massthink

To massthink is to start from difference. It is to find yourself in a company with whom you can’t laugh; to feel the dead/dumb weight of the herd sweeping you along; to not want to (go with the) party. It is to be cautious even of the audience that nods, to detect in their liking oh so much pressure for you to do what they want, to nod with them, if not, in the face of consensus, to no longer think. To massthink is to not take things—thoughts, ways of being, the current situation—for granted. To massthink is, instead of dumbing down, posing as “cool,” to (the truly cool pose) question thoughts received, imposed, assumed: commonplace, traditional, worn-out ways of thinking/being currently in operation, under which the established order is functioning—even if it works—including the thought that the herd does not think—including, especially, yourself. To massthink is, more than Freud, who deserves our highest regard, to constantly remind yourself: “Beware of the culture in which you are steeped!” to be able, like Nietzsche, to exist/live/be outside. To massthink is, like Socrates, to ask questions, even, especially, those no longer asked, but, unlike Plato, to not privilege your answers, but instead to keep questioning and to direct it also to yourself. To massthink is to discern the process underneath things/thoughts, to look for/at foundations, probe things/thoughts in their root—even to the point of, or perhaps in order, following Marx, to challenge the established order, the state (of things/thoughts). Because you want/need—desire—to think—not on your own or by yourself, but with your own—which is to say also with others, as with Deleuze and Guattari—which is already different. Because you think: you (mass)think.

[Raphael’s School of Athens]

massthink emerged as a critique (outgrowth + departure) of differAntiate, a politically-engaged, optimistic philosophy that believed in Philosophy’s ability to reach the truth and cure all ills. The first version of (or attempt to) massthink recalls, “The differAntiator was an optimist. He wanted to argue, shout, be believed/heard. He was combative, a fighter, someone who wants to know the truth, influence how others thought, change thought and thus life; an engaged intellectual, a politician, a philosopher.” This, perhaps predictably, only led the differAntiator to the sophistry in Philosophy. He realized, “Given enough [show of] logic [coupled with (sometimes not even articulate) rhetoric], you can argue for almost anything and everything; Philosophy is inherently impotent: it is irrelevant in America (= the masses?); and even if the masses did exercise it, people simply do not change the points of view they already have (formed, as Freud says, in childhood and rigidified in adulthood?); and even if one, no matter how he tries, lives according to thought, uses thought to guide action (ethics) and living with others (politics), thought (phenomenological?) still does not, cannot(?) change life (structural?), even just his own.” The differAntiator at this point of course hasn’t even mentioned the unconscious.

Frustrated and despondent, the differAntiator became a massthinker. Whereas differAntiate was fully thought out and managed by Ryan, massthink attempted to create an Aless that would counterbalance Ryan, or at least provide a check. In response to differAntiate, (the first) massthink inaugurated a Nietzschean twilight of the idols—less of a particular philosopher or school of thought than, as in Heidegger and Derrida, of Philosophy itself. Directly contrasting himself from the differAntiator, the massthinker thought of himself as “more somber, focused on contemplation rather than combat, aiming to express rather than win an argument. He explores a train of thought not to formulate an (imposing, all-explaining) Ideology, but, following Deleuze, for ever further differentiation, forming, unlike Deleuze and like the Marxists, not giving up on this term, an ideology—a forever modified guide to his singular life (rather than a general rule to be imposed) that abhors habit (which Massumi describes as “the ballast that chains the dog to his vomit”), generality, [and totalization,] done, at least in the first instance, for himself rather than for an audience [in order to formulate guiding principles rather than absolute rules].” Characterizing himself as someone who “stays behind and observes,” the massthinker likened himself to “an independent (v. political), antiestablishment (v. institutional), detached (v. authoritative), disaffected (v. mainstream), defiant (v. revolutionary) free spirit (v. civic voice) [who] acts only (cautious, after having read Foucault, of the complications of power) when called upon, and [even then only] when absolutely necessary.”

There were, however, as the massthinker soon realized, also problems with this. “If the philosophy we have is always uncertain (“I think it is like this, but I don’t know for sure”), absolutely singular (“This applies only to me”), apolitical (“What does philosophy have to do with politics? What does politics have to do with philosophy?”), and impotent (“I know I’m right, but what’s the use? Thinking does not connect with life”), what purpose for philosophy is there? What is the role of philosophy? Simply a playful activity, a game, a mental experiment that has no bearing on the world? Why do philosophy (seriously, as an occupation) then? Why write philosophy? Why (have) massthink at all?” While evading the overly optimistic tendency in Ryan’s differAntiations that could lead to frustration/hopelessness, if not control, the early (the first) massthink nonetheless experienced the tendency to pessimist uncertainty/helplessness (cloaked in apathy) in Aless, manifesting itself in “skepticism (“I cannot know anything!”) [which may only lead, because holding one seems impossible, to the insane deconstruction of all convictions], cynicism (“I cannot do anything (to change anything)!”) [which may only lead to desperate measures], [even stoicism (“I’ll just suffer through it”),] and nihilism (“My life has no meaning!”) that undermines the very thing it is doing—i.e. philosophizing—depriving it of a ground (something like Heidegger’s earth?).”

Thus the first massthink failed to be true to itself. Unlike the stated author’s name, while there was an Aless, there was hardly a Ryan: the writer was not truly Ryan/Aless. (The first) massthink (at least the early part), in other words, merely inverted the hierarchy of differAntiate rather than performing a true Derridean deconstruction (which does not result into a Hegelian synthesis). Hence, after a month of (the first) massthink, there was (in an attempt to save the intertext) a reconfiguration. At first the massthinker was aided by Zizek’s theory of the Act. Hence to the description of the massthinker as “act[ing] only [. . .] when called upon, when it is absolutely necessary” was added: “but, when necessary, takes action, in fact, Acts fully.” Thus when it came to arguments, whereas the differAntiator deliberately incited them, it was proposed that “the massthinker does not stay silent when faced with one—but argues only when faced with it, and then not to win and impose his view, but simply to express effectively his own viewpoint. Similarly, [to] the underlying assumption that ‘It is your life. You’re responsible for it. I am only responsible for mine’ [was added the qualification that whereas] the massthinker does not care about convincing an other to act, neither does he cower from himself acting.” As (the first) massthink continued on, lived its life (there is only so much that Ryan/Aless can (consciously) determine), this served as the guide to the dynamics between Ryan and Aless: Start from Aless, then, in exceptional cases, be Ryan!

The Act, however, as with Zizek in general, leaves a lot of questions not raised, not to mention its underdeterminations (When should it take place? By whom? For what? How is it to be judged afterwards? How is it even to be determined to begin with? Which is an Act?). For the massthinker, the most important proved to be the fact that in addition to acts of exceptional nature, he thought it worth it to come up with some determination of—to think about—philosophy in/of the everyday. Hence later the massthinker explored the possibility that “even if it does not bring about anything, it does not mean that one does not philosophize—not think—that one rejects philosophy altogether. There is still (against relativistic postmodernism) [of the different positions offered on the table, and those not] something right [or at least righter, more preferable, more workable]—and what else is one to do but try, by thinking (how else?), to get it right?” As in many other instances, the massthinker was guided here by his (true) philosophical heroes, Deleuze and Guattari, reading them better this time: “[Even as] we subordinate the molar to the molecular, even as we operate molecularly, in terms of flows, of actual interactions, of local everyday performances—the molar, stratified relations, representations, images, definiteness, systematic accessibility, even Hegel’s philosophy, nonetheless has its uses.” More generally, he determined that “even as we are all material and actual, sometimes it pays to go back to the virtual. After all, just as the actual can change the virtual way in which we think, there are times—although there is no guarantee, since desire may short-circuit it—when the virtual can guide us in the actual lives we live. Actual-Intensive-Virtual. Virtual-Intensive-Actual.” Beyond Acting, the (mass)thinker in other words truly wants—desires—to philosophize/theorize—not to be certain—but because uncertain (with the goal of some determination rather than merely exceptional Acts or interventions).

This, however, also proved insufficient or incomplete. Perhaps out of more confidence, curiosity, or the haunting of the differAntiator (different this time), the (mass)thinker (wanting to go further) found himself wondering: “What if in addition to this we again opened up again the possibility—and validity—of starting with Ryan, so long as he is tempered by Aless, i.e. arguing, arguing deliberately, but simply to interact, to relate—not (God forbid!) to make believe, and certainly not to privilege (reify!) his own position of enunciation, able to admit mistake and change position? What if we did not anymore fear (or are brave enough to handle) the limitations (v. impotence) of [p]hilosophy? What if we’ve again gained confidence, but cautious confidence? Would this not be truer to Derridean deconstruction? Isn’t this more in the spirit of Heidegger’s twisting, rather than dismissive rejection, of phenomenology? Would this not be but, rather than closing, overcoming or destroying it, constructing philosophy, as Deleuze tried to do? Have we not in fact already been doing this? Wouldn’t this result into a more workable (less deterministic, less imposing) yet at the same time working (effective, potent) philosophy?” The (mass)thinker of course would not forget Aless: “If, to participate in combat, more information/weapons are needed, rather than, like a politician, a poser, and/or a know-it-all, hubristically pretending [and] presenting a shiny competent surface, this Ryan will shut up, or, better yet, ask questions. Otherwise Aless would reveal him for the fraud that he is.” With regards to Acting, even as the (mass)thinker allowed it to “at times to be on the lead, [he qualified that they] are to be performed [. . .] without hubris, and with due respect accorded to forces beyond he who acts—and, if the would-be agent be lucky, with the intuited distinction between what can be acted on, tampered with, affected, saved—and those that cannot.”

[Salvador Dali’s Birth of a New World]

In many ways, (mass)think, even if only in the background, records this swinging back and forth—and beyond: there, or there (and perhaps here, within, where it’s closest)—of Ryan/Aless and, in moments of felicity, the discovery/invention of new directions, radical trajectories that point toward much-needed/desired movements at (em)power(ment) rather than stale balance at the center (the site of rigidity, cliché, complicity, and death). (mass)think, in other words, if only underneath the actual conversation, serves as an ongoing attempt to figure out—to think—philosophy/theory’s appropriate/potent attitude, methodology, and purpose, aiming for some determination—a mass—of the question without precluding, in fact anticipating and inciting, further problematization and creation of yet new problematics (Althusser’s apparatus for posing questions): ever differAntiate! In addition to technical considerations, massthink moved to this site (even though the later parts of the old were really not that different from the new) out of the desire for clarification and a more organized presentation that could be more easily opened up to revisions and deviations. Many thanks for experiencing with me!

In the course of (mass)thinking, some determinations are—have been and are being—made. In hindsight, the problem that the (differAntiator and first) massthinker came across was really a problem of approach of/to philosophy/theory, which can be situated around the question of “optimism or pessimism?” While overtime the main contesting forces remained largely the same, their pulls have been redirected, making possible this re-determination. More and more the (mass)thinker—always thinking twice about participating in totalizing and universalizing (usually misdirected) arguments that either pull towards conformity or result to polarizing rancor, premised as the tireless wallowing is on the claim of sameness and on power that all parties to optimist argumentation self-righteously presuppose—more and more the (mass)thinker became wary of pessimist relativism, an approach he has never held but which still posed dangers to his way of going. The (mass)thinker realized that just as optimism has its dangers, most notably the authoritarian, even totalitarian, exercise of power that may follow from one’s conviction that he knows what is right and that he can implement/practice it (for himself and for others), all that permissive relativism accomplishes is merely the preservation of the current state (of things/thoughts), which itself may be, even in its “liberal” consensus, authoritarian, even totalitarian, if only in its exclusion of everything radical, anything that could undermine its established order.

Following a view of Marx (validated, the (mass)thinker thinks, by empirical evidence), the (mass)thinker believes that there are things/thoughts in the current state that need to be changed. Even as the current state may only induce pessimism, while one cannot optimistically think that he is fully certain of what to do about it, neither can he, the (mass)thinker realized, automatically and from the beginning, before he even fights, assume that the fight has already been lost, that things will never change and/or others will not catch on. Even though on the surface resignation does not seem to inflict any offense, it really does since, in not even trying, it only makes one bitter, impatient, perhaps think ill of other people, which may even lead him to cynical measures that are only the same as, if not worse than, optimistic interventions. Between Nader pointing out how things keep getting worse (due to the systematic blocking of truly democratic forces) and Chomsky assessing how things have in some ways gotten better (thanks to mass movements who fight on the ground), while the (mass)thinker sees the state (of things/thoughts) like a pessimist, he has some optimism about potential (human) response to it (sometimes impelled by other forces, e.g. by nature), the preparation for which, through philosophical groundwork and theoretical framework, is, he believes, part of the intellectual’s task, whose main tool is rhetoric (words expressing some ideas that have some relation to things (not necessarily of correspondence)).

This really presupposes an earlier position by the massthinker in which “to the questions/objections, ‘But if you don’t participate in combat, won’t those who live to impose (conservatism) win? Are you saying that no one should participate in combat, that no one should impose his will at all (anarchism)? What if everyone just lived his/her own life, without meddling on others (libertarianism)? But isn’t there great potential in the power vested in the State, that Leviathan, to accomplish good (liberalism)?’ (The differAntiator has written a succinct, if simplified, summary of these different political standpoints, all of which the massthinker, later on, attacked.),” after admitting, “I don’t know,” the massthinker suggested, “Maybe, maybe power should come from below, those [on whom some authority will be imposed]. Maybe it should be their decision what the (goal of the) imposition is. Yes! Authority based on the consent of the [ruled], on [their negotiations of who the authority is, what it does, how it works . . .] But wh[at] determines what they want, you say? How to make sure that they desire what is best (for them)? Education! Educate the masses. Don’t you think?”

[Eugene Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People]

The (mass)thinker, in other words, recognizes the need for authority/rule/order (an optimist notion)—but (cushioned by pessimism and inspired by radical yearnings for liberation in history) one that is strongly grounded on the bottom—but with something demanded (even) of those who constitute the “bottom.” Equally with Marx’s fight for the proletariat, the (mass)thinker stands by Nietzsche’s calls for the Overman, which the (mass)thinker thinks is, unlike in crude interpretations, nothing elitist or transcendent, or is elitist only in the sense that the emergence of leaders is acknowledged—in what is in fact an immanent process being as everyone has the potential to be leaders, if only of themselves. As Deleuze interprets of Nietzsche: everyone, in certain exercises of the will to power (becoming (creative and liberating, Hardt and Negri would add) desiring-machines), can be(come) Overmen! It is precisely these Overmen that in the (mass)thinker’s view can build the only just(ifiable) state: not crude democracy or hollow equalization and universality of laws, but the State of (direct/radical/mass) Democracy demanding of and necessitated by (critical) thinking—something that can, and should, be practiced by everyone—(mass)think!—in which, as Marcuse practiced, the radical intellectual is no more special than other constituents (fellow potential Overmen) other than the fact that, in educating the masses, he serves as a catalyst in being the first one to say/demand, “(mass)think!” These acts, then, via some state, would, the (mass)thinker believes, pave the way for the creation of the New Earth.

In line with these convictions on rule/order/leadership, the (mass)thinker, while recognizing that there are indeed many different positions, determined, echoing Nietzsche and an earlier formulation, that not all views are valid and that some positions are better than others, if only in their effects on the collective from which they come from and in which they affect each other and, more importantly, their individual holders. While the (mass)thinker starts from the position that the individual has a right to determine for himself his thinking/being, the (mass)thinker, although by default minding his own business and leaving everyone be, nonetheless recognizes that persuasion is at times, depending on the views, the situation, and the interlocutor, worth the attempt. The individual, after all, as Hegel and Marx recognize, is shaped by and affects the social, a larger-scale individual; as Deleuze and Guattari point out, social even when he is alone. The individual, in other words, is social to begin with; the truly individual, despite seeing outside the herd, a social being—so (adept in the) social, in fact, that, using his “social skills,” he knows with which individuals to socialize (more). Thus the (mass)thinker, while able to detach from the herd—in fact to begin with detached from it, unable to assimilate, relegated to the outside—is able to go back in, to make certain, perhaps tangential, diagonal, or transversal, associations, but nonetheless desiring, significant/affective, fulfilling, and liberatory connections, if only temporary or for certain purposes, with certain individuals, in certain moods (what one feels like doing), but also because of the belief that with the (despite the pressure of normalization) multifarious molecules that compose it and its members, there is bound to be something connectable, perhaps even connections worth making, in the herd. After all, no (wo)man can or should be—is—a catatonic body without organs. More importantly, the (mass)thinker has witnessed it time and again that many people avoid others altogether, only to be clichés with the people they do relate with. The (mass)thinker would much rather prefer to knowingly put on a game face, especially when it serves legitimate purposes, rather than unconsciously being a cliché.

The positions presently determined as better by an individual (e.g. by the (mass)thinker), usually through exchanges with other individuals and which tend to have social repercussions, are of course not the absolute answers but can at most only attain the status of being in the Heideggerian sense, a mode of existing that, as in Nietzsche and Deleuze, works right now given, as the Frankfurt School points out, certain historical conditions and which, as Marx insists, can be changed—which, the (mass)thinker, the genealogist, points out, is true even of mathematics and its “axioms.” The emphasis is on what works rather than on what is “right” (either morally or ethically) or what is “true” (either epistemologically, ontologically, or psychically/emotionally/spiritually); on how things work/be rather than on what being is or what working means; on temporal processes or mechanisms of the system/individual (including what it takes from and does to the elements that compose it)—inciting will towards healthier desires, stronger powers, and new states—rather than identity or transcendent absolutes. Normative value judgments (“Is this good? Is this bad?”), even while certain ones are presupposed by the (mass)thinker’s approach (or any philosophical/theoretical approach, for that matter), are not explicitly made; nor are practice/policy recommendations (“Should we do this or that?”) the primary goal. The (mass)thinker takes it that normative and/or practical judgments are up to individuals (e.g. his readers) to make. The (mass)thinker’s work is rather to analyze while putting in context the subject matter or object’s mechanisms and processes—usually using the object’s own standards, which is how Horkheimer is able to say that his approach that recognizes relativism (based on the difference of objects) is objective—from which judgments can be deduced (by individuals by themselves).

This is not to say that the (mass)thinker recognizes no “truth.” To the misdirected question of, “Is there universal truth for all human beings (which is then also imposed on other creatures and things) or is truth specific to particular cultures (or situations or persons)?” the (mass)thinker points out that there are different horizons. Certain matters can only be decided upon locally with its particular circumstances (e.g. “Guilty or not guilty?”) (hence the potency of interpretation and negotiation); other issues afford a wide variety/spectrum of “true” or “right” answers (e.g. “Family solidarity or individual independence?”) without drastically changing consequences (or whose consequences are not much different) (and are perhaps better left alone in their current state if they have a significance to the tradition or culture in which they belong); yet others, usually as the matter becomes more abstract, apply to a whole set of beings (“all” of its members) and as such demand more “universal” standards (e.g. “Violence against another?”) (although whose being is of concern, whose point of view is taken, is usually determined by power dynamics, and the beings that emerge dominant, e.g. human beings or colonizers, tend to universalize the standards that are good for them to all other beings, e.g. to nature or the colonized). The horizon/level to which a particular matter belongs (according to what beings it applies to) is of course itself a matter of interpretation. This does not mean that interpretation does not require some “objective” support or basis. More importantly, any interpretation, perhaps especially of this sort pertaining to claims of truth, is, the (mass)thinker recognizes, difficult to disentangle from interests of power.

Aware of Hegel, the (mass)thinker considers things taken to be “truths” as settlements or coagulations—stratifications, Deleuze would say; stalemates in the struggle resulting to some balance of power, Marxists would say—resulting from antagonisms/conflicts that explode into contradictions, which, the (mass)thinker recognizes, are everywhere. In the great confrontation between the two supposedly major sides, however—the “thesis” and “antithesis”—the (mass)thinker, unlike Hegel, recognizes that the subject of truth—the subject who supposedly knows or can be conscious of the truth or is the source or keeper of truth—is for the most part but a pawn who does not determine the truth, who cannot even necessarily identify with the side to which he is supposed to belong, simply existing in the margins of the battle more as an effect rather than a cause (although there are exceptions). This position of the subject is not unlike the other fields of contention that the current confrontation, whatever form it has taken in the moment, has overshadowed, those inactive but no less substantive and perhaps even more potent differences relegated to the margins by the present dialectic. Recognizing what Negri refers to as the tension between the plurality of instances and the duality of antagonisms that to the (mass)thinker calls for an approach that balances Hegelian systematicity and Deleuzo-Guattarian plateaus, any “resolution” is thus not so much a synthesis as it is a displacement (as in Marx, as interpreted by Harvey), a delay or avoidance of resolution through some transfer, repositioning, or minor concession; or, should the event prove momentous, a dislocation (as in Spinoza, as interpreted by Negri), leading to paradigm shifts and new directions. This is not to say that there are not valid abstractions that can be made on horizons larger than that of singular differences. In fact, the (mass)thinker believes that abstractions serve legitimate purposes since most acts (especially at the level of larger-scale individuals or collectives such as the polity) require a certain unification of molecular forces in order for movement to take place, to say nothing of the dangers of polarization and dogmatism that may result from solely and stubbornly remaining at the level of one’s difference. Then again the (mass)thinker recognizes that there is also dogmatism in the identification and unification/totalization required by movement through dialectics, to say nothing of the danger that it may ignore (small) facts on the ground, the possibility that the argumentation that makes it possible only leads to bitterness and paralysis, and, of course, the inequality of sacrifice required of “members” to belong in one of the two “main/representative” groups.

Against the tendency to identify an element with the totality in which it happens to belong, to the (mass)thinker one of the hallmarks of fascism, the (mass)thinker recognizes that (a) movement is more potent if, rather than purifying, it activates similarities within/between differences to pursue common goals, if only for the moment. Rather than polarized, such movement, in momentous times, penetrates and/or composes a larger body, thereby allowing it to be more wide-ranging and its effects more far-reaching. The (mass)thinker is wary, of course, of such movements being diluted by “consensus” and of the possibility of present allies becoming adversaries later. Still, it is the (mass)thinker’s view that, within limits, based on current objectives and the workability of the terms, allies can be made. Against the establishment’s presentation of only two choices—to begin with a false dualism—whose only possible relation is opposition, the (mass)thinker thinks it important to find other axes of similarities/commonalities (e.g. a common agenda) and, rather than being distracted by, to celebrate and take advantage of differences to fight the real enemy in the battle that really counts. Against the false opposition between (Analytical) philosophy’s emphasis on truth and sameness/community and rhetoric/sophistry’s assertion of argumentation/questioning and irreducible difference, the (mass)thinker asserts that both sameness and difference are “true.” Rather than privileging one over the other, what is needed, the (mass)thinker thinks, is only to know how to work with both so as to fight the real fight. Just as we are never fully sure of the truth, questioning—and even play, or art—is not everything. After all, we do still need to eat and, in living together, we need to figure out how to work our politics at the same time as we are still able to express ourselves as “I.” As a principle, however, the (mass)thinker is cautious of any appeal to similarity or even just commonality, which, after all, still relies, albeit in different degrees, on some sort of sameness that not only can break down but, more importantly, usually excludes and marginalizes some things inevitably different, if not deliberately set as the Other. At the same time, the (mass)thinker recognizes that it is at times tempting to romanticize difference as that which binds people together, perhaps in a sexually arousing way—when many times, as with romanticism in general, this is just painfully not so.

Amid different horizons, similarities, differences, not to mention moments, there is a need, the (mass)thinker feels, for a view in between and from outside that enables one to shift horizons from the large and the small (and the larger, the smaller . . .), change standpoint from one to another (to another . . .), in this way able to question and discerning more clearly and rigorously a system’s workings (especially one’s own) (perhaps using its own standards to judge it), leading to critical “truths” anchored in the social that one can then intelligently hold. It should of course not be forgotten that there are different “types” of things/thoughts: e.g. facts or the material or content of the matter (usually a social phenomenon) in consideration; theory that provides ways to think about (read, interpret, critique) the fact (e.g. by providing ways of framing, formulating questions) independently (outside of its own horizon/being, with enough critical distance so as to provide a vantage point from which to see, among other things, how it works (paradoxically enough, in/from the inside, perhaps based on its own “objective” standards)) and in its social context (theory is of course by no means limited to thinking about the object/work but, at its best, using its material, sheds light on life or something in it, including the way we think about the material or even about life) (+ the philosophy that thinks about the thinking); the many diverging criticisms, interpretations, and/or opinions that come out of and are guided by the theory; and the practice (the development of latent social consciousness, as the Frankfurt School would say) recommended by, if not following from, the interpretation. These different things/thoughts, within the context of different horizons, call for different categories/standards in determining/judging their “truth” (within the limits of and as applies to the type of “thing” that it is). At the same time, these “truths” are, in essence, all really texts in which no one of them (e.g. theory) is the determinant and definitive source of or guide to truth (the Bible, as it were, which, the (mass)thinker points out, is itself a work of literature, a text!); rather, they express (perhaps the same) experiences in their own ways via their own mediums, leading to multifarious resonances and multiple intersections/assemblages out of which something works.

[Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Tower of Babel]

Rhetoric, as mentioned above, is the (mass)thinker’s main tool/weapon (in theorizing/philosophizing, in interpreting/reading, in judging truths . . .). Rhetoric is a tricky, double-edged sword, however, as it is tempting to let oneself be uncritically taken in by intuition, emotional appeal, or beautiful literary phraseology—something that “sounds good” or seems “just about right.” Against this the (mass)thinker stresses that eloquent articulation (which to begin with cannot merely sound good but must instead actually get across, i.e. communicate, even persuade) goes hand in hand with argumentative rigor, its best friend: careful, critical, and “objective” analysis and synthesis (through some distance and/or by measuring the object by its own standards) that nonetheless takes account of the subject propounding it and to which it is addressed. If rhetoric is underlain by the effective, perhaps even beautiful and creative, use of language, argumentative rigor is underlain by reason. At the same time, the (mass)thinker is aware that reason or something that passes for it can be tyrannical in its universal pretensions even when it is flawed. Instead of, like Kant (and neo-Kantians), claiming (to be on the side of) Reason against those whose views differ from his own, the (mass)thinker hesitates to even use the term. If he uses it at all, it is more in the sense of “There is a reason why this happens . . .” “This is the reason for doing this . . .” “Thinking/Doing of it this way seems more reasonable than that way . . .” i.e. as an explanation or at most a preference (grounded on some logic, some explanation accessible by another (as something that makes some sense)) rather than a claim of definitive and universal, thereby marginalizing, validity/applicability.

Rhetoric must of course also, perhaps more easily than its coupling with reason, square with the facts (the lack of this correspondence of course does not keep certain assertions from being quickly disseminated in the mainstream). The (mass)thinker is aware that certain theories/stories make logical sense and are perhaps even good to tell/hear. If they are not supported by any facts or some kind of evidence, however, to the (mass)thinker they have no validity, no matter how entertaining they may be. Without support, claims are but empty speculations motivated by nothing but prejudice and dogma. The (mass)thinker does recognize, however, that it is inevitable, instead of waiting for all the pieces to fall into place, to make certain hypotheses and deductions. Rather than authoritatively assuming these without a doubt, however, the (mass)thinker puts value on testing them against facts while being cautious of the tendency to see in the latter what one wants to see. It is simply unacceptable, the (mass)thinker believes, for claims to be made without being substantiated, and one need be doubly alert when it comes to claims, which to begin with are easy to make, that are as easily believed as they incite—“That’s a terrorist organization you’re negotiating with!” “That’s his background, his history!” “You, sir, are fascist!” “He’s not a good person, I don’t think.” This is not to say that the (mass)thinker espouses positivism, to him a symptom of the lack of imagination. The (mass)thinker recognizes that there is such a thing as gut sense or, more frequently, a claim the evidence for which one has (for the moment) forgotten or does not have. Even in that case, however, evidence is necessary. More interestingly, an examination and articulation of the gut feeling is called for (“Why do you think that?”), if only to make sure that it is worth defending. One must, in other words, be able to speculate, but speculations, the (mass)thinker stresses, have to be, if only later, grounded.

Following the tradition established by the Frankfurt School, the (mass)thinker aims to practice, like Grünberg, historically-oriented (i.e. one that recognizes conditionality and contingencies) empirical (i.e. based on facts) research that blends concrete history with theory without having empiricism, as Horkheimer notes, substitute for theory, at the same time recognizing, like Adorno, the gap between relations of production, domination, and struggle, or, more generally, the non-identity of concepts/ideas and objects/materials. The challenge of thoughts squaring with facts, however, is to the (mass)thinker no ground for an anti-theoretical stance, but an instance of anti-intellectualism, which is abhorrent. While the (mass)thinker recognizes that thinking has a tendency to be univocal or at least ordering/organizing, inherently insufficient to and reductive, if not repressive, of the mass complexity that constitutes the world, the (mass)thinker equally stresses that theory is nonetheless an important tool to make sense of reality, at times even allowing a subject (e.g. scientists), aided by ideational thoughts, to perform material tasks involving the world (e.g. “cure” a disease). Even when such univocalization/ordering/reduction works, however, thinking, the (mass)thinker is quick to add, cannot afford to be hubristic: instead of asserting that nature is underlain by mathematical/theoretical principles, the (mass)thinker prefers to think that mathematical/theoretical principles can be used to (try and) understand (a part and/or aspect) of nature in a process that at times, under certain conditions (within certain limits), works.

The (mass)thinker views rhetoric/s in the discursive space (related to material spacetime) that they occupy and in which they belong. In this discursive space, the (mass)thinker, having read Gramsci, recognizes that even though the rhetoric (opinions, ideological presuppositions, manners of articulation, sleights of logic, enunciation styles) that come from different parties may be different from, even competing with, each other, there is a dominant, usually hegemonic, (ideological) discourse (the way that rhetorics are arranged/ordered) complicit with and reinforcing the established order, what Orwell calls the “prevailing orthodoxy.” Hence discourse and the way that rhetorics in it are framed (the way that questions are posed, problematics set up) matter (to philosophy/theory, especially in its connection to historical, material practice). Aware of the fact that wrongdoings (“crimes” in legal terminology or “sin” in religion) are almost always executed in a double move—the material act or performance and its discursive justification, which, by cloaking the material in appealing language, distracts from the original wrong or makes it look right—the (mass)thinker has over the years become aware of one of the most common tactics of the dominant/establishment discourse: the presentation of false choices (one of the things that Deleuze and Guattari accuse Freudian psychoanalysis of, in complicity, according to them, with capitalism). In offering exclusive “solutions” or options that both belong within the system whose results always amount to the same while not even targeting (instead covering up) the real problem, established dichotomies that seemingly couldn’t be further from each other in their opposition, the (mass)thinker has realized, distract from and bar thinking/looking outside of, different from, the established order.

In the current system, the presentation of false choices has taken on the guise of liberal “neutrality” or crossfire “objectivity.” As Moyers illustrates time and again about the American news media, discussions operating under this standard present two sides (and only two sides, both from the mainstream) of the story as represented by partisan mouthpieces (with their personal and ideological stakes in the matter) in combative and heated exchanges in which, with the way that the discussion is set up, the primary goal is to enable the two parties to forward their own agendas (usually through spin and half-truths) and undermine each other (or avoid humiliation). Instead of independently probing—and actually looking at—the facts of the situation (in which consists true “objectivity,” does it not?), pursuing the “truth” where it leads (especially since, as Moyers points out, “What is hidden is news. Everything else is publicity.”), “journalism,” Moyers notes, has degenerated into the broadcasting the official sound bytes of what are both establishment sides. It is of course also possible, as Chomsky sarcastically shows again and again, that truth is indeed out in the open, thanks to official sources. Even in this case, however, the (mass)thinker, following Chomsky, urges caution towards how “officials” and “experts” are interpreting the facts they are divulging, which often, relying on prejudices they have in common with their audience (e.g. “fellow Americans”) or the latter’s apathy (“What are they talking about? Who cares? It’s all the same . . .” “Whatever!”), they are also able to incite in others—the skeptical become convinced of “official” interpretation, perhaps, as Benjamin notes, in a state of distraction—no matter how contrary to their case, not to mention outrageous, are the facts that they offer.

Over and above its presupposition regarding the appropriate source of truth and the method by which to gather it, in its presentation of two sides (“oppositions”—within mainstream limits), establishment discourse moreover assumes that the solution or answer to questions that arise, reminiscent of Hegelian synthesis, consists in striking a balance between the two poles that are the establishment’s own. This is the way in which, through its mainstream discourse, the establishment not only precludes any radical challenge to it, but in fact consolidates its position as the stable “center.” In direct contrast, the (mass)thinker, distrustful of any “middle way,” to him a trap within false choices, thinks that establishment discourse must be critically questioned. In fact, starting from the mainstream, which the (mass)thinker is wary of as a “truth” that applies to almost everyone, may already get one so caught up, “educated,” in it, that from the beginning there is a sense in which the hegemonic force has already won, not only beating in advance any alternatives to it but barring the very possibility of questioning it, of thinking outside of it, thinking differently, which is precisely one of the most important tasks of the (mass)thinker, or any thinker for that matter.

Symptomatic of this marginalization by the establishment of other possibilities that challenge it at its root is the combative, sometimes bitter, and often unashamedly prejudiced argumentation within it. Against the temptation to join in according to its rules and within the questions it has framed, the (mass)thinker questions the questions, makes up his own rules, or creates lines of flight. Against the tendency to be impulsive and let out a flood of emotions when they are not ready to be articulated or that keeps other, more germane things (e.g. rational considerations) from being articulated, the (mass)thinker keeps his cool. Against the pressure to respond (faced with something similar to what Sartre describes as the gaze of the other) because it is expected, the (mass)thinker, so as not to babble some nonsense, follows Burroughs in his reserve. Reminding himself that he has nothing to prove (much less with boldness or aggressiveness), the (mass)thinker is confident with his views (which is not to say that he is not open to questions). Even though he is not always articulate (especially in inopportune discursive settings or when it comes to questions that are misdirected or which he does not care about), he is confident that when need be and if worth it (e.g. if he is in a germane company, if there is no pressure), he can express himself. The (mass)thinker is aware that many people who argue, rather than sincerely wanting to listen, really only want to hear themselves, maybe not even, it being most important to them to discount the other, taking the other’s inability to express himself at the moment they choose as the sign of their view being proven right, themselves being validated. From these personalities, the (mass)thinker dares to be different. Rather than a sign of fear, to the (mass)thinker quietness and shyness demonstrate patience (for the right moment), generosity (to the other), and the ability to take things easy. The (mass)thinker is aware that he can’t please everybody (he does not want to), he can’t save the world (while recognizing the importance of help, the (mass)thinker is no believer in saviors—except if the savior is oneself, with the help of others), and that people tend to fuss about so much shit (trivialities that distract). The (mass)thinker just does what he can (none too big, none too small), selects what he does. Once selected, however, the (mass)thinker gives something focused attention and patience.

This is not to say that the (mass)thinker avoids confrontation or that there is no room for argumentation. In fact, avoiding confrontation altogether, the (mass)thinker has learned from past experience, only leads to the internalization of the conflict avoided, which causes anxiety/paranoia, bitterness, and the aggressive defense of the self against future conflicts that in being internalized disturb even if one does not admit it. Against internalization, the (mass)thinker strives to be comfortable in and enjoy his present environment. Should the experience prove undesirable as when he is offended or when he makes a mistake, the (mass)thinker, able to take a critical distance from himself and to change his expectations that may be wanting to accomplish too much too soon, deals with it, either by defending himself, apologizing to others, and/or learning from the experience. As such the (mass)thinker is not afraid to broach issues and articulate what he has so far—i.e. to initiate an argument. In fact, when it is his turn, when the discursive space has been opened up to him, the (mass)thinker takes the opportunity, not to come up with perfect articulation but simply to explore the thought he’s been having while striving to be focused and precise, the same thing that he affords and expects of others when it is their turn. In other words, rather than the crossfire approach in which the interlocutor is constantly under the threat that his time will run out or that the other will outvoice him, the (mass)thinker prefers the discussion, like they have in independent media like Democracy Now!, where each interlocutor is given reasonable space and time to make his case substantially. The aim, after all, is not sensationalism but communication and understanding, even if without agreement; the goal not consensus or the definitive answer but simply to be able to put things up for discussion.

Even as he does not reject argumentation, the (mass)thinker nonetheless resists certain tendencies it may lead to. Rather than taking the authoritative, combative, and imposing stance of the bully (a despotic person in power, really), the (mass)thinker prefers to humbly and kindly ask, “This is what I think. What do you think?” opening himself up to questioning (in fact, most of his responses are questions), to challenge (if only to be more certain of his position), as he leaves it up to each speaker/listener whether to accept what he suggests and what they do with it. Rather than sidelining, trying to already win at the level of discourse without even taking into account what is being said, the (mass)thinker prefers to converse in which, rather than desperately trying to prove an argument, he articulates and listens. Instead of throwing off hasty and generalized slurs, name-calling, and/or provoking—customary cues, really—that either insult the opponent or take a conceited, dismissive stance, the (mass)thinker, should he think it necessary, explains politely, sensitive to the other, what he thinks are inadequacies, inconsistencies, or weaknesses in the argument being offered for exchange. If he is being deliberately attacked—occurrences that are real and regular—rather than responding defensively, which really is to fall into the set-up, the (mass)thinker strives to patiently explain. After all, conversations in the (mass)thinker’s view are not meant to embarrass, offend, or insult; make the other feel bad/lower; or condescend to or show contempt for them, as if their thinking cannot be trusted or that they are not good enough. Neither are they opportunities to defend one’s supposedly infallible position (if such were the case, why even have a conversation?). Rather, for the (mass)thinker to converse is simply to have an exchange (of words/ideas) (for all sorts of purposes), in which it is less the persons battling as thoughts confronting each other, thoughts which can be changed—thanks to the conversation. With conversations rather than argumentations, articulation becomes something no longer to be feared, and a calmer, more confident, and engaged posture is afforded to each and every interlocutor. At the same time, since respect and generosity are manifested, there is no longer the need to be nice (which is not to say one does not carefully consider what he says), which is but the manifestation of stock reactions, really, rooted in conventional forms that but indicate disingenuousness, inauthenticity, if not the lack of substance. Reserved, subtle, forthright, sincere, but kind (v. nice) (doing something not because calculating, but because he cares), the (mass)thinker can be brutally honest (rather than using shaded, inaccurate formulation that only offends more, not to mention causes misunderstanding).

The (mass)thinker separates the (molar) person from his (molecular) thoughts. The first step to doing this, the (mass)thinker believes, is to renounce any thought of natural tendencies (related to identifying an individual with a totality). While there are, in fact, certain tendencies (“Argumentation may tend to be combative.”), the (mass)thinker asserts that none of these tendencies are natural (e.g. “Heidegger’s philosophy necessarily lends itself to fascism . . .” “Nietzsche’s concept of the will to power is inherently warlike and elitist and, thereby, inevitably racist and totalitarian, i.e. Nazi . . .” “Marx’s prediction of the inevitable triumph of the proletariat ultimately results to the totalitarianism of the vanguard party . . .”). To begin with, “objective” tendencies (e.g. the necessary breakdown of capitalism due to contradictions inherent in it), as good (unorthodox) Marxists realize, are not sufficient in themselves, not to mention unambiguous in where they lead (e.g. instead of breaking down, the crisis is displaced). Thus objective tendencies necessitate and, in fact, almost always involve, if they are not precipitated by, subjective action. How something is subjectively appropriated (to make it tend towards a particular direction) (a practice common enough), also often, the (mass)thinker has found, depends more on one’s predisposition and way of being, if not political orientation, rather than some “inherent” “nature” of the thing so appropriated.

As with things, so with persons: the (mass)thinker thinks it of little use to label people based on the positions that they articulate (which, as noted above, can be changed), much less their slips of the tongue (the (mass)thinker rejects the obsessive but ultimately futile question, “What does he really mean?”). Most labels, the (mass)thinker has found, whether “liberal,” “conservative” . . . or even simply, perhaps more importantly, “dogmatic,” “morally reprehensible,” “intellectually lacking” . . . really only serve to justify one not engaging with others. Not feeling it his duty to (like a politician) persuade or (like a priest) convert, the (mass)thinker acknowledges instead the many molecules—not only thoughts but also desires, moods, experiences, etc.—usually contradictory ones that pull in all sorts of directions—that compose a “person,” i.e. the truth in the utterance, “Everybody has got quirks!” Rather than expecting of everyone to measure up to standards that he in advance has set, rejecting altogether (shutting out) those detected/suspected to fall short, the (mass)thinker recognizes flaws everywhere, especially in himself. Pinpointing wrongs and selecting in an elite way is, the (mass)thinker has learned, not good selection, to say nothing of the many potential connections lost in the approach. Rather than paranoically shutting out or always being on the guard, the (mass)thinker, motivated more by affects than by meaning, strives, through conversations, to experiment and adventure, which, he admits, is easier and more rewarding in some cases than others. While recording in memory the results of such attempts/experiences, however, the (mass)thinker is willing to muster up each time more patience to add-venture, thinking it worthy to, through the conversation, try and get to some understanding, resonance, or way of working, perhaps together. People (and things in general), as portrayed e.g. in There Will Be Blood, and the world, as e.g. in Buffy and Angel, are simply too complex, too gray (“It’s not clear all the time; all the time it’s not clear!”), that, the (mass)thinker has realized, no other approach is simply as rewarding, or, for that matter, smart.

While it is important to qualify argumentation/conversation (to salvage it), it is as important, the (mass)thinker thinks, to add that not everything is about argumentation. The practice of pointing out where someone got it wrong, especially when one’s complaints are based on generalized speculations or popularized interpretations rather than deep, patient engagement with the text, reeks, as Coffeen points out (who likes to say, “Don’t argue with me! It’s uninteresting!”), of repulsive negativity, resentment, and the lack of a personal (i.e. one’s own) anchor. Mimicking Coffeen for a while, the (mass)thinker feels that “If you don’t like what someone says, for God’s sakes don’t read it! Why the hell bother with something you don’t like to the extent that you’re enveloped in, penetrated by, if not becoming like, that which you hate? There is something sick about being so obsessed with what you say you don’t like, paying it oh so much energy, passion, and time . . . Do something else! Don’t you have your own mind/life?” Instead of bickering on the surface while making sure to have the last word, it is far more interesting, the (mass)thinker thinks, to seek explanations, to try and follow the logic of a text, go in-depth with the thought of a carefully selected writer that the reader respects enough to actually read—reading his text generously, like a Johnson (with no ulterior motives, opportunism, or self-interest in the back seat), and critically (aware that no text provides definitive answers, that texts simply show/perform ways of looking/going, of which there are many). Rather than arguing for the (clear and right) truth, a source of stability only for ungrounded persons, the (mass)thinker practices critique: take things from different sources, select parts that are workable, leave out those that don’t resonate, on top of that asking, “Is this an interesting, perhaps even beautiful, way of looking/going at/in the world?”

Even when he argues, the (mass)thinker asserts that it is not primarily his job to persuade (narrowly speaking), much less intervene, or, for that matter, seek approval. A la Kim Carsons (especially in The Place of Dead Roads) who knows that he does not (want to) fit (which does not mean that he does not have a select group of trusted and reliable friends), who does not engage in (official) politics (narrowly defined) (fights politically instead, i.e. with his whole life, politics in the broad sense), the (mass)thinker simply expresses his views, shows how he does/works/lives—simply bes—because to the (mass)thinker the performance/expression—the being itself (rather than the discourse)—is the most persuasive “argument” (broadly speaking). Not worried about what other people think although heedful of the opinion/advice of those who matter (in the pertinent context), the (mass)thinker, even as he constantly auto-critiques, is bravely proud of how he lives/bes. Instead of letting fear (caused by “inferiority”) botch his performance or (because of “superiority” or ambition) attempting to impress the Other, the (mass)thinker, joyful—gay—comfortable of himself (as such able to demand as well as give) and desiring new things (accepting that in trying he will make mistakes, be embarrassed—ready to deal with their consequences), takes it easy (“Just experience!”), affirming life in all that it is: the good, the bad, the gray, all the happenings, all the emotions (although organizing them according to particular purposes, different needs, different moods: serious in appropriate times but able to laugh at it all!)—without necessarily accepting the way that things are, in fact working for change when needed. Thus the (mass)thinker (introverted, working all the time), instead of worrying too much, is able to let things be (assuming, among other things, that others are fine leading their own lives, which is not to say that he can’t be called on to help, which is of course different from leading another’s life), doing things by himself, keeping to himself (especially when it comes to certain things)—at the same time that, avoiding coldness and apathy, he is able to share with others and perform concerned, selfless, and gentlemanly acts.

massthink because there is a mass of different things/words/thoughts (which, unlike the Lacanian division of the Symbolic, the Imaginary, and the Real, are, as Deleuze and Guattari point out, all Real!) that can be found here: philosophy, theory, literature, criticism, semiotics, deconstruction, history, political analysis, declarations/manifestos, paradigm shifts, critique, problematization, (review and lecture) notes, practices in eloquence, attempts at (dis)connection, disturbed outbursts, resurfacing (invented) memories, unconscious (de)codings, calls of/for love, assertions of difference, techniques of resistance, (anarchist) challenges to the (non-Marxist) State, dissidence, rebellion, calls for the Revolution, tempting encounters with power, formation of the anti-Oedipal subject, delineations of the New Earth, nomadic escapes (from the leash) and deterritorializations, outing and limiting of desire, (and, as always,) etc.—unified only by one guiding principle: I think in them, i.e. they are evidence of thought, or outputs of thought, or processes of thought; in fact, there’s a lot of thinking, a mass of thinking, intensive thinking (without, of course, forgetting how to feel). Because there’s interest in a mass of things/thoughts, as shown by the variety of words/genres to be witnessed and the spectrum of (mostly philosophical/theoretical) influences, although, even though making use of their insights and utilizing their methodologies (always with deviations), I am no Marxist or Lacanian or Nietzchean; I make no claims to be a dogmatic (or even doctrinaire) disciple, or even a philosopher, only that I am interested in philosophy/theory and that I think.

Because, unlike in some philosophy, there is the hope of relating to the masses. Rather than abstract (although clear) philosophizing, I think through things/material/phenomena that I think matters (including everyday ones) with all of the subject (matter) or object’s necessary attachments (rather than positing, e.g., some hypothetical abstract man) because we do not live in purely theoretical conditions but live, well, as the be(com)ings that we are. Rather than needless complicating and deliberately confusing, I (attempt to) write in a manner that can (for the most part and with some effort; after all, aller Anfang ist schwer, aber . . . Approaches are always hard, but once you get going, things start to fall into place, make sense . . .) be understood, without however sacrificing the complexity needed and with the exception of cases when a certain (differant) type of writing is called for. Rest assured that there is always a key (to understanding, mostly in the site itself or in outside texts that the posts refer to). In other words, rather than Analytical clarity (that may forsake intuition, intimation, and interest) or Continental esoterism (that does relate to the masses, but, in some cases, only vaguely, if not obscurely), my writing aims for (clear yet complex) relevance—always motivated, of course, by politics (ever immersed as we are—as Foucault cautions—in power, everything being—as Deleuze and Guattari assert (again and again!)—social), although with the recognition that not everything is politics, or, better yet, that there are also other things: social relations, ethics, love, art (and also: fun!?) . . .

mass is material, which is not one, because it is a mass. Think of a train, many trains, their entangled routes and the quasi-rhizomatic network that they’re in (and the quasi-rhizomatic relations they form as people, themselves masses, come in and out, go here and there) as a mode of public transportation. Nonetheless, the material, although heterogeneous, has the tendency to become matter considered as a homogeneous entity (e.g. the “NYC mass transit system”) that then becomes arborescent (with a Times Square station) and striated (“You have to enter here, ride this train, in order to get there”). So make the trains move (and construct new routes and perhaps let the trains derail). I.e. to mass, attach think, a verb, an act, energy—force (based, of course, first and foremost, (as already established) (v. idealism) on mass, on mat(t)er(r)ial). (Another way to say this is: All those unexamined ways of thinking that influence our acts and that we’ve grown comfortable in—let’s question them!) Instances of massthink are forces congealed at particular moments—matter/being—but by virtue of think attached in the end, called to be thought again, to become, because there is always (further) force: forces becoming matter, matter ever encountering force . . . Deleuze’s double articulation? Stratification? Yes. As everything is. But with the attempt, in the end (which is not really an end) (Remember, think is attached to the mass?), to destratify, to decode and deterritorialize, i.e. to flow, to be somewhere else, be something else, so that we never get stuck in a strata, or at least are able to think about our placement there (After all, as Deleuze and Guattari say (and Ryan would agree to this), “Stratification is not the worst thing that can happen,” although Aless would add, “So long as we’re able to destratify, i.e. so long as we’re able, after forming a mass, to think”). Lost in the mass? No. Live in the Borgesian labyrinth (that you’re in). Think in the mass. Let the mass(es) think.

massthink is not an instance of, as Orwell cautioned, language’s machination. In fact, if massthink has something that it is absolutely against (and constantly cautioning itself about), it would be totalitarianism (and fascism). massthink is not like doublethink or war is peace. Its meaning is right there: in the name and on this page. You know what it means. Now, the question you have to ask is, “Will I accept it?” “Does it work for me?” In other words, massthink does not cover up what it is so as to lead you, deceive you, into doing something you otherwise wouldn’t. If anything, it is an imperative: a call for the masses: Think! Arendt can argue (against this ideological reading, in the Marxist sense) that this does not make massthink un-totalitarian: totalitarianism works precisely with its propaganda ostensible to the people as such, with the masses knowing what they are implicated in, with them convinced of it. More importantly, Deleuze and Guattari, agreeing with Reich, would say that, in the Nazi regime, the masses (not only knew but) actively desired fascism. So it can be that (at the level of interest) the (conscious) purpose is to be against fascism, yet inside, unconsciously, without realizing it, I—and you—(collectively complicit in this) turn out to desire our own repression-oppression. But this is why think is so important: even as the mass congeals, gains specific characteristics (even as it remains a combination of different things), think remains abstract. In other words, all that massthink asks is that the mass thinks: what the different members/components think about (and what their interests are) is totally up to them (hopefully determined immanently). There is, in other words, no image of thought (about what form it should take, what its content is, what it does) put forth (instead, a mass), but only a suggestion: Think! Which is not to ignore that sometimes (perhaps most of the time?) it is think, especially the old, worn-out variety, and especially those grand ideological frames that everyone deem it well to identify with and participate in, that is stratified, congealed, stuck, as it were—and mass, matter, material (which includes desire!) that, with force, with energy, unchains, pulls, moves, catapults, becomes . . . Hence (again): (mass)think! Now, is all this—(mass)think—strong enough to be a bulwark against (certain) desire(s) (which, for the most part, we (should) let out—that is, except for those that do not lead us to the Overman)? What about certain thoughts that keep getting it wrong? There is no panacea. There is only so much that desiring/thinking can do, even (mass)think. But at least we try.

Synonyms (never exact) of (mass)think: Critical (In)Sight, (Auto)Critique, Syncretism, Complexity, Multiplicity, Singularity, Monstrosity, ideology, Cosmopolis, Freedom, Youth, Subculture, Deviance, Alternative Life, Hippie Life, California, the Margins, Differance, Rhizomes, Plateaus, Imagination, Heideggerian Art, Expression, Spontaneous Combustion, Polymorphous Perversity, Adventure, Nomadism, (Un)Home, Schizophrenia, Pessimism of Strength, Grounded Realistic Optimism, Socratic-Apolline-Dionysiac, Potentiality, Affective Encounters, Labyrinth, Consistency, Assemblage, Desiring-Machines, Emergence, War Machine, Dissidence, Resistence, Rebellion, Radical Thought, Nietzschean Marxism, (Radical) Democracy, Will to Power, Overman Rising, Joy, Gayness, Whole Range of Emotions, Desire (whose betrayal, in psychoanalysis, has a precise name: Happiness) (which, in Deleuze, is not lack nor pleasure nor an ideal), Beauty, Master Morality, Philosophy of Life, Living

Antonyms of (that which is absolutely not) (mass)think: Mainstream, Scheduled Life, Administration, Establishment, Hylomorphism, Generality, Habit, Optimistic Philosophy, Philosophy as (non-Complex) Science, Unified Theory of the Universe, Dogmatism, Condescension, Hubris, Hypocrisy, Elitism, Insurance, Ivy League, Imposition of Will, Ideology, Belief, Faith, Fate, Church Religion, Monarchism, Oligarchism, Hierarchy, Colonialism, Imperialism, Fascism, Nazism, Stalinism, Soviet Communism, Chinese Capitalist Communism, Totalitarianism, Capitalism, Conservatism, Centrism, Liberalism, Keynesianism, Leninism, Neoconservatism, Neoliberalism, Libertarianism, Statism, Anarchism, Neutrality, Military Life, Terrorism, Fundamentalism, Amok, Augustan Strong Rule, Exploitation, Co-optation, Repression-Oppression, Sedentary Domesticity, Home, Nuclear Family, Private Property, Prudery, Oedipus, Racism, Sexism, Neurosis, Paranoia, Hoarding, Anxiety, Obsessive Compulsiveness, Perfectionism, Hysteria, Normality, the Ego, Catatonia, Master Discourse, University Discourse, Image of Thought, Reification, Fetishism, Slave Morality, Asceticism, Extravagance, Prettiness, Impulsiveness, Pleasure, Happiness, Lack, Unleashing of All Desires

Philosophical/Theoretical Influences: Karl Marx (1818-1883), Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), Jacques Lacan (1901-1981), Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995), Michel Foucault (1926-1984), Félix Guattari (1930-1992), Jacques Derrida (1930-2004)

Other Philosophical/Theoretical Figures: Pythagoras (570-495 BCE), Heraclitus (535-475 BCE), Parmenides (5th century BCE), Anaxagoras (500-428 BCE), Empedocles (490-430 BCE), Leucippus (5th century BCE) + Democritus (460-370 BCE), Socrates (469-399 BCE), Plato (428-347 BCE), Aristotle (384-322 BCE), Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), René Descartes (1596-1650), John Locke (1632-1704), Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716), Voltaire (1694-1778), David Hume (1711-1776), Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), Adam Smith (1723-1790), Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), David Ricardo (1772-1823), Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), Henri Bergson (1859-1941), György Lukács (1885-1971), Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), Walter Benjamin (1892-1940), Max Horkheimer (1895-1973), Georges Bataille (1897-1962), Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979), Theodor Adorno (1903-1969), Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), Milton Friedman (1912-2006), Louis Althusser (1918-1990), Frantz Fanon (1925-1961), Immanuel Wallerstein (1930), Antonio Negri (1933-), David Harvey (1935-), Alain Badiou (1937-), Jean-Luc Nancy (1940-), Étienne Balibar (1942-), Slavoj Žižek (1949-), Manuel de Landa (1952-), Brian Massumi

Literary Influences: Sophocles (496-406 BCE), William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832), William Blake (1757-1827), George Gordon Lord Byron (1788-1824), Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881), Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Marcel Proust (1871-1922), Franz Kafka (1883-1924), Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), George Orwell (1903-1950), William S. Burroughs (1914-1997), Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927-), Thomas Pynchon (1937-), Mark Z. Danielewski (1966-), Jonathan Safran Foer (1977-)

Statesmen, (mostly) Enemies: Gilgamesh, Hammurabi, Sargon, Ramses, Abraham, David, Mursilis, Cyrus, Solon, Pericles, Xerxes, Alexander, Hannibal, Dido, Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, Cleopatra, Octavian Augustus, Brennus, Alarich, Theoderic, Gaiseric, Attila, Justinian, Charlemagne, Abu Bakr, Muhammed, Frederick Barbarossa, Saladin, Al-Mansur, Al-Muiz, Abd Ar-Rahman, Ragnar Lodbrok, Leif Eriksson, Svein Forkbeard, Inge I, Harald Hardrada, Genghis Khan Temujin, Kublai Khan, Tamerlane, Asoka, Osman, Suleyman I, Selim, Maximilian I, Lorenzo de Medici, Cesare Borgia, Ivan the Terrible, Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, Isabella, Ferdinand, Henry the Navigator, Bartholomeus Diaz, Christopher Columbus, Spirit Jaguar, Ce Acatl Topiltzin, Sipan, Smoke-Jaguar, Montezuma, Huayna Capac, Hiawatha, Hernan Cortés, Pizzaro Brothers, Philip II, Simon Bolivar, Ferdinand Magellan, Lapu Lapu, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Jeanne d’Arc, Oliver Cromwell, Richelieu, Louis XIV, Frederick II, Peter I, Catherine II, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Addams, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Robespierre, Napoleon Bonaparte, Talleyrand, Metternich, Jose Rizal, Andres Bonifacio, Theodor Roosevelt, Otto von Bismarck, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, Douglas McArthur, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Winston Churchill, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924), Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler, Charles de Gaulle, Mahatma Gandhi, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Che Guevarra, Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev, Osama bin Laden, Donald Rumsfeld + Dick Cheney + Karl Rove = George W. Bush, Vladimir Putin, ?

Political Activists, Responsible Politicians, Active Citizens: Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926), John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006), Noam Chomsky (1928-), Martin Luther King (1929-1968), John Bogle (1929-), Edward “Ted” Kennedy (1932-2009), Ralph Nader (1934-), Bill Moyers (1934-), John Pilger (1939-), Henry Waxman (1939-), Barney Frank (1940-), Joseph Stiglitz (1943-), James Galbraith (1952-), Russ Feingold (1953-), Paul Krugman (1953-), Amy Goodman (1957-), Dean Baker (1958-)

Mentors: Robert Emmet Kennedy (History, GWU), Anthony Yezer (Economics, GWU), Greg Stone (Comparative Literature, LSU), John Protevi (French/Philosophy, LSU), Alexandre Leupin (French/Psychoanalysis, LSU), Greg Schufreider (Philosophy, LSU)

Created by Ryan/Aless, a Derridean/Lacanian name

[Antonio Gisbert’s Execution of Torrijos]

[The image in the heading of this blog is Bartholomeus Ströbel’s The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist]

[Updated 2009.09.15]