.m:2
2.5 The
being of becoming: the ethical synthesis of the efficient will
When Deleuze
approaches the question a Nietzschean synthesis he
comes
back once again to the affirmation of multiplicity and the
attack
on the dialectical. "Hegel wanted
to ridicule pluralism" [4]:
the
dialectic of the One and the Multiple sets up a false image of
multiplicity
which is easily recuperable in the unity of the One. We
have
treated this charge at some length above in the second phase of
Bergson
study. As we have seen, the most
potent attack against the
dialectic
in this regard is the construction of a veritable
multiplicity,
of differences of nature. We find
this same attack in
Deleuze's
Nietzsche: "Pluralism sometimes appears to be dialectical--
but it
is its most ferocious enemy, its only profound enemy." [page?]
Pluralism
or multiplicity is so dangerous for the dialectic precisely
because
it is irreducible to unity.
Through the analysis of Bergson's
work,
Deleuze brings out the irreducibility and eminence of
multiplicity
in clear logical terms; but, as we have seen, in this
context
Deleuze only succeeds in posing the complementary moment of
the
organization of the multiple in very weak terms. Indeed, it seems
that
the irreducibility of the multiplicity prohibits any idea of
organization. We have argued that it is the failure
to provide an
adequate
notion of organization is what makes Deleuze's Bergson most
vulnerable
to an Hegelian counter-attack.
This is where Nietzsche
provides
Deleuze with an enormous advance.
"The game has
two moments which are those of the dicethrow--the
dice
that is thrown and the dice that falls back." [25] The two
moments
of the dicethrow constitute the basic elements of Nietzsche's
alternative
to the dialectic of the One and the Multiple. The first
moment
of the game is the easier to understand.
The throw of the dice
is the
affirmation of chance and multiplicity precisely because it is
the
refusal of control: just as we saw in the Bergson studies, this is
not the
multiplicity of order, there is nothing pre-formed in the
possibility
of this moment--it is the indeterminate, "l'impr‚visible".
This is
Bergson's creative evolution (or emanation) of being, and in
Nietzschean
terms this is the becoming of being: pure multiplicity.
The
moment that the dice falls back, however, is more obscure and more
complex. "The dice which are thrown once
are the affirmation of
chance,
the combination which they form on falling is the affirmation
of necessity. Necessity is affirmed of chance in
exactly the same
sense
that being is affirmed of becoming and unity is affirmed of
multiplicity."
[26] The falling back of the dice
is not merely a
confirmation
of the necessity of the given, of multiple reality: this
would
merely be a determinism, and it would risk negating rather than
affirming
the first moment of the game; instead, the falling back of
the
dice is a moment of the organization of unity--it is not the
passive
revelation but the active creation of being. To understand
this we
have to relate the dicethrow metaphor to the eternal return:
"the
dice which fall back necessarily affirm the number or the destiny
which
brings the dice back. ... The eternal return is the second
moment,
the result of the dicethrow, the affirmation of necessity, the
number
which brings together all the parts of chance. But it is also
the
return of the first moment, the repetition of the dicethrow, the
reproduction
and reaffirmation of chance itself." [27-8, emphasis
mine] The dicethrow metaphor is admittedly
somewhat strained at this
point,
but we must recognize the second moment as a moment of
organization
which constructs unity, constitutes being by bringing
together
"all the parts of chance" created in the first moment--not
according
to any pre-formed order, but in an original organization.
The
return of the dice is an affirmation of the dicethrow in that it
constitutes
the original elements of chance in a coherent whole. Not
only
then does the first moment, of multiplicity and becoming, imply
the
second moment, of unity and being, but this second moment is also
the
return of the first: the two moments imply one another as a
perpetual
series of shattering and gathering, as a centrifugal moment
and a
centripetal moment, as emanation and constitution.
What is the logic of
the synthesis or constitution of being in
the
eternal return? We can no longer
pose this question on a purely
logical
plane; Nietzsche has transformed the terrain so that we can
only
consider such ontological questions in terms of force and value.
"The
synthesis is one of forces, of their difference and their
reproduction;
the eternal return is the synthesis which has as its
principle
the will to power. We should not
be surprised by the word
'will';
which one apart from the will is capable of serving as the
principle
of a synthesis of forces by determining the relation of
force
with forces?" [50] We have
seen from the outset that the
will is
the dynamic which moves and animates the horizon of force and
value:
the logic of the synthesis, then, is the logic of the will.
The
will to power is the principle of the synthesis which marks the
being
of becoming, the unity of the multiplicity and the necessity of
chance. How, though, does the will provide a
foundation for being?
We are
not so far from the Scholastic horizon which we drew on so
heavily
earlier. In effect, the will to
power is the principle of the
eternal
return in that it plays the role of a primary cause, defining
the
necessity and substantiality of being.
Nietzsche's terrain,
however,
quickly transforms this logical/ontological point into an
ethics. The eternal return of the will is an
ethics in as much as it
is a
"selective ontology". [72]
It is selective because not every
will
returns: negation comes only once, only affirmation returns. The
eternal
return is the selection of the affirmative will as being.
Being
is not given in Nietzsche, being must be willed. In this sense,
ethics
comes before ontology in Nietzsche.
The ethical will is the
will
that returns; the ethical will is the will which wills being.
This is
the sense in which the eternal return is a temporal synthesis
of
forces: it demands that the will to power wills unity in time.
Deleuze
formulates the ethical selection of the eternal return as a
practical
rule for the will: "whatever you will, will it in such a way
that
you also will its eternal return." [68] We should note here,
however,
that when we read Deleuze's rule of the eternal return we
must be
careful not to emphasize the word "also". This "also" can be
very
misleading because the eternal return is not separate from the
will
but internal to it. "How does
the eternal return perform the
selection
here? It is the thought of the
eternal return that selects.
It
makes willing something whole." [69]
The ethical will is whole,
internal
to its return: "always do what you will ...." [69,
Zarathustra
191] The principal of the eternal
return as being is
the
efficient will as an ethical will.
We can now trace a
beautiful trajectory of this fundamental idea
of
efficiency or internality: from the logical centrality of efficient
difference
(the difference internal to the thing) to the ontological
centrality
of efficient power (the force internal to its
manifestation)
and now to the ethical centrality of the efficient
will,
the principle of the eternal return.
A Scholastic logic runs
through
this series as the guiding thread, providing it a materialist
metaphysical
foundation: the internal nature of the cause to its
effect
is what supports the necessity, substantiality, singularity and
univocity
of being. This is how we can
understand the eternal return
of the
efficient will as the ethical pillar of a Nietzschean
philosophy
of being. We asked ourselves above
in the Bergson section
how a
philosophy of "indetermination" can also be a philosophy of
being,
how can we have both becoming and being.
Here we have a
Nietzschean
answer. The dice throw, the moment
of becoming, of
indetermination,
is followed by dice falling back, the selection of
being,
which in turn leads to a new dice throw.
The ontological
selection
does not negate the indetermination of the dice throw, but
enhances
it, affirms it, just as the eternal return is an affirmation
of the
will.
Finally, pure being
is attained in Nietzsche, as an achieved
state,
a finality, and it is presented in the persona of Ariadne. The
love of
Ariadne for Dionysus is the affirmation of the eternal return,
it is a
double affirmation, the raising of the being of becoming to
its
highest power. Dionysus is the god
of affirmation, but it takes
Ariadne
to affirm affirmation itself: "Eternal affirmation of being,
eternally
I am your affirmation." [187, from Dionysian Dithyrambs]
Dionysus'
affirmation marks the being of becoming; therefore, since
Ariadne
takes Dionysus for the object of her affirmation, she marks
the
pure affirmation of being.
Ariadne's affirmation is a double
affirmation
("le ®oui¯ qui r‚pond au ®oui¯" ["MystŠre d'Ariane" 15]),
or more
properly it is a circular, infinite affirmation--affirmation
raised
to the n-th power. Ariadne's
creation of pure being is an
ethical
act, and act of love.
2.6:
The total critique as the foundation of being
On this ethical
terrain of the efficient, affirmative will,
Deleuze
reproposes the drama of the total critique, one last time, now
in
terms of valuation--as "transmutation". Deleuze presents the
critique
this time through a combination of refurbished Kantian and
Scholastic
terms. In effect, transmutation
moves from Kantianism to
Scholasticism
in that it moves from a critique of knowledge to a
foundation
of being. (13) Here, also, we find
Deleuze's final attack
on the
Hegelian dialectic, albeit in distant, indirect form. As we
have
already seen, the standpoint of the critique, free from its
transcendental
instance, is the will to power.
Now, the antagonistic
moment,
the pars destruens of the critique, is played by nihilism.
Deleuze
explains that nihilism is the ratio cognoscendi of the will to
power:
"what we in fact know of the will to power is suffering and
torture...."
[173, emphasis mine] Deleuze has
explained at great
length
that nihilism, as a project of interiority and consciousness,
is full
of pain and suffering; however, this same nihilism is that
which
reveals "all the values known or knowable up to the present."
[172] We gain knowledge of ourselves and our
present through the
suffering
of the negative will to power. As
Kant has taught us,
though,
there is a beyond to this knowledge: "We 'think' the will to
power
in a form distinct from that in which we know it. (Thus the
thought
of the eternal return goes beyond all the laws of our
knowledge.)"
[172-3] Nihilism itself is what
takes us beyond
interiority,
beyond suffering: the power of the negative in this
critique
does not operate an Hegelian "standing negation"; instead,
this
"completed" nihilism is an active will to nothingness--"self-
destruction,
active destruction." [174]
Completed nihilism is self-
destruction
in two senses: completion means that nihilism defeats
itself
so that the final act of the negative will to power is to
extinguish
itself; also, the completion of nihilism is the end of
"man"
as a constructed interiority, it is the suicide of the "last
man".
At the limit of this
destruction, at midnight, the focal point,
there
is a transformation, a conversion from knowledge to creation,
from
savage negation to absolute affirmation, from painful interiority
to
joyful exteriority: "the legislator takes the place of the
'scholar',
creation takes the place of knowledge itself and
affirmation
takes the place of all negations." [173] Affirmation, the
pars
construens of the will to power, is "the unknown joy, the unknown
happiness,
the unknown God" [173] which is beyond the ratio
cognoscendi. With the active completion of nihilism
and the
transmutation
to affirmation and creation, we are finally finished
with
negativity, interiority and consciousness as such. Exteriority
is the
condition for the foundation of being: the ratio essendi of the
will to
power, Deleuze explains, is affirmation.
These terms allow
Deleuze
to reformulate a statement of Zarathustra as an ontological
ethics:
"I love the one who makes use of nihilism as the ratio
cognoscendi
of the will to power, but who finds in the will to power a
ratio
essendi in which man is overcome and therefore nihilism is
defeated."
[174] Being is primary over
knowledge. Like Ariadne,
Zarathustra
loves being, the creation and affirmation of being.
Exteriority,
affirmation, the efficient will to power: this is the
ratio
which supports being and this is what Zarathustra loves.
Remark:
The end of Deleuze's anti-Hegelianism
We noted at the
outset of this chapter that one of the central
goals
in Deleuze's study of Nietzsche is to flesh out an alternative
to
dialectical opposition which would be an "opposition to the
dialectic
itself." [17] It is precisely
the dialectic's ability to
recuperate
opposition which is often used to critique the contemporary
anti-Hegelians. Judith Butler poses the question of an
opposition to
Hegelianism
very forcefully in her recent Subjects of Desire. "What
constitutes
the latest stage of post-Hegelianism as a stage
definitively
beyond the dialectic? Are these
positions still haunted
by the
dialectic, even as they claim to be in utter opposition to it?
What is
the nature of this 'opposition', and is it perchance a form
that
Hegel himself has prefigured?" [176]
Butler answers these
questions
in strictly Hegelian fashion: "references to a 'break' with
Hegel
are almost always impossible, if only because Hegel has made the
very
notion of 'breaking with' into the central tenet of the
dialectic."
[183-4] From this perspective,
opposition itself is
essentially
dialectical, and hence "opposition to the dialectic
itself"
can only mean a reinforcement or repetition of the dialectic.
In
other words, any effort to be an "other" to Hegelianism can be
effectively
recuperated as an "other" within Hegelianism.
Through our reading
of Deleuze's Nietzsche we have explored two
points
which could constitute adequate responses to Butler's
proposition. Deleuze's elaboration of the total
critique provides us
a
direct response by showing that there are two different types of
opposition. Dialectical opposition is a restrained,
partial attack
which
seeks to "preserve and maintain" its enemy; it is a sort of low-
intensity
warfare which can be prolonged indefinitely in a "standing
negation". In effect, the dialectic pillages and
reforms the essence
of its
predecessor through a partial critique.
Therefore, the
"breaking
with" which is a central tenet of the dialect can only be a
partial
rupture, preserving the continuity which characterizes the
prefix
"post". Non-dialectical
opposition, however, is that which
operates
a complete rupture with its opponent through an unrestrained,
savage
attack. The result of this
profound opposition is a separation
which
prohibits the recuperation of relations.
It would be a mistake,
then,
to call this Nietzschean position "post-Hegelian", as if it
built
on, reformed or completed Hegelianism.
Deleuze's claim that the
Nietzschean
total critique is a "post-Kantian" position--it corrects
the
Kantian errors to realize the goals of Kant's own original
project. Kant's critique allows established
values to persist on the
transcendental
plane as essence: this exception is a result of Kant's
incompleteness
and this is the fundamental error which Nietzsche
corrects. In Hegel's dialectical critique,
however, the established
values
which are posed as essence are presented as the central
protagonist
of the critical drama. It is
impossible to conceive of
the
Nietzschean total critique and its unrestrained pars destruens as
a
reform of this position--it can only appear as profound rupture. At
this
point, we can clearly see the need for Deleuze's care in
positioning
the relation to proximate and fundamental enemies.
Deleuze's
Nietzsche can appear as "post-Kantian" but only "anti-
Hegelian":
the difference is between reform and rupture. Posed in
historiographic
terms, Butler's Hegelian claim is that there are only
continuous
lines in the history of philosophy, reformed to a greater
or
lesser extent as differences of degree.
Deleuze, on the contrary
insists
that the history of philosophy contains real discontinuities,
veritable
differences of nature, and that discontinuity is the only
way of
posing the Hegel-Nietzsche relationship: "There is no possible
compromise
between Hegel and Nietzsche." [195]
Deleuze offers us,
however, a second response. As we
have
proceeded
through the evolution of Deleuze's thought we have seen the
terrain
on which he can address Hegelianism constantly shrinking and
we have
seen that Deleuze's attacks on the dialectic have become more
and
more indirect. The Bergsonian
attack on the One and the Multiple
and the
Nietzschean attack on the master-slave relation are carried
out on
planes completely removed from Hegel's discourse. Deleuze's
strategy
of developing a total opposition to the dialectic is
accompanied
by another strategy to move away from the dialectic, to
forget
the dialectic. We have arrived at
the end of Deleuze's anti-
Hegelianism. Even though rhetoric against the
dialectic will
reappear,
in Diff‚rence et r‚p‚tition for example, it is only to
repeat
the arguments developed in these early studies, not develop new
ones. The development of a total opposition
to the dialectic seems to
have
been an intellectual cure for Deleuze: it has exorcised Hegel
and
created an autonomous plane for thought, one which is no longer
anti-Hegelian,
but which quite simply has forgotten the dialectic.
2.7:
Pathos and joy: toward a practice of affirmative being
A philosophy of joy
is necessarily a philosophy of practice.
Throughout
Deleuze's reading of Nietzsche we have the impression that
practice
plays a central role, but the terms never come out clearly.
It is
very clear, on the other hand, what Deleuze's Nietzsche is not:
it is
not an investigation of consciousness, it is not only a
reformation
of the understanding or an emendation of the intellect; in
short,
it is not the construction of an interiority, but a creation of
exteriority
through the power of affirmation.
The exteriority of
thought
and of the will, however, is not yet an adequate
characterization,
because Nietzschean affirmation is also corporeal.
We have
one last passage to make in our reading of Deleuze's
Nietzsche:
from will to appetite and desire, from exteriority to
practice.
Deleuze's elaboration
of Nietzschean exteriority rediscovers
a
Spinozian proposition: "will to power is manifested as a power to
be
affected (pouvoir d'ˆtre affect‚)." [62, modified] (14) Spinoza
conceived
a positive relation between a body's power to be affected
and its
power to effect. "The more
ways a body could be affected the
more
force it had." [62] Two
aspects of this Spinozian conception
interest
Deleuze in the context of Nietzsche's work. First, this
power
to be affected never deals with a possibility, but it is always
actualised
in relations with other bodies.
Secondly, this power
defines
the receptivity of a body not as a passivity but as "an
affectivity,
a sensibility, a sensation." [62]
What this notion
affords
Deleuze is a means of posing inner experience as a mode of
corporeal
exteriority. The receptivity of a
body is closely tied to
its
active external expression: affectivity is an attribute of the
body's
power. In Nietzsche as in Spinoza,
then, pathos does not
involve
a body "suffering" passions; on the contrary, pathos involves
the
affects which mark the activity of the body, the creation which is
joy.
To arrive at a
practical conception of joy, however, this rich
sense
of the power of the affectivity of bodies must be accompanied by
an
elaboration of the activity of bodies in practice. The very last
section
of Deleuze's Nietzsche approaches this problem. "Nietzsche's
practical
teaching is that difference is happy; that multiplicity,
becoming
and chance are adequate objects of joy by themselves and that
only
joy returns. ... Not since
Lucretius has the critical enterprise
which
characterizes philosophy been taken so far (with the exception
of
Spinoza). Lucretius exposes the
trouble of the soul and those who
need it
to establish their power -- Spinoza exposes sorrow, all the
causes
of sorrow and all those who found their power at the heart of
this
sorrow -- Nietzsche exposes ressentiment, bad conscience and the
power
of the negative which serves as their principle...." [190] This
history
of practical philosophies of joy (Lucretius, Spinoza,
Nietzsche)
is very suggestive. However, in
Deleuze's Nietzsche there
are two
elements which block the development of a practical struggle
against
the sad passions: elements which direct us forward to the
study
of Spinoza. First, Deleuze's
"impersonal" reading of Nietzsche
blocks
the development of a theory of practice because it limits our
conception
of agents to the interplay of forces.
We have noted above
that
when Deleuze asks the question "qui?" he avoids all
"personalist"
references,
but looks rather to a specific will to power. At this
point,
however, we need to look not only to the will but also to the
appetite
and desire: the attributes of a practical agent must be
personalist--for
a theory of practice we do not need an individualist
theory,
but we do need a corporeal and desiring agent. Spinoza is
exemplary
in this regard when he defines the agent of practice, the
"Individual",
as a body or group of bodies recognized for its common
movement,
its common behavior, its common desire. [Ethics 2P13Def] A
corporeal
agent such as Spinoza's can lead a struggle against the sad
passions
and discover a practice of joy.
Secondly, Deleuze's
Nietzsche
fails to arrive at a theory of practice because it does not
arrive
at a conception of a spatial or social synthesis. The
Nietzschean
synthesis, the eternal return, is a temporal synthesis
which
projects the will to power in time.
Spinoza will show us,
however,
that a practice of joy takes place on the plane of sociality:
Spinoza's
common notions, for example, provide the terms for an
expansive
collectivity, for the creation of society and thus a
powerful
weapon against the sad passions.
This final section of
Nietzsche
and Philosophy, then, is already looking forward to the next
passage
in Deleuze's evolution: from Nietzschean exteriority to
Spinozian
practice.
Notes
1 - The Nietzschean charges against
Kant here are similar to those
which
Gramsci wages against the traditional intellectual: Kant
presents
as objective knowledge and morality what is really serving
the
interests of the forces of order because he fails to bring the
ground
of his analysis and the interests it serves into question.
2 - This is one example when Deleuze
appears a little over-zealous in
his
attack on Hegel. "... si l'on
considŠre l'ensemble de l'histoire
de la
philosophie, on cherche en vain quel philosophe a pu proc‚der
par la
question ®qu'est-ce que?¯ ... Peut-ˆtre Hegel, peut-ˆtre n'y a-
t-il
que Hegel, pr‚cis‚ment parce que sa dialectique, ‚tant celle de
l'essence
vide et abstraite, ne se s‚pare pas du mouvement de la
contradiction."
[92] In the discussion following
this presentation,
F.
Alqui‚ chastises Deleuze on this count: "je regrette le rejet, un
peu
rapide, de la question ®Qu'est-ce que?¯, et je ne saurais accepter
ce
qu'il nous a dit, en nous intimident un peu, au d‚but, … savoir
qu'aucun
philosophe ne s'‚tait pos‚ cette question, sauf Hegel." [104]
Alqui‚
argues, rightly I believe, that Hegel cannot be singled out so
easily
and that many philosophers (Plato, Leibniz, Kant, etc.) have
emphasized
the question "Qu'est-ce que?" in vary degrees and in
diverse
contexts.
3 - In this Nietzschean context,
Deleuze presents the argument as
if it
were part of an attack on causality per se; but it is not
difficult
to bring this back to the idea of internal cause developed
in the
Bergson section above. Indeed, the
argument becomes clearer if
we read
it as an affirmation of internal cause rather than an attack
on
causality tout court. I would
argue, further, that Nietzsche's
entire
polemic against causality could be read productively as a
polemic
against the external cause and an affirmation of the internal
cause. For an example of Nietzsche's argument,
see Twilight of the
Idols,
"The Four Great Errors".
4 - With this polemical proposition of
efficient power, Deleuze is
participating
in a long philosophical tradition.
The ultimate source,
perhaps,
can be found in Aristotle's distinction between potential
being
and actual being in Metaphysics, Book 5.
However, this argument
can be
found in various forms throughout the materialist tradition,
from
Ockham to Marx. In fact, Spinoza's
distinction between potestas
and potentia,
which plays such a central role in Negri's reading,
correlates
very closely with Nietzsche's usage of slave power and
master
power. Later, when we consider
Negri's reading of Spinoza, we
will
make an extensive investigation of the metaphysical and political
implications
of this distinction.
5 - This evaluation of the two natures
of power is what brings
Deleuze's
Nietzsche very close to Spinoza: "By virtue and power
[potentia]
I mean the same thing." [Ethics 4D8]
6 - Mario Tronti observes that
precisely what is lacking in Hegel's
master-slave
dialectic is the question of value.
This is why Marx
needs
to combine a critique of Hegel with a critique of Ricardo to
arrive
at his notion of labor value. [133-43]
7 - "... il y a certainement chez
l'auteur une sorte de ressentiment
vis-…-vis
de la philosophie h‚g‚lienne qui parfois lui dicte des pages
p‚n‚trantes,
mais parfois aussi risque de le tromper ...." [353] Wahl
is
certainly correct in pointing to this danger. Deleuze's defense
rests
on his development of a non-dialectical opposition, which would
not be
a ressentiment but a pure aggression.
8 - KojŠve's reading is perhaps the
most pure version of a
personalist
interpretation of the confrontation between the master
and the
slave: "un individu-humain se pr‚sente … un individu-humain."
[17]
9 - I can imagine an argument by which
Hegel could be defended
against
the charge that slave contents are being attributed to essence
here,
but the reading of this passage as an affirmation of labor as
essence
is so widespread in the Hegelian tradition that I think it is
worth
considering this point.
10 - Nietzsche and Marx are united
precisely on a Spinozian
proposition:
the essence of being is power. [Ethics 1P34] One might
well
object at this point that in my argument Nietzsche and Marx are
not
attacking essence per se, but substituting one essence for
another. This is true. I would maintain that just as Nietzsche's
arguments
against causality should be read as arguments against
the
external causality in favor of the internal cause, the attack on
essence
is the attack on an external form of essence. The will to
power
is the essence of being.
11 - The "refusal of work"
was not only a slogan but also one of the
central
analytical categories of Italian Marxism in the 60s and 70s.
Just as
Marx discovered surplus value as the general term which
envelops
the various forms of exploitation (rent, profit, etc.), the
"refusal
of work" is the general term which comprehends the various
forms
of proletarian resistance, be it constructive or destructive,
individual
or collective: emigration, work stoppage, organized
strikes,
sabotage, etc. We should be very
clear, however, that the
refusal
of work is not the negation of productivity or creativity;
rather,
it is the refusal of a relationship of exploitation. In the
terms
of the tradition, it is the affirmation of proletarian
productive
force and the denial of capitalist relations of production.
11 - In regards to the theme of the
attack on essence and the joy of
destruction,
the connections between Nietzsche and Lenin are very
profound. For an analysis of the fundamental role
of "smashing" in
Lenin,
see Toni Negri, "Crisis of the Planner State" in Revolution
Retrieved. For an explanation of Lenin's "art
of insurrection", see
Negri, La
fabbrica della strategia.
12 - There is certainly a wide-variety
of differing accounts of what
'68 was
and what it should have been. The
reason I think that
Vogliamo
tutto best serves our purposes here is that it gives direct
expression
to the desires of the workers in action better than any
other
source I have found. In any case,
even if I were to hold that
this
account were exemplary of the events of '68, I would not claim
that it
were representative. Also, I
should point out that just as it
is a
particular reading of Nietzsche we are following here, that
defined
by Deleuze's selection, it is also a particular interpretation
of
Marx, that of Italian "workerism" from Quaderni rossi to Potere
operaio.
13 - Jean Wahl admires Deleuze's
formulation of the will to
nothingness
as the ratio cognoscendi of the will to power in general
and the
affirmation of the eternal return as its ratio essendi, but he
finds
it somewhat inappropriate for the Nietzschean context. "Mais
n'y
a-t-il pas l… un expos‚ peut-ˆtre trop scolastique en apparence de
la
pens‚e nietzsch‚ene?" [378]
Wahl is certainly right in noting that
Deleuze
is bringing in an element external to Nietzsche's thought,
but, as
I hope I have already shown, reference to the Scholastics can
help
bring to light the ontological foundation of Nietzsche's thought
(in the
analysis of power, of will and of causality).
14 - Tomlinson translates "pouvoir
d'ˆtre affect‚" as "capacity to
be affected". "Capacity" is a very poor
choice because the "pouvoir
d'ˆtre
affect‚" does not imply any possibility, instead it is always
actual.