/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.10924014]

>It is not the slumber of reason that engenders monsters, but vigilant and insomniac rationality.

What did he mean by this?

[Anonymous No.10924022]

>>10924014
Seems pretty straightforward to me. What don't you understand?

[Anonymous No.10924023]

>>10924014
whats the difference between reason and rationality

[Anonymous No.10924039]

>>10924023
nothing, that's not the distinction hes trying to make. Focus on "slumber" and "insomnia".

[Anonymous No.10924046]

>>10924014
For French intellectuals of his generation they saw the holocaust as the highest point of pure rationality. The pure instrumental rationality of the enlightenment for them leads directly to the masterfully organized, systematically scientific extermination of human beings.

And on the side of the ‘good guys’, the same high pinnacle of pure instrumental reason created the gulag and the atomic bomb.

The triad of these moral horrors led people like Deleuze and Adorno to say it wasn’t a profound irrationality or wild superstitiousness that led to the most monsterous and heinous crimes in human history, but it was actually the most scientifically advanced nations in the world who were committing these acts, executed with the precision of scientific rationality.

[Anonymous No.10924060]

>>10924014
The conscious can be forced into rationality, but the unconscious cannot. In sleep, through dreams, the unconscious, tries to bridge over to the conscious which has run away from it. Dreams often warn us.
The insomniac rationality is the rationality the overly-rational conscious which has lost its last proper means of reconciling itself with the unconscious.
Of course, in waking, the unconscious doesn't disappear or rest idle, it still has its influence, though it has a different relationship to the rational insomniac than to the healthy person.

[Anonymous No.10924115]

>>10924046
But how is it rational to drop a bomb and kill millions? Isnt that just a frantic desire to "win"?

[Anonymous No.10924134]

>>10924046
>it wasn’t a profound irrationality or wild superstitiousness that led to the most monsterous and heinous crimes in human history, but it was actually the most scientifically advanced nations
>the same high pinnacle of pure instrumental reason created the gulag and the atomic bomb
Why is it so hard for them to tell that the irrational and superstitious plebs that voted Hitler into office are the problem, not labcoats and numbers on a sheet? Why do they not see that unreason and superstition, not scientific thinking, had the priority in those countries, allowing bullshit like Ahnenerbe, Lysenkoism, and American world police warmongering, manifest destinity, and a Christian zionism where foreign policy is directed at fulfilling Biblical prophecy (just to name a few) to thrive?
The scientific thinking involved, if any, was itself the instrument, not the master but the slave, a slave in service of bullshit and evil. Not suprising then, that science cannot fulfill any its emancipatory promises, when the powers that be have unscientific, nefarious goals, and are as far away from building a Kingdom of Ends as humanly possible.
Sapere aude.

[Anonymous No.10924146]

>>10924014
Enlightenment means human smoke. Enjoy calculated ash hell binary Jewdust slaughterhouse, meat industry profit margin, ultimate systems

[Anonymous No.10924153]

>>10924115
The atomic bombings are a better example (for our imaginations) of rational action than the Holocaust. They shortened the Pacific war and probably spared any more sacrifices on the part of America, as well as consolidating American military prestige and wrecking Japanese morale. Conscience is what makes us object.

[Anonymous No.10924157]

>>10924153
That was the outcome not the rationale behind it

[Anonymous No.10924169]

>>10924157
I am certain that they had those or something resembling those outcomes which came to pass in mind. I’m willing to be corrected though.

[Anonymous No.10924172]

This isn't really related but I want an opinion.

My dad told me he believes that all major wars after WWII are perpetuated controlled and decided by arms dealers.

Is this plausible?

[Anonymous No.10924177]

>>10924014
How did the French turn into such a fucking joke? God.

[Anonymous No.10924178]

>>10924115
I think what that guy and Deleuze had in mind was not the killing that was rational, but the doing it in a systematic manner.
If you go to some person you hate and you beat them to death, that is the opposite of rationality, because you crumble completely to your impulses.
If you sit at your desk and order a place to be built with an intricate mechanism that can kill a certain number of people every day, that is "vigilant and insomniac rationality". You do nothing but add up some numbers, sign some papers and design some plans. You do still follow your basic lust for victory, but you do so without being blinded by it.

[Anonymous No.10924189]

>>10924178
I still feel like the preparations are trivial when there is a clear irrational desire

Anders brevik acted on irrationality in a systematic manner

[Anonymous No.10924200]

>>10924172
Not all of them, no, but plenty of them.

Modern wars are very lucrative for defense-sector industries though. The whole business is toxic as fuck. 1 trillion+ spent on the Iraq War that had nothing to do with the USA or it's allies whatsoever.

Defense industry is often on the cutting edge of technology, I think it's reasonable if someone would think they'd invent some out rage, stir up a war in order for defense contractors to make money and to fuel technological and economic growth. It's debatable if a war is the best way for this to happen, but people sure believe it does, especially after WW2.

[Anonymous No.10924221]

>>10924189
I feel he believed it to be rational

[Anonymous No.10924227]

>>10924177
>French "intellectuals" amirite?? ;))
What makes me so much more cynical is that mouthbreathers like you honestly think it's OK that a handful of nations holds the entire world hostage under threat of nuclear apocalypse.

[Anonymous No.10924379]

>>10924134
You're not saying anything factually wrong as such, but you're just missing the point. Point being that insomniac rationality is the tool by which we cast compassion aside and reduce, say, the Jew to a cockroach where a person once stood.
You're saying that rationality is the tool in service of "bullshit and evil" but rationality is precisely what makes us blind to so-called bullshit and evil. It provides us with no way to discern moral good from bad and in fact is the very best tool by which we can make one instantaneously look just like the other.
What is needed is to temper rationality with moral principle, to first decide what is good and what is bad and then to apply rationality in service of a goal. Rationality for its own service and nothing more becomes a repugnant thing which expands itself to no purpose but the destruction of purpose itself.

[Anonymous No.10924431]

>>10924379
>insomniac rationality is the tool by which we cast compassion aside and reduce, say, the Jew to a cockroach where a person once stood.
No, if anything insomniac rationality makes me identify the member of Homo sapiens sapiens as such, and apply Kant's Principle of Humanity and Principle of Reciprocity as far as ethics is concerned. You need to substitute your ability to reason - assuming it is there to begin with - to the will of the resident pied piper ideologue to engage in enough self-deception to suspend either, when all you had to do is not believe his lies.
>rationality is precisely what makes us blind to so-called bullshit and evil
And what is the Adornian-Deleuzian prescription anyway? A return to superstition to defend ourselves from reason? More ideologues? Forsaking epistemology?
>Rationality for its own service
>destruction of purpose
Hitler doesn't want rational scientists working in the service reason, he wants them to work for him, and when they contradict him they're the wrong ones. And he doesn't destroy purpose, he is the purpose. Nothing to do with rationality. Power is the enemy of reason, knowledge, and the scientific enterprise. 20th century's problem is power, not reason, hence Lyotard's Postmodern Condiition.
>temper rationality with moral principle
Or maybe you could just read Kant, because all applied ethics is neo-Kantian and deontologic, as you never find a code of consequences, a code of sentiments or a code of virtues. I for one want moral principles from the use of reason, unlike Hitler, and apparently you. Speaking of which, are you sure you're not alt-right?

[Anonymous No.10924441]

>>10924014
>It is not the slumber of Deleuze that engenders monsters, but his vigilant and insomniac idiocy.

[Anonymous No.10924446]

>be /lit/
>be too stupid to crack open a book and read
>post quote without context
>discuss the quote without knowing neither the context nor If the quote is actually made up

[Anonymous No.10924677]

>>10924446
Explain it then

[Anonymous No.10924939]

>>10924014
Fine, I'll bite since I have nothing better to do atm, Deleuze saw unreason as being at the core of reason (much like Nietzsche). That is to say, reason needs a material origin. It's like all these neuroscientific arguments about how brain structure determines political leaning except that for Deleuze (&Guattari of course) we are all made up of similar elements (in different proportions so some dominate over others in their rapport of power) and thus have the potential for different leanings which go beyond trivial identities. Every phenomenon is interpreted based on unconscious material forces which determine its sense. There can be fire & brimstone christians, warrior&honor christians, radical pacifist christians, middle of the road pragmatic christians etc. because the identity is secondary to the forces that interpret the teachings. In comes Spinoza's point that some combinations work better than others and some combinations go better together than others. A reason that ignores its unreasonable and presents itself as the one Logos (God - Self - Eternal Idea) runs the risk of abolishing the ethics of Alterity that Deleuze advocates (in Difference&Repetition especially) which allows us several drives (several selves so to speak) without them being transgressive towards one another. An artistic reason shares the same space with a scientific reason without getting confused or opposing one another for example. The insomnia of vigilant reason is close to paranoia because it allows no alterity, all it can do is announce and judge all betrayals and all deviations. It matters too little if this reason is fascist, maoist, trotskyst or anything else if it lacks that distance.

[Anonymous No.10924947]

>>10924022
I hate these people

[Anonymous No.10925010]

>>10924014
l'extase rationel

[Anonymous No.10925177]

>>10924014

Evil shit happens not when you ignore reason (act in rage or for pure pleasure) but when you follow pure Reason.

Like, if you think about it, doing "evil" stuff is actually pretty rational. We don't kill each other all the time (not only but also because) we have emotions to control our rationality

[Anonymous No.10925288]

>>10924046

But nothing about the holocaust was particularly rational. Neither its etiology nor its execution. The total lack of grassroots massacres means most Germans didn't care about the Jews. And deciding to do it before and during rather than after the war was logistically awful.

[Anonymous No.10925310]

>>10924157
No, that was very much the rationale. Japan had recently reinforced the home island from Manchuria and Allied intelligence was well aware that the costs of a conventional invasion would run into the millions for the Allies and tens of millions for Japan. It was the best thing to do

[Anonymous No.10925342]

>>10924134
Irrationality and foolishness has been around forever. Their ability to use high science to carry about murder on an industrial scale was new.


>>10924115

‘We only ever asked if we could, not if we should’
The rationality is the creation of the bomb itself, the atomic bomb is clearly one of the most fantastic creations of applied science to ever exist.

The point of their commentary on ‘intrumental reason’ is that it doesn’t matter what evil or irrational end it is applied to, it creates efficient and powerful systems for achieving it. People in Deleuze’s generation are going to argue for the need for a more holistic reason that doesn’t do this.

[Anonymous No.10925351]

>>10925288
It’s less about how we understand the holocaust today, and more about how the holocaust was understood in france at the Time.

[Anonymous No.10925421]

>>10924134
>>10924189
>>10924431
Grug no get Delooze.

How Delooze say reason and scientific advancement not always be good? Reason and scientific advancement good.

Grug like Kant. Grug like reason and scientific advancement. You want make us return to caveman days, but Grug want thinking. Sucker audi.

[Anonymous No.10925496]

>>10924046
I understand the quote to be personal, not historical. There's a reason for every misdeed, an explanation for every criminal and crime.

[Anonymous No.10925539]

>>10925496
That's because you're reading it correctly. The relation between reason and unreason in Spinoza-Nietzsche-Deleuze cannot be reduced to a critique of instrumental reason.

[Anonymous No.10925557]

>>10925421
GRUG FUCKING LOVES SCIENCE!

[Anonymous No.10925590]

>>10924046
this is because people, no matter how smart, are still driven by emotions. Being intellegent only makes you more dangerous. And more capable of your rationalisations as to why your justified in killing millions of people

[Anonymous No.10925672]

>>10925421
Enlightened smart philosopher of science Grug say: "Antisemites and totalitarians be superstitious and paranoid lot because too much science and reason"
Grug unmask /pol/: "Look it actually /sci/"
Grug never be forgotten in next 50 years because favorite French shaman of alt-right after all
>>10925557
Grug no read Lyotard

[Anonymous No.10925710]

>>10925421
Grug go forward in time to assassinate Kant and Einstein, no Hitler and Stalin

[Anonymous No.10927110]

Is Deleuze genius?