The harmony of difference - Conceptualization

In my last two posts, I established that the only existing difference was the relative difference, a difference between objects of the same class, the same genus. I also got into the problems of identity and identification and finally made clear that to stop presupposing the difference, I need to think of a concept that won't require this absurd transcendental element of difference, a concept never leaving the plane of immanence where human being and difference are distinct, where human being are not spectators anymore, and definitely not in a position above anything. Today, I'm going to formulate the concept of difference - my ultimate goal in this mini series of four posts. If you didn’t read the three previous posts already, I advise you to do so here, here, and here.

Let's get back to Derrida. In L'écriture et la différence he wrote: "The thinking of difference can neither dispense with topography nor accept the current models of spacing." ("La pensée de la différence ne peut ni se dispenser d'une topique ni accepter les représentations courantes de l'espacement.") (Derrida, 1997, p. 304). There is no point in going back to topography – it is already resolutely rooted in our budding concept of difference – but it seems quite necessary to explore this idea of spacing [espacement] Derrida thought as a workable option for a concept of difference - that is, if we don't follow the traditional concept of spacing. The question is Why would the idea of spacing "save" the difference from being monstrous? Well, there one humongous benefit here: spacing has nothing to do with identity and doesn't need its concept to work; rather than confining opposable entities into their own identity, it opens a space where thinking unfolds and broadens. By conceptualizing difference in terms of spacing, I avoid this far too clunky concept of identity that encloses difference; a new thinking of difference emerges: instead of determining a discrimination, spacing expresses an idea of distance. Of course, the connotations of separation and dissociation, linked to difference, persist – and should be persisting – in spacing, but without implying identity as an essential and maybe sole principle.

Cats staring at each other.png

It follows that spacing doesn't force me into a position of judgement on things, doesn't push me to gender, sort them; quite the opposite, spacing is horizontal, never vertical: it allows for distance, perspective, while making it possible for both entities to turn to each other in an attempt to both gaze at itself and at the other. While we're reaching slowly this idea of difference I wrote about in the first post of this mini-series, we can notice self-reflexivity setting in. Emmanuel Levinas reminds us that "The other as other is not only an alter ego. He is what I am not." ("Autrui, en tant qu’autrui, n’est pas seulement un alter ego. Il est ce que moi je ne suis pas.") (Levinas, 1990, p. 162) One discovers him/her/itself from the other, by horizontally separating from the other, thus without resorting to any kind of transcendentality difficult to justify: spacing is, before anything else, a logic of immanence.

Spacing isn't only a question of creating a distance between entities, it unfolds it in a movement of dissociation more dynamic than analytic. Unlike difference – the difference always distinguishes, being then essentially descriptive –, spacing has a productive function in that it links the elements it dissociates. It is the modus operandi of spacing, and that's how it makes you think. It's in its distance, in the hindsight it offers me, that I open up a plane of reflection. It allows for thinking about both the objects and their in-between, as well as the distance it emits.

Difference is a self-reflexive concept of spacing between two or more opposable entities aiming to create sense.

Here is my concept of difference. Let's detail that intense sentence.

Self-reflexivity of the concept: I gave in the first post a simple definition of difference as a starting point and I had drawn your attention on the lack of reference to deferment in the expression of the verb to differ. Here it fulfills his role : I see myself through the other, the other reminds me of myself and I push him to observe himself through what we could call a kind of examination or observation going from one to the other.
Spacing: It is the key-concept my concept of difference rests upon. This spacing – rather than distinction – gets us out of the identities issues, of that concept of sorting in which I – in that impossible extraterritorial position implying a value judgement – classify others. It's quite the opposite: spacing is self-deploying from the momentum of separation, and remains a purely immanent affair. A matter of distance, of dynamics without any transcendental feature. Spacing encompasses as well the notion of asymmetry since the distance it unfolds has to be understood in terms of asymmetry of the objects involved in the spacing. I can easily come back to Sartre et the lacked because his vision stays relevant here: spacing is the lacked (la manqué) so the opposable entities can coincide in a spacing reduced to nought.
Between two or more opposable: we are returning to the notion of class, genus, categories in a sense, the fact that we can differentiate only what is possible to differentiate, and that I can not create a spacing where it would be so large that creating sense and staying in a relative difference would be impossible; We talked about absolute difference and saw its tragic implications.
Aiming to generate sense: It's this same paradoxical idea of a productive function of spacing in that it links the elements it dissociates and thus create sense between the involved opposable entities. It's not only about identifying an object, but it's about understanding deux or more entities in the distance and dynamics of their spacing by means of this paradoxical idea spacing produces.

We need to develop a philosophy of difference to present it in a positive light. Difference has somehow emerged from catastrophe to become exploration, discovery — one of the aim I was going for. It's no longer about superiority, it's about creating sense, thinking about objects and understanding them with the hindsight offered by spacing, with the dynamic with which it challenges our vision of things. Difference no longer divides, it builds, it creates unity, and it is the sum of our differences that makes a thing unique.

Seeking to redefine difference in order to abstract it from transcendence and identity is an absolute priority if I am to turn difference into a positive concept; drunk with evil, difference is terrifying and always leads to catastrophe and discontinuity. By basing it on a positive, immanent concept - spacing - difference becomes harmonious, no longer exclusive, but a distance that makes us think. More than just pointing the finger at the lacking, difference creates meaning between the entities involved, giving us to think about their relationships in the purest horizontality; it is its very logic of tension that forces us to think and create meaning between opposite entities. It's a question of referring objects to one another, in order to understand them in the distance and dynamics of their spacing, thanks to the tension that spacing produces. It enables us to think both of objects and of the in-between, and of the distance it emits in the plane of reflection it opens up from the point of separation. Difference moves from the exterior to the interior: from exterior determination, it becomes an internal genetic power (Deleuze, 1968/2011, pp. 224-225).

Bibliography

Deleuze, G. (2011). Différence et répétition (12e éd). Presses universitaires de France. (Original work published 1968)

Derrida J. (1997). L’ écriture et la différence. Ed. du Seuil.

Lévinas E. (1990). De l’existance à l’existant (2ème. ed. aug). J. Vrin.