03.20.2023
[Pharresia] focuses on Philosophy, Culture, Tech, Theology, and more. The content stems from original pieces, curated links, and the occasional podcast.
Thanks for being a subscriber to [Pharresia]
Newsletter. The previous Newsletter can be found below, as well as some of the things I’ve been reading lately:
Notes on Resonance
“Revolutionary movements do not spread by contamination but by resonance. Something that is constituted here resonates with the shock wave emitted by something constituted over there.… An insurrection is not like a plague or a forest fire — a linear process which spreads from place to place after an initial spark. It rather takes the shape of a music, whose focal points, though dispersed in time and space, succeed in imposing the rhythms of their own vibrations, always taking on more density.” ― The Invisible Committee
For the past three years, there has been an emphasis on wave-like patterns they relate to social behaviors. This of course, is always in reference to, “waves” of infection caused by the SARS-COVID-19 viral infection. As it relates to the online theoretical landscape instead of focusing on “wave” dynamics in terms of their immanent properties, resonance, amplitude, etc. The primary focus has remained on interpreting waves in terms of linear dynamics/models.
Essentially, a modern transcendental framework has entirely captured the narrative or the understanding of “waves” in the zeitgeist. This framework only understands sociological movements, events, and politics in the language of memetic contagion.
This memetic framework operates, as the quote above from The Invisible Committee states, “a linear process which spreads from place to place after an initial spark.” It’s essential to understand how these self-propagating paradigms shape our subjectivity. The capitalist subject only understands the world via a flat ontology. This is the world of the euclidian plane, lines, bars, and graphs of speed, diagramed in logarithmic curvature, derivatives, and amplitude.
An affirmation of digitalization and flatlining reality into two dimensions is misguided. Two dimensions neglect the 3rd, that of an ascension, but this ascension should not be mistaken with arboreal structures; this verticality is a movement; it’s a flow, a line of flight.
The most naughty word in contemporary online philosophical and theoretical circles on the left is that of Hierarchy. We are hung up wholly tethered to the regime of Immanence and Difference. The Holy Church of Deleuzian Puritanism affirms our Rhizomatic, multiplicities, and emergent flat-ontology, differential frameworks because Difference in itself is confused for Difference for itself. Most don’t realize that their primary understanding of Deleuze is that kin to a cursory reading of Nick Land, of quick and dirty destratification at any cost, even if it means becoming a black hole.
This ignorance towards the emergent Hierarchy of layered strata leaves us unable to see past the Kantian Transcendental Horizon. It thus keeps us boxed in the modernist’s flat ontological paradigm of Euclid. Instead of finding the possibility of configuring ourselves to resonate with other strata, we try to de-stratify all too quickly. Thus we destroy through the corrosive powers of the War Machine.
“Revolutionary movements do not spread by contamination but by resonance. Something that is constituted here resonates with the shock wave emitted by something constituted over there (…). It rather takes the shape of a music, whose focal points, though dispersed in time and space, succeed in imposing the rhythms of their own vibrations, always taking on more density.”
The obvious allusion would be to coalescing waves of resonant structures, of converging amplitudes, in which, in an instant, that which is solid becomes an entangled mess by no means other than its own resonance. We can think of emergent organizational patterns like in the case of chladni plate patterns.
But this would be to think still 2-D, to narrow our thinking to that which fetishizes difference and flat-ontological planes. Instead, we should be like the Angelic choirs of heaven. In essence, there is a strict hierarchy according to their closeness to God according to their kind, but ultimately all of creation still has a shared teleology, an orientation to the good. The Pythagoreans who influenced Plato understood that waves and music are related to ratio and proportion. Ultimately understanding that music had a deep connection to “reality.” To overcome the transcendental horizon of modernity, we must think of new ways of thinking; yes, this doesn’t imply a return to some naive past. Simply put, new ways of thinking have a real change in material conditions. This is the definition of resonance, ideas can resonate, amplify and propagate, and they can do this all at different starts at different times and points and spaces, ultimately harmonizing and showing us the path to our teleological end.
Angels are the messages of god, and even now, the very message I’m sending you is in the form of a wave. Let us not form assemblages as machines.
Let us form choirs.
~Links~
“Revolutionary movements do not spread by contamination but by resonance. Something that is constituted here resonates with the shock wave emitted by something constituted over there.… An insurrection is not like a plague or a forest fire — a linear process which spreads from place to place after an initial spark. It rather takes the shape of a music, whose focal points, though dispersed in time and space, succeed in imposing the rhythms of their own vibrations, always taking on more density.” ― The Invisible Committee
I would also like to send a special thank you to my Patrons:
Mirrorvisc (Patreon name)
YEAH STEVE (Patreon name)
Colin Partch (Patreon name)
Peter (Patreon name)
Boz Garden (Patreon name)
PantherModern (Patreon name)
My Patreon is connected to the podcast I co-host with @YAgamben.
We recently opened up a Patreon to help support the expenses to keep some of these operations running, including hosting and things of that nature.
We strictly want to follow a “buy me a cup of coffee” model, so any “donation” is welcome. If you want to support any of our work, consider becoming a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/Decodecast.
-C.N.