/lit/ - Literature

Yeah I had a similar experience with it. I still remember when all of the French stuff was opaque to me and I thought it was some kind of elite "critical theory." But once you put the time in, it's tedious at best, never really difficult, because just as you say, it's only a matter of learning all the solipsistic references. It's not like it's conceptually super sophisticated, it's just built (completely needlessly) out of badly dated references to psychoanalytical and structuralist commonplaces of the '60s. Once you decode all this crap and can translate it into straightforward exposition of the actual philosophy underlying it, the latter is just disappointing. It certainly didn't benefit from, let alone require being so garbled in the first place.

It's actually worse than that too, because the garbling not only obscures the underlying philosophy, increasing (for no reason) the time necessary to decode it and causing an anticlimactic feeling of "...that's it?" once you finally do decode it, but on top of this, it prevents these authors from seeing the gaps, redundancies, and derivative elements in their own thinking. They aren't in dialogue enough with each other to get meaningful critical feedback, let alone with other traditions, because anyone initiated enough to understand the shit in the first place has probably devoted so much time to it that he unconsciously commits a sunk cost fallacy and convinces himself that it was all worthwhile.

It's hard to describe exactly why this is bad. The basic problem is that a book like Difference & Repetition is interesting and even philosophically plausible, once you finally decode it, but it's also 90% derivative of more interesting versions of itself that predate it by decades or even centuries. Anyone who commits the time to actually understand what the book is about is highly unlikely to be conversant with those other versions, so he won't critique it, but will treat is as a sui generis system. Moreover, the remaining 10%, the really nitty-gritty, underlying ontological elements of the philosophy Deleuze presents, are in fact simply inept and inconsistent. But again, anyone who committed the time to understand it won't be able to forthrightly put forward such criticisms. All he can do is regurgitate it.

Totally different from Germans. German philosophy can be insanely dense and even full of self-referential neologisms like Heidegger, but it's always clean and systematic in the process, and it always relates organically to the traditions it emerges from. There's just something about the French, they are instinctive bricoleurs and instinctively flamboyant on top of that, so they have problem vaguely assimilating two dozen philosophical influences that were accidentally au courant in the decade of their matriculation, synthesizing these sloppily and without any explicit citations into a pseudo-system, and using this to posture to other Parisians for intellectual celebrity.

>>14551770
>Totally different from Germans
he just rewrote the Science of Logic in the inverse, and he cribs a shitload of Kantian and Hegelian terminology anyways so idk what you are complaining about. AO and ATP, I get why people bitch about those, but D&R is just pleb filter

>>14551770
Okay, so who anticipated 90% of Deleuze by decades/centuries?

>>14551770
I think you have almost exactly expressed my sentiments regarding this book.

Since I'm still in the mood to read some philosophy, is there anyone you'd recommend to read instead?

>>14551770
>the remaining 10%, the really nitty-gritty, underlying ontological elements of the philosophy Deleuze presents, are in fact simply inept and inconsistent. But again, anyone who committed the time to understand it won't be able to forthrightly put forward such criticisms.
nigger you didn't put forward any real criticisms either you just moaned about it

>>14551782
Being able to understand Difference and Repetition has literally nothing to do with intellectual ability. It's moreso about, as you said, putting the time in to know all the reference material and then learning the terminology he uses, both old and new. This is only a "pleb filter" if define such a work as one a "pleb" couldn't possibly put the time into because he needs to be spending his time more productively.

>>14551805
>This is only a "pleb filter" if define such a work as one
I can tell you are a serious intellectual

>>14551815
Thank you for your input and your enlightening wojak.

>>14551867
>tfw when you write a blogpost critiquing Deleuze and don't end up mentioning or critiquing a single Deleuzian concept then start talking about "input"

>>14551770
>but it's also 90% derivative of more interesting versions of itself that predate it by decades or even centuries.
when are people going to understand that this isn't an interesting objection to philosophical work? maybe precisely because so much has already been thought. not every philosopher can be an Aristotle or a Kant, but more importantly "it's already been done" isn't a very profound objection -- especially for someone like Deleuze, who literally spent the first decades of his career writing about other thinkers. some things that have been "done before" are worth doing again, you understand?
As for Deleuze's writing, I haven't read this or his other weightier stuff but his work on other philosophers (Hume, Nietzsche, Spinoza) is very clear, very original, very fun exegesis.

>>14551903
I never critiqued his concepts. Rather, I said within the post that I am quite interested in them. If you cannot discern the difference between having an issue with writing style and the ideas contained within it, I am afraid we will be unable to have a discussion, much less if green texts and wojaks are what you have to offer.

>>14551923
if you take issue with Deleuze's style of writing and not the German idealists you are outed for reading neither of them

>>14551938
I didn't say anything about the German Idealists. I am the original poster. You are getting angry at someone who isn't even the person you are talking to.

>>14551944
don't reply to (You)'s that you didn't earn

>>14551949
Don't reply to people you aren't meant to be talking to.

>>14551706
You are supposed to read the conclusion then start with chapter 1-5 read the conclusion again in quick succession, and then read the intro. The second time you read the conclusion you get the joke but only if you do it in that order.

>>14551706
>Why does anyone even read Deleuze?
Because hes the king "post-modern" philosopher. All the other big name continentals focus on some sub category like gender, language, psychoanalysis, biology, sociology, and he removes all their contradictions and sycretizes it into a coherent meta system.

>>14552000
I don't think you understand my criticism. I am not critiquing the ideas he has. They are interesting and I can see why people think they are of value. But what I don't get is why it is obfuscated under his cryptic writing style and neologisms that don't correspond to what is implied

>>14551770
>they aren't in a dialogue with each other
Isn't this post like, stupefyingly ironic, because you've done exactly the same as what you're complaining about? Not a single description of Deleuze's system and why its bad?

>>14551770

Holy fucking based

>>14551785
Deleuze?
More like
Deleuzions of grandeur lmaoo

>>14551791
Read Nietzsche and the Anabasis of Alexander

>>14552047
Okay very good. Then, show me a passage of Difference and Repetition, and explain the totality of its meaning in more simple language, and show that you have managed to capture its totality. If you cannot do that, then does your whole criticism disappear into air?

>>14551770
You're mostly correct, but it is not a French thing, though, it's just the weirdos who were into psychoanalysis
Foucault, for instance, is an extremely clear writer. I read Discipline and Punish as a 16 year old pleb and found myself able to understand most of the stuff he was talking about

>>14551770
Deleuze BTFO!!!!

>>14552114
Oh for christ's sake take something seriously for once. If your objective is to make Guenon a joke you're succeeding.

>>14552089
Show me a pasage of Difference and Repetition that you think is clear, cannot be made more succinct, and show that you have managed to capture its totality.

You must be a genius, since the common belief among even scholars of Deleuze is that much of his writing is needlessly difficult. How one could think his writing is not only not difficult, but good and clear, is beyond me. I am not going to transcribe quotes to apphease a random 4chan post when the conseus is in my favor.

>>14552151
Like I said earlier (not the same anon you're replying to), Deleuze's writing is a variable thing. Blanket statements don't cover it completely because he has different stages of the prose. There's his work with Guattari, where he completely caved to the French idiom and wrote in a deliberately obscure way (forcing thinking), there's his tomes D&R and Logic of Sense, there's his books on aesthetics which aren't so easily categorized, there are his essays which are generally very concise and clear with relation to his subject, and then there are the earlier monologues that, like his essays, are only difficult in terms of their ideas and to one who hasn't read his referent. Deleuze can be a better writer than practically every other 20th century French philosopher. Really the task I'd pose is for one who criticizes him as valuable but obscure to try and rewrite D&R but in a way that is more clear, more concise, but loses nothing

>>14552151
No, none of it is clear to me. But the labour required to decipher it is part of the philosophy itself, it is inseparable. When I labour to read Deleuze, or any other thinker, I get my own ideas, my own thoughts. How interesting these thoughts are, are what justifies this labour. To me, Deleuze does justify it. You cannot get his ideas without the labour.

All philosophy is easy to read. If you find Deleuze or Hegel hard and complain about obscurantist language then you lack reading experience.

>>14552047

>But what I don't get is why it is obfuscated under his cryptic writing style and neologisms that don't correspond to what is implied
The usual reason given is that its to force you into his mode of thinking. He floods you with examples until the pattern starts to emerge, rather than explaining the pattern. Similar, I think, to how I recently heard Hegel's "difficulty" described as his tendency to to refute every contradiction to his conclusion before giving it.
>I am not critiquing the ideas he has. They are interesting and I can see why people think they are of value.
Like what? I can't think of any right now.

>>14552151
why can't you defend your claim? why put the burden of proof for your own argument on some rando on 4channel?
>inb4 I could but I won't

>>14552151
>since the common belief among even scholars of Deleuze is that much of his writing is needlessly difficult. How one could think his writing is not only not difficult, but good and clear, is beyond me.
I haven't heard any of them say "needlessly" difficult. I don't think its that good but it is pretty clear. Especially D&R. He is not nearly as repetitive or "thorough" as certain other authors.

>>14552229
What's to defend in the first place? I just said that the book is needlessly difficult and could be made more succinct. Such a claim is subjective in nature. I can't "prove" anything is hard or easy. That would be absurd. I can only show that a pattern of difficulty in seen by many readers, that which is undeniable.

>>14552203
You are just being contrarian. If you think they are easy you are likely not engaging with the text.

>>14552253
> I just said that the book is needlessly difficult and could be made more succinct.
>Such a claim is subjective in nature. I can't "prove" anything is hard or easy. That would be absurd.
you conveniently ignore that it it's succinctness is objective and you could prove it could be made more succinct by making it more succinct for us right now

Not a single person in this thread has actually read Deleuze. At most skimmed

>>14552265
> succinctness is objective
Care to explain how? There are no objective standards for such a thing.

I don't have an e-book version of D&R so I am not going to spend my time getting the book and typing out a passage for a 4chan post. I will happily comment on a passage if you provide it.

I think the style that you aren't appreciating possibly stems from an important philosophical difference, which is central to the point. What is aggravating you as obscurantist is supposed to be a mutual enjoyed experience between you and the author, like an inside joke. The static grammatical rules of the Germans systematic approach that you praise is antithetical to many peoples conception of how language actually works in practice, as an evolving relational social process. So the author is playing a game with you using double entendres and bending words on purpose until they break to find the limits of their meaning. This runs parallel as a real direct comparison and metaphor with psychoanalysis, where the subject and object exist and are defined in relation to each other. You are supposed to participate in the story so you can feel out the non-linear connections intuitively.

>>14552281
I think your commentary works when the book is in its original language and the reader has spent hundreds of hours engaged with the material that D&R references. However, when the book is translated I fail to see how such linguistic "games" retain their value and if the individual is not "in on the joke" of the referenced figure, it once again is no longer a joke but an empty statement.

>>14552275
yes, you take one paragraph which is one length, and write the same paragraph with the same meaning with a shorter length, and you have objectively made it more succinct
>I don't have an e-book version of D&R
you know you are on the internet right?
https://altexploit.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/gilles-deleuze-difference-and-repetition-columbia-university-press-1995.pdf

>>14552281
I want to hit you over the head with a sledgehammer. The only "inside joke" occurs at the reader's expense--those like you who were gullible enough to find any value in obscurantist bullshit. You have been intellectually lobotomized, and I'm afraid to say that your condition is terminal.

>>14552298
>In Cinema 1, Deleuze specifies his classification of the movement-image through both Bergson’s theory of matter and the philosophy of the American pragmatist C. S. Peirce.[2] The cinema covered in the book ranges from the silent era to the late 1970s, and includes the work of D. W. Griffith, G. W. Pabst, Abel Gance, and Sergei Eisenstein from the early days of film; mid-20th century filmmakers such as Akira Kurosawa, John Ford, Carl Theodor Dreyer, and Alfred Hitchcock; and contemporary - for Deleuze - directors Robert Bresson, Werner Herzog, Martin Scorsese, and Ingmar Bergman. The second volume includes the work of a different series of filmmakers (although there will be some overlaps).

>oh stink now I have to watch all these trash FILEMS

>>14552321
>The only "inside joke" occurs at the reader's expense
lmao u mad

>>14552298
>He hasn't spent 1000 hours on Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, Freud and Spinoza.

>>14552326
I'm surprised you're not furious that you were duped by a charlatan.

>>14552344
why would I when all of them were refuted by Rene Guenon (pbuh)?

>>14552321
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_description

Do you actually uncritically assume that words have essential static unchanging definitions that correlate with what you happen to believe?

>In the study of language, description or descriptive linguistics is the work of objectively analyzing and describing how language is actually used (or how it was used in the past) by a group of people in a speech community.

>All academic research in linguistics is descriptive; like all other scientific disciplines, it seeks to describe reality, without the bias of preconceived ideas about how it ought to be.[1][2][3][4] Modern descriptive linguistics is based on a structural approach to language, as exemplified in the work of Leonard Bloomfield and others.[5]

>Linguistic description is often contrasted with linguistic prescription,[6] which is found especially in education and in publishing.

>>14552351
>That is why it is so important to try the other, reverse but nonsym-metrical, operation. Plug the tracings back into the map, connect the roots or trees back up with a rhizome. In the case of Little Hans, studying the unconscious would be to show how he tries to build a rhizome, with the family house but also with the line of flight of the building, the street, etc.; how these lines are blocked, how the child is made to take root in the family, be photographed under the father, be traced onto the mother's bed; then how Professor Freud's intervention assures a power takeover by the signifier, a subjectification of affects; how the only escape route left to the child is a becoming-animal perceived as shameful and guilty (the becoming-horse of Little Hans, a truly political option).
I'm surprised you don't have more fun with Deleuze. He's hilarious and on point.

>>14552374
are you an Olavo fag?
I've only ever seen olavo de carvalho students talking about guenon

>>14551706
>Why does anyone even read Deleuze?
Nobody does. He's for pseuds only.

>>14552822
Woah. You must be so smart. Explain Deleuze to me (you must know this to know that he is for pseuds)

>>14552534
Terrible stuff.

> Take psychoanalysis as an exam-ple again: it subjects the unconscious to arborescent structures, hierarchi-cal graphs, recapitulatory memories, central organs, the phallus, the phallus-tree—not only in its theory but also in its practice of calculation and treatment. Psychoanalysis cannot change its method in this regard: it bases its own dictatorial power upon a dictatorial conception of the uncon-scious. Psychoanalysis's margin of maneuverability is therefore very limited. In both psychoanalysis and its object, there is always a general, always a leader (General Freud).
How can you tell me these memes are lost in translation?

>>14552322
>FILEMSCH
>*sniff*