DELEUZE, ZIZEK, AND HELL: against philo-memes

All philosophers write from hell, even before they die. That’s what distinguishes them from ideologues, propagandists, careerists and profiteers.

For example, Wittgenstein often quoted approvingly Russell’s dictum « Logic is hell ». No doubt that is why he finally preferred to return to logic after the imaginary « Heaven » of Trattenbach.

Zizek is no exception. LESS THAN NOTHING means « from Hell ». Lazy people go to Zizek’s short book on Deleuze to understand their relation. If you go through the hell of LESS THAN NOTHING you come out with a different understanding.

In Hell there are no authorities. Watchwords and slogans only make its denizens laugh. Hell is the uncontrolled part of Heaven.

The French graphic novel « Salut,Deleuze »? situates Deleuze in the underworld. It is quite interesting and well-done. As with Badiou and Zizek on Deleuze, it expresses a shadow perspective on Deleuze, well before the « dark deleuze » meme was launched  (in Badiou’s terms « dark deleuze » is not a concept but a philosopheme).

Laruelle’s historiography forms part of a more general movement to re-write the history of the Continental Philosophy of the last fifty years by replacing subtle and complexly creative research programs such as Deleuze’s, Badiou’s, Latour’s, Laruelle’s and Zizek’s with simplistic stereotypes. The concepts are replaced by philo-memes (philosophemes).

I wrote that Badiou, Zizek, Latour, Stiegler are more legitimate inheritors of Deleuze than many of those who dominate the discussion of Deleuze in English. Some people objected to this because they confuse inheriting and alienating oneself in the other, but we should inherit their spirit of « become who you are » and transform not just the answers but even the problems that we inherit.

Note: I am indebted to exchanges on twitter with Jaakko Leskinen and @GrumpyDeleuze that helped me clarify my ideas.