[D-G] Affect

[Jan Ekkelenkamp]

On Tue, 21 Apr 2009 00:34:41 -0400
  Sebastian Berry <berry.sebastian at gmail.com> wrote:
>  This is where the Uexkull is very useful (but as someone
>  said it might be
>  hard to find, I forget I have access to such a good
>  library). Its on animal
>  ethology and describes animals based on their Umwelt
>  (lifeworld) which is
>  defined by their different capacities to be affected and
>  act. The tick is
>  the oft repeated example: it can sense light and climb a
>  tree, then it waits
>  for a certain chemical in mammal sweat so it can fall of
>  the branch onto the
>  animal, then its sense the warmth of the mammal to find a
>  place to suck its
>  blood, then it falls off, lays eggs, and dies. So the
>  world of the tick and
>  its power are defined by its capacities to be affected.
>  Through spinoza you
>  can get into the question of whether the results of the
>  capacities to be
>  affected is good or bad. as manuel delanda mentions in a
>  lecture somewhere
>  on youtube, certain nutrients are good for a plant but at
>  higher thresholds
>  they become poisonous, so its all a question of affect
>  and variable
>  gradients and such.
>  the might be somewhat incoherent, I'd like to discuss
>  this some more, but
>  for now its just a quick break from essay writing.
>
>
>  On Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 10:15 PM, <mcnau at yorku.ca> wrote:
>
>  > Greetings,
>  >
>  > This is also an area I am interested in. Thanks Paul
>  for the reference. I
>  > haven't had a chance to look at this yet but our
>  library has a copy.
>  >
>  > I found on line, possibly through this list I can't
>  remember now, a lecture
>  > by
>  > Deleuze given at Vincennes "Transcripts on Spinoza's
>  Concept of Affect"
>  > transcribed and trans. also I imagine by Emilie and
>  Julien Deleuze.
>  > http://www.webdeleuze.com/php/sommaire.html
>  >
>  > In this Deleuze unpacks Spinoza in a more systematic
>  way but I still have
>  > questions which I'd be grateful for feedback on. If
>  affect is the
>  > 'ceaseless
>  > variation of being' that Spinoza describes how do I
>  make that intelligible?
>  > How
>  > does one understand 'the force of existing or the power
>  of acting' that
>  > Deleuze
>  > attributes to affect?
>  >
>  > best,
>  > Susan
>  >
>  >
>  >



Your respondee has put it quite well.Just one further
point. You do the support list on forces in variaiton and a
mixed bag turns up. So it is to be recommended that it be
borne in mind what the Nietschze idea was. The exception to
the rule is the (creative)essence of being. Having said
that, the solid, *metronomic safety gear*, sometimes (too
generally) called traditional values is a support, baseline
type.

Other supports found within the ceaselessnes, although not
producing fireworks, is still support. Lines from famous
writers, good, tried and tested and respected although I
must admit, those are not the usual quoted lines from Tom,
Dick and Harry. One finds oneself in a lonely kind of
dialogue as one goes through life, with them. That does
help and all in all, the tragic element is Dionysian.
And the *metronome* not to be thrown out the window, with
the bathwater of rule governed conservativism,is still yet
not in league with those affects and the link is still the
ceaselessness of affect, upon which experimentation as an
propositional attitude is the cognitive content,the
body-mind link. If may put it that way.

Jan