"Parnet:" "So, "N" is neurology and the brain." "Parnet:" "So, "N" is neurology and the brain." "Deleuze:" "Yes, it's very difficult, neurology." "Parnet:" "We'll go fast." "It's true that neurology has always fascinated me, but why?" "it's the question, what happens in someones head when he/she has an idea?" "I prefer, "when there's an idea," because when there are no ideas, the mind works like a pinball machine." "So, what happens?" "How does it communicate inside the head?" "Before people start talking about communication, etc., they ought to see how it communicates inside the head." "Or in the head of an idiot..." "I mean, it's the same thing as well, someone who has an idea or an idiot..." "In any case, they don't proceed along pre-formed paths and by ready-made associations, and so what happens?" "If only we knew, it seems to me that we'd understand everything." "This interests me greatly, for example..." "And the solutions must be extremely varied..." "What I mean is:" "Two neural extremities in the brain can very well establish contact." "That's what we call electrical processes in the synapses." "And then there are other cases that are much more complex perhaps, where it's discontinuous and there's a gap that must be jumped." "It seems to me that the brain is full of fissures, and that jumping occurs, which happens in a probabilistic regime, that there are relations of probability between two linkages, that all this is much more uncertain, very, very uncertain," "that these communications inside a brain are fundamentally uncertain, regulated by laws of probability." "What makes me think about something?" "Someone might tell me that I'm inventing nothing, that it's the old question of associations of ideas." "Deleuze:" "So, one would almost have to wonder..." "For example, when a concept is given or a work of art is contemplated, looked at, one would almost have to try to sketch a cerebral map:" "what the [contemplation] would correspond to, what the continuous communications would be, what the discontinuous communications would be, from one point to another." "Something has impressed me greatly-and perhaps this might lead to what you were looking for- what has impressed me greatly is a story that physicists use quite a bit," "called the "baker's transformation?" "' taking a segment of dough in order to knead it, stretching it out into a rectangle, folding it back over, sketching it out again, etc. etc." "You make a number of transformations, and at the limit of "X" transformations, two completely contiguous points" "are necessarily located at a great distance from each other." "And there are distant points that, as a result of "X" transformations, are found to be quite contiguous." "I tell myself, when one looks for something in one's head, aren't there these types of mixing?" "Aren't there two points that at a particular moment, in a particular stage of my idea" "I cannot see how to associate them, make them communicate- and as a result of numerous transformations," "I discover them side by side?" "So, I would almost say, between a concept and a work of art, that is, between a mental product and a cerebral mechanism, there are some extremely exciting similarities." "So it seems to me that with the questions, how does one think?" "Or what does thinking mean?" "The question is that thinking and the brain are absolutely intertwined." "I mean, I believe more in the future of the molecular biology of the brain than in the future of information science or of any theory of communication." "Parnet:" "You have always given a place to 19th century psychiatry that extensively addressed neurology and the science of the brain in relation to psychoanalysis, and you have given a priority to psychiatry over psychoanalysis precisely for psychiatry's attention to neurobiology." "Is it still the case?" "Deleuze:" "Yes, yes, yes." "As I said earlier, there is also a relationship with the pharmacy, the possible action of drugs on the brain and the cerebral structures that can be located on a molecular level, in cases of schizophrenia." "For me, these aspects appear to have a more certain future than mentalist psychiatry." "Parnet:" "That leads to a methodological question because it's no secret that, in regard to science, you are rather self-taught, although you read neurobiological and scientific journals..." "Also you're not very good at math, as opposed to some philosophers you've studied- Bergson had a degree in math;" "Spinoza, strong in math;" "Leibniz, no need to say, very strong in math- so, how do you manage to read?" "When you have an idea and need something that interests you, and you don't necessarily understand it all, how do you manage?" "Deleuze:" "Well, there's something that gives me great comfort:" "I'm persuaded by the possibility of several readings of the same thing, and in philosophy -this I believe in strongly- one need not be a philosopher to read philosophy." "Not only is philosophy open to two readings, philosophy needs two readings at the same time." "A non-philosophical reading of philosophy is absolutely necessary, without which there would be no beauty in philosophy." "That is, with non-specialists reading philosophy, this non-philosophical reading of philosophy lacks nothing, it is entirely adequate." "It's simply a reading." "Perhaps that might not work for all philosophers." "I have trouble seeing the possibility of a non-philosophical reading of" "Kant, for example." "But in Spinoza, I mean, it's not at all impossible that a farmer could read Spinoza, it's not at all impossible that a storekeeper could read Spinoza..." "Parnet:" "Nietzsche..." "Deleuze:" "Nietzsche, that goes even more without saying, all the philosophers that I admire are like that." "So, there is no need to understand, since understanding resides at a certain level of reading." "It's a little like if you said to me, to appreciate, for example," "Gauguin or a great painting, you must have expertise in painting." "Of course, some knowledge is necessary, but there are also extraordinary emotions-extraordinarily authentic, extraordinarily pure, extraordinarily violent- within a total ignorance of painting." "For me, it's entirely obvious that someone can take in a painting like a thunderbolt and not know a thing about the painting itself." "Similarly, someone can be overwhelmed with emotion by music or by a particular musical work without knowing anything about it." "For example, I am very moved by Lulu or by Wozzeck, without mentioning concerto, To the Memory of an Angel, that moves me perhaps above everything else in the world." "So, I know it's better to have a competent perception," "but I still maintain that everything that counts in the world, in the realm of the mind, is open to a double reading, provided that the double reading is not something done randomly by a self-taught person." "Rather, it's something one undertakes starting from ones problems that come from elsewhere." "I mean that based on being a philosopher, that I have a non-musical perception of music, which makes music extraordinarily thrilling to me." "Similarly, it's based on being a musician, a painter, this or that, that one can undertake a non- philosophical reading of philosophy." "If this second reading, which doesn't necessarily come second, didn't occur; if there weren't these two, simultaneous readings... it's like both wings on a bird, this need for two readings..." "Moreover, even a philosopher must learn to read a great philosopher non-philosophically." "The typical example for me is yet again Spinoza:" "having Spinoza in paperback, and reading him like that, for me, creates as much emotion as a great musical work." "And in a way, understanding is not even remotely the point since in the courses that I used to teach, it was so clear that sometimes the students understood, sometimes they did not, and we are all like that when it comes to books," "sometimes understanding, sometimes not." "So, to come back to your" question about science, I think it's true, and as a result, to some extent, one is always at the extreme point of one's ignorance, which is exactly where one must settle." "One must settle at the extreme point of ones knowledge or one's ignorance, which is the same thing, in order to have something to say." "If I wait to know what I am going to write- literally, if I wait to know what I am talking about- then I will always have to wait and what I have to say will have no interest." "If I do not run a risk..." "If I settle and also speak with a scholarly air about something I don't know, then this is also without interest." "But I am speaking about this very border between kn owing and non-knowing:" "it's there that one must settle in order to have something to say." "In science, for me, it's the same, and the confirmation I have found is that I've always had great relations with scientists." "They never took me to be a scientist, they don't think I understand a whole lot, but they tell me that it works- well, a few anyway..." "You see, I remain open to echoes, for lack of a better word." "If I give an example..." "I'll try to give a simple example:" "a painter that I like greatly is Delaunay, and what" "I'll try to sum this up in a formula- what does Delaunay do'?" "He observed something quite astounding, and as I say this, it takes us back to the start:" "What is it to have an idea?" "What is Delaunay's idea?" "His idea is that light itself forms figures, there are figures of light... it's quite innovative, although perhaps someone long ago had this particular idea already..." "What appears in Delaunay's thought is this creation of figures that are figures formed by light, light figures." "He paints light figures, and not- which is quite different- aspects that light takes on when it meets an object." "This is how Delaunay detaches himself from all objects, with the result of no longer creating paintings with any objects at all." "I recall having read some very beautiful things by Delaunay:" "he says, when he judges cubism severely," "Delaunay says that Cezanne succeeded in breaking the object, breaking the fruit bowl, and that the cubists spent their time hoping to glue it back together." "So, regarding the elimination of objects," "Delaunay substitutes figures of pure light for rigid and geometric figures." "That's something, a pictorial event, a Delaunay-event." "Now, I don't know the dates, but that doesn't matter..." "There is a way or an aspect of relativity, of the theory of relativity, and I know just enough- one need not know much, it's only being self-taught that's dangerous, but one does not need to know a whole lot." "I only know something about an aspect of relativity, which is this:" "instead of having lines of light" "lines followed by light- subjected to geometric lines, with the experiments of Michaelson, there's a total reversal." "Now lines of light condition geometric lines." "This is a considerable reversal from a scientific perspective, which will change everything since the line of light no longer has the constancy of the geometric line, and everything is changed." "I'm not saying that's all of it, but it's this aspect of relativity that best corresponds to Michaelsons experiments." "I don't mean to say that Delaunay applies relativity;" "I would celebrate the encounter between a pictorial undertaking and a scientific undertaking that must somehow be related." "I was saying something similar..." "I select another example:" "I know only that Riemannian spaces-ifs really beyond me," "I don't know much in detail-l know just enough to know that it's a space that is constructed piece by piece, and in which the connections between pieces are not predetermined." "But for completely different reasons," "I need a spatial concept for the parts in which there aren't perfect connections and that aren't pre-determined." "I need this!" "I'm not going to spend five years of my life trying to understand Riemann, because at the end of five years," "I will not have made any progress with my philosophical concept." "And I go to the movies, and I see a strange kind of space- everyone knows how space is used in Bresson's films- in which space is rarely global, where space is constructed piece by piece." "One sees little pieces of space- for example, a section of a cell, in the A Man Escaped-the cell, in my vague recollection, is never seen in its entirety, but the cell is a tiny space." "I am not even talking about the Gare de Lyon in The Pickpocket, where its incredible." "These are little pieces of space that loin up, the links are not predetermined, and why?" "It's because they are manual, hence the importance of hands for Bresson." "It's the hand that moves." "Indeed, in The Pickpocket, it's the speed with which the stolen object is passed from one hand to the other that determines the connections of little spaces." "I do not mean either that Bresson is applying Riemannian spaces." "I say that an encounter can occur between a philosophical concept, a scientific notion, and an aesthetic percept." "So that's quite perfect." "I believe that, in science, I know just enough to evaluate encounters." "If I knew more, I'd be in science," "I wouldn't be in philosophy, so, there you are." "At the limit, I speak well about something I don't know, but I speak of what I don't know as a function of what I know." "All of this is a question of tact, no point in kidding about it, no use in pretending when one doesn't know." "But once again, just as I have had encounters with painters, they were the most beautiful days of my life." "I had a certain encounter- not physical encounters, but in what I write-l have had encounters with painters." "The greatest of them was Hantai." "Hantai told me," ""Yes, there is something." lt wasn't on the level of compliments." "Hantai is not someone who is going to make compliments to someone like me, we don't even know each other- there is something that "passes" [between us]." "What about my encounter with Carmelo Bene?" "I never did any theater," "I have never understood anything about theater." "I have to believe that something important "passed" there as well." "There are scientists with whom these things work too." "I know some mathematicians who, when they were kind enough to read what I have written, said that, for them, what [I was] doing was absolutely coherent." "Now, this is going badly since I seem to be taking on an air of completely despicable self-satisfaction, but it's in order to answer the question." "For me, the question is not whether or not I know a lot about science, nor whether I am capable of learning a lot of it." "The important thing is not to make stupid statements... it's to establish echoes, the phenomena of echoes between a concept, a percept, a function-since, for me," "the sciences do not proceed with concepts, but with functions- a function." "From this perspective, I needed Riemannian spaces, yes, I know they exist, I do not know exactly what they are, but that's enough." "Parnet:" "So, "O" is "Opera," and as we have just learned, this heading is a bit of a joke since, other than Wozzeck and Lulu by Berg, it's safe to say that opera is not one of your activities or interests." "You can speak to the exception of Berg, and in contrast to Foucault or Chatelet who liked Italian opera... you never really listened to music or particularly to opera." "What interested you more were popular songs, particularly Edith Piaf..." "You have a great passion for Edith Piaf." "So I'd like you to talk a bit about this." "Deleuze:" "You are being a bit severe in saying that." "First, I listened to music quite a bit at a particular time, a long time ago." "Then, I stopped because I told myself, it's not possible, it's not possible, it's an abyss, it takes too much time, one has to have time, I don't have the time," "I have too much to do-l'm not talking about social tasks, but my desire to write things" "I just don't have the time to listen to music, or listen to enough of it." "Parnet:" "Well, for example, Chételet worked while listening to opera..." "Deleuze:" "Well, yes, that's one method." "I couldn't do that." "He listened to opera, yes, but I'm not so sure that he listened to it while working, perhaps." "When he entertained people at his home, that I understand." "At least it covered up what people were saying when he'd had enough." "But for me, that's not how it works." "So, I would rather turn the question more towards my own favor... if you transformed it into:" "What is it that creates a community between a popular song and a great musical work of art?" "That's a subject that I find fascinating." "The case of Edith Piaf, for example:" "I think she is a great chanteuse, with an extraordinary voice." "Moreover, she has this way of singing off-key and then constantly catching the false note and making it right, this kind of system in imbalance that is constantly catching and making itself right." "For me, this seems to be the case in any form." "This is something I like a lot, really a lot, because it's a question I pose about everything, on the level of the popular song, something I like a lot:" "what does it bring that is original?" "Deleuze:" "The question arises in all productions" "what does it bring that's original?" "If it's been done 10 times, 100, times, maybe even done quite well, indeed I understand then what Robbe-Grillet said:" "Balzac is obviously a great genius, but what's the point in creating novels today the way Balzac did?" "Moreover, that [practice] sullies Balzads novels, and that's how it is with everything." "What I found particularly moving in Piaf was that she introduced something original in relation to the preceding generation, in relation to Frehel and..." "and the other great [singer]..." "Parnet"." "Damn..." "Deleuze: in relation to Frehel and Damia. [it's] what [Piaf] brought that was original, even in the outfit of the chanteuse, all that, and in Piaf's voice." "I was extremely sensitive to Piaf's voice." "In more modern singers, one has to think-to understand what I mean-one has to think about [Charles] Trenet." "What was innovative in Trenet's songs, quite literally, one had never heard anyone sing like him, singing in that manner." "So I am insisting strongly on this point: for philosophy, for painting, for everything, for art, whether it's the popular song or the rest, or sports even-we'll see this when we talk about sports" "the question is exactly the same, whats happening that's innovative?" "If one interprets that in the sense of fashion-no, it's just the opposite." "What's innovative is something that's not fashionable, perhaps it will become so, but it's not fashionable since people don't expect it, by definition, people don't expect it, something that makes people..." "that stupefies them." "When Trenet started singing, people said he was crazy." "Today, that no longer seems crazy to us, but one can comment eternally on how he was crazy, and in some ways, he remained so." "Piaf appeared grandiose to us all." "Parnet:" "And Claude Francois, you admired him a lot too?" "Deleuze:" "Claude Francois, right or wrong, I don't know, but Claude Francois also seemed to bring something innovative because..." "There are a lot of them, I'm not going to cite them all." "It's really sad because people have sung like that ten times, a hundred times, thousands of times, and furthermore, they don't have the least bit of voice, and they try to discover" nothing." "That's the same thing, to introduce something innovative and to try to discover" something." "For Piaf, what was she trying to discover, my God?" "All that I can say about weak health and strong life, what she saw in life, the force of life, and what broke her, etc., she is the very example, we could very well insert the example of Edith Piaf" "every time into what we said earlier." "I was receptive to Claude Francois." "He was searching for something, he was looking for an original kind of show, a song-show, he invented this kind of danced song, that obviously implied using playback." "For better or for worse, that also allowed him to begin research into sound." "To the very end, Francois was dissatisfied with one thing, his lyrics were stupid, and that still matters in songs." "His texts were weak, and he never stopped trying to arrange his texts so that he might achieve greater textual qualities, like "Alexandrie, Alexandra," a good song." "So today, I am not very familiar with music, but when I turn on the TV-it's the right of someone who's retired, to turn on the TV when I'm tired-l can say that the more channels there are, the more they look alike," "and the more nil they become, a radical nullity." "The regime of competition, competing with each other for everything, produces the same, eternal nullity, that's what competition is, and the effort to know what will make the listener turn here to listen instead of there, it's frightening," "frightening, the way they..." "What I hear there can't even be called a song, since the voice doesn't even exist, no one has the slightest voice." "But really, let's not complain." "What I mean is, what they all want is this kind of domain that would be treated doubly by the popular song and by music." "And what is this?" "With Felix, I feel like we did some good work here, because I could say if necessary, if someone asked me," ""What philosophical concept have you produced since you are always talking about creating concepts?"" "We at least created a very important philosophical concept, the concept of the ritornello [the refrain]." "And the ritornello is, for me, this point in common [between the popular song and music]." "What is it?" "Let's say, the ritornello is a little tune, "tra-la-la-la, tra-la-la-la." When do I say "Va-la- la?" I'm applying philosophy here," "I'm applying philosophy in asking- when do I sing "tra-la-la,"" "when do I sing to myself?" "I sing to myself on three occasions:" "I sing to myself when I am moving about in my territory, wiping off my furniture, radio playing in the background, that is, when I am in my home." "Then, I sing to myself when I am not at home and I am trying to reach home, at nightfall, at the hour of agony," "I'm seeking my way, and I give myself courage by singing," ""tra-la-la," I'm going toward my home." "And then, I sing to myself when I say "Farewell, I am leaving, and I will carry you with me in my heart." it's a popular song... when I am leaving home to go somewhere else, and where to go?" "In other words, for me, the ritornello is absolutely linked- which takes the discussion back to "A as Animal"- to the problem of the territory and of exiting or entering the territory, that is, to the problem of deterritorialization." "I return to my territory or I try, or I deterritorialize myself, that is, I leave, I leave my territory." "Fine, but what relation does this have to music?" "One has to make headway in creating a concept, that's why I invoke the image of the brain:" "Take my brain at this moment as an example," "I suddenly say to myself, "The lied." What is the lied?" "That's what it has always been:" "It has always been the voice as a chant that rose from its position in relation to the territory." "My territory, the territory I no longer have, the territory that" "I am trying to reach again, that's what the lied is." "Whether it's Schumann or Schubert, that's what it is fundamentally." "And I believe that's what affect is." "When I was saying earlier that music is the history of becomings and the potentials of becomings, it was something of this sort..." "It could be great or it could mediocre, but..." "What is truly great music?" "For me, it appears as an artistic operation of music." "They start from ritornellos, and..." "I don't know, I am talking even about the most abstract musicians." "I believe that each musician has his/her kinds of ritornellos." "They start from little tunes, they start from little ritornellos." "We must look at Vinteuil and Proust [in In Search of Lost Time]... three notes then two." "There's a little ritornello at the basis of all Vinteuil, at the basis of the septet." "For me, it's a ritornello that one must find in music, under music, it's something incredible." "So what happens?" "A great musician, on the one hand, it's not ritornellos that he/she places one after the other, but ritornellos that will melt into an even more profound ritornello." "This is all ritornellos of territories, of one particular territory or another particular territory that will become organized in the heart of an immense ritornello," "which is a cosmic ritornello, in fact!" "Everything that Stockhausen says about music and the cosmos, this whole way of returning to themes that were current in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance" "I am quite in favor of this kind of idea that music has a relationship with the cosmos..." "So, here is a musician that I admire greatly and who greatly affects me, Mahler." "What is his Song of the Earth?" "One can't say it better." "This is perpetually like elements in genesis, in which there is perpetually a little ritornello sometimes based on two cow bells." "Deleuze:" "What I find extraordinarily moving in Mahler's works is the way that all the little ritornellos, which are already musical works of genius- tavern ritornellos, shepherd ritornellos, etc.- they achieve a composition in a kind of great ritornello" "that will become the Song of the Earth." "If we needed yet another example, I would say" "Bartók is an immensely great musician, a very great genius." "The way local ritornellos, ritornellos of national minorities, etc., are collected in a work that has not yet ceased to be explored." "And I think that music is a bit..." "Yes, to link it to painting, it's exactly the same thing." "When Klee says the painter does "not render the visible, but renders visible." This implies:" "Forces are not visible, and for a musician, it's the same thing." "He renders audible forces that are not audible." "He doesn't render the audible, he makes audible something that hasn't yet been, he makes audible the music of the earth, he makes audible the music of..." "or he invents it, almost exactly like the philosopher:" "he renders thinkable forces that are not thinkable, that are in nature rather raw, rather brutal." "I mean it's this communion of little ritornellos" "with the great ritornello that, for me, defines music, something I find very simple." "It's music's potential, its potential to deliver a truly cosmic level, as if stars began singing a little tune of a cow bell, a little shepherds tune." "Or, it might be the reverse, the cow bells that are suddenly elevated to the state of celestial sounds, or of infernal sounds." "Parnet:" "Nonetheless, it seems to me, and I can't exactly explain it, with all you tell me, with all this musical erudition, that what you are looking for in music, the ritornello, remains visual." "You seem to be engaging the visual, much more..." "Ok, I do understand the extent to which the audible is linked to cosmic forces like the visual, but you don't go to any concerts." "It's something that bothers you, you do not listen to music, you go to art exhibits at least once a week, and you have your habitual practice." "Deleuze: it's from a lack of possibilities and a lack of time because..." "I can only give you one answer." "One single thing interests me fundamentally in literature, it's style." "Style, for me, is the pure auditory, the pure auditory." "I wouldn't make the distinction you do between the visual..." "It is true that I rarely go to concerts because it's more complicated now reserving in advance." "These are all practical details of life, whereas when there's an art exhibit, no reservations are needed." "But, each time I went to a concert, I found it too long since I have very little receptivity, but I always felt deep emotions." "I'm not sure you are completely wrong, but I think you might be mistaken, that it's not completely true." "In any case, I know that music gives me emotions..." "Talking about music is even more difficult than speaking of painting." "It's nearly the highest point, speaking about music." "Parnet:" "Nearly all philosophers..." "Well, there are a lot of philosophers who spoke about music." "Deleuze:" "But style is sonorous, not visual, and I'm only interested in sonority at that level." "Parnet:" "Music is immediately connected to philosophy, that is, lots of philosophers spoke about music, for example, Jankelevitch..." "Deleuze:" "Yes, yes, that's true..." "Parnet: but other than Merleau-Ponty, there are few philosophers who spoke about painting." "Deleuze:" "Only a few?" "You think so?" "I don't know..." "Parnet:" "Well, I admit, I'm not certain... but music," "Barthes talked about it, Jankelevitch spoke about it." "Deleuze:" "Yes, he spoke about it very well." "Parnet:" "Even Foucault spoke about music." "Deleuze:" "Who?" "Parnet:" "Foucault." "Deleuze:" "Oh, Foucault didn't talk about music, it was a secret for him." "Parnet:" "Yes, it was a secret." "He spoke a lot about Monet..." "Deleuze:" "His relations with music were completely a secret." "Parnet:" "Yes, he was very close to certain musicians." "Deleuze:" "Yes, yes, but those are all secrets that Foucault did not discuss." "Parnet:" "Well, he would go to Bayreuth, he was very close to the musical world, even if a secret" "Deleuze:" "Yes, yes, yes..." "Parnet:" "And the exception of Berg, as Pierre-André was whispering, which we skipped, why this cry...?" "Deleuze:" "Yes, where does this come from?" "This is also connected to why one is devoted to some topic." "I don't know." "I discovered at the same time some musical pieces for orchestras by..." " Oh, listen..." "You see what being old is, you can't find names... the orchestra pieces by his master..." "Parnet :" "Schoenberg." "Deleuze: by Schoenberg." "I recall that at that moment, not too long ago, putting on these orchestra pieces fifteen times in a row, fifteen times in a row, and I recognized the moments that overwhelmed me." "It was then, at the same time as I found Berg, and he was someone to whom I could listen all daylong." "Why?" "I see this as also being a question of a relationship to the earth." "Mahler, I only came to know much later, it's the music of the earth." "Take this up in the works of very old musicians, there it's fully a relationship of music and earth, but that music might be encompassed in the earth to such an extent, as it is in Berg's and Mahler's works," "I found this to be quite overwhelming." "Making, truly making sonorous the forces of the earth, that's what [Bergs] Wozzeck is for me." "It's a great text since it's the music of the earth, a great work." "Parnet:" "There are two cries in it, you liked Marie's cry and the cry of..." "Deleuze:" "For me, there is such a relationship between song and cry." "In fact, this whole school was able to pose the problem anew." "But the two cries there, I never get tired of these two cries, the horizontal cry that floats along the earth in Wozzeck, and the completely vertical cry of the countess- countess, or baroness, I don't recall" "Parnet:" "Countess..." "Deleuze: ...of the countess in [Bergs] Lulu- these are cries that are such summits." "All of that interests me as well because in philosophy, there are songs and cries." "Concepts are veritable songs in philosophy, and then, there are cries of philosophy." "Suddenly Aristotle [says]:" "you have to stop!" "Or another says, no, I'll never stop!" "Spinoza-what can a body do?" "We don't even know what a body can do!" "Those are cries." "So the relation cry-song or concept- affect is somewhat the same." "It's valid for me, it's something that moves me." "Parnet:" "So, "P" is "Professor." You are 64 years of age, and you have spent nearby 40 as a professor, first in French high schools, then in the university." "And so this is the first year that you plan your weeks without teaching." "So, first, do you miss your courses since you've said that you taught your courses with passion, so I wonder if you miss no longer teaching them?" "Deleuze:" "No, not at all, not at all." "It's true that courses were my life, a very important part of my life." "I really, deeply enjoyed teaching my courses." "But when my retirement arrived, I was quite happy since I was less inclined to teach." "This question of courses is quite simple:" "I believe that courses are like- there are equivalents in other domains- a course is something requiring an enormous amount of preparation." "I mean, it nearly corresponds to a recipe, like in so many activities:" "if you want five, ten minutes at most, of inspiration," "one has to prepare so very much, to have this moment of..." "If you don't, well..." "So I realized that the more things went on" "I always did that, I liked doing that a lot," "I prepared a lot in order to reach these moments of inspiration- and the more things went on, the longer I had to prepare only to have my inspiration gradually diminished." "So it was about time, and it didn't make me happy, not at all, since the courses were something I greatly enjoyed, but they became something I needed less." "Now I have my writing which poses other kinds of problems, but I have no regrets, but I did love teaching enormously, yes." "Parnet:" "And, for example, when you say "prepare a lot,"" "how much preparation time was it?" "Deleuze: it's like anything, there are rehearsals for a class, one rehearses. it's like in theater, in popular songs, there are rehearsals," "and if one hasn't rehearsed enough, there's no inspiration." "In a course, it means having moments of inspiration, without which the course means nothing." "Parnet:" "You don't mean that you rehearsed in front of your mirror?" "Deleuze:" "Of course not, each activity has its modes of inspiration." "But there is no word other than memorizing..." "Memorizing and managing to find that what one's saying is interesting." "Obviously, if the speaker doesn't think what he's saying is interesting" "and that doesn't go without saying, thinking that what one is saying is interesting, fascinating." "And this isn't a form of vanity, it's not finding oneself interesting or fascinating, it's the subject matter that one is treating and handling" "that one has to find fascinating." "And to do so, one sometimes has to truly whip oneself." "The question isn't whether it's interesting, but of getting oneself stimulated to the point that one is able to speak about something with enthusiasm:" "that's what rehearsing is." "So, I needed that less, undoubtedly." "And then courses are something quite special, a course is a cube, it's a space-time, and so many things happen in a course." "I like lectures much less," "I never liked lectures because a lecture is too small a space-time." "A course is something that stretches out from one week to the next." "It's a space and a very, very special temporality." "It has successive steps." "It's not that one can redo or catch up when something doesn't go well, but there's an internal development in a course." "And the people change from week to week, and the audience for a course is quite exciting." "Parnet:" "Here, we are going to start with the beginning." "You were first a lycée professor." "Do you have good memories of this?" "Deleuze:" "Well, yes, because that doesn't mean anything since it occurred at a time when the lycée was not at all what the lycée has become." "I understand..." "I think of young professors today who are demoralized by the lycées." "I was a lycée professor shortly after the Libération," "when it was completely different." "Parnet"." "Where were you'?" "Deleuze:" "I was in two cities, one I liked a lot, one I liked less." "Amiens was the one I liked because it was a very free city, very open," "whereas Orleans was much more severe." "This was still a period when a philosophy professor was treated with a lot of indulgence, he tended to be forgiven a lot since he was a bit like the madman, the village idiot." "And usually he could do whatever he wanted." "I taught my students using a musical saw, since I had taken it up at the time, and everyone found it quite normal." "Nowadays, I think that would no longer be possible in the lycées." "Parnet:" "What did you explain to them by using the musical saw?" "How did that function in your course?" "Deleuze:" "I taught them curves, because the saw is a thing that, as you know, one had to curve the saw in order to obtain the sound from the curve, and these were quite moving curves, something that interested them." "Parnet:" "Already it was about the infinite variation..." "Deleuze:" "Yes, but I didn't only do that," "I taught the baccalaureate program," "I was a very conscientious professor." "Parnet:" "It was there that you met Poperen, I think." "Deleuze:" "Yes, I knew Poperen quite well, but he traveled more than me, and stayed very little in Amiens." "He had a little suitcase and a big alarm clock because he didn't like watches, and the first thing he did was to take out his clock." "He taught with his big clock." "I found him very charming." "Parnet:" "And who were your friends in the teachers' lounge, because when one is a student" "Deleuze:" "I liked the gymnastics professors a lot, but I don't recall very much." "The teachers' lounge in the lycée" "must have changed a lot today as well, it was quite something." "Parnet:" "As a student, one imagines the teachers' lounge as a mysterious and oppressive place." "Deleuze:" "No, it's the time when..." "there are all sorts of people there, solemn or jokers." "But in fact, I didn't go there much." "Parnet:" "After Amiens and Orleans, you were in Paris at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in the preparatory course, so can you recall any students you had that were remarkable or who didn't amount to much?" "Deleuze:" "Oh, students who didn't amount to much?" "Who amounted to something?" "I don't really recall any longer..." "Yes, I do recall them." "To my knowledge, they became professors, but none that I know of became government ministers." "Someone became a police officer, but no, really there were none very special, they all went their own way, they were quite fine." "Parnet:" "Then there were the Sorbonne years of which one gets the impression that they correspond to your history of philosophy years." "And then, came Vincennes which was an entirely crucial experience after the Sorbonne." "Well, I am jumping here since Lyon came after the Sorbonne." "First, were you happy to teach at the university after the lycée?" "Deleuze: "Happy, happy"-it isn't really an appropriate word." "It was simply a normal career." "I had left the lycée;" "if I had gone back to the lycée, it wouldn't have been dramatic, it just would have been abnormal, a setback, so the way things worked out was normal, normal, no problem, and I have nothing to say about it." "Parnet:" "Well, for example, the university courses are differently prepared than the lycée courses." "Deleuze:" "Not for me, not at all." "Parnet:" "For you, it was the same." "Deleuze:" "Exactly the same, I always taught my courses the same way." "Parnet:" "Were your lycée preparations as intense as your university preparations?" "Deleuze:" "Of course, of course." "In any case, one has to be absolutely imbued [with the material], one has to love what one is talking about, and that doesn't happen by itself, so one has to rehearse, prepare, go over things mentally," "one has to find a gimmick. it's quite amusing that one has to find" "something like a door that one cant pass through from just any position." "Parnet:" "So you prepared your courses exactly the same way at the lycée and at the university." "It was prepared equally at the lycée as it was later at the university." "Deleuze:" "There was no difference in nature at all between the two kinds of courses." "Yes, the same." "Parnet:" "Since we are discussing your university work, you can talk about your doctoral thesis." "When did you defend it?" "Deleuze:" "I had already written several books before [my defense]," "I believe, in order not to do it, that is, it's a frequent reaction." "I was working a lot, and I realized I had to have the thesis, that I had to do this, that it was quite urgent." "So I made a maximum effort, and finally I presented it among one of the very first defenses following May '68." "Parnet:" "In 1969?" "Deleuze:" "In 1969?" "Yes, it must have been in 1969, among the very first." "This created a very privileged situation for me because the committee was obsessed with only one thing, how to arrange the defense in order to avoid the student groups roving through the Sorbonne." "They were quite afraid, since it was right after the return to school following the May '68 events, so they didn't know what would happen." "I recall the chairman telling me, "Ok, there are two possibilities:" "either we have your defense on the ground ﬂoor, where there is one advantage, there are Mo exits, so the committee could get out quickly, but the disadvantage is that, since it's on the ground ﬂoor," "that's where the students are more likely to be roving around." "Or we could go to the 2nd ﬂoor, with the advantage that students go upstairs less frequently, but the disadvantage of only one entrance and one exit, so if something were to happen, we might not be able to get out."" "So that, when I defended my thesis," "I could never meet the gaze of the committee chairman since he was staring at the door to see if someone was going to come in, to see if the students were coming in." "Parnet:" "Who was the committee chairman?" "Deleuze:" "Ah, I'm not saying his name, it's a secret." "Parnet:" "I could make you confess." "Deleuze:" "No, especially given the chairman's agony at the time, and also he was very charming." "But the chairman was more upset than I was, it's rare for a committee to be more disturbed about the defense than the candidate in this completely exceptional situation." "Parnet:" "You were probably better known at that point than most of the committee members." "Deleuze:" "Oh, no, I wasn't all that well known." "Parnet:" "The defense was on Difference and Repetition." "Deleuze:" "Yes." "Parnet:" "Well, you were already very well known for your works on Proust and Nietzsche." "Parnet:" "So we can move on to Vincennes, unless you have something to say about Lyon after the Sorbonne..." "Deleuze:" "No, no, no..." "Vincennes, there was indeed a change, you are right, not in nature of the preparation of my courses, in what I call my preparation, my rehearsals for a course, nor in the style of a course." "In fact, from Vincennes onward, I no longer had a student audience." "This was what was so splendid about Vincennes." "It wasn't the case in all the universities." "They were getting back to normal." "At Vincennes, at least in philosophy" "it wasn't true for all of Vincennes- there was a completely new kind of audience, which was no longer made up of students," "which was a mixture of all ages, people with all kinds of professional activities, including psychiatric hospitals, even patients." "It was perhaps the most colorful audience and finding a mysterious unity at Vincennes." "That is, it was at once the most diverse and the most coherent as a function of, even because of, Vincennes." "Vincennes gave this disparate crowd a kind of unity." "And for me, it was an audience..." "Later, had I been appointed elsewhere" "I subsequently spent my whole teaching career at Vincennes- but had I been forced later to move to another faculté," "I would have completely lost my bearings." "When I visited other schools after that, it seemed like I was traveling back in time, landing back in the middle of the 19th century." "So at Vincennes, I spoke before a mixed audience, young painters, people undergoing psychiatric treatment, musicians, addicts," "young architects, people from very different countries, with waves of visitors that changed each year." "I recall suddenly 5 or 6 Australians who arrived" "I don't know why, and the next year they were gone." "The Japanese were constantly there, each year, and there were South Americans, Blacks..." "It was an invaluable audience and a fantastic audience." "Parnet:" "Because, for the first time, you were speaking to non-philosophers, that is, this practice..." "Deleuze:" "It was, I believe, fully philosophy in its own right, addressed equally to philosophers and to non-philosophers, exactly like painting is addressed to painters and non-painters, or music not being limited to music specialists." "It's the same music, the same Berg or the same Beethoven addressed equally to people that are not specialists in music and to people who are musicians." "Philosophy, for me, must be strictly the same, it is addressed as much to non- philosophers as to philosophers without changing it." "Philosophy, when it's addressed to non-philosophers, that doesn't mean one has to make it simple, no more than in music..." "One doesn't make Beethoven simpler for non-specialists." "It's the same in philosophy, exactly the same." "For me, philosophy has always had this double audition, a non-philosophical audition as much as a philosophical one." "And if these two don't exist together, then there is nothing." "Without these, philosophy would be worth nothing." "Parnet:" "Now, could you explain a subtle distinction?" "In lectures, there are non- philosophers, but you hate lectures." "Deleuze:" "Yes, I hate lectures because they're artificial and also because of the before and the after of lectures." "Finally, as much as I like teaching courses, which is one way of speaking, so I hate speaking equally." "Speaking really seems like an activity for..." "So, lectures-talking before, talking after, etc., and all that doesn't possess at all the purity of a course." "And then, the lecture, there's a circus quality in lectures- courses also have their circus quality as well, but at least it's a circus that amuses me and tends to be more involved." "In a lecture, there is a phony side, and the people who go to them..." "Well, I don't know, but I just don't like lectures, I don't like giving talks:" "they're too tense, too much like prostitution, too stressed, too I don't know." "That doesn't seem interesting to rne at all." "Parnet:" "Let's come back to your venerated audience at Vincennes that was so mixed, and in those Vincennes years, with madmen, addicts, as you said, who made wild interventions," "took the ﬂoor, never, never did any of that ever seem to bother you." "All of these interventions in the middle of your course and you continued to lecture, and none of the interventions were objections." "That is, the magistral aspect of the course remained." "Deleuze:" "You need to find another word, since this expression- cours magistral-is imposed by the university, but we really have to find another word." "That is, I see two conceptions of a course:" "the first is one in which the object of the course is to incite rather immediate reactions from the audience by means of questions and the need for interruptions." "This is an entire trend, a particular conception of a course." "On the other hand, there is the so- called magistral conception, with one formal person who speaks." "It's not that I prefer one or the other," "I just had no choice, I only had experience with the second form, the so-called magistral conception." "So a different word is needed because, almost at the limit, it's more like a kind of musical conception of a course." "For me, one doesn't interrupt music, whether good or bad, or one interrupts if it's really bad, but usually one doesn't interrupt music, whereas one can easily interrupt spoken words." "So, what does this musical conception of a course mean?" "I think it means two things, based on my experience, although I don't mean that this is the best conception, this is just how I see things." "Considering how I know my audiences to be, those that have been my audiences, I tell myself, there is always someone who doesn't understand on the spot, and then there is something like a delayed effect, a bit like in music." "At one moment, you don't understand a movement, and then three minutes later, it becomes clear, or ten minutes later:" "something happened in the meantime." "So with these delayed effects in a course, someone can certainly understand nothing atone point, and ten minutes later, it becomes clear, there's a kind of retroactive effect." "So if he had already interrupted- that's why I find interruptions so stupid, or even certain questions people can ask." "You ask a question because you're in the midst of not understanding... well, you would be better off waiting." "Parnet:" "So these interruptions, you found them stupid because people just didn't wait?" "Deleuze:" "Yes, that's the first aspect of it:" "what someone doesn't understand, there is the possibility that he'll understand it afterwards." "The best students were those who asked questions the following week." "I had a system toward the end, I don't know who invented it, it was them, they would pass me a little note from one week to the next" "a practice I appreciated-saying that I had to go back over a point." "So they had waited. "You have to go back over this point"" "I didn't do it, it wasn't important, but there was this kind of communication." "There is the second important point in my conception of a course:" "since a course I taught was two and one-half hours in length, no one could listen that long." "So, for me, a course was always something that was not destined to be understood in its totality." "A course is a kind of matter in movement, really matter in movement, which is how it is musical," "and in which each person, each group, or each student at the limit takes from it what suits him/her." "A bad course is one that quite literally suits no one, but of course, one can't expect everything to suit just anyone." "So, people have to wait, because at the limit, it's obvious that some people nearly fall asleep, and then, by some mystery, they wake up at the moments that concern them." "No law can foresee what is going to concern someone." "It's not even the subjects that are interesting, but something else." "A course entails as much emotion as intelligence, and if there is no emotion, then there is nothing, it's pointless." "So, it's not a question of following everything or of listening to everything." "It's rather a question of keeping a watch so that you grasp what suits you, what suits you personally." "That's why for me a varied audience is so crucially important, because I sense clearly that the centers of interest shift and jump from one person to another, and that creates a kind of splendid fabric, a texture, yes." "So there you have it." "Parnet:" "Well, that's the audience, but for this "concert,"" "you invented the expression "pop philosophy" and "pop philosopher."" "Deleuze:" "Yes, that's what I meant." "Parnet:" "Yes, but one could say that your appearance, like Foucault's, was something very special," "I mean, your hat, your fingernails, your voice." "Were you conscious that there was this kind of mythification by your students around this appearance, like they had mythified Foucault, as they... mythified the voice of Wahl." "First, were you conscious of having this appearance and then of having this special voice?" "Deleuze:" "Oh yes, certainly, since the voice in a course- lets say that if philosophy- we've talked about this already, it seems to me-mobilizes and treats concepts, then it's normal that there be a vocalization of concepts in a course," "just like there is a written style of concepts." "Philosophers aren't people who write without searching for or elaborating a style." "It's like artists, and they are artists." "So, a course implies that one vocalizes, even it implies, yes" "I speak German poorly-a kind of Sprechgesang, clearly, obviously." "So, if on top of that there are mythifications- did you see his nails'.7, etc.- that kind of thing occurs to all professors, already even in grade school." "What's more important is the relationship between the voice and the concept." "Parnet:" "To make you happy, your" hat was like Piaf's black dress..." "There is a very precise allure." "Deleuze:" "Well, my point of honor is that I never wore it for that reason, so if it produced that effect, so much the better, very good." "There are always phenomena..." "Parnet:" "Is that a part of your role as professor?" "Deleuze:" "Is that a part of my role as professor?" "No, that isn't part of my role as professor, it's a supplement." "What a professor's role is, is what I said about prior rehearsal and about inspiration in the moment, that's the professors role." "Parnet:" "You never wanted either a "school," or disciples, and that corresponds to something very deep in you, this refusal of disciples..." "Deleuze:" "I don't refuse at all." "Generally it works both ways:" "no one wants to be my disciple any more than I want to have any." "A "school" is awful for a very simple reason:" "a "school" takes a lot of time, one turns into an administrator." "Consider philosophers who have their own "school":" "the Wittgensteinians, it's a "school."" "Ok, it's not much fun." "The Heideggerians, it's a "school."" "First it implies some terrible scores being settled, it implies exclusivity, it implies scheduling, it implies an entire administration, a "school" has to be run." "I saw the rivalries between French Heideggerians led by Beaufret and the Belgian Heideggerians led by De Waelhens, a real knife fight." "It was abominable, at least for me, without any interest." "I think of other reasons." "I mean, even on the level of ambition, being the leader of a "school." Just look at Lacan..." "Lacan was the leader of a "school" as well." "But it's awful, it creates so many worries." "One has to become Machiavellian to lead it all, and then for myself, I despise that." "For me, the "school" is the opposite of a movement." "A simple example:" "Surrealism was a "school,"" "with scores settled, trials, exclusions, etc." "[André] Breton created a "school."" "Dada was a movement." "If I had an ideal- and I don't claim to have succeeded- it would be to participate in a movement." "Yes, fine..." "To be in a movement, yes, but to be even the leader of a "school"" "does not seem to me to be an enviable fate." "A movement, yes..." "The ideal is finally... it's not at all to have guaranteed and signed notions or to have disciples repeating them." "For me, there are two important things:" "the relationship that one can have with students means to teach them that they must be happy with their solitude." "They keep saying: a little communication, we feel isolated, we're so alone, etc., and that's why they want "schools."" "They can only achieve something as a result of their solitude, so it's to teach them the benefit of their solitude, it's to reconcile them with their solitude." "That was my role as a professor." "And then, the second aspect is a bit the same:" "I wouldn't want to introduce notions that would constitute a "school,"" "I'd want to introduce notions or concepts that would make it in the everyday arena." "I don't mean these would become something ordinary, but that they would become commonly accepted ideas, namely ideas that one could handle in different ways." "That could only occur if I addressed this to other solitary people who will twist these notions in their own way, to use them as they need them." "So all of these are notions of movements and not notions of "schools."" "Parnet:" "And do you think that, in today's university, the era of great professors has passed, things don't seem to be going very well in the universities?" "Deleuze :" "Well, I don't have many ideas about that since" "I no longer have a place there." "I left at a time that was terrifying, and I couldn't understand how professors could continue teaching." "That is, they'd become managers." "The university, and the current political trend is clear:" "the university will cease being a place of research, entirely consonant with the forced entry of disciplines that have nothing to do with university disciplines." "My dream would be for universities to remain research sites and that, alongside the universities, technical schools would multiply, where they would teach accounting, information science, etc.," "but with universities intervening only, even in accounting and information science, on the level of research." "And there could be all the agreements possible between a technical school and the university, with a school sending its students to pursue research courses." "But once they introduced technical school subjects into the university, the university is done for, it's no longer a research site, and one gets increasingly eaten up by these management hassles, the vast number of meetings at the university." "That's why I said I don't see how professors can prepare a course, so that I assume that they do the same one every year, or they just no longer do any preparation." "Perhaps I am wrong, perhaps they continue to prepare them, so much the better." "But still, the tendency seems to be the disappearance of research at the university, the rise of non-creative disciplines in the university, those that are not research disciplines, and that's called the adaptation of the university to the job market." "It's not the role of the university to adapt to the job market." "It's the role of technical schools." "Parnet:" "So, "Q" is "Question."" "Philosophy serves to pose questions and problems, and questions are constructed, and as you say, their purpose is not so much to answer them as to leave these questions behind." "So, for example, leaving the history of philosophy behind meant creating new questions for you." "But here, in an interview, one doesn't ask you questions, they really aren't questions, so how do I leave this behind, how do you leave this behind?" "What does one do, make a forced choice?" "First, what is the difference between a question in the mass media and a question in philosophy, to start at the beginning?" "Deleuze:" "That's difficult, because..." "I'd say..." "That's difficult, because..." "In the media most of the time, or in conversations, there are no questions, no problems, there are interrogations." "If I say, "how are you doing?", it doesn't constitute a problem, even if you aren't doing well at all." ""What time is it?" it's not a problem." "All of those are interrogations." "People inquire about each other." "If one sees the usual level on television, even in supposedly serious broadcasts, it's full of interrogations." "Saying "what do you think of this?" does not constitute a problem." "It's an interrogation, it's "what is your opinion?"" "That's why t.v. isn't very interesting." "People's opinions, they don't have a very lively interest for me." "If someone asks me:" ""Do you believe in God?"" "That's an interrogation." "Where is the problem there, where is the question?" "There is no question, there is no problem." "So if one asked questions or problems in a t.v. show," "[the number of broadcasts] is vast, sure, but it happens rarely..." "The political t.v. shows do not encompass, to my knowledge, a single problem." "They could do so, they could, for example, ask about people: "How do we pose the Chinese question?"" "But they don't ask, they usually invite specialists on China who say things about contemporary China that one could figure out all by oneself, without knowing anything about China." "It's great!" "So it's not at all their domain." "I'll return therefore to my example, because it's huge:" "God, what is the problem or question about God?" "It's not whether one believes in God or not, which doesn't interest many people, but what does it mean when one says the word "God"?" "Does this mean..." "I'm going to imagine the questions." "That could mean: are you going to be judged after death?" "So how is this a problem?" "Because this establishes a problematic relationship between God and the agency of judgment." "Is God a judge?" "This is a question." "Ok then..." "I suppose someone might say to us, Pascal." "Pascal wrote a famous text, the one on the bet:" "does God exist or not?" "One bets on it, and then one reads Pascal's text, and one realizes that it's absolutely not a matter of that question." "Why?" "Because it's another question that he asks." "Pascals question is not whether God exists or not, which would not be very interesting, but it's: what is the best mode of existence," "the mode of existence of someone who believes that God exists, or the mode of existence of someone who believes God doesn't exist?" "Such that Pascal's question absolutely does not concern the existence of God or the non-existence of God." "It concerns the existence of someone who believes in Gods existence and the existence of someone who believes that God doesn't exist." "For various reasons that Pascal develops, which are his own, but which can be clearly articulated, he thinks that someone who believes that God exists has a better existence than someone who believes the opposite." "That's his business, OK, it's a Pascalian matter." "In this, there's a problem, a question, and it's already no longer the question of God." "There is a story underlying the questions, a transformation of questions within one another." "This is the same when Nietzsche says "God is dead,"" "it's not the same thing as God does not exist." "I can say..." "If I say, "God is dead," what question does that refer to, which is not the same as when I say, "God does not exist"?" "One realizes if one reads Nietzsche that he could care less about Gods death, and that he's posing another question in this way, that is, if God is dead, there's no reason that man wouldn't be dead as well," "one has to find something else than man, etc." "What interested Nietzsche was not at all whether God was dead, he was interested in the arrival of something other than man." "That's what the art of questions and problems is, and I believe that this could certainly occur on t.v. or in the media, but that would create a very strange kind of show, on this underlying story of problems and questions." "Whereas in daily conversations as well as in the media, people stay on the level of interrogations." "One has only to look at..." "I can refer to... sure, all this is posthumous- the show, "The Hour of Truth."" "There aren't any truths, it's truly full of interrogations..." ""Mme Veil, do you believe in Europe?" "Ok, fine"..." "What does that mean, "believe in Europe"?" "It would be interesting if one asked, "what is the problem of Europe?"" "The problem of Europe, well, I'll tell you what it is because that way," "I'll have for once expressed a forewarning." "That's exactly the same as China right now, they constantly think about preparing Europe, preparing the uniformization of Europe, they interrogate each other about it, on how to make insurance uniform, etc." "And then, they find a million people at the Place de la Concorde from everywhere, Holland, Germany, etc., and [the interrogators] don't control it at all, they don't control it." "Fine, so they call on specialists to tell them why there are so many" "Dutch people at the Place de la Concorde. "lt's because... etc."" "They just skirt around the real questions at the very moment when they need to be asked..." "What I've been saying is a bit confused..." "Parnet:" "No, no, for example, for years you used to read daily newspapers, but it seems that you no longer read Le Monde or Liberation daily." "Is there something on the level of the press or the media precisely not asking these questions..." "Deleuze:" "Oh, I don't know..." "I have a lot less time..." "Parnet: that disgusts you?" "Deleuze:" "Oh, yes!" "Listen..." "I get the feeling of learning less and less." "I'm quite ready, I want to learn things, since we know nothing," "but since the newspapers say nothing either, what can one do?" "Parnet:" "And you, for example, each time that you watch the evening news since it's the only t.v. show you never miss, do you always have a question to formulate each time that is never formulated in the media?" "Deleuze:" "I don't know about that, I don't know." "Parnet:" "You seem to think that questions never get asked." "Deleuze:" "The questions?" "Well, I think that, at the limit, the questions cant be asked." "If you take the Touvier story, you cant pose questions-Fm choosing something quite recent." "They arrested [Paul] Touvier, ok..." "So, why now?" "Ok, so when everyone says, "Why has he been protected?"" "Everyone knows that there must have been various machinations." "He was an information director, so he must have information on the conduct of distinguished dignitaries in the Church during the period of World War ll." "Everyone knows..." "Ok, so everyone knows what he knows about, but there's an agreement not to ask questions, and they won't get asked." "That's whats known as a consensus, it's an agreement, the convention according to which problems and questions will be substituted for simple interrogations, such as "How are you doing?"" "that is, ah, well... "That convent helped him hide.." "Why?" etc." "Everyone knows that's not the real question..." "Parnet:" "Well, I don't know..." "Deleuze:" "Everyone knows..." "Let rne take another recent example, regarding the reformers on the Right and the political apparatus on the Right." "Everyone knows what this is about, but the newspapers don't tell us a thing." "I don't know," "I am just saying this, but it seems obvious to me that between these reformers de droite, there is a very interesting problem." "These guys-its not that they are particularly young, but their problem is this:" "it's an attempt to shake up elements of the Party organizations that are always very centralized around Paris." "Specifically, the reformers want regional independence, something very interesting, and yet no one is calling attention to this aspect." "The connection to the European question is that they want to create a Europe not of nations, they want a Europe of regions." "They want the veritable unity to be regional and inter-regional, rather than a national and international unity." "Now this is a problem, one that the Socialists will have to face at some point, between regionalist and internationalist tendencies." "But the Party organizations, that is, the provincial federations, still correspond to an old-fashioned approach, specifically, all that goes back to Paris, and the power is extremely centralized." "So, the conservative reformers are an anti-Jacobine movement, and the Left will have one as well." "So, I say, fine, they have to be made to talk about this, but no one will do so, they even refuse to because, when they do, they will reveal themselves." "Hence, they'll only answer interrogations, and interrogations are nothing, it's just conversation." "It's pointess." "Conversations, interrogations, they are pointless." "Except for rare exceptions, t.v. is condemned to discussions, to interrogations." "It's worthless." "It's not even a question of lies, it's just insignificant, it's pointless." "Parnet:" "Well, I'm less of an optimist than you, but it seems to me that there is the journalist Anne Sinclair who, within the consensus, doesn't realize it, and thinks she's posing good questions," "not at all interrogations." "Deleuze:" "Fine, that's her business," "I'm quite sure that she's very happy with herself." "Yes, that's certain, it's her business." "Parnet:" "You never accept invitations to go on television." "Foucault and Serres did it." "Are you retreating from the world like Beckett did?" "Do you hate television?" "Why won't you go on television?" "For all these reasons?" "Deleuze:" "Well, here's the proof, I'll be on t.v.!" "But my reasons for not accepting relate exactly to what I have already said:" "I don't want to have conversations and discussions with people." "I cannot stand interrogations, that doesn't interest me." "And discussions, arguing about something, especially when no one knows what problem is being raised." "I return to my example of God- is it a matter of the non-existence of God, of the death of God, of the death of man, of the existence of God, of the existence of whoever believes in God, etc.?" "It's a muddle, it's very tiring." "So when everyone has his turn to speak, it's domesticity in its purest state, moreover with some idiot of a host as well..." "Mercy, mercy..." "Parnet:" "The most important thing is that you are here today answering our little interrogations." "Deleuze:" "On the condition that it's posthumous!" "Deleuze:" "On the condition that it's posthumous!" "Parnet: "R" is "Resistance." As you said in a recent lecture," "philosophy creates concepts, and whenever one creates, as you said in this lecture, one resists." "Artists, filmmakers, musicians, mathematicians, philosophers all resist, but, what do they resist exactly?" "First, let's take this case by case:" "philosophers create concepts, but does science create concepts?" "Deleuze:" "No." "These are rather questions of ends, Claire." "Because if we agree to reserve the word "concept" for philosophy, another word is needed then to designate scientific notions." "One doesn't say of an artist either that he/she creates concepts." "A painter or a musician doesn't create concepts, he/she creates something else." "So, for science, one needs to find other words." "Let's say, one could say, for example, a scientist is someone who creates functions, let's say." "I'm not saying it's the best word: he/she creates new functions, but creating functions occurs as much..." "Creating new functions..." "Einstein, Gallois, the great mathematicians, but not only the mathematicians, there are physicists, biologists, all create functions." "So... how does this constitute resisting?" "How is creating resisting all that?" "It's clearer for the arts, because science is in a more ambiguous position, a bit like cinema: it is caught in so many problems of organization, funding, etc., that the portion of resistance..." "But great scientists also mount considerable resistance, if one thinks of Einstein, of many physicists and biologists today, it's obvious." "They resist first against being forced in certain tempting directions and against the trends in popular opinion, that is, against the whole domain of imbecilic interrogation." "They really have the strength to demand their own rhythm, they cant be forced to release just anything prematurely, just as one usually doesn't hurry an artist." "No one has the right to hurry an artist." "But I think that..." "That creating would be resistance because..." "I believe..." "Let me tell you, there is a writer I recently read who affected me greatly on this topic." "I believe that one of the great motifs in art and thought is a certain "shame of being a man."" "I think that Primo Levi is that writer and artist who has expressed this most profoundly." "He was able to speak of this "shame of being a man"" "in an extremely profound book because he wrote it following his return from the Nazi death camps." "Levi said, "Yes, when I was freed, the dominant feeling was 'the shame of being a man."" "it's a statement, I believe, that's at once quite splendid, very beautiful, and not at all abstract, it's quite concrete," ""the shame of being a man."" "But it could be open to misinterpretations." "It does not mean that we are all assassins, that we are all guilty, for example, all guilty of Nazism." "Levi says it admirably:" "it doesn't mean that the executioners and the victims are all the same..." "You cant make us believe that." "There are a lot of people who maintain, "Oh yes, we are all guilty"..." "No, no, no, nothing of the sort..." "We cannot confuse the executioner with the victim." "So "the shame of being a man" does not mean that we are all the same, that we are all compromised, etc." "It means, I believe, several things." "It's a very complex feeling, not a unified feeling." ""The shame of being a man" means at once how could men do that-some men, that is, other than me- how could they do that?" "And second, how have I myself nonetheless taken sides?" "I didn't become an executioner, but I still took sides to have survived, and there is a certain shame in having survived in the place of certain friends who did not survive." "So it's therefore an extremely composite feeling," ""the shame of being a man," and I believe that at the basis of art, there is this idea or this very strong feeling of shame of being a man that" "results in art which liberates the life that men have imprisoned." "Men never cease imprisoning life, they never cease killing life" ""the shame of being a man." The artist is the one who liberates a life, a powerful life, a life that's more than personal, it's not his/her life." "Parnet:" "Ok, so I guide you back toward the artist and resistance, that is, the role of the shame of being a man, art freeing life from this prison of shame," "but it's something very different from sublimation." "That is, art is not at all this..." "it's really a resistance..." "Deleuze:" "No, not at all..." "It means ripping art from life, life's liberation, and that's not at all something abstract." "What is a great character in a novel?" "A great character is not borrowed from the real and even inflated:" "Charlus is not Montesquiou." "He's not even Montesquiou inflated by Prousts brilliant imagination." "These are fantastic powers of action for life, fantastic powers of action for life, however badly it turns out." "He has integrated worlds into a fictional character." "It's a kind of giant, it's a kind of exaggeration in relation to life, but not an exaggeration in relation to art, since art is the production of these exaggerations, and it is by their mere existence that this is already resistance." "Or, we can connect with the first theme writing is always writing for animals, that is, not to them, but in their place, doing what animals can't, writing, freeing life," "freeing life from prisons that men have created, and that's what resistance is." "I don't know..." "That's obviously what artists do, and I mean there is no art that doesn't also liberate a power of action for life," "there is no art of death, first of all." "Parnet:" "But sometimes art doesn't suffice." "Primo Levi ended up committing suicide much, much later." "Deleuze:" "He committed suicide..." "Ah yes, ah yes, he could no longer hold on, so he committed the suicide of his personal life." "But, there are four pages or twelve pages or a hundred pages of Primo Levi that will remain, that will remain eternal resistances, so it happens this way." "And it's even more..." "I am talking about "the shame of being a man,"" "but it's not even in the grandiose sense of Primo Levi, you see?" "Because if one dares to say something of this sort, for each of us in daily life, there are tiny events that inspire in us this shame of being a man." "We witness a scene in which someone has really been too vulgar, we don't make a big thing of it, but we are upset, upset for the other, we are upset for ourselves because we seem nearly to accept this." "Here again, we almost make some sort of compromise." "But if we protest, saying "what you're saying is base, shameful,"" "a big drama gets made out of it, and we're caught, and we feel- it doesn't at all compare with Auschwitz- but even on this minuscule level, there is a small shame of being a man." "If one doesn't feel that shame, there is no reason to create art." "It's Ok, I can't say anything else." "Parnet:" "But when you create, precisely when you are an artist, do you feel these dangers all the time, dangers that are surrounding you, that are everywhere?" "Deleuze:" "Yes, obviously, yes, in philosophy as well." "It's what Nietzsche said, a philosophy that doesn't damage stupidity- damage stupidity, resist stupidity." "But if philosophy did not exist- people act like "oh, philosophy, after all, it's good for after-dinner conversations."" "But if philosophy did not exist, we cannot guess the level of stupidity." "Philosophy prevents stupidity from being as enormous as it would be were there no philosophy." "That's the splendor of it, we have no idea what things would be like." "Without art, what would the vulgarity of people be..." "So when we say "to create is to resist," it's effective, I mean." "The world would not be what it is if not for art, people could not hold on any more." "It's not that they read philosophy," "Philosophy's mere existence prevents people from being as stupid and beastly as they would be without it." "Parnet:" "What do you think when people announce the death of thought, the death of cinema, the death of literature-does that seem like a joke to you?" "Deleuze:" "There are no deaths, there are assassinations, quite simply." "Perhaps cinema will be assassinated, quite possibly, but there is no death from natural causes, for a simple reason:" "as long as there would be nothing to grasp and take on the function of philosophy, philosophy will still have every reason to live on, and if something else takes on the function of philosophy, then I don't see at all how it could be anything but philosophy." "If we say that philosophy consists of creating concepts, for example, and, through that, damaging and preventing stupidity, then how could philosophy die?" "It could be blocked, it could be censored, it could be assassinated, but it has a function, it is not going to die." "The death of philosophy always seemed to me an imbecilic idea, it's an idiotic idea. it's not that I am attached to philosophy..." "I'm very pleased that it doesn't die," "I don't even understand what this means, "the death of philosophy."" "It just seems to be a rather feeble idea, kind of simpering, just to have something to say, just a way of saying things change, and there's no more use..." "But, what's going to replace philosophy?" "What's going to create concepts?" "So someone might tell me:" ""You must not create any more concepts," and so, OK, let stupidity reign-fine, it's the idiots who want to do philosophy in." "Who is going to create concepts?" "Information science?" "Advertising agents who have taken over the word "concept"?" "Fine, we will have advertising "concepts,"" "which is the "concept" of a brand of noodles." "They don't risk having much of a rivalry with philosophy because" "I don't think that the word "concept" is being used in the same way." "But today advertising presents itself as philosophy's true rival since they tell us: we advertisers are inventing concepts." "But, the "concept" proposed by information science," ""concepts" by computers, is quite hilarious, what they call a "concept." So, we shouldn't be worried about it." "Parnet:" "Could we say that you, Félix, and Foucault form networks of concepts like networks of resistance, like a war machine against dominant modes of thought and commonplaces?" "Deleuze:" "Yes, why not'?" "It would be very nice if it were true, that would be very nice." "In any case, the network is certainly the only... if one doesn't create a "school"- and these "schools" don't seem good at all- if one doesn't create a "school,"" "there is only the regime of networks, of complicities." "Of course, it's something that has existed in every period, what we call Romanticism, for example, German Romanticism, or Romanticism in general, this was a network." "What we call Dadaism, it's a network." "And I'm sure that there must be networks today as well." "Parnet:" "Are these networks of resistance?" "Deleuze:" "By their very existence." "The function of the network is to resist, and to create." "Parnet:" "For example, you feel both famous and clandestine, this notion of clandestinity that you are fond of." "Deleuze:" "I don't consider myself at all famous," "I don't consider myself clandestine." "I would like to be imperceptible." "But there are a lot of people who would like to be imperceptible." "That doesn't at all mean that I'm not..." "Being imperceptible is fine because..." "But that's a question that's almost personal." "What I want is to do my work, for people not to bother me and not make me waste time, yes, and at the same time," "I want to see people, because I need to, like everybody else," "I like people." "There are a few people whom I like to see." "But, when I see them, I don't want this to create the slightest problem, to have imperceptible relationships with imperceptible people, that's what is most beautiful in the world." "You can say that we are all molecules, a molecular network." "Parnet:" "ls there a strategy in philosophy, for example, when you wrote your book on Leibniz, was it strategically that you wrote on Leibniz?" "Deleuze:" "I suppose that depends on what the word "strategy" means." "I assume that one doesn't write without a certain necessity." "If there is no necessity to create a book, that is, a strongly felt necessity by the person writing the book, then it would be better not to do it." "So when I wrote on Leibniz, it was necessary for me." "Why was it necessary?" "Because a moment arrived for me- it would take too long to explain- to talk, not about Leibniz, but about the fold." "And for the fold, it was at that time fundamentally linked to Leibniz." "But I can say for each book that I wrote what the necessity was at each period." "Parnet:" "But besides the grip of necessity that pushes you to write," "I mean, your return to a philosopher as a return to history of philosophy after the cinema books and after books like" "A Thousand Plateaus and Anti-Oedipus. ls there..." "Deleuze:" "There was no return to a philosopher, which is why I previously answered your question quite correctly." "I did not write a book on Leibniz, I only wrote a book on Leibniz because, for me, the moment had come to study what "a fold" was." "Deleuze:" "I study the history of philosophy when I need to, that is, when I encounter and experience a notion that is itself already connected to a philosopher." "When I got passionately involved with the notion of "expression,"" "I wrote a book on Spinoza because Spinoza is a philosopher who raised the notion of "expression" to an extraordinarily high level." "When I encountered on my own the notion of "the fold,"" "it seemed to go without saying that it would be through Leibniz." "Now it does happen that I encounter notions that are not already dedicated to a philosopher, so then I don't study the history of philosophy." "But I see no difference between writing a book on the history of philosophy and a book of philosophy, so it's in that way that I follow my own path." "Parnet: "S" is "Style"" "Deleuze:" "Ah, well, good for us!" "Parnet:" "What is style?" "In Dialogues, you say that style is the property precisely of those about whom it is said they have no style." "I think that you say this about Balzac, if I recall correctly." "So what is style?" "Deleuze:" "Well, that's no small question!" "Parnet:" "No, that's why I asked it so quickly!" "Deleuze:" "Listen, this is what I can say: to understand what style is, one is better off not knowing a thing at all about linguistics." "Linguistics has done a lot of harm." "Why has it done a lot of harm?" "Because there is an opposition- Foucault said it well- there is an opposition, and it's even their complementarity, between linguistics and literature." "As opposed to what many say, they do not fit each other at all." "Because, for linguistics, a language is always a balanced system, therefore it can be made into a science." "And the rest, the variations, are placed no longer on the side of language, but on the side of speech." "When one writes, we know quite well that language is, in fact, a system, as physicists would say, a system which is by nature far from equilibrium, a system in perpetual imbalance, such that" "there is no difference in level between language and speech, but language is constituted by all sorts of heterogeneous currents in disequilibrium with one another." "So, what is the style of a great author?" "I think there are two things in a style-you see," "I am answering clearly, rapidly and clearly, so I'm ashamed because it's too much of a summary." "Style seems to me composed of two things:" "one submits the language in which one speaks and writes to a certain treatment, not a treatment that's artificial, voluntary, etc.," "but a treatment that mobilizes everything, the author's will, but also his/her wishes, desires, needs, necessities." "One submits language to a syntactical and original treatment," "which could be-here we come back to the theme of "Animal"- which could make language stutter, I mean, not stuttering oneself, but making language stutter." "Or, and this is not the same thing, to make language stammer." "Let's choose some examples from great stylists:" "Gherasim Luca, a poet, I'd say, generally, he creates stuttering, not his own speech, but he makes language stutter." "Peguy... it's quite curious because generally for people," "Péguy is a certain kind of personality about whom one forgets that above all, like all great artists, he's totally crazy." "Never has anyone written like Peguy, and never will anyone write like Peguy." "His writing belongs among the great styles of French language;" "he's one of the great creators of the French language." "What did he do?" "One cant say that his style is a stuttering;" "he makes the sentence grow from its middle. it's fantastic." "Instead of having sentences follow each other, he repeats the same sentence with an addition in the middle of it, which in turn, will engender another addition, etc." "He makes the sentence proliferate from its middle, by insertions." "That's a great style." "So, there is the first aspect: make language undergo a treatment, an incredible treatment." "That's why a great stylist isn't someone who conserves syntax, but is a creator of syntax." "I never let go of Proust's lovely formula:" "masterpieces are always written in a kind of foreign language." "A stylist creates a foreign language in his/her language." "It's true of Céline, it's true of Péguy, it's true of..." "That's what it means to be a great stylist." "Then, second, at the same time as this first aspect-specifically, one causes syntax to undergo a deforming, contorting treatment," "but a necessary one that constitutes something like a foreign language in the language in which one writes- the second point is, through this very process, one then pushes all language all the way to a kind of limit," "the border that separates it from music." "One produces a kind of music." "If one succeeds in these two things, and if there is necessity in doing so, it is a style, that's what the great stylists are." "And it's true of all of them at once:" "burrow a foreign language deep within language, and carry all language to a kind of musical limit." "This is what it means to have a style, yes." "Parnet:" "Do you think that you have a style...?" "Deleuze:" "Oh, the treachery!" "Parnet: ...because I see a change from your first books. it's simplified." "Deleuze:" "The proof of a style is its variability, and generally one goes toward an increasingly sober style." "But increasingly sober does not mean less complex." "I think of one of the writers I admire greatly in terms of style, Kerouac." "At the end of his career, Kerouac's writing was like a Japanese line, really, a pure Japanese line drawing, his style, reaches a sobriety, but that really implies then the creation" "of a foreign language within the language, all the more..." "Well, yes..." "I also think of Céline, and it's odd when people said to Céline," ""Oh, you've introduced spoken language into written language"" "which was already a stupid statement because in fact, a completely written treatment is required in language, one must create a foreign language within language to obtain through writing the equivalent of the spoken language." "So Céline didn't introduce the spoken into language, that's just stupid to say that." "But when Celine received a compliment, he knew very well that he was so far away from what he would have wanted." "So that would be in his second novel, in Death on the Installment Plan, that he is going to get closer." "But when it's published and he is told, "Oh, you've changed,"" "he knows again that he is very, very far from what he wanted, and so what he wanted, he is going to reach with Guignol's Band, where language is pushed to such a limit that it is so close to music." "It's no longer a treatment of language that creates a foreign language, but an entire language pushed to the musical limit." "So, by its very nature, style changes, it has its variation." "Parnet:" "With Peguy, one often thinks of Steve Reich with the repetitive aspect of the music." "Deleuze:" "Yes, except that Peguy is a much greater stylist than Reich." "Parnet:" "You haven't responded to my "treachery."" "Do you think that you have a style?" "Deleuze:" "I would like to, but what do you want me to say?" "I would like to, but I have the feeling..." "If one says that already to be a stylist, one must live the problem of style, then I can answer more modestly:" "the problem of style, for me, I live it, yes." "I don't tell myself while writing," ""the problem of style, I'll deal with it afterward."" "I am aware I will not obtain the movement of concepts that I want if the writing does not pass through style," "Parnet:" "And the necessity of composition?" "Deleuze:" "I am ready to rewrite the same page ten times." "Parnet:" "So, style is like a necessity of composition in what you write?" "That is, composition enters into it in a very primordial way?" "Deleuze:" "Yes, there, I think you are completely correct." "But you are saying something else there." "Is the composition of a book already a matter of style?" "In this, I think:" "yes, entirely." "The composition of a book cannot be decided beforehand, but at the same time as the book is written." "I see that in what I have written, if I dare invoke these examples," "there are two books that seem to be composed." "I always attached great importance to the composition itself." "I think, for example, of a book called Logic of Sense, which is composed in a series, it's truly a kind of serial composition for me." "And then in A Thousand Plateaus, it's a composition in plateaus, plateaus constituted by things..." "But I see these as nearly two musical compositions." "Composition is a fundamental element of style." "Parnet:" "And in your mode of expression, to pick up a statement you made earlier:" "today are you now closer to what you wanted than twenty years ago, or is it something else entirely?" "Deleuze:" "At this moment in what i am doing," "I feel that I'm getting closer... in what I have not yet completed," "I have a feeling of getting closer', that I am grasping something that" "I was looking for and haven't yet found." "Parnet:" "Style is not only literary, you are sensitive to it in all domains." "For example, you live with the elegant Fanny [Deleuze], your friend Jean-Pierre is also quite elegant, and you seem very sensitive to this elegance." "Deleuze:" "Well, they're ahead of me there." "I'd like to be elegant, but I know quite well that I am not." "For me, elegance is something..." "Even in perceiving it, I mean, there is already an elegance that consists in perceiving what elegance is." "Otherwise, there are people who miss it entirely and what they call elegance is not at all elegant." "So a certain grasp of what elegance is belongs to elegance." "That impresses me greatly." "This is a domain like anything else, that one has to learn about, one has to be somewhat gifted, you have to learn it..." "Why did you ask me that?" "Parnet:" "For style, that is in all domains." "Deleuze:" "Ah, well, yes, but this aspect is not really part of great art." "What one might need to... yes, no, I don't know... it's just that..." "I get the impression that it doesn't only depend on elegance..." "Which is something that I admire a lot, but..." "Whats important in the world is that all these things emit signs." "I mean non-elegance, vulgarity also emits signs, that's more what i find important:" "the emissions of signs." "So, this is why I have always liked and still like Proust so much, for the society life, the social relations- these are fantastic emissions of signs." "What we call a blunder is a non-comprehension in a sign, signs that people don't understand." "Society life as a milieu of the proliferation of empty signs, absolutely empty, these signs have no interest at all." "But it's also the speed and the nature of their emission." "This connects back to animal worlds because animal worlds also are fantastic emissions of signs." "Animals and socialites are the masters of signs." "Parnet:" "Although you don't go out much, you have always preferred going out in society to convivial gatherings." "Deleuze:" "Of course, because for me, in society, people don't argue, that sort of vulgarity is not part of that milieu, and conversation moves absolutely into lightness, that is, an extraordinarily rapid evocation, speeds of conversations." "Again, these are very interesting emissions of signs." "Parnet:" "So, "T" is "Tennis."" "Deleuze: "Tennis"... hmm?" "Parnet:" "You have always liked tennis." "There is a famous anecdote about you as a child, trying to get the autograph of a great Swedish tennis player and you realized it was instead the king of Sweden." "Deleuze:" "No, I knew who it was." "He was already around a hundred, and he was well protected, he had lots of bodyguards." "But I did ask the king of Sweden for an autograph." "There is a photo of me in Le Figaro, where there's a little boy asking the elderly king of Sweden for an autograph." "That's me." "Parnet:" "And who was the Swedish tennis player whom you were chasing after?" "Deleuze:" "It was Boroira." "He wasn't a great Swedish player, it was Borotra, who was the kings main bodyguard since he played tennis with the king, gave him lessons." "He kicked me a few times to keep me away from the king, but the king was very nice, and afterwards," "Boroira also got nice." "That's not a very flattering moment for Borotra." "Parnet:" "There are lots of moments, even less flattering, for Borotra." "Is tennis the only sport you watch on television?" "Deleuze:" "No, I adore soccer, I really like soccer..." "Yes, so it's that and tennis." "Parnet:" "Did you play tennis?" "Deleuze:" "Yes, a lot up until the war, so that makes me a war victim!" "Parnet:" "What changes occur in a body when one plays a sport a lot, and when one stops playing it after, are there things that change?" "Deleuze:" "I don't think so, at least not for me." "I didn't turn it into a trade." "In 1939, I was 14 year's old, and stopped playing tennis at 14, so that's not dramatic." "Parnet:" "Did you have a lot of talent?" "Deleuze:" "Yes, for a 14 year old, I did pretty well." "Parnet:" "Did you have a ranking?" "Deleuze:" "Oh, no!" "At 14, I was really too small, and then" "I did not have the kind of development they have today." "Parnet:" "And after', you tried other sports, I think, some French boxing?" "Deleuze:" "Well, no, I did a bit, but I got hurt, so I stopped that right away, but I did try some boxing." "Parnet:" "Do you think tennis has changed a lot since your youth?" "Deleuze:" "Of course, like in all sports, there are milieus of variation, and here we get back to the problem of style." "Sports are very interesting for the question of positions of the body." "There is a variation of positions of the body over spaces of greater or lesser length." "For example, it's obvious that athletes don't jump hurdles in the same way now as they did fifty years ago." "And one would have to categorize the variables in the history of sports." "I see several:" "variables of tactics." "In soccer, tactics have changed enormously since my childhood." "There are position variables for the body's posture." "There are variables that put into play..." "There was a moment when I was very interested in the shotput, not to do it myself, but the build of the shot putter evolved at one point with extreme rapidity." "At times it was a question of force:" "how, with really strong shot putters, to gain back speed," "At other times it was a question of speed:" "and how, with builds geared for speed, to gain back force?" "Now this is very, very interesting. it's almost..." "The sociologist [Marcel] Mauss introduced all sorts of studies on the positions of bodies in different civilizations, but sports is a domain of the variation of positions, something quite fundamental." "So, in tennis, even before the war- and I still remember the champions from before the war- it's obvious that the positions were not the same, not at all." "And then, what interests me greatly, again related to style, are the champions as true creators." "There are two kinds of great champions, who do not have the same value for me, the creators and the non-creators." "The non-creators are those who bring a pre-existing style to an unequaled level, for example Lendl." "I don't consider Lendl to be fundamentally a creator in tennis." "But then there are the great creators, even on very simple levels, those who invent new "moves" and introduce new tactics." "And after them, all sorts of followers come flooding in, but the great stylists are inventors, something one certainly finds in all sports." "So, what was the great turning point in tennis?" "It was its proletarization, quite relative of course." "I mean, it has become a mass sport, masses of the young-executive sort rather than working-class." "But we can call it the proletarization of tennis." "And of course, there are deeper approaches to explain how that occurs." "But it would not have occurred if not for the arrival of a genius at the same time." "It was Borg who made it possible." "Why?" "Because he brought in a particular style of mass tennis, and he had to create mass tennis from the ground up." "Then, a crowd of very good champions came after him, but not creators, for example, the Vilas type, etc." "So Borg appeals to me, his Christ-like head." "He had this kind of Christ-like bearing, this extreme dignity, this aspect that made him so respected by all the players, etc." "Parnet:" "You were saying you attended a lot..." "Deleuze:" "Oh yes, I experienced a lot of things in tennis..." "But I want to finish up Borg." "So, Borg was a Christ-like character." "He made sport for the masses possible, created mass tennis, and with that, it was a total invention of a new game." "Then there are all sorts of worthy champions, but of the Vilas-type who came rushing in and who imposed a generally soporific style onto the game, whereas-and here we always rediscover the law" ""You are paying me compliments, while I am 100 miles from doing what I wanted to do."" "Because Borg changed deliberately:" "when he was certain of his moves, it no longer interested him, so his style evolved tremendously, whereas the drudges stuck with the same old thing." "We have to see McEnroe as the anti-Borg." "Parnet:" "What was this working-class style that Borg imposed?" "Deleuze:" "Situated at the back of the court, at the farthest retreat possible, and twisting in place, and ball placement high over the net." "Any worker could understand that game, any little manager could understand that game, not that he could succeed." "Parnet:" "Th at's interesting." "Deleuze:" "So the very principle- back of court, twisting, ball high- is the opposite of aristocratic principles." "These are popular principles, but what genius it had to take." "Borg is exactly like Christ, an aristocrat who goes to the people." "Well..." "I'm probably saying something stupid, but.." "It still is quite astonishing, quite astonishing, Borg's stroke, very, very curious, a great creator in sports." "And there's McEnroe, it was pure aristocrat, half Egyptian, half Russian, Egyptian service game, Russian soul, who invented moves that he knew no one could follow." "So he was an aristocrat who couldn't be followed." "He invented some amazing moves." "He invented a move that consisted of placing the ball, very strange, not even striking it, just placing it." "And he developed a service-volley combination that wasn't..." "The service-volley combination was well known, but McEnroe's was completely transformed." "All this, of course, to talk about..." "Oh, another great player, but without the same importance, I believe, is the other American, but I don't recall his name..." "Parnet:" "Connors." "Deleuze:" "Connors, with whom you really see the aristocratic principle:" "ball flat barely over the net, a very odd aristocratic principle," "and also striking while unbalanced." "He was never such a genius as when he was entirely unbalanced." "Those were some really odd moves." "There is a history of sports, and it has to be explained about every sport:" "their evolution, their creators, their followers... it's exactly as in art: there are creators, there are followers, there are changes, there are evolutions, there's a history, there is a becoming of sports." "Parnet:" "And you had started a sentence with, "I attended..."?" "Deleuze:" "Oh, that's just another detail." "I believe that I attended... it's sometimes difficult to be specific about when a move really originated yet I do recall that, before the war, there were some Australians." "And here, there are questions of national origins, why did Australians introduce the two-handed back swing?" "At the beginning of the two-handed back swing, only Australians did it, at least as I recall it, I think." "Anyhow, why did the Australians have..." "This relation between the two- handed back swing and the Australians, I don't know, it didn't go without saying, perhaps there was some reason." "I remember one move that struck me when I was a child because it created no effect." "We saw that the opponent missed the ball, but we had to wonder why." "It was a rather soft blow, and after considering it closely, we saw that it was the return of service." "When the opponent served the ball, the player returned it with a rather soft blow, but that had the result of falling at the tips of the server's feet" "as he was approaching to volley, so he received it, not even at mid-volley, and he couldn't return it." "So this was a strange return because we couldn't understand very well why it succeeded so well as a move." "In my opinion, the first to have systematized that was a great Australian player, who did not have much of a career on clay courts because he wasn't interested in it, called Bromwich, right before or after the war, I don't recall exactly." "But he was a very great player, a true inventor of moves." "But I do recall that as a child or young man," "I was astounded at this move that has now become classic, that everybody does." "So there you are, an invention of a move that, to my knowledge, the generation of Borotra didn't yet know in tennis, this sort of return." "Parnet:" "To finish with tennis and McEnroe, do you think that when he complains and insults the referee, in fact insulting himself more than he does the referee- is this a matter of style, and that he is unhappy with his form of expression?" "Deleuze:" "No, it's a matter of style because it belongs to his style." "It's a kind of nervous recharging, yes, just like an orator can get angry, while on the contrary, there are orators who remain cold and distant." "So it's fully part of McEnroe's style." "It's the soul, as we say in German, the Gemut." "Parnet:" "So, "U" is the "One."" "Parnet:" "So, "U" is the "One."" "Deleuze:" "The "One."" "Parnet:" "The "One," O-N-E ..." "So, philosophy and science concern themselves with "universals."" "However, you always say that philosophy must always stay in contact with singularities." "Isn't there a paradox here?" "Deleuze:" "No, there's no paradox because philosophy and even science have strictly nothing to do with universals." "These are ready-made ideas, ideas derived from general opinion." "Opinion about philosophy is that it concerns itself with universals." "Opinion about science is that it concerns itself with universal phenomena that can always be reproduced, etc." "But even if you take a formula like, "all bodies fall,"" "what is important is not that all bodies fall." "Whats important is the fall and the singularities of the fall." "Even if scientific singularities-for example, mathematical singularities in functions, or physical singularities, or chemical singularities, points of congealing, etc.- were all reproducible, well fine, and then what?" "These are secondary phenomena, processes of universalization, but what science addresses is not universals, but singularities, points of congealing: when does a body change its state, from the liquid state to the solid state, etc. etc." "Philosophy is not concerned with the one, being." "To suggest that is just stupid." "Rather, it is also concerned with singularities." "One would almost have to say..." "In fact, one always finds oneself in multiplicities." "Multiplicities are aggregates of singularities." "The formula for multiplicities and for an aggregate of singularities is n - 1, that is, the One is what must always be subtracted." "So there are two errors not to be made:" "philosophy is not concerned with universals." "There are three kinds of universals, yes, that one could indicate:" "universals of contemplation," "Ideas with a capital I." "There are universals of reﬂexion." "And there are universals of communication, the last refuge of the philosophy of universals." "Habermas likes these universals of communication." "This means philosophy is defined either as contemplation, or as reﬂexion, or as communication." "In all three cases, it's quite comical, really quite farcical." "The philosopher that contemplates, OK, he's a joke." "The philosopher who reflects doesn't make us laugh, but is even stupider because no one needs a philosopher in order to reflect." "Mathematicians don't need a philosopher in order to reflect on mathematics." "An artist does not need to seek out a philosopher in order to reflect on painting or on music." "Boulez doesn't need a philosopher in order to reflect on music." "To believe that philosophy is a reﬂexion on anything is to despise it all, to despise both philosophy and what philosophy is supposed to reflect on since, after all, you don't need philosophy to reflect..." "Ok..." "As for communication, let's not even talk about it." "The idea of philosophy as being the restoration of a consensus in communication from the basis of universals of communication, that is the most laughable idea that we've heard since..." "For philosophy has strictly nothing to do with communication." "What could it possibly... '.7" "Communication suffices very well in itself, and all this about consensus and opinions is the art of interrogations." "Philosophy has nothing to do with this." "Philosophy, again as I have been saying from the start, consists in creating concepts, which does not mean communicating." "Art is not communicative, art is not reflexive." "Art, science, philosophy are neither contemplative, neither reflexive, nor communicative." "It's creative, that's all." "Hence, the formula is n - 1, suppress the unity, suppress the universal." "Parnet:" "So you feel that universals have nothing to do with philosophy?" "Deleuze:" "No, no, they have nothing to do with it." "Parnet:" "Let's move directly on to and "V" is "Voyage,"" "and this is the demonstration of a concept as a paradox because you invented a notion, a concept, one could say, which is "nomadism,"" "but you hate traveling." "We can make this revelation at this point of our conversation, you hate traveling." "First of all, why do you hate to travel?" "Deleuze:" "I don't like traveling because of the conditions for a poor intellectual who travels." "Maybe if I traveled differently, I would adore traveling, but intellectuals, what does it mean for them to travel?" "It means going to lectures, at the other end of the world if need be, and with all that, this includes before and after, talking before with people who greet you quite kindly, and talking after with people" "who listened to you quite politely talk, talk, talk." "So, an intellectuals travel is the opposite of traveling." "Go to the ends of the earth to talk, which he can do very well at home, and to see people before for talking, and see people after for talking, this is a monstrous voyage." "Having said this, it's true, I feel no inclination toward traveling, but it's not some sort of principle for me, and I don't pretend even to be right, thank God." "Ok, so I ask myself, what is there, what is there for me in traveling?" "First, there is always a small bit of false rupture." "I'd say it's the first aspect of:" "what is it that makes traveling for me quite distasteful!" "The first reason is:" "it's a cheap rupture, and I understand what Fitzgerald expressed:" "a trip is not enough to create a real rupture." "If you want rupture, then do something other than travel because finally, what does one see?" "People who travel tend to travel a lot, and after, they are even proud of it." "They say it's in order to find a father." "There are great reporters who have written books on this, they did it all," "Vietnam, Afghanistan, wherever you like, and they say bluntly that they all were in search of a father." "They shouldn't have bothered..." "Traveling can really be Oedipian in that sense." "Well, ok..." "I say no, that just won't do!" "The second reason: it seems that I am greatly moved by an admirable phrase, as always, from Beckett who has one of his characters [Camier] say, more or less" "I cite poorly, and it's expressed better than this:" "sure, we're all dumb, but still, not to the point of traveling for pleasure." "I find this phrase completely satisfying:" "I am dumb, but not to the point of traveling for pleasure, no, not that dumb!" "And there is a third aspect of travel." "You said, "nomad"..." "Well, yes, I've always been quite fascinated with nomads, but precisely because nomads are people who don't travel." "Those who travel are emigrants, and there can certainly be perfectly respectable people who are forced to travel, exiled people, emigrants." "This is a kind of trip that it is not even a question of ridiculing because these are sacred forms of travel, forced travel." "Ok, fine..." "But nomads don't travel." "Nomads, to the contrary, quite literally, they stay put completely, all the specialists on nomads say this." "It's because nomads don't want to leave, because they seize hold of the earth, their land." "Their land becomes deserted and they seize hold of it, they can only nomadize on their land, and it's by dint of wanting to stay on their land that they nomadize." "So in a sense, one can say nothing is more immobile than a nomad, nothing travels less than a nomad." "It's because they don't want to leave that they are nomad." "And that's why they are completely persecuted." "And finally, the last aspect of traveling that doesn't make it very..." "There is a phrase from Proust that is quite beautiful that says:" "after all, what does one always do when one travels?" "One always verifies something." "One verifies that a particular color one dreamed about is really there." "And then he adds something very important." "He says:" "a bad dreamer is someone who doesn't go see if the color he dreamed about is really there, but a good dreamer knows that one has to go verify if the color is really there." "I consider this a good conception of travel, but otherwise..." "Parnet:" "This is a fantastic regression." "Deleuze:" "No, at the same time, there are trips that are true ruptures." "For example, the life of Le Clézio at the moment seems to be a way in which he certainly operates a kind of rupture." "Parnet:" "Lawrence..." "Deleuze:" "There's [T.E.] Lawrence, yes, Lawrence..." "There are too many great writers I admire who have a sense of travel." "Stevenson as well, Stevenson's travels aren't negligible." "So what I am saying has no generality." "I say, for my own account, someone who doesn't like to travel probably has these four reasons." "Parnet:" "ls your haired of travel connected to your natural slowness?" "Deleuze:" "No, I can conceive of very slow travels, but in any case, I feel no need to move." "All the intensities that I have are immobile intensities." "Intensities distribute themselves in space or in other systems" "that aren't necessarily in exterior spaces." "I can assure you that when I read a book that I admire, that I find beautiful, or when I hear music that I consider beautiful," "I really get the feeling of passing into such states..." "Never could traveling inspire such emotions." "So, why would I go seek emotions that don't suit me very well, since I have more beautiful ones for myself in immobile systems, like music, like philosophy?" "There is a gee-music, a geo- philosophy, I mean, they are profound countries, and these are more my countries, yes?" "Parnet:" "Your foreign lands." "Deleuze:" "My very own foreign lands that I don't find by traveling." "Parnet:" "You are the perfect illustration that movement is not located in displacement, but you did travel a little, to Lebanon for a conference, to Canada, to the USA." "Deleuze:" "Yes, yes, I did that, but I have to say that" "I was always dragged into it, and I no longer do it because" "I should never have done all that, I did it too much." "At that time, I liked walking, and now I walk less well, so travel is no longer a possibility." "But I recall walking all alone through the streets of Beirut from morning to night, not knowing where I was going." "I like to see a city on foot, but that's all over." "Parnet:" "Let's move on to" "Deleuze:" "There's nothing in" "Parnet:" "Yes, there's Wittgenstein." "I know he's nothing for you, but could you say a few words." "Deleuze:" "I don't want to talk about that..." "For me, it's a philosophical catastrophe." "It's the very example of a "school,"" "it's a regression of all philosophy, a massive regression." "The Wittgenstein matter is quite sad." "They imposed a system of terror in which, under the pretext of doing something new," "it's poverty instituted in all grandeur..." "There isn't a word to describe this danger," "but this danger is one that recurs, it's not the first time that it has happened. it's serious, especially since Wittgensteinians are mean and destructive." "So if they win, there could be an assassination of philosophy." "They are assassins of philosophy." "Parnet: it's serious, then." "Deleuze:" "Yes..." "One must remain very vigilant." "Parnet: "X" is unknown, and "Y" is unspeakable, so we'll pass directly to the final letter of the alphabet, it's "Zed."" "Deleuze:" "Ah, well, good timing!" "Deleuze:" "Ah, well, good timing!" "Parnet:" "Now, it's not the Zed of Zorro, the Lawman, since we have understood throughout the alphabet, you don't like judgment. it's the Zed of bifurcation, of lightning, it's the letter that one finds in the names of great philosophers:" "Zen, Zarathustra, Leibniz, Spinoza, Nietzsche," "BergZon, and of course, Deleuze." "Deleuze:" "You are very witty with BergZon and very kind toward me." "I consider Zed to be a great letter that helps us connect with the ﬂy, the zed of the ﬂy, the zigging movement of the ﬂy, the Zed, the final word," "there is no word after zigzag." "It's good to end on this word." "So, what happens, in fact, in Zed?" "The Zen is the reverse of Nez (nose), which is also a zigzag." "Z as movement, the fly..." "What is that about?" "it's perhaps the elementary movement, perhaps the movement that presided at the creation of the world." "I'm currently reading, like everyone else," "I'm reading a book on the Big Bang, on the creation of the universe, an infinite curving, how it occurred, the Big Bang." "One must say that, at the origin of things, there's no Big Bang, there's the Zed." "Parnet:" "So, the Zed of the ﬂy, the Big Bang... the bifurcation...?" "Deleuze:" "We have to replace the Big Bang with the Zed, which is, in fact, the Zen, the route of the fly." "What does that mean?" "For me," "when I evoke the zigzag, it's what we said earlier about no universals, but rather aggregates of singularities." "The question is how do we bring disparate singularities into relationship, or bring potentials into relationship, to speak in terms of physics." "One can imagine a chaos full of potentials, so how to bring these potentials into relation?" "Now I no longer recall in which vaguely scientific discipline there is a term that I like a lot and that I used in my books." "Someone explained that between two potentials occurs a phenomenon that was defined by the idea of a "dark precursor."" "This dark precursor is what places different potentials into relation, and once the journey of the dark precursor takes place, the potentials enter into a state of reaction, and between the two," "the visible event flashes, the bolt of lightning." "So, there is the dark precursor and then a lightning bolt, and that's how the world was born." "There is always a dark precursor that no one sees, and then the lightning bolt that illuminates, and there is the world." "Or that's also what thought must be, that's what philosophy must be." "That's the great Zed, but that's also the wisdom of Zen." "The sage is the dark precursor and then the blow of the stick comes, since the Zen master is always distributing blows." "The blow of the stick is the lightning that makes things visible..." "And so we have finished..." "Parnet:" "Are you happy to have a Zed in you name?" "Deleuze:" "Delighted!" "Parnet:" "The end." "Deleuze:" "What happiness it is to have done this." "Posthumous!" "Posthumous!" "Parnet:" "PostZumous!" "Deleuze:" "And so there we are... and thank you for all of your kindness."