I will answer your last post tomorrow

The Anti-Oedipus' desire could produce the collective unconsciousness beside the rule of Law, the fear of castration, or any other feature of the oedipal complex - it works against repressive modes of power.

Most people for example never get into serious conflict with the state because they know the rules. — Heiko

It is right as a common sence point of view. However, we cannot explain a variety of patterns
of human behaviour by the fear of panishment.

Deleuze and Guattari made up for the concept of "regimes of significants", following Nietzsche based on the ancient "sign(s) deep into the flesh" to signify ownership or subjection. With the internalization of those archaic structures we get to allegiance in advance. — Heiko

Most likely, Anti-Oedipus was written to counter the conceptions of the internalization of the repressive coercive regimes of violence as a primary mode of power.

a teacher does a lot of things. Wiping wet noses, for example. But his institutional task is mainly to evaluate, classify and exclude. These are forms of domination sustained with institutional violence. This violence is often symbolic when the teacher qualifies with categories of scholars: "He lacks intelligence", "She is lazy", "He is not prepared for...", "She lacks discipline". — David Mo

I think that a teacher’s major institutional task is to include her students into a wide educational network by using primarily nonviolent, seemingly objective professional pedagogical techniques
and methods. For Foucault, the ordinary and the habitual function as the hinges of power.
That is why his conceptualization of power was refuted and misunderstood.

What is new in him is that the same model included also behaviourism, a form of control that uses psychological techniques more than violence. — David Mo

I understand your intentions and the terminology you used. Yet, I think that Foucault's conceptional framework goes far beyond "behaviorism, a form of control that uses psychological techniques"
"A relationship of violence acts upon a body or upon things; it forces, it bends, it breaks, it destroys, or it closes off all the possibilities. In effect, what defines a relationship of power is that it is a mode of action that does not act directly and immediately on others. Instead, it acts upon their actions. Power is a question of ''government'', which does not refer only to political structures; rather, it designated the way in which the conduct of individuals or groups might be directed". (Michel Foucault, The Subject and Power). The panoptical disciplinary mechanisms of control included practices of surveillance, elicitation, and documentation. They constrain behavior precisely by making it more thoroughly knowable or known. But these new forms of knowledge also presuppose new kinds of constraints, which make people's actions visible and constrain them to speak. It is in this sense primarily that Foucault spoke of "power/knowledge." Further, ''government'' covers various non-disciplinary modes of power, such as bio-power, pastoral power, normalization power, etc.

What's your definition of violence?
— TheMadFool

Nullify or weaken someone's freedom by acting through physical force, threat, technique, hierarchy, ideology, manipulation of language or abuse of weakness. — David Mo

I think that Foucault conceived 'freedom' as produced and constructed , as the effect of power. That is why he was often criticized: his conception of power does not leave any space beyond its control.

Regarding the recent murder of George Floyd, the media appeared to be very quick to label the murder as the result of racism. — Pinprick

Actually, you did not accept my attempts to explain what happened. It is OK. Yet, after all, what is your own version (explanation)?

the media is partly to blame for the current state of affairs by labeling the murder an act of racism, with no evidence — Pinprick

Why did the media label the murder as an act of racism?

It could be productive to compare the ongoing protests with the 1968 civil unrest events in France. The events reached such a point that
the national government ceased to function after President Charles de Gaulle
fled France to Germany. Jean Baudrillard personally witnessed the events of 1968. Generally, his view of action-in-concert was close to Arendt's one. The revolutionary rupture, the 'break with causality' occurs when a process erupts secreting new systems of reference. The action of revolt cannot be derived from the order of causes. People, acting together, can create and sustain the new subjectivity and its forms of expression. In Baudrillard's perspective, the mass media played a decisive role in the defeat of the May 68 protest movement. "Mass media diffusion and contagion had nothing to do with the symbolic quality of the action. At the extreme, the subversive act is no longer produced except as a function of its reproducibility. It is no longer created; it is produced directly as a model. The symbolic has slipped from the order of the very production of meaning to that of its reproduction, which is always the order of power. "(Jean Baudrillard, Requiem for the Media). When the nationwide public had become in-formed by the mass media, the authentic solidarity and enthusiasm were lost. The media coverage has distorted and transformed the mode of action, reducing it to reproducing the various simulacra prototypes. Baudrillard’s view has entirely diverged from Butler’s conception as well as from the role of the media in the current civil unrest.

But the cable and broadcast networks--even a few overseas news teams--and major newspapers were all covering the same story in a generally similar way--video of people demonstrating, close-ups of signs, footage of fires, tear gas--all that. — Bitter Crank

This is a kind of media resonance effect, when various media platforms start covering the same story
in a similar way. One of the theories (of Niklas Luhmann) explains this phenomenon so that the media usually retains particular modes and patterns of covering, reporting and narrating.
Do you have any other thoughts? Do different media platforms try to support particular agenda?

One author who has studied this at length is Michel Foucault: the micro-powers, as he calls them. They are authoritarian systems that generate an apparently rational discourse aimed at social exclusion. This happens in the school, the family, the business, the asylum, the hospital, etc — David Mo

Is that possible to show explicitly that a teacher is exercising a sort of micro-power while teaching a class? She is not entirely focused on controlling the marginal students of her class.

Brutal and visible repression is no longer exercised -or not limited to- but rather a pressing and permanent control to modify behaviour. — David Mo

Yes, Foucault tried to make it clear that his conception of power has nothing in common with its
violent or repressive theories. The disciplinary, panoptical mode of power has been entirely different from the sovereign one.

In his view, the very concept of "man" and the sciences associated with it are a result of the techniques of controlling, monitoring and punishing the marginal elements of populations. — David Mo

So, for example, does a psychologist (who is completely unaware of being an instrument of power)
apply “the techniques of controlling, monitoring and punishing” while consulting a patient?

I get most of my news from Minnesota Public Radio, here in Minneapolis. MPR was very much social-justice-forward in their treatment of Floyd's death. Several call-in shows were reserved for black callers; white listeners were invited to not call -- just listen. Their reporters accepted the narrative that police regularly murdered black people -- citing some cases in the Twin Cities and cases in other cities over a few years time. — Bitter Crank

Do you think that Minnesota Public Radio reporting was decisive factor in forming the
nationwide narrative?
Also, do you remember the initial media coverage of the Ferguson events of August 9,10 2014?
It could be interesting to compare to understand if the media's approach has changed.

I think I disagree here. Why would video evidence of a cop blatantly killing a person unprovoked not qualify as breaking news? The addition of racism into the equation adds drama and sensationalism, but isn’t needed to further the media’s agenda. — Pinprick

people are not powerless or forced to repeat the stereotype. The people involved in the first two steps could have chosen otherwise. Therefore they are still responsible for doing so. — Pinprick

Most likely, you would not ask the New York Stock Exchange broker to make decisions according
to some moral or religious system of values. They have to be effective and make money. Similarly, people who made the critical decision of the addition of racism, could not decide differently, considering all their business environment. Anyway, thank you for the productive dialogue!:smile:

having media outlets clearly labeled as opinion programming would help. There is a certain air of authority and accuracy that goes along with the term “news” that has now become misleading. — Pinprick

There is the radical approach to the media that I appreciate:
https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=1302
Niklas Luhmann proposed that the media constitutes an autopoietic system with its own independent
self-referential programs and quolities.

Objectivity cannot seem to be found, and this results in the public being burdened with the need to seek out varying opinions and draw their own conclusions. — Pinprick

According to Luhmann, objectivity never existed in the world of social reality.

Aren’t humans completely in control of what gets covered/reported, and how? — Pinprick

To answer this, I would like to get back to your OP.

Regarding the recent murder of George Floyd, the media appeared to be very quick to label the murder as the result of racism. — Pinprick

Indeed, the media was swift. Likely, it is possible to represent what happened using the following scheme, dividing it into steps:
1) Selection 2) Prioritizing 3) The way of covering/reporting (labelling) 4) Maintaining the created momentum
5) Back-Referencing, so that all previous steps, all that was constructed looks as a set of real facts.
Probably, the selection was made on the base of the corporate policy, as well as aspiration to advance and to shape particular political agenda. The policy is debated and renovated by the small group of big bosses, and it is entirely out of public awareness. So, most likely, the decisions to choose the scene of a murder as the breaking news was made by a small group, following the corporate policy of a few of the biggest media platforms, and the rest of them just followed it. 3) “Labeling the murder as an act of racism, with no evidence” – the critical point! Note that without this ‘labeling,’ there would not be “the breaking news,” so that 1) and 2) would become pointless. We may think, that steps 1) and 2) at list provide an evidence of existence of a group of responsible humans. Unfortunately, this stereotyped narrative – about racist evil white cop (Step 5) had already existed and in-formed steps 1) and 2). There is the shortcut circuit of what was previously constructed and the earliest stages of selection/reporting/covering. So, all the process has been almost automatized. Probably, the vast majority of the media personal do their jobs with a high degree of self-awareness, intentionality, and motivation. Yet, they retain the same patterns and schemes of narrating, expressing, reporting, covering, selecting, editing, etc. To verify it, you could watch various programs of a few mainstream media platforms for a while. That is why I think that the media performs automatically.

what needs to be analysed is the way in which this symbolic violence is linked to the real violence of the institutions with the myriad of almost invisible micro-violences that make up the society of imperial capitalism. — David Mo

Could you bring a few concrete examples?

we must turn here to a philosopher who is unjustly forgotten today, Jean-Paul Sartre.This oblivion is due in large part to the fact that he dedicated himself to attacking institutional violence as a class phenomenon and to defending the counter-violence of the dominated - with more or less success. — David Mo

How Sartre's perspective on violence was different from the 'classical' marxist view?

Would making such a distinction be a legitimate or lawless act? Or would it come down to whose opinion is which? — Heiko

You are right. To make it clear, it is necessary to bring a more rigorous framework. First, I do not think that somebody's private opinion is worth qualifying as a legitimate or lawless act of violence; unless, by voicing it, one hurts somebody or effectuates some considerable effect. Yet, if one can bring argumentation,
sufficient enough to convince you (and maybe somebody else), it is indeed a performative act.

For example, when a judge calls something "criminal", we all know that this might be quite relative, for example depending on where you are. Would that make any difference? — Heiko

Once again, my mere opinion about a judge sentence is not important at all. To make it an act, I must demonstrate why this particular sentence is justified or not so that I would be able to question (or confirm) the judge or judicial system authority. Or, I need to apply a
sophisticated rhetoric to make you believe me. In this case, it would be symbolic violence. This concept allows us to distinguish usually indiscernible violence and to avoid the simplicity of the banal dichotomy.

The contemporary society maintains the social order without the firm support of dominating ideological or religious authorities. Also, the state’s exercise of coercive methods of power has considerably diminished. Therefore, to explain ‘how society is possible,’ Bourdieu has abandoned Benjamin and Schmitt’ theories of violence related to the conception of repressive power. Instead, he has developed the theory of symbolic violence. To a certain degree, it is similar to the Marxist idea of ‘false consciousness.’ Yet, people do not merely internalize the discourses of the dominant. They accept and absorb the norms, structures, and hierarchies of the social settings through the engagement in complex dispositions of their social existence. Symbolic violence targets and forms an individual’s ‘durable principles of judgment and practice’ (the habitus).

So do you think the media should at least be held partly responsible for what’s now occurring? Should the media’s methods change? — Pinprick

All in all, I completely understand your perspective. Yet, I think that we cannot change the media. When you write: “the media is partly to blame for the current state of affairs,” you probably underestimate the role of the media in the construction of our social reality. It continuously exercises the excess of dominating creative power, and performs in a machinic, automotive mode, without personal human intentions. Therefore, the media is always entirely to blame for the state of affairs. Practically, we could try to understand how the media functions and to regulate our own degree of involvement and engagement.

It’s strange. You would think that outright murder by the very people charged with protecting us would warrant a public outcry in itself, but it seems the outcry is much greater if the murder is considered to be racially motivated — Pinprick

To me the media’s role in this is more fuel for the fire. — Pinprick

The media role is to transcend and transform any possible struggle, any potential or actual conflict, to cover the entire field of all decisive events. The particular content of the unfolding event is less important. There is the singular paradoxical phenomenon of our days: the media, together with the neoliberal elite, compose vanguard of the struggle for the set of the most noblest aims. There are multiple effects of this situation: the elite and the media reinforce their power and influence, but they also advance the accelerating societal changes.

I’m asking about the consequences of operating in this way, specifically considering all that has transpired with this incident. Thoughts? — Pinprick

The media is just one of the factors of the entire dynamic. There is the double crisis of economy's shutdown and pandemic's effects as well as the continuous erosion of trust in traditional institutions. Since Trump was elected, there has been an escalation of the struggle around his presidency's legitimacy. We see the dramatic increase of the partisanship of the mainstream media. Probably, since the stakes are so high now, the leading media platforms are further diverging from the facts reporting. For example, yesterday CNN presented the unnecessary excess of power when peaceful protesters have been pushed away from the White House so that Trump could pose beside St. John Episcopal Church. According to the Fox News version, Trump has restored law and order by visiting the church that was set on fire during the previous night protests.
The singular event occurs in the US right now. Is that possible to obtain credible information about what is going on?

I think that the media is partly to blame for the current state of affairs by labeling the murder an act of racism, with no evidence (at least that I’m aware of) other than the fact that the race of the murderer and victim were different. The question I have is whether or not the incident should have been labeled as racist. Even if it was a racist attack, which the evidence seems to be lacking in my opinion, would it have been better to simply label it as a murder in order to prevent the chaos that has ensued? Or, does the media’s responsibility to report accurately outweigh the possible consequences? — Pinprick

The media has its agenda: it always tries to engage the most significant possible audience for as long as possible. To achieve this goal, the media utilities various techniques and strategies: first, they select the so-called ‘brute’ fact to report. Then, the media frame this fact to be enveloped in the recognizable plot and to invoke the familiar narrative. Even if they do not label the chosen fact directly, they can easily integrate it into a favorable context. Further, the news should appear as the novel and extraordinal ‘breaking news’. A collective of professionals supports the current breaking news on-air and is ready to drop it at any time to start the next one. Often, a media platform promotes a clear partisan perspective. Yet, it is even much more effective in imposing a particular cluster of opinions and preferences when it looks like reporting the neutral, unbiased news.

The virtual is best understood as a "problem" that has ontological standing. It is distinguished from the actual, which, by contrast, can be understood to be the corresponding 'solution' to the problem. — StreetlightX

There is one more way to think of Deleuze’s virtuality. When heat is applied to a tranquil liquid, the liquid’s equilibrium is disturbed. In classical thermodynamics, a physical system tends toward maximum entropy, which is the highest degree of stability and homogeneity under existing conditions. In theory, when the heat is increased, the liquid loses its stability but retains its homogeneity so that molecules are moving chaotically with increased speed. But, if the heat is increased at a specific rate, a threshold is reached, and an order spontaneously arises out of chaos. A pattern of a system of vortexes appears. So, the liquid now is
unstable, but it is no longer homogeneous, and the system has moved from entropic equilibrium. Yet, its tendencies to retain a balance do not disappear. There are two virtual attractors (or dimensions): the constraint to dissipate heat and return to thermal equilibrium, and the restriction to lose momentum to gravity and return to kinetic equilibrium. The liquid contracts the two virtual states into its actuality, becoming a kind of individualized singularity. Each vortex has a population of locally correlated particles, but its molecules are also associated with all the liquid particles. The new whole acquires particular sensitivity to the variation of its determinants. There is the set of independent variables (a phase space) so that the sum total of the system transformations could be represented as a trajectory or a fractal. The virtual and the actual are co-resonating systems. They necessarily duplicate and effectuate each other. Actualized, the metastable order decreases the effects of the virtual. But, at a threshold state, the virtual intensifies, and the actual weakens at a bifurcation moment. In reality, the process of actualization is complicated by many fluctuations and indiscernible factors. Even in the considered simple example, interference between attractors adds an element of chance, so that the choice of the actualized state at the bifurcation moment is often unpredictable. A mutual immanence of the virtual and the actual is a particular synthesis, the coexistence that transcends its genesis and actuality. When we move from physical systems to social ones, the complexity increases, and the indeterminacy heightens. Therefore, based on the differentiation of the virtual and the actual, Deleuze’s social ontology has been an act of audacity.

At stake in this is the status of emotion: is it an 'origin' - a brute biological given that is simply 'activated' in certain circumstances - or is it instead a 'result' - a bio-social 'production' that helps orient one's actions and is the outcome of an evaluative process? It's this latter view which I want to outline and discuss here.

The basic idea behind this second view of emotion is that emotion is two-pronged, as it were. At the 'base', biological level, what is 'immediately' felt is a kind of generic, non-specific 'affect', which simply indicates both intensity (heightened or dull feeling - 'urgency' of affect) and valence ('good' or 'bad' feeling, something threatening or rewarding). The second step in the 'production' of emotion however, is an evaluative one - a matter of categorising this initial affect (as sadness, as anger, as joy...), a categorisation which takes place on the basis of a range of bio-cultural considerations. — StreetlightX

Probably, to conceive an individual emotional sphere in relation to socially determined cognitive and affective processes, we could use Simondon’s approach. An individual and society are never
in a relationship as one term to another, as though two independent essences interact with each other. On the contrary, they are in the ongoing process of reciprocal individuation. “The individual only enters into a relationship with the social through the social.
The psychosocial personality is contemporaneous with the genesis of the group, which is individuation.” (Simondon, Individuation: psychic and collective). The process of social mediation has been rapidly changing over time. Benedict Andersen, in his book “Imagined Communities,” proposed that the nation was created due to a sense of “horizontal comradeship.” The mass mechanical production of printed works united people through the interiorization of literary culture. Before Anderson, a similar project was persuaded by Walter Benjamin. “Mechanical reproduction of art changes the reaction of the masses toward art…The reaction is characterized by the direct, intimate fusion of visual and emotional engagement…The camera introduces us to unconscious optics as does psychoanalysis to unconscious impulses.” (Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction). “Technical reproducibility,” the film, provided new possibilities for collective experiences: mass became the new and the only spectator of a film and the consumer of mass culture. In both examples, social mediation involves two dimensions: categorical affects, which takes place at the pre-programmed level of the enactment of virtual intensities, and vitality affects at the level of emotions experienced by an individual. The co-occurring aspects of mutual interplay create various transindividual links and effects. The organization of the techno-social medium covering the gap between registers plays a decisive role. Anderson’s national state and Benjamin’s fascist regime require distinct complexes of collective and individual affects. In our time, our virtual medium, connecting the social with the individual, contains and compresses a multitude of various registers. Due to the complex topology of interconnections, we often experience its effects without a clear understanding or explanation.

Odd, that someone of his status should be so forgotten. — Banno

What is your answer? Why is he forgotten?

One of the things that attracts me to thinking-for and thinking-with is precisely that they make thought a matter of transindividuality in the first place. — StreetlightX

I agree with you. We need to reorient our thinking towards Outside, exteriority, or transindividuality.

To think-for is to have to comport our thoughts in a certain way for the sake of what impels it: language, dance, loving, hunting. Thought here is directly implicated with an outside without which there would be no thought at all. The danger to avoid is in believing that there is thought that is 'for itself' before it is for anything else: all thought is in a certain sense thinking-for, all thought is already implicated in an outside long before it becomes a self-enclosed reification. — StreetlightX

Now I better understand your undertaking of ‘thinking-for’ and ‘thinking-with.’ All in all,
you have done a great job! Yet, I want to point out a few things.
When you write:
" what we pay attention to, how we 'parse out the world' - is very much dependant on what we are thinking for. The implication if we extrapolate a little, is that there is a thinking-for-speaking no less than a thinking-for-dancing or thinking-for-writing-this-post or thinking-for-sex and so on, "
it may look like you accentuate the particular moment of thinking that could fit for the concept of intentionality. “Intentionality is that feature of the mind by which it is directed at, or about, or of objects and states of affairs in the world.” (John Searle, Seeing things as they are). In Searle’s approach, ‘intentionality’ covers both ‘thinking-of’ and ‘thinking-for.’ Therefore, Searle's intentionality could re-establish the predominance of the centralized rational subject.
Probably, out of your examples( there is a thinking-for-speaking no less than a thinking-for-dancing or thinking-for-writing-this-post or thinking-for-sex and so on.), we could prioritize thinking-for-speaking to make your concept more rigorous. My thinking-for-speaking (or thinking-for-writing) would be determined mostly by a set of speech acts that I can utilize, recollect, connect with, invent, than by my immediate environment or merely by my desire to speak. Otherwise, my intention to speak may not become thinking-with-speaking, remaining just a vague transient thought.There are virtual instances that subtly direct and manage my immediate conscious acts. In other words, when I write or speak, I actualize a virtual assemblage of enunciation. To make it clear, I try to connect your concepts to D&G’s theory of double articulation from “A thousand plateaus.” “There are two distinct formalizations in reciprocal presupposition and constituting a double-pincer: the formalization of expression in the reading and writing lesson, and the formalization of content in the lesson of things…
There are two poles: the facial articulation of expression (face-language), and the manual articulation of content (hand-tool).” Your quote: “An agent who forms his forces according to diagrams read off from the implements, fits himself into a series of equivalent and interchangeable agents” allows us to conceive thinking-with-hammering in terms of populations, but also to implement D&G’s “lesson of things, the manual articulation of content.”
Further, when I am hammering a nail, the whole operation would be impossible without a variety of institutionalized verbal performances (speech acts) that I previously performed, or I was acted upon: learnings, teachings, instructions, rules, orders, programs, etc.(D&G’s “reading and writing lesson”). Similarly, a virtually present collective assemblage of enunciation determines my thinking-for-dancing or thinking-for-sex at the moment of thought's emergence , even without being consciously actualized in my mind. Probably, we could extrapolate so that thinking-for-dancing and thinking-with-dancing also constitute reciprocal presupposition which is governed by a social-collective infrastructure. And, it could help us to better understand

the exact relation between the subject and modes of thought — StreetlightX

I don't understand when you say "my thinking is different from thought..." Thinking and thought are the same process. — Harry Hindu

Yet, in some situations, the use of one word may be more appropriate than the other. In my examples, I applied ‘thinking’ to the case, where I am hammering a nail so that I am part and parcel of the whole act: my unconscious, conscious, sensor, and kinetic processes are immediately engaged as the working parts of the whole act. In the rest of my examples, I “do things with words,” there are a variety of speech acts. To underline the difference, I used different words.

I'm also asking is the thought of hammering a nail the act of hammering a nail. — Harry Hindu

I think that when I am hammering a nail, my thought is neither the thought of hammering a nail nor the act of hammering a nail. In this instance, my thought constitutes the different mode of thinking, ‘thinking for.’

The rest of your post doesn't seem to address my question. I asked if the sound of a word is about something that isn't the sound of the word. I'm also asking is the thought of hammering a nail the act of hammering a nail. If your answer is yes, then you are a solipsist. If no, then thoughts are about things (of which thoughts could be a thing, hence we can turn our thoughts back on each other, just as we turn our view back on itself in being self-aware). In other words, a word or thought is about things other than the word or thought. — Harry Hindu

Thank you, now I understand your question better. Please note, that you posed the question in such a way that it has just one (yours) answer – If I disagree, that would mean that I am a solipsist. From my perspective, your answer - “a word or thought is about things other than the word or thought” constitutes just the relative truth, taken to the particular frame of reference. ‘Thinking about’ (or ‘thinking of’, StreetlightX’s concept) expresses just one, isolated way to conceptualize the relation between ‘things and words.’ It is possible to show that all speech acts, affiliated with the processes of the hammering a nail (‘thinking for’), are not merely determined by social conventions and individuated performances in Austin’s sense. They are unseparated from collective infrastructure so that their real agents are various populations. That is why ‘thinking with’ is necessarily implicated in ‘thinking for.’
The set of social presuppositions, virtually present in the thinking process as well as the physical part of the act of the hammering, is necessary for the successful accomplishment of the whole operation.

I will answer you later

Indeed, representational thinking does not cover the entire domains of our thought, which are embedded within our daily practices.
— Number2018
So words don't represent, or mean, something that isn't the words being used? And by mean, or represent, I also mean to act as a stimulus to drive a particular behavior in someone (the behavior isn't the word being used to drive the behavior), because meaning and representations are causal. — Harry Hindu

When I hammer a nail, my thinking (it may or may not be accompanied by a verbal act) is different from thought in each of the following situations: I plan to hammer a nail, I order to do it, I take a verbal account of how I do it, or I teach somebody how to do it. Nevertheless, despite of the distinction between all these ways of thinking, each of them is virtually given when I hammer a nail.

There's a kind a Nietzschean 'genealogy of modes of thought' to be written here, the story of how thought becomes 'interorized', turned upon itself and then serving to dominate the other modes of thought (the revolt of slave-thought over master-thoughts, as Nietzsche might put it!). — StreetlightX

This project has already been successfully persuaded, for example, by Foucault or D & G. However, after them, it looks like we should not get engaged in ‘interiorization’s genealogy’ anymore. During his career, Deleuze has steered away from the critique of ‘interiorization,’ focusing on ‘exteriorization.’ And, we need to examine the reasons for this turn.

It is, I'd perhaps prefer to say, a way of thinking about thought that comes only thought is taken as an explicit subject of thought itself. As in, for the most part, our everyday, waking, living, loving thoughts do not conform to that model - we are constantly thinking-with and thinking-for, our modes of thinking are constantly engaged in the world around it, modulated by and engendered by our various encounters. But it's that dis-engagement, when thought bears upon itself and becomes inward-dwelling that thinking-of tends to become predominant. — StreetlightX

You make an excellent point here! Yes, it is still necessary to counter the dominating model of thought, based on the image of the sovereign rational subject. Indeed, representational thinking does not cover the entire domains of our thought, which are embedded within our daily practices. Yet, your vision of ‘thinking for’ should be enriched with various connections and dimensions. Otherwise, being contained within the particular ontological domain, which is related to our experience, your image of thought may eventually get explained and controlled by rational models. One of the possible strategies could be the fragmentation of the image of the centralized subject. Accordingly, we could consider subjectivities, agencies, assemblages, or multitudes, constituted by the parts that are independent of the whole. And, an individual thinking process would become just one of their working parts.

Thinking-with is often implicated in thinking-for: I think-with something in order to think-for something - I think-with the hammer in order to think-for repairing the shed. — StreetlightX

Probably, the fragmentation of the image of the subject can also help to disclose unavoidable relations between ‘thinking for’ and ‘thinking with.’Also, your previous attempts of thinking subjectivity differently could be brought back here. Isn’t subjectivity, discussed in https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/4250/subjectivities, related to your ‘thinking for’? If yes, we need to understand how automized, unconscious, and deindividuated subjectivities are embedded into our intimate experiences. And, is your ‘thinking with’ affiliated to collective subjectivities of https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/6887/collective-subjectivity/p1 ? The answer could help us to better apprehend the radical changes of social agency, starting from Canetti’s crowd subjectivity up to aleatory digital communities of our time.

Probably, it could be reasonable to frame the three ways of thought that you discuss by using the concept of the image of thought.

there is no 'general model' of thought. This is the interest in considering 'thinking-for': unlike 'thinking-of' or 'thinking-about', which has the tendency to 'assimilate' all thinking under a general model, 'thinking-for' pluralizes thought, it enables us to acknolwedge various kinds of thought, rather than making thought a monolithic action that is the same in all circumstances. — StreetlightX

If one particular image of thought – ‘thinking-of’ (representational thinking) prevails over others, it is not enough to point out that "’thinking-of’ has the tendency to 'assimilate' all thinking under a general model." It may look like the tendency is generated by routine, "natural" ways of thinking or universal characteristics of mind. Yet, there are a variety of apparatuses and processes, subtly and effectively maintaining the dominating model while oppressing the alternatives. To resist and expose these apparatuses, one has to start thinking differently, inventing different images of thought. Likely, there is no peaceful coexistence of various kinds of thinking. The contention should be part and parcel of their multitude.

On Foucault's account, power doesn't work through a large-scale finality, a closed teleology, or a centralized organizing principle. On the contrary, power is deployed through a series of local, diffuse, and everyday practices. Accordingly, for Foucault, our discourses are manifestations and enactments of an omnipresent discourse-power complex. Probably, that is why he said: "My point is not that everything is bad, but that everything is dangerous, which is not exactly the same as bad. If everything is dangerous, then we always have something to do. So, my position leads not to apathy but to a hyper- and pessimistic activism. I think that the ethico-political choice we have to make every day is to determine which is the main danger".

if we "always have something to do", does it not become imperative to control all aspects of discourse, everywhere? In which case how can we avoid legitimizing our own particular use of "violence"? If discourse is violence would it not be better to remain silent? — PuerAzaelis

The implicit connection of our discourse to power should not be simply interpreted as "violence". After all, it is impossible to control all aspects of discourse or
to stay completely silent. Foucault's own choice was an attempt to extend, broaden, or saturate specific effects and social presuppositions within a given field while trying to downplay or limit others.

https://wofdeho.firebaseapp.com/20/Crowds-and-Party.pdf

It's not the new kinds of subjectivities that need to be 'taken into account' per se - at this point I take it for granted that different kinds of subjectivities are produced in varying circumstances - so much as how they are produced. If fact, one wants to say that the question is not even so much to do with the production of certain subjectivities, but in looking to think about 'counter-productions' of subjectivity, 'our' productions against 'their' productions. — StreetlightX

When one is successful in dismantling, disassembling a complex of
prevailing subjectivities, one functions not just as a political philosopher or a radical thinker. One is already engaged in counter-production.
Due to their totalizing, penetrating effects, “the neoliberal subjectivities,” produced
by the capitalist neoliberal network, are acting on everybody.
The task is simultaneously theoretical, existential and aesthetic – one inevitably encounters the net of mighty, unrecognizable forces, so that “analysis is no longer the transferential interpretation of symptoms as a function of a preexisting, latent content, but the invention of new catalytic nuclei capable of bifurcating existence.”
Cuattari, “Chaosmosis”.

As Deleuze wrote, the collective becomes "samples, data, or markets". What's missing in this latter approach to collectivity is solidarity, an acting together and with one another. — StreetlightX

the dominant mode of subjectivity production today, is atomistic and - in D&G's terms which you are familiar with - 'dividual'. — StreetlightX

I think that this is a misinterpretation of how Deleuze and Guattari conceived
collectivity, solidarity, and a subject-to-come. All in all, Jodi Dean has ultimately
rejected their approach (without mentioning their names) as prioritizing the vanguard and the rupture. Yet, in spite of providing the comprehensive historical analyses of the Paris Commune, is her theory workable?

What's missing in this latter approach to collectivity is solidarity, an acting together and with one another. Thinking in terms of masses you ironically end-up getting individualized solutions — StreetlightX

Solidarity, the ability of working together, should be built, constructed by the real counter-production
of the militant subjectivities (and it is what D&G left for us); it cannot be achieved through the nostalgic declarations and the reminiscent slogans.

can we speak of crowds having histories in this way? Have there been transformations in how crowds have related to the world around them? Can we think of how the agency of the crowds has been shaped and changed under different conditions? I think the answer is yes, especially when one looks to things like techniques of crowd management — StreetlightX

if we retake the historical perspective, we should conclude, that in the West, spontaneous crowd eruptions, acquiring the political will and threatening the existing regime, have become exclusively
rare events. And, to amplify this argument, it is necessary to exclude the protest movements in Eastern Europe during the collapse of the Soviet Empire. Probably, the last time when the left parties got a chance to grub a power, was in France in May of 1968.
Dean mentioned that the crowd could be created without the physical proximity of people.
(I downloaded a pdf file of her book)
Gerald Raunig has also developed a similar idea in “A thousand machines.” Starting from the 20th century, radio, cinema, TV, and further recent various Internet platforms have begun to function in a crowd’s manner. I mean, that masses experience the effects of proximity without being physically gathered together. The virtual groups, created by the newest means of mass media, communication, and entertainment, to a considerable extent, can reproduce the crowd’ effects, described by Canetti. Further, they also can simulate and imitate the whole spectrum of the political or social life of society; they have a broader audience and a much more powerful means of reproduction. They can be scheduled in advance, easily manipulated, and they are connected to the global network of capitalistic monetary flows. Even the most “innocent” entertainment program functions as an reproductive generator of subjectivities, simulating an active social group.

Dean, again, speaks about how subjectivity has continually been 'enclosed', both historically and philosophically, much in the same way in which the commons have been enclosed, linking the enclosure of the commons with the enclosure of the subject (in the individual, rather than the crowd), and in parallel, thinking about crowds in terms of the commons. — StreetlightX

So far, it is not clear how the newest forms of social organization and production of subjectivities are related to the development of unpredictable, spontaneous, crowd-like events, taken by Dean as a leading condition of the revolutionary situation. Probably, it would be reasonable to assume that the latest forms of social interaction do restrict, confine, and even displace Le Bon and Canneti’s crowds. One of the ways to reflect on this situation was the creating
of the concept of the precarious. (Butler, Raunig, Lorey, maybe some others).
Raunig writes: “The precarious indicates dispersion, fragility, and multitude. The precariat does not represent a unified, homogeneous or even ontological formation, but instead distributed and dispersed among many spots. Yet, instead of the clearly negative connotation of dispersion as obstructing all social intercourse, there are the potentiality of new forms of communication and generation of concatenations of singularities”. The precariat, the 21st century analog of the proletariat, is radically opposed to Canneti’s crowd. Without a doubt, the new concept can be justified with the help of sociological or economic perspectives. Yet, the position of the leading political collective subjectivity has remained vacant.

the ballooning of debt has made a lot of things shit, — StreetlightX

Thank you for raising the issue of the global debt! It is quite surprising that the vast majority of people do not share your perception of the global debt as awful. Probably, the typical attitude is quite similar to the relation to the weather: it happens, it is out of our control, and we simply need to adjust ourselves to it. Yet, on the contrary to what Justin Trudeau recently noted, the debt does not work itself out. There are institutions and organizations, full of bureaucrats and financiers, who are not elected, and who are not known public figures; but since they are managing the most monetized and liberalized capitalist sphere, they prescribe what will be produced, the conditions for production, and the distribution of roles and functions. They exercise power over the political, economy, and society. Therefore, the global debt is not a neutral, objective phenomenon. It is based on a ceaseless hidden reproduction of the asymmetrical relations of inequality and subordination. Zizek, reflecting on this situation, said: “ we do indeed enjoy the freedom of choice, but we are deprived of the freedom to change”.

'I am not sold on the idea of parallel institutions. I think it's important as a strtegic peice of the puzzle, but as Zizek pointed out, such instiutions rely on, and owe thier very existence to their being embedded in the larger captialist orders: "the task today, their critics say, is to resist state power by withdrawing from its terrain and creating new spaces outside its control. This is, of course, the obverse of accepting the triumph of capitalism. The politics of resistance is nothing but the moralising supplement to a Third Way Left." (Resistence is Surrender) — StreetlightX

Zizek wrote this essay before the events of 2011. The Occupy movement was able to create the real threat, much more dangerous than the 9/11 attacks. Nevertheless, Zizek made excellent points! Though, he has not explained how the neoliberal capitalism was able to convert a variety of protest movements into the working parts of the existing system; and how the neoliberal elite could appropriate the most progressive, humanist discourse, “leading” the struggle for various noblest aims.

my interest in this comes from reading Jodi Dean's Crowds and Party where she argues that the crowd represents a potential for political action, and that it's weakness lies in an inability to translate that potential into a sustained programme that has temporal and institutional consistency. To this end, she argues that what the left needs is a revival of the party form, and to get over its instinctive distrust of power. As far as the crowd goes, the need lies in harnessing its potential, in directing and putting it to work. — StreetlightX

I did not read Jodi Dean’s book, but I found that it was discussed in this review:

https://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviews/16161_assembly-by-michael-hardt-and-antonio-negri-reviewed-by-lewis-george-bloodworth/

The book was compared with Hardt and Negri' Assembly (unfortunately, I did not read it either). Probably, without reading the books, I should not take any position about Dean vs. Hardt and Negri. Yet, I think that any discussion of the political action should take into account the existence of subjectivities of a new kind as well as their relation to Canetti’s crowd subjectivities. If we accept that regularly repeated mass actions, subordinating, managing, and organizing individuals are political, we should include “the streetwalker’s subjectivity” in the (bio)-political field.
It seems that Hardt and Negri tackle the problem of collective subjectivities:
“Hardt and Negri conceptualize “machinic subjectivities,” which draws upon the Deleuzian assemblage: “a machinic assemblage … is a dynamic composition of heterogeneous elements that eschew identity but nonetheless function together, subjectively, socially, in cooperation”. The concept of the multitude draws on this logic of the machinic, as it is singularities which assemble, cooperate, and resist the diffuse nature of capital and biopolitical power.”
Can the Deleuzian assemblage help to explain “the streetwalker’s subjectivity” ?

Re: agency - I wouldn't say that agency is like a kind of 'not as good' way to speak of subjectivity. I would rather say something like: subjectivity structures agency; or, agency is shaped by subjectivity.I mean if subjectivity is a set of capacities (to act and be acted upon), then subjectivity is a way to think about agency (as distinct from, say, 'the will'). — StreetlightX

While it is quite customary to think the political in Canetti’s manner, conceptualization of the political dimension of the new “subjectivities” could be challenging. Compared with a situation where an individual is becoming a part of a crowd, we do not realize that we unintentionally obey, being involved in, acted upon, and operated by a hidden ensemble.
Yet, simultaneously, we amplify our agency. And, differently from Foucault’s panoptical disciplinary mechanisms, the newest subjectivation processes are substantially convenient, safe, miniaturized, and unrecognizable. Anyway, the non-crowd subjectivities have become
the unavoidable condition of any political action.

my interest in this comes from reading Jodi Dean's Crowds and Party where she argues that crowd represents a potential for political action, and that it's weakness lies in an inability to translate that potential into a sustained programme that has temporal and institutional consistency. To this end, she argues that what the left needs is a revival of the party form, and to get over its instinctive distrust of power. I totally agree with her that institutionalization and organization is crucial to any possible left politics today. — StreetlightX

The recent history has shown that institutionalization and hierarchization of a few prominent protest movements have involved them in the totalizing sphere of neoliberal politics. They have progressively lost their explosive potential and have been converted into the working parts of the existing system. Differently, in spite of The Occupy Movement’s failure, it had explored various unordinary activities. In addition to the attempts to experiment with the forms of direct democracy, there was the try to build in Zuccotti Park a kind of the self – sustaining community. Christopher Key, one of the founders of the Occupy Wall Street movement, writes: “For a truly transformative revolution to take place a parallel, alternative society must be created that is robust enough for the people to live their entire lives within it from the cradle to the grave.” However naïve and unrealistic this proposal may look, it could point at a way of rethinking the concept of “collective subjectivity” as well as its relation to the political agency. If Canetti’s “crowd collectivity” has lost its central role, we need to find another locus of the collective power.

"Now, of the various reasons why studying different subjectivities is important, chief among them are the political and ethical implications of these differing subjectivities: every kind of subject is bound, in some way or another, by the possibilities afforded by the environment of which that subject is (this is what it means to be a subject: to be subject-to-...): subjectivities, in other words, are contextual, and more than that, are produced by those very contexts in which they inhere. ".[/quote]

I will try to expand your attempt to take account of the ethical and political implications of different “subjectivities”. Retaking your example of the streetwalker: the existence of this subjectivity is not just about traversing a particular urban terrain. It involves the normative knowledge of specific semiotics and its immediate, automatic application. Ignorance and unwillingness to follow the rules are punishable. Learning and receptiveness are mandatory. Further, crossing a street is not a singular event: it is a routine, mass action; it cannot be related just to the specific context of where and when it is performed - it is a part of collective essential equipment, organizing and managing our lives; the subjectivity of the streetwalker is commonly shared and acts upon everybody, it is supported and maintained by the ensemble of various factors. “Subjectivities” are interrelated and interpenetrated, creating a totalizing network of the possible and recognizable. Have they replaced Cannetti’ collective subjectivities? A rupture, a complete break with causality, necessary for the crystallization of the protest potentialities, has become much more difficult. And, even if the ultimate rupture occurs, protesters still could be swiftly pulled back to their ordinary routine. That is why Christopher Key called for the creation of the alternate society.

"In that density, where there is scarcely any space between, and body presses against body, each man is as near the other as he is to himself, and an immense feeling of relief ensues. It is for the sake of this blessed moment, when no-one is greater or better than another, that people become a crowd". — StreetlightX

“Crowds and Power” is a great book. Nevertheless, it is not clear if Canetti’ insights
could be expanded to explain the social ineffectiveness of the public assemblies and demonstrations in the Arab Spring, the Occupy Movement, the emergence of mass numbers of people in Tahrir Square in the winter of 2010, or the recent series of the yellow vest’ protests in Paris. As usual, masses have gathered in the significant, symbolic, and central locations; and protesters have probably experienced effects of the unity and regeneration, described by Canetti. But, differently from former successful protest movements, none of these movements have become a subject of change of an established political order or a cause of transformation of the symbolic foundation of legitimacy.
They could not convert
their anti-systemic potential into far-reaching social changes.

This kind of agency tends to run counter to the predominant ways in which agency is often talked about as a capacity or possession of the individual. Crowd agency, the correlate of crowd subjectivity, tends then to pose a pretty massive threat to social orders where individual atomization (the predominant effect of modern neoliberal governance - "there is no such thing as society") is championed as the only kind of agency available. — StreetlightX

Following the recent events, manifesting “crowd agency” in Canetti’s sense, it is reasonable to assume that this kind of collective subjectivity is not able to undermine the existing neoliberal order to produce the long-term irreversible social outcomes.

My question was related to the adjectives 'fascistic' v 'protofascistic' and how significant were the actual differences between them. — Amity

Sorry, I did not understand your question.Probably, so far, there is no
workable model, based on a research of the real historical fascistic regimes. Are you interested in my view of fascistic vs. proto-fascistic tendencies?

Yes, labels matter, fuck wit. — unenlightened

Does the label matter ? — Amity

The answer entirely depends on the context of the labeling. When GOP Minority Leader starts accusing Nancy Pelosi of abusing her power, and when he says that leading democrats in congress manipulate and distort the formal procedures of impeachment, it is not labeling. Yet, he supports Trump’s labeling allegations, including "which hunt" and "coup". As a result, the trust in democratic institutions has been damaged. When Clinton labeled Trump’s supporters deplorable, she meant to disqualify their right to decide who will be the next president. If deplorable voters elected Trump, he is not the legitimate president himself. All these examples of labeling can lead to a growth of violence and civil disobedience. The question about fascistic vs. proto-fascistic tendencies requires much more serious effort. Yet, when somebody labels some aspects of Trump’s presidency as proto-fascistic, the real intention is once again to question his legitimacy.
When you write :

Democratic institutions are at risk. I am thinking of recent events in the UK.
Following the court decisions on the prorogation of Parliament, there were hostile accusations against both Parliament and the judiciary.
There are extreme right wing forces gathering, using similar tactics and chipping away... — Amity

you are not labeling, but you tacitly assume that one side is more responsible for
the current crises than the other. Similarly, when Timothy Snyder in his interview tries to lay out his vision of Trump’s phenomenon - in addition to his academic qualities and analytic resources applied, he involves some rhetorical arguments and personal judgments. So, his attempt should be reduced to a level of another partisan intellectual project. In the current hysteric atmosphere, taking a partisan position prevents a deeper understanding and blocks the conditions of a dialogue.

Does the label matter ? — Amity

the body politic under threat from foreign bodies and so on. I reject the framing of the crisis in terms of us and them — unenlightened

Nevertheless,, this is precisely our situation: it is the formation of different "foreign bodies" within our societies through various gradations of hatred: dehumanization, labeling, delegitimization, and intolerance. Essentially, the true borders are not the outer ones, but the invisible internal barriers, so that the extreme partisanship has been advancing.