Komunizem intelekta, komunizem volje

Posing the question of communism in terms of its 'idea' has at least two initial virtues. In the first place, it helps to distinguish communism from its reduction purely and simply to anti-capitalism. In the second place, emphasis on the idea of communism invites a certain amount of free or 'reckless' speculation, a reflection on communism as a project or possibility independent of the legacy of formerly existing communism. It rightly encourages us to dismiss as secondary the questions forever posed by the sceptical and the disillusioned, or those who want to inspect the full solution to a problem before they are willing to begin tackling the problem itself. We would do better, I think, to follow the example given by people like Robespierre, Toussaint L'Ouverture or John Brown: confronted with an indefensible institution like slavery, when the opportunity arose they resolved to work immediately and by all available means for its elimination. In each case the basic logic is as simple as could be: an idea, like the idea of communism, or equality, or justice, commands that we should strive to realise it without compromises or delay, before the means of such realisation have been recognised as feasible or legitimate, or even 'possible'. It is the deliberate striving towards realisation itself that will convert the impossible into the possible, and explode the parameters of the feasible. Understood as this sense, we might say that communism seeks to enable the conversion of work into will. Communism aims to complete the transition, via the struggle of collective self-emancipation, from a suffered necessity to autonomous self-determination. It is the deliberate effort, on a world-historical scale, to universalise the material conditions under which free voluntary action might prevail over involuntary labour or passivity. Or rather: communism is the project through which voluntary action seeks to universalise the conditions for voluntary action.Zastavitev vprašanja komunizma v terminih njegove »ideje« ima vsaj dve izhodiščni prednosti. Prvič pomaga razločiti komunizem od njegove redukcije zgolj in samo na antikapitalizem. Drugič, poudarek na ideji komunizma do določene mere dopušča prosto ali »predrzno« spekulacijo oz. refleksijo o komunizmu kot projektu ali možnosti, neodvisno od dediščine prej obstoječega komunizma. Upravičeno nas vzpodbuja, da kot sekundarna opustimo vprašanja, ki jih vedno znova postavljajo skeptiki, razočarani in tisti, ki želijo preiskati dokončno rešitev problema, še preden so se pripravljeni z njim dejansko spoprijeti. Mislim, da bi bilo bolje slediti zgledu, ki so ga dali ljudje, kot so bili Robespierre, Toussaint L'Ouverture ali John Brown: soočeni z nedopustno vpeljavo suženjstva, so izkoristili prvo priložnost, da bi se z vsemi razpoložljivimi sredstvi lotili njegove odprave. V vsakem od teh primerov osnovna logika ne bi mogla biti enostavnejša: ideja, kot je ideja komunizma ali enakosti ali pravičnosti, zapoveduje, da moramo stremeti k njeni realizaciji brez kompromisov ali odlaganj, preden so sredstva takšne realizacije prepoznana kot izvedljiva, legitimna ali celo »možna«. Hoteno stremljenje k realizaciji bo tisto, ki bo nemožno sprevrnilo v možno in razbilo parametre izvedljivega. Če ga razumemo v tem smislu, lahko rečemo, da si komunizem prizadeva omogočiti pretvorbo dela v voljo. Komunizem želi preko boja kolektivne samoemancipacije izvršiti prehod od utrpljene nujnosti k avtonomni samodoločitvi. Gre za nameren poskus na svetovno-zgodovinski ravni univerzalizirati materialne pogoje, pod katerimi bi svobodno hoteno delovanje lahko prevladalo nad neprostovoljnim delom ali pasivnostjo. Ali raje: komunizem je projekt, s pomočjo katerega hoteno delovanje stremi k univerzalizaciji pogojev hotenega delovanja

Becoming-Bertha: virtual difference and repetition in postcolonial 'writing back', a Deleuzian reading of Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea

Critical responses to Wide Sargasso Sea have seized upon Rhys’s novel as an exemplary model of writing back. Looking beyond the actual repetitions which recall Brontë’s text, I explore Rhys’s novel as an expression of virtual difference and becomings that exemplify Deleuze’s three syntheses of time. Elaborating the processes of becoming that Deleuze’s third synthesis depicts, Antoinette’s fate emerges not as a violence against an original identity. Rather, what the reader witnesses is a series of becomings or masks, some of which are validated, some of which are not, and it is in the rejection of certain masks, forcing Antoinette to become-Bertha, that the greatest violence lies