About Cause and Affect

Therefore we should not ask: 'What is power and where does it come from?', but 'How is it practised?' An exercise of power shows up as an affect, since force defines itself by its very power to affect other forces (to which it is related) and to be affected by other forces. To incite, provoke and produce (or any term drawn from analogous lists) constitute active affects, while to be incited or provoked, to be induced to produce, to have a 'useful' effect, constitute reactive affects. The latter are not simply the 'repercussion' or 'passive side' of the former but are rather 'the irreducible encounter' between the two, especially if we believe that the force affected has a certain capacity for resistance. At the same time, each force has the power to affect (others) and to be affected (by others again), such that each force implies power relations: and every field of forces distributes forces according to these relations and their variations. Spontaneity and receptivity now take on a new meaning: to affect or to be affected.

This website is an ongoing record of my essays on various topics. I aim in every one to affect joy, that is, to increase our power to act. Essay topics range from philosophy, to politics, to art, to all the lines that connect or slip between them.