I find the whole Deleuze/DeLanda thing baffling. They use a wholly
deterministic model (chaos theory) based on state spaces (that is,
collections of distinct states of a system) to argue for the priority
of "becoming" and "indetermination". It looks like a lot of
hand-waving to me.
The account given in this paper is actively obscurantist, making the
case for "a dimension of existence which is intrinsically hidden and
implicit". Well, how would you know - except by hand-waving - that
such a dimension existed? I see no reason to submerge the actual in an
imperceivable superdimension of virtuality. At most, DeLanda shows
that one level of the actual can act as the virtual for another: that
we can generate subsystems the generating conditions of which are
hidden and implicit *from the point of view of the subsystem*. That
is, relatively hidden and implicit - not "intrinsically".
The underlying philosophical issue is whether it makes sense to
prioritise either term of the couple identity/difference. Suppose we
have a "system of differences, without any positive term". What is the
material basis of such a system? There must be something that can act
as a differential mark. That thing may have no positive identity
within the system it supports, but it does have a prior identity of
its own: it is what it is, and is not another thing. If it could not
be discriminated from another thing, it could not act as a
differential mark. Identity evacuated from the system at one level
reappears at another.
To take a concrete example: we believe that the system of gender is
unstable, that "masculine" and "feminine" are reciprocally
determining, that neither can function as an essence or the basis of a
fixed identity. But the material basis of the system is bodies and
performativities: what a body can or cannot do. And this is not
cleanly divisible into two reciprocally determining classes of bodily
reality; but every body is what it is, and is not another thing. The
death of one body is not the death of all bodies, but the death of
that body alone. The gender system is supported (and sometimes
undermined) by particular men, women, transpeople and intersex people,
each of whom is themselves - a sexual being - and not another. The
system occludes and distorts the reality of which it is the system;
but the system is not the reality.
Dominic
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