This essay was prompted by getting a flu and suffering through it, as you do, because there isn\u2019t much you can do about it. Okay, it could have been another strain of COVID, or RSV, respiratory syncytial virus, as was they were making rounds recently. Anyway, it was \u2026 let\u2019s say \u2026 not great. I initially felt just a bit tired, with this unusual muscle tension, and a couple of days later it was full on, in your face, fever that then went away quite quickly. It\u2019s main feature was this almost continuous coughing. It was bearable during the daytime, but all hell broke loose during the night, because you can\u2019t keep eating and drinking. Your throat gets irritated by the dryness, while, at the same time, the nostrils get clogged. So, yeah, you can\u2019t sleep properly. It\u2019s like a couple of hours at best and then coughing, until you fall asleep again. Oh, and that\u2019s wasn\u2019t the worst part about the night. When I fell asleep or, I guess, almost asleep, it was like I had this one thing, this one idea, that I kept thinking. It was different each night. One night it was like that I kept trying to solve some puzzle or equation. I think it was the number 20 that kept coming up. Anyway, the thing with this was that it was like the dream was looping, over and over again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anyway, this essay is not about telling you about flu symptoms, but rather about what Gilles Deleuze and F\u00e9lix Guattari refer to as assemblages<\/em> or desiring-machines<\/em> in \u2018Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia\u2019 and \u2018A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia\u2019. Right, so, they (22) have this statement in the latter that will strike you as totally bonkers if you aren\u2019t familiar with their thinking:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[A]ll we know are assemblages.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n In other words, everything is an assemblage<\/em> or a desiring machine<\/em>, if you want to go with the term they use in \u2018Anti-Oedipus\u2019. We can think of my place as an assemblage. It\u2019s basically a set of walls that align with one another so that I have these rooms, a bedroom, a living room, a bathroom, a small kitchen, an entrance area and a balcony. Then there\u2019s the furniture, some appliances, books, records, you know, stuff. We could think of it all as a collection items, what Deleuze and Guattari (108) refer to as a regime of bodies<\/em> in \u2018A Thousand Plateaus\u2019. There are all these things, all these bodies<\/em>, in the broadest sense of word, that exist in a certain arrangement or regiment, which is fancy way of saying that they exist in relation to another so that it\u2019s all where you\u2019d expect it to be. However, that offers you only a snapshot of my place and, to be honest, gives you a way, way too clean impression. It\u2019s somewhat chaotic. Things are not necessarily where you\u2019d expect them to be, but rather where I left them. That said, it all still exists in a certain order, no matter well or poorly organized it all is. This is where assemblage is much better, much more apt when it comes to explaining my place. There are still all these things, all these bodies, but it keeps changing to a certain extent. Dust keeps appearing, no matter how tidy I keep things, and colors fade as the time passes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We can also focus specific bodies<\/em>, such as pieces of furniture or the specs of dust. Even they are assemblages<\/em> or desiring machines<\/em>. We can think of them as particular wholes that consist of parts that are, themselves, particular wholes that consist of parts, as Deleuze and Guattari (42) explain it in \u2018Anti-Oedipus\u2019:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[I]f we discover \u2026 a totality alongside various separate parts, it is a whole of these particular parts but does not totalize them; it is a unity of all of these particular parts but does not unify them; rather, it is added to them as a new part fabricated separately.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n By this they (42) want to emphasize that there is no completion, no original whole that we seek to reconstruct, like some ancient statue, nor a final whole that seek to construct. What we have instead are all these things that are constructed of other things, all these bodies<\/em> that have these parts that are also bodies that these parts that are bodies and so on and so forth, to infinity. Oh, and yeah, it all keeps changing. In fact, it must keep changing. That\u2019s what keeps it in flux, so that there never was something original, something primordial, and so that there will never be anything that is complete, once and for all. That\u2019s why Deleuze and Guattari (25) insist that there\u2019s no beginning, no end, only being in the middle of things:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBetween<\/em> things does not designate a localizable relation going from one thing to the other and back again, but a perpendicular direction, a transversal movement that sweeps one and<\/em> the other away, a stream without beginning or end that undermines its banks and picks up speed in the middle.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Now, what about texts<\/em>? What about books? Don\u2019t they have an original form? Well, no. While it\u2019s tempting to think that a text, such as this essay, is what it is once it is published, like frozen in time, but that\u2019s not, strictly speaking, accurate as a text always requires a reader who is always in the middle. Even if we set the writer as the reader, like I am here, as I write this, as I ponder what I\u2019ve written, I read my own essay in a certain way now and in a certain way some time in the future, without any guarantee that I\u2019ll read it the same way as I do now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But isn\u2019t there a final form? Well, again, no. There\u2019s no final or ultimate take on a text<\/em>. My last take on my own essay won\u2019t be the last take on it, inasmuch someone else reads after I\u2019m dead. So, yeah, even texts are always in the middle. They have no beginning, nor an end. There\u2019s no originary state, nor a final destination. They can, of course, cease to exist, so in that sense they may have an end, but that applies to everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve sort of hinted at it already, but, yes, this also applies to people. Even people are assemblages<\/em> or desiring machines<\/em>. I am an assemblage, a desiring machine, just as you are, my dear reader (who is, in this very instance, as I write, me), just as everyone is. I am also a part of other assemblages or desiring machines, just as you are and just as everyone is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This means that there\u2019s no originary me. There is no true me to be uncovered. Even if you get to know me, you can never get to know the true me, what I am, for real, as there\u2019s no such thing. So, the only way to know me is to keep in touch with me. It\u2019s the same with you. There\u2019s no real you. The only way I can know you is to stay in touch with you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This also means that there\u2019s no final me or you either. None of us is destined for anything. That\u2019s being in the middle for you, as they (25) point out:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhere are you going? Where are you coming from? What are you heading for? These are totally useless questions.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Instead, what matters is right here, right now. What I\u2019m getting at with this is that even when I was struggling with whatever it was that I had I was being me, an assemblage<\/em>, a desiring machine<\/em>. I was simply arranged in a different way, having certain parts that made the other parts work in a way that made the whole, me, feel pretty terrible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To put this in everyday terms, whatever I had was a parasite<\/em>. But what is a parasite? Well, I don\u2019t think I need a dictionary to explain that. It\u2019s simply something that takes advantage of something else or, well, that\u2019s how it\u2019s generally understood. Anyway, while this is a good start, this gets us nowhere as this makes us think that parasites or, more broadly speaking, parasitism<\/em> is an inherently bad thing, which it is not. I know, I know, that\u2019s an odd thing to say, especially when you\u2019ve just experienced high fever, almost continuous coughing, lack of sleep and looping thoughts when you attempt to sleep, but there\u2019s a point to this essay. I wouldn\u2019t dedicate a whole essay on such, no matter how bad the experience was, because, on its own, none of that was particular interesting. Just a bad trip caused by whatever it was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, to get somewhere, to be productive about this topic, Michel Serres explores this in his book \u2018The Parasite\u2019. The gist of his take on parasites<\/em> is, however, a bit different from what you\u2019d think as he\u2019s rather dealing with parasitism<\/em>, instead of parasites. By this I mean is that he isn\u2019t focused solely on something like tapeworms, like the way this is understood in biology, as he (6) points out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He (6) rejects such scientific definitions of parasites<\/em> and parasitism<\/em> because they ignore how the anthropomorphic of these words. In short, he (6-7) takes issue with such definitions because they give parasitism a bad rep, making it appear, as if, it is inherently negative:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTo parasite means to eat next to.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n This has then been imported by the sciences into their scientific discourse, making it seem like other organisms are parasites<\/em>, but, for whatever reason, humans are not, except only by extension, even though they are, in fact, the exemplar of parasitism<\/em>, as acknowledged by him (6-7).<\/p>\n\n\n\n That can, of course, be countered by pointing out that humans do not inhabit others, that is to say that they do not dwell within a host, always staying outside the others and therefore humans cannot be parasites, but he (9-10) simply isn\u2019t buying this. This is all too neat, all too convenient or, dare I say, all too human state. So, he (10) counters this by noting that we don\u2019t simply kill animals in order to eat them, but we also wear them and make shelters out of them, so, yeah, in a sense, we do inhabit them, just as we wear and thus inhabit plants as we wear garments and set up shelters made out of them. In other words, our relation to them is thus parasitical<\/em>. It\u2019s not like the animals and plants have asked for any of that. We just do that, without \u2026 all consideration, like an abusive guest, as noted by him (8).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anyway, he (3) exemplifies parasitism<\/em> by indicating that a rat is a parasite<\/em> in the sense that it steals from the human, eating whatever food the human happens to have, only to point out that humans can also be parasites, in the sense that they steal from other humans, like people who extract wealth from other people so that they have all that food that the rats would like to get access to. He (3) then points out that even noise can be a parasite, in the sense that it steals from those who hear it, like the rats whose opportunity to steal food is stolen from them as they scurry away in order to not get caught by the humans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That example could also be about something else, as he (3) points out. It doesn\u2019t have to be about food, but it\u2019s, perhaps, an easy way to explain that. His (3-4) is rather that a parasite<\/em> is someone who takes something away from someone else, stealing, taxing, or interrupting it, one way or another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We are all, in some sense, parasites<\/em>, as he (4-5) points out, yet it is possible to not be a parasite. It\u2019s possible to produce<\/em> something, to create<\/em> something new, but it\u2019s just way, way more difficult than it is to reproduce something already existing, to copy it, to duplicate it, to repeat it, as he (4) goes on to add. In other words, parasites appear immediately when someone creates something new, because, of course, everyone wants to have their share of it, as acknowledged by him (4). I think he manages to explain this quite neatly and concisely when he (5) states that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDinner is served among the parasites.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n To make sense of that, just think of what food did you ever produce? Most likely nothing. I for sure cannot take any credit for having grown anything for that purpose. Therefore, I am a parasite<\/em>, just like you are. I\u2019m living off whatever someone else produced for me, just as you are. We are all parasites or, as he (55) ends up putting it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[T]he parasite parasites the parasites.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Now, you could, of course, object to that, by noting that it is possible to not be a parasite<\/em>. Like aren\u2019t the farmers who produce all that \u2026 produce \u2026 doing it all by themselves? So, if they live off the land, they are not parasites. Ha! Well, yes, that\u2019s right, but, but only if we think in terms of growing food and don\u2019t think beyond that. Who taught them to farm? Ah, see, they simply engage in the reproduction of production, copying what others have created, those farming practices, which then makes them parasites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For him (5), a parasite<\/em> is a guest, someone who is hosted by someone else. So far it has been established that the guest is simply taking away from the host, sitting at the table, eating whatever has to offer to the guest. It\u2019s, however, perhaps, more apt to refer to the parasite as an abusive guest, as specified by him (8), as not all guests are abusive to their hosts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But who is the guest and who is the host, that is the question he (15-16) expands on. In a sense, the guest is, of course, the guest and the host is the host. Why would the guest not be the guest? Why would the host not be the host. If the parasite<\/em> is indeed the guest, the one who interrupts the life of the host, like that noise that interrupts the rats, and enjoys what the host hast to offer, then this should be pretty simple, eh? No need to make this is any more complex. Ah, but that\u2019s the thing. If we think of the host as someone who is welcoming, it is, in fact, the host who interrupts the guest by offering whatever it is that the host has to offer to the guest. What if that isn\u2019t worth it for the guest, but the guest doesn\u2019t want or know how to decline? In other words, who\u2019s actually bothering who, interrupting the life of the other? Or what if the parasite is the poor weather outside? What if it is what interrupts the guest and the host, causing an inconvenience to them, stealing the guest it\u2019s wish to move on and the host\u2019s wish for the guest to leave, as for the guest to be a guest, the guest must leave, as otherwise it becomes someone who stays, thus becoming a host. As you can see from his example, it\u2019s not at all clear who\u2019s the parasite here. I\u2019d say that they are all parasites or, rather, that their relation is in some way parasitical<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then there\u2019s another take on this that he (46) covers: what if it is the third party, let\u2019s say that poor weather, is, in fact, the host<\/em> and not the parasite<\/em>? This makes sense if you think of it as what hosts the people, one of which has to wait for the weather to get better. It provides certain opportunities to the people involved, the person that\u2019s been referred to as the host and that person\u2019s guest. They are now both parasites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh, and if you think that example is whimsical, like come on, that doesn\u2019t happen in real life, just think again. It totally happens, like all the time. I\u2019d say, it is often expected that the guest brings a gift or, at least, offers that company in exchange for whatever the host has to offer the guest, as later on acknowledged by him (34). The guest must also know or at least figure when it is time to leave. Don\u2019t overstay your welcome, as they say. I reckon most people would agree with me on this one. That said, the there\u2019s an expectation that the host must provide for the guest, by which I mean if you invite someone over, you are expected to not cancel all the sudden, nor act as if your life was interrupted by the guest, because, duh, it\u2019s you who interrupted the life of the guest and now it\u2019s you who\u2019s taking it out on your guest. I\u2019d say he is also right about the weather, or any other inconvenience, like a car that just won\u2019t start. Perhaps the guest was about to leave, right before it was getting inconvenient for the host, and now guest has to stay for longer, waiting for the weather to clear out or for someone else to arrive to fix the car. That\u2019s also not necessarily just an inconvenience to the host, but also to the guest, because, perhaps, the guest really needed to leave or had just had enough of the host.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To account for his (46) take on of the third party as the host<\/em>, it can make sense. It might not be the best example that a guest has to stay longer because the weather is bad, which is then an inconvenience to the host, so I\u2019ll reformulate that a bit. Think of a situation where two people meet somewhere, let\u2019s say at a bus stop. They are not waiting for a bus. They just happen to pass it when it starts to rain all the sudden. The bus stop offers them shelter. It\u2019s not ideal, but it\u2019s enough to cover them from the pouring rain. They start talking. They hit it off. Who knows what or where that leads them. Anyway, what\u2019s important here is that, in a sense, it is the weather that hosts them and therefore they are the parasites<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He (22-23) complicates this example by pondering who owes what and to whom? If the guest has to travel from afar and, in some sense, against its will, perhaps because there was an expectation of hospitality, but it turns out that the host isn\u2019t at all hospitable, then who is to blame here? The host may have been sincere about the invitation, but misunderstood the nature of their relationship, which then a major inconvenience to the guest. It might even be that guest has to leave something behind, perhaps some opportunity, in order to make it to the host, only to realize that the host has misunderstood their relationship and now that other opportunity is also gone. That\u2019s definitely \u201c[s]omething to get angry about\u201d, as he (23) puts it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I kind of made his (22-23) example already more contemporary and more accessible, but to make more sense of that, think of that as like a business opportunity or as a visit to someone with whom you had some good times in the past. In both cases, it\u2019s only like that you\u2019d be absolutely furious even if there had been some misunderstanding, like crossed wires or something. With the former, you\u2019d be thrilled by the opportunity to work with someone, only to realize that they didn\u2019t invite you for that and because you nonetheless went for it, you missed out on another opportunity. With the latter, you\u2019d be thrilled to see the person again, hoping for some good times (I leave it up to you to figure out what that could be) only to make it there and be told that you got it all wrong, but, you know, these things happen, no hard feelings. On top of that, perhaps you had someone else back home who was interested in you, but no won\u2019t return your calls because \u2026 well \u2026 you declined that invitation. Yeah, you\u2019d be furious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I realize that I\u2019m \u2026 kind of \u2026 getting sidetracked here, but whatever. Right, he (24) asks us to think about this real hard. Who is the real parasite<\/em> again? Okay, he already told us, as pointed out already, but if you somehow missed it, humans are the parasite par excellence<\/em>. He (24) points out how it is the human who kills the snake, for whatever the reason was again, milks the cows and slaughters them and their offspring, just because the human can do that, being in a position that makes it possible to exercise power over them in such ways. Now, it\u2019d be tempting to think this as some sort of criticism of human cruelty towards animals, that is to say in support of a plant-based diet, but oh, no, no and once more no. He (24) adds to this list how it is again the human who uses the trees for its own purposes, be it to eat the fruit that they bear or to turn it into the wide variety of things that humans craft from them, including the buildings that humans inhabit, you know, like a parasite. We could add other plants here as well and it\u2019d be the same story. Humans grow all kinds of plants, not because they care for them, but because the plants care for the humans, if you get what I mean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think he puts it very neatly and succinctly when he (24) summarizes this by stating that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[H]istory hides the fact that [humans are] the universal parasite[s], that everything and everyone around [them] is a hospitable space. Plants and animals are always [their] hosts; [human] is always necessarily their guest. Always taking, never giving.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n I do have to disagree with him here for a moment though, even if it is just a minor disagreement. I think he is ignoring how humans are not, necessarily, parasitical<\/em> to the animals that they keep as their pets. For example, I think it\u2019s not at all clear that humans have dogs and not the other way around. I think it\u2019s way, way too simplistic to think that it is the human that is taking advantage of the dog. In fact, it might actually be the dog that is, in the end, the one who takes advantage of the human. Sure, the human appears to be its master and appears to benefit from it has to offer, which could be about its tracking skills, its protection or just its company, but who are we to say that it isn\u2019t, in fact, the dog who parasites the human, duping it to give it food and shelter in exchange for what it considers to \u2026 well \u2026 not much really. Now, to be clear, I\u2019m not saying that this is the case, but rather that humans are bound to flatter themselves, thinking that they know it all, when it might well be that it is the animals that are, in some cases, taking advantage of the humans. It’s the same with cats. They parasite humans by parasiting rats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I guess you could also say that about some other animals, such as ravens, crows, rooks and jackdaws, who are smart enough to observe what it is that humans do and then take advantage of it. What I mean is that they expect the humans do their dirty work, like when they spot humans on the hunt and then simply wait for the humans to leave the scraps, namely the intestines for them to eat. I\u2019m pretty sure they are taking advantage of humans and not the other way around. It\u2019s not even close to a symbiotic relationship that humans and dogs can have. It\u2019s just plain parasitic<\/em> and, I\u2019d say, fair play to them. I mean that\u2019s just smart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, this does not negate what Serres (25) is saying. Humans are still the parasite par excellence<\/em>. It\u2019s just that there are relationships that humans have with what else is there that aren\u2019t parasitic<\/em> and could, in fact, be thought as being parasitical to humans. Oh, and I\u2019m not even talking about the parasitic relationship I had, where I was totally taken advantage of something way, way smaller than I am, without me getting anything beneficial out of it, or so we like to think anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I reckon that he (25) is right about this when states that, overall, this is the case and that it also extends to other humans, so that humans are parasites<\/em> also to other humans, which isn\u2019t all that surprising, considering the origins of the word, as already discussed. I just wanted to point out that there are cases where this doesn\u2019t apply, because non-humans are also more than happy to parasite humans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I do wanna point out that he (26) is right about how the human is not just a parasite<\/em> among other parasites, but the universal parasite<\/em>, inasmuch as the parasite is understood not as the smallest creature, but as the largest creature, the one who is in position to just make everyone else do their bidding. So, oddly enough, the parasite is always the strongest of them all, yet also the weakest, as he (26) points out. What does he mean by that? Well, by that he means that to be strongest doesn\u2019t necessarily mean the physically strongest. This is why he (26) states that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe have just found the place of politics.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n How so? Well, he (26) does provides us with an answer:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[T]he one whose only function is to eat is the one who commands. And speaks.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n In other words, you don\u2019t have to be the physically strongest to eat the physically strongest. If you can make others do your bidding, through words, there\u2019s no need to be physically strong. In short, being clever is way more useful than being physically strong. This is a particularly important point he (55) wants to make as it is words, that is to say something worthless, that is offered in exchange for something that is worthy. Talk is cheap, as they say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To get to the point, parasitism<\/em> is not simply a bad thing, as mentioned already. Firstly, it\u2019s not at all clear who is and who isn\u2019t a parasite<\/em>, because parasite is not really this or that creature that is inherently parasitical, but rather a position<\/em> occupied by a creature in relation to another creature, if you will, as also discussed by him (42-43). To maximize its gains the parasite occupies a position that allows it to take advantage of as many creatures as possible, occupying not only a position that pertains to this or that relation, but a position located an intersection that pertains to many relations, as he (43) goes on to specify. Some are more parasitical than others and the one who excels in parasitism is the politician, a person who talks to many persons, as noted by him (43). Secondly, parasitism isn\u2019t as simple as stealing a bit of this or a bit that, to feed oneself, as parasites typically do. That\u2019s, of course, a part of it, but the more that happens, the more the host builds resistance to the parasite. He (53) exemplifies this with how animals get used to people and the sounds that they make. If it isn\u2019t clear, the human is to them a parasite in the sense that the human tends to interrupt them, often simply making loud sounds. In other words, in order to get on with their life, perhaps as parasites to humans, sure, they adapt to the situation. Okay, not all of them do, as acknowledged by him (53), but that\u2019s beside the point here. Thirdly, there is no position that isn\u2019t parasitic, as he (55) points out, hence my earlier point that we are all parasites, to this or that extent, one way or another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One way to deal with parasites<\/em> is to get red of them, which is, pretty much, about parasiting the parasites. This can take many forms, such as \u201creligious excommunication, political imprisonment, the isolation of the sick, garbage collection, public health, the pasteurization of milk\u201d and what not, as he (68) points out, depending what it is that we focus on. For humans, it\u2019s about getting rid of what isn\u2019t in our best interest, albeit the problem here is that such acts can be shortsighted. For example, getting rid of people, like in the case of religious excommunication or political imprisonment, you aren\u2019t really addressing the issue, what it is the person is objecting to, because, well, that\u2019d be terrible inconvenient for you, having to concede that you might be wrong about something, hence the dogmatism, as he (68) points out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In simpler terms, getting rid of the unwanted, whatever they may be, is typically beneficial to those who deem them unwanted, but what you really need to ask yourself is why they are deemed to be unwanted. For example, it\u2019s just really convenient to brand someone a heretic or an enemy of the people. That way you can eliminate your rivals, without having to engage in dialogue with them. You could, of course, take the risk, let them speak, but, ah, see, it\u2019s not great, for you, if it turns out that they are right about something and you aren\u2019t or that they sway the majority on their side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For those deemed unwanted, this is very problematic, because they are the ones who are labeled as parasites, only to be parasited by the parasites. They could, of course, just not open their mouths. They could also just leave, go somewhere where they aren\u2019t repressed or persecuted. He (68) acknowledges all this, only to point out that it\u2019s not that simple. It\u2019s actually very difficult to escape the system, just as it is very difficult to overthrow the system, because that way you only end up turning it on its head, as he (68) points out:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf you make a motor turn in reverse, you do not break it: you build a refrigerator.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n And yes, I did check that. A fridge does work that way. Anyway, the point he (68) wants to make here is that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe counternorm is never a noise of the norm but the same norm reversed, that is to say, its twin.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n So, in other words, there\u2019s a force and resistance to it is also a force. This leads him (68) to point out that, I\u2019d say, contrary to what people may think, tolerance<\/em> of deviance<\/em> from the norm<\/em> only reinforces intolerance<\/em>, in the sense that the notion of tolerance is, in itself, about intolerance, because the notion of norm is always retained, no matter how tolerant the system might be right now. In his (68) words:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey were acclimated to the revolutionary, the madman, the deviant, the dissident: an organism lives very well with its microbes; it lives better and is hardened by them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n To paraphrase this, there\u2019s a norm<\/em> or, rather, a set of norms that people have set up. We can also call them standards<\/em>. Then there\u2019s deviance<\/em> from the norms or standards. Tolerance is simply the acceptable deviation<\/em> from a norm or a standard. Tolerance is not, however, to be confused with acceptance<\/em>. What\u2019s the point of sort of accepting what you don\u2019t really want to accept? Well, the people who\u2019ve set up the norms or standards are well aware they themselves don\u2019t even match the norms or standards as they are just ideals, some supposed ideal forms, as noted by him (72):<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat is what existence is: \u2026 being in perpetual difference from equilibrium.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Think of this in terms of parts<\/em> and wholes<\/em>. You want some whole, let\u2019s say a machine gun, to work properly. Now, you need other machines to produce the parts for that whole. These parts must align neatly with one another, matching the ideal values presented on blueprints. This all makes sense. The problem is that the machines that create these parts also consist of parts that make whole, and these parts are all subject to wear and tear, meaning that the parts they produce won\u2019t match the standards. It could also be that the machine operator is inexperienced, which means that the parts end up being slightly off for that reason. Is this an issue? Well, no, not really. The people who design machines are well aware of this and acknowledge that while they prefer a really tight fit, to make sure that the machine runs as efficiently as possible, it can end up being too tight a fit, so that the parts no longer align with one another as intended, because they are ever so slightly too large, for example. Simply put, they know that there\u2019s going to be some variation<\/em> and thus you must leave room for it. That\u2019s tolerance<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Note how tolerance<\/em> is merely the acceptable deviation<\/em> from the ideal<\/em>, that room for variation<\/em>. Why would you want only a small tolerance? Well, it\u2019s all about efficiency<\/em>. Too much tolerance results in a machine that doesn\u2019t work or doesn\u2019t work as efficiently as it could, because the parts don\u2019t align that well. You also want the parts to be as similar as possible because that way you can easily replace them. If they are not similar enough, let\u2019s say some are too big and some are too small, it takes ages to find a part that is a good fit. Too little tolerance has the same issue. Imagine working in a dusty environment, let\u2019s say a desert. Add a speck of dust or a grain of sand and the machine comes to a halt. That\u2019s why you also want tolerance. This is also a problem when you must account for temperature changes. To return to that machine gun example, the barrel needs to be made to withstand heat that is produced from sustained fire, and the common way to accommodate for this is to simply replace the barrel at certain intervals. If you just keep going, it will no longer do what it is supposed to do, as accurately as it should, and eventually its ruined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, of course, the engineer in me wants to point out that, well, ideally you\u2019d still want make it so that the parts fit as tight as possible, regardless of the environment, by which I mean that ideally you\u2019d have no tolerance<\/em>, that acceptable deviation<\/em>, only intolerance, as that entails a perfect, one to one match with the ideal, that norm<\/em> or standard<\/em>. Then again, that\u2019s not how the world works. Again, a norm or a standard just made up and it\u2019s impossible to match it, as noted by Serres (72):<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[T]he system itself is never stable. Its equilibrium is ideal, abstract, and never reached.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The issue I take with tolerance<\/em>, when applied to people, is that it may appear to be about acceptance<\/em>, an in a way it is, but it’s really about temporary acceptance. It’s a mere concession. It’s like you are accepted, for now. You are within a margin of error, but there’s no guarantee that such error will be tolerated in the future. Those who run the system want it to run as efficiently as possible and that poses a risk to those who are deemed to deviate the most. If things change, if it becomes possible to make the margin of error smaller, yeah, what used to be tolerated will no longer be tolerated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tolerance <\/em>also marks people as deviants<\/em>, so that those who are accepted<\/em>, namely those who came up with the norms <\/em>or standards<\/em>, can identify them as such (even though they themselves can never meet the standard, as already pointed out). This then makes it easier for people to discriminate and, in some cases, to eliminate the supposed deviants. Oh, and strangely enough the system reinforces itself this way, making it more intolerant through tolerance, as acknowledged by him (68).<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is also how it is understood in biology, which, of course, isn’t concerned with how human societies work. To my understanding, in some cases, parasites <\/em>are beneficial to their hosts<\/em>. Of course, you do need to account for advantages and disadvantages, case by case, so don’t go thinking that I’m advocating for parasites, like licking door handles in hopes that improving your life somehow. Again, not a biologist, but, to my knowledge, there’s also the hypothesis that evolution is like a cat and mouse game between the hosts <\/em>and the parasites<\/em>, in the sense that Serres defines that dynamic. In short, the parasites needs the hosts, as they wouldn’t otherwise be parasites, whereas the hosts needs to adapt to counter the parasites. One way of doing that is sexual reproduction. The parasite ends up encountering different hosts, because each generation is different from the previous one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What did I get out of this, having that whatever it is was? Well, I can’t say I benefited from it, as such, but it did make me think about parasitism, which led to reading all kinds of things and writing this essay. It interrupted my life, like a parasite <\/em>does, pushed me into this direction so that, in a sense, that parasite was also a host<\/em>, of sorts, which, in a sense, made me its parasite. Fascinating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This essay was prompted by getting a flu and suffering through it, as you do, because there isn\u2019t much you can do about it. Okay, it could have been another strain of COVID, or RSV, respiratory syncytial virus, as was they were making rounds recently. Anyway, it was \u2026 let\u2019s say \u2026 not great. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3554,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[71,123,344],"class_list":["post-5388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays","tag-deleuze","tag-guattari","tag-serres"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/landd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/landd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/landd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/landd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3554"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/landd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5388"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/landd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5412,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/landd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5388\/revisions\/5412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/landd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/landd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/landd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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