6
Conclusion: Another encounter with the “event”?
Having explored political as well as ethical dimensions of the production of
“events” in the previous chapter, this chapter will look further at what an
ethical encounter with the “event” might look like, and also how such an
encounter can be understood in relation to the politics of producing “events”.
In the first part of the chapter I will do this, first by returning to the example
of “9/11” and by looking at some alternative ways of responding to questions
about what has happened and what is going to happen, and second by
discussing how such alternatives can be understood in relation to the politics
of producing “9/11” through practices of response. In the second part of the
chapter I will conclude this thesis, first by providing a summary of each
chapter, then by discussing what it has achieved and what contributions it
has made, and finally by pointing to different areas of future research.
6.1 The politics and ethics of encountering “events”
So far in this thesis we have only seen how “9/11” is produced along more
rigid lines, either as a clear-cut change in history that has introduced us to a
new social and political order, or as a reproduction of certain values and
traditions of U.S. foreign policy and identity politics. This (re)production
emerges from the discourse on response and in relation to questions and
problems of how to respond to what has happened. However, the ways in
which these questions and problems are raised and dealt with in this context
can be seen as both limited and exclusionary. From the disruption of
everyday life and reality, including the horrific images of planes crashing
into the WTC and of people jumping out of the windows, we are merely left
with questions and problems of how to develop a strategy to respond with
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even more violence. Thus, in order to find an alternative way of encountering
“9/11” it also seems necessary to move away from the violence and
simplicity of reducing questions of what has happened and what is going to
happen to a political imaginary that is purely based on questions of war and
security.1 But the question, then, is how it might be possible to do so.
Confronting the outside
Following one of the main points that was made in the previous chapter, in
order to challenge the dominant actualization of forces in the social field it is
first necessary to be exposed to, as well as to actively engage with, the space
from which those forces emerge. This space is the space of the outside,
where different forces combine and connect and where different lines are
constantly in the process of being drawn, lacking a calculable model or
formula as well as a pre-determined goal or direction. This notion of the
outside can, moreover, be understood as a space that conditions the
production of different “forms” in the social field, forms of content and
expression, as well as the relationships that are established between those
forms. To be exposed to the outside thus involves a confrontation with the
lines and forces that have not yet found their way into any particular forms
and are still waiting to be actualized.
There are two different examples of such a confrontation that I wish to
highlight here. The first is a documentary called 7 Days in September, a
collaborative work that consists of images and stories of 28 individuals on
the day of and week following September 11, 2001.2 The main part of this
film shows how people are coming together in various ways, demonstrating a
sense of unity and collective identity. However, what to me stands out the
most is a scene of intense confrontation that took place in the middle of
In a similar way Jenny Edkins has argued that we need “a way of responding that attempts
to avoid a rapid return to previous forms of security, safety and sovereign power.” (…) “…a
form of response that does not re-enter the same cycle of security and trauma.” See Edkins,
“Forget Trauma? Responses to September 11”, International Relations, 16 (2), 2002, p. 254.
2
7 Days in September: A Powerful Story About 9/11, directed by Steve Rosenbaum, 2002,
available on the DVD 24 Hours at Ground Zero / 7 Days in September, Castle Home Video,
2004.
1
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Union Square on Friday, September 14. In the documentary, a witness
describes this scene by saying that “it wasn’t just one argument that
happened at Union Square; it was argument after argument after argument,
breaking out between people who would not even talk to each other on the
street”. People were confronting each other with questions and arguments,
demonstrating a profound sense of disagreement. The scene begins with a
man writing “THE AMERICAN FLAG PROPAGATES VIOLENCE” on
the ground, followed by angry people who are shouting that this is
unacceptable, while others try to argue that in America everyone has the
right to express themselves. We then get to see several clips of people
arguing about a whole range of issues, including the role and meaning of
American values, religion, whether to respond with war and bombs, or
whether not to respond at all. The discussion is fierce and people are yelling
in each other’s faces. It presents a total break from previous scenes in the
film, where people are coming together to mourn, hold hands, and bring food
to the workers at Ground Zero. All of a sudden the peaceful atmosphere is
replaced by a strong sense of antagonism. Eventually, however, as the
arguments continue and more and more people are getting involved there is
also a sense of confusion over why they are fighting. This confusion is
illustrated by the confrontation between a man and a woman. As the man is
shouting to the people around him to “shut up”, informing them that he was
“there on the first two days…pulling body parts”, the woman confronts him
by screaming: “So was I, on the first night”. The man then asks: “So what
are we arguing about?”, “I don’t know. You came here telling everyone to
shut up”, says the woman. The man waits a couple of seconds, then he
replies by saying: “I don’t know; I am in fucking pain, because I have never
seen heads, body parts, anything like that…I don’t know how to process
this.”
The scenes at Union Square express confusion as well as confrontation.
And what makes the film’s presentation of these scenes so powerful is that it
does not try to bring them together in order to form a unity, nor does it tell us
who was right or wrong. The film lets the scenes speak for themselves,
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highlighting their ambiguity as well as their heterogeneity. In this way, it
also moves away from a process of trying to represent one single “event”. It
points instead to the problems and paradoxes that subsist in the singularity of
events, problems of coming to terms with questions about what has happened
and what should happen next. We see of course different attempts to
actualize these problems. But the most interesting aspect of the film is not
the actualizations themselves but rather how the problems underlying those
actualizations are revealed; problems to which there are, as Deleuze puts it,
“no ultimate or original responses or solutions…only problem-questions, in
the guise of a mask behind every mask and a displacement behind every
place”.3 Hence, in relation to these problem-questions there is not just one
way of responding but always a multiplicity of ways. By revealing the
indeterminacy and ambiguity of these questions the film stays in touch with
the space of the outside, where different forces are still in the process of
interacting with one other without yet corresponding to any actualized forms.
As such, it also expresses the potential for other actualizations yet to-come,
being limited neither by an overarching structure nor a definite framework
that tries to tie everything together.
The second example is a short film by Alejandro Gonzales Iñárritu.
The film forms a segment of a series of 11 short films that were made by 11
directors from around the world after September 11, 2001.4 Although many
of these films are definitely worth watching it is Iñárritu’s contribution that
to me stands out as the most remarkable one. In contrast to many of the other
films, this one does not try to present a story or a narrative. In the beginning
and during the main part of it we are merely faced with a black screen. In the
background there are different sounds emerging: several layers of voices
talking, but with no distinguishable utterances or words; a man that appears
to be on TV talking about a “splendid September day”; sounds of planes
3
Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, translated by Paul Patton, (London: Continuum,
2004), p. 132.
4
“Mexico”, written and directed by Alejandro Gonzales Iñárritu, in 11’09’’01 September 11:
A Film by 11 Directors, produced by Alain Brigand, A Galatée Films/Studio Canal
Production, 2002.
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crashing into buildings and people screaming; several voices speaking in
different languages and on top of each other; some people trying to describe
what is happening, either by referring to explosions in the towers or to bodies
falling to the ground; we hear other ones calling their family members and
friends from what appears to be either inside the WTC or in one of the
hijacked planes, leaving messages on answering machines saying goodbye
and expressing their love; we also hear a man saying “we should hit every
country that harbours terrorists … I want their fathers to be hit, I want their
mothers to be hit, I want their children to be hit”. In the middle of these and
countless other voices and sounds there are sudden and very short video clips
of people falling down from the buildings. They appear only for a second or
two before the black screen returns yet again. Towards the end there are also
images of the two towers collapsing, but without any sound, just complete
silence.
Without a narrative or a story to follow it is not clear exactly how the
images should be linked to the voices and the sounds. The film presents
voices and sounds on the one hand and images one the other, with no bridge
between them. In this sense, the sounds and the images can be analysed as
two different modes of dispersion. Whereas words are dispersed in a black
void, images are dispersed through a series of irregular cuts with no point of
reference that can tie them together into a homogenous movement. There is,
furthermore, no clear temporal order available, which makes it difficult to
determine the order of images and sounds in accordance with a linear
timeline. For example, we do not hear the man talking about a “splendid
September day” until first having seen images of people falling down from
the buildings. Everything seems to be in flux and perpetually decentred, with
no clear beginning or end, and no ultimate point of view, according to which
the order of events can be determined. In this way, the film does not present
itself as a whole, nor does it create the image of what has happened in terms
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of a whole. It presents only a series of cutting and sequencing of images and
sounds, which, through their irregularity disrupt the very notion of a whole.5
Lacking a whole as well as a coherent order, Iñárritu’s film can also be
said to confront the outside as the limits one arrives at when trying to speak
of the “unspeakable”. The voices we hear from the telephone calls, for
example, express very strong emotions, yet there is a sense in which they are
also facing a limit, trying to convey a message that is simply too powerful to
be grasped. In the film there is no attempt to determine what these messages
represent, for instance by providing a voiceover or illustrating images.
Accompanied only by the black screen and irregular cuts, the limits of
language and communication are maintained as such. In the chaotic mixture
of images and sounds, voices are disappearing into the black screen or the
void of the outside. The film leaves us with this void and does not attempt to
provide a closure or sense of agreement. As such, it also opens up to a
process of folding, or a process of actively making connections between
images and words. In brief, it allows us to experiment with different ways of
seeing and speaking about what has happened without being limited by an
overall framework or a system of representation. Iñárritu’s film creates an
encounter with something ambiguous and indeterminate, which no doubt is
closer to the problems and paradoxes that subsist in the singularity of events
than to the uniformity of an “event”.
This idea of disruption can also be found in Deleuze’s analysis of modern cinema, which,
he argues, is characterised by its ability to alter perceptions of life. This ability can be
explained more specifically by the role of “time” in modern cinema. Rather, than being
subordinated to “movements” or translated into specific temporal orders time presents itself
as such, or as a virtual element that is independent of an actualized world or a coherent
movement. “The direct time-image is the phantom which has always haunted the cinema,
but it took modern cinema to give a body to this phantom. This image is virtual, in
opposition to the actuality of the movement-image.” Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 2: The TimeImage, translated by Hugh Tomlinson and Robert Galeta, (London: Continuum, 2005), p. 40.
Claire Colebrook has explained this idea of the “time-image” in the following way: “In the
time-image the image is no longer perceived as an image of this or that. It is the image in its
singularity, so we see imaging as such, not yet incorporated into a viewpoint, not yet ordered
into a line of time. The irrational cuts do not allow images to link together to form moving
things, and in so doing we are presented with imaging itself, both in its production of
movement and its production of connection.” Gilles Deleuze, (London: Routledge, 2002), p.
53.
5
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In relation to these two examples it is also possible to understand how
the problems and paradoxes of events are travelling in different directions
without being linked to a determinable centre. The very force behind these
problems and paradoxes lies in the indeterminacy of movements rather than
in determinable objects or states of affairs. Here, Deleuze’s approach to time
and temporality can be seen as particularly useful because it sees the
dispersion of time as an integral part of reality and experience. In order to
become worthy of this reality it is therefore necessary to actively confront a
plurality of temporalities and movements, without trying to link everything
together in a neatly composed narrative order. Thus, it also becomes
necessary to refuse the practices of locating “9/11” within such an order, as
well as those that situate “9/11” within the space of a violent politics of
response and that define “9/11” as a particular kind of “event”. Instead of
such a notion of the “event”, it is more useful to think of “9/11” in relation to
the indeterminacy of problems and questions whilst refusing to incorporate
them into a particular context or framework. It is then possible to think of
“9/11” as something other than just an historical “event” or a particular kind
of “event”. 6 And we have to affirm another reality for thinking about the
“event”, a reality that involves different encounters with time, life and
becoming. Crucially, these encounters should not be seen as imaginary or
simply the work of dreams. On the contrary, they have to be seen as
something real, a real part of our ongoing processes of experience and
becoming. Specifically, they can be used to highlight the ambiguities of
becoming – ambiguities that illustrate the indeterminacy of life itself – not
The life, but A life, as Deleuze puts it:
Timothy Rayner has made a similar argument in relation to “9/11”, also from a Deleuzian
perspective. According to Rayner: “Ordinarily, when we think of an event, we think of
something that takes place within the flow of history. To have an understanding of “events”
in these terms if to follow “current affairs” – the kind of everyday occurrences that are
recorded by journalists, and documented in the daily news. (…) But does this do justice to
the event itself? Not at all. For the most part, this viewpoint elides the event itself. For here
the event is represented as an objective circumstance – something which takes place “out
there in the world,” requiring us only to be present on the scene to capture the moment with
our cameras, sum it up in a sound bite.” Timothy Rayner, “Time and the Event: Reflections
on September 11, 2001”, Theory & Event, 5:4, 2002.
6
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A life is everywhere, in all the moments that a given living subject goes
through and that are measured by given lived objects: an immanent life
carrying with it the events or singularities that are merely actualized in
subjects and objects. This indefinite life does not itself have moments,
close as they may be one to another, but only between-times, betweenmoments; it doesn’t just come about or come after but offers the
immensity of an empty time where one sees the event yet to come and
already happened, in the absolute of an immediate consciousness.7
A life is present in specific moments and in relation to given subjects
and objects, but it also exceeds those moments. And in a similar way, it can
be argued that A life is constantly caught up in the production of “events”
through different practices of response whilst also exceeding that production.
The task of philosophy in this context should be to affirm the existence of an
indefinite life, to extract its virtual potential from the current state of affairs
and thereby experiment once again, in favour of another becoming and
another set of lines. Where or how those lines should be drawn cannot be
fully known or calculated. In fact, we cannot even be sure that they will not
return to a more violent form of “being”, or turning into “lines of abolition,
of destruction, of others and of oneself”.8 How do you draw the line? And
how will you be able to know if that line is the right one, or at least the most
productive one? To submit thought to lines of flight and rupture is both risky
and dangerous. It involves opening oneself up to experimental ways of
thinking and becoming, without having any perceptible lines to fall back on.
The process of experimentation will always and necessarily be unpredictable.
It is a “dice-throw”, or an affirmation of chance as well as an affirmation of
the necessity of chance.9
7
Gilles Deleuze, Pure Immanence: Essays on A Life, translated by Anne Boyman, (New
York: Zone Books, 2005), p. 29.
8
Gilles Deleuze and Claire Parnet, Dialogues II, translated by Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara
Habberjam, (London: Continuum, 2006), p. 105.
9
Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy, translated by Hugh Tomlinson, (London:
Continuum, 2006), p. 24.
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Lines of politics and ethics
As was noted in the previous chapter, what signifies a favourable way of
experimenting with thought and creating concepts is how well those concepts
manage to speak or release the event and thereby open up to something “new,
remarkable and interesting” that is replacing “the appearance of truth”. 10
Without any references to “truth”, however, there seems to be a problem of
knowing which events should be released in the first place, or which events
that are more important and valuable compared to others. In this respect, as
Paul Patton has noted, Deleuze’s conception of philosophy “cannot offer
criteria for judging the importance of events, nor rules for the attribution of
events to states of affairs”.11 The importance or value of events cannot for
example be determined by pointing to criteria such as truth and falsity, but
neither is it possible to use any other sorts of criteria. According to Deleuze,
it is simply not philosophy’s task to determine the value of events in terms of
their essence or in relation to some static and independent criteria, nor is it
philosophy’s task to come up with rules for how events should be actualized.
Philosophy’s only task is to create concepts, which have the capacity to
release the event from a state of affairs and in that way also enable other
actualizations to occur. To determine in advance either the value of specific
events or how they should be actualized would not only undermine their
indeterminacy but also their openness to that which is always in a sense
eternally yet to-come.
The value of events thus lies neither in some supposed essence nor in
the outcomes of actualizations. Rather, their value has to be linked to an
intrinsic quality of constantly opening up to more outcomes and actualization.
For this reason, it is also necessary to maintain a certain distinction between
events and “events”. Whereas the latter refer to the outcomes of particular
actualizations, the former relate to a continuous movement that remains
independent of any such outcomes or actualizations. This does not mean,
10
Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, What is Philosophy?, translated by Graham Burchell
and Hugh Tomlinson, (London: Verso, 1994), p 111.
11
Paul Patton, “Introduction”, in Paul Patton (ed.), Deleuze: A Critical Reader, (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1996), p. 14.
217
however, that the two should be seen as fully independent and separate from
one another. Rather, it means that whilst it is important to examine their
continual interaction it is also important to emphasise that the value of events
refers to something quite different from the values that are attached to what
we commonly refer to as “events” in the social field. Whereas the value of
the latter has to be understood in relation to the political practices of
producing the meaning of “events”, the value of the former has to be linked
to something that eludes as well as challenges those practices. The value of
events, in this sense, can also be defined in terms of their capacity to
challenge the dominant actualization of forces in the social field; not so
much by trying to go “beyond” this actualization but to actively confront it,
and in doing so also reveal their violent and contingent nature. In this way,
creating concepts and becoming worthy of the event cannot simply be
detached from the politics of producing “events”, nor can it be separated
from the political imaginaries and social frameworks that define us as
subjects and set the conditions for how it is possible to act as such. Rather,
creating concepts and becoming worthy of the event must always be
understood in relation to the politics of actualizing forces in the social field,
as well as in relation to the value- and meaning-producing practices that tell
us what an “event” really is and how we should deal with it.
Following this understanding of the relationship between an ethics of
the event and the politics of the “event” it is also possible to analyse further
the scenes of confrontation that took place at Union Square. On the one hand,
these scenes illustrate an active process of challenging the emergence of a
politics of response; they move away from a single conception of the “event”
in favour of a much more ambiguous and indeterminate sense of what has
happened and what should happen. But it can also be argued that these
scenes eventually become part of a more official discourse on discourse,
which instead of maintaining a sense of ambiguity and indeterminacy seeks
to offer us clear lines to follow, lines that separate “good” from “evil”, “us”
from “them”, etc. Through the discourse on response everyone is expected to
become part of the same story, and everything must be subordinated to the
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same inscription of values and identities. We are constantly informed of how
to think about the significance of what has happened but also what has to be
done in order to move forward. In this sense, the process of thinking has
already been made for us. The task of doing so belongs solely to the state; it
falls under the state’s authority to determine how the story should be told,
how the lines should be drawn and what kind of strategy has to be developed.
Here, the hope must be that there will be more attempts to raise
questions and problems that manage to highlight elements of uncertainty and
ambiguity, and thereby also reveal the radical contingency and inherent
violence of speaking about “9/11” in the context of a politics of response.
The value of Deleuze’s concept of the event, I would argue, is precisely that
it enables a powerful way of thinking about the possibility of such attempts.
It shows that there is something other than just social and historical “events”,
a movement that happens underneath or within, which has the potential to
undermine, disrupt, and produce another life and another becoming. Where
such a movement will take us has to remain unknown because it is on the
very basis of its indeterminacy and uncertainty that the potential for another
encounter with the “event” rests.
6.2 Conclusion
In order to see what has happened in the process of addressing the questions
that were raised in the introduction to the thesis I will now look back at each
chapter and provide a summary of them. I will then discuss what the thesis as
a whole has achieved and what contributions it has made. Finally, I will
point to some problems and issues that have not been fully explored but
hopefully will be explored in future research.
Summary
In the introduction to the thesis it was pointed out that according to what
appears to be a dominant way of understanding the “event” in International
Relations (IR), the “event” is seen as an independently existing object or a
coherent whole, which refers to something specific that has happened in a
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particular moment in time. As such, the “event” can also be said to constitute
an important reference point in time, which is used to trace out continuities
as well as changes in international politics. However, whilst the “event”
constitutes an important reference point in time it also tends to remain
passively in the background. In this way, it is often referred to only in
passing, without any serious attempts to question what it actually means to
speak of “events” in the first place or how it is possible to determine the
content and meaning of those “events”. There is, in this sense, an implicit
assumption regarding the meaning of “events”, an assumption that can be
linked to the idea of re-presenting “events”, as well as to the idea of representing a world of international relations. On the basis of this assumption,
the “event” is treated as something that is more or less already given,
something that belongs to an independently existing reality that is just
waiting to be discovered through the use of language and concepts by a
subject located in a position that is external to that reality.
The aim of this thesis was to challenge the idea of representing the
meaning of “events”, as well as to show how it is possible to think about the
“event” as such, without merely seeing it as a passive object or a coherent
whole, whose content and meaning is already given. This aim was articulated
in the context of so called critical or poststructuralist approaches to IR.
According to those approaches, representation has to be seen, not as a
method that can provide a faithful image or copy of the world, but rather as a
form of practice that is constitutive of how we speak and even think about
the world. Following this understanding of representation as a practice, the
question of how to understand the production of “events”, or how to
understand the “event” in terms of an outcome of different forms of
representational practices was raised. It was noted, furthermore, that this
question does not only concern the constitutive impact of representational
practices but also the lines, processes and movements that underlie or
condition those practices.
In order to develop a deeper understanding of this question, chapter 1
began with a further discussion concerning the problems and limits of
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representation. By examining the respective work of Jacques Derrida, Michel
Foucault and Deleuze, representation was analysed as a form of “illusion”,
which lacks an ultimate ground or foundation and therefore has to be
regarded as a method that relies on that which is always and necessarily
absent: a signified content, a pure presence of objects, an autonomous
subject, etc. The question of whether it might be possible to think “outside”
this illusion was then raised. When addressing that question I turned
exclusively to the philosophy of Deleuze, and specifically to Deleuze’s
concept of “transcendental empiricism”. It was noted that according to this
form of empiricism it is possible to refuse the subject/object dualism of
representation and instead think of knowledge and experience in relation to a
“plane of immanence” or a “transcendental field” of singularities, in which
there is neither a prior distinction between the internal and the external, nor
between the subject and the outside world. There is only a pure flow of
experience, which is active and creative rather than reactive and
representational. The main objective following this idea of experience is not
to identify and represent resemblances and similarities between separate
cases, nor is it to connect experience with the identity of someone who
experiences. Thus, it is crucial that empiricism never begins with some
abstract unity, such as the One, the Whole, or the Subject, which then is
given the task of explaining. Instead of letting the abstract explain, Deleuze
argues, it is the abstract, or the One, the Whole, the Subject, that itself has to
be explained. For this reason it is also important not to treat the “abstract” as
some kind of origin but rather as an effect. It is an effect that emerges from
the plane of immanence and the transcendental field of singularities, which
constitute the flow of life and experience. Against the backdrop of this
understanding of empiricism, I returned to the problem of thinking about the
“event”, suggesting that the “event” too can be thought of in terms of an
abstract unity or a whole. Consequently, instead of trying to represent the
meaning of the “event” in terms of a unity or a whole the important task
should be to examine the ways in which the “event” is produced. So, rather
than beginning with an abstract notion of the “event” and then looking at
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what it refers to or represents, it is necessary to begin by looking at how the
“event” itself is produced, and specifically to examine the processes, lines
and movements that condition the “event” and make it possible for it to
emerge in the first place.
In order to articulate such a starting point for thinking about the
“event” I turned to Deleuze’s own concept of the event in chapter 2.
According to Deleuze, the event can be referred to as something that has
always already happened and is eternally yet to come. It is a movement that
follows the incorporeal line of Aion and travels in the directions of both past
and future without being linked to a dominant present or the being of the
subject. As such, the event can also be described as a singularity, or as a preindividual and impersonal instant, which is independent of any personalised
form of being. However, in addition to this understanding of the event there
is also what Deleuze refers to as the “actual” side of the “double structure” of
the event. This side of the event can be understood more precisely as the
outcome of “actualization”, which refers to the process of actualizing and
translating the event as a singularity into a state of affairs or what is.
Following this process, the incorporeal lines of Aion are replaced by the
regularizing present of Chronos, which measures the movements of bodies
and envelops past and future into a homogenous movement that always goes
from the past to the future.
In relation to these two sides of the “double structure” of the event it
was suggested that the notion of the “event” as an abstract unity or a whole
can be analysed in terms of the “actual”, or as an outcome of the process of
actualization. The “event”, in this sense, can be referred to as “the moment in
which the event is embodied in a state of affairs, an individual, or a person,
the moment we designate by saying ‘here, the moment has come’”. 12 As
such, it follows the process of moving away from the singularity of events
and inscribing an actualized state of affairs, thereby resolving the paradoxes
and problems that are expressed by those events. What we have in this sense
12
Gilles Deleuze, The Logic of Sense, translated by Mark Lester, edited by Constantin V.
Boundas, (London: Continuum, 2004), p. 172.
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is a notion of the “event”, which is located in a particular moment in time, in
relation to a well established subject and against a particular background or
context. However, it was also pointed out that the “event” should not be
understood as a final end or product, which exists independently of the
processes from which it is produced. Rather, the production of “events” has
to be grasped as an ongoing and continuous process of becoming, which
always remains open to change and transformation. This point was made
specifically by drawing upon Deleuze’s concept of “counter-actualization”,
which refers to a process whereby the singularity of events is abstracted from
an actualized state of affairs.
According to Deleuze, actualization and counter-actualization should
never be grasped independently of one another, nor should they be linked to
some final point of completion. Rather, they should always be understood in
relation to one another, as two different processes that constantly interact
with one another. For that reason it also becomes increasingly difficult to
think of the “event” as an independently existing object or a coherent whole.
There is always a process that has the potential to disrupt such a notion of the
“event”, a process of counter-actualizing the “event”, which brings it back to
something much more uncertain and indeterminate. This point was further
developed by discussing the process of “formalizing” the content and
meaning of “events” through the use of language and concepts. Drawing
upon Deleuze and Guattari’s ideas about the role of language in the social
field, and specifically what they refer to as the interaction between form of
“content” and form of “expression”, it was noted that the “event” can be
understood as a form of content, which is intervened in, refigured and
reterritorialized through different forms of expression. And as something that
is constantly exposed to a process of reconfiguration and reterritorialization,
the “event” thus belongs to an ongoing and continuous process of becoming,
which despite different attempts to formalize it, continues to change and
transform in various ways.
Having developed this understanding of the production of “events”, the
question of how it might be possible to put the theory to work and thereby
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explore the actual relevance of it was raised. To address this question,
chapters 3 and 4 examined the production of “9/11” as an “event”. Whereas
the main purpose of chapter 3 was to examine the two different sides of the
“double structure” of the event as well as the relationship between them, the
aim of chapter 4 was to examine how that relationship becomes formalized
and translated into a single conception of the “event”.
In chapter 3 I looked at newspaper- and TV-material, including
eyewitness accounts and newspaper commentaries. In this material it was
possible to map the emergence of two different processes. The first related to
the immediacy of events, illustrated by people jumping, planes hitting the
WTC and buildings collapsing, but also by a sense of disruption and
dislocation of life and reality – an instantaneous and incorporeal
transformation. Expressing different kinds of problems and paradoxes whilst
at the same time lacking any straightforward answers, these examples
highlighted the agonizing aspect of events. As such, they pointed to the
indeterminacy and uncertainty of events, always going in different directions
without a unifying point of view or a dominant present.
The second process studied in chapter 3 related to different attempts to
actualize the indeterminacy and uncertainty of events into a state of affairs or
what is. Such attempts could for example be found in practices of inscribing
specific points in time, according to which the uncertainty of movements was
translated into the certainty of moments. But they could also be found in
practices of imposing particular understandings of everyday life and reality
and in that way resolve some of the paradoxes and problems created by the
sense of disruption and dislocation. Although this latter process implied a
clear movement away from the singularity of events it was pointed out that
the two processes must be seen as co-existing and mutually implicated rather
than simply excluding one another. Consequently, despite different attempts
to replace one with the other it was argued that they continue to interact with
one another. The relationship between the singularity of events and the
actualization of events should thus not be seen as finalised or complete. As
they continue to interact with one another, the questions of how “we” should
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interpret and understand what has really happened and what kind of value
“we” should attach to it always in a sense remain open.
In response to this openness, chapter 4 looked at different attempts to
formalize the content and meaning of what had happened. It did so by
examining policy documents and speeches by President George W. Bush and
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, focusing in particular on how the
question of “response” was addressed in those documents and speeches. The
point of doing so was to see how response could be analysed as a practice of
formalizing the content and meaning of what had happened and thereby also
of producing ideas about “9/11” as an “event”. In this context it was possible
to map the emergence of two main forms of response. Whereas the first form
consisted of attempts to respond to what had happened in the past, or to what
“really” happened on September 11, 2001, the second form was concerned
with responding to what might happen in the future. And whereas the former
implied a practice of reproducing familiar themes of U.S. national identity
and a traditional geopolitical imaginary of sovereign nation-states, the latter
implied a more novel attempt to create a way of thinking about a social and
political order that could deal with elements of the new and the unfamiliar. In
relation to these two forms of response it was possible to see how “9/11”
emerged as a central reference point in time, which was used to legitimise
certain ideas about how to respond to the past as well as to the future. Thus,
the content of “9/11” was filled with elements of the past and the future, the
familiar and the unfamiliar, the old and the new, certainty and uncertainty,
safety and vulnerability, etc. In this way, it was pointed out that it becomes
extremely difficult to think of “9/11” only in terms of change or continuity,
as well as to determine the actual content and meaning of “9/11” as such – as
an externally existing object or a coherent whole that exists in a fixed point
in time. A more useful approach is to think of “9/11” as a mixture or a
“multiplicity”, in which different lines, processes and movements are at work
as well as a co-existence of various becomings. “9/11”, in this sense, belongs
to an ongoing and continuous process of becoming, which always remains
open to change and transformation.
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Following chapters 3 and 4 there was one particular issue that had to be
addressed. This issue related to the politics of producing “events” and
specifically to the question of how to understand the forces underpinning that
production. In order to address this question, chapter 5 returned to a closer
examination of Deleuze’s philosophy, focusing in particular on the concepts
of “force”, “folding”, and “micropolitics”. In relation to these concepts it was
argued that politics has to be understood, not only by taking into account
what happens in the realm of the actual, but also what happens in the space
of the virtual. It is in relation to this latter space that the real forces of politics
can be grasped, where different forces combine and connect, and where the
actualization of particular “forms” in the social field is made possible. Hence,
the forces of politics do not belong to already established patterns and
systems but rather to elements of the unknown and the unfamiliar, which are
always in the process of taking shape. It is through an encounter with those
elements that politics proceeds, not by encountering already established
forms. This happens, moreover, not by relying on a calculable model or
formula but rather through an active process of experimentation. For
example, the production of “events” proceeds by experimenting with
different ways of seeing and speaking, without ever being able to calculate or
predict what the process of doing so might involve or lead to. This
incalculability and unpredictability can also be explained by the immediacy
of the singularity of events. According to that immediacy, nothing is ever
static or given; everything is constantly in flux, thus making every attempt to
deal with questions about what has happened and what is going to happen in
a coherent manner increasingly difficult and unpredictable.
When examining Deleuze’s discussion of politics it was also noted that
there is a closely related normative commitment in Deleuze’s philosophy.
This commitment is expressed most explicitly in Deleuze’s, and Deleuze and
Guattari’s, definition of what philosophy is and what role it should play.
According to their definition, philosophy has a close affiliation with the
experimentation of thought and experience, as well as with the creation of
new concepts. These concepts should be created, not in order to represent or
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reflect upon an independent reality but rather to speak or release the event
and in so doing actively produce a life and a becoming that eludes the static
and formalized states of affairs. The aim of philosophy, in this sense, should
always be to become worthy of the event. However, as was also noticed, this
aim implies a risk as well as a potential, both of which can be linked to an
unpredictable process of constantly drawing new lines without having any
perceptible lines to fall back on. There is only a pure line of becoming that is
forever in the process of being drawn and that cannot simply be reduced to
either of the two sides of the “double structure” of the event, the virtual or
the actual. As such, this line can also be linked to the space of the “outside”,
which expresses the limits one arrives at when trying to speak of the
unspeakable. In order to deal with this space, as well as with the pure line of
becoming, it is necessary to invent different ways of folding. Doing so has
the potential to open up to something new, interesting and remarkable, but it
can also lead to an inevitable disintegration. Since the process of folding has
to be invented and since there are no pre-established lines to fall back we
cannot know for certain what the outcome of this process will be. It is a
process that both relies on chance and affirms the necessity of chance.
In order to explore what the implications of this process might be for
thinking about the production of “events”, the present chapter returned to
“9/11” and looked at some alternative ways of encountering “9/11” as an
“event”. It was argued that what distinguishes these encounters is precisely
their capacity to create different ways of thinking about what has happened,
not by providing specific answers, but rather by expressing the paradoxes
and problems that exist in the singularity of events. And instead of trying to
link those paradoxes and problems to one single conception of the “event”,
the paradoxes and problems are retained as such. The point was also made
that these kinds of alternative encounters do not just happen independently or
by themselves but always in relation to the politics of producing “events”.
And this is precisely what makes Deleuze’s concept of the event so
important and valuable; it offers a way to actively challenge the dominant
actualization of forces in the social field by pointing to the existence of
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another life and another becoming, the potential of which always remains
open despite different attempts to close it down.
Adding to reality
Drawing upon the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze as well as various sources
and empirical material relating to what happened in New York City and
Washington D.C. on September 11, 2001, I have argued that the “event” can
be understood in terms of an ongoing and continuous becoming, which
always remains open to a process of change and transformation. To think
about the “event” along these lines can in many ways be said to differ from
the dominant understanding of the role and meaning of “events” in
international politics. According to the latter, “events” are often assumed to
follow one another within a particular narrative order and a linear timeline
that always goes from the past to the future. In relation to that order, the
“event” is given a clear beginning and a final end, and its meaning is
determined by its presupposed static location in time – as an independently
existing object or a coherent whole located between the past and the future.
In this thesis I have developed a completely different way of thinking
about “events”, one that emphasises various aspects of the production of
“events” rather than the being of “events”. Crucially, this emphasis does not
imply that the “event” should be seen as something that is constructed as an
object or a whole. It rather implies seeing the “event” as something that is
made up of a mixture of lines, processes and movements. The “event”, in this
sense, does not exist as a constructed “thing”, the role and meaning of which
can be reduced to the level of language and representation. It also has to be
grasped in relation to that which exceeds that level, for example by pointing
to thought, sense and experience as elements that cannot be represented but
still play an important role in the production of social phenomena and
political “events”. By taking these elements into account the thesis has
shown how it is possible to think about the production of “events” in terms
of a mixture of different lines, processes and movements, which interact with
one another without following a particular narrative order and without
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adding up to a coherent “event”. The relationship between those elements
and the notion of an “event” is therefore not in any way given or causally
determinate. It follows a non-causal order, or a chaotic mixture of lines,
processes and movements, where the path always remains open to different
kinds of unpredictable experimentations, the outcome of which is uncertain
and indeterminate. In this way, the “event” cannot simply be located in a
specific moment in time and between the past and the future; nor can it be
said to have a clear beginning and a final end. The “event” is a multiplicity
that moves in different directions depending on the forces that underpin it.
Thinking about the production of “events” along these lines is, of
course, to a large extent inspired by Deleuze’s own concept of the event, and
specifically by the connections he makes between the event, singularity and
the virtual. In Deleuze’s philosophy, all of these concepts point to an
understanding of reality that eludes the order of representation, as well as the
corporeal presence of bodies. They point instead to the reality of the
unrepresentable and the incorporeal. In this sense, it can also be argued that
Deleuze’s philosophy differs somewhat from many other “poststructuralist”
approaches. What distinguishes Deleuze’s philosophy is that whilst being
highly critical of different attempts to inscribe particular notions of reality, it
still seeks to retain a notion of reality. Moreover, the way in which Deleuze
does this is not by abandoning a systematic conception of philosophy, or by
avoiding the metaphysics of thought and experience. Rather, it is precisely
by creating a system that takes the metaphysics of thought and experience as
its main starting point that Deleuze seeks to retain a notion of reality. In this
way, as Patton has argued: “Unlike many of his contemporaries, Deleuze
remained committed to the classical idea of philosophy as a system. The
novelty of Deleuzian thought does not lie in its refusal of any systematic
character but in the nature of the system envisaged.”13 And in a similar way,
when discussing Deleuze’s approach to time and temporality, Kimberly
Hutchings has argued that “Deleuze’s approach still permits a lateral kind of
theorising in which multiple, parallel and interacting presents may be
13
Patton, “Introduction”, pp. 1-2.
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understood in relation to one another, in this sense it is systematic as well as
pluralist”.14 The novelty of Deleuze’s system can thus be explained by its
refusal of a hierarchical structure, according to which different presents are
claimed to follow one another. But it can also be explained by its refusal to
determine the value of events in relation to a transcendent normative horizon.
Lacking a hierarchical structure, as well as any aspiration to transcend the
meaning of thought and experience, the only guiding principle of the system
Deleuze envisages is that of multiplicity itself. According to that principle,
then, the aim of philosophy is to construct a systematic understanding of life,
in which difference, change, and the co-existence of becomings are
prioritised over the static being and hierarchical structure of things. Thus, it
is also possible to conceive of the system as nothing but a multiplicity –
made up of differential elements of thought and experience, which are
constantly transformed in various ways without being incorporated into a
determinate structure and without adding up to a coherent whole.
When emphasising the importance of multiplicity it is also necessary to
consider the process of writing as an integral part of it. Consequently, this
process should not be seen as a calculable or static procedure whose ultimate
aim is to represent an independent reality. Rather, the process of writing
should be treated as an active and creative process, which hopefully can
contribute to a way of thinking that also adds something new to reality. This
is also what I have tried to do in this thesis when writing about the
production of “events”. Hence, my aim in so doing so has not been to
provide a faithful representation of what this production involves, nor has it
been to mirror an independent reality. Rather, what I have tried to do is to
create a way of thinking about this production, and in that way also add
something new to reality. And in a similar way, instead of trying to reflect
upon the objective nature of “9/11” as an “event” I have tried to create a way
of thinking about “9/11”, mainly by showing how it can be conceived of as
an open-ended multiplicity that is constituted by intersecting lines, processes
Kimberly Hutchings, “Happy Anniversary! Time and Critique in International Relations
Theory”, Review of International Studies, 33, Special Issue: Critical International Relations
Theory after 25 Years, 2007, p. 88.
14
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and movements. Finally, rather than treating Deleuze’s philosophy as a
complete and unitary whole I have experimented with various concepts and
ideas in Deleuze’s work. Thus, instead of just letting it remain the “same” I
have shown how it is possible to take Deleuze’s philosophy of the event
further by adding the concept of the “event” and in that way explore how the
former is relevant for thinking about the production of the latter. I have also
shown how it is possible to experiment with other concepts in Deleuze’s
work, such as the “fold” and the “outside” in order to think about the politics
as well as the ethics of encountering “events”.
Future connections
The connections that I have made in this thesis when developing a way of
thinking about the production of “events” have mainly been between various
concepts and ideas in Deleuze’s philosophy, media sources, political
speeches and policy documents. These connections, however, do not form an
exhaustive list of what could be done in order to think about the production
of “events”. To begin with, there are various aspects of Deleuze’s work that
have not been explored in this thesis, for example his work on art, literature
and cinema.15 Even though I would argue that many of the key ideas of this
latter work can be found in his earlier books (most notably in Difference and
Repetition and The Logic of Sense), there are definitely elements of it that are
worth exploring and that might also contribute to a slightly different way of
thinking about the production of “events”. Moreover, these elements could
be used in order to examine different kinds of sources and empirical material,
including novels, art practices and films. In this way, it would also be
possible to broaden the study of the production of “9/11” as an “event”, and
15
In relation to art Deleuze’s main contribution is Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation,
translated by Daniel W. Smith, (London: Continuum, 2003). Regarding literature there are
two main books, one on Marcel Proust and one on Franz Kafka (co-written with Guattari),
see Gilles Deleuze, Proust and Signs, translated by Richard Howard, (London: Athlone,
2000), and Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature, translated
by Dana Polan, (London: University of Minnesota Press, 1986). Regarding Deleuze’s work
on cinema, I have already referred to his concept of the “time-image” and its connection to
“modern cinema” earlier in this chapter. In addition to this, Deleuze has also written about
the role of “movement” and “early” cinema in Cinema 1: The Movement-Image, translated
by Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam, (London: Continuum, 2005).
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to include a lot more material than this thesis has managed to do. Focusing
solely on newspapers, speeches and policy documents means that other
sources have been left out, sources that might give a different understanding
of what happens in the production of “9/11” as an “event”. It would thus be
interesting to continue examining this production by making another series
of connections, between various concepts and ideas in Deleuze’s philosophy
and different kinds of sources and empirical material.
When developing a way of thinking about the production of “events” it
would of course also be possible to study the production of different kinds of
“events”. By using “9/11” as the guiding example, this thesis has mainly
focused on questions surrounding the production of big or global “events”,
questions that can be linked in particular to the temporal dimension of those
“events”: how they constitute central reference points in time and how those
reference points seem to have a crucial impact on how we think about
international politics more generally. If the aim was to explore further this
role of “events” it would definitely be interesting to study other big or global
“events”, including catastrophes and environmental disasters such as the
2004 Boxing Day Tsunami and the 2005 Hurricane Katrina. But it would
also be interesting to study the production of other “events”, such as for
example elections, international conferences, EU and UN summits, the
Olympic Games, etc. In discourses on international politics there seem to be
few, if any, areas that do not highlight different kinds of “events” as
important elements of what really happens within those areas. The very
content of the international politics, in this sense, consists to a large extent of
different kinds of “events”. The problem, however, is that they often tend to
remain unchallenged and uncontested. It is therefore important to continue
questioning exactly what is meant by these “events”, how they emerge in the
first place, what it is that conditions them, and how their production can be
analysed in relation to different kinds of practices and force relations.
In conclusion, then, there are always more connections to be made. The
ones I have made in this thesis are only a small sample of what could be
done. The important task is to continue on an explorative path to politics and
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philosophy, to make more connections and more constellations of various
concepts in order to create new ways of thinking about different issues. In
this way, it is possible to challenge the concepts and frameworks that have
already been given to us and to experiment one more time, for another
purpose and in relation to another thought, which once again will have the
potential to alter our thinking.
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