Thing-power

With the proviso that I'm writing with all of the presumptions and false demands of someone who has not read the whole book, I am interested to think a little more around the concept of thing power which is introduced in chapter one and developed in chapter two. Unlike the 'thinginess' that might be implied from the term, thing power evokes a materiality of intensities and extensions that works 'in excess of the human meanings, designs, or purposes they serve' (p20).

I like to consider how this idea reconfigures the way we might think about experimentation. In a world where agency is distributed across bodies and matter, the experimental aspect is not so much in the relation between the parameters I choose to set and the data yielded, but the degree to which the movements of the world are allowed to influence my interactions. In this sense we could go so far as to wonder how we may allow the world to experiment with us. By which I do not mean to avoid the issue of accountability (or responsibility) which Bennett raises in her discussions of the electricity grid; but to suggest it is reframed. Responsibility is rethought as the capacity to be affected – to be interrupted – by what is not yet intelligible; to become sensible of that which we did not know how to think. On a very simple level, I do not know what adventures I may have if I allow my plans to be disrupted by that which I did not know it was possible to seek out. But experimentation not grounded in the thought of a sovereign subject is also an ethical question – it is a matter of responding, and becoming more responsive, to that which we do not currently know how to register.

I wonder if this is also an issue of time – I think I can detect Bergson stirring - in the sense that the 'thing' is a space of encounter between a biographical or chronological time (in my experience) and a durational aspect invested with topological intensities. As with the madeleine biscuit in Proust's (2002) famous evocation of involuntary memory, this is a 'banal object' which has become caught up in the logics of other worlds. Lodged somewhere between the repetition in memory of associations and experience, and temporalities belonging to the micro-movements of other mattering processes: this object for a moment marks the crossroads for a higher traffic of affects and bodies (p24). I am not so convinced, however, that the 'trajectories' of this thing-power is that same messianicity, or directionality, 'away from somewhere' which Bennett links with Derrida's promise of phenomenality. I do not see in this perpetual departure how we can account for what returns – a problem which the Deleuzian vitalist materialism seems better set up to explore.

A final thought: because of this rethinking of experimentation and agency, the 'adequacy' of ideas (from Spinoza's ethics) relates to truth processes differently. Instead of placing emphasis on the individual's capacity to correctly untangle the relationship between causes and effects, this variety of ethics seems to insist that we work to untangle ourselves from the 'tool' thinking (p25) in which the becoming of material processes is stabilised according to an 'external purpose' (as in the case of the electricity grid). It is a thought of ethics which reiteratively provokes questions of how we are to live adequately to the world.

Proust, M. ([1921] 2002) In Search of Lost Time, L. Davis, M. Treharne, J. Grieve, J. Sturrock, C. Clark, P. Collier & I. Patterson (trans.), London: Allen Lane, 2002 (6 vols).

Thought is not mindful, it is matterful...

If the world and experience is of one matter, then is thought not also this same one, such that the glass, the chair, the bowl, the plastic keyboard, the pan flute in the corner, are not merely reflections of thought, but quite literally are thought? Thought is the out-side, for the distinction between inside and outside ebbs through the techniques of looking, the perspectives of speaking, the means of understanding.

My bike lock is thought.

I love this idea.

MSJ

Some ‘naïve’ (and un-thought through) thoughts…

Following from Mark’s post suggesting a full read and JD’s request for a naïve chapter by chapter engagement, I’m gong to sit somewhere between the two by giving some naive comments on the whole book! I have read the whole book, though far too quickly, so I am now re-reading more slowly. Therefore, I’m going to give some general thoughts (and hopefully later more specific thoughts on each chapter as I re-read…). These shouldn't be taken as strong views or conclusion, but more some vague feelings i've tried to articulate and haven't had the benefit of talking to the group about given my new 'life' in the provinces (or should that be Wilds as there is an "irreducibly strange dimension" to the "matter" (VM p 2-3) I've encountered up here!...). As such, if you can see where I'm off the mark or you disagree please post!!!

Based on my initial read, firstly, I should echo the positive comments everyone has made so far – one of the reasons I read the book too quickly the first time was because of its style and my interest. I think there is a lot of engaging material here and i've already started trying to bring it into something i'm writing. However, I also think there is something to be wary of in that and this is why I now want to retrace my steps a little more slowly.

Another reason for the speed of my first reading and my related desire to 'use' the book was the apparently familiarity of the arguments being made and how the quite smoothly slotted into a range of works I've read (I’m thinking of the work of a range of people in geography around Non-rep on affect, materiality, ANT etc.) which constitute something like a non-representational/affective 'image of thought'. As it stands, I'm struggling to articulate specific questions or highlight particular points of concern. This may be from reading and being influenced by earlier pieces (such as Bennett’s ‘Force of things’ paper) and from my first read I have no doubt blurred some of the subtleties with this other related work, but also I do wonder about the nature of the reading Bennett undertakes in VM. Obviously Bennett critically engages with a range of thinkers in the text but there is someone she is a little less critical of (if at all?) – Deleuze. I do wonder about the originality of her reading here and what she specifically adds. Of course there is the political project of the book, but I do almost wonder about the originality of the philosophical project or if this is more a relatively direct application of a broadly 'Deleuzian' position (of course it goes against certain prominent orthodoxies which Bennett suggests, but I’m struggling to see the originality of the way she is going against them [thought again, that's probably more a problem on my part and a product of my liking the arguments of the book/seeing the way it generally connects with the work I mention above]).

On the point of the philosophical project, as others here have pointed out, there is the implicit connection to Harman and his ‘object-oriented philosophy’. To return to the first question/theme JD pointed out from the Preface, I almost get the feeling that, especially given the brevity of the book, I wanted more philosophical exegesis rather than the regular negative definitions of vital materialism that recur, especially later in the book (For example, how Bergson was almost a vital materialist, but wasn’t quite etc.). From my vague memory of 'Guerrilla Metaphysics' and slightly less vague memory of Prince of Networks' this was something that was in (over!) abundance in Harman...? I wanted more of a positive outlining of a vital materialism, especially in the book’s culmination. I wanted to know more about how it was that matter has a vitality, not where it didn’t come from. At the moment it is a little slippery for me - but then again, this is one of the qualities of the book's style that I in other ways enjoyed - but then again, I might find it on the second read…


PS

A Plea

Having just finished reading Vibrant Matter, may I urge you all to complete your reading of this remarkable, quiet and delightful book by finishing it to the end. Before we continue with discussions, it might be best to finish reading it. The busy-ness and business of dissection before we have appreciated its richness, simplicity and complexity will do it injustice. Upon finishing it, one might come to a similar conclusion, that the questions we have posed of it are far too quick. Bennett does answer our queries, or, at least, she addresses them. Had we continued our reading, we would not have asked the same questions, or, at least, not have asked them in the ways that we have.

My plea is to read it all, including the excellent footnotes, and then we can begin discussing it. (Incidentally, this was Keith's original suggestion. We should defer to those wiser than ourselves,... sometimes.)

MSJ

Side note

It turns out that Graham Harman (of tool-being fame; author of the Guerrilla Metaphysics and Latour: Prince of Networks the reading group have tackled in the past) is to review Vibrant Matter this year.

This should certainly make some interesting reading... and also potentially speak to some of the questions raised yesterday about how Bennett figures in the speculative realist debates / why they don't figure in her approach to related questions.

References:

Harman, G. (2007). Prince of Networks: Bruno Latour and Metaphysics. Melbourne, re.press.

Harman, G. (2004). Guerrilla Metaphysics: Phenomenology and the Carpentry of Things. Chicago, Ill., Open Court.

Reflections on 'Preface' and Chapter One, from The Highbury Vaults, Bristol.

from a letter by V. Van Gogh to his brother Theo Van Gogh, 1888 (detail)

Never out-side the influence of our illustrious leader, JD Dewsbury, "The Collective Ontology" (otherwise known as the University of Bristol's Geography and Theory Reading Group) met in its weekly for(u)m to discuss Jane Bennett's Vibrant Matter (VM), and herewith reports on its actions. Emma Roe, Keith Bassett, Naomi Millner, Nick Soucek, Andy Lapworth, Georgie Urry, Rob Flory and Mark Jackson met at The Highbury Vaults, as the usual meeting place was closed due to a university holiday. On a chilly evening we began outside, but soon moved into the front room where the warmth was more conducive to comfortable conversation, and was pleasant enough to suggest itself as a future, and perhaps more preferable, meeting place. Our intention to work through the 'Preface' and the first chapter was not met as we spent a considerable time discussing monism, demystification and anthropomorphism before beginning the first chapter proper. It was agreed as we left after 2 hours of conversation that we would continue on the blog with a discussion of non-identity and Adorno in the penultimate section of the chapter and ultimate section of our conversation.

Several questions emerged throughout the discussion and we pose them here, with hopefully some contextual reflection.

1. Is an ontology of monism compatible with the episto-ontological limits of language? In a sense, this is the same problem that the speculative materialists (SMs) attempt to address in their-or at least in Quentin Meillassoux's-attempt to move beyond, what they call, correlationism. If language (and perhaps mathematics, which conversely Badiou and the SMs hail as an ontically beyond the correlationist dilemma) characterizes our, what Foucault calls, "superficial knowledge" (VM, 2) of the object world which wells up from a never objectifiable depth, is Bennett's use of the term "faith" (VM x) deliberate in her concordance with Spinoza that everything is made of the same substance? Indeed, what is the role of faith in understanding vibrant matter, if a modern scientific discourse, identifies and bounds, specifies rather than singularizes (Hallward, 2001), and instrumentalizes identity rather than agencializing assemblages? Does vibrant matter demand different knowledge claims of us than a position which does not recognize ethical agency outside human will? What does Bennett think of the speculative materialists?

2. This question echoes the concern raised in the next round of considerable discussion around the term demystification, and that is, what is the role of the natural scientific example in Bennett's book? The collective has just come off reading Karen Barad's 2007 Duke UP book called Meeting the Universe Halfway. As a quantum scientist Barad begins from the physical example to argue that bodies and experience emerge in becoming dynamics of intra-relation, and throughout the book she returns repeatedly to quantum theory and a reading of Bohr's principle of complementarity and phenomena to situate her argument that we are iterated in a performative intra-activity of mattering (Barad, 2007: 392 and passim). How is affect with materiality distinct from Barad's notion of phenomena? Is vibrant matter phenomena-full? Bennett's examples, when she discusses the need to re-think demystification, are all drawn from the social sciences (phantasmagoria, fetishization, war on terror, neo-liberalism, etc.). Is it easier to account for the agency of matter and things when the context in which their affect is most relevant is political and social rather than chemical or physic-al? It reminds me of an analytic philosophy professor who in teaching us naturalising epistemologies thought Foucault to have held his cards to his chest in not taking on chemistry and physics. If demystification screens from view the vibrancy of matter, is Bennett calling for re-mystification? Is this why she invokes a faith in Spinoza's monism? What are the implications for a philosophy of re-mystification? Is this a fundamentally conservative Romanticism that harkens to a Heideggerian ontology of dwelling? And if not, why not? Perhaps this will be revealed in the future of the book.

3. We were very interested in "aesthetic-affective opening" (VM, x) and whether Ranciere's aesthetics of politics or Foucault's aesthetics of the self (which were noted as quite different) would work themselves out in the course of the book. Is Bennett marrying Ranciere to vitalism?

4. Do we need an anthropomorphism (VM, xvi) or a zoo-morphism? Or a zoe-morphism?

5. Is agency one thing for Bennett, or are there many different kinds of agency? At times it seems as though agency becomes this diffuse (theistic?) force outside and through that enervates all matter? Is vibrant matter (an ontological one but formal diversity) uni-vocal or poly-vocal (see Bingham, 2006)? And indeed, what is the difference between agency and causal connection?

6. Throughout the opening of the book we saw a wonderful effort to engage both a Deleuzian approach to ethical ontologies, and a Derridean/Levinasian deconstructive ethics. We have also just finished reading Simon Critchley's, Infinitely Demanding (Verso, 2007). Is there an infinite, and impossible, demand necessary to opening up to the vibrancy of matter? Does a deconstructivist ethics underlie political ontology? After all, is Bennett not simply saying that we need to extend the ethical demand beyond Levinas' human face to plenum of things?

Football, food, cats, allotments, and the indomitable Messi beckoned after two hours of engaged discussion. Discussion will continue on the blog until various of us return from DC, Barcelona...

References:
Barad, K. 2007. Meeting the Universe Halfway. (Durham: Duke UP).
Bingham, N. 2006. ‘Bees, butterflies, and bacteria: biotechnology and the politics of nonhuman friendship’, Environment and Planning A, 38 pp483-498.
Critchley, S. 2007. Infinitely Demanding. (London: Verso).
Hallward, P. 2001. Absolutely Postcolonial. (London: Angelaki).

Preface vii-xix

Summary of Points for Discussion
1. What is vibrant matter?
2. What ground does Latour clear for the debates of this book?
3. Can we avoid subjectivity; and is this the central task required to redistribute the sensible frameworks of agency?
4. Overcoming knee-jerk representationalism that centres the human: can it be done?
5. What are the implications of the Deleuzian Spinozism at work here?
6. How can we help propagate the positive formulations of these alternative affective dispositions that take matter on its own terms?

1. What is vibrant matter?. Matter, and its related definition in contrast to materials, materiality, materialities and materialism are left relatively unattended: what should we make of that? Do we have operative definitions implicit in our own arguments? Is this the point, that we need to unpack the assumptions behind these terms? What are the precise differences of these terms as far as they can be discerned today in the key thinkers of materiality? Further it seems that matter is quickly conflated with 'things', objects, actants, and non-human agency. And vibrancy with 'vitality' where we have this exciting definition:

By “vitality” I mean the capacity of things—edibles, commodities, storms, metals—not only to impede or block the will and designs of humans but also to act as quasi agents or forces with trajectories, propensities, or tendencies of their own.

The language of trajectory, propensity and tendency is a common approach in thought articulating process based philosophies of affect; so what do we gain from this language? And what is lost? Does it help us weaken the grip of correlationism when accounting for the world (despite the performative self-contradiction Bennett alludes to)?

2. Turning to Latour Advocating Latour as the first fully engaged with philosopher/social theorist is interesting - pitching the book to a readily available and strategic audience perhaps. Further though I wonder about the implication that this position brings as matter only matters when it "has efficacy, can do things, has sufficient coherence to make a difference, produce effects, alter the course of events" (viii). I don't think this is Bennett's full argument at all - I think it immediately shows what is skillful about the writing in this book, that it stages the key questions and problematics that we confront when attempting to think matter more effectively and politically on its own terms (itself a key debate viz speculative realism and object-oriented ontologies).

3. Giving subjectivity short shrift This is an important tactical move in the writing and argument, and yet I think it flags one of the key problematics here: that is how do we access and make apparent the agency of matter itself. This plugs into Whitehead's 'speculative metaphysics' which addresses "the contingent conditions of things as they happen to be"; one of the key contingencies for Whitehead being "the bifurcation of nature into subjects and objects and relatedly, primary and secondary qualities" (Fraser, 2010:59; quoting Rose 2002: 3). The central concept is that of agency (and I am not sure that the label distributive agency will do); but I am excited and challenged by Bennett's argument and call for us to look for revisions in the "operative notions of matter, life, self, self-interest, will, and agency" (ix) - this is something to track as the book unfolds as we read it. It is also picked up directly in the section entitled 'A note on methodology' where Bennett questions, and arcs back to the language of tendencies, propensities, and lures:

What method could possibly be appropriate for the task of speaking a word for vibrant matter? How to describe without thereby erasing the independence of things? (xiii)

The central tasks of the book are:

(1) to paint a positive ontology of vibrant matter, which stretches received concepts of agency, action, and freedom sometimes to the breaking point; (2) to dissipate the onto-theological binaries of life/matter, human/animal, will/determination, and organic/inorganic using arguments and other rhetorical means to induce in human bodies an aesthetic-affective openness to material vitality; and (3) to sketch a style of political analysis that can better account for the contributions of nonhuman actants.

4. Suppressing the substitutions for vibrant material agency Here the role of representation for and through human signification is something to eschew; and yet it often takes primary place, whereas I think the ethos of this book is in staging the primacy of matter before the retrospective mattering in meaning. In other words, we encounter materially as well as, and aside from, and before, necessarily encountering only through a symbolic order or signfying representing machine that orders such encounters for us. It is not that such symbolic orderings don't matter; rather it is where the place of emphasis is made first and foremost.

5. Spinoza's monism and lump-ontology of substance Following Harman's critique of this lump-world - (which interestingly he also targets at Levinas' "rumbling primal il y a (‘there is’), hypostatized into specific chunks only by human consciousness" and Nancy's "surprising theory of the world as a formless ‘whatever’ articulated only by the interactions among its parts" (2009: 153) - Deleuze is slightly different for Harman in that he combines Spinoza with Bergson with Simondon to produce "instead of a total lump-world, ... one animated in advance by different ‘pre-individual’ zones that prevent the world from being purely homogeneous" (ibid:160) - how does this belief in one substance array and order the world in particular ways, even if Bennett also adds a Deleuzian virtual of turbulent flows to the lump mix? I am with her on this - something to debate - as contra Harman I don't believe in a world just of straightforward actuality.

6. The politics of affective dispositions This is I think the central politics of the book: that the realm of the subjective grip of affective dispositions below that of conscious attention is crucial; and is materially catalysed and subtly steers the body-in-action (as matter) through much more viscerally atuned habits; thus this realm is precisely the one where modest but vitally incremental habits can be changed for those 'interim futures' of which Connolly speaks (2008). Thus Bennett argues that, for example, "if a set of moral principles is actually to be lived out, the right mood or landscape of affect has to be in place" (xii); thus answering the need that as well as critique (akin to demystification) we must posit "positive formulations of alternatives" (xv).

Endgame question underwriting the preface:

How did Marx’s notion of materiality—as economic structures and exchanges that provoke many other events—come to stand for the materialist perspective per se? Why is there not a more robust debate between contending philosophies of materiality or between contending accounts of how materiality matters to politics? (xvi)

REFERENCES
Connolly, William (2008) Capitalism and Christianity, American Style. Duke University Press.
Fraser, Mariam (2010) "Facts, Ethics and Event" in C. Bruun Jensen & K. Rödje (eds) Deleuzian Intersections in Science, Technology And Anthropology. New York: Berghahn Press; 57-82.
Harman, Graham (2009) The Prince of Networks: Bruno Latour and Metaphysics.re-press, Melbourne, Australia.
Rose, Philip (2002) On Whitehead. Belmont, CA, Wadsworth.