Who's Afraid of Hegstian Wels? ns Infact the Hegel that appears in Deleuze's texts i always the single figure of the thinker of identity. From Nietzsche and Philowphy to What 4s Philesophy?, and including Difference and Repestion, Hegelian philos- ‘ophy is presented as perfectly expressing binary logic in alls syste atic heaviness one plus one is two, and two ends up reducing to one 1, as Deleuze allows in Diferene and Repeation,diference i "he around? ofthe dialectic, it remain that ti ‘only the ground for the emonstration ofthe identical. Hegel's circle isnot the eternal return, fnly the infinite circulation of the Menteal by means of negativity @R50) Te all seems as if in order to show that Hegel isthe most powerf, thinker of the principle of Mdentty, Deleuze cuts into the quick of “speculative philosophy and in so doing fixes and contains its energy “The Delcuzian discouree which soes in Hegel's dilectics a principle fof repetiion that does not produce diflerence, is itself from one 1d-0f his work to the other, univalent and univocal. In the frst lace he restricts dialectics tothe indefatigable process of sublation ‘Auphebung) of diference, an, in the second place, identifies it with a ighly developed form of resentment In a single passage from Dif and Repetition, for example, Deleuze affirms, in the fist place, ofall the senses of aufhebn, none is more important than that of 1 up.” There is indeed a dislecical circle, but this infinite le has everywhere only a single centre; it retains within itself all other circles, all the other momentary centres and, in the sec- 1 pce, that this ‘rasing pis nothing more than a way of carrying at typifies Zarathusta's ass, for whom “to affirm is vo beat, 10 ume or to shoulder a burden, He bears everything: the burdens ‘which hei laden ... those which he assumes himself. andthe tof his tred muscles when he no longer has anything to bear R53). ‘After the fashion of the wolves on Freud's couch, Hegel as con- ved of by Deleuze, apparently ‘never hed a chance to get aay’! so and so desperately dacs he come to resemble himself. “The name, we tead in A Thowand Plateau, ‘does aot designate an dual: i is on the contrary when the individual opens up to the iplicties pervading him or her, atthe outcome of the most severe ation of depersonalization, that he or she acquiees his or her te + name, The proper name is the instantaneous apprehension of| ‘multiplicity. The proper name is the subject of a pure infinitive pounded as such ina field of intensity” (ATP 37). That analis not seem to apply to Hegel's proper name which is taken ro be ‘unalterable and univocal signifier ofa signified (Hegelian phos 7 Who’s Afraid of Hegelian Wolves? Catherine Malabou vera Hegel? That isthe question that thi xy wil put Cee ‘known one that he and Guattari ask Freud lewse, miming the well- nd Gonta Fread eee ning of 4 Thowand Plateaus: “ODE 0 4 1 he Reining ea sm of Freud entment of e Their gues sais hat seek to show chat dhe limate aim of Wale Man, analyst reduce the infinite malty of un clas ppeine Logical unity of sigur that always ends OP sae othe ier, Ar the therapy develops the Banas having he Tnng te patient core to form a single one, the saa Well "No sooner does Feud discover the greaes vpesious,’ they write, ‘than we find him tirelessly at work bringing” Sa revering to hs fain: hemes ofthe fhe, 2 eee he vagina, Castration with a capital C . .. Who is ignorant penis the vane Ctemel in pack? Only Freud. very child knows i Noe red! (ATP 27-8) “Theft chapter of Towa aa aeespptng and convincing sections ofthe wos fining cP or alone, and hat “the wo, wolves 4 oll Ev: 52 perature, nonecompenbe wale sa cei precisely from the place ofmy fest com Se fh ne heat of the crowd or pack by which T ‘ifingly lead slong, that Iwill venture to ask whether inthe Ge TTR ine dvs nxn ees te get te onde ge ee eneherin Dleut's wor, avn rey one #0 in iced inane lee’ (ATP 28) by means of which malt ‘ecomer «unity iwi ay So 08 ret ions of the work, affirming.nie Catherine Malabou cophy) tha ie ise unalterable and univocal, Hegs! benefits from no extenuating circumstances that might be brought to bear in order to vary the intensity of his name, conferring on ithe rich and extensive register of semantic variegation ‘Never does Deleuze seek to determine what the Hegelian equiva ent of ‘conceptual personae’ would be. No outline of Hegelian philos- ‘ophy is drawn, i€by “outline” we understand what What is Philosophy? calls the ‘plane’ of someone's thinking. This plan(e), constitutive of ‘ach parieular philosophy, is «complex play of movements ‘hat are everible and folded within each other’ (WD 75). Concepts are “per= Ssonae’ which emerge from the plane at the same time as they create fc ‘There are innumerable planes, each with a variable curve, and they group together or separate themselves according tothe points of view constituted by personae, Each persona has several features that ray give rise to other personae, on the same or a different plane conceptual personae proliferate” (WP 76). In their own way these ‘personae’ constitute the pack, or conceptual mulipliciy, tha assures the vitality ofa given philosophy. The philosophies of Plato, Spinoza, ‘Leibniz, Kant and Nietsche provide the mos striking examples. Even Descartes for whom, in the Dialogues with Claire Parnet, Deleuze declares his aversion, is called upon to back up this idea of the personae! “The Hoge!“ plane and its personae: “Hegel [had] the ides of making use of con fiction between rival opinions to extact fom them supeascien propositions able to move, contemplate reflect, and communicate themselves and within the absolute (the speculative propositc wherein opinions become moments ofthe concept)” (WP 80). The eaders might think, we find what we expected the staging of» cer ‘multiplicity thats inherent in the functioning of Hegelian philoso ‘mobile points felating to each other within «differential play, inter-reflection of opposing forces. .. the Hegelian wolves have, haps finally been recognized. Very quickiy, however, the axe cutting cleanly the wings that Deleuze and Guatar for a moment srowing from the System. Indeed the text continues a follows But, beneath the highest ambisons ofthe dalectc, and ierespectve of the genius of the great calcicins, we fal back io the most abet fondions that Nctache diagnosed ste at ofthe pled or bad taste Blilosophy a reduction of the concept to proposionr like 3 sis presented as a case apart. Near the beginning of What is Philosphy? the eader might think that Deleuze is going to deal with the philosophical pack as it relates co speculative thought, it Who's Afraid of Hegelian Wolves? ut ‘opinions fale perceptions and bad fetings (usons of transcendence or of universal) englfing dhe plane of mmanence the model ofa fora of knomledge that constitutes only a supposedly higher pinion, Undone, ‘replacement of conceptual personae by teachers o leader of schol, ‘The countless tits that gave the thinking its vitality dhe elementary Pulsation of philosophy, the speed, movement and conceptual sihouettes Ae found, in the cae of Hegel, tobe once again fozen ona fixed plane, in the immobile image and severe and fatigued visage ofthe Pristan professor whose frends very ey on nicknamed ‘the old man. Hegel never has a chance ro get sway, Let us imagine for a moment that a student confides in Deleuze, saving that in reading Hegel she fees, if not wolves, atleast a pack of something. Let us suppose that this student add that she considers the Hegelian system not tobe lke 4 wee, like a unicentred thinking, but a process of distribution of singularities, the regulated explosion of an energy free of all fixity, an fecoriomy of the fluidity ofthe real and of thinking; that she i particu. larly interested in Hegel's preoccupation with ‘Huidlying slidiied thinking’ with dspossessing consciousness ofits mastery. Would not Deleuze reply that tis impossible wo uncover something ikea pack or ‘band within the dialectic? "What is it Tee, then? the student would ‘ask. “You see a camel, an ox, an ass. Several animals, perhaps, but a single Sgure: that, precisely, ofthe unity that lays cain to its busden, its saddlebags, its harness, and moos, bleas, and brays.” Just as, according to Deleuze and Guattar, for Freud to constitute ;psychoanalysis the wolves have to be domesticated, 40 the nomadic ‘ought of diference and the thizome is pethaps developed at the expense of a certsin Hegslian multipliciy. One wonders as much 9 confronted with a Hegel so uniform, so monochrome, a Hegel ho plays the role of the detested domestic animal, According to leuze and Guattar, ‘Freud only knows the Oedipalized wolf or dos, castrated-castrating daddy-wolf, the dog in the kennel” (ATP 9). But doesn't Deleuze in fact transform Hegel into a. dog? "Hegel become the ‘bow-wow” of contemporaty philosophers, abhorred victim of the pack of the thinkers of difference, theit solute enemy? Speaking of the enemy one thinks of the following passage from tziche and Philosophy where Deleuze waites concerning Nietesche: e will misunderstand the whole of Nietzsche's work f we do not see inst whom” its principle concepts are directed. Hegelian themes [resent in this work as the enemy against which i fights' (NPD. 2). Ta this case Nietzsche would himsei cerainly argue for mult18 Catherine Maabou Who's Afraid of Hogsian Wolves? 19 plicty as against unity. Enemies are, infact, always several, and Zarathustra is indeed ‘grateful to plurality of enemies.* One cannot therefore be sure that Nietzsche males lege! his single, worst enemy, Tam led again to pose the question: One or several Hegels? In spite of appearances my foreword is not polemical. I i not a matter of prosecuting the case of ‘Deleuze as eader of Hegel” nor even of proposing a critique of such a reading. It is rather a matter of exposing a difficulty. If in order to thematize Delewz's relation to Hegel, one limits oneseif to picking up on the numerous passages were the former deals with he latter, then one will ot got very ‘One would have to be content with enumerating alist of complaints, orwith staging a duel between Hegel and Niewsche, repeating bow by blow the well-known pages of Nieiacke and Philosophy. Anyone who has read Deleuze knows those pages well. What purpose would be served by eproducing or paraphrasing them? ‘Would the rolution therefore be to ‘save? Hegel by showing that, Deleuze’s thinking is already ‘understood by’ or ‘included in” the dialectic, to play Hegel off against Deleuze? Deleuze has already thought of this and forestalls such a possibility. In Difference and Repniton he shows that by opposing difference to Hegelian unity, he pethaps runs the risk of appearing lke # new figure of the “benutifl foul.” "The beautiful soul he wes, “isin effect the one who scc8 differences everywhere and appeals to them only as respectable, recon~ tila or federative diferences, while history continues to be made: ‘hough bloody contradictions. The beautiful soul behaves lke a justice ofthe peace thrown on toa Geldof battle, one who sees in the Inexpiable struggles only simple “diferends" of perhaps misunder Standings’ (DR 52). Deleuze here explicitly thematizes the objection {that “Hegelans’ might make- that he understands the thinking Giference at a later movement of the dialectic the romantic pref ‘erence for the multiplicity fall things, irreducible ro the concept, and) ‘condemned in advance by the concept itself which always ends u Claiming ts Highs Solution would no doubt lie Deleuze cus the objection shor: re oak le np Sens or of i oan a puting such ani tenes rion sor, howees ne can never know whether the onus W eee fon a ontological primacy abated neprtiy, esac byeproduct of sfirmaton, since, a ach, ete Sate ons *atiated and differential. Does the dialectical complementar 7 sfiherms of open arose tom at opoay Noreen, min evry question to with Hegrion he ot provide the answer, which in tum ana eee {0 8 simple procedure. anil In the cae ofthe adversarial distogue betwee ‘yan canon inthe Nctscheatsene of Deleuze and Hegel the term, woud alow the fre present and cme eto sie a tata ntradiction, claiming to reduce his antag “Hews a self in Deleuz {tie oot mong to de Gorm wi rk Gs wlhizor co at crosting of pata flementaite beeen sfcantioa tnd negation, esac day re of the conromation bee Tim nd cenroctn (rite rv veto gre ee of is what es ot and is mani) toner to throw te tater pre iflocsces back atte # an instance of the doe ‘esata sou, sod to weld ube fate of rel dilerencs to that of the rental force {the too ‘egutve sod coutadicton, For such couplementrcs am yet tl tt ie ‘othing sbout the relation between one term and dhe other (DR 52) Possibilities being interpreted as simply pose) shale this cnt - eae bes that to ay Tat ey The ershing of pathways fat rlened tiny ae ot120 Gatherine Malabou ceossing, one which does not preside over a decision, but results from {jase ant causes it) 4 complication. In complicating the relation be tween Deleuze and Hegel one manages to show how the two thinkers form one against the other, of one with the other, something like & ‘Block of becoming,” one of those heterogeneous and unnatural com- binations that Deleuze is wont co speak of "What then isthe source ofthe complication? If, for Deleuze, there sceme tobe only ne Hegel this unity is brought about by to posible ‘Slur reducion and exception. By unifying Hegel's philosophy inthe xtreme, Deleuze frst of all reduces it just as Freud reduces his Srolven At the same time this extreme reaction amounts to an exceP- Tonal tresumeot for no other plloropher meets this fate in Delewze's ‘work. Therefore, Hegel i, to certain extent, given privileged teat- Tent; he becomes the ony one, wih ll che negative expect one pays fo an absolute teron: unable to be assimilated and thus veritably Uther, When the Band, of the pack, turns its back on Hegel, his Sonition comes paradoxically into relief and this becomes a pherome- Ton of Deteuze’s philosophy. The French expression ‘I’ a phenome ‘on! refers to the appearance of something exceptional, a surprising ‘Unexpected, or even monstrous eve IMy qucttion is a5 follows: does not Hegel, inasmuch as he incar rates in the exteeme a ‘nomal’ unity, become Deleuze's ‘anomalous the unavoidable and indispensable ‘phenomenon of bordering’ the Docks that run inal directions through his tex? Inthe chapter fom Thousand Plateau entitled “Becomsing-Intense, Becoming-Animals Be oming-Impercepible,' Deleuze and Guateari write: ‘wherever there Ghuluplicgy, you will ako find an exceptional individual... Thay be no such thing a a lone wolf, but there isa leader of the pa muster of the pack, or else the old deposed head of the pack n Tiving slone, theres the Loner, and there isthe Demon’ (ATP 24 By dint of being designated in such a haunting, insistent, obsess tray, as adequate to itself, rule, oF law (noma), does not Hee!’ na ‘ad ‘up by setting itself apart fom those ofall other philosophers, ‘ieeeding them as leader ofthe pack or their ‘anomalous’? The an Slow is Greek noun that has lost is adjective and that) designa ‘he unequal, the coarse the rough, the cutting edge of deterritoial on’ (ATP 244). What if Hegel were to assure Deleuze’ text evtain coarseness, what if he were to take to the extreme thet tories and the tree? II hat were the case then the igure of Hegel would thse forms of unity: unity by reduction and unity by exception; a unity 1 shall call @ unity by subtraction of the pack (process whereby One or Several Wolves? the second in “Becoming Who's Afraid of Hegelian Wotves? 121 wolves reduce to a single wel), and a unity by secretion of the pack {appearance of the exceptional individual on the edge of excessiveness [comme bord de ditordemenr)). Delewze reduces Hegelian multiplicity by subtraction and makes Hegel appear as his outsider. The problem js then to know why Deleuze never recognizes Hegel as his white Whale, leaving to the reader the task of recognizing in his relentless ‘opposition tothe dialectic the impassioned limping ofa Captain Ahab. This non-recognition might alto take on the vale of a pimptom that readers, ab ad hoc psychoanalyst, would take it upon themselves to ‘interpret. What Hege! would thus be the symptom of, in incamating both unites at once, i perhaps the impossibility of maintaining their difference right to che end, of Keeping the ‘one wol? apart from the “Neader of the pack’. Perhaps the wolf and the anomalous would inthis way revert co the same thing. T shall let Hegel be the judge of th proposing «confrontation benween « Deleuze visited by Hegel, nd Hegel revisited by Deleuze. Se oe called rnran Wekigig FICGHUI NaN a ac which offers the advantage of detertoraizng the expected place of ebat, and interrogating, on an uncharted terrain, the old concepts of ‘unity, system, becoming and teleology airy ty subtraction and unity by exception do not sem, at ft glance, to have anything to do with one another. Their two economics are selected in A Thousand Plateaus as two contrasting, even contrary move- 1s. Theft, you il remember, i elaborated in the chapter entitled tense, Becoming: imal, Becoming-Impercepible” The development ofthe second relies various examples, the most striking being the film Wiland by Daniel nn, whose subtitle might be the ‘Rat-Man,’ and Moby Dick ‘Whar brings about the essential difference ofthese two economies is conception of ducoming that underwrite them. In the Best ase nds assimilation of the pack of hallucinatory wolves tothe single ofthe father), becoming is assigned toa teleology, with unity as result In the second (‘Captain Ahab has an irresistible becoming le ATP 243), becoming is ‘adestina’ in that the exceptional dual does not result from i€ but form is border TTeleological becoming is conceived of ae ‘tension towards it rly oriented or destined, Even if Deleuze and Guatari do not this explicit it is clear that for dhem Freud inherits this concep- ‘of becoming ffom a whole philosophical tradition represented all by Hegel, tradition that thinks the fundamental articulation coming and of the tele. Becoming, Hegel explains inthe Science122 Catherine Malabou of Lape is atthe same time the end (Ends) of becoming: the aim of ‘becoming is its own cessation. Hegel aims that “there is nothing ‘which is not an intermediate stare berween being and nothing’ but this iotermediary sate, this middle (milieu) cannot be sustained. Te tends towards rest or stasis, that isto say towards the formation of “being-there’ a determinate individual that achieves, through the very position ofits ontological configuration, the indefinite movement of the inversion of pure being and pure nothingness one within the other: "Becoming is an unstable unrest which setles into a stable result (ine Ialtangose Unrh, din ein ruhiges Result swanemensnkt) (SL106). Conceived ofin this manner, becoming follows the principle of indvid- satin: being and nothingness are finally syrthesied ina pariclar frm This dalectic of becoming, which is exposed in all its conceptual purity inthe Scene of Loic, pertains to the fundamental process chat inspires the whole Hegelian system: the process ofthe genus (Gast) ‘which commands the principle of individuation. The genus, universal abstract of the species oF essence, has its particular form in given individuals which, in dying, dissolve and so return to generic univer- sality. I isin the movement from genus to genus that the telos of ‘becoming is accomplished: pure being-pure nothingness, being-there (dividual, effective universality (alectial synthesis of individual and genus), ‘Let us examine in this ight the becoming ofthe animal such ast elaborated in the Philosophy of Nature, the second volume of the Encyclopedia ofthe Philosophical Science. The vital movement of the individual animal, dhe tension that assures it vitality, comes not fom, a plenitade but from a lack, In fict, the animal is seaaitive to the Incommensurable separation between its individuality andthe genus belongs to, a separation whichis paradxically experienced on the basis ofthe very unity of the individual andthe genus: “Thi relation Ship isa procs which begins with a need forthe individual as a singular docs not accord with the genus immanent in it, and yet a the sme ‘ime is the identical selfrelation of the genus in one unity it thus has the feeling of this defect (er hat s0 das Gf deter Mange)” The becoming of the animal is motivated by a double tension: the dive (Trie) of the gems within it, acting lke an instinct for sel-presere tion (feeling of unity with the genus), and the lack of the gens within 4t (feling of a defect on the part of the individyal, imited to i boeingthere, with respect to the unlimited power of the genus the Sndividul’s incapacity to constitute a genus all by ve). "The becoming of such a becoming is complished in sexual repro duction, in copulation with another animal that leads tothe bist of Who's Afraid of Hegelian Wolves? 123 ‘ew individual or being-there: “The genus is therefore preseat in the {individual asa straining against the inadequacy of it single actuality, as the urge to obtain its self-fecling in the other of is gens, ‘ntegrate itself through union with i and through this mediation to close the genus with itself and bring it into existence ~copudaton’ (PN, 412), At the same time ths atempr to dispense with the tension that Separates it fom its genus only serves to accentuate that separation tnd precipitate the individual towards death, that isto say towards 2 Fetura tothe anonymity ofthe genus: “The genus preseves itself only through the destruction of the individuals who, in the process of ‘generation, fulfil their destiny and... inthis process meet their deat? (N44) ‘These reminders are intended to shed light on the attachment of Freudian psychoanalysis, as interpreted by Deleuze othe philosophi= cal tradition, notably tothe thinking of Hegel. One can see that for the latter the other of the animal is still an animal, At fest sight there fs no Deck, just a couple. That i to say the other ofthe animal united with 4an anima is still am animal: the offspring. One can see that when becoming is subordinated to the logic ofthe genus in this way, it remains inseparable from the destiny of the family. Yet itis precinely the family hat, according to Deleuze and Guattari, remains the nora for Freudian prychoanalysis, ‘The axiomatic ofthe family is the guiding force in the analysis of the ‘Wolf-Man and it presides over the process of reduction to a unity by subtraction of the pack. Litle by litle Freud redirects the errant wolves along the sure path of generic union, thus guarentecing the role ofthe parents and the sound functioning ofthe reproductive process. A passage from A Thousand Plateaus ts worth eting in ful, for describes most precisely this process of subtraction Wit fle sruples he (Freud) asks, How are we to explain the fat that tere ate fey sor seven wolves in this eam? The wots wl have to be purged of thee multipiciy. This peraion i aso plished by associating the dream with he ale, “The Wolf andthe Svea Kid-Goats" only si of which are eaten) We witness Frees reducing Be; we Healy see mulipicity leave the wolves to take the shape of ‘ont that have absolutly nothing todo with the ory, Serea wolves That ate only Kid-goat. Six wolves: the seventh gont (he Well Man ‘imset is hiding inthe clock Fite wolves: he may ave Seen hi parents ‘ake love at fie o'clock and the Roman numeral Vis essoeated with the erotic spreading of «woman's legs. Taree wolves: the pent ay have made love thee times. Two wolves: the fist coupling the tld may hve seen was the wo parents more ora or perhaps cen124 Gatherine Malabou two dogs. One wo thwolfethe father, we al knew fom the ‘Zersvc he ont sil be aot ones caseaor but als cased. carp 28) ‘Does this passage from one to zero not correspond f0 the process ‘whereby Hlegel’s individual, in coupling, tends towards death, that is to say towards generic undifferentaton? If, in Freud, the feeling of {ouliciency is nota fact of consciousness but the very manifestation ‘fhe unconscious i till remains a sentiment, ora fear ofan insufl- lemoy to the extent that eastraon can continue 10 be read a a lack, {he phantasmatic inscription within the individual ofa generic defect. In his seme Deleuze and Guattai are able to hold that the Freudian Linconsefous indeed retains far too much consciousness ofits genus ‘Casuation, they write, lack, substitution: tale told by an overeon- ‘ious idiot who bas no understanding of multiplicities a8 formations Of the unconscious" (ATP 32) The process of reduction to a unity by subtraction of the pack is organized, as we have seen, according o the lgi, revealed by Hegel, Stith becoming ofthe animal. According to Deleuze and Guattar {his concems more consciousness than the animal itself, and imprints ba becoming a eaegorial movement that doesn’t belong to it. For the ‘Becoming ofthe animal as traditionally interpreted they substitute the echcapt ef the ‘becoming-animal. Such a concept must be examined, foe are to analyse the process of unity by exception, by secretion of ws one t escape the abstract opposition Derween the multiple and the one, to eseape dialectics, to succeed in the pack, a process that al Conceiving the multiple in the pure state, to cease treating it as SSumerical fragment of a lost Unity or Totality or as the organic Glement of a Unity or Totality yet fo come, and instead distinguish ‘between different types of multiplicity’ (ATP 32). “The Wolf Man cries out hi anguish, that ofthe becoming-wotf, a [Freud Js powerless to comprehend the phenomenon and so attempts fo reinstall him within the becoming of the wolf: individual-parents Tpecielgenus In the becoming-wolf of the Wolf-Man Freud hear nly 1 am transforming myself into s wolf Tam in the process Secoming a wolf’ But Deleuze and Guattar show that the becom thimal docs not amount to becoming an animal; real becoming d for correspond to that traditional definition, namely « mediation {he way wan end or predetermined production. Becoming does ‘Come to an end inthe Being that has become: the human being d fot “realy” become an animal any more than the animal “really Becomes something ese... What is real isthe becoming itself Who's Afraid of Hegelian Wolves? 125 block of becoming, not the supposedly fixed terms through which that Which becomes passes’ (ATP 238) Such an understanding of becoming removes the concept ffom the Hegelian definition of an intermediate state between being and noth- fingness. Becoming i not a hesitation between the abyseal vertigo of absence of form and the security of a particular incarnation. It has “aeither bepinning nor end, departure nor asval, origin nor destina- tion’ (ATP 293). Becoming is « pure milieu which means that this milieu is not ‘in the middle of,” is not a force that is in the process of coming into being, « movement of resection but a momentary fssemblage that cannot and will not give its reason for being. ‘At the end of John Huston’ fm of Moby Dick Ahab is seen tied to the whale, stretched out on its white back in a sort of ecstatic crucifix- fon. This image ~ let us agree to ignore for the moment Deleuzs's insistence that a becoming cannot be represented ~ might allow us 0 ‘understand what a ‘block of becoming is, what the becoming-whale of [Absb is, something that isnot to be eonfused with Ahab's "becoming 1 whale’. The becomingewhale of Ahab begins where generic insu ‘ciency ends. In fact Ahab finds in the whale a death which is not thet, fof his genus, which dors not lead him back, in other words, 0 the Beneric universality that he is supposed to have sprung from. The topes attaching him to the beck of Moby Dick symbolize relations which radically difer, by their very nature, from those ofthe syllogism In dying, Ahab does not try to ‘put aside a feeling of to the extent that he docs not lack the whale, He stitutes with ita block of being which subverts both fliation and rodiction. Neither the totem, the fetish, nor any discoune of amorphosis can exhaust the complexity of such a symbiosis. "Melvile’s fiction emphasizes something that nothing other than a sal phenomenon. There ae laws of ature that exceed the les of| 3re tothe extent that they cannot be described or classified. These the laws of transport which ‘eross neither the burier of exential 3s Bor that of substances or subjects" (ATP 253), but exist in the lle of those forms and remain devoid of any destiny. Thus, fOr ple, when a wasp lands on an orchid, ‘there i block of becom= that snaps up the wasp and the orchid, but fom which no wasp can ever descend” (ATP 238), The wasp and the orchid are sorted one towards the other without their being-together taking ‘any form. Their meeting # a fortuitous contagion, not a Glia ction. "Unnatural participations or nuptials," write Deleuze and ari, “are the trve Nature spanning the Kingdoms of nature 3c combinations are nether genetic nor structural they ae inter=126 Catherine Malabou Kingdoms ... That is the only ivay Nature operates ~ against itself (ATP 241-2). There are alliances that no sate ~ community of scientists, of political entiy~ would recognize, communities that 20 insiution could assimilate, no more than could a taxonomy or hie Tris important to distinguish rwo points of view concerning the living: that of physiology and that of ethics, according to Spinoza's definition of that term. Physiology takes as its object specific and ‘general characterises, organs and functions, Ethics on the other hand deals with the power of a body, with what a body can de, which no ‘organic physics can account for. The power ofa body is measured in ‘affects. According to Spinoza ‘a body is defined only by a longitude and a Tari: in other words the sum total ofthe material cements belong ing to it under given relations of movement and rest, peed and slowness (longitude); the sum total ofthe intensive affects its capable ‘of at a given power or degree of potential lastude). Nothing but ‘fects and local movements, differential speeds’ (ATP 260). Ethics, tr ‘ethology, considers therefore the affects of a body." the ways ia which they can combine with the affects of another body ‘ether 0 txchange actions and passions with it orto join with tin composing a ‘more powerful bods’ (ATP 257). The degre of intensity of affects, the particularity oftheir relations [agencemo] can engender differen ces among individuals ofthe same genus which are greater than that berween one genus and another: ‘A racchorse is more different from a workhorse than # workhorse is from an ox’ (ATP 257). Edhology Allows one to take account of what cannot be calculated in living beings. Whether a horse becomes a racshorse or a workhorse i n0t ‘included in its genus: inthis sense the becoming-animal is echat i unexpected in a gonut, Blocks of becoming formed by the adest ‘componition ofthe affects of two bodies represent an improviation, sort of ontological jazz. The logic of relations between the indivi tnd generic essence are completely incapable of explaining it Deleuze and Guattari measure this power or eapacity for mprow tion in molecules, or in particles. Their ‘jackal-parcles’ (ATP 31 Ihave nothing to do with the jackal-being ~ form, colour, means reproduction, cy, ete. but with what the jackal ean do, One will tha what ch jackal can do, precisely, is be of such @ colour, lau reproduce. That is tue but the quality f its coleu, the condition its far, etc, depend on unexpected encounters ~ elways indivi tunable tobe generalized ~ thatthe animal has with its milieu and other animals. An assemblage with other bodies takes place alr line of fight dhrough which a body escapes from itself fom its f Who's Afraid of Hegelian Wetees? 4and momentarily from its destination, Thus wasp particles, wwasp-orchid block, m being, ssi ihn the ar moles of ecry sence ng sre of exudation of sj that becomes nec a ‘ein order oom a elation nit anor by merseahen ee mene tha renders bah some ent uecogtintle Tk Cont subj by means of which it beomes denbeiven ae ino reltons without producing and cen ohn ee Iocreting i idee a pasty whch becomes pot fhe snimals power to act and which has he same ale we nce arate. Asemblage of ats ae cmceedofireng ‘ontng he nial ut ogeher ne eaunce ais rial ef ecoming or ney sone Baugh The concept of the “pack in Thon Sie in A Thoond Pteis needs tbe sndrsond on the ba af potas toning to oie rhe ck sin the istplac an intense ass a moles wal a ook en welling, Ace, Bk animal ct in school, bunds, hesd, populations Phau atic that are ined to ie tthe comtetoa eg to 4 faniar ot fia! anial, to somehng epson See e perenss A pack ‘doesn't represent anything,’ itis affect ‘in itself, the. sie in pemon’ (ATP 259) cnegy ial soos ing ‘tiny gen momenta singe machine aembiog e ecy Beueof the to (AT? 36) By gnrng ht wale eet al especially in packs, and by being orerconscGeninns Fras ding to Deleuze and Guattari, lacks that very enet ” ° We have reached the point where on runty by secretion ofthe pack “Every animal has its anomalous, Let us clarify tha: every animal 3 up ints pack or multiplicity has its anomalous’ (ATP 2439, The ofthe ‘leader ofthe pack’, same time. So, for example, his favorite, the rat Ben, with him, ‘one who is privileged and cursed at Willard in the film ofthe same name, and only becomes-rat through his rela: ina kindof alliance af love, then of hate" (ATP 243),18 Catherine Malabou Who's Afraid of Hegelian Wolves? 129 ‘What is border? It ie line that establishes inchsion [apparemarcd Deleuze and Guattari ake as an example the swarm of mosquitoes analysed by René Thom in his Sructual Stability and Morphogenesis. In this swarm or pack ‘ach individual moves randomly unless sees the rest [of the swarm in the same half-space; then it hurries 10 re-enter the group. Thus stability is assured in catastrophe by a barrier.” The anomalous fixes the line beyond which the pack ceases 10 exist or beyond which its type changes. The border is ‘the envelop ing line or farthest dimension, a «function of which it posible to ‘count the others all those line or dimensions that constitute the pack at a given moment (beyond the borderline the multiplicity changes, nature) (ATP 245), The word ‘nature’ should not be misunderstood. Infact the border couldn't be less natural, to the extent that the anomalous is not ‘the ‘bearer of species presenting specific or generic characteristics in their purest state; nor is it a model or unique specimen; nor is it the Perfecion ofa type incarnate; nor is it the eminent term ofa series; hor is tthe basis ofan absolutely harmonious corespondence’ (ATP. 249). The phenomenon of a pack’s border is not its most repre sentative element or is most highly developed specimen. The individ tale forming a pack have no generic or specific community and tannot, from thie point of view, become the object of «taxonomy, Moreover a multiplicity is not defined by the elements or characters composing it, but rather by the arrangements of affects that i forms, Given that, the anomalous carries only affects it not, a8 such, @ subjectivity, an offspring, a child; perhaps it does not even have a sex. 1 occurs in the pack lke an excess, a secretion, overflowing its confines yet enveloping it ‘The anomalous borders the pack in several ways. Its postion cannot even be fixed once and forall, ‘The exceptional individual,” write Deleuze and Guattar, “has many possible postions’ (ATP 243). Te sometimes borders as the “head of the band” (in a hierarchical posi tion), sometimes as the “Loner on the sidelines ofthe pack’ (it ‘becomes the “edge ofthe pack and does not really seem tobe affected) by it like Moby Dick in relation to the other whales) Is role ist ‘mark out the end ofa series and the imperceptible move to another possible series, like the eye of @ needle of affects, the point of pass by means of which one motifs stitched to another, as in Michaw “drawings where the order of the streaks changes seis, determin the hallucinatory becoming of simple peneil suokes. ‘There is logical order to these linkages, these passages, these transformati from one border to another from one muluplicity to another |, The becoming-animal bordered by its anomaly is thus absolutely sent from the becoming of the animal, oriented as the lattcr it ards reproduction, tending towards the stasis of the being that ‘become, obeying the rue ofthe multiple inthe reassuring figure the one. As one can see the anomalous isnot one, child or father ‘does not teleologically accomplish the movement of an individe Tul life. Its figure and function are unpredictable, its position un liable itis restricted to stabilizing the pack in a merely temporary id local manner, directing without any logic wansformations oe ges of multiplicities: the exceptional individual is but line of us now come back o the Hegel whose thinking is not supposed to account of becoming in any real sense, any more than it does the enomenon ofthe exceptional individual, Let us return to him who, seems, has never encountered the pack. At this point inthe discus: ‘an he have anything to tay? Precisely this, as I suggested easier: that unity by subtraction and ity by exception compose one with the other ina fundamental, ner; that in trying to think one without the other, i eying to inst the second as the truth concerning the pack, one overlooks the pack the very point where one claims to he following it. As a result the kreassembles, in spite of itself, in the most traditional igure of ity there is: becomes Go. ‘We have seen that becoming-animal has no foreseeable end. Its siculation, The pack can self-destruct; it can also constitute" new clin, an active lin tat will bring other bocomings' (ATP 251). leuze and Guattari make it clear that ‘no one, not even God, cam in advance whether two borderline wil string together or form a ©, whether 2 given multiplicity will or wil not cross over Into other" (ATP 250). The becoming of the pack is unpredictable: it fongs t the order ofthe secre. If atthe beginning of this essay T acterized unity by exception as unity by screron, twas already in ferro allude tothe “serct as secretion” (ATP 287), ‘In view of all that, does not conceiving of becoming as something signable, as resisting all anticipation including the divine, amount positing this becoming as more divine than God himsciP Tn not ting t0 insenbe an end upon becoming, does one not make it ential infinite, « potential ‘pethaps" that keeps ite actualiation in ve lke the suspension of grace? A pack that can end cam alsa hot ‘Negativity always returns to haunt the process that thought it was130 Catherine Melabou xem fom itor could aire it, and tha proce neva gets ‘ransomed or Hegel, nr aad ifn, a spurious ini. Acer into Delete the pack i ot evar ofthe negnive. Let ae tke wa tarople te flowing seeences Pi nytt hoes ee ot Gh sire of pri at presen fer han he ed of fait Fiyng emus peeing sian ra nao enaene 32) or guns ven tefresare pr ofthe plane’ (ATP 459) Deleuse doves went ranging grb an rom tpi of view {hole i no more negative than a wot We ths find gta hi etal to recognize lack the diving fore behind becoming. Hegel woud ‘oly tat «pack that lacks nothing ceaes co exit a2 pac, fo th Cent tha fi imponble to conccne of pack witout peed anges, an end of some sore The pack is nsesaiy inveved in 8 Chase, it Incade te sek ix mang, ts Lampert, whose lementary figures in realy nothing oer han the fly, he water ftom which al ife proceed Te is teleology which, paradoscly, inserbes fatigue within dit ference, the dialectic that gives to the pack the aecemary wening down ws) ofits Being: Deprving Becoming of sy immanent end fount linking tein ove e Hegel ergue ithe Doctne of Being and one can consider thatthe anomalous, whose presence’ does ot corespond ro any loa or teleological neces, rotaly ‘nutes the pack fend an imposes check or] ans imi om ite peeps or te potentiality oft Being [epee] withthe ame lence read resort in reducing the wolves to «unity. Exception becomes 3 repressive as subracton “What ems therefor, a height of what Ihave ja sad 0 axempe sketch ou Hegel's hiking concerning the pack. identi there nothing in his work on the peck a» muliplcy or group of tala el i pouin sonore comcapio af pk en oe itl ofa single animal sf the later were of tec a Borde In wht reopet can we sty tht is #0? Inasmuch asthe organi can be ulped ar fo neni or intense of energy. ‘A sontained and attentive reading of Hegcin thot concerning the animal shows, unike what I eaboreted in the fst pet of this favay not an opposition ut an sxtocishing proxy to tat of Dulas hope ts demonere Hat abot thors tere probe Ina animal ab that appear as an enon of ait. Clery, in Hep bait completely ced toa tecogy and te lope of temo but it would now be pombe to show tha elelogy, fe fom Spending the economy of mul, stead brings abot. il belmont tose how tology a5 conceived of by lege obeys & Who's Afraid of Hegelian Woleer? BI ess of production of unity that is neither subtraction nor excep- 9m, but a wearing down ofthe pack ‘Let us investigate the question of animal habit. t may be noted in regard that Tam reading Hegel from the point of view of Diference Repeniion, but what I read there, starting fom Deleuze’s prevup- tions, leads me in turn to respond to Deleuze concerning Hegel. I Shall bezin by recalling Deleuze's analysis of the fundamental role Dlayed by habit within the ving being. He refers in that context othe “Aristoelian conception ofthe iving as composed of small animale ‘A oul must be atibuted to the hear, othe mules nerves and calls but contemplative soul whose enti function isto contact 1 hab ‘Taino mystica or barbarous hypothesis On the contrary, habit here ‘manifests iy fll gener it concerns not only the sensory mon Jubis thar we have (psyehoogialy), but alo, before there the prey bis that we aes the thousands of passive syntheses of which we ae ‘segaically composed. Iti simultaneously through contraction that we ‘rehab, but through contemplation that we contact, (DRT) 1c precise question is this: how is it possible to rea contraction and foncomplaron as well a thir relation, and moreover, how should one terpret the precession of contemplation over contraction such asthe syntax — “but through’ ~ suggests? It would be necessary to subsite proceed for precede, as we are invited to do in terms ofthe following statement: ‘We do not contemplate ourselves, but we exist only in contemplating ~ that is to say, im contracting that fom which we come’ (DR 74), We can consider thet in Deleuze's analysis there ia starting ‘situation’, described in these terms: "We are made of con tracted water, cart light and ai not merely prior tothe recognition ‘or representation ofthese, but prior o their being sensed (DR 73). A bberinning inthe inorganic, aarting from the inorganic and from the four clements, by a process of contraction, As the living being gets ‘more complex it increases the number, mass and quality ofits conrac- ‘ons in the triple sense of pasive and acre sructration, ofa permanent psicude for acquisition, and a multiplying reduction ‘This triple process makes possible the ethological assemblage of fects that T analysed earlier. Infact itis habit that allows the individ al to become singularized, 2 genus all to itell. Habit draws the dividing line between the racehorse and the workhorse, The exercise that js inherent in the funetioning of habit Bind vital energy: “AN animal forms an eye for itself by causing scattered and diffuse mine ous excitations to be reproduced on a privileged surface ofits body ‘The eye binds light, it is selfs bound light" (DR). The activity that132 Catherine Malabou involves binding diferénce(s)" (here, the activity of perception of Tigh) is double. On the one Band it means contemplation: itis only by seeing, and ths by subjecting oneself tothe action of the sensible, that vision is achieved. On the other hand it means action: iis i fact by the same process of subjection, paradoxically, thatthe eye is formed. and exercises itself “The eye ... contemplates} the excitation that it binds. Ie produces itself or “draws itsel™ from what it contemplates (and from what it contracts and invests by contemplation)’ (DR 97). "The arrangement or composition of affects presupposes habit asthe law of reversibility of energies, the reciprocal mutability of passivity and sedvity. The continuity or epetion of a change modifies ~ with respect ro that very change ~ the disposition ofthe being. What takes place in terms of habit is «reduction in receptivity and an increase in Fpontancity. The progressive development ofan internal activity x plains the progressive decrease in passivity. Actions that are repeated, lover and over reach a higher and higher level of sufficiency and the being familiares itself with their circumstances. As a result habit, sppears atthe same ime as what disciplines the pack and what frees it from affect (One is struck by the fact that, in the Philbsophy of Nanure, Hegel develops a problematic of habit that is very close ro that of Deleuze. In hh work a conception of the organism as energized horde exists in ‘conjunetion with the logic of the process ofthe genus. "The organim is made ofthe same materials, ube very material of te inorganic which are at one andthe same time couacted. The organic living thing, a I shall establish by following Hegel's analyses, is itself a reduction and a condensation of the elements ofits malie: water, ai, nitrogen end carbon molecules. In the fst place habit signifies this power of contraction. The result of such e contraction actually creates the habizus that i to sy te internal disposition and general constita- tion of the organism. Hegel cals the dilecicel relation ~ that of identity and diffrence ~ between the inorganic components of the milieu and those ofthe organism, a “theoretical” process. This leads me in turn to observe that every mechanism of adapration of the living things aleady itself a type af therein, according tothe double sense of that term developed by Aristotle, namely contemplation and exercise In fact Hegel also shows how the living organism contracts within itself the wery things t derives from: inert matter, elements, chemical processes, etc, all the constitative moments that are dialecically Tinked inthe Philosophy of Nature. Inthe 1805-6 text, Hegel writes "The general animal organitm is the reconstruction of physical ele- ‘ment na single ensemble [ou Einzelnen)."* The organism i a habitus Who's Afraid of Hegelian Wolves? 133 in respect ofthe intemal disposition ofits organs, a synthesis of the Iheterogeneous multiplicity of elements constituting the body. An ani ‘mal, we must remember, is a synthesis of ai, water, light, carbon, nitrogen, ete that is t0 say of particles of energy that assure the fBuiity of the organism, Contraction and the formation of the habitus are closely linked. Ia the animal, this elation already appears a subjectivity. Inthe Bncylo- pedia version of the Phibsophy of Natue Hegel states that ‘the animal ‘organism i the reduction of inorganic nature, sundered into separate ‘moments, into the infinite unity of subjectivity” Cale Redubtion der ‘ussercinandersefallowen unorganichen Natur in de unendiche Eiheit ‘er Subject’) (PN 382). Failing an equivalent usage of the concept fof contraction in German,” one finds in Hegel the more powerful concept of idealization," referring back to Deleuze’s analyse of habit, 1s contemplation, that isto say asa theoretical process. I shall quote ‘rom paragraph 350 of the Philosophy of Nanue: "The organie individ ‘aly exists as subjectivity i so far asthe externality proper to shape is idealized into members, and the organism in its process outwards preserves inwardly the unity of the self (PN 351). Hegel's sense of idealization, referring as it does to the process of conservation and ‘suppression, appears at the same time ab a procest of condensation and of synthesis, what he also cals an ‘abstraction’. [As we have seen, habit presumes that change can be preserved and leave a trace. The fact that the repetition of changes produces diference in the subject experiencing it, means that change coming from the exterior i gradually wansformed into a change coming from within the organism itself, savolving the body in the Becoming of is singularity Impressions lose their force as they reproduce. Hegel insists on thie point in paragraph 410 ofthe Philorphy of Mind, Under the effect of habit, he wntes, ‘the immediate feling is negated and treated as indifferent. One gets inured against external sensations (frost, beat, weariness of the limbs, ete, sweet tastes, te)... There is indif- ference tovrards the satisfaction: the desies and impulses are by the habit of their satisfaction deadened."" Paradoxically, a decrease in sensitivity excites spontaneity. What to begin with was simply sub- jected to ina passive way, comes, through the action of repetition, to ‘initiate movement and so to develop a new arrangement, = new ‘organic becoming. needs tobe understood that in Hegel and thie what interests me above all this becoming underwrite the becoming that is inherent in the process ofthe genus. In limiting his thought concerning becoming