia

('by

way

of

).

Perversion,

hen,

would be the symptom ol

a

detour

hrough

somethingexternal

o

ourselves.

or

Maffesoli,

committed as

he is to recuperating

'proxemics'

that

woulcl

ameliorate he

alienatedabstractions

f the rationalized

society,

perversion

eally s

a

pathologr

at besta'simulatedacquiescence

to

the c


10/11

306

I William

Mazzarella

Un-nerving?

Perhaps

ot

exactly

hat,

after

all.

perhaps

thinl,

ing

affect

and

thinking

the

crowd

in

this

connection

allows

us ,

different

vantagepoint

on

the

sensuously

nonymous

dimensi,r.

of

public

cultural

communication.

Maybe

what

s

happening

hcrt.

is

a

doubling

where

the

'stranger'

with

whom

we feet

ourielv.,

curiously

aligned

s not

just

the

abstract

igure

of

an

unknou,'

external

other,

but

equally

he

impersonally

ntimate

domain

.l

our affectivememory. f public communicationalways onveys,rs

a

condition

of

its

elicity,

he

odd

sensation

f never

quite

hivirrg

realized

ts

addressee,

hen

perhaps

his

is

because

ts

implicil

destination

s

at once

more

nnervated

nd more

abstract

har,

the

'subject'whose

coherent

ntentionality

s

the

preconditiorr

for

a liberally-imagined

ivic

life.

NOTES

1. Specifying

is

use f

theword

conceptual,'

Silverstein

otes:

I ntend

his erm

o be nclusi ve,

hus

not

making

he

distinction

etwcer

'cognition'

('ideas')

nd

affect'

(,passions,)

hat

seems

o be

a very

oc.,

socioculturalegacy f European, art icularlypost)Enlightenmerr(.

discourse

bout he

mind,

he f irst

being

equated

with

ult imatery

formalizable

epresentationality,

he

second

with perturbations

n

organicphysiological

harmacologr

nd

such.A group,s

oncepts,

furthermore,

re

manifested

hrough

any

and

all

semiotic

arrange

ments

hrough

which

members

articipate

n

events,

ot,

of coursc.

just

hrough

anguage

nd anguage-like

codes'(2004:622

n).

2.

lames

Scott,

n

Seeing ihe

A

State,

notes

hat

mmigrants

o the

ncw

modernist

ity of

Brasilia

were

shocked

o find

a

'city

without

crowds'

(1998:

25).

3. It

is worth

noting

hat the group'

of Freud's

itle s

an infelicitous

but

quite

deliberate)

ranslation

f

the

German

Masse.

4. There

s an nteresting

uestion

o

be considered

ere

about

he

assumccl

origins

of affective gitation.Most liberal bourgeois heorists, argely

disdainful

f

he crowd,

end

o

assume

nativepassivity

hich

equl.",

(even

attracts)

an

external

nfusion

of

energy.

such

is

the

thinkine

elucidated,

or

instance,

n

Gertrud

Koch's

ascinating

peculat ivc

etymology

f the

mass':

'Mass'

possibly

tems rom

the

Hebrew

mazzal

as n

,matzoh'

or un_

leavened

read,

and entered

Greek

and

Latin

as he

word

denotins

bread

dough

or umps

of

dough.

hese

rigins

are

stiil

o be

sensedn

the

heological

ebate

ln

he

material

ature

fthe

bread

sed

n

ritual

Affect:what

s t

Good

or? t

307

tosymbolizetransubstantiat ion.Inthismanner,theword.massa'that

entered

hat

orm

of

cultural

history

as

was

nfluenced

y

Christianity

hqJ

u

douUt.

meaning,

panned

he

unformed

and

the

formed'

and

was

hus

redeemable.-since

hen,

he

divine

spark

hat

brought

he

t.it

utgi.

mass

o

life,

or

at

least

set

t

in

motion'

has

gradually

been

secularized

2000[1996]

26)'

JeanBaudri l lardhaspropoundedaradical izedversionof thisview.He

remarks:

[The

masses]

re

neither

goodconductors

f

the

political'

nor

good

conductors

f the

social,

or

goodconductors

f

meaning

n

general'

gt..Vtt

i.g

flows

through

them'

everything

magnetizes

hem'

but

diffuies

hioughout

hem

without

leaving

a

trace.

...]

They

do

not

radiate;

n

the

contrary,

hey

absorb

all

radiation

rom

the outlying

consteliations

f

State,

History,

Culture,

Meaning.

They

are

nertia,

the

strength

f inertia,

he

strength

f

the

neutral

1985:2)'

Theorists

n a

more

vitalist

tradition

(while no

less

prone

to

electrical

.tt"pft"^l

have

tended,

conversely,

o

suggest

hat

the

energetics

f

cottective

ife

are

original

and

nternal

o the

groups

n

question'and

hat

the

dea

hat

such

energies

re

niected

rom

on

high'

(whetherby

deities

o,

d"-ugog.,es)

s the-result

f

an

interested

deological

mystification'

it, fo.

initin.g

both

Ortega

Gasset

n the

1930s

nd

Hardt

and

Negri

seventy

ears

ater

write

otihe

,multitudes'- but or the ormer his erm

de,c. ib"salocusof inert iawhereasforthelat ter i t isthe|onsetor igoo|

uitut

n"tgy.

Baudrillard's

osition s

notable

or

its

thorough

nihitism:

t e

is

at

oilce

sympathetic

o the

dea

hat

mediation

equals

eath

and

unwilling

to

atiribute

any

originary

energy

o

'the

masses''

5.

To

be

quite fair,

even

Le

Bon appears

at

times

o

contrast

he

rampant

-

.r.igi"'r

.f the

crowd

avorably

with

the

dead

hand

of

bureaucratic

eason,

as

n"the

passage

here

he

dentifies

he

sins

of

he

atter

as'irresponsibility'

impersonalityiand

erpetuity'

here

s

no

more

oppressive

esPoti-srn-

lhan

tf,at

tti"fr

pretenti

ts;lf

under

his

riple

orm'

(2002

1895]

156)

Here'

LeBon,scadencesarereminiscentofthequasi-aristocrat icNietzschean

nostalgiaforaproudaf f i rmat ionof individualbeingthatalsoinfuses

such

iter

critics

of

the

mass ociety

s

Jose

Ortega

Gasset

'the

State

overbears ocietywith its anti-vitalsupremacy' 932 1930]: l21l 19'

o f course ' t henmakesamorepopu l i s t re tu rn in theworkof the l960s

French

Post-structuralists'

O. f


11/11

308

I

William

Mazzarella

7.

rn

a way,

the

effect

is

analogous

to the

manner

in

which

the

anxi.rr.

discourse

on

the

turbulent

crowcr

served

o lend

the

embattred

igurt,r,r

the

calm,

critical

subject

of public

reason

a

coherence

hat

it

othe^r.i,,

might

not

have

enjoyed.

8 Such,

for

instance,

has

been

the

tenor

of

many

critiques

of Habernrrrs

notion

of the pubric

sphere

namery,

hat

in its

radical

abstraction

whiclr

is

then

equated

with

the naturalized

habitus

of

middre

class

white

me

it

violates

the

embodied

integrity

of

other

lifeworrds

(cathoun

r99lRobbins 1993).

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