Animals are good to think with, or so they say. And animal totems have consistently found a hospitable ecosystem in Continental Philosophy. From Isaiah Berlin’s fox and hedgehog, to Friedrich Nietzsche’s menagerie of eagles and asses, to Donna Haraway’s companion species, different critters have been put to work at the service of The Concept. In Deleuze’s influential essay, “Postscript on the Societies of Control,” we encounter two particular animals: the mole and the serpent. (“We have passed from one animal to the other, from the mole to the serpent, in the system under which we live, but also in our manner of living and in our relations with others.” [2011: 140f]) The former is the emblem of the disciplinary society, which, according to Deleuze’s argument, is evolving swiftly into a control society, overseen by the oily coilings of the latter. What to make of this totemic distinction? What can the mole and the serpent tell us about the present moment, thirty years after Deleuze released them into our minds in this context? Since it is hardly more than a suggestive throw-away line in the original piece, we can only speculate.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:71591 |
| Date | 29 July 2020 |
| Creators | Pettman, Dominic |
| Publisher | Universität Leipzig |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion, doc-type:article, info:eu-repo/semantics/article, doc-type:Text |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | urn:nbn:de:bsz:15-qucosa2-715979, qucosa:71597 |
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