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Affect:Whatis it Goodfor?
WilliamMazzarella
Dictionaries and casualconversationboth tend to equate'affect'
with'emotion.' But affectalso often shadesover into 'feelingj and
as such seemsto point to a zone where emotion intersectswith
processestaking place at a more corporeal level. Even in its relatively untheorized invocations,affect carriestactile, sensuous,
and perhapsalso involuntary connotations.This essayis a critical exploration of the implications of such a categoryfor social
analysis.I write in the belief that only those ideas that compel
our desireaswell as our resistancereceiveand deservethe most
sustainedcritique.
lmpersonal
: Thinking
Affect
Embodied,
Why is affect attracting so much attention in social and cultural
analysisthesedays?The quick, lazy answer is that the public cultures we inhabit today have become more unabashedly affective.
From political to commercial discourse,we are being solicited in
an unprecedentedlyaffective,intimate register.I will have more
to say about this impressionof heightenedpublic intimacy, but
in order to get properly to grips with the analytical implications
of the category,we shall first have to dig a bit deeper.
From an analytical point of view, thinking affect points us toward a terrain that is presubjectivewithout being presocial.As
such it implies a way of apprehendingsocial life that does not
start with the bounded,intentional subjectwhile at the sametime
foregrounding embodiment and sensuouslife. Affect is not the unconscious- it is too corporeallyrooted for that. Nor can it be aligned
with any conventional conception of culture, since the whole
292 r WilliamMazzarella
point of affect,accordingto its most influential contemporarythc
orists,is that unlike emotion it is not alwaysalreadysemiotical,r,
mediated.Gilles Deleuze,in an essayon Divid Hume, creditstht,
latter with having discoveredthat 'tffective circumstances,prc
existand guidethe 'principlesof association'that constitutewhar
we like to recognizeas reason (2001 Irg72l: a5). Deleuzeis thus
confirmed in his belief that there is, in John Rajchman'swords,
'an element
in experiencethat comes before the determinatiorr
of subjectand sense'(2001: 15).
_ Drawing on and developing Deleuze'sruminations, perhaps
the most significant recent scholarly intervention has been thu
work of Brian Massumi, particularly his essay,The Autonomy
of Affect' which first appearedin the mid-t990s and was latcr
included in Parablesfor the virtual (2002). Massumi characterizes
affect as a domain of intensity,indeterminacy,and above all po
tentiality, which the signifying logic of cultuie reducesor, iniis
terms, 'qualifiesl Affect is both embodied and impersonal.Thc
appearanceof personal, subjectivelife is, then, foi Massumi as
for Deleuzea secondaryeffectof cultural mediation.This is whv
affect cannot be equatedwith emotion:
An emotion is a subjectivecontent,the sociolinguisticfixing of
the quality of an experiencewhich is from that-point onwird
definedas personal.Emotion is qualifiedintensity,the conventional, consensualpoint of insertion of intensity into semantically and semioticallyformed progressions,into narrativizable
action-reactioncircuits,into function and meaning.It is intensity owned and recognized(Massumi2002:23).
From the standpoint of affect,societyis inscribedon our nervous
systemand in our freshbeforeit appearsin our consciousness.
The
affective body is by no means a tabula rasa; itpreservesthe traces
ofpast actionsand encountersand bringsthem into the presentas
potentials:'Intensity is asocial,but not presocial
1...] tlie trace ol'
pastactions including a traceof their contexts
faie] ionserved in
the brain and in the fl esh'(2002: 3o :original emphasisj.Further,,The
trace determinesa tendency,the potential,if not yet the appetite,
and variation of the impingement;
f9r.lhe_lutonomic repetition'the
(ibid.: 32). For all the talk of
body' in current culturJtheory,
Massumi complains,the body rarely appearsas anything much
294 r WilliamMazzarella
the productive,the multiple, and the mobile and, on the other.thc
death-dealingcertitudesof formal determination.As he puts it irr
a moment of rhetorical exaltation: ,If there were no escape,no
excessor remainder,no fade-out to infinity, the universewould
be without potential, pure entropy, death' (2002:55\.
Facedwith suchmelodramaone might well object,with Michacl
silverstein (2004), that the radical binarization of conceptual
mediation and affective immediacy is not only analytically unten
able but also a contingent feature of modein Euiopean philo
sophy.twhile I shall indeedbe arg'ing that the major fliw besetting
contemporary affect theory is its romantic (and complicit) attachment to a fantasyof immediacy - or as I prefer to put ii, imme_
diation (Mazzarella2006) - I would nevertheless[Le to explore
the possibilitythat the 'thing' it describesmay help us to reihink
the politics of public culture in a productiveiy criiical way.
TheClanandthe Crowd.Modernity
andAffect
The just-so story we too often tell ourselvesabout the origins
of modernity takes disenchantmentas its central theme. tn lhis
denuded fairy-tale, affect is progressivelyevacuatedfrom an increasinglyrationalized bourgeoisworld to the point where politics becomes,in Paul Valery'swords, ,the art of preventing the
from getting involved in what concernsthim' (quotld in
::":^er
Maffesoli 1996 [1938]: 154). The legitimacy of bourgebismod_
ernity seemshere to depend upon processesof abstriction that
are at once universalizingand vampiric. The inevitableend point
is Max weber's 'iron cage,'an arrogantly soullessbureauiratic
'nullity' ruled
by'specialists without spirit, sensualistswithout
heart'(1998 [1920]:182).
Political legitimationalso,it seems,has taken the samecourse,
Jiirgen Habermas (1989[1962]) narrates the transition from a
spectacular'publicnessof representation'in which the bodv of the
sovereign,ritually emerginginto public view, assertedand confirm.edthe stability of the polity and the efficacyof royal power,
to the rational-critical legitimation of the seCulardlmocratic
order. Perhapsthe most sensuouslymemorable illustration of this
transition - even if it is mobilized to very different critical ends is Michel Foucault's famous opening diptyctr in Discipline &
Punish (1977 U9751),which seeksto convince us, by means of
296I William
Mazzarella
has calledanthropology's'savage
slot'served,inter alia,to assist
the disavowal through which the discourseof modernity absolverl
itself from grappling with its own affectivepolitics.
In this regard, Emile Durkheim's The Elementary Forms ol
Religious Life (1995[L912]) is a splendidly subversivetext. For
starters Durkheim, quite consciouslywriting with and againsr
the contemporaryfigure of the urban crowd, givesus something
that in today'spolarizedtheoreticallandscapehasbecomealmost
unimaginable: a social theory that is at once semiologicalanrl
affect-based.Mulling over the proto-structuralist sign politics
and the collectiveeffervescenceof the corroborree,he strivesto
isolatethe constitutive functions of both the mediationsand the
mania which so many of his contemporariescould only recog
nize as the regressiveaffinity betweendistant primitives and alltoo-proximate proletarian crowds. The Polynesiancategory ol
manalends Durkheim a transhistorical,transcultural name for
the sacredpower of the social.But in stressingits volatile ,contagiousnesslits amoral energy,Durkheim is also invoking the
kind of nonsubjectivesensuousmimetic potential that seemed
to inform both the primitive communitas and the - preciselymindlessagitation of the crowd.
In the discourseof modernity, affect appearsas a socialpharmakon, at once constitutiveand corrosiveof life in common. In
the Durkheimian bounded clan, the harnessingof mana for purposesof socialregenerationis a noisy,sweatybut relativelymech.
anical matter. But the organic complexity of industrial societies
seemsto make the self-consciouslymodern deploymentof affect
much more complicated. The figure of the urban mob (when
not simply sullen) is affectivelyeffervescent,to be sure,but also
for that very reasonfrighteningly unstableand vulnerableto the
manipulationsof demagoguesand advertisersalike. In the closed
clan the energygeneratedby proximate bodies in motion, each
mirroring the other's excitation, operatesas a principle of solidarity and commitment. But in the open crowd thesevery same
conditions herald excessand violence.Crowd agitation readsas
regressive,driven by atavistic instincts at odds with the brittle
bonds of civilization.
Collectively comprising a howling feedback loop, the members of a crowd, quickly shedding their bourgeois individuality, become mimetic, indiscriminately amplifying each others'
300 r WilliamMazzarella
embodiedmembersof a sensuoussocialorder.In relation to bottr
of theselevelsthe notion of the individual as bounded,volitional
'subject' - while
ideologically crucial - must be taken as some
thing of a strategiccompromise.
Both the marketing of branded goods and electoral politics
demonstratethis principle at work. In either case,the official
justification for the affect-intensiveFactor X (the candidate's
'charisma,'the
brand'scompulsion)- that exceedsan instrumental.
rational appeal- is the need for a unique positioning in a field or
functionally interchangeablecommodities.But is it not the case
that we respond powerfully (with both excitement and alarml
to being addressedat a level that exceedsour judicious deliberation as rational choosers?In either case,we participate in a
double fetishism that projects this delicate tension bnto thc
'inherent' properties
of the desired or dreadedobject as well as
onto the'ambivalent'motivationof the choosingsubject.I call this
a fetishismsincethe dialectic in fact originatesin neither subject
nor object,but is rather a structuralpropertyof the public cultural
fields in which subjectand object come to be for themselvesand
for each other, and in which, at the sametime, their apparently
miraculous meeting as predestinedpartners (,made-fbr eacir
other') is constantly staged.
Mediation
and Death
Attentive readerswill no doubt by now be troubled. How can
I start with Massumi and Deleuzeand now blithely be invoking
such unabashedlyGermanic terms as mediation and dialectics,
especiallygiventhe extraordinary- I am temptedto sayphobic _
level of vitriol that the Deleuzians reseroefor precisely such
concepts?In their highly influential work, Empire,Michael Hardt
and Antonio Negri not only excoriate,the dialectic, that cursec
dialectic!'(2000:377),butgo on to situatethemselvesin much the
samelineageasthat of Massumi,the neo-Nietzscheanmoment of
Frenchpoststructuralism(again,with the samevitaristforebears)
that refused what it took to be the totalizing ambition of the
Hegelian dialectic in favour of ,refusal,resistance,violence.and
the positive affirmation of being' (ibid.: 57S).
Deleuze accusesthe dialectic of ,prestidigitationl figuring it
as a treacheroustemptation to totalize: 'Dialecticsis the art that
302r William
Mazzarella
much more markedly than do the concepts. The change is
imposed upon the material by the concept'i systematicity"antr
constitutesa becoming homologousof the material to th.
system.This is all very grim. It has lessto do with ,more to th,
world'than 'more of the samelIt has lessto do with inventiorr
than masteryand control (2002: U).
certainly the caricature of mediation-as-subsumptionas
sketchedhere is indeed very grim. And the saddestirony is thar
this line of thinking, while ostensibly'critical,'actuallygrantstht,
would-be normalizing institutions of modern govein-mentalit.y
preciselythe kind of totalizing efficacythat their-own ideological
discourseclaims.Ton the one hand, this position credits iisti
tutions with a seamlessness
that they do nofenjoy. on the other and this is a crucial point-it fatally misidentifierih"ir power with
the possibility of such seamlessness.
Urtimately, it uies this en
tirely reified vision of immaculate subsumption to lend plausi
bility to the singular integrity of its own vitil ,alternative.'For alr
its claims to enablea ne., radical form of socio-culturalanalysis,
sucha standpoint in practicepreventsus from understanditrgtn"
workings of any actually existing social institutions, becau"seir
has alwaysalreadydismissedtheir mediatingpracticesas having
compromised the potentialities that a more im-mediate vitaliti
would embody.
Much writing in this tradition presentsitself rather narcissis,
tically as interveningin an 'insurrectionary'or'insurgent'manner
into apparently authoritative realms of utterance ind practice.
But rather than expendingvast amounts of energr recuperating
the constitutiveinstability and indeterminacythat attends all
signification (asif it were really hidden, as if its ,revelation'might
enablesome momentous transformation),would it not be m6rc
illuminating to explore how this indeterminacyactualryoperates
in practice as a dynamic condition of our engagementwith the
categoriesof collectivelife? Ratherthan positingthe emergentas
the only vital hope againstthe dead hand of -Jdiation, wiy not
considerthe.possibilitythat mediationis at once perhapsthehost
fundamental and prod'ctive principle of all roiiul life precisely
becauseit is necessarilyincomplete,unstable,and provisionati
Mark Poster'sobjectionto Maffesolideservesto be exiendedto the
neo-vitaliststout court: 'His generousappreciationof ,,newtribalism,'
304 r WilliamMazzarella
to note that the dream of immediation, far from being radical.
is in fact largely complicit with entirely mainstream currents irr
contemporarypublic culture -. all the way from the depoliticizing
sensuoustheodicy of consumeristgratification to the neoliberirl
will to allow the 'spontaneous'logic of the market to displacc
the 'artificial' mediations of human institutions.
WHvWr AneAr-lPeRveRse,
On,THrOperu
Eoceor
MassPueLrcrrY
Maffesolinotesthe derivationof the term 'perverse'fromthe Latin
per uia ('by way of ). Perversion,then, would be the symptom ol
a detour through somethingexternalto ourselves.For Maffesoli,
committed as he is to recuperatinga 'proxemics'that woulcl
amelioratethe alienatedabstractionsof the rationalized society,
'
perversionreallyis a pathologr- at besta'simulatedacquiescence
to the c<lmmandments
of an intolerableorder (1996 [1988]:49).
But one might also think as follows: insofar as the perversc
detour is the mark of all mediation,and insofaras any notion ol
'identity' relies upon a mediated relation
between two or morc
terms,then it would appearthat we must all be perverse.Rathcr'
than seekingto recuperatean emergentnon-alienatedstate,wc
might instead productively pervert Massumi'sterminology,ancl
acknowledgethat the condition of our becoming is indeed a
negatively dialectical one, in which we are always moving be
tween immanence and qualification.
This is not just an existentialpredicament,but also the con
dition of our public cultural engagements.A distinctive featurc
of modern democratic orders as well as of mass publicity is an
uneasyoscillation betweenbounded categoriesof socio-cultural
identification (by region,by class,by sex,by ethnicity) and the in
finitely capaciousuniversal containersof modern self-hood (the
consumer,the citizen, the consumer-citizen).Partha Chatterjec
(2004) has rightly critiqued Benedict Anderson's insistenceirr
The Spectreof Comparisons(1998) on calling the 'bound serialities' of closed, ethnic identity claims socially regressivewhilc
grantingprogressivestatusto the open,'unbound serialities'of abstractlyinclusivenon-localizedcategorieslike citizenship.Rather
than any reactivechampioning of the creativity or differenceol
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