My Spinoza is a bit rusty but I recall that Spinoza, in Book II of the Ethics, says that the order and connection among ideas is the same as the order and connection of bodies. This would be Spinoza’s famous parallelism. For every event that takes place in the mind (thought, feeling, emotion, etc.), there will also be a parallel event that takes place in the body. This is mirrored later in Spinoza’s definition of affects in Book III. Upon hearing the word “affect” our tendency is to think “emotion”. Yet for Spinoza, this is not what an affect is. For Spinoza, affects are the capacity to affect and to be affected and all entities, whether living or not, possess affects. There is also an idea that accompanies affects. It is this that we usually refer to as feelings and emotions (it would be very different for nonliving things). Thus, on the one hand you have the bodily dimension of affect (the capacity to affect and be affected), while on the other hand you have the mental dimension of affect (feelings, emotions).
What fascinates me about all of this is the manner in which we can get confused about the causes of our affects. It is this confusion about causes that Spinoza is at pains to untangle in Book III of the Ethics. His thesis is that we’re often deeply mistaken about the causes of the mental dimension of our affects. It might be that you have to be addicted to something in order to understand what Spinoza is getting at. Fortunately I smoke far less than I used to, but I still chew nicotine gum. There will be days when I forget to chew any nicotine gum, going hours without the nicotine without realizing it. Now something curious happens to me in these circumstances. I will find myself getting angry and irritated with circumstances around me, lashing out at others or these circumstances. Now what’s interesting here is that when this happens I don’t associate my anger with the absence of nicotine at all. Rather, in these circumstances I am convinced that the other person or circumstances are the cause of my anger.
This is a perfect exactly of what Spinoza is getting at with his parallelism. There is a shared order and connection of events in the body and mind, yet at the latter level (which is all we have access to in our consciousness) we can be wildly mistaken about the cause of our feeling or emotion. I think that it is the other person that has caused my anger when, in fact, my anger is the result of poor neuro-conduction produced as a consequence of the absence of nicotine in my system. If I had nicotine in my system it would never occur to me to take the speech and action in an antagonistic way requiring a hostile response. The case is similar with anxiety. In many instances your anxiety might merely be the result of some current emotional imbalance in your neural system. Yet you know nothing about this. All you know is that you’re haunted by a horrible feeling in which you’re unable to sit still, where everything looks fearful, and where you feel the overwhelming need to escape. At the conscious level you then begin to cast about for the cause of this anxiety and center on things in your relationships with others, maybe your finances, your future, etc., despite the fact that your anxiety might have nothing to do with any of these things. How often have I had moments where, feeling this way, I pop a few vitamin B capsules only to have my anxiety disappear within half an hour? Would this be possible were my anxiety the result of the things I just listed? I don’t know.
I am not making the case that it is this way with all emotions and emotional reactions. There are certainly cases where the world provokes anxiety, where others provoke anger, and all the rest. Two things interest me here. First, it is interesting to note just how withdrawn we are from even ourselves. In many respects I find Spinoza’s thesis about the opacity of our affects terrifying. We never quite know whether it’s just some weird chemical response that’s precipitating our conscious affective states (a chemical imbalance, having eaten the wrong thing, etc) or whether it truly is these other things in the world (other people, our future, our circumstances). We can be certain that we are experiencing these particular emotional states– perhaps (how often are relations we tell ourselves are friendly or romantic really pervaded by passive aggressiveness?) –but it is extremely difficult to disentangle the causes of these emotional states (and all the more so because ideas can also cause changes in physical states of my brain, e.g., happy thoughts, perhaps, can generate the production of more dopamines producing more happy thoughts). This leads to a second point of interest, one that might lead me to find greater peace of mind: before jumping to any conclusions as to another person causing my dismay and before believing that I have any insight into their motives and psychic states, I should remind myself that reading the words and actions of other people is a bit like seeing images in a cloud or an ink blot. My interpretation of this other person might very well say more about what’s going on in me than anything going on in the other person, and could result from something as simple as what I ate last night or the absence of nicotine in my system. If I tell myself this then perhaps I will have better relations with others and be less inclined to jump to conclusions about them. This is part of what Lacan is talking about, I think, when he talks about moving beyond Imaginary mirroring relations. It’s not quite yet traversing the fantasy or discovering that the big Other doesn’t exist, but is nonetheless an important step.
October 24, 2011 at 9:12 pm
QED, smoke more.
October 25, 2011 at 2:36 am
Have you read Damasio?
Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain
October 25, 2011 at 2:59 am
Yeah, have very much enjoyed his books.
October 25, 2011 at 10:45 am
I find your post interesting. I am currently looking at the mental health survivor movement including what is called the recovery movement. I use (amongst others) Lacan and Deleuze and Guattari to do this (I also have Spinoza (as yet unread) on my shelf).
But I would like to draw your attention to the popularity of what is variously called Non-Violent Communication, Compassionate Communication or Empathic Assertion. This involves using a 4 part phrase, Observation (matter of fact, but without accusing – no ‘you’), Feeling (I feel angry because I) Need (I Need to have a cigarette) Request (Could you pass me one, excuse my mood and not take it personally etc).
(Aside: Re: domination, i particularly like the idea that a request excepts ‘no’ for an answer. If a ‘no’ cannot be countenanced it becomes a demand and signifies a need to control)
I find this interesting, but as you say in your third paragraph we all affect each other. The above system uses the word trigger, with regard to emotions, other people do not cause our emotions but can trigger them (I’m reading Delanda’s Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy and think the stuff on attractors may be relevant here).
However one of the problems with focusing on the body as source of emotion with regard only to the affect of non-living objects, that is nicotine, vitamin B, food in general is a tendency to what I think has quite rightly been identified as within the realm of biopolitics (although as to the nature of that realm…).
And this is where the issue of the subject or rather intersubjectivity as opposed to subject-object relations occurs, that is recognition as opposed to observation (Vestehen?).
Also with regard to ecology and Bateson’s influence on Guattari’s Three Ecologies is concerned (no expert here but speculating from my minimal knowledge which I will most definitely be following up at a later date) are such things as double binds. And responsibility for actions, and consequences (here I think there is still mileage in Arendt).
All the best
Schizo Stroller
October 25, 2011 at 11:03 am
Yeah, that’s the rub Schizo… How to think what you call the biopolitical and body together.
October 25, 2011 at 11:06 am
yes, will always be some admixture of you/them, you/circumstances, and no definite way to tease it all out. This is why I was always found it suspect when classical Freudians tried to divide acting from “acting out” or other depth psyche folks talk of withdrawing projections to see things as they are. The un-conscious processes ‘behind’ consciousness will always be a bit alien/uncanny. This is one of the down sides (there are certainly sometimes upsides) of the addition of medications in therapy/analysis is trying to figure out who/what is speaking, esp. as one tries to get a feel for side-affects. Caputo in his strong mis-reading of Foucault, pace Dreyfus/Rabinow, came to a “radical” (against ethics as he would say) hermeneutics of not-knowing who/where/what we are along these lines.
October 25, 2011 at 11:47 am
I definitely don’t want to ignore the socio-semio dimension of these things. By the same token I know that there are moments where my reactions to others have less to do with anything about them than being fatigued, stressed in genderal, sick, situations like with the nicotine, etc. In these moments my reactions seem absolutely reasonable and well founded, despite the fact that in a different state of mind I wouldn’t respond that way at all. These states can activate certaon socio-semiotic frames, but I don’t think the socio-semiotic frakes are the cause here. As you say, it’s extremely difficult to disentangle all of this.
October 25, 2011 at 12:07 pm
I think there is a problem of falling in on oneself. I am wondering here if what you call ‘socio-semiotic frakes’ are akin to what i would call ‘elective affinities’ albeit with a Lacanian conception of language. Is the reason one looks for a cause in another that there is a belief prior to this ‘feeling’ that there is a cause for one’s emotions.
So furthermore to look for a cause in neuro-chemical is as much to miss the point as it is to look for it in others. If we understand emotions to be exactly that ‘some thing’ whatever that ‘thing’ is that moves us, gets us in motion in response to something that ‘affects’ us. To look for a cause, surely implores a prior static state? Whereas if one is already in flux then this ‘affect’ merely changes our direction. Whether we are driving ourselves or giving others that power depends on the language we use to describe the interaction. The chemicals that make us ‘feel’ a certain way are merely the point at which this relation enters the body then exits again.
Yet that itself may be affected by other things our psychoanalytic makeup that may mean we have a harder time to say reduce our cortisol whilst why that happens may be interpreted by elective affinities that mean one perhaps recognises the ‘emotions’, ’causes’ etc as related to others ‘things’ in the interaction in a different way to another. Whether these things are flows or objects or acting subjects.
I hope the above makes sense
October 25, 2011 at 1:12 pm
but was there some way that those encounters/interactions were (separate from your frame of mind/being) or do you just prefer one ‘set’ of outcomes/reactions to another?
October 25, 2011 at 1:28 pm
I’m not sure I understand your question, dmf. Let’s take another example. When I drive when extremely tired I become paranoid, experience the streets and traffic about me as menacing, closing in on reasonable driving space, etc. This is not something I experience when I drive in a well rested and alert. Certainly there are socio-semiotic components here (my background understanding of driving, traffic, laws, etc.), but I don’t think, in this instance, that the fatigued state is the cause of my irritation and fearfulness. It is rather an occasion, not unlike an ink blot. If it weren’t traffic occasioning this irritation and fearfulness it would be something else like an email interaction, an interaction with a student, a mysterious bill in the mail, etc. Awareness of this, I think, can help to avoid exacerbating these emotional states by indicating that it’s not about the other drivers but the state. I am by no means stating that all or even most affective responses are of this sort, only that it’s valuable to be aware of those that are.
October 25, 2011 at 2:13 pm
Apologies for bad proofreading in former comment: with reference to the post, I was trying to type whilst knowing I had to rush out, but I also knew my wife was in a state downstairs as I could here both kids crying. They did not cause me to proofread the comment badly however, my anxiety levels rose and I rushed the last few lines ;-)
If we can talk about driving, say when giving up smoking, in rush hour in a new city with faulty a faulty sat nav. We can say whether we stay calm is related to how well we have learnt to monitor our stress levels, whether we have had previous trauma that has influenced our stress levels, does it relate symbolically to our current situation. are there signifiers that will trigger off a memery etc, moreover how well was previous stress treated by others, what autonomy were we given in recovering?
I’m going to put together something I plan to write about in the future but haven’t yet so this is improvised but: You talk about states, but are these in fact intensities? Moreover, at a certain level of intensity to we need to find a line of flight out of these states. If under the above conditions say we then get cut up, does that other person’s actions become the focus as the intensities become too great. Hence
A) I have been meditating to help with my nicotine withdrawal just before driving, my feelings are that bit less intense.
B) My wife shouted at me before I drove. I am already angry
It seems obvious that the latter will be more likely to trigger off my blaming the ‘bad’ driver for the intensity of my rage. But why does it happen at all.
C) I feel terrible about shouting at the car driver because my mother refused my anger and I blame myself for not being a ‘good’ person when I shout. I turn this intensity in on myself, which increases the intensity of feeling, I make more driving mistakes, I start shouting again, feel guilty, we get a feedback loop.
Then
D) I get out of the car, someone asks for spare change
E) I get out of the car, an old friend just happens to be there, asks me if I’m ok and offers to buy me a drink
When D and E occur, would you call these occasions? Whereas is C a state?
What of the nature of the occasion, why may i be more likely to blame the beggar for my anger than the old friend for its release? What else is operating here, what beliefs lie like layers in my unconscious that mean that different experiences suggest a different importance that i may put on causes.
If i am a depressive with a sense of personal responsibility (oh WRAP groups! Doncha love em, get em workin) am i any less depressed than one who is a beautiful soul, a belle ame? Or am i just more likely to be productive?
Of course then there’s
F) I have a drink with my friend and due to the alcohol have a cigarette and my anger is gone, but did the friend destroy my will power (that last one’s a joke ;-) )
October 25, 2011 at 2:37 pm
It sounds like we use the term “intensity” in different ways, Schizo. I don’t use “intensity” to refer to emotions (these belong to the actual), but rather to refer to inequalities or disequilibriums within a system that preside over the formation of a quality or state. Intensities would be things like differences in temperature, pressure, physical tension as in the case of a spring or rubber band, neuro-chemical disequalibriums, disequilibriums within a signifying order, etc., etc., etc. The experienced emotion would not be the intensity, but the effect of an intensive difference. Intensity is the instigator of the actualization of a quality or state. I base this reading of intensity on chapter 5 of Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition.
October 25, 2011 at 3:30 pm
I’m not sure it is that different, with regard to temperature the point where one’s intensity of emotion moves from one of responsibility to a belle ame may be similar to boiling point, or rather the latent energy (? the steady state ie 100 degrees in water where the temperature remains the same until all water has evaporated).
I see emotions as e(x) motion, that which triggers us to act. Damasio -> linguistic brain based on emotional brain. Therefore emotionsare not states they are intensities – differences. If the state remains the same there is no intense feeling. it is the change dx/dy that we feel.
Therefore we turn from responsible actor to blamer at the point where a state is achieved where we must jump to another state to change our feeling – the latent energy – perhaps for some it is only here that a feeling may be named? Perhaps? Be that state caused by traumatic blocks, elective affinities, differing signifiers due to economic class or Weberian status etc. that do not allow flow of emotional energy (The sign remains the same the signifier as it relates to others changes with elective affinity which changes with class and status, however life experience is unique although there may be generalisations possible (otherwise no language within a working group however there is no universalisation apart from possible temporarily due to an event after which they change) – I’m assuming I disagree with Lacan here – although i would say this occurs mainly at an unconscious level)
So i think we agree on intensity but disagree on emotion.
October 25, 2011 at 3:32 pm
Does this clarify? (Maybe not): A blaming of others is a reterritorialisation of a deterritorialisation due to an intensity becoming an unbearable state
October 25, 2011 at 3:40 pm
So Spinoza’s affects occur as a multiplicity, the ways we affect and are affected are manifold. Most of it in the inconscious where it may or may not get structured. There are blocks that act like attractors, thus when someone says ‘Bastard’ in the street the way we hear have been treated depends on our experience. Thus to change such personalisation or not consciously takes years, whereas events can trigger things in the unconscious quickly.
As to whether the unconscious is structured like a language or that as our dominant means of representation language is the gateway only I am undecided.
Your comment that the Other does not exist, I would say more measuredly as an unmoveable totalitarian force that we do not affect it does not exist even though we may repress knowledge of our ability to affect it – the isolated economic actor
October 25, 2011 at 3:40 pm
Yes, that clarifies. That’s what I’m talking about in this post.
October 25, 2011 at 3:43 pm
:-) That’s why i commented. Glad we finally agreed.
October 28, 2011 at 6:20 pm
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