Critique and Individuation

Critique cannot be contained; that is to say that critique is a form of thought which is constantly in motion and is never set to become an actuality. Institutionalized systems of thinking, like those established by revolutionary critical thought, are stagnant by virtue of them being institutionalized even if they originated in critical thought. Critique remains endless unlike these institutions. The word “endless” refers to critique having no end or limit. This is implied by its constant motion. This endlessness, also, describes the fact that critique has no end; as in that it has no goal. Critique never ends, and isn’t for an end. Critique is the spirit of misfortune and those who suffer. Critique is the movement of the underprivileged. Critique is the cry of the miserables who set on criticizing  for-becoming other than themselves. The for-becoming of critique in this case isn’t its goal, it is the structure of thinking of those haunted by critique. This means that those who criticize do so for-becoming other than what they despise about their misfortunate existence. They want to move from their state of being to another and that is what allows critique to haunt them into moving. They embody this critique only when they move and mobilize. Once they become, the for-becoming structure comes to an end and critique ceases. The specter of critique is, thus, fueled by disparity and by the tilt in the plane of existence that impel some into misery and others into nourishment. Rather than using the word “inequality” which is semantically dependent upon the word “equality”, this essay will refer to the phenomenon of inequality freely and without any presupposed inherited meaning by invoking the tilt. This essay will demonstrate how disparity is only visible to those haunted by critique, and how critique creates free individuals. It will, also, describe this tilt, the miserables, and the specter of critique in an attempt to visualize a general picture of how we benefit from, perceive of, incorporate in our lives, and get polarized by this tilt.

In the previous exposition of the always moving specter of dissatisfaction and critique, one comes across the tilt. This tilt is existential; meaning that it pertains to the field in which the events of life or existence occur. For one to get a direct grasp of this tangible tilt in this plane of occurrence, one should direct their reflection unto themselves and their most immediate action. This article is being written by somebody to another. This is very unproblematic and very much natural. However, one who is haunted by the specter of critique (i.e. one who wants to move away from the place they occupy within this field of occurrence) will find problems in the case of writing this article. The writer occupies a position of disadvantage in comparison to the position of those who are on the other end. The writer is being evaluated and subjected to unmitigated judgment of their ability to be a writer. The writer exists as a writer, and the receiver of the article exists as a reader. The writer’s most intimate way of living (i.e. being a writer) is being put to question. The paper is the event, the writer is deprived into misery, and the reader is nourished by the writer’s acknowledgment of their power. The disparity in the way these two groups participate in the coming-into-being of the event results in this tilt in the field through which this event occurs (i.e. the field of existence). The tilt is visible so long as there is critique. The general and normal state of affairs is stagnant and each participant by virtue of being a participant is in constant acceptance of the way they are within this field of occurrence. Once a participant wants to move, to dellocate, or to refuse they become critical and are able to see the tilt and the resultant deprivation of being. Karl Marx is a prime example of this, especially in “The Communist Manifesto” when he says:

These laborers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market. Owing to the extensive use of machinery, and to the division of labor, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and, consequently, all charm for the workman (79).

The laborer, or the participant, is deprived of owning their lives and hence they are deprived of their being. They lose the relation they have to their work and their production. This results in a quasi-human entity that is continuously used and is treated as means. As Marx puts it and as will be explained later, the individual is no more. That is the result of the tilt that deallocates the factors of production from the proletariat to the bourgeoisie in this Marxist class analysis.

The question of who is a participant is very crucial to this analysis. A participant within the field of occurrence is never a unified entity as will be demonstrated. A participant is a complex multifaceted entity that has different faces in relation to different forms of control. Within a factory, the worker is a participant. However, the being of this worker is many things. It is temporal, spatial, productive and other things. Every aspect of this participative existence is put in a tilted relation with a controlling entity. Each of the worker’s participative existence are placed in enclosed relations that are:

To concentrate; to distribute in space; to order in time; to compose a productive force within the dimension of space-time whose effect will be greater than the sum of its component forces (Deleuze 1992).

This is the case only within one field of occurrence, the factory. However, there are many more places, like schools, prisons, hospitals, and families, where this tilt exists and divides the participant into forms of participation that allows for control and deprivation. Within such environments of control and manipulation one can spot enclosure as means of that control. In that regard, Deleuze says:

Enclosures are molds, distinct castings, but controls are a modulation, like a self-deforming cast that will continuously change from one moment to the other, or like a sieve whose mesh will transmute from point to point. This is obvious in the matter of salaries: ... the corporation has replaced the factory, and the corporation is a spirit, a gas ... the corporation constantly presents the brashest rivalry as a healthy form of emulation, an excellent motivational force that opposes individuals against one another and runs through each, dividing each within (1992).

These enclosures are, in terms of this paper’s analysis, relational tilts that direct one of the many forms of participation of the participant towards an entity that is to flourish from this deprivation-into-misery of the participant. This deprivation-into-misery is the self-deforming cast resulting from the modulation or control. That is to say that for the participant to be divided into many forms of participation; they need to have their actions related to an entity and just that entity, hence it is enclosed and deformed by this entity’s rules and regulations. This is the case in the factory’s organization of those participating in it as workers and only as such. Also, a mobile application deals with a need and only this need. It benefits from the participant’s enclosed participation. The participant is continuously deprived of themselves into the constant virtualization of their being into different needs and wants that are never actualized. Deleuze gives the example of salaries that are obtained competitively, where an idea of entitlement overcomes the fact of the deprivation-into-misery. The participant is set to fight for participation itself, then for more participation, and hence more involvement in the pursuit of actualizing the constantly virtual existence within this field of occurrence. This phenomenon is illustrated when looking into the continuum of involvement that never ceases and is constantly pressing the participant to participate:

In the societies of control one is never finished with anything—the corporation, the educational system, the armed services being metastable states coexisting in one and the same modulation, like a universal system of deformation (1992).

A participant is always furthering their participation: they want to earn more, they want to learn more, they want to serve more in the blind pursuit of being more because of the constant weakening of their own existence by the questioning (the putting-to-test) as in the case of the writer. A participant is one whose being is reduced to the extent of their participation in enclosed tilted relations. The participant participates to avoid that which is produced by participation itself. They participate to escape the inescapable imminent deprivation-into-misery (self-deformation) by the modulation or control.

The “healthy emulation” that hides the inhumane rivalry between a participant and others (also between the participant and themselves) is used to encourage him/her to more participation and more virtual satisfaction (which is equivalent to less actual satisfaction). It is a mechanism of adaptation, whereby the tilt justifies its skewed nature by adapting everything to its ownmost dynamic of regulating enclosed environments. Charles Tilly describes adaptation to be:

an extremely general social mechanism that figures widely outside the realm of inequality. It has two main components: the invention of procedures that ease day-to-day interaction, and the elaboration of valued social relations around existing divisions. In the absence of concerted resistance by members of subordinate categories and exogenous changes in the host organization, all parties build multiple routines around the categorical boundary and thus acquire interests in its maintenance; they alter scripts and accumulate satisfying local knowledge (97).

Adaptation is the prolonged permanent self-deformation of a very internalized accepted death of the individual. This adaptation is the epitome of deformation, where the way things are is taken to be as the natural order of things in the immediate field of occurrence. The participant is sentenced to participation timelessly. One has to notice how this participation is timeless, not limitless. A limitless thing indicates a freedom to roam that thing which is limitless. However, a timeless thing is blatantly homogenous and senselessly stagnant, for time is the structure of change and that thing that is timeless can’t change. This is the case with this form of participation. One which maintains, is satisfied by, accepts, and ultimately adapts to the tilt.

The participant is underprivileged and is the one thrown into misery and dissatisfaction. The participant isn’t an individual but a dividual, where they are reduced to forms of participation in enclosed planes of occurrence (Deleuze 1992). The participant is always caught up in the process of trying to be what they are asked to be in each of the enclosed relational tilts. However, this process deprives them of being who they are. Dissatisfaction, resentment, and the desire to pick oneself up from unwavering misery instills a desire to move for-becoming other than miserable. The participant becomes haunted by the specter of critique, now they are in no way related to enclosed forms of control. The structure of for-becoming synthesizes the participant into an individuated ego that is able to see and judge for themselves. The for-becoming structure allows the participant to freely undermine the tilt that encloses them into relations of exploitation as in the points elicited by Marx and Tilly. In conclusion, I never benefit from inequality because I never exist within my daily enclosed interactions as a synthesized individual ego. Once I am critical, however, I can begin a process of individuation that only lasts as long as this I thinks within the for-becoming structure. Inequality is a skew in the form in which events take place, it instills enclosed relations between the participants and deprives them into being alienated and miserable. For it to be tackled the participant has to be resentful towards their own divided ego and let themselves embody the specter of critique. That way one could be free to act, in the way they see fit,  for-becoming other than their miserable timeless participation. Such would indicate that there should be “no need to fear or hope, but only to look for new weapons” (1992).

Citations

Deleuze, Gilles. “Postscript on the Societies of Control.” October, vol. 59, 1992, pp. 3–7. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/778828. Accessed 15 Oct. 2022.

Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. The Communist Manifesto, edited by Jeffrey C. Isaac, Yale University Press, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/aucegypt/detail.action?docID=3420865.

Tilly, Charles. Durable Inequality. 1st ed., University of California Press, 1998. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1ppftj. Accessed 15 Oct. 2022.