Living Thoughts. The Reception of Deleuze in Scandinavia

Abstract

Living Thoughts. The Reception of Deleuze in Scandinavia Lars Tønder (bio) Mischa Sloth Carlsen, Karsten Gam Nielsen & Kim Su Rasmussen, Flugtlinier: Om Deleuzes Filosofi (Museum Tusculanums Forlag) I Of all the great twentieth-century French philosophers, Gilles Deleuze (1925 – 1995) was unquestionably the one who appreciated life the most. This is the thought that comes to mind in reading Flugtlinier: Om Deleuzes filosofi. Flugtlinier is a recent published Danish anthology on the philosophy of Deleuze, which emphasizes how Deleuze writes to liberate life, even where constraining institutions and disciplinary norms imprison it. Hence the epigraph of Flugtlinier, an apt and epitomizing remark by Deleuze on his overall philosophical ambition: ‘One always writes to give life, to liberate life wherever it is imprisoned, to trace the lines of flight.’ [1] Flugtlinier— the appropriate English title would indeed be Lines of flight: On the philosophy of Deleuze — is carefully edited by Mischa Sloth Carlsen, Karsten Gam Nielsen and Kim Su Rasmussen. The volume consists of contributions from eleven young and promising scholars, all of who write in Danish in order to make the many aspects of Deleuzean philosophy available for the first time to a Scandinavian audience. [2] Flugtlinier fulfils this objective in a successful and insightful way. However, because it is written in Danish, Flugtlinier may also be prevented from reaching a wide range of potential readers. This is a misfortune not only for the anthology itself, but more so to those interested in Deleuzean philosophy who have no knowledge of Danish. Therefore, it is the purpose of this review to discuss the most important points of Flugtlinier, thus compensating for the unavoidable language-barrier. Flugtlinier is an important report on the reception of Deleuze in Scandinavia, and shows how Deleuze, especially in Denmark, influences discussions about aesthetics and ethics. Deleuze, Flugtlinier suggests, is a thinker that combines empirical sensitivity for the singular event with the recognition of the formal character of syntax, language and argumentation. According to Flugtlinier, this combination is interesting because it opens up the possibility for a pluralizing vitalism, which gives priority to the imaginative and enchanting forces of thinking. However, while openly recognizing Michael Hardt’s claim that the study of Deleuze itself is an apprenticeship in philosophy that evolves around ontological notions such as ethical affirmation and aesthetic creation, Flugtlinier does not take the Continental highway of Empire, hegemonizing the imaginative horizon of thinking anew. [3] Rather, Flugtlinier makes Deleuze speak from a variety of positions, as it chooses the anthology to be the most appropriate format for presenting the philosophy of Deleuze to a new audience (p. 15). Thus, Flugtlinier comes closer to the Anglophone reading of Deleuze, which emphasizes the non-exhaustive potential of the imagination, certifying this realm as the realm of multiple becomings that defies hegemony. [4] The political consequences of this reading of Deleuze remain to be spelled out in its Scandinavian context, and one indeed misses a discussion of Deleuzean politics in Flugtlinier. Nevertheless, it is certain that Flugtlinier, on its home front, will have a lasting impact on contemporary issues like movements of immigration, multiculturalism, and religious plurality. Flugtlinier widens the horizon of an ethical and aesthetical imaginary, which juxtaposes unhappy resentment with joyful affirmation. II Thoughts are elusive, according to Deleuze. They come to our minds without our knowledge, and, no matter how intensively we scrutinize their origins, we have to accept that we never quite grasp their material foundation. Thus, neurophysiologists like Joseph LeDoux and Antonio Damasio have shown how (and why) computer-based models of brain-activity do not catch the intense exchange of information that takes place between the different parts of the brain, as we have emotional experiences such as angst, joy and grief. ‘[Even] if a computer could be programmed to be conscious,’ LeDoux argues, ‘it could not be programmed to have an emotion, as a computer does not have the right kind of composition, which comes not from the clever assembly of human artifacts but from eons of biological evolution.’ [5] To Deleuze, who never wrote explicitly on modern neurophysiology but invented concepts like “Body without Organs” and “Thought-brain”, this intriguing relationship between consciousness and emotional experience would be...