November 6, 2007
Use of the Diagnostic as Contemporary Equipment (or not)
I decided to move a conversation a couple of us have been having in casual interactions (cafes, hallways, shared google documents) to a forum where more people might be able to participate.
To recap, basically we have been trying to think about two things: 1) we’ve been trying to think through the utility–literally, is it useful? for what?– of the diagnostic of equipmental platforms offered to us by Rabinow & Bennet; 2) I’ve been going around asserting that a) contemporary figures need to exist in relation to at least two other figures in order to combine its elements in a way appropriately called “contemporary” b) that third (contemporary) figure is more or less emergent–that is, in the process of formation– in many of our projects.
Specifically, Jerome has been concerned with the fact that it seems that, within the diagnostic, only certain kinds of things get taken up as important or as worthy of being used in the analysis (for example, it seems to be a requirement at least there there be some kind of problem to which somebody is trying to develop a more or less rational-in the sense of consistent–equipental response). Additionally, he’s been wondering (please excuse by liberty in offering such a limited characterization, Jerome) how to account for the very selection process that occurs–how does he, or anyone, make judgements about what to talk about, what to group together, what to see as having affinities, etc.
At the same time as Jerome has been doing this questioning, Anthony has been provoking me with the assertion that, among his Eurocrats, there is neither an emergent third figure nor even any sense of a problem .
I’ll offer my response to the latter (Anthony) first, in that it leads back to the former (Jerome): I would argue that Anthony’s Eurocrats aren’t operating in a contemporary mode (there’s not much contemporary about trench warfare, after all), so there should be no surprise that there’s no emergent third figure which is attempting to remediate a percieved problem.
To Jerome: Are only certain kinds of things taken up as interesting by the diagnostic out of the endless infinity of human possibility? yes. How is the decision as to which elements made? I would argue that this is the question of “mode of ontology” (how are things taken up so as that they are able to be worked on?). Inasmuch as the Diagnostic is itself an element of contemporary equipment, its proper mode of ontology–what it’s geared towards seeing and taking up as interesting–is the emergent. Quite literally it is for seeing emergence.
These means, among other things, that it is not for everything or everybody. There are modes of ontology for whih it would be inappropriate or useless. For example, if one were some kind of monk living in a mountain valley in search of eternal or transcendental truths, the examples of (what we’ve decided to call) destinctiveness and patterning that the diagnostic allows us to see what be utterly meaningless.
So we’re moving towards some kind of answer to some of our general questions: Is the diagnostic usefull? Only if what one is doing is some form of the anthropology of the contemporary. What is it useful for? Among other things (yet to be named) identifying elements of destinctiveness and patterning between projects.
But Both Jerome and Anthon’y questions have led me to another question: (How) can one take up decidedly non-contemporary objects in the contemporary mode?
One could, for example, should that our ideal typical monks are in fact engaged in developing a sort of emergent equipmental platform that allows them to beter pursue their transcendental truths. This fact would be of no concern to them. Would such an analysis still be collaboration (the mode of composition appropriate to the contemporary)? If so, we must refine what we mean by “collaboration”. If not, can we say that the anthropology of the contemporary can only be used to understand itself?