‘Power’ and ‘Becoming Insane’ and ‘Attitude’

‘Power’ and ‘Becoming Insane‘ and ‘Attitude’

By Véronic-Ting CHEN

Oneness and unity only rests in ‘word’, never in the ‘matter’.

 I recall a conversation with a neurologist about whether ‘insanity’ exists, and if it did, how. We arrive at an interesting concept, that we were not very interested in the notion of ‘insanity’ itself, in other words, to us, ‘insanity’ in ‘general’ does not exist. ‘Insanity’ only exists in ‘situations’ and ‘conditions’, that is, ‘who’, ‘with whom’, ‘when’, ‘where’, ‘why’, ‘why not’…? Only in these ‘wholes’, ‘situations’ and ‘assemblages’ does the word ‘insanity’ has a ‘referent’. Here, the significance of ‘insanity’ lies in its ‘eventualness’ and not its ‘essence’. And here, because of the ‘eventual’, ‘insanity’ gained a ‘new’ reference, such that ‘sanity’, ‘fascination,’, ‘dream’, ‘rationality’, etc. can no longer be distinguished. Such ‘attitude of observation’ no longer serve as the ‘judgement’ of words (the essence between insanity and sanity), nor the ‘micro-politics’ of the boundary between objects (insanity against fascination’,), nor the ‘fight’ between words and matter (the essences of insanity versus the eventual in insanity). Instead, it’s the ‘materialisation’ of a concept, a ‘new’ form of ‘clinical symptom’, ‘an unprecedented form of insanity’: who, with whom, when, where, how, why… What we are observing has always been the ‘process of individuation of events under certain circumstances’, not the words, the object, person, nor subject…We call that ‘becoming insane’.

The operation of our brain is not like Freud’s ‘stage’, with various characters, symbols, representations. Instead, its operation resembles the ‘factory’ of Deleuze: machines, mechanisms, installations, settings. It constantly produces desires and becomes a ‘machine of desires’.

To complete this concept, Deleuze divided the Freudian desire: we never long for a ‘matter’, a ‘word’ or any ‘object’. What we yearn for has alway been a ‘state’, a ‘whole’, a ‘collection’. We crave not for ‘daddy mummy-penis nipple’, but for ‘a world of one’s own’. As Proust puts it, ‘I hunger for not only this woman, but also the landscape surrounding her…’, ‘What a woman wants is never only a dress, but the world she can embrace wearing the dress. What a man wants is never only a woman, but the life he can live having that woman.’

It is ‘desire’ that creates a ‘world we must arrive’, rushing us to ‘leave here to go there’, compelling us to ‘become’.

We detect two kinds of ‘becoming insane’. One is Foucault’s ‘installation and becoming insane’, the other is Nietzsche’s ‘Dionysus and becoming insane’. The former is the counter effect of ‘power’: people become insane in a controlled system. They evade ‘reality’, are unable to control themselves, resulting in their ‘collapse’.  While the latter is motivated by free will: one leaves one’s ‘reality’ in search of another, to experience, to fight, to summon and to fall into ‘insanity’. Both kinds of ‘becoming insane’ coexist with ‘power’.

Here we have an interesting and important observation. Freud mentioned two concepts in his ‘Parapsychology’, ‘neuro and psychology’ (NEVROSE-PSYCHOSE). There are three clinical pathology of ‘neuropathy (dysfunction)’: hysteria (emotional breakdown); obsession (phobias, necrophilia, necrophagia, etc.; OCDs: contant hand-washing, constantly checking the gas, no self-control over one’s speech, etc.); fears (the fear of height, water, snakes, blood…). A ‘neuropathy patient’ is aware of his or her symptom but is unable to excise control over it. While the patient of ‘mental disease’ ‘creates an alternate reality’, ‘a parallel universe’: for a paranoia patient, ‘Everything are enemies/ Never is one in peace’; for a schizophrenia patient, ‘I am the king of a tribe/ Please leave me alone’; for an autism patient, ‘One room one case, there’s no one else in my world’; a ‘mental disease patient’ does not only creates his own world, but also believes in that world, and lives and dies with that world.

According to Freud, ‘The skin is like an assembly of countless dots, scars, apertures and holes, while a sock is a collection of numerous webs. We believe the neuropathy patient could only compare a sock to the female genital, and are not able to see the holes in a sock as a ground covered with vaginas…’ Comparing a sock to a vagina is fine, perhaps we do that everyday. However, seeing the countless apertures in a piece of cloth as a floor full of vaginas (and truly believe that), is simply impossible without a certain level of mental dysfunction. In a 1915 article, he wrote, ‘The neuropathy patient lean towards the “comparison and recognition” of the “representation of objects”. While a mental disease patient can only “represent” the “word itself”. It is a recognition of oral expression, instead of the comparison of the predetermined substitute of the object: it is not hole-vagina, not a piece of cloth – a ground covered with vaginas.’ Deleuze also took Salvador Dali as an example in his A Thousand Plateaus. In order to create delirium, he restlessly portrayed the ‘rhino horn’, never betraying any sign or behaviour of a neuropathy patient. However, while he further compared the chicken skin to a floor covered by rhino horns, we noticed that we have entered the terrain of insanity. It is not rhino horn-penis, but chicken skin-a floor of rhino horns-a floor of penis.

Obviously Freud has problems dealing with the ‘plural’. He cannot comprehend ‘plurality’ in insanity. He hoped to use this duplicated ‘plural’ to distinguish the ‘pleural’ in ‘neuropathy disease and the mental one’. He expected this ‘plural’ in ‘the analogy and duplication of the reality’ to ‘regulate’ the ‘pleural’ as the symptom of ‘becoming insane’. However, the ‘plurality of Freud’ is a ‘plurality in the tree structure’, a ‘family tree’. Because Freud reflected all plurals back to ‘daddy and mummy’ and the ‘family disease’. (The fear to one/ the feel to all…fall in love with one person of the same gender/ fall in love with all of the same gender…). Deleuze’s ‘one wolf or a pack of wolves’ further criticised Freud’s tendency for using ‘words’, ‘conventional none’ to grant the ‘objects’ with ‘oneness and unicity’. Even if the ‘object’ has been described (by the word) and lost its original ‘property’, psychoanalysis can still use ‘words’, its ‘symbols’ to reflect the ‘object’. Just like a ‘tree’, no matter how the branches and leaves flourish, they could be traced back to the trunk (daddy, mummy). There is a third word that acquired unlimited ‘power’ besides ‘neuropathy’ and ‘mental disease’, thanks to Freud: PERVERSION. Under this family tree, there are homosexuality, zoophilia, fetishism, pedophilia,voyeurism, exhibitionism…And only three of these are included in Freud’ s ‘becoming insane’.

Psychoanalysis has been excluded from contemporary mental healthcare system because neuropathic and mental elements coexist in many symptoms (diagnostic plural). Thus we can never grasp ‘insanity’. (The setting of the original concept of ‘insanity’ is that it’s out of control and reach of the self and the outside world…isn’t it?)

‘Insanity’ is a ‘rhizome-like plural’, ‘grass-shape plural’ (not ‘tree-shape plural’), it is the unlimited extension in all directions, some longer and some shorter, some thicker and some thinner, with no ‘primary’ nor ‘subordinate’. ‘Insanity’ constantly  ‘grow’ in one’s brain, ceaselessly ‘born’ and ‘escape’, ubiquitous ‘like a king of tribes, raised by a dozen tribes. He loves all tribes. But he has no parents, and doesn’t know which tribe he is born to be the king of…’. Just like what Virginia Woolf said, ‘I would never say that I am here, or where am I…’

Wolves can never be a singular, they are by nature a pack. It is here, and there. Its ‘plurality’ is not in the sense of quantity (despite the ‘plurality’ of the branches, the trunk is a ‘singular’). It is ‘plural’ because it cannot be counted. Every time you attempt to count it, it would present a different number. That, is ‘insanity’. We can’t observe the ‘insane’, we can only observe the process of “becoming insane”. The individual events and process, ‘who’, ‘with whom’, ‘when’, ‘where’, ‘why’, ‘why not’… And the one wolf-neuro, a pack of wolves (mental in psychoanalysis is only Freud’s attempt to demonstrate the ‘substance’ of ‘insanity’ with ‘words’). It is not only ‘uninteresting’, but also fundamentally ‘non-essential’.

Power and ‘becoming insane’ are symbiotic. Power is ubiquitous: religion, ethnic, corporate, government, gender, family, doctor, prison, school…And the most prominent characteristic is ‘I help you (to think), I prohibit you (to think)’. It is one psychoanalysis after another: categorising ‘objects’ with ‘words’, tracing the branches back to the trunk; from the child back to daddy and mummy. It is one dualism machine after another: Christianity or non-Christianity? White or black? American or African? Male or female? Peasant or engineer?… It is one control system after another: this person comes here, these people go through that door, drive round this highway, automated surveillance of the city, banks…

Jiang Zhi’s ‘attitude’ is like an observation of ‘words’ and ‘objects’, more precisely, an observation of ‘power’ and ‘becoming insane’. ‘Coyness’, ‘trembling’ and ‘tears’ are ‘between words and objects’, were given the elements of an ‘event’, and became ‘individualised’ and ‘plural’. A simple conjunction ‘and’ can expand the work: power and becoming insane and coyness; power and becoming insane and tremble; power an becoming insane and crying; power and becoming insane and attitude…

Context always exist, so does ‘power’. Yet more importantly, the ‘insanity’ and ‘plurality’ (obliquely) obstruct the birth of ‘power’: it cannot be judged, cannot be introduced to ethics, cannot be psychoanalysed: Gillian Chung’s tears, people trembling, a maiden’s coyness, we cannot tell if it is ‘performance’ or ‘documentation’, official or personal, voluntary or involuntary, ‘conscious’ or ‘subconscious’, neural or mental, Foucault or Nietzsche, ‘the power of the word restrain the becoming of the matter’ or ‘the becoming or the matter grant the word with new powers’, product of ‘power’ or ‘becoming insane’ out of free will…

The ‘state’ itself is a ‘plurality’, while this ’plural’ is the process of ‘individuation’. As a result, there is an ‘attitude’ but one which has ‘nothing to say’. They seem to be unified in ‘appearance’, but has individual ‘state’. ‘Attitude’ gains its form while ‘word’ loses its effect. ‘Attitude’ coexists with ‘events’, ‘conditions’, ‘‘states’, accompanied by who, with whom, when, where, why, how…

‘Attitude’ is a ‘becoming (insane)’. 

“权力”和“成为疯狂”和“表态”

/ 维洛尼卡

只有“词”本身有其单一性与统一性，而“物”没有。

记得有这么一次与一个神经科博士交谈关于“疯狂”是否存在，如何存在。而我们得到一个有趣的概念：我们对“疯狂”这个概念本身并没有多大兴趣，或者换句话说，“一般性”的“疯狂”对于我们而言并不存在，“疯狂”只存在于“情况”“状况”，也就是说“谁”，“与谁”，“何时”，“何地”，“为何”“为何不”……？我们只有在这些“整体”，“情况”，“集合”之中，“疯狂”这个词才能有其“所指”，“特指”。在这里，“疯狂”有意义的部分是其“事件性”，而非其“实质”，而在此，“疯狂”因其“事件性”而获得“新”的指征，直到其无法区别于“非疯狂”，“醉”，“梦”，“理智”…这个“观察态度”已经不是词与词之间的“审判法庭”（疯狂与非疯狂的实质），也已经不是物与物边界的“微型政治”（疯狂区别与醉），更不会是词与物成为主体的“夺权战争”（疯狂的实质性与疯狂的事件性），而是一个概念的“降为肉身”过程，一种“新”的“临床病征”，一种“没有未曾出现过的疯狂的形式”：谁，与谁，在何时，何地，如何，为何…我们观察的，一直是一个“事件在某个整体情况下的个体化过程”，不是词，不是物，不是人物，不是主体……

我们称之“成为疯狂”。

我们的大脑并非像佛洛伊德所说的像“舞台”一样运作：有各种角色，符号，象征，父与母，弑父娶母，信号-性号，袜子-阴道…而是德勒兹所说的像“工厂”一样运作：机器，机械，设置，装置，不断的制造“欲望”，成为“欲望机器”。

为了补足这个概念，德勒兹区分了佛洛伊德式的欲望：我们从来没有渴望一个“物”，也从来没有渴望一个“词”，更没有渴望过任何一个“客体”，我们一直的欲望都是一个“状态”，一个“整体”，一个“集合”。我们从来没有渴望过“爸爸妈妈—阴茎乳头”，我们一直渴望的都是“自己的世界”。如普鲁斯特：“我不止渴望这个女人，而且我渴望包围这个女人的这片风景…”女人的欲望不会只是一条裙子，而是穿上这条裙子后她拥有的世界，男人的欲望不会只是一个女人，而是“享有这个女人之后的人生”。

是“欲望”，为我们创造一个“必须到达的世界”，使我们“离开这里，奔向那里”，使我们去“成为”。

在德勒兹的“疯子的两种制度”中，我们嗅到了两种“成为疯狂”，一种是福柯式的“设置与成为疯狂”，另一种是尼采式的“狄俄尼索斯与成为疯狂”。前者是“权力”的反作用，人在控制性系统下成为疯狂，逃离“ 真实”，我们无法控制自身而“崩溃”，而后者则是自由意志，离开这个“真实”到达另一个“真实”，去体验，去反抗，去召唤，堕入“疯狂”。两种“成为疯狂”都与“权力”共生。

这里我们有个“有趣”而且“重要”的观察：在佛洛伊德的《超心理学》提及到的两个概念“神经与精神”（NEVROSE-PSYCHOSE）。“神经病（官能障碍）”有3个临床病理：歇斯底里（情绪崩溃），着迷/强迫（癖好：恋尸，食尸…强迫性神经病：不停洗手，不停检查煤气，无法自控语言…），恐惧（恐高，恐水，恐蛇，恐血…）。“神经病患者”其自身对其病征有意识，然而其本身无法控制。而“精神病”，是患者自身创造出“另一个不同于真实的真实”“一个平行的世界”：妄想症的“一切都是敌人/ 绝对不能让人安宁”，精神分裂症的“沙漠部落中的王/ 请让我一个人安宁”，自闭症的“一个房间一个匣子/ 我的世界没有人”…“精神病患者”不止创造了他的世界，而且相信着这个世界，与这个世界同生公存。

佛洛伊德说：“皮肤就像无数的点，无数的伤疤，无数的孔与无数的洞，而袜子就是无数的网，而我们认为神经症患者本身只能把袜子拿来与女性的生殖器官做比较，而他们无法把袜子上的一个个洞看成为满地的阴道……”“把袜子比较成阴道，这个还好，也许我们天天都会发生，然而若把一块布上的无数小点看成满地的阴道（而且信以为真），没有一点“精神失常”是做不到的…”在1915年的文章中，他又讲到：“神经症患者他们自身导向趋于对“事物的再现”的“比较与识别”，而精神病患者则只有对“词本身”的“再现”。是一种对口头表达的识别，而不是对物体已决定的代替品的比喻：不是洞-阴道，而是一块布-满地阴道”

德勒兹在《千座高原》中还提及一个达利（Salvador Dali）的例子：他为了制造“谵妄”可以一直不停的描述再现“犀牛的角”，而他从来未曾有神经症患者的征兆与言行。然而当他再把鸡皮比较成满地犀牛的角，我们察觉到这里我们已经进入了疯狂。不是犀牛角-阴茎，而是鸡皮-满地犀牛角-满地阴茎。

佛洛伊德在处理“多”上显然有问题，他无法理解疯狂里的“多”，他指望用这个复制的“多”来区分“神经（病）与精神（病）”的“多”（一个洞-一个阴道/一块布-满地阴道），他指望用这个“类比/复制现实”的“多”，来“归整”“成为疯狂”的病征的“多”。而这个“佛洛伊德的多”是“树型的多”，是“家族树”，因为所有的多，佛洛伊德都返照回“爸爸妈妈”“家族病”。（对一个人的恐惧/ 对所有人的恐惧… 爱上某一个同性/ 爱上所有同性… ）

在《一只狼或一群狼》中，德勒兹再批判了佛洛伊德觊觎于用“词”，用“通用名词”来赋予“物”一个“单一性与统一性”，即使是“物”被（词）描述出来了，失去了原有的“性质”，精神分析学依然能用“词”，用其“象征”，用其“信号”，将“物”返照，如“树”一般，不管枝叶“多”茂盛，总会顺回大树干（爸爸妈妈）。（除了“神经”与“精神”，还有另一个词在佛洛伊德的助长之下获得无限的“权力”：PERVERSION“心术不正”，归入这棵家族树的有：同性恋，恋兽，恋物，恋童，窥淫癖，裸露癖……）佛洛伊德的“成为疯狂”只有三种。

当代精神医疗，已经剔除了精神分析学这一套，因为许多病征同时具备神经性与精神性（病征的“多”），然而我们始终无法掌握“疯狂”。（“疯狂”本来这个概念的设定既为无论自身亦或外界都无法控制，无法掌握…不是吗？）

“疯狂”是“块茎型的多”“草型的多”（不是“树型的多”），四面八方的无限伸张，有的长有的短，有的粗有的细，然而没有“主要”与“不主要”，“疯狂”在脑中不断的“长”，不断的“生”，不断的“逃”，无处不在…“像是沙漠中的部落中的王，被十几个部落同时养大，他热爱着所有的部落，但是他没有父母，也不知道他究竟在哪个部落诞生为王…”；“如维吉妮亚·吴尔芙所说：我之后再也不说我在这里，或者我在那里…”

狼不可能是一只，狼本身就是一群，它在这里，也在那里，它“多”不是因为“它”数量上的“多”（树枝再“多”，树干只有“一”）；它“多”是因为“它”无法被数清楚，你每次尝试去数它，它的数目都不一样，这才是“疯狂”。我们无法观察“疯狂”，我们只能观察“成为疯狂”，一个个事件，一个个过程，“谁”，“与谁”，“何时”，“何地”，“为何”“为何不”……

而精神分析里的一只狼-神经，一群狼-精神，只是佛洛伊德尝试用“词”来给出“疯狂”的“本质”。这里不仅“无趣”，而且完全“不重要”。

权力与“成为疯狂”共生。而“权力”无处不在：宗教，种族，市场，政府，性别，家庭，医院，监狱，学校……而“权力”最大的特点是：“我帮你（思考）/ 我阻止你（思考）”，一个又一个的精神分析：用“词”将“物”分门别类，从树枝顺回树干，从孩子顺回爸爸妈妈；一个又一个的二元论机器：是基督教是非基督教？是白人是黑人？是美国人是非洲人？是男是女？是农民是工程师…一个又一个的控制性系统：这个人到这里，这些人走这个门，高速公路绕这个圈，城市自动监控系统，银行…

蒋志的“表态”，像是对“词”与对“物”的观察，更确切来说更像是对“权力”与对“成为疯狂”的观察。“娇羞”，“颤抖”与“流泪”这些“非词非物”在他的表现之下变得“事件性”“个体化”与“多”。一个简单的连词“和”能使得作品本身迅速膨胀：权力和成为疯狂和娇羞；权力和成为疯狂和颤抖；权力和成为疯狂和流泪；权力和成为疯狂和表态……

上下文一直都在，而“权力”也一直都在，然而更为重要的是，这些作品本身的“疯狂”与“多”（暧昧不清）阻止了“权力”的诞生：无法审判，无法导入伦理，无法精神分析：阿娇的流泪，人们的颤抖，女孩们的娇羞，不知是“表演”还是“记实”，不知是官方还是私人，不知是自主还是不由自主，不知是“意识”还是“潜意识”，不知是“超我”还是“本我”还是“我”，不知是神经性亦或是精神性，不知是福柯式还是尼采式，不知是“词的权力限制住物的成为”还是“物的成为赋予词新的权力”，不知是“权力”下的产物或者是自由意志的“成为疯狂”……

其“态”本身是个“多”，而这个“多”是其“个体化”的过程，使其“有态可表”，同时又“无话可说”；看似如同出一“态”，然而却“各有其态”；“态”得其型，“词”失其力。“表态”共生着“事件”，“状况”，“情况”，伴随着：谁，与谁，在何时，何地，如何，为何…

“表态”是一个“成为（