Lefebvre and Régulier ("The Rhythmanalytical Project," in Rhythmanalysis) invite us to imagine a nonmechanical repetition. The invitation presupposes that we already know what mechanical repetition is, but there is nothing transparent or self-evident about the mechanical. *machine is no less an artefact than *language, *question or *rhythm, and in each case we find that anthropos (and then reflexively *anthropos), most especially in the form of a vision of human society, is the measure–naturally even the double measure–of the artefact and its other. Here's Lefebvre and Régulier:
For there to be rhythm, there must be repetition in a movement, but not just any repetition. The monotonous return of the same, self-identical, noise no more forms a rhythm than does some moving object on its trajectory, for example a falling stone; though our ears and without doubt our brains tend to introduce a rhythm into every repetition, even completely linear ones. For there to be rhythm, strong times and weak times, which return in accordance with a rule or law–long and short times, recurring in a recognisable way, stops, silences, blanks, resumptions and intervals in accordance with regularity, must appear in a movement. Rhythm therefore brings with it a differentiated time, a qualified duration. The same can be said of repetitions, ruptures and resumptions. Therefore a measure, but an internal measure, which distinguishes itself strongly though without separating itself from an external measure, with time t (the time of a clock or a metronome) consisting in only a quantitative and homogeneous parameter. In a reciprocal action, the external measure can and must superimpose itself on the internal measure, but they cannot be conflated. They have neither the same beginning, nor the same end or final cause. This double measure enters into the definition and quality of rhythm, irreducible to a simple determination, implying on the contrary complex (dialectical) relations. As such only a non-mechanical movement can have rhythm. . . .
(p. 78, their emphases)
As always I note the resistence to the idea of repetition in its rawest form.
Labels: anthropomorphism, dialectics, Lefebvre, Régulier, repetition, rhythm
6 Comments:
"The invitation presupposes that we already know what mechanical repetition is, but there is nothing transparent or self-evident about the mechanical."
My theory is that mechanical repetition is any repetition not subjected to criticism (uncriticized.)
I think a lot of the confusion about mechanical or non-mechanical comes from trying to base thinking on this subject to analogies with machines, machinery.
--Yusef
Do we have to know what examination is in order to imagine unexamined repetition? But it appears to me that the unexamined is the fabrication that wants examination. Is there an intimate relationship between reification and examination's positing of the unexamined, an other of thought—fantastic. It's as if thought needed to hide its fantastickness from itself, so it does what, puts it out in plain sight.
On this question of language, just to be perfectly clear, do you reckon that the florid has nothing to do with flowers? I'm not trying to be a smart ass. If a doctor writes something like "the patient suffers from florid psychosis," how is that not (floridly) metaphorical? How does "flower" not enter into the thought "florid"? It seems obvious to me that it must or everything is just spam. "The patient suffers from spam, spam, psychosis, and spam." Do you concur?
"Do we have to know what examination is in order to imagine unexamined repetition?"
I think this does not become a serious issue until the subject begins to take itself as its own object (for examination, investigation, study.)
The subject would not take itself as its own object unless it could conceive or consider itself as being in some way unexamined, unknown, unexplored (to itself.)There is a transition from the self as what is self-evident (to itself) into something which is more like a dark continent. But the transition state is ambiguous, but also: it remains a transition state. Freud, entering the "dark continent" wears a pithe helmet, khaki shorts, and a shirt with too many pockets--he never goes native. The unexamined vis a vis repetition co-arises with the truncated effort of the subject to take itself as its own object. As far as I can tell, I would say yes to, "Is there an intimate relationship between reification and examination's positing of the unexamined, an other of thought—fantastic. It's as if thought needed to hide its fantastickness from itself, so it does what, puts it out in plain sight."
--Yusef
"If a doctor writes something like 'the patient suffers from florid psychosis,' how is that not (floridly) metaphorical? How does 'flower' not enter into the thought 'florid'?"
What is the doctor's purpose in describing the psychosis as florid? What's the intention? Is it an attempt to give a quantitation to the psychosis,ie to say that the psychosis is greater than some other psychosis or phase of psychosis?
--Yusef
I'm not sure. I think it's meant to describe a freer flowing profusion of hallucinations in greater detail than in non-florid psychosis, so, yes, there would be a sense of quantitation. I'm not sure that covers it, however. Here's an example from an instructional text:
"The cardinal symptoms of mania are the following: heightened mood (either euphoric or irritable); flight of ideas and pressure of speech; and increased energy, decreased need for sleep, and hyperactivity. These cardinal symptoms are most plainly evident in hypomania. In acute mania they exacerbate and may be joined by delusions and some fragmentation of behavior, and in delirious mania only tattered scraps of the cardinal symptoms may be present, otherwise being obscured by florid and often bizarre psychotic symptoms" (Bipolar Disorder (DSM-IV-TR #296.0–296.89) (pdf).)
"And often bizarre" suggests to me that "florid" must be close in meaning to bizarre, but obviously not so close that the author wouldn't want to use both words.
Here's something from a quick Google. "The illness encompasses the extremes of human experience. Thinking can range from florid psychosis, or 'madness,' to patterns of unusually clear, fast, and creative associations, to retardation so profound that no meaningful activity can occur" (Kay Jamison, quoted here).
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