Abhi Jetty

Postmodern Political Thought

Essay #1

Sense, Life, and Genealogy

The understanding of a thing is the phenomenon of a complete disaster, which takes place on a

fundamental level within the processes of interpretation. Understanding is an illusion precisely because it

constitutes an event so concrete, so rigid and determined, that it is more real than reality itself. To understand

is to conjure an unquestionable narrative, to construct a false idol—and by doing so—to elevate to divine

status a single sense which now exists in a realm beyond critique. As the Hegelian dialectic has so graciously

demonstrated for us, understanding (or recognition as it is properly referred to) is itself the ultimate negation—

the end. “The Gods are dead but they have died from laughing, on hearing one God claim, to be the only

one…”1 It is no exaggeration to define understanding as a death, perhaps as a volcano which has cooled and

solidified may be proclaimed extinct. Where understanding is absent, there are violent shifts and eruptions,

breakthroughs and subversions, struggle and confusion—all defining elements of life. Understanding stands

opposed to anything which may be considered alive: anything which is fundamentally a dynamic plurality, and

which cannot be characterized by the nothingness, the pure homogeneity which corresponds with death. “Is

godliness not precisely that there are gods but no God?”2

With his stated intent to engage in a critique of the value of our values for life, Nietzsche make clear

that genealogy stands opposed to any and all forms of understanding. As Foucault elucidates, the point of the

genealogy is to transform the traditional form of critique into a “practical critique that takes the form of a

possible transgression.”3 The shaving of all rough edges and the obscuring of every inconsistency, the

processes so fundamental to any comprehensive perspective of both history and the present, contain no

practical value—as we will come to see—and so have no place in the genealogy beyond that of a single

1
Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy, trans. Hugh Tomlinson (Columbia University Press, 1983).
2
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, trans. Reginald John Hollingdale (Penguin Books, 1961).
3
Michel Foucault, What Is Enlightenment?, trans. Paul Rabinow (Pantheon books, 1984).
element among an incomprehensible plurality. For Nietzsche, every perspective is nothing more than the

expression of an entangled hierarchy of wills to power. A perspective is a thing’s sense, determined only by

the immediate strategy in which forces are arranged in a frozen position within space and time. And, even in

such a moment, there can still be no determinate sense for anything considered alive; each force provides its

own sense, and so there is “no event, no phenomenon, word or thought which does not have a multiple

sense”4—though each may be expressed to a greater or lesser extent. From here, we catch a glimpse into the

complexity of the origin—specifically in the form of what Foucault identifies as Entstehung5—which we will

return to after describing history a bit more.

The many forces which appropriate a thing are constantly in flux, both in the extent of their expression

and the form: at times, a force may dominate the others more than it is itself dominated, and so its expression

can be felt (though not necessarily readily identified) much more than the others; in certain moments, a force

emerges victorious and also diminishes in tandem with another—as in the case of the Dionysian and the

Apollonian; and there are cases in which forces only achieve their ends after long periods of quiet plotting and

resentful waiting. These various events, this complex of successions and coexistences, are what constitute the

history of a thing. “A thing is sometimes this, sometimes that, sometimes something more complicated—

depending on the forces (the gods) which take possession of it.”6 And there is no logic, no continuity, or

collective end to this history. There is only a game of thrones, an incessant war characterized by overthrows,

thwarts, alliances, and betrayals. There are even resurgences, restorations, and resubjugations. But, with each

succession always comes a new sense, a new order of things. And so it follows that the concept of an

unchanging sense is completely foreign to history. The metanarrative is a forcibly imposed straitjacket

constantly bursting at the seams. It is no less alien to history than one side of a wall to the other, composed of

the same substance and yet directed toward totally opposite scenes.

The problem of the origin, as Entstehung or emergence, is itself just as much a complex and

uncapturable arena of forces as the Herkunft7, or descent, we have just described. Even at the origin of a thing,

4
Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy
5
Michel Foucault, Nietzsche, Genealogy, History, trans. Paul Rabinow (Pantheon Books, 1984).
6
Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy
7
Michel Foucault, Nietzsche, Genealogy, History
there is no singular purpose to it. There cannot be for two reasons: the birth of a thing is itself simply a result

of the force network, and the thing itself is force. From the former, we return to the insight that there are only

accidents. The perception of the sense of difference between nobles and slaves and its subsequent

interpretation resulted in the birth of good and bad. There is no utilitarian logic embedded in this distinction.

“The cause of the origin of a thing and its eventual utility, its actual employment and place in a system of

purposes, lie worlds apart.”8 And, as we have discussed, the term “actual” can be very misleading—if one is to

interpret such purpose as single and true. Creation is not an event made up of creator and created: there is only

the created, there are only effects. There is no original purpose because there is no original purpose-giver.

Consequently, purpose is always in question—as every force will assign its own purpose to the thing. A

desperate search for a creator would and could only find a real answer—as Spinoza did—in the world itself,

and then only a half answer, because the origin is further complicated by the thing itself as an expression of

force. The thing does not exist as anything but as the apparition of forces. “’Will can of course operate only on

‘will’—and not on ‘matter’”9 … “wherever ‘effects’ are recognised, will is operating on will.”10 A force can

only express itself through another force, and its effects do not exist without the forces which constitute them.

The emergence of a thing is not a coming into being, but rather its existence is already and always a becoming.

This is precisely why every force is both dominating and dominated. ‘Good’ does not exist without the forces

which it acts upon and which act upon itself. “The being of a force is plural, it would be absolutely absurd to

think about force in the singular.”11 In other words, everything is always given there, though we can only ever

see a part of it.

This partial insight, and its obstructing of the omni-optical view—of understanding, is perhaps the

most relevant problem of the genealogy. The historian who endeavors and claims to understand history is

either a fool or a fraud. He either knows not the nature of what he sees, or he pretends. The former case

involves precisely the understanding which must be viewed with utmost suspicion. Of course, understanding as

a comprehensive view is not possible. Such a view is a claim onto Truth—something both transcendent and

8
Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, trans. Walter Kaufmann (Vintage Books, 1967).
9
Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy
10
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, trans. Reginald John Hollingdale (Penguin Books, 1973).
11
Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy
nonexistent. However, understanding as it relates to sense is of what we are here very critical. This sense of

understanding finds its place in the spoiled child’s denial of context. He demands his desires fulfilled

irregardless of any contingencies. Understanding is a bratty denial of the multiplicity of truths, the various

senses produced by the many forces currently in motion. The historian instead wholeheartedly accepts a single

sense—the easy one which presents itself most readily, the whore of senses. The historian is incapable of a

powerful love, a deep appreciation for his lover’s plurality, a passionate affirmation of chance. He is rather

content with a cheap and immediate self-fulfillment. Of course, he cannot be blamed for his baseness—for he

exists within the thrall of a base perspective. It would be absurd “to demand of weakness that it should express

itself as strength.”12 The historian’s position does not allow him to know anything but negation. Only the

chance occurrence of some catastrophe could drag him out into the burning light of the cruel sun—at which

point, he would no longer be able to stomach the musty and stultifying study in which he had thus far been

hunched over.

We mentioned that the senses which are available are only those produced by forces currently in

motion. This ‘currently’ is crucial as an investigation can never see beyond what is capable of being uncovered

by the tools it possesses. The past ‘as it was’ is thoroughly unavailable—no matter how desperately one lusts

for it. One can either acknowledge their fated blindness or they can remain blind. The genealogist is a member

of the former category, though in a unique manner: the genealogist not only recognizes the illusion of truth—

but he sees a radical potential in that illusion. The genealogist is neither a fool nor a fraud, because he is not a

historian. He is much closer to a trickster, but in the most beautiful sense of the word. He is a performer, an

artist whose craft is interpretation. The medium of the genealogist remains that of the historian: the past.

However, the style with which he paints is far more nuanced and nimbler. His strokes both glaring and careful.

Even the genealogist’s selection of his medium is incomparably more deliberate than the historian’s. For the

genealogist, the past does not naively represent something to simply evaluate and grow out of. The past is

rather a powerful creative force. This creativity is present in two senses: firstly, the past is a field in which one

can uncover forces and their respective senses which are virtually invisible in the present, whether they are too

prevalent or too diminished to identify. The genealogist operates on the margins of the past, he digs up those
12
Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals
artifacts which have been overlooked or cast off as insignificant. And he does this precisely because they have

been so ‘othered’. Secondly, the past—through the artifacts we have just described—provides all the materials

involved in the art of interpretation, “philosophizing with a hammer.”13

Returning to Foucault’s brief description of genealogy, we see that two fundamental elements are the

transgression and the practical. As insidious is the nature of the metanarrative to life, it is precisely this

narrative which life grown weary pursues avariciously. As such life drags itself along the tunnel, it hopes that

the light at the end is not freedom, but salvation: another train coming towards it. This train, whose modern

conductor is none other than the ascetic ideal, takes the form of two predominating fictions: unextinguishable

sin and utopia. The transgression is the only true savior, as it is none other than the prophet of Life,

“Zarathustra as the prophet of the eternal return.”14 As all true prophets have discovered, not everyone will be

able to comprehend what they offer—in fact this number will be very few. And yet, these gifts nevertheless

remain truths which must be told, services to the world which must be performed. A prophet is one, as

Nietzsche understood very well, whose arrival is necessarily untimely. Their very birth represents a

transgression upon the dominating sense of the era. The truth that the prophet brings to light can be anything,

as its value rests solely on its phenomena. A perspective only becomes prophetic when it appears as a

catastrophe.

Catastrophe is the restorative impulse which propels life through the tunnel’s roof. It sends life back

into the violent and stimulating arms of multiplicity. Life is given another chance to live, to affirm the plural,

to reject negation and death. The genealogy is practical precisely because it aims to rejuvenate life. And the

genealogy is transgressive because it knows such rejuvenation only comes in the form of catastrophe. Of

course, we have already seen that life itself is something fundamentally agonistic. Life is catastrophic. A force

can only act upon another force. A will upon another will. So, genealogy can only heal life by using life. The

artifacts whose excavator is the genealogist—rather than the historian—are the most singular and the most

antagonistic senses in relation to the present. These senses are those interpretations which run most counter to

13
Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols: or How to Philosophize with a Hammer, trans. Reginald John
Hollingdale (Penguin Books, 1968).
14
Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy
the established regime of interpretation ruling the present (composed of the Hegelian, the Christian, the

Ascetic, and the Negative), and so, as a critique, it is the most positive and true. The genealogist selects and

plays with the most scalding and concussive interpretations, because only such violence can once again spark

the combustion chambers of life. And these interpretations must always be plural, precisely in order to remind

life that plurality is not an enemy, but its only true friend. The genealogist, as the muse of Life, performs his art

in as catastrophic a sense as he can manage—he takes up the hammer in order to shatter the shackles pulling

his lord into the abyss, so that Zarathustra can once again “dance on the feet of chance.”15

REFERENCES

Deleuze, Gilles. Nietzsche and Philosophy. Translated by Hugh Tomlinson. Columbia University
Press, 1983.

Foucault, Michel. Nietzsche, Genealogy, History. Translated by Paul Rabinow. Pantheon Books,
1984.

Foucault, Michel. What Is Enlightenment? Translated by Paul Rabinow. Pantheon books, 1984.

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Translated by Reginald John

Hollingdale. Penguin Books, 1961.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good and Evil. Translated by Reginald John Hollingdale. Penguin
Books, 1973.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. On the Genealogy of Morals. Translated by Walter Kaufmann. Vintage

Books, 1967.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Twilight of the Idols: or How to Philosophize with a Hammer. Translated
by Reginald John Hollingdale. Penguin Books, 1968.

15
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra