Animals are omnipresent in Deleuze‘s work, and throughout Deleuze and Guattari‘s common body of work: the tick‘s world, the assemblage (agencement) of the wasp and orchid, the spider‘s prehension of the fly, the cat who knows better than the human how to die, the multiplicity of the wolf, the affects of Little Hans‘ horse, spiny lobsters‘ nomadism and bird-artists. Insects, mammals, crustaceans and birds are such an integral part of Deleuzian and Deleuzo-Guattarian thought that these thinkers even created a concept in these animals‘ honor: the becoming-animal.
Deleuze connects animal life to the writers or philosophers.
Delueze does not take appeal in domestic animals. However throughout his work there is bestiary that is quite repugnant. Deers spiders tick and fleas of a certain number of repugnant little animals of this kind. Anti-Oedipus and the concept of 'becoming animal'. The problem is not with domestic animals, but rather is with animal that are both familiar and familial. He does not care for these animals as well as tamed and domesticated. However domesticated animals that are no familiar or familial, he likes. He does not like his cat rubbing up against him, and he doesn't like the barking when he approaches dogs. There are a variety of cries in the wild but barking is truly the shame of the animal kingdom. He can understand much better the dog howling at the moon, at death, "I can stand this better than barking". People who have a relationship with dog and cats that is not human. "For example, you see that children do not have a human relationship with a cat, but rather an infantile relationship with animals. What is really important is for people to have an animal relationship with an animal. So what does it mean to have an animal relationship with the animal? It doesn't consist of talking to it...but in any case, I can't stand the human relationship with the animal". An example he notes is when people talk to to their pets like children or another human being.
Psychoanalysis recognises this and is so fixated on familiar or familial animals, on animals of the family, that any animal, in a dream, for example, is interpreted by psychoanalysis as being an image of the father, mother or child that is an animal as a family member. He finds it odious. But generally people who like animals don't have a human relationship with animals, they have an animal relationship with animals and thats quite beautiful. He does not like hunters those who are part of hunter club types, but hunters that have an astonishing relationship with the animal. He admires the hunters that are able to track for example, wolves using the wolfs print, these true hunters because they have the animal relationship with animals.
Spiders, ticks and fleas are just as important as animals. He strongly dislikes certain animals due to his fascination with many other animals. Every animal has a world, what is a animal world? Sometimes its extremely limited, and Deleuze takes interest in this, especially in the simplicity of a ticks life (which has 3 stages), but does not experience anything else. That is all it knows what to do.
Psychoanalysis recognises this and is so fixated on familiar or familial animals, on animals of the family, that any animal, in a dream, for example, is interpreted by psychoanalysis as being an image of the father, mother or child that is an animal as a family member. He finds it odious. But generally people who like animals don't have a human relationship with animals, they have an animal relationship with animals and thats quite beautiful. He does not like hunters those who are part of hunter club types, but hunters that have an astonishing relationship with the animal. He admires the hunters that are able to track for example, wolves using the wolfs print, these true hunters because they have the animal relationship with animals.
Spiders, ticks and fleas are just as important as animals. He strongly dislikes certain animals due to his fascination with many other animals. Every animal has a world, what is a animal world? Sometimes its extremely limited, and Deleuze takes interest in this, especially in the simplicity of a ticks life (which has 3 stages), but does not experience anything else. That is all it knows what to do.
He is particularly interested in animal territory and then connecting this with art and philosophy.
"The animals with territory is the beginning of art". Marking territory is just by marking with scent, glands, urine ect but it's a lot more than that: what intervenes in marking a territory is also a series of postures for example lowering oneself/lifting oneself up; a series of colours, song, posture: these are the three determinants of art color and lines animal postures are sometimes veritable lines - that's art in its pure state. Animals recognise their partners and everything in their territory, but not outside the territory.
Interviwer: "Is there a connection with writing and the writer, and the animal?"
Deleuze: " Of course. If someone were to ask me what it means to be animal, I would answer: it's being on the lookout. It's a being fundamentally on the lookout."
Inerviewer: "Like the writer?"
Deleuze: "The writer, well, yes, on the look out, the philosopher, on the lookout, obviously, we are on the lookout. For me, you see, the ears of the animal: It does nothing without being on the look out, it's never relaxed, an animal. It's eating, [yet] has to be on the look out to see if something is happening behind its back, on either side, ect. Its terrible this existence. So you make a connection between the writer, what is the relation between the animal and the writer? ... One almost has to say that, at the limit. A writer, what is it? He writes, he writes "for" readers, of course, but what does "for" mean? It means toward them, a writer... he writes toward his readers, in a way, ...
Writers write for an audience but also in place of (he referes to someone elses work idiots, illitrate) animals.
He References Kafka Metamorphosis (which is something I will probably write about in another post).
Deleuze: The manager who cries out, "Did you hear? It sounds like an animal" the painful wailing of Gregor. Or else the mass of mice, one writes for the mass of mice, the mass of rats that are dying because, contrary to what is said, it's not men who know how to die, but animals, and when men die, they die like animals. Here we return to cats, and I have a lot of respect among the many cats that lived here, there was that little cat who died rather quickly that is, I saw what a lot of people have seen as well, how animal seeks a corner to die in. There is territory for death as well, a search for a territory of death, where one can die. We saw the little cat slide itself right into a tight corner, an angle, as if it were the good spot for it to die in. So in a sense if the writer is indeed the one who pushes language to the limit, the limit that separates language from animality, that separates a language from cry or song, then one has to say, yes, the writer is responsible to animals who die, that is, he answers to animals who die, to write, literally, not 'for' again, I don't write "for" my dog or for my cat, but writing "in place of" animals who die ect carrying the language to this limit. There is no literature that does not carry language and syntax to this limit that separates man from animal. One has to be on this limit. Thats what I think. Even when one does philosophy thats the case. One is on the limit that separates through from non-thought. You always have to be at the limit that separates you from animality, but precisely in such a way that you are no longer separated from it. There is an inhumanity proper to the human body, and to the human mind, there are animal relations with the animal. "
Delueze believes that one of the writer's or philosopher's tasks would then be to experience and describe this link between a dying human and a dying cat, and in doing so experience the common border separating and yet also unifying humanity and animality.
My Thoughts
I feel that in his work and what he is saying there is the important connection with animals, and even respect his gives, when writing own work. However there is still some disconnection with certain types of animals and how they should be viewed/ treated. We should treat animal connections like an animal, in order to understand ourselves. It also brought attention to me that all animals have their own worlds, and this is something that should be taken into account when thinking about the world overall, and even our own worlds. There is a very well thought out system animals have, which is something us humans can take from that. A mutual respect that should be kept, rather than putting other animals on our level, or going onto theres. You have to see what separates us from animality, but in a way that we are no longer separated from it. This is an idea that contributes to my studies of animals, shaminism, from a philosophy aspect rather than just a spiritual.
Interviwer: "Is there a connection with writing and the writer, and the animal?"
Deleuze: " Of course. If someone were to ask me what it means to be animal, I would answer: it's being on the lookout. It's a being fundamentally on the lookout."
Inerviewer: "Like the writer?"
Deleuze: "The writer, well, yes, on the look out, the philosopher, on the lookout, obviously, we are on the lookout. For me, you see, the ears of the animal: It does nothing without being on the look out, it's never relaxed, an animal. It's eating, [yet] has to be on the look out to see if something is happening behind its back, on either side, ect. Its terrible this existence. So you make a connection between the writer, what is the relation between the animal and the writer? ... One almost has to say that, at the limit. A writer, what is it? He writes, he writes "for" readers, of course, but what does "for" mean? It means toward them, a writer... he writes toward his readers, in a way, ...
Writers write for an audience but also in place of (he referes to someone elses work idiots, illitrate) animals.
He References Kafka Metamorphosis (which is something I will probably write about in another post).
Deleuze: The manager who cries out, "Did you hear? It sounds like an animal" the painful wailing of Gregor. Or else the mass of mice, one writes for the mass of mice, the mass of rats that are dying because, contrary to what is said, it's not men who know how to die, but animals, and when men die, they die like animals. Here we return to cats, and I have a lot of respect among the many cats that lived here, there was that little cat who died rather quickly that is, I saw what a lot of people have seen as well, how animal seeks a corner to die in. There is territory for death as well, a search for a territory of death, where one can die. We saw the little cat slide itself right into a tight corner, an angle, as if it were the good spot for it to die in. So in a sense if the writer is indeed the one who pushes language to the limit, the limit that separates language from animality, that separates a language from cry or song, then one has to say, yes, the writer is responsible to animals who die, that is, he answers to animals who die, to write, literally, not 'for' again, I don't write "for" my dog or for my cat, but writing "in place of" animals who die ect carrying the language to this limit. There is no literature that does not carry language and syntax to this limit that separates man from animal. One has to be on this limit. Thats what I think. Even when one does philosophy thats the case. One is on the limit that separates through from non-thought. You always have to be at the limit that separates you from animality, but precisely in such a way that you are no longer separated from it. There is an inhumanity proper to the human body, and to the human mind, there are animal relations with the animal. "
Delueze believes that one of the writer's or philosopher's tasks would then be to experience and describe this link between a dying human and a dying cat, and in doing so experience the common border separating and yet also unifying humanity and animality.
My Thoughts
I feel that in his work and what he is saying there is the important connection with animals, and even respect his gives, when writing own work. However there is still some disconnection with certain types of animals and how they should be viewed/ treated. We should treat animal connections like an animal, in order to understand ourselves. It also brought attention to me that all animals have their own worlds, and this is something that should be taken into account when thinking about the world overall, and even our own worlds. There is a very well thought out system animals have, which is something us humans can take from that. A mutual respect that should be kept, rather than putting other animals on our level, or going onto theres. You have to see what separates us from animality, but in a way that we are no longer separated from it. This is an idea that contributes to my studies of animals, shaminism, from a philosophy aspect rather than just a spiritual.
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