Gilles Deleuze on Bartleby’s formula as resistanceTim Christiaens Master student at Catholic University Leuven, Belgium tim.christiaens@student.kuleuven.be

ABSTRACTGilles Deleuze claims that Bartleby, from Herman Melville’sshort story, is a figure of resistance. The repetitiveutterance of the formula “I would prefer not to” marks thebasis for a new society that can live up to the promise ofdemocracy. Deleuze interprets this formula as an agrammaticalresistance. Just like the laws of grammar limit our capacitiesto speak, the laws of our social lives bind us to particularidentities. Agrammatical resistance is a blissful forgetfulnessof these laws. Bartleby starts out as a subordinated office-clerk obeying laws he had no interest in. The paradigmaticimage is that sons obediently bowing for the authority of thefather. The stubborn resistance of the formula shows theemergence of Bartleby as a singularity that cannot be subsumedunder any law. The resulting community of brothers without a

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father renders the law inoperative by basing itself on theabsolute potentiality of singularities and love.

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Gilles Deleuze on Bartleby’s formula asresistance

"And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal of life is life itself? That is why life isalways like a sketch. No, "sketch" is not quite the word, because a sketch is an outlineof something, the groundwork for a picture, whereas the sketch that is our life is asketch for nothing, an outline with no picture. " - M. Kundera1

1. INTRODUCTION

A lot of philosophers have engaged with Melville's short story"Bartleby, the scrivener"2 to talk about resistance.3 One ofthese thinkers is Gilles Deleuze. The story involves an office-clerk, Bartleby, living an unfulfilling life copying legaltexts. One day he refuses to do his job and this refusal leadshim to a life completely outside the laws of society andlanguage. Deleuze analyzes Bartleby's formula "I would prefernot to" as an agrammaticality that ruptures the functioning oflanguage and the law. It points to an outside from which we canescape the dominance of the law. This form of resistance willbe the subject of this article. Firstly, we will give a quickoverview of Melville's short story. Afterwards, we will examineagainst what Bartleby resists. What is this law and what iswrong with it? Thirdly, we will see in what sense the formula"I would prefer not to" is a kind of resistance, which willlead us to the question what kind of community Deleuze imaginesbeyond the law. Lastly, we will answer a criticism by AlexanderCooke, who claims that agrammatical resistance is easily

1 M. Kundera (2009), The unbearable lightness of being, p. 8.2 H. Melville (2004), "Bartleby, the scrivener: a story of Wall-Street" in Great short works of Herman Melville, pp. 39-74 (henceforth BTS).3 Examples are Gilles Deleuze (G. Deleuze (1993), "Bartleby, ou la formule" in Critique et clinique, pp. 89-114; henceforth BOLF), Giorgio Agamben (G. Agamben (1999), "Bartleby, or on contingency" in Potentialities, pp. 243-271) and Antonio Negri & Michael Hardt (A. Negri & M. Hardt (2000), Empire).

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incorporated by the law and therefore becomes impotent.4 At theend we should come to see three points. (1) Society as nowadaysstructured be general laws subordinating life torepresentations we are commanded to imitate. (2) Agrammaticalresistance shows that life can never be fully incorporated inthis system. Every singular life contains infinitepotentialities. (3) The law can be subordinated to thesepotentialities of life by grounding society in fraternal love.

2. BARTLEBY, THE SCRIVENER: A STORY OF WALL-STREET

Bartleby starts working as a scrivener in a lawyer's office."At first, Bartleby did an extraordinary quantity of writing.As if long famishing for something to copy, he seemed to gorgehimself on my documents."5 After a few days the lawyer-narratorasks him to proofread a text, but "without moving from hisprivacy, Bartleby, in a singularly mild, firm voice replied,' Iwould prefer not to.'"6 He resists the order of his boss, butnot because he wants to rebel against his authority. He onlyprefers not to, but this says nothing about what he wants.7 Thelawyer-narrator is so disarmed by this reply that he doesn'teven sanction it. Even more, he starts to feel friendship forBartleby and wants to help him. As time goes by Bartleby startsto passively refuse more and more tasks until he ends upstaring out of the office window, doing nothing. Even when heis fired, he prefers not to leave. The lawyer becomes sodesperate that he moves his entire office to the other side ofNew York. Even then Bartleby does not leave and he haunts thebuilding until he is moved to 'the Tombs'.8 Eventually Bartlebystops preferring to eat and 'goes to sleep with the Kings andCounsellors.'9 "Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!"10

4 A. Cooke (2005), "Resistance, potentiality and the law: Deleuze and Agamben on Bartleby" in Angelaki, vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 79-89.5 BTS, p. 46.6 Ibid., p. 47.7 Ibid., p. 52.8 Ibid., p. 70.9 Ibid., p. 73.10 Ibid., p. 74.

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3. RESISTANCE AGAINST PATERNAL COMMUNITY

Bartleby does not immediately look like a Messiah, let alone ademocratic one. If we want to agree with Deleuze that Bartlebyannounces a new democratic Messianism,11 we ought first to knowagainst what this strange Messiah reacts. What is soproblematic that we need a new Messiah? Deleuze's answer isthat we need the dissolution of the paternal function to givebirth to a new mankind.12 Firstly, we will examine the wrongsof paternal community. What this new mankind should be is thetopic of part 5.

Deleuze borrows heavily from Lacanian psychoanalysis todescribe paternal community.13 It is a way of living togetherthat is founded on identification and mimetic rivalry.14 When asubject (the son) identifies himself with an image orrepresentation (the father), he must perform a certain effortto imitate and appropriate the image. This operation riskseither to fall into neurosis (when the subject cannot handlethe image of the father) or narcissism (when the subjectappropriates the image too much). In both cases the relationbetween the son and the father is marked by mimetic rivalry, oraggressivity in Lacanian psychoanalysis.15 For Lacan the imageshows a kind of unity that cannot be achieved by theidentifying subject and it threatens the body withdisintegration.16 The body reacts with a latent aggressivitytowards the image. A good example of this is the effect of

11 BOLF, p. 112.12 Ibid., p. 108.13 Gilles Deleuze collaborated throughout his career numerous times with thepsychoanalyst Félix Guattari. The latter had been a student and patient of Jacques Lacan and was sometimes even viewed as his possible successor. The publication of the highly critical book Anti-Oedipus, co-written by Guattari and Deleuze, put an end to the close relationship between Lacan and Guattari. (See: F. Dosse (2010), Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari: intersecting lives)14 BOLF, p. 99.15 Ibid., p. 99; J. Lacan (1999), "Aggressivity in psychoanalysis" in Ecrits: a selection, pp. 8-29.16 D. Evans (1996), "Aggressivity" in An introductory dictionary of Lacanian psychoanalysis, p. 6.

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seeing one's specular image in the mirror without knowing thatone is viewing oneself.17 This never leaves a good impression.Our natural response to our own image is one of repulsion,because it is a unity that haunts the chaos that is our realself.

Apart from the imaginary function as an image ofidentification, the father serves a second role in Lacaniantheory. When Deleuze talks about "une fonction paternelle"18 he isquoting Lacan who uses the paternal function, the name-of-the-father and the symbolic father as synonyms.19 The function ofthe father is to impose the law and thereby to give rise todesire in the subject. The father is the one who prohibits theDualunion between the child and the mother by establishing theOedipus complex and the fear of castration. 20 The law showsitself at first as a prohibition that is essentially linked tolanguage. The name-of-the-father (le nom-du-père) is the no-of-the-father (le non-du-père).21 Through barring direct contact withthe mother, the child can only have access to her byidentifying with the paternal function (with mimetic rivalry asa result) and by subjecting himself to the law of the father.Both Lacan and Deleuze use language as the paradigmatic exampleof the law. For Lacan the law imposes a social role or identityupon the child that pre-exists it and it establishes languageas a way of relating to the desired object within the paternalprohibition. As a result, desire is the lack of a lost object(manque-à-être) that one can never fill, for one needs to17 Freud comments on this experience in S. Freud (1999), "Das Unheimliche” in Gesammelte Werke: Werke aus den Jahren 1917-1920, pp. 262-263n1.18 BOLF, p. 99.19 D. Evans (1996), "Father" in An introductory dictionary of Lacanian psychoanalysis, p.62.20 Lacan’s critique of the Oedipus complex is not so much directed against the theory of prohibition rendering access to enjoyment of the mother impossible, but against the claim that transgressing this prohibition is still possible. In the Greek myth Oedipus can enjoy his mother after killing his father. In his later writings, Lacan claims that such enjoymentis not only forbidden, but also impossible. (See: D. Evans (1996), "Signifying chain" in An introductory dictionary of Lacanian psychoanalysis, p. 130).21 See for example the odd translation of his lectures in English, where theterm 'No/Name of the Father' is used: J. Lacan (2008), The ethics of psychoanalysis.

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transgress the law to achieve the lost object, but thistransgression eliminates the identity of the desiringsubject.22 Transgressing the law means transgressing theindividual identity founded on the law and identification. Lesymbole est le meurtre de la Chose in the sense that language blocksthe direct way to objects and instead forces them intorepresentations. Because of the law, the subject is doomed toeternally circle around the desired object without reaching it.

Deleuze agrees with Lacan's description of the linkbetween language and the law, but comes to an oppositeconclusion. According to Deleuze, language, from the standpointof the law (in the short-story symbolized by the lawyer-narrator), has two functions. (1) It suggests a system ofreferences or assumptions that permit language to designate.23

Language needs a system of rules whereby words are put in acertain order for them to be able to reach out to the world.Every word assumes possible replacements and completions.Sentences can mostly be restated in other words and whenever Istart an utterance, the more I say, the less possible outcomesremain. “You can help …” has a more limited reach than “You can…”. The possibility of replacing and finishing utteranceassumes an image we can use to endeavor the eventual meaning ofa sentence. Just as in Lacan, this presupposes that the thingitself (la Chose) is substituted for its representation. (2)Language also presupposes a regulation of speech-acts.24 Whenone speaks, one is performing a social deed that has to belinked to a social role. I cannot marry right now, because I amnot in the social role of someone who is engaged to a woman andstands at the altar. Even if I say, "I do," after a friend saidthe same words as the priest does at a marriage, my speech-actwill not consecrate the marriage, for neither I nor my friendare the appropriate persons for these speech-acts. I have to

22 J. Lacan (1988), The ego in Freud's theory and in the technique of psychoanalysis, p. 223; D. Evans (1996), "Signifying chain" in An introductory dictionary of Lacanian psychoanalysis, pp. 187-188; Lacan calls this experience of transgression ‘jouissance’ (J. Lacan (2008), The ethics of psychoanalysis, p. 217).23 BOLF, p. 95.24 Ibid., p. 95.

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subject myself to these laws in order to become a subject, or,in other words, I have to become a particular within a systemthat has its own logic independent of me. Opposing Lacanhowever, Deleuze does not conclude that the life of thisparticular is doomed to search an unreachable outside. Desireis not a lack, but a productive force.25 We can summarize thedebate between Lacan and Deleuze as follows: both view languageas a system ultimately founded on prohibition, but for Lacanthis prohibition encages us in language and we spend the restof our lives trying to reconnect with what we have lost, whilefor Deleuze we are never fully emerged in language. Instead,the subject is always already outside language and the law, butto support this claim Deleuze needs the figure of Bartleby.

4. AGRAMMATICAL RESISTANCE

The first description Deleuze gives of Bartleby's "I wouldprefer not to" is that it is a formula. He does not howeverstate clearly what a formula is. In a criticism of the article,Jacques Rancière starts with this topic.26 He distinguishes itfrom the story (l'histoire) and the symbol (le symbole). A story isan intrigue where the meaning of the text coincides with thetale being told. When I tell my friend a story of what I havejust seen on the parking lot, I am in no way communicating anyhidden messages. The story is simply about the event on theparking lot and nothing more. A symbol, on the other hand, is asign that allegorically designates a hidden meaning that can bediscovered through interpretation. Maybe I am having an affairwith this friend of mine and there are people around who don’tknow about it. In that case my story about the parking lot canbe a symbol of a message to be interpreted by my friend. Aformula, thirdly, is a performance in the sense that it is a

25 G. Deleuze & F. Guattari (2004), Anti-Oedipus, p. 5; R. Laermans (2009), "Verlangen" in E. Romein et al. (ed.), Deleuze compendium, p. 240.26 J. Rancière (1998), "Deleuze, Bartleby et la formule littéraire" in La chair des mots, p. 179; We will not examine this criticism, because it deserves a study on its own. Rancière presupposes a lot of information about both Deleuze's text and his own philosophy.

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material deed that fulfills the materiality of a text. There issomething about a formula that makes it impossible to separatethe material utterance from the meaning. For instance, I canfind a little note written by my deceased grandfather verymeaningful, even when whatever he has written is not veryinformative. I do not look for a hidden meaning, nor is itmeaning reducible to the information in the note. Instead themeaning is inextricably attached to the materiality of theutterance (in casu the act of writing). All literature has somethingof a formula. The way things are said, the texture of the text,the sound of the words are just as important as the story orits hidden symbols. By saying “I would prefer not to" Bartlebyperforms such a deed typical for literature as such. Heperforms a speech-act in such a way as to render the world ofrepresentations inoperative.27 Representation as a term with ameaning that is either instantly transparent (story) or onlyafter study (symbol), is surpassed by something it cannotrecuperate. The mere act of refusal shown in the formula cannotbe exhaustively rendered into meaning, and yet representationand meaning are not irrelevant. You still need to know themeaning of the words in the formula to understand Bartleby’sspeech-act as a refusal. Consequently, the speech-act rendersrepresentation inoperative, but not superfluous. Languageserves something else that is outside of, but not unrelated toit.

Deleuze describes Bartleby's formula "I would prefer notto" secondly as an agrammaticality.28 An agrammaticality is anutterance that turns the ordinary rules of grammar on its headwithout becoming nonsensical sound. It undermines the rules oflanguage without consciously opposing them. For instance, whensomeone wants to declare his love for someone else, sometimeshe is so nervous that instead of "I am in love with you" hesays for example "You are with love in me". Instead ofstuttering himself, he has, as it were, made language itself

27 Ibid., p. 180.28 BOLF, p. 89.

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stutter.29 In the same way Bartleby's formula ruptures thefoundations of language. Hence an agrammaticality is notantigrammatical. Ordinary grammar is not combatted againstthrough opposition, but it is rather ignored or forgotten. Thestructure of the formula fins its origin not in the rules oflanguage dictated by grammatical laws, but somewhere else. Wehave already seen that Deleuze describes representationallanguage as a system of rules of regulating the reference ofwords and the interaction of speech-acts. The formulaundermines both.30 (1) Representational language rests onassumptions that can complete or replace sentences. Everysentence is an image put into words. The formula hinges onsomething irreplaceable, namely the materiality of a speech-actwithin space and time that can never be perfectly repeated.There is no abstract image corresponding to this.Paradoxically, the result is that words, things and actions areradically disconnected. Bartleby no longer reproduces a fixedorder of appropriate words for predetermined thingsaccompanying expectable actions. When the representationsunderlying our use of language are undermined, all words canmean anything and hence all words are qua meaning,indistinguishable. The result is a void within language, or azone of indistinction where words become meaningless stains ona piece of paper or sounds from a clerk’s mouth. (2) Bartlebyalso ceases to have a social role. He does not abide to hisrole as subordinate to his boss, the lawyer-narrator, butneither does he clearly oppose him in order to become a rebel."I would prefer not to" is not a will to nothingness, but arising nothingness of the will.31 He accepts nor denies hissocial role, but instead prefers not to bother with it. Hiswill is unimportant, because it can only relate to the law (asaffirmation or negation), while Bartleby has left the realm ofthe law altogether.

29 G. Deleuze (1993), "Bégaya-t-il" in Critique et clinique, p. 135.30 BOLF, p. 95.31 Ibid., p. 92.

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A metaphor may help to understand Deleuze’s writings onagrammaticality. Before the gates of Hell there is a realmcalled Limbo. There dwell the unbaptized with no other faultthan original sin. During their lives they were deprived of thevision of God and consequently in the afterlife they have toremain in darkness deprived of the Divine Light. Thispunishment cannot be as afflictive as the ones in Hell, sincethe inhabitants of Limbo have not done anything actually wrongand they cannot know what they miss, since they were neverinformed about God. Giorgio Agamben suggests that we shouldenvisage Limbo as a realm of happiness.32 God’s Divine Law doesnot affect the inhabitants of Limbo, since they have alwaysalready forgotten it. Even if God wanted to punish them byforgetting Limbo, it would be ineffective, since they would beignorant about the punishment. An agrammaticality performs thesame function in language. The laws of grammar have noauthority over the formula, since the formula has forgottenabout grammar. The formula stands outside the realm of the lawand every judgment about erroneous speech-acts is irrelevant.The lawyer-narrator would not affect Bartleby by telling him heis not in a position to speak like that to his boss orcorrecting him on his flawed language. The agrammatical formulaarises not from the laws of grammar, but from the singular lifeof Bartleby.

It is not because the law does not affect Bartleby thatBartleby does not affect the law. His formula renderslinguistic laws inoperative in the sense that language nowserves life instead of vice versa. Normally the law behavessyllogistically. For every man it is forbidden to murder, I ama man and hence I should not murder. The ‘I’ in theaforementioned sentence is completely defined by the syllogismit takes part in. All attributes derive from a generalstructure determining the particular parts. Bartleby showsanother possibility. In the formula his singular lifedetermines the general attributes of language. The laws thatform the agrammatical formula are determined by life. 32 G. Agamben (2009), The coming community, pp. 5-6.

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We should however be careful in reading Deleuze'scriticism of representational language through the formula ofBartleby. Representationalism was already criticized from acompletely different angle. Some philosophers, like HermannUsener or Ernst Cassirer, claimed that the origin of languagewas not the representation of signifieds through signifiers.They also talk about something more original within language,but for them this is mythic language. Myth is that languagewhere the signifier and the signified are identical. This isnot as foreign as it sounds. When someone would ask us to burna photograph of a loved one, we would hesitate. We know thatthe photograph as signifier is unrelated to the personsignified. Burning the picture would not say anything about ourlove for this person, because it is only a picture. Still wedeeply believe that there is some inner bond between thesignifying photo and the signified person. The same phenomenonmanifests itself in religious language. We do not curse God’sname or use a Bible as toilet paper, because we feel that GodHimself is in His name or text.

That Deleuze does not intend to speak about myth is clearfrom his reference to Odysseus.33 He links Bartleby's claim ofnot being a particular to Odysseus saying to be no one (oudeis).Odysseus answered this to the cyclops Polyphemus, who askedOdysseus's name. Odysseus tricks Polyphemus exactly because thelatter uses mythical language. When Polyphemus hears that he istalking to Oudeis, he really believes that he is talking to noone. Signifier and signified are inseparably linked. Odysseusis exactly the one who ruptures this link. Odysseus becomes noone, a man without references by rupturing the link betweensignifier and signified.34 Bartleby's formula, just asOdyseus's, should thus be viewed as breaking the link betweensignifiers and signifieds in such a way as letting signifiersbecome autonomous forces without reference to the worldoutside. The signifier without signifieds becomes the pure

33 BOLF, p. 96.34 For a more thorough analysis: see T.W. Adorno & M. Horkheimer (1997), The dialectic of enlightenment, pp. 60-69.

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potentiality of being able to mean anything and therefore actuallythey mean nothing. The name is reduced to oudeis.

Contrary to Lacan therefore, Bartleby shows the existenceof an outside of the law and language. Deleuze claims that theformula pushes language to its limits "in order to find theOutside, silence or music".35 Where for Lacan the outside oflanguage and the law is an absence (La Chose est aussi l' A-Chose)36,for Deleuze it is abundance.

The question then becomes what this outside is. Theoutside of the law, which doesn't need its judgment, is lifeitself. "C'est la vie qui justifie, elle n'a pas besoin d'être justifié."37Tounderstand this, we should examine the criticism againstpsychoanalysis that Deleuze develops in the paragraph of thejust quoted passage.38 Deleuze argues that psychoanalysis doesnot grant an outside to the law, because it is itself arepresentative of the law. The psychoanalyst is the one whojudges every affect, dream or slip of the tongue of thepatient. He gives and demands reasons for every action of thepatient and thereby puts behavior under the rule of reason.This is reminiscent of Foucault's genealogy ofpsychoanalysis.39 The latter finds its origin in the practiceof confession, where the sinner must submit himself to arelation of power in order to expose his life to the priest. Hemust confess all his deeds and particularly all the(unconscious) thoughts that accompanied them. The psychoanalystis not the liberator of desire, because in truth "one shouldnot think that desire is repressed, for the simple reason thatthe law is what constitutes both desire and the lack on whichit is predicated."40 In psychoanalysis reason and the lawgovern.41 If Deleuze wants to liberate desire and life, he

35 BOFL, p. 94.36 J. Lacan (2008), The ethics of psychoanalysis, p. 169.37 BOFL, p. 104.38 Ibid., pp. 104-10539 M. Foucault (1998), History of sexuality (1): The will to knowledge, pp. 58-73.40 Ibid., p. 81.41 Lacan seems to realize this problem, but does not give an adequate solution. He only claims that the psychoanalyst should approach the patient"in a discreet fraternity", but he does not develop what this attitude

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cannot subject them to the law. Instead he must show thatdesire and life are not a lack of being (manque-à-être)emanating from the law, but productive forces outside the law.Life justifies itself and does not need justification fromabove.

Deleuze resolves the tension between life and the law byclaiming that life is absolute potentiality.42 Life under thelaw is determined by properties that block potentiality, orterritorialize life within a strict system. One's identity can,for instance, be determined by being a German, a white male,etc. These identifications are images that construct our morefluid bodies within socially manageable constraints, but theyrefer ultimately to the paternal function. We can only beparticulars within a paternal community. When Bartleby saysthat he is not a particular, he shows another possibility.43

Maybe we can be living beings without being determined within alegal system. Instead of a particularity, Bartleby is asingularity. The difference is that man as a particular isdefined through the representational qualities he receives fromthe law (German, white, male, etc.). In order to become anindividual subject, he must first be subjected to the law.Deleuze opposes to this view on subjectivity the idea of thehomo tantum.44 The grand utopias of the modern world (America andthe Soviet-Union) were founded on the hope of man having to benothing more than man. No longer should he be defined by hisnation or his class. The call for a homo tantum is a call for anationless and classless society. Deleuze claims that this barelife of man is not an abstract substance without meanings, butthe source or process of infinite meanings that can never bedomesticated to a fixed identity. For instance, the migrant whoarrived in the United States hoping to achieve 'the Americandream', is nationless and classless, but not in the sense of

should be (see: J. Lacan (1999), "Aggressivity in psychoanalysis" in Ecrits: a selection, p. 29).42 BOFL, p. 109; This point is also stressed by Agamben (see: G. Agamben (1999), "Bartleby, or on contingency" in Potentialities, pp. 254-255).43 BTS, p. 69.44 BOFL, p. 110.

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being empty or experiencing a lack of identity. Instead heexperiences an abundance of multiple identities. He can becomeanything and anyone. The homo tantum is not a lack of being, butthe absolute potentiality of becoming.

5. THE POSSIBILITY OF FRATERNAL COMMUNITY

Opposed to paternal community, Bartleby is a Messiah offraternal community. The latter is no longer based onidentification, but on becoming. "Ce n'est plus une question de Mimésis,mais de devenir."45 Deleuze reports three important shifts.46 (1)The expressed form (forme exprimée) is substituted for the traitof expression (trait d'expression), which means that therepresentation of the father is abolished. Instead a multitudeof expressions, such as Bartleby's formula, arise from ahorizontal network of singularities. (2) The subject no longerhopelessly imitates an image, but identifies with the other bybecoming indistinguishable from her. For example, a drag queendoes not identify with a woman by imitating the image offemininity. Instead a drag queen is becoming-woman byinhabiting a zone where man and woman are no longerdistinguishable. The drag queen becomes 'androgynous' in theliteral sense of the term. (3) The result is universalfraternity without a father. All singularities are related toone another without being linked to a transcendent lawstructuring the whole.

Here it becomes necessary to discuss a criticism leveledby Alexander Cooke in an article called "Resistance,potentiality and the law: Deleuze and Agamben on Bartleby".47

His critique gives a good opportunity to delineate the exactcontours of fraternal community. Cooke claims that Deleuze (andAgamben) overlooks a key passage in Melville's text that issymptomatic for agrammatical resistance:

45 Ibid., p. 100.46 Ibid., pp. 100-101.47 A. Cooke (2005), "Resistance, potentiality and the law: Deleuze and Agamben on Bartleby" in Angelaki, vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 79-89 (henceforth RPL).

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"'Prefer not, eh?' gritted Nippers. 'I'd prefer him, if I were you,sir,' addressing me [the lawyer-narrator]. 'I'd prefer him, I'dgive him preferences, the stubborn mule! What is it, sir, pray,that he prefers not to do now?' Bartleby moved not a limb. 'Mr.Nippers,' said I, 'I'd prefer that you would withdraw for thepresent.'"48

While Deleuze stresses the use of the word 'prefer' in only onesense, Melville uses it in three ways.49 (1) Bartleby says "Iwould prefer not to" as a kind of passive resistancecharacterized as agrammatical resistance. (2) Nippers, one ofthe other copyists, uses it as a negation of resistance andthus reinforces the transcendent law. (3) The lawyer-narratorsubsequently uses it to exercise his authority as Nippers'sboss. Deleuze undermines his thesis by not mentioning thesecond and third usage. If the logic of preference can evenexercise paternal authority, there is no use in claiming thatagrammatical resistance actually works. It seems as if the lawcan easily incorporate Bartleby's resistance. Cooke links thisto the criticism of Negri and Hardt.50 They see Bartleby as afigure of absolute refusal. Although refusal is certainly thebeginning of liberatory politics, it is not revolution initself. "What we need is to create a new social body, which isa project that goes well beyond refusal. [...]. This projectleads not toward the naked life of homo tantum, but towardhomohomo, humanity squared, enriched by collectiveintelligence and love of the community."51 Cooke forgets tomention collective intelligence and only talks about the imageof love.52 This is not however a big problem, since Hardt andNegri's notion of collective intelligence is to a large extentinspired by Deleuze. Collective intelligence, or the generalintellect, is the knowledge produced by the multitude (anassemblage of singularities with a common absolute48 BTS, p. 58.49 RPL, p. 87.50 Ibid., p. 88; A. Negri & M. Hardt (2000), Empire, pp. 203-204.51 A. Negri & M. Hardt (2000), Empire, p. 204.52 RPL, p. 88.

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potentiality) in immaterial labor.53 In contemporarypostfordist economy, workers no longer primarily producematerial goods, like cars, refrigerators or chairs. Instead themain products of labor are communication, ideas and affects. Ahairdresser, for instance, does not simply produce hairstyles,but primarily a 'good feeling' for the client. Or a businessmanager does not produce goods, but public relations orinnovative ideas for his company. These immaterial goods canonly be produced by a collective of workers that is notstructured hierarchically, but horizontally. A brainstorm, forexample, works only when workers can speak freely andcreatively and are not hindered by a boss that determines theoutcome on beforehand. “[People] need an expanding web ofothers with whom to communicate and collaborate; the boss isincreasingly merely an obstacle to getting work done.”54 Theimportant point however is Cooke's and Hardt and Negri's claimthat the story of Bartleby and Deleuze's description of it lackan image of love to turn agrammatical resistance into more thansimple abstinence from the law. Turning away from the law doesnot in itself produce something new.

We can complement Cooke's criticism with a radicalizationof his claim that the law can easily incorporate agrammaticalresistance. Is the dissolution of the father desirable?Psychoanalysis knows already since Freud that it is easy tomurder the father and thereby establish a community ofbrothers. The problem is that this deterritorialized communitywould fall into chaos. Once the law is destroyed, the brothersstart a bellum omnium contra omnes. They can only resolve theconflict by inventing an imagined father (the totem) to whichthey can give the authority of the law again. This is the storyof the primal horde.55 This means that Deleuze's homo tantum canonly exist virtually. In actuality, as soon as the community ofbrothers would be realized it would annihilate itself from theinside out. 53 For a more thorough analysis: see A. Negri (2008), Reflections on Empire, pp. 60-79.54 A. Negri & M. Hardt (2011), Commonwealth, p. 353.55 S. Freud (1999), Gesammelte Werke: Totem und Tabu, pp. 178-179.

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We can summarize Cooke's criticism as follows: (1a)Deleuze's agrammatical resistance can easily be incorporated inthe realm of the law and (1b), according to Freud, it shouldeven be avoided. (2) Deleuze's depiction of the fraternalcommunity lacks an image of love to give something positive toit, something beyond mere naked refusal. We can elucidateDeleuze's theory of fraternal community by answering thesecritiques.

(1a) Deleuze knows very well that agrammatical formulascan be taken up in the law. The confusion lies in the fact thatDeleuze calls his own theory messianic, while this evokes anotion of absolute salvation in the mind of the reader.Bartleby, as a Messiah, seems to be presented as the one whowill solve all the world's problems and instigate a new era ofhumanity. However Deleuze’s messianic does not concern apromise of ultimate reconciliation where all conflicts,struggles or oppositions will be pacified. He rather invokes aworld that is opposite to this. Instead of showing the way tosalvation through revolution, Deleuze wants to perpetuate theevent of revolution itself. Conflict and difference should notbe resolved, but should be given the space to carry themselvesout. As long as people will be different, we will need asociety that can take difference into account. Most politicaltheories agree with this, but want to restrict difference tosome manageable degrees.56 Deleuze, on the other hand, putsmore trust in difference.

If we read Deleuze's claims about the Messianic morecarefully, we see that he opposes it to two other principles,namely salvation and charity.57 Both are, as theologicalconcepts, dependent on a transcendent God who dictates the law.In the case of salvation, an other (the Messiah) is arepresentative of that law and judges the lives of all men.58

56 For instance, John Rawls allows for different views on the good life, butonly within an overlapping consensus about justice. (See: J. Rawls (2001), Justice as fairness, pp. 89-94.)57 BOLF, p. 112.58 This seems to be close to Derrida's notion of the democracy to-come. The Messiah is an absent-present figure of salvation that comes from above. He

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On the Day of Judgment Christ returns to earth to judge ourlives by a Divine Standard. In the case of charity, one becomesoneself a representative of the law to love thy neighbour. Bothsalvation and charity fall into the trap of making individualsinto particulars within a divine plan. God has alreadyconfigured the ultimate structure (or law) of the world andhumanity is either subjected to it through a Messianic comingor subjects itself to it through love for the neighbour.

What is new about the messianism Deleuze wants to discussis that it is essentially democratic.59 Democracy means thatpower is with the people and that this power is distributedequally. This is a completely different image than salvation orcharity, where the subject renounces from power in order togive it to a transcendent God. Power in democracy does notdisappear, but is only reconfigured. Deleuze borrows here fromFoucault's analytics of power.60 He makes a distinction betweenviolence and force.61 Violence is directed towards passiveobjects, things that are completely determined by the violencethat oppresses it. These things are then particulars within apre-determined system against which they can undertake nothing,since they are deprived of any agency. Force, on the otherhand, is directed not to objects, but to other forces. Power isthen a relation of forces. This means that power is marked by akind of equality in the sense that both poles of a powerrelations are equally forces, they only differ in strength.Another consequence is that power can never be localized in asingle individual or institution.62 Every force presupposes acounter-force to which it relates. This means that all powerrelations are also relations of resistance. In democracy no onecan occupy the empty place of sovereignty, since all powercomes at the cost of resistance in such a way that no one can

transcends history, since he is absolute alterity (see: J. Derrida (1994), Specters of Marx). For Deleuze, on the other hand, Messianic democracy is immanent and not a transcendent figure to-come. It is already here as an unrealized potentiality (namely absolute potentiality itself).59 That is why he writes 'démocratique' in cursive (see: BOLF, p. 112).60 M. Foucault (1994), "Le sujet et le pouvoir" in Dits et écrits IV, pp. 222-243.61 G. Deleuze (1986), Foucault, p. 36.62 Ibid., pp. 33-34.

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transcend the interplay of forces to become the sole dominatorof life.

(1b) Does not this idea of power confirm Freud's warning?Is this interplay of forces not the anarchy of the bellum omniumcontra omnes of the primal horde? As a careful reader ofFoucault, Deleuze knows that viewing power as a relation ofcompeting forces does not entail anarchy, but can in fact bevery ordered. This order is called a diagram. A diagram is acartography of forces.63 It is a model by which power-relationsare structured in such a way that a single case (for instance,the panoptic prison) becomes a paradigmatic example for thepower-relations in other domains (schools, hospitals,factories, etc.) while remaining immanent to those power-relations. The panopticon, for example, was not developed as athought experiment apart from socio-political practice. It wasa defined strategy within an already existing field of power-relations (the prison). It gives form to a multiplicity offorces. Deleuze argues for a society where different diagramscan co-exist and interact without having to be subordinated toone diagram pretending to transcend the rest. Such a society isnot a system of the law, in which the particulars no longerhave agency and therefore cannot resist the diagram, but acommunity with several peripheral resistances (e.g. delinquentshiding from the panoptic gaze) and nodal points of power (theprison officer). Every force has the capacity to subvert adiagram and institute another. The system of law we have thusfar described, can be one of those diagrams, but it iscertainly not the only one.

There is however one major difference between viewing thelaw as a system or as a diagram. As a system its particularslack agency and cannot therefore resist it and overthrow it foranother diagram. The system has no outside. The singularitiesof Deleuze's democracy however "are always ready to liberatethemselves to accomplish themselves."64 Singular life is alwaysalready the law’s outside. The law as diagram presupposes the

63Ibid., p. 42.64 BOLF, p. 112.

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agency of the singularities that produce it. This comes closeto what Agamben calls the free use of the law.65 Both forDeleuze and Agamben, the law should not be abolished foranarchy to take over. Instead the law can remain, but renderedinoperative.66 Instead of blocking the absolute potentiality oflife with the law, the law is subordinated to potentiality,which means that singularities change the law as their immanentpower-relations change.

"One day humanity will play with law as children play withdisused objects, not in order to restore them to theircanonical use but to free them from it for good. What is foundafter the law is not a more original and proper use value thatprecedes law, but a new use that is born only after it."67

After Bartleby's resistance to the law, it is not restored tosomething more original (for instance, a mythic law andlanguage), but it becomes the object of an incessant play offorces. These forces harbor an absolute potentiality toreconfigure the ordered structure of the democratic communityof brothers.

(2) Is this community without love? On first sight Cooke,Hardt and Negri seem to be right. Deleuze hardly mentions lovein his article and if he does, it is in a negative sense. Heopposes Christian love in the sense of charity, as is alreadyexplained, and he calls the fraternal community "la communautédes célibataires".68 Celibacy does not seem to be a paradigm forlove, especially if he already eliminated pastoral love(charity). Is there then no positivity in Bartleby'sresistance? Is it only absolute refusal?

I will in this article propose that love is thefundamental affect of resistance, as argued for by Negri and

65 G. Agamben (2000), "Une biopolitique mineure" in Vacarme, vol. 10, p. 4-10, http://www.vacarme.org/article255. html [retrieved 09/05/2013].66 'Inoperativity" is here the English translation of 'inoperosità', which is again the translation of Blanchot's notion of 'désoeuvrement'.67 G. Agamben (2005), The state of exception, p. 64.68 BOFL, p. 108.

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Hardt.69 To turn rebellion into revolution we need love as thecreative element in the negation of the law. Fraternalcommunity, or in their terminology the multitude, is amultiplicity of singularities engaging with one another. Asingular act of a subject (for instance, telling your boss thatyou would prefer not to) only makes sense when it is connectedto other singularities. Love binds these singularitiestogether, instead of them isolating themselves from each otherand leaving the intersubjective domain. That is why themultitude is not identical to the crowd.70 The latter are acollection of juxtaposed individuals without any realconnections. The crowd can only become a community when itpassively identifies with some property everyone should have incommon (for instance, being German). True love, on the otherhand, is not directed at some actual property. I do not love mywife, parents or friends because they have some property I likeabout them. It may very well be that they possess suchproperties and that they reinforce my love, but love cannot bereduced to the attachment to some properties. Even when myparents have become senile old people, nothing like the vital,caring people I used to know, I will still be concerned forthem. Negri and Hardt are skeptical about Bartleby, because hissolitary resistance unto death does not seem like the gatewayto a society worth fighting for or living in. He looks morelike an individual within a crowd than a loving singularity ina multitude. They argue for some positive element that canmotivate people and, inspired by Christianity, they chooselove. 71 It may be true that Melville’s short-story is not thebest example to show this love, but that does not mean love iscompletely absent from the story or Deleuze’s theory.

69 A. Negri & M. Hardt (2000), Empire, p. 413.70 A. Negri & M. Hardt (2004), Multitude, p. 100.71 Whether love is the only possibility, is a question that would require further investigation. For now it suffices to know that Negri and Hardt base their theory on love because they wish to avoid Hegelian recognition. In Hegel's political philosophy subjects become a community by recognizing each other as free and equal subjects. This process however is dialectical,while Negri and Hardt want an undialectical community of singularities.

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The paradigm of this love, according to Negri and Hardt,is the joyous life of Saint Francis of Assisi, although theirversion of it is far removed from the traditional Catholicnarrative.72 Against the law and domination Francis posed thejoy of being in common with sister moon and brother sun. Theomission of capital letters is not a coincidence. Sister moonand brother sun are not divinities transcending earthly life,but are as much part of it as all the rest. All beings have incommon that they are, apart from what they are, which is wheretheir differences reside. Franciscan love is directed at themere fact of existence and the sister- or brotherhood of beingis fraternal community. The joy accompanying this love is aforce rooted in whatever is enjoyed, which means that Francis'sjoyous life is entwined in being itself. This view on joy isderived from Spinoza. For him, joy is “that passion by whichthe mind passes to a greater perfection”.73 We feel joy when wefeel more deeply connected to being than before. For instance,I enjoy playing the piano, because, while playing, I becomeoblivious of myself as a separated entity and feel taken up inthe flow of the music. This does not mean my destruction, butonly that I am part of a greater whole. Joy’s counterpart,sadness, is the feeling we experience when we are cut off fromthe world. This is clear in the physical aspect of sadness,namely pain. When I experience pain, I am pressed onto thelimits of my body and feel, in the flesh, that I am cut offfrom the outside world and that this world is even dangerousfor me as a separate entity. Joyous love is consequently thefeeling of being connected to all beings by rooting oneself inthe fact of the mere existence of all beings. Saint Francisloved the birds in sky and the fish in the see simply becausethey are and not because they are this or that (e.g. a creaturefitting in or subverting some divine plan). Being, for Negriand Hardt, is the absolute potentiality of the multiplicity ofsingularities from which all beings arise. 74 Contrary to

72 A. Negri & M. Hardt (2000), Empire, p. 413.73 B. Spinoza (2005), Ethics, III, proposition 11, scholium.74 A. Negri & M. Hardt (2000), Empire, pp. 356-359.

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Heidegger, whose thinking of being as an event (Ereignis) inwhich beings are disclosed and enclosed to a Dasein seemssimilar, 75 neither being nor any singularity transcend theworld. Absolute potentiality is an event within beings from whichevery actual expression of those beings arises. It is animmanent force within every singular being.76

For instance, Bartleby is actually an office clerk, but hecould be anything, just as the migrant from our previousexample searching for the American dream. By saying 'I wouldprefer not to' to the lawyer-narrator he shows that he cannotbe pinned down on the social identity of an office clerk. He isa singularity escaping the boundaries of the law. What he willactually become after escaping the law is the result of thefree play of potentialities. For this free play to occur, hemust be rooted in a multitude of other singularities. Otherwisethe fraternal community is no more than the crowd of unrelatedindividuals. Negri and Hardt have a point here in stressingthat, at the least, Bartleby would be a bad example here. Afterhis resistance to the law, Bartleby’s story ends in death.Francis's joyous love for being (as absolute potentiality) isthe paradigm for the common in fraternal community. A fraternalsingularity loves another singularity not as a particularactual being, but as a source of infinite possible beings.77

When Deleuze reiterates his distinction between violenceand force in an article on Antonin Artaud, he connects it to75 M. Heidegger (1993), "Letter on humanism" in M. Heidegger, Basic writings, pp. 159-160. 76 We will not further investigate this point, since it would lead us away from our topic toward an analysis of the role of immanence and transcendence in Deleuze.77 Agamben's "Bartleby, or on contingency" stresses the same point. See G. Agamben (1999), "Bartleby, or on contingency" in G. Agamben, Potentialities, p. 266. However reminiscent of Jewish mystical thought this may be, we should not confuse this with some kind of Levinasian love for the face of the other (See: E. Levinas (2009), Totalité et infini, p. 217). For Levinas we love the other because the face is an epiphany of a higher Law (“Thou shalt not kill”). There is some transcendent Other behind the mere form of another’s appearance. Together with Hardt, Negri and Agamben, Deleuze would disagree with this. The phenomenon of the face shows a life that cannot be reduced to any law, not even a Divine one. Who is right, requires a separate study.For now, we will presuppose the Deleuzian way of reasoning.

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the theme of love.78 He writes about the difference betweencombat-contre and combat-entre.79 "Combat-contre cherche à détruire ou àrepousser une force [...], mais le combat-entre cherche au contraire à s'emparerd'une force pour la faire sienne."80 Deleuze gives the example of a loveletter.81 In such a letter there can be combats-against theloved one in the sense that one wants to oppress contrary,carnivorous forces. I want to avoid those utterances that willmake me look bad, but showing her a good CV will not win herover. The main strategy is a combat-within in the sense thatthe lover tries to seduce the forces of the beloved to join theforces of the lover. For instance, a good erotic picture doesnot expose everything, but just enough to make me want more.The strategy of a combat-within does not show what she is, butshows what she can be. It is directed not at actual properties,but at the absolute potentiality of a singular life.

Using this example we can introduce love as a theme inDeleuze's Messianic democracy. Love is the affect that forcesus to strategically seduce each other to relate to each other.In this way a singular life can love other singularities byrooting himself in the absolute potentiality of these others.When people fall in love their forces combat to become acommunity in which the combat can be a combat-within instead ofa combat-against (which would presuppose two separatecommunities). It may be that someone uses his actual propertiesto make another love him, but he only uses those propertiesstrategically. He wants to bind the other to his singular lifethat can potentially become anything. If he puts al his hopeson e.g. seducing her with his money, he will be met with anunpleasant surprise when he runs bankrupt. Franciscan joyouslove concerns the absolute potentiality of singularities.82 Itis a feeling of becoming part of a greater whole without losing78 G. Deleuze (1993), "Pour en finir avec le jugement" in Critiques et cliniques, pp. 158-169.79 Ibid., pp. 165-167.80 Ibid., p. 165. 81 Ibid., p. 165.82 Of course, there are other kinds of love, like the love for the wealth ofthe person in our example. However, they are not the Franciscan love Negri,Hardt and Deleuze see revolutionary potential in.

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one’s singular differences, because this whole is thecommonness of the mere fact of existence, while leavinginfinite possibilities of becoming this or that existent. Whenthis is accomplished the forces are so intertwined that evenwhen the person composed of these forces changes, the loversremain interconnected. The reason is that their forces are nolonger simply connected to this or that actual manifestation ofeach other, but to the absolute potentiality of their singularlives, which means that whatever manifestation their livestake, they are joyously rooted in each other. The Belgiansinger/poet Jacques Brel gives a good example in a song called‘Le chanson des vieux amants’. An old man tells about his love forhis long loved wife. They have had their fair share of good andbad days and now they can no longer imagine a life without eachother. Each other’s existences have become so self-evident thatseparating them becomes impossible, even if life together is‘la tendre guerre’. They no longer care who or what the other is,but only that he or she is. Apart from the obvious sexualaspect in a husband-wife-relationship, Franciscan love is theuniversalization of this kind of love to all beings. How thisshould be accomplished is a question left unanswered byDeleuze, Negri and Hardt.

Also this does not however seem to solve the questionwhether Deleuze cannot be more specific about how such aMessianic democracy should be structured. We know thatfraternal community is the absolute potentiality ofsingularities engaging in power-relations structured indiagrams, but what diagrams are necessary for democracy? Ordoes Deleuze prefer not to answer this question? Love can'tgive such a diagram, because it is itself only a power-relationthat should be inscribed in a diagram. Even if it could be adiagram, Deleuze's account remains too vague to provide someconcrete political order.

My suggestion is that Deleuze’s reluctance to answershould itself be seen as an answer. If Deleuze knew or thoughthe could know, he would have said us how society should bestructured. The fact that he did not, suggests that he did not

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believe it to be his job to provide the blueprint for a newcommunity. Again, we should see this as an alliance toFoucault. Foucault distinguishes between the universalintellectual and the specific intellectual.83 An example of thefirst is Sartre, who spoke in the name of universal reason andjudged the injustices of the world according to it. Foucaultwants to be a specific intellectual instead. The first is theintellectual that provides blueprints for an ideal society,since he can base his reasons on general and universalprinciples. The latter does not have universal principles,because he knows that all knowledge is interwoven withhistorically specific power-relations. He only provides acritical ontology of the present and thereby gives thesubordinated in contemporary power-relations the means toresist. When historical balances shift, we do not need toreaffirm old principles of salvation, but we should "look fornew weapons".84 The philosopher does not tell people what todo, but gives them the means to decide for themselves. Afterthe philosopher has disrupted the common sense ways of thinkingabout, in this case life and the law, he only offers a toolboxto the people to figure out for themselves how life and the lawshould be. Philosophy provides weapons, not the goals to fightfor. It is the brothers in democratic society that shoulddecide how this democracy works, not Deleuze. He cannot riskbecoming a father himself.

6. CONCLUSION

Deleuze describes Bartleby as a figure of resistance. Throughthe agrammaticality of the formula, Bartleby resists paternalcommunity founded on the law. Ultimately, paternal community isa kind of community where the lives of people are subordinatedto general laws regulating the multiplicities of life withinmanageable constraints. Instead of living life to its full

83 R. Devos (2004), Macht en verzet, pp. 74-88.84 G. Deleuze (1990), "Post-scriptum sur les societés de contrôle” in Pourparlers, p. 242.

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potentialities, we are dictated into conforming to pre-structured representations. Agrammatical resistance shows lifeto be the outside of language and the law, as absolutepotentiality. This means that eventually the law can neverfully integrate life. Every time it tries to perform violenceto life, instead it operates as a force calling for counter-forces in the form of resistance. When the paternal function isabolished, Bartleby shows the way to a Messianic democracy.Life is no longer subordinated to the law, but the latterbecomes the object of free play of potentiality. "C'est la vie quijustifie, elle n'a pas besoin d'être justifiée."85

85 BOFL, p. 104.

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