little gaps of solitude and silence

The problem is no longer getting people to express themselves, but providing little gaps of solitude and silence in which they might eventually find something to say. Repressive forces don’t stop people from expressing themselves, but rather, force them to express themselves. What a relief to have nothing to say, the right to say nothing, because only then is there a chance of framing the rare, or ever rarer, the thing that might be worth saying.

Deleuze, Gilles. Negotiations. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.

Published on 16 May 2013 12:45 PM.
Filed under: writing

understanding what is subversive about love

People who talk about revolution and class struggle without referring explicitly to everyday life, without understanding what is subversive about love and what is positive in the refusal of constraints, such people have corpses in their mouths.

Vaneigem, Raoul. The Revolution of Everyday Life. Trans., Donald Nicholson-Smith. London: Left Bank Books and Rebel Press, 1983. 15.

Published on 9 May 2013 4:43 PM.
Filed under: politics

realization of utopias

A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realization of Utopias.

Wilde, Oscar. The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Historical Criticism, Intentions, the Soul of Man, Volume 4. Ed., Josephine M. Guy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. 247.

Published on 9 May 2013 4:28 PM.
Filed under: utopias

shoring/another sense another said

It is possible to imagine thinking, with its concepts, dictionaries, and organon, as shoring ‘man’ against the forces of chaos and dissolution, but we can also — when we extend this potential — see thinking as a confrontation with chaos, as allowing more of what is not ourselves to transform what we take ourselves to be.

…

[In addition] to the produced texts and terms, and in addition to the explicit historical presuppositions, there is an unthought or outside — the problem, desire or life of a philosophy. For Deleuze, then, reading as a philosopher requires going beyond his or her produced lexicon to the deeper logic of production from which the relations or sense of the text emerge. This sense itself can never be said; in repeating or recreating the milieu of a philosopher all we can do is produce another sense, another said.

Colebrook, Claire in
Parr, Adrian, Ed. The Deleuze Dictionary. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005. 4.

Published on 9 May 2013 1:03 PM.
Filed under: philosophy

is already happening

Whatever is going to happen is already happening.

Berrigan, Ted. “Sonnet L” from The Sonnets. New York: Viking Penguin, 2000.

Published on 9 May 2013 1:00 PM.
Filed under: metaphysics

uplifting us above ourselves

Where the mind is able to function in an orderly fashion, progressively developing, this activity takes on the significance of a work of art, a human aesthetics. As one grows more aware of this resonance of knowledge in an aesthetics of the mind, as one’s eagerness to learn is matched by an acceleration in the growth of one’s knowledge, a diffuse Prometheanism of a sort associates itself with learning. We learn in general from others and from books; but learning here becomes ours in a deeper sense, uplifting us above ourselves, above ordinary nature.

Bachelard, Gaston. Fragments of a Poetics of Fire. Trans. Kenneth Haltman. Dallas: The Dallas Institute Publications, 1988. 73.

Published on 25 April 2013 1:30 PM.
Filed under: knowledge, learning

socializing them so to speak

Creating a new culture is not just a matter of individuals making “original” discoveries but also, and above all, of disseminating already discovered truths—of socializing them so to speak, and making them the basis of vital action and an element of coordination and intellectual and moral effort.

Antonio Gramsci. Cited in Lippard, Lucy. Overlay. New York: Pantheon, 1983. 1.

Published on 20 April 2013 2:00 PM.
Filed under: culture

with potential to flower

And–the map is closed, but the autonomous zone is open. Metaphorically it unfolds within the fractal dimensions invisible to the cartography of Control. And here we should introduce the concept of psychotopology (and -topography) as an alternative “science” to that of the State’s surveying and map-making and “psychic imperialism.” Only psychotopography can draw 1:1 maps of reality because only the human mind provides sufficient complexity to model the real. But a 1:1 map cannot “control” its territory because it is virtually identical with its territory. It can only be used to suggest, in a sense gesture towards, certain features. We are looking for “spaces” (geographic, social, cultural, imaginal) with potential to flower as autonomous zones–and we are looking for times in which these spaces are relatively open, either through neglect on the part of the State or because they have somehow escaped notice by the mapmakers, or for whatever reason. Psychotopology is the art of dowsing for potential TAZs.

Hakim Bey. T.A.Z. The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism. Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia. 1985.

Published on 18 April 2013 4:25 PM.
Filed under: culture

as a positive force

I am proposing the feminization of society; the use of feminine nature as a positive force to change the world. We can change ourselves with feminine intelligence and awareness, into a basically organic, noncompetitive society that is based on love, rather than reasoning. The result will be a society of balance, peace and contentment. We can evolve rather than revolt, come together, rather than claim independence, and feel rather than think. These are characteristics that are considered feminine; characteristics that men despise in women. But have men really done so well by avoiding the development of these characteristics within themselves?

Already, as I catch a glimpse of the new world, I see feminine wisdom working as a positive force. I refer to the feminine wisdom and awareness which is based on reality, intuition and empirical thinking, rather than logistics and ideologies. The entire youth generation, their idiom and their dreams, are headed in a feminine direction. A more advanced field of communication, such as telepathy, is also a phenomenon which can only be developed in a highly feminine climate. The problem is that feminine tendency in the society has never been given a chance to blossom, whereas masculine tendency overwhelms it.

…

It’s good to start now, since it’s never too late to start from the start.

Ono, Yoko. “The Femininization of Society.” Sundance Magazine, May 1972.

Published on 14 March 2013 4:41 PM.
Filed under: Uncategorized Tags:

in turn explains

‎First of all, everything is unified, everything is linked together, everything is explained by something else and in turn explains another thing. There is nothing separate, that is, nothing that can be named or described separately. In order to describe the first impressions, the first sensations, it is necessary to describe all at once. The new world with which one comes into contact has no sides, so that it is impossible to describe first one side and then the other. All of it is visible at every point.

P. D. Ouspensky. A New Model of the Universe. New York: Knopf, 1931.

Published on 11 December 2012 11:37 AM.
Filed under: metaphysics