[Sigcrit-l] De Landa interview

[Ron Day]

the following interview with De Landa is pretty interesting, and I thought
that others on this List might be interested.  The questions are not that
great in the beginning but they get better as it goes along.  The interview
has made itself across a few Lists.

> 1000 Years of War:
> CTHEORY Interview with Manuel De Landa
>
> Manuel de Landa in conversation with: Don Ihde, Casper Bruun Jensen, Jari
> Friis
> Jorgensen, Srikanth Mallavarapu, Eduardo Mendieta, John Mix, John Protevi,
> and
> Evan Selinger.
>
>
> Manuel De Landa, distinguished philosopher and principal figure in the
"new
> materialism" that has been emerging as a result of interest in Deleuze and
> Guattari, currently teaches at Columbia University. Because his research
> into
> "morphogenesis" -- the production of stable structures out of material
> flows --
> extends into the domains of architecture, biology, economics, history,
> geology,
> linguistics, physics, and technology, his outlook has been of great
interest
> to
> theorists across the disciplines. His latest book on Deleuze's realist
> ontology, Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy (2002), comes in the
wake
> of
> best-sellers: War in the Age of Intelligent Machines (1991), where De
Landa
> assumes the persona of the "robot historian" to bring the natural and
social
> sciences into dialogue vis-a-vis using insights found in nonlinear
dynamics
> to analyze the role of information technology in military history, and A
> Thousand Years of Non-Linear History (1997), where he carves out a space
for
> geological, organic, and linguistic materials to "have their say" in
> narrating
> the different ways that a single matter-energy undergoes phase transitions
> of
> various kinds, resulting in the production of the semi-stable structures
> that
> are constitutive of the natural and social worlds. When Evan Selinger
> gathered
> together the participants for the following interview, his initial
intention
> was to create an interdisciplinary dialogue about the latest book. In
light
> of
> current world events -- which have brought about a renewed fascination
with
> De
> Landa's thoughts on warfare -- and in light of the different participant
> interests, an unintended outcome came about. A synoptic and fruitful
> conversation occurred that traverses aspects of De Landa's oeuvre.
>
>
>
>
> I. War, Markets & Models
> CTHEORY (Mendieta): In these times of "a war against terrorism," and
> preparing
> against "bioterrorism" and "germ warfare," do you not find it interesting,
> telling, and ironic in a dark and cynical way that it is the Western,
> Industrialized nations that are waging a form of biological terrorism,
> sanctioned and masked by legal regulations imposed by the WTO and its
legal
> codes, like Intellectual Property Rights (IPR). Would you agree that the
> imposition of GMO -- genetically modified organism -- through WTO, NAFTA,
> and
> IMF, on the so-called developing world is a form of "legalized biotech and
> biological" terrorism? And then, as a corollary, what are the prospects
for
> global justice and equity in light precisely of the yawing gap between
> developed and underdeveloped nations that is further deepened by the
> asymmetrical access to technologies like genetic engineering and genomic
> mapping?
>
> Manuel De Landa: Though I understand what you are getting at I do not
think
> it
> is very useful to use this label (biological terrorism) for this
phenomenon.
> The point, however, is well taken. The way in which corporations are
> encroaching around the most sensitive points of the food chain is
dangerous:
> they direct the evolution of new crops from the processing end,
disregarding
> nutritional properties if they conflict with industrial ones; the same
> corporations which own oil (and hence fertilizers and herbicides) also own
> seed
> companies and other key inputs to farming; and those same corporations are
> now
> transferring genes from one species to another in perverse ways (genes for
> herbicide resistance transferred from weeds to crops). When one couples
> these
> kind of facts with the old ones about the link between colonialism and the
> conversion of many world areas into food supply zones for Europe (from the
> creation of sugar plantations to the taking over of the photosynthetically
> most
> active areas of the world by Europe's ex-colonies) we can realize that
this
> state of affairs does have consequences for equity and justice. The key
> point
> is not to oversimplify: the Green Revolution, for example, failed not
> because
> of the biological aspect, but because of the economic one: the very real
> biological benefits (plants bred to have more edible biomass) could only
be
> realized under economies of scale and these have many hidden costs (power
> concentration, deskilling of workforce) which can offset the purely
> technical
> benefits.
>
> The question of Intellectual Property rights is also complex. We should be
> very
> careful how we deal with this, particularly considering many of us bring
old
> moral clichés ("private property is theft") into the debate without being
> aware of it. I believe this issue needs to be handled case by case (to
solve
> the inherent conflict between lack of accessibility and incentive to
> create).
> For example, I am completely opposed to the patenting of genes but not of
> gene
> products, like proteins.
>
> CTHEORY (Mix): In War in the Age of Intelligent Machines you discuss the
> German
> Blitzkrieg of WWII in relation to a synergistic tactic that unified air
and
> ground troops. If we return to this time period, it becomes noteworthy to
> highlight that the synergy fell apart when the machinery, specifically the
> ground forces (i.e. tanks, jeeps, personnel transports, etc.) broke down
and
> the soldiers manning them could not get them operational, and were forced
to
> get mechanics to do the repairs, or else hope that the supply lines were
> kept
> open to bring in replacement vehicles. By contrast, many of the American
> G.I.s
> were "grease monkeys" and could easily repair their own vehicles. Since
many
> of
> the components of the ground vehicles were interchangeable, they could
> scavenge
> usable pieces from damaged equipment, therein being able to fix problems
on
> the
> spot and remain operationally mechanized. My question is: Because
> contemporary
> military technology is built on principles that the average G.I. is not
> familiar with (i.e. the compatibility between the standard engine and
> military
> ground vehicles no longer exists), do you think that the benefits of the
war
> machine will be outstripped by the lack of serviceability that probably
will
> arise in the field under combat conditions? Do you think that we should be
> training our soldiers differently or do you think that we should modify
the
> technologies they use?
>
> De Landa: One of the themes of the War book was the tendency of military
> organizations to get "humans out of the loop." Throughout the book (and in
> my
> only live lecture to the military) I have very strongly criticized this,
> urging
> for the lowering of decision-making thresholds so that soldiers in the
field
> with access to real time information have more power to make decisions
than
> their superiors at the Pentagon. (This theme, of course, goes beyond the
> military to any kind of centralized decision-making situation, including
> economic planning.) The problem you raise is, I believe, related to this.
If
> all technological decisions are made centrally without thinking of issues
of
> maintenance in the field, and if there is no incentive for field soldiers
to
> become "grease monkeys" or "hackers," the army that results is all the
more
> brittle for that. Flexibility implies that knowledge and know-how are not
> monopolized by central planners but exist in a more decentralized form.
>
> CTHEORY (Protevi): War in the Age of Intelligent Machines came out in
1991,
> just at the time of Operation Desert Storm. Do you see any noteworthy
> developments in the integration of information technology and artificial
> intelligence into US security / military operations from the time of
Desert
> Storm, through Afghanistan and the Second Gulf War? I have two particular
> areas
> I would ask you to comment on: (1) developments in what you call the
> Panspectron in surveillance; and (2) the use of the robot drone plane to
> kill 6
> suspected al-Qaida members in Yemen: is this a decisive step forward in
your
> history of the development of autonomous killer machines, or is it just
more
> of
> the same, that is, AI as an adjunct, without true executive capabilities?
> Finally, do you see any utility to the claim (a variation on the old
> "technological imperative" idea) that, among many other factors in the
Bush
> Administration, certain elements of the Pentagon support the war campaign
as
> providing a testing ground for their new weapons systems?
>
> De Landa: I do not see the threshold I warned against (the emergence of
> predatory machines) as having been crossed yet. The drone plane was being
> remotely guided, wasn't it? At the level of surveillance I also fail to
see
> any
> dramatic development other than a quantitative increase in computing
power.
> What has changed is the direction that the migration of "intelligence"
into
> weapons has taken, from the creation of very expensive smart bombs to the
> use
> of GPS-based cheap equipment that can be added to existing dumb bombs.
>
> I am not sure the Pentagon has a hidden agenda for testing their new
weapons
> but I do think that it has been itching for a war against Iraq for years
> before
> 9-11, in a similar way they were itching for one during the Cuban missile
> crisis in the 60's. It was tough for Kennedy to resist them then, and so
> Bush
> had very little chance to do it particularly because he has his own family
> scores to settle.
>
> CTHEORY (Mix): Medieval archers occupied the lowest rung of the military
> hierarchy. They were looked down upon and thought of as completely
> expendable,
> not only because the archers were mostly untrained peasants, but also in
> part
> because the equipment they used was quite ineffectual. At the level of
> military
> ethos, one could say that the archer lacked the romantic stature of the
> knight
> because their style of combat was predicated on spatial distance --
shooting
> from far away seemed cowardly, whereas face-to-face sword combat had an
aura
> of
> honor to it. The situation changed for the English, however, due to the
> introduction of the long bow (a development that was materially dependent
on
> the availability of the wood in the region, the yew trees). Years of
> training
> were invested in teaching the English archers to use this weapon with
deadly
> effectiveness. Consequently, their stature increased, and for the first
> time,
> pride could be taken in being an archer. Today, some critics charge that
> using
> unmanned drones is cowardly because it involves striking at a distance. We
> can
> thus see the situation as somewhat analogous to the arrow let loose by the
> Medieval archer. My question is: Will the drones let loose by servicemen
> ever
> lose their stigma in the same way as the English archers did? Clearly, the
> drones like the English archers proved to be successful in battle. And
yet,
> the
> image of the drone controlled by a serviceman does not evoke the same
> humanity
> as the embodied Englishman.
>
> De Landa: I agree that in military history questions of "honor" have
always
> influenced decisions to adopt a particular weapon. And distance per se was
> not
> always the main reason: early rifles were not particularly liked due to
> their
> increased precision, and the practices this led to (the emergence of
> snipers)
> were seen as dishonorable. Yet, once Napoleon had changed the paradigm
from
> battles of attrition to battles of annihilation harassing the enemy via
> snipers
> became quite acceptable. Even more problematic was the effect of the rifle
> and
> the conoidal bullet in changing traditional hierarchies as infantry could
> now
> defeat artillery, forcing the latter to hide behind defensive positions (a
> hiding which must have carried a bit of stigma at first but that went away
> fast). I think the use of drones will only be seen as problematic from the
> "honor" point of view for a very short time.
>
> CTHEORY (Mallavarapu): In your work you challenge anthropomorphic and
> anthropocentric versions of history. What implications does this have for
> politics in an increasingly militarized world? More specifically, is there
a
> danger of the idea of self-organizing systems being used to justify and
> celebrate increasing militarization and the growth of so-called "free
> market"
> economies?
>
> De Landa: I'll begin with the latter. Theories of self-organization are in
> fact
> being used to explain what Adam Smith left unexplained: how the invisible
> hand
> is supposed to work. From a mere assumption of optimality at equilibrium
we
> now
> have a better description of what markets do: they take advantage of
> decentralized dynamics to make use of local information (the information
> possessed by buyers and sellers). These markets are not optimizing since
> self-organizing dynamics may go through cycles of boom and bust. Only
under
> the
> assumption of optimality and equilibrium can we say "the State should not
> interfere with the Market." The other assumption (of contingent
> self-organization) has plenty of room for governments to intervene. And
more
> importantly, the local information version (due to Hayek and Simon) does
not
> apply to large corporations, where strategic thinking (as modeled by game
> theory) is the key. So, far from justifying liberal assumptions the new
view
> problematizes markets. (Let's also remember that enemies of markets, such
as
> Marx, bought the equilibrium assumption completely: in his book Capital he
> can
> figure out the "socially necessary labor time," and hence calculate the
rate
> of
> exploitation, only if profits are at equilibrium). Now, the new view of
> markets
> stresses their decentralization (hence corporations do not belong there),
> and
> this can hardly justify globalization which is mostly a result of
> corporations.
> And similarly for warfare, the danger begins when the people who do not go
> to
> war (the central planners) get to make the decisions. The soldiers who do
> the
> actual killing and dying are never as careless as that.
>
> CTHEORY (Selinger): On a number of occasions, we have discussed different
> aspects of computer modeling. In fact, you just brought up the topic of
> modeling in connection with war-games. I remain unclear on the following.
To
> what extent should we use evidence from computer modeling in artificial
> societies to get us to rethink traditional notions about human behavior?
For
> example, the standard metaphor that used is to think about mass violence
is
> contagion; this is because the violence seems to spread so quickly from
> person
> to person and neighborhood to neighborhood. Yet, Joshua Epstein's
simulation
> of
> artificial genocide suggests that the view that a collective mind (or some
> sort
> of infectious hysteria) underlies mass violence is illusory, perhaps even
> folk
> psychological. Specifically, his work suggests that the origin of genocide
> might be a series of individual decisions whereby people turn violent as a
> result of their responses to local conditions. Thoughts?
>
> De Landa: All models, by definition, simplify things. Contagion models can
> be
> very useful to study certain propagation effects, whether these are fads,
> fashions or ideas. Can they also be useful to study the propagation of
> affect?
> We can't tell in advance. What is important to see is that even if they
turn
> out to be useless to study violence that does not affect their usefulness
in
> other areas. Also, contagion models differ in the detail with which they
> portray agency, from completely mechanical models with no agency at all (a
> homogeneously socialized population) to models in which some form of
virtual
> agent is included. But the key problem is that no one agrees what agency
is:
> must it include some form of rational choice, and if so optimizing or
> satisfying rationality? Should all psychological effects be eliminated and
> only
> inter-subjective effects taken into account? How socialized and obedient
> should
> we assume agents to be, and should these qualities be modeled as
> homogeneously
> or heterogeneously distributed? Most of these issues have nothing to do
with
> computers and will haunt any modeling effort however informal.
>
> CTHEORY (Selinger): You have often questioned what is at stake, socially,
> politically, and conceptually, when intellectuals engage in criticism.
> Simply
> put, you are all too aware of the ease by which putatively "Critical
> Theorists"
> are easily swayed by dogmatic convictions and too readily cognitively
> stymied
> by uncritical presuppositions. One might even say that in so far as you
> characterize yourself as a philosopher -- even if in the qualified sense
of
> a
> "street philosopher" who lacks official credentials -- you believe that it
> is
> the duty of a philosopher to be critical. By contrast, some of the more
> avant-garde STS theorists seem -- albeit perhaps only polemically and
> rhetorically -- to eschew criticism. For example, Bruno Latour's latest
> writings center on his rejection of criticism as an outdated mode of
thought
> that he associates with iconoclasm. He clearly sets the tone for this
> position
> in We Have Never Been Modern in connection with acknowledging his
> intellectual
> debt to Michel Serres, and he emphasizes it in Pandora's Hope, War of the
> Worlds, and Iconoclash. Succinctly put, Latour claims that for six reasons
> ideology critique (which he implicitly associates with normative critique
as
> such) is a faulty and patronizing form of analysis: (1) ideology critique
> fails
> to accurately capture how, why, and when power is abused, (2) ideology
> critique
> distorts how authority comes to be overly esteemed, (3) ideology critique
> imputes "extravagant beliefs" onto whatever group is taken to be
oppressed,
> (4)
> ideology critique leaves the group that is perceived to be oppressed
without
> adequate grounds for liberation, (5) ideology critique distorts the
relation
> between critic and the object of criticism, and (6) ideology critique
> accusatively "destroys a way of arguing." What do you think of this
> position?
>
> De Landa: First of all, I agree that the labels "critical" and "radical"
> have
> been overused. In the last analysis one should never apply these labels to
> oneself and wait for history to decide just how critical or radical one's
> work
> really was (once its consequences have been played out). Latour's problem
> seems
> to be more with the concept of "ideology" than that of "critique," and in
> that
> I completely agree: to reduce the effects of power to those of creating a
> false
> consciousness is wrong. But here is where the real problem is, since one
> cannot
> just critique the concept of "ideology," the real test of one's radicality
> is
> what one puts in its place. Or, to put it differently, how one
> re-conceptualizes power. And here one's ontological commitments make all
the
> difference in the world. Can a realist like myself trust a theory of power
> proposed by a non-realist, for example? Can a realist ever believe in a
> theory
> of power developed, for example, by an ethnomethodologist, when one is
aware
> that for that person everything is reducible to phenomenological
experience?
> The same point applies to normativity: if one is a realist defending a
> particular stance will depend on developing a new ethics, not just
> critiquing
> old moralities. Here a Spinozian ethics of assemblages that may be
mutually
> enhancing versus those that are degrading may be the solution, but
> developing
> this idea will also imply certain ontological commitments (to the
> mind-independent reality of food and poison, for example).
>
> CTHEORY (Jensen): A similar question could be raised in relation to your
> work
> on markets and anti-markets. In contrast to Empire by Hardt and Negri,
which
> explicitly hopes to have a political impact, your position is much less
> straightforwardly normative. If, in a realist vein, you take your analysis
> to
> be descriptive, how then do you think people might act to reap the
benefits
> of
> your description?
>
> De Landa: No, not at all. Remember first of all that a realist never
settles
> for a mere description. It is explanation that is the key and the latter
> involves thinking about real mechanisms which may not be directly
observable
> (or describable). The disagreement with Empire is over the mechanisms one
> postulates and the details of their workings. I do not accept the Marxist
> version of these mechanisms (neither those through which markets are
> supposed
> to operate nor those for the State) and believe the Marxist version leads
to
> practical dead ends regardless of how ready to be used in social
> interventions
> the analysis seems to be. (To be blunt, any idea for social intervention
> based
> on Marxism will be a failure). I do take normative positions in my books
> (such
> that decentralization is more desirable than centralization for many
> reasons)
> but I also realize than in an ethics of nourishing versus degrading
> assemblages
> real-life experimentation (not a priori theorization) is the key. To use
an
> obvious example from environmental ethics: a little phosphorous feeds the
> soil;
> too much poisons it. Where exactly the threshold is varies with type of
soil
> so
> it cannot be known a priori. But the normative statement "do not poison
the
> soil" is there nevertheless. Similarly for society: too much
centralization
> poisons (by concentrating power and privilege; by allowing corruption; by
> taking away skills from routinized command-followers etc) but exactly how
> much
> is to be decided by social experiments, how else?
>
>
>
>
> II. Competing Ideologies & Social Alliances
> CTHEORY (Protevi): A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History (1997) and your
> talk
> "A New Ontology for the Social Sciences" (2002) propose a "nested set" of
> individual entities in a "flat ontology." Like all your works, both pieces
> use
> nonlinear dynamical concepts to discuss the morphogenesis of these
> individuals.
> However, your social ontologies seem largely to begin with adults as their
> lowest level, notwithstanding some mention of children in the section on
> linguistics in A Thousand Years of Non-Linear History (norm-learning and
> creolization). Do you avoid discussing child development, about which a
lot
> of
> research has been done using nonlinear dynamics in studying brain
> development,
> motor learning, and so forth, simply for space and time constraints, or is
> there another reason? Would you agree that adding such discussions would
be
> useful in demonstrating several areas of interlocking top-down constraint
by
> family, institutional, civic, national, and perhaps even larger units?
>
> De Landa: The key to the ontology I defend is the idea that the world is
> made
> out of individual entities at different levels of scale, and that each
> entity
> is the contingent result of an individuation process. Clearly, and despite
> the
> fact that I have ignored it so far, the individuation of a social agent
> during
> childhood, and even the biological individuation of an adult organism in
> that
> same period, are two crucial processes. Without these social and
biological
> individuations we would not be able to account for adult individuals. If I
> placed less emphasis on this is because through the work of Freud and
Piaget
> (and others) we have a few models of how these processes could be
conceived,
> but we have much less insight on how institutional organizations or cities
> individuate (in fact, the very problem is ignored in these two cases since
> both
> those entities are conceptualized as structures not as individuals). I
will
> get
> to the questions you raise in due time, when I finally tackle the question
> of
> subjectivity. At this point in time, when everyone seems obsessed with the
> question of subjective experience at the expense of everything else, it
> seems
> the priorities must be reversed: account for the less familiar forms of
> individuation first returning to our own psyches later.
>
> CTHEORY (Selinger): In Chapter 4 of Intensive Science and Virtual
Philosophy
> you discuss the implications that acknowledging the notion of
"quasi-cause"
> brings with regard to the debates surrounding the D-N model of
explanation.
> As
> is well-known, in the context of "modifying" and "supplementing" Hempel
and
> Oppenheim's account, Mary Hesse argues that scientific explanation is
> metaphoric. Specifically, by appropriating Max Black's Interaction account
> of
> metaphor, Hesse claims that scientific explanation is a metaphoric
> redescription of the domain of the explanandum. In this account, it is not
> only
> metaphoric to say that "class struggle is the motor of history," but also
to
> say that "gases are collections of randomly moving massive particles."
Using
> the terms 'metaphor' and 'model' synonymously, one of Hesse's main points
is
> that although scientific (unlike, she claims, poetic) metaphors must
> resemble
> what they refer to (which is why the history of science is filled with
> failed
> metaphors e.g. heat fluid or the classical wave theory of light), they are
> not
> strictly identical either. To this end, do you view the concepts you
> appropriate from complexity theory to be metaphors? If so, what does this
> mean
> to you?
>
> De Landa: Well, although I do not question the idea that metaphors play a
> role
> in scientific thought I certainly do not think this role is central. In
the
> book of mine you mention I make it very clear that a mathematical model is
> not
> just a formal version of a linguistic metaphor. Not to approach
mathematics
> in
> its own right, reducing it to logic or to semiotics, seems to me the main
> error
> in most accounts of physics. (Remember that I do not believe there is such
a
> thing as "science" in general, or a "scientific method" in general, so my
> remarks now apply only to physics). The key ideas of complexity theory
(the
> ideas of "attractor" and of "symmetry-breaking bifurcation") come from
real
> properties of mathematical models. They are not just linguistic
"concepts."
> And
> more importantly, they have turned out to be properties of many different
> models, that is, they are independent of the specific mechanisms in which
> they
> are actualized. It is this "mechanism-independence" which makes it
promising
> they will be useful elsewhere (in social science, for example) since this
> independence may be evidence of a deeper isomorphism underlying very
> different
> processes. Deleuze's conception of the "virtual" is precisely an attempt
to
> think this underlying reality.
>
> CTHEORY (Selinger): What, then, is your account of reference? How does it
> relate to Deleuze's claim in the Logic of Sense that: "The genius of a
> philosophy must first be measured by the new distribution which it imposes
> on
> beings and concepts"?
>
> De Landa: Unlike Hesse, I'm interested in the question of how reference is
> established non-discursively. So instead of metaphor, topological
> isomorphism
> is more important for a Deleuzian realist. In Difference and Repetition
> Deleuze
> starts with Foucault's analysis of the Cartesian episteme as having four
> dimensions -- similarity, identity, analogy and contradiction
(opposition).
> Deleuze sets out to create a philosophy that does not use any of these
four
> dimensions, except as derivative concepts. He uses the concept of
intensity
> to
> develop a new way of theory of difference. Deleuze is moving away from
> similarity -- resemblance is the enemy for him. For Deleuze, there is a
> virtual
> entity that is topological and as realists we have a commitment to it. To
> return to the soap bubble example -- it is an example of a single
> equilibrium
> obtained by minimizing surface tension. A salt crystal is another example
> obtained by the minimizing of bonding energy. Both are actualizations of
the
> same topological point even though they have no resemblance to one
another:
> one
> is a cube and the other a sphere. Topological isomorphisms are fine when
we
> talk about soap bubbles and salt crystals, but what about society?
Deleuze's
> book on Foucault is in my opinion the best application of these ideas to
> society.
>
> CTHEORY (Mallavarapu): To ask a related question... In your introduction
to
> War
> in the Age of Intelligent Machines, you take care to point out that your
use
> of
> the idea of self-organization is "more analogical than mathematical." What
> are
> the problems and possibilities that arise from the use of analogies from
> chaos
> science to describe social phenomena?
>
> De Landa: That remark is a disclaimer to draw attention to the fact that
one
> does not have the legitimate right to postulate an "attractor" until one
has
> some mathematical evidence one may be lurking there. (This, by the way,
does
> not imply possession of a formal model. One can infer the presence of an
> attractor from an analysis of time series, such as those we have for
> production
> prices in economics, or voting patterns in political science). The remark
in
> that book was to the effect that I did not model warfare either directly
or
> through time series. That's the only way one can use these ideas
> non-metaphorically. (Then, of course, one has to show evidence that the
> actual
> physical or social system has an attractor by giving it a push, for
example,
> injecting some energy or spending some money, and checking whether the
> system
> returns to its previous state after a while).
>
> CTHEORY (Ihde): I would like to raise two questions that are organized
> around a
> single theme. (1) While it is fashionable these days to be "posthuman" or
> anti-anthropological, I remain curious about what would motivate such
moves?
> If
> the problem is that all positions imply some sort of "metaphysics" and
> "humanism" in a postmodern era shows its implicit humanist bias as linked
to
> early modern epistemology, isn't a counter-move just as likely to have
> similar
> "metaphysical" tones? (2) Similarly, is a post-human position possible?
and
> if
> so, what would its advantages be? It seems to me, in spite of efforts to
the
> contrary, that even the most rigorous scientific claims imply the human
> since
> they have to be made in language and/or shown in perceivable images. (3)
> And,
> finally, while I deeply appreciate your moves to show that wholes and
> non-linear processes are more complex and richer than older notions of
> totality
> and linearity, isn't a move to notions of "self-organization" also just as
> metaphysical as earlier notions?
>
> De Landa: First of all, the questions here are not so much "metaphysical"
(a
> word which seems to have become an insult losing all its real content) as
> ontological. When one is not a realist, when one operates within an
ontology
> of
> appearances, for instance, any claim about a mind-independent reality is
> labeled as "metaphysical" (as an insult). But of course, one can turn the
> insult around and call all Continental philosophy "metaphysical" as the
> logical
> positivists did. Either way it's all a waste of time. The real question is
> whether it is legitimate to have an "anthropocentric ontology", that is,
to
> draw the line between the real and the non-real by what we humans can
> directly
> observe. What makes our scale of observation, in space or time, so
> privileged?
> Why should we believe in the Mississippi river (as Andrew Pickering does)
> but
> not in oxygen or carbon (as he does not)?. Why should we study things in
> "real
> time" (that is, at our temporal scale) instead of at longer periods (to
> capture
> the effect of "long durations")? I have always thought the word
"post-human"
> is
> very silly and never used it. It is not a matter of a "post" here, but a
> matter
> of getting rid of all the non-realist baggage that is slowing us down,
such
> as
> the Humean view of causality (as observed constant conjunction) instead of
> thinking of causes as real relations in which one event produces another
> event.
> The fact that in order to communicate these ideas one must use language is
> not
> an excuse to retreat to an idealist ontology. At the end of the day,
> Pickering
> is not a "post-humanist." It takes guts to say that oxygen does not exist,
> as
> someone coming from the constructivist tradition like Pickering does. But
> then
> I want to know: What happens then to the table of elements and the
> surrounding
> theories that allow us to predict how oxygen behaves and manipulate it?
I'm
> willing to concede that quarks might have a questionable epistemological
> status, but what about electrons? As Ian Hacking says, if we can spray
them,
> they are real. We have proof o . Both the positivists and the
> constructivists
> who are traditionally seen as having nothing in common with one another
end
> up
> somehow assuming that only the observable is the real: the Mississippi is
> real,
> while oxygen is seen as having a problematic epistemological status. The
> underlying problem with these positions is that they are anthropocentric;
> they
> are limited to what we can see as human observers. What about telescopes
and
> microscopes? They open up realms to us that we cannot verify through
> unmediated
> observation.
>
> CTHEORY (Ihde): I agree with you here that we have to take technologically
> mediated ways of seeing into account. In my version of instrumental
realism,
> experience is mediated through technology. This is why I differ from my
> phenomenological predecessors. I am critical of the subjectivist position
> that
> limits itself to individual experience.
>
> De Landa: I don't want to say that human experience is not real, but you
> cannot
> make it the entire context of your ontology. This is what I find
happening,
> often implicitly, in a wide variety of theoretical positions. The question
> of
> time that Pickering raises is also significant here. Pickering advocates a
> "real-time" approach to studying emergence that is limited precisely
because
> it
> is anthropocentric.
>
> CTHEORY (Ihde): This formulation makes Pickering seem like Bas van
Fraassen,
> the analytic philosopher of science whose views on "constructive
empiricism"
> limited his commitment to truth to that which is observable.
>
> De Landa: Of course he wouldn't like to be characterized that way, but
there
> is
> some truth to it. My point is that every filmmaker knows that there are
> non-real time phenomena. For example, shoot one frame every hour in front
of
> a
> budding flower and play it back faster the next day. Or shoot hundred
frames
> per second of a bullet hitting a target and slowing it down. A broader
time
> scale is required which is not limited to the human time scale of
> observation.
>
> CTHEORY (Ihde): But doesn't the film example essentially show how time can
> be
> translated into what we can see, what is visible for us?
>
> De Landa: Again, the point that I am trying to make is that we should not
> privilege the viewpoint of the human observer. We need to acknowledge that
> realism is about what is out there, irrespective of whether we see it or
> not.
> Deleuze is interested in exteriority and assemblages, the relationship
> between
> bodies, not individual subjectivity. Deleuze is such a daring philosopher
> because he creates a non-essentialist realism. Once you divorce ontology
> from
> epistemology, you cannot be an essentialist.
>
> CTHEORY (Mallavarapu): To return to the epistemological status of oxygen,
> could
> we not tell a Latourian story of competing networks (oxygen and
phlogiston),
> with one network (oxygen) winning over the other because it is able to
> mobilize
> a larger set of allies in a complex network including human and non-human
> actants? It then makes sense to say that oxygen exists on the basis of the
> strength of the network.
>
> De Landa: The story of competing networks seems much more fruitful when
one
> looks at controversial science, science which is emerging. I'm also
> concerned
> about how network theories often amount to stories of competing ideologies
> and
> social alliances, even though I'm aware that Latour does include a lot of
> non-human elements in his actor-network theory. Latour acknowledges
> Deleuzian
> influences on his work, but it is hard to pin down where exactly he stands
> with
> regard to Deleuzian realism. In any event, a realist would certainly not
be
> comfortable attributing the existence of oxygen to the outcome of network
> interactions.
>
> CTHEORY (Jorgensen): In light of this answer, I would like to pose two
> questions that bring your work further into dialogue with Latour. One of
> your
> main claims associated with this call for a new ontology is that there are
> no
> essences -- at least as traditional philosophy defines them. Rather, you
> insist
> that ontological analysis should focus on historically constituted,
> individual
> entities that operate on different scales, but yet still interact to form
> wholes. To account for these emerging wholes, you argue that the
interaction
> between the groups of individual entities has to be accounted for. To some
> extent, this approach resembles Latour's style of investigation, according
> to
> which the analyst is required to give an account of the different actants
> being
> studied, and their relations, in order to give an account of the network
> they
> constitute. Can you elaborate on this connection?
>
> De Landa: The claim I make (similar to the one Roy Bhaskar makes) is that
to
> be
> ontologically committed to emergent wholes is to assert that these wholes
> have
> causal powers of their own. (And these cannot be Humean causes but real
> causes). It is not just a matter of examining a network of interacting
> causal
> agents, but of also showing the emergent whole is a causal agent on its
own.
> I
> do not know what Latour's position relative to causal relations is, but
> without
> a realist account of causality his work and mine can only be superficially
> related.
>
> CTHEORY (Jorgensen): You continually stress the need to conceptualize
wholes
> without appealing to traditional notions of totality. Indeed, you argue
that
> the historical processes that give rise to the wholes has to be laid out
by
> analysts who are interested in the problem of becoming. My question
concerns
> stabilization, the moment when something becomes a whole. When something
> becomes a whole, such as an institution or a city, you might then say it
> becomes a "black box." Can you elaborate on the relation between
individual
> entities, interaction, and emergent wholes in relation to Latour's theory
of
> blackboxing?
>
> De Landa: Blackboxing is something we humans do when we do not understand
> the
> mechanism through which an effect was produced, but do not wish to be
> bothered
> by that. For many purposes it is enough to understand that if something
> comes
> in as input, then we will always get this output (regardless of whether we
> know
> exactly how). Most claims in social science (to the extent that they do
not
> specify concrete mechanisms) are of the blackbox type. So are many in the
> physical sciences (Newton basically blackboxed the mechanism through which
> gravity acts at a distance). Many scientists in their laboratories have no
> idea
> how exactly their tools work (they know the inputs and outputs only) so
> these
> tools are blackboxes. To the extent that we do not know the mechanisms
> through
> which organizations or cities operate, they are blackboxes. But as a
> realist,
> since I refuse to remain at the level of description and demand
> explanations, I
> have to open as many blackboxes as I can. I have to give accounts in terms
> of
> mechanisms. I believe that Deleuze "machinic" philosophy is partly about
> that:
> opening black boxes and understanding their inner machinery.
>
> CTHEORY (Selinger): Getting off the topic of Latour... A few weeks ago I
> heard
> Stephen Wolfram give a lecture based on his book A New Kind of Science.
> There
> was a performative element to this talk which I found striking. Unlike the
> recent STS work on distributed cognition and distributed expertise,
Wolfram
> reveled in depicting himself as essentially an isolated researcher who
spent
> more time contacting historians of science and technology than current
> practitioners. This narrative served as the rhetorical basis for his claim
> to
> be a renegade scientist who inaugurated a paradigm shift. Have you read
this
> recent book or any of his published material? If so, do you find his
claims
> about cellular automata and complexity theory to correlate with unique
> insights
> on his part, or is it more the case that he is synthesizing ideas that
have
> been well-known to researchers in the field of complexity theory for some
> time?
>
> De Landa: Though I have not read his recent book, I think his claims have
to
> be
> wildly exaggerated. In fact, it would seem that each famous scientists in
> this
> field would want his own theory or model to be the center of it all. Ilya
> Prigogine wants everything to be "order through fluctuations"; Roy Bhaskar
> wants it all to be about self-organized criticality (his sand piles with
> fractal avalanches); Stuart Kauffmann wants it all to be about "the edge
of
> chaos", and now of course Wofram wants it all to be about this one CA
rule.
> To
> me this denies the basic insight of nonlinearity, its plurality of
effects.
> Enrico Fermi once said that to speak of "nonlinear mathematics" made as
much
> sense as to speak of "non-elephant zoology." In other words, the dichotomy
> linear-nonlinear is a false one: there are many nonlinear effects and
linear
> ones are one special case of it (so the word nonlinear should eventually
> disappear). Whenever one opposes chaos and linearity one is bringing back
> the
> dichotomy. And so one does when one favors one particular phenomenon at
the
> expense of the large variety of others. Wolfram has done very good work
> (classifying cellular automata, for example) and his claim to have
> discovered a
> special rule is probably serious. But so are the claims by the other
> scientists
> I just mentioned.
>
> CTHEORY (Mix): Considering how much of your work focuses on computers, it
> seems
> appropriate to end this section by bringing up an Internet oriented
> question.
> In your essay "Markets and Anti-Markets in the World Economy" you follow
> Fernand Braudel in analyzing the flow of capital towards and away from
> "universal warehouses," defined as dominant commercial centers where one
can
> purchase "any product from anywhere in the world." You not only note that
> historically cities such Venice, Amsterdam, London, and New York have
served
> this function, but you further suggest that we may be: (1) "witnessing the
> end
> of American supremacy" and (2) that Tokyo may be the next "core." In this
> age
> of advanced Internet use, when one can now shop for global goods and
> services
> from almost any city of origin, how important is it to think in
"warehouse"
> terms?
>
> De Landa: The preeminence of the cities you mention was always contingent
on
> the speed of transport: for as long as sea transport was faster than by
> land,
> not only goods but people and ideas flowed faster and accumulated more
> frequently in maritime metropolises. But the advent of steam motors (and
the
> locomotive) changed that relation, allowing landlocked capitals (such as
> Chicago) to become universal warehouses. Hence, any technology that
changes
> the
> speed of the circulation of goods and information (the internet plus
Federal
> Express) will have an effect like this, maybe even making cities
irrelevant
> as
> accumulation centers.
>
>
> III. "I think Marxism is Deleuze and Guattari's little Oedipus, the small
> piece
> of territory they must keep to come back to at night after a wild day of
> deterritorializing." (Manuel De Landa, CTHEORY Interview)
>
> CTHEORY (Selinger): My question here concerns your sense of the value of
> phenomenological analysis. Deleuze was a staunch critic of phenomenology.
He
> saw it as a subjective style of philosophy that reduced the plane of
> immanence
> to that which appears for consciousness. However, I recently found a
> reference
> that struck me as interesting in light of your work. In order to explain
to
> those who are not familiar with self-organizing processes how essences are
> created, you point to how it is not possible to explain the coming into
> being
> of the spherical form of a soap bubble with appealing to
> "endogenously-generated stable states." In other words, without appealing
to
> the science of self-organization, it is impossible to explain how the
> essence
> of "soap-bubbleness" is not constituted by way of an ideal geometric form
> imposing itself upon an inert collection of molecules from the outside
(i.e.
> hylomorphic schema). Let me use this example to initiate a dialogue with
> phenomenology. In Maurice Merleau-Ponty's early work, The Structure of
> Behavior, he tries to explain how an organism's preferred mode of behavior
> is
> constituted, such that what is experienced as "the simplest" and "most
> natural"
> is that mode of behavior that gives the organism a feeling of balance and
> facility. Merleau-Ponty writes:
>
> Is the orientation toward these preferred modes of behavior comparable to
> the
> formation of a spherical soap bubble? In the latter case, the external
> forces
> exerted on the surface of the soap bubble tend to compress it into a
point;
> the
> pressure of the enclosed air on the other hand demands as large a volume
as
> possible. The spherical solution which is realized represents the only
> possible
> solution to this problem of minimum and maximum. Can it be said in the
same
> way
> that the preferred modes of behavior of an organism are those which, in
the
> de
> facto conditions in which it finds itself, objectively offer the greatest
> simplicity and the greatest unity?  In his article, "The Current Relevance
> of
> Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Embodiment," Hubert Dreyfus claims that
> Merleau-Ponty responds to this latter query in the affirmative:
>
> The bubble starts as a deformed film. The bits of soap just respond to the
> local forces according to laws which happen to work so as to dispose the
> entire
> system to end up as a sphere, but the spherical result does not play any
> causal
> role in producing the bubble. The same holds for the final gestalt of body
> and
> racket in my example. Indeed, I cannot represent how I should turn my
racket
> since I do not know what I do when I return the ball. I may once have been
> told
> to hold my racket perpendicular to the court, and I may have succeeded in
> doing
> so, but now experience has sculpted my swing to the situation in a far
more
> subtle and appropriate way than I could have achieved as a beginner
> following
> this rule.  What do you think of the phenomenological appeal to the
> self-organized process of a soap-bubble in order to explain the relation
> between perception and skill acquisition? Do you think that this example
> suggests there may be a richer relationship between phenomenology and
> Deleuzeian ontology?
>
> De Landa: There have been many people who have tried to come up with some
> kind
> of "soap bubble" explanation for aspects of human behavior: the bubble
> minimizes surface tension, so we "minimize effort" or something like that.
> This
> is fine with me as long as it is clear this is just a hypothesis that
needs
> testing. But to assume that there is some "law" that everything in the
world
> must be governed by a "least principle" is wrong. (It assumes the only
> virtual
> multiplicities are those characterized by a single steady-state
> singularity).
> It very well may be that aspects of the stability of perceptual fields do
in
> fact depend on least principles (or steady-state stability: the famous
> Necker
> Cube or the duck-rabbit illusion of Wittgenstein surely indicate our
vision
> can
> jump from one to another stable state). But now, is there a way of
> discovering
> these stable states from within (phenomenologically)? Or do we have to use
> psychophysics and other disciplines (neural networks, for example, which
do
> use
> steady states) in order to approach the question? And, at any rate, why
only
> steady states, why not periodic or other singularities? And why a unique
one
> (as in the soap bubble) as opposed to a multiplicity with broken-symmetry
> levels (to account for the fact that our experience changes if we ingest
> alcohol, or psychedelics)?
>
> CTHEORY (Ihde): I agree. I have long been critical of Merleau-Ponty's
> interpretation of Necker Cubes vis-a-vis my notion of multistability. Like
a
> number of psychologists, Merleau-Ponty mistakenly thinks that the
> reversibility
> of the cube is what is unique about the cube. In my version of
> phenomenology,
> the structures of perception are best discovered through variational
method;
> this allows one to investigate the whole range of possibilities from those
> of
> ordinary sediments to the most extreme horizontal possibilities.
>
> CTHEORY (Jensen): A different but related question arises from the fact
that
> even though you take your analysis to be realist, this does not delimit
the
> interpretive flexibility of readers -- that is, their abilities to take
your
> accounts as supporting their specific projects regardless of whether you
> would
> approve of that use or not. For instance, in a recent talk at Duke, Zizek
> invoked your understanding of Deleuze as the only correct one.
Nevertheless,
> my
> feeling is that his psychoanalytically informed way of evaluating the
> correctness and plausibility of Deleuzian interpretations, including
yours,
> is
> something you would vehemently oppose. As you espouse the idea of a
"correct
> understanding," how do you think about and/or handle readers who
> misunderstand
> or otherwise misuse your work?
>
> De Landa: Well, it would all have to be handled case by case. As long as
> Freud
> can be taken to have given us a process of individuation (via the Oedipal
> drama) his ideas fit the ontology I propose. A philosopher can only
specify
> that a historical individuation process must be given but not what exactly
> those processes are (which is a question for the specialists). The part of
> Freud where he gives an account of personal individuation may be right or
> wrong
> in reality, but it is compatible with my ontology. The part where he
> attempts
> to define society as a kind of projection from these mental structures
> violates
> the ontology: institutional organizations and norms are individuated
> following
> another real historical process and are not just mental projections. So
that
> part has to be rejected. A similar treatment would have to be given for
each
> concrete individual entity. Now, to the extent that many proposed
processes
> are
> compatible with the basic ontology (while they may be incompatible with
one
> another) there can be many interpretations of it. Yet this does not mean
any
> reading will be compatible: I still wonder how a phenomenologist would
find
> my
> ideas compatible or even useful.
>
> CTHEORY (Protevi): Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy accepts
> Deleuze's
> use of axiomatics to analyze major or Royal science. Yet you are critical
of
> Deleuze and Guattari's use of axiomatics as a way to conceptualize
> capitalism
> (e.g., ATY 331n7), which you see as an example of a top-down positing of a
> whole. I certainly would agree with you that far too much Marxist work has
> been
> simplistic, historical determinist, reductive, totalizing, functionalist,
> top-down, etc., but I wonder if you aren't being too harsh with Deleuze
and
> Guattari's attempts to define a theory of capitalism that avoids each of
> these
> dangers? They certainly adopt a notion of "machinic surplus value," moving
> beyond a simple labor theory of value (machines as "congealed muscular
> energy,"
> as you put it at ATY 79). Don't they also consistently deny any historical
> determinism of stages of development by emphasizing the contingency of
> capitalist formations, as well as conduct a sustained polemic against
> reductive
> base-superstructure models of society? Don't their constant reminders that
> the
> line of flight is primary prevent any totalizing accounts? Isn't their use
> of
> axiomatics an attempt to see capitalism as an adaptive meshwork of
economic,
> state and quasi-state (IMF, WTO, etc.) institutions, rather than as a
> homeostatic organismic whole, as in crude functionalist accounts? In other
> words, haven't they, at least in principle, given us the outlines of a
> bottom-up account of a complex, open-ended, adaptive world capitalist
> system?
>
> De Landa: I agree that if I had to choose among all the Marxist accounts
of
> economic history I would probably pick theirs. It does have all the
> advantages
> you mention. Yet, I believe they would have benefited greatly from a
better
> reading of Braudel. They seemed to have read only volume one of his
history
> of
> capitalism and not the other two volumes, which are really the most
radical
> part. This is clear when in A Thousand Plateus in one page thet quote
> Braudel's
> stress on the role of cities and yet in the very next page Deleuze and
> Guattari
> go on to define capitalism as a "market economy", an idea which Braudel
> attacks
> as historically false. So I wonder what would have happened to their
theory
> had
> they understood the last point: that there is no such thing as "the
market"
> in
> general and no such thing as a "logic of exchange" in general (doesn't the
> idea
> of an capitalist axiomatic depend on the idea of a logic of exchange?).
Once
> we
> separate oligopolies from the market (they are strategic not primarily
> exchangist entities) and identify capitalism with oligopolies (as Braudel
> does)
> we can still use some of Deleuze and Guattari's ideas since markets have
> always
> caused "lines of flight" to pass among societies, particularly closed
> societies
> (it's in the marketplace that we meet outsiders; that foreign objects and
> ideas
> enter a city; that heterogeneity is injected etc).
>
> CTHEORY (Protevi): Yes, you're completely right that Deleuze and Guattari
> overlook Braudel's distinction between market and anti-market and use an
> abstract sense of capitalism as a "market economy" whereby "market" means
> "any
> exchange system whatsoever, whether it is composed of atomic producers and
> consumers who must act as price-takers (the Braudelian sense of 'local
> market')
> or whether it is composed of producers and consumers with varying degrees
of
> power to be price-setters (the Braudelian sense of 'anti-markets')." Even
> though it's sometimes hard to make that distinction clearly all the time
> (for
> instance, when you say in your answer "it's in the marketplace that we
meet
> outsiders; that foreign objects and ideas enter a city" I think Braudel
> would
> attribute this to long-distance trade dominated by anti-market
corporations,
> even if it occurs in the same physical location as local market
exchanges),
> I
> agree we should by all means incorporate that distinction into our
analysis
> of
> the economies (note the plural) operating today worldwide. Here the
> neo-Marxist
> notions of formal and real subsumption (roughly speaking, the relations
> between
> capitalist and non-capitalist economies, and the tendency of the former to
> replace the latter) would have to be brought to bear, notions that Hardt
and
> Negri use often in Empire. (Just to be clear before I continue: I
completely
> agree with you in everything you say about Marx himself in the 19th
century
> being wed to equilibrium analyses, about the complete bankruptcy of
top-down
> and centralized social and economic planning, about the necessity of using
> non-linear analyses of economic processes that show the inadequacy of
> equilibrium and optimizing models, and so forth.)
>
> Here is my question to you: I wonder if Deleuze and Guattari ignore the
> Braudelian distinction because, like Marx, they locate the important
element
> to
> be examined in capitalism to be production rather than exchange?
> Recapitulating
> what they say in both Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus, what they call
> in
> What is Philosophy? "Marx's concept of capitalism" (97) is the conjunction
> of
> the deterritorialized flows of labor and capital, and these meet in
> production,
> not in exchange.
>
> De Landa: Well, no, not really. I agree that the dichotomy
> "market/antimarket"
> does give that impression, hence I probably won't use it again. But the
same
> distinction applies to production: it's the difference between economies
of
> scale and economies of agglomeration. That is, between oligopolies using
> managed prices, routinized labor, hierarchical structure, vertical
> integration
> etc. and networks of small producers using market prices, skilled labor,
> decentralized structure and functional complementarities. You must
remember
> the
> study that compares Silicon Valley and Route 128 as production systems
> (mentioned in A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History) or what I have
written
> about Emilia-Romagna. Braudel (and Jane Jacobs following in his steps)
> places a
> great emphasis on this distinction (though he does not use the terms) and
> views
> it as applying across history for at least a millennium (hence economies
of
> agglomeration would not be a late stage of capitalism as some Marxists
have
> tried to argue using the term "flexible specialization" or the ridiculous
> one
> of "post-Fordism") but an alternative to economies of scale (also much
older
> than the Industrial Revolution) which has been there for a while.
>
> CTHEORY (Protevi): What about the emphasis on production as the key
> ontological
> concept in Anti-Oedipus (the whole world, nature and humans together, is
> composed of interlocking series of connected machines that produce
materials
> that are fed into other machines)?
>
> De Landa: This is correct. I myself add to this when I attack the Humean
> notion
> of causality (as perceived constant conjunction) and define it as a real
> connection in which one event produces another event. And more generally,
> when
> I stress that to get rid of essences one must always give the intensive
> process
> of production that yields any individual entity (atoms, organisms or
> commodities). Intensive thinking in general is about production.
>
> CTHEORY (Protevi): From this productivist perspective (which I think is
> amenable to a nonlinear dynamics analysis of the material and energy flows
> that
> keep the open production systems far-from-equilibrium), the key issue is
the
> productive conjunction of capital and labor (here machinic surplus value
> vitiates a pure labor theory of value), whether or not the products of
that
> labor flow into markets or anti-markets. And the key to coercing labor
into
> exploitative production processes is to threaten the production of labor
> power
> with interruption of the flows that sustain it.
>
> De Landa: Well, but the same point applies here: the conjunction of
capital
> and
> labor can take place in different forms (scale, agglomeration) and it is
> clear
> that only the economic power of the former allows the kind of threat of
> withdrawal you are talking about: only if a firm is very capital intensive
> (large machines, large start-up costs functioning as barriers to entry)
and
> if
> the process is based on routinization (the less skills a worker brings the
> less
> bargaining power he/she will have when it comes to set wages) can this
form
> of
> coercion work. I am not saying that power relations are absent from
networks
> of
> small producers but there the ability of workers to bargain for a fair
wage
> (particularly if unions exist) is much greater and the permeability of the
> division between classes is greater too (if a typical firm has less than
100
> employees and it is not capital intensive, it's much easier for a
motivated,
> creative worker to start his/her own business). The point is that all of
> this
> is obscured (if not made invisible) by the blanket concept of
"capitalism."
>
> As to theories of value: we need to go beyond the very notion of surplus
> value.
> (It's not enough to simply add the "machinic" type to escape the labor
> theory).
> Why just adding machines to "abstract labor" (read, routinized labor)? Why
> not
> also fossil fuels, starting with coal? And what of knowledge, skills and
> organizational procedures? And then, the main defect of labor theory here
is
> to
> include supply factors and not demand factors, but the latter also matter,
> and
> so marginalist approaches to this side of the equation must be added.
(Over
> the
> objections of Marxists who would rather die than include bourgeois
> marginalism
> in a theory of value).
>
> CTHEORY (Protevi): Okay, but even if the shift from an exchangist to a
> productivist perspective doesn't work for you, does it at least seem to
you
> a
> fruitful way of explaining Deleuze and Guattari's tenacious loyalty to
(some
> suitably modified) form of Marxist analysis, as well as their insistence
on
> a
> systematicity to capitalist production? Or do we have to change so much in
> Marx
> to reach what Deleuze and Guattari say in analyzing things that their
> insistence on calling what they do a form of Marxism simply the result of
> their
> social position in the "gauchiste" (non-Communist) left of France in their
> lifetimes? In other words, their Marxism is a way of thumbing their noses
> both
> at neo-liberals and at party loyalists?
>
> De Landa: Well, frankly, I think Marxism is Deleuze and Guattari's little
> Oedipus, the small piece of territory they must keep to come back at night
> after a wild day of deterritorializing. Who could blame them for needing a
> resting place, a familiar place with all the reassurances of the Marxist
> tradition (and its powerful iconography of martyrs and revolutionaries)?
The
> question is whether we need that same resting place (clearly we need one,
> but
> should it be the same? Shouldn't each of us have a different one so that
> collectively we can eliminate them?).
>
> I believe that the main task for today's left is to create a new political
> economy (the resources are all there: Max Weber, T.B. Veblen and the old
> institutionalists, John Kenneth Galbraith, Fernand Braudel, some of the
new
> institutionalists, like Douglass North; redefinitions of the market, like
> those
> of Herbert Simon etc) based as you acknowledged before, on a
non-equilibrium
> view of the matter? But how can we do this if we continue to believe that
> Marxists got it right, that it is just a matter of tinkering with the
basic
> ideas? At any rate, concepts like "mode of production" do not fit a flat
> ontology of individuals as far as I can tell. But then, this is the part
of
> my
> reconstruction of Deleuze that I am the least sure he would accept: in
> Difference and Repetition he cheerfully talks about the "virtual
> multiplicity
> of society" (using Marx as his example, of course) a term I would never
use
> (since my ontology explicitly rejects totalities like "society as a
whole").
>
> CTHEORY (Mallavarapu): In your new book Intensive Science and Virtual
> Philosophy, you point out Deleuze's relevance not just to continental
> philosophy but to analytical philosophy as well. There have been
significant
> differences between continental and analytical approaches to fundamental
> epistemological questions. This has formed the background to the so-called
> "Science Wars" debates between the realists and social constructivists.
Does
> the Deleuzian concept of materiality offer a way out of the Science War
> debates?
>
> De Landa: Absolutely. You have to remember that constructivists have more
in
> common with scientists (who are positivists, not realists) than with
> realists.
> Larry Laudan has explored the ways in which relativism (of any type)
> overlaps
> with positivism. Both make heavy use of conventions; both ignore
mathematics
> and focus on language etc. Deleuze offers an alternative to both of them,
> and
> in my view, allows us to rescue the objectivity of science without
accepting
> the myth of its achievements. (For example, we can accept that classical
> physics did get it right, within a limited sphere of reality, but not that
> it
> discovered the eternal laws of the universe).
>
> CTHEORY (Jensen): Finally, a question about your way of reading Deleuze
> about
> which it could be argued, rightly, I think, that it is highly selective.
> Deleuze, of course, wrote at great length about Kafka, Proust, and
numerous
> other writers. He also wrote two books on cinema. And he has been received
> with
> considerably more interest in American literature departments than in
their
> philosophical counterparts. But to you Deleuze's discussions of
> self-organization, the differential calculus, morphogenesis, and other
> scientific concepts and ideas have been much more consequential than his
> invocation of artistic ones. Can you elaborate on your way of reading
> Deleuze
> and its almost unilateral stress on aspects of his works relating to the
> natural sciences rather than the arts? How do you think these aspects hang
> together? And, finally, could it not be argued that your systematic
> selectivity
> is imposing on the Deleuzian corpus an interpretation, which not only
could
> but
> effectively would have been quite different if other aspects of his work
had
> been emphasized at the expense of those of your preference?
>
> De Landa: I agree that my reading of Deleuze is highly selective. The idea
> was:
> once we know how his world works (a virtual space becoming actual via
> intensive
> processes) aren't we in a much better position to understand the other
> parts?
> For example, in the theory of memory he takes from Bergson, one does not
> retrieve a memory trace from the brain, one literally jumps to another
space
> (the virtual with its own always-past temporality). Now, without a realist
> ontology this would be a useless theory (if there is no virtual space
where
> do
> we jump to?). But isn't it the same with his other uses of Bergson (e.g.
in
> the
> Cinema books)? Or take for example his affirmation that all great art
> involves
> a becoming-animal of one sort or another. What would this mean if we
cannot
> say
> what in reality these becomings are? (They are transformations not of
> organisms, like werewolves, but of the virtual multiplicities underlying
the
> organisms). Or take the line of flight (also called the quasi-causal
> operator):
> this is the entity that builds the plane of consistency out of
> multiplicities.
> But without this definition (and the rest of the ontology) could we
> understand
> what it means to follow a line of flight in painting or music?
>
>
>
>
> --------------------
>
> Participants
>
> Don Ihde is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Stony Brook
University
> and
> author of thirteen books, most of which address issues in the philosophies
> of
> science and technology.
>
> Casper Bruun Jensen is a doctoral candidate in Information and Media
Studies
> at
> the University of Aarhus, Denmark. His research concerns the controversies
> surrounding the development and implementation of the electronic patient
> record
> in Denmark with an STS- perspective.
>
> Jari Friis Jorgensen received his MA from the Institute of Information and
> Media Studies, at the University of Aarhus, Denmark. His thesis is titled:
> "Cyberculture, Science and AIBO -- a Non-modern View on Collectives,
> Artificial
> Life and Playful Quasi-objects."
>
> Srikanth Mallavarapu is a doctoral candidate working on STS and
postcolonial
> theory in the English Department at Stony Brook University.
>
> Eduardo Mendieta is an Associate Professor at Stony Brook University. His
> latest book is The Adventures of Transcendental Philosophy: Karl Otto
Apel's
> Semiotic and Discourse Ethics.
>
> John Mix, a consultant to non-profit organizations in Manhattan, is an
> independent researcher with interests in technoscience, particularly
> aquaculture.
>
> John Protevi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of French Studies
> at
> Louisiana State University. His latest book, co-authored with Mark Bonta,
is
> Deleuze and Geophilosophy: A Guide and Glossary.
>
> Evan Selinger is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Rochester
Institute
> of
> Technology. His latest book, co-edited with Don Ihde, is Chasing
> Technoscience:
> Matrix for Materiality.
>
>
>
>
> --------------------
>
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