“There Will Never be Enough Done”

Abstract

Perhaps it is cliche to speak of signs. But it is a sign that people have emerged who kill themselves in order to kill others, leaving no one behind. The question confronting thought today is: what is a suicide bomber? But this question-even that we feel compelled to ask it-is a sign of a greater problem confronting thought This greater problem is problem of worst. The problem of worst, it seems to me, is problem of our today. In simplest terms, problem of worst is apocalypse, complete suicide. are able, however, to formulate this complex problem with precision by relying on philosophical concepts provided by Deleuze and Guattari and Derrida. In A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze and Guattari have defined our in terms of post-fascist figure of war machine, a figure that is worse, more terrifying, than fascism itself. Similarly, Derrida has defined our epoch in L'animal que donc je suis in terms of a holocaust of animal life that is worse than any sacrifice of animals seen in Old Testament. The problem of worst then is so bad today that it requires that we make every effort to find a solution. The essay that follows constructs beginnings of a solution to problem of worst. The first section will present formal structure of problem; it will also outline kind of thought that problem calls forth. Then second section will make formal structure more concrete by looking at dangers Deleuze and Guattari describe at end of Plateau Nine in A Thousand Plateaus; this second section will also take us beyond dangers to current situation This essay examines primarily contribution that Deleuze and Guattari's concepts can make to formulation of problem and solution. The third section will present solution (based on Deleuze and Guattari's concepts). The solution will come about by means of mechanism of a reversal. Since problem is hyperbolic, solution will be hyperbolic (or even revolutionary). If problem consists in unconditional im-passage, solution will consist in unconditional passage. As we can see already, concepts being developed here imply mode of existence or possibilities of living. Therefore we shall conclude with possibility of living that is reversal of suicide bomber; we shall conclude with mode of existence called the friend of outside. And since we started with a sign, we shall conclude with a dream, a dream of every single animal, of every single plant, of every single rock on earth and every single star in sky, a dream of whole becoming. The Problem of Worst and What Must be Thought Today While worst alludes to old problem of theodicy (the best possible as in Leibniz), we must say that problem of worst does not consist in worst possible world. It consists rather in of itself. Here we could quote Deleuze and Guattari, from their 1991 What is Philosophy (and when we hear word loss in their works we should always make association to Proust: in search of lost time); speaking of us today, Deleuze and Guattari say, We have lost world, which is worse than losing a fiancee, a son, or a God. (2) Or, we could quote Derrida writing about Paul Celan in his 2003 Rams, the is gone, I must carry you. (3) Both of these quotes allude to event, in Western metaphysics, of Platonism being overcome. The world, second world, in itself or essential is gone, lost, leaving only this world. (4) Before losing essential world, we would have called this world of appearance. Yet, without an essential behind it or above it, we see that this is no longer unified; it is cracked, fragmented, with borders everywhere. The problem of worst arises then because what defines a crack, a fragment, a border, or a limit is essential divisibility. …