6. Revolutionary Immanence: Bergson Among the Anarchists

Cosmic Zoom, Powers of Ten and the Contested Politics of Sense

“…Bergson's more supple and variable durational conception of temporal experience was associated with more aesthetic, experimental and creative approaches to life, as well as serving to inculcate political attitudes of openness and sympathy to other modes, or rhythms, of existence. Indeed, it is the Bergsonian analysis of the art of Matisse, developed by Antliff (1999) and more critically by Cronan (2014) that has informed the approach to Szasz's Cosmic Zoom, that has been developed in these pages. As the Deleuzo-Bergsonian theorist John O' Maoilearca (previously John Mullarkey) has noted, in their pursuit of life, living organisms tend to 'distort, mediate and virtualise the actuality of others' (Mullarkey, 2004: 488), suggesting that the central ethical and political problems of the day concern the way in which we choose to enfold or be enfolded by other actors, entities and assemblages.…”

Praxis und Ungewissheit

“…This alteration, which is one with the essence or the substance of a thing, is what we grasp when we conceive of it in terms of duration.« Verschiedene Entitäten -Mensch oder Grashalm -weisen sodann verschieden getaktete Rhythmen bezüglich der Synthese temporal verstreuter materieller Momente auf. Ihre Dauern verkörpern diverse Grade der »Gespanntheit«, d.h. Vergangenes wird für das Andauern verschieden umfangreich bedeutsam und in unterschiedlich pulsierenden Refrains wirksam: »Different durations, differently rhythmed, might co-exist« (Bergson 1965(Bergson [19221911;Antliff 1999). 1 All dies lenkt den Blick auf eine »multiplicity of durations« (Bergson 1965(Bergson [1922: 46) und lässt, so Deleuze, die bei Bergson sonst untergeordnete Frage des Raumes wieder relevant werden.…”