(டெலூஸ்)
“To repeat is to behave in a certain manner, but in relation to something unique or singular which has no equal or equivalent. And perhaps this repetition at the level of external conduct echoes, for its own part, a more secret vibration which animates it, a more profound, internal repetition within the singular.” - Deleuze in Repetition and Difference.
I have often thought the lift that I regularly use has a mind of its own. And that is why it frustrates me more than, say the water cooler, when it works in “non-rational” and unacceptable manner. When the water cooler does not dispense with water we know that it is short on water and that it is not defunctional. But that is not so when the lift refuses to close or when it stops midway. Yes it is some technical fault and not self-inflicted, but still you can’t help thinking that it is not being fair to us. To be more specific, I often lose my mind when one of two lifts in the campus has to be manipulated for you to go to a specific floor. They are odd and even lifts - one goes only to 1, 3, 5 floors and the other to 2, 4, 6. But when two of them are available at your floor at the same time, only one opens. That could be random - of you want to go to 6th floor, the odd lift may invite you with open arms and you can’t refuse the invitation. If you press the lift button again the even may not open. You need to dispense with the odd lift (people routinely press a random floor no and send it up or down, as if on an errand) and then call upon the even lift to open for you. Yes I know this is an absurdity created by technical rigidity, well intended, though, to split the crowd and cut down the que. But unfortunately it creates more headache than intended. I used to think I am anthropomorphising the lift every time I am annoyed and that I am projecting my frustration at the mechanisation of life at the poor machine. But after coming across Deleuze’s interpretation of the “generality” of modern life I realize the real reason behind my cursing the lift. The craziness is often not in the lift but in the generality of life and the desperate attempt by the systems to impose and tie up the lose ends of generality in day-to-day life - that is the desperation of the thought leaders to create a fail-proof system, as it is attacked day in and day out by the “repetition” of living.
Before I proceed further let me briefly explain what generality and repetition mean in layman terms. Generality is the process of putting everything in a pigeon-hole and sticking labels - the scientific definitions, the laws of nature, the identification of patterns in human life, human mind, in social behaviours, in legal discourses, in culture, so much so that anything that does not fit in (variables) are either pursued and brought within the bounds of science and civilisation or thrown in the dungeon or ultimately banned from public discourse (nothing is permanently banished though- Bigg Boss watches even the inivisible happenings and unhappenings). Repetition, on the other hand, is repeating acts in a manner that they reinstate the act in its original position but still retains an amount of originality and singularity. For example, when I classify a poem as an elegy and look for more patterns to establish the pigeon-holing I am establishing generality. But when I read the poem, with my heart, I am repeating it. When repeating it is new and old at the same time. It is like creating a twin of the poem each time I iterate it. The twin is not a duplicate, it appears the same but there is a difference from the former one. It could be the new interpretation, a new emphasis given by tonal variations and even a new voice given to the poem by its performativity. A poem is so fluid that it scares the wit out of us - we run back to the critics, to Wikipedia, to find those patterns that can arrest the flow of the river, to freeze it in one place, within an identifiable framework. Its repeatability, ironically, scares us, since anything that is repeatable is threatening the original position of it. If you could sing a song it is just “a song” not “the song”, anymore. Unlike the cave allegory of Plato, no more real image and shadows exist. A shadow is a failed reflection of the original image. But if, say, a pretty girl is leaving behind another self-same pretty girl behind (in place of her shadow) everywhere she goes, it may cause plenty of confusion and problems for the identity of the girl. Not so much is the left-behind one is a copy of the pretty girl, since she is only a duplicate and the sancitity of the original is sustained. But if the shadow girl is as original as the real girl, what will happen and how is that even possible?
It can be possible only if the shadow girl is a little different from the real girl (since difference is originality), but still she is similar in terms of the potential for repetition. She may speak, think and perform like the real girl but there is a subtle difference, a variable, in her interactions and in her self-imaging. She fits and breaks out of the pattern at the same time. So, claims Deluze, singularity is maintained via repetition. If the girl is not different and is 100% exactly same as the real girl, she could be discarded as a “copy”, a wax statue or a mechanical toy. This is what happens then with duplication of products in the market. A copy of a novel is 100% same as any other copy. In fact there is no novel in the book market, but only “copies” of the novel. May be the manuscript the writer is still not finished with editing could be seen as a “book”, but no one would read or publish it as such, as a work in progress (it becomes repetition then). The moment a book is published it becomes duplication. It can be endlessly reproduced forever, without variation, (and thus no repetition) and no one will object. But it is when a book is read by people in different contexts and it lends itself to dangerous proportions by supporting certain notions that transgress the generality proposed by the state that it gets banned. No book may be banned at its production stage, as it lies, unawakened in the godown, before it is shipped out. Once it is out, a a book takes its own life and then it repeats itself, each time a little different from the other. It gets too dangerous for the state to accomodate now, not because it is varying from the dictates and ideology of the state but since it is diverging from the original text.
Now let me go back to the altercations with the lift - does it have a mind of its own?
No it does not, when its behaviour is patterned and already coded. It is a well-oiled system. It functions in the same manner, responding to different situations and demands. But when faced with the not-yet-coded variable of life (such as both lifts at the same floor and not in demand) is when the generality fails. Now when a user manipulates it (by sending one up emptily to call upon the other to use) it lends itself to the repetition of life. Now it behaves in the same manner - you press the button to a floor and it takes you there. If it is an even lift it only takes you to an even floor. But the manipulation makes it behave in an “odd” manner, which makes the process repetitive - it is same but singular and unique. The reason for it to sound crazy initially is that it refuses to “repeat” itself. It sounds “bull-headed” when it says it cannot vary an action and still repeat it. It sound “absurd” and “dumb” to us when it says it can only repeat without varying. It sounds “crazy” when it refuses to behave as a “human”, like us. It makes us curse when it asks us to become like it - a machine.
Reference
Deleuze. Tr. Paul Patton. “Introduction: Repetition and Difference”, P. 19. Repetition and Difference. New York: Colombia University Press, 1994. Print.
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