The Iran War pits Iran's mosaic doctrine of fragmentation against the Mosaic covenant of obedience – a clash that foreshadows an emerging multipolar world. Simondon calls this process transduction.
Very interesting. I’ve been meaning to read Simondon since I came across him through Deleuze (a connection you acknowledge) during my PhD studies.
“Transcendence relies on a visible centre of authority. Sever that head, and the system dies. The Western Mosaic covenant operates on this logic.”
This is different from my understanding of the transcendence/immanence pairing (indeed as you say, not an opposition). I follow Deleuze that all is immanence and what we regard as transcendence is in its arrangement or assemblage into something seemingly unreachable. Taken to the political, the transcendent would be unassailable. (No opportunity to change Christ’s divinity, to take the most extreme example, so Christianity lives on.) But if we regard all as immanent then micro-organisms of growing resistance, for example, can possibly modify or upset that idea.
A mistake the left makes is in regarding Trump as immanent, assailable (if only we could get more public support), an individual subject, whereas the problem may be that Trumpism is a name and a power that at this point might be transcendent and unassailable.
It’s more likely though that Trump’s power is “transcendental,” in the Deleuzian adoption of Kant, as empirically everywhere all at once, which is closer perhaps to the immanence you describe. Indeed Deleuze puts them together as “transcendental empiricism.”
Great commentary as always. I wonder, do you think Simondon has something to say about the subject of consciousness? It’s a problem I’ve been working on lately.
Simondon’s view of consciousness closely follows his standard individuation model. He starts with a distinction between psyche and consciousness. The psyche is saturated with preindividual charges combining an affectivo-emotive layer with drives, perceptions, memories, traumas and unresolved tensions. The psyche is far richer and more extensive than what appears in our awareness. Its heterogenous tendencies form a metastable field, held together (in the best cases) within a tenuous structured coexistence.
The psyche reaches toward an outer world of others, objects, and shared meaning. This reaching is the psyche's own mode of existence. The psyche is the site of transductive relation, coupling the individuating self with the world. This coupling is a metaxy - a middle region that belongs fully to neither pole nor to their simple sum. The psyche unfolds between a self and a world, holding them together in a metastable field. Perception, action, affect, and emotion are modes of this metaxic relation, each operating at a particular intensity. The self comes into being only through this middle region, and the world comes into being only as it is taken up from within it.
Consciousness arises as an event within the metaxic psyche. Information acts as a catalytic force, modulating the field. When the metastable field reaches a critical tension - when incompatible tendencies can no longer coexist silently - consciousness flares up as a temporary resolution within the middle region. The psyche endures as a metastable field, while consciousness appears in punctual events.
These events of resolution take one of two directions. The first direction moves outward across the metaxy into the collective. Consciousness passes from the between-space into shared action, into language, into the transindividual relation with others. The tension dissolves by becoming common.
The second direction turns inward, but inward here does not mean leaving the metaxy. The metaxy has its own depths. Consciousness loops back into the interior folds of the between-space, re-entering the same tensions within the closed circuit of the individual psyche. Consciousness operates successfully in both directions.
Outward movement yields transindividual expansion. Inward movement yields intensive deepening - the repeated resonances of a self turned back upon itself within the metaxy. Simondon had a greater appreciation of the outward movement toward the collective, yet both are genuine resolutions. It’s a bit like an army in the field, usually it desires advancement, but there are plenty of occasions where retreat is preferred.
This is super helpful thanks. This will fit it nicely with a synthesis I’m attempting with Deleuze’s milieu and Ettinger’s matrixial - these transformative betweens.
By the way, I taught a new class on strategies of political action in philosophy this term. Sun Tzu, Deleuze, Jullien and James C Scott made for a really effective way of thinking through resistance movements. We also talked a lot about Iran.
Hello Kevin, very interesting article, yet one, my complimente! I love the way you compared the US/Israeli “Mosaic covenant” with Iran’s Mosaic structure ; very well seen: the same word but through completely different cultural and religious lenses.
** You write “forcing the Iranian military system to choose between collapse without a fixed leader or survival through dispersion” : but was the choice so really binary ? I am just wondering whether the Mosaic structure is really implemented or whether only partially. You also admit later on in the article that it is indeed "semi-independence" only. Because obviously when there is also a diplomatic dance going on, any wrong move by independent actors in Iran may well kill the “deal”, assuming it could be favorable to Iran. At least one assumes that the Iranians believe a deal could be potentially favorable to them, otherwise they wouldn’t be negotiating and that presupposes careful Clausewitzean coordination at the top between the IRGC, army and the other civilian administrations of government that are concerned. Iran is still acting as a state agent internationally, not only towards its adversaries but also towards its allies – this in itself forces Iran to not deploy a complete mosaic structure, but only go further towards immanence than Western nations can possibly understand.
** Interesting connection between “Minor Occultation” and the current Khamenei the younger. It feels so alien to the Western powers attacking Iran, but must feel much more natural for Iranians.
** From a political point of view, the distinction you make between Immanence and Transcendence is very interesting. There is probably more to say there using this lens to look at politics.
The last part of the essay is also very interesting, and Simondon reminds me a lot of Ortega y Gasset, and his concept of “proyecto vital”. He famously said : “Yo soy yo y mi circunstancia”, which very much recalls Simondon’s process. There is no known connection between the two others though, but Simondon must have know the Spaniard, of course.
Finally, you write about the Trump transcendent regime’s failure to see the immanence of Iran but remember that the US, with its “check and balances” and its “separation of powers”, has an immanence built into it constitutionally upon foundation, though it may not be so natural for this Anglosaxon culture. I will probably use this insight in one of my next articles on the character of the United States. I will cite this article of course. :)
Thank you, Finn – this is an excellent comment, so let me attempt to respond.
First, we should have put a disclaimer somewhere: transcendence and immanence are two poles of a spectrum, and they always coexist in some ratio.
Your point about the US and its checks and balances being an example of political immanence is spot on, though the character Trump plays would do away with all this. That sentence – “forcing the Iranian military system to choose between collapse without a fixed leader or survival through dispersion” – bothered us as well. A better formulation is that Iran put on the mosaic "mask," foregrounding their dispersal while always maintaining an element of transcendence in the younger Khamenei.
Yes, Simondon must have been familiar with Ortega, and there are real similarities between Ortega's circunstancia and Simondon's metastable field. I will have to go back and read some Ortega – he is a bit forgotten now.
One way to look at Iran's view of the "deal" is that they see the process of negotiating as profitable in itself, especially now that they are no longer gathering as sitting ducks in the Supreme Leader's compound. (Though one could argue that that was a necessary sacrifice, since this war has been very good for Iran.) Iran's international reputation is rising and any more sneaky attacks by the US / Israel will only push them even deeper into pariah status.
I think that Russia is taking note on how Iran did not play game and immediately struck the GCC "non-combatants." The stakes are higher in Europe but there are a number of EU nations, not to mention the US and UK, who have already crossed the line into taking part in the war.
On the coincidence of Mosaic and mosaic, that is a Lacanian play on homophony as an unconscious unifying device. We left the normal definition of "mosaic" (a method of tiling) as a void to highlight these two less used version of the word, although its presence is implicit, as a structural metaphor for the multipolar world.
Thanks again for taking the time to work your way through our piece. This one is quite challenging and thus less assessable to a wide audience.
Very interesting. I’ve been meaning to read Simondon since I came across him through Deleuze (a connection you acknowledge) during my PhD studies.
“Transcendence relies on a visible centre of authority. Sever that head, and the system dies. The Western Mosaic covenant operates on this logic.”
This is different from my understanding of the transcendence/immanence pairing (indeed as you say, not an opposition). I follow Deleuze that all is immanence and what we regard as transcendence is in its arrangement or assemblage into something seemingly unreachable. Taken to the political, the transcendent would be unassailable. (No opportunity to change Christ’s divinity, to take the most extreme example, so Christianity lives on.) But if we regard all as immanent then micro-organisms of growing resistance, for example, can possibly modify or upset that idea.
A mistake the left makes is in regarding Trump as immanent, assailable (if only we could get more public support), an individual subject, whereas the problem may be that Trumpism is a name and a power that at this point might be transcendent and unassailable.
It’s more likely though that Trump’s power is “transcendental,” in the Deleuzian adoption of Kant, as empirically everywhere all at once, which is closer perhaps to the immanence you describe. Indeed Deleuze puts them together as “transcendental empiricism.”
Great commentary as always. I wonder, do you think Simondon has something to say about the subject of consciousness? It’s a problem I’ve been working on lately.
Thanks Jim.
Simondon’s view of consciousness closely follows his standard individuation model. He starts with a distinction between psyche and consciousness. The psyche is saturated with preindividual charges combining an affectivo-emotive layer with drives, perceptions, memories, traumas and unresolved tensions. The psyche is far richer and more extensive than what appears in our awareness. Its heterogenous tendencies form a metastable field, held together (in the best cases) within a tenuous structured coexistence.
The psyche reaches toward an outer world of others, objects, and shared meaning. This reaching is the psyche's own mode of existence. The psyche is the site of transductive relation, coupling the individuating self with the world. This coupling is a metaxy - a middle region that belongs fully to neither pole nor to their simple sum. The psyche unfolds between a self and a world, holding them together in a metastable field. Perception, action, affect, and emotion are modes of this metaxic relation, each operating at a particular intensity. The self comes into being only through this middle region, and the world comes into being only as it is taken up from within it.
Consciousness arises as an event within the metaxic psyche. Information acts as a catalytic force, modulating the field. When the metastable field reaches a critical tension - when incompatible tendencies can no longer coexist silently - consciousness flares up as a temporary resolution within the middle region. The psyche endures as a metastable field, while consciousness appears in punctual events.
These events of resolution take one of two directions. The first direction moves outward across the metaxy into the collective. Consciousness passes from the between-space into shared action, into language, into the transindividual relation with others. The tension dissolves by becoming common.
The second direction turns inward, but inward here does not mean leaving the metaxy. The metaxy has its own depths. Consciousness loops back into the interior folds of the between-space, re-entering the same tensions within the closed circuit of the individual psyche. Consciousness operates successfully in both directions.
Outward movement yields transindividual expansion. Inward movement yields intensive deepening - the repeated resonances of a self turned back upon itself within the metaxy. Simondon had a greater appreciation of the outward movement toward the collective, yet both are genuine resolutions. It’s a bit like an army in the field, usually it desires advancement, but there are plenty of occasions where retreat is preferred.
This is super helpful thanks. This will fit it nicely with a synthesis I’m attempting with Deleuze’s milieu and Ettinger’s matrixial - these transformative betweens.
By the way, I taught a new class on strategies of political action in philosophy this term. Sun Tzu, Deleuze, Jullien and James C Scott made for a really effective way of thinking through resistance movements. We also talked a lot about Iran.
Hello Kevin, very interesting article, yet one, my complimente! I love the way you compared the US/Israeli “Mosaic covenant” with Iran’s Mosaic structure ; very well seen: the same word but through completely different cultural and religious lenses.
** You write “forcing the Iranian military system to choose between collapse without a fixed leader or survival through dispersion” : but was the choice so really binary ? I am just wondering whether the Mosaic structure is really implemented or whether only partially. You also admit later on in the article that it is indeed "semi-independence" only. Because obviously when there is also a diplomatic dance going on, any wrong move by independent actors in Iran may well kill the “deal”, assuming it could be favorable to Iran. At least one assumes that the Iranians believe a deal could be potentially favorable to them, otherwise they wouldn’t be negotiating and that presupposes careful Clausewitzean coordination at the top between the IRGC, army and the other civilian administrations of government that are concerned. Iran is still acting as a state agent internationally, not only towards its adversaries but also towards its allies – this in itself forces Iran to not deploy a complete mosaic structure, but only go further towards immanence than Western nations can possibly understand.
** Interesting connection between “Minor Occultation” and the current Khamenei the younger. It feels so alien to the Western powers attacking Iran, but must feel much more natural for Iranians.
** From a political point of view, the distinction you make between Immanence and Transcendence is very interesting. There is probably more to say there using this lens to look at politics.
The last part of the essay is also very interesting, and Simondon reminds me a lot of Ortega y Gasset, and his concept of “proyecto vital”. He famously said : “Yo soy yo y mi circunstancia”, which very much recalls Simondon’s process. There is no known connection between the two others though, but Simondon must have know the Spaniard, of course.
Finally, you write about the Trump transcendent regime’s failure to see the immanence of Iran but remember that the US, with its “check and balances” and its “separation of powers”, has an immanence built into it constitutionally upon foundation, though it may not be so natural for this Anglosaxon culture. I will probably use this insight in one of my next articles on the character of the United States. I will cite this article of course. :)
Thank you, Finn – this is an excellent comment, so let me attempt to respond.
First, we should have put a disclaimer somewhere: transcendence and immanence are two poles of a spectrum, and they always coexist in some ratio.
Your point about the US and its checks and balances being an example of political immanence is spot on, though the character Trump plays would do away with all this. That sentence – “forcing the Iranian military system to choose between collapse without a fixed leader or survival through dispersion” – bothered us as well. A better formulation is that Iran put on the mosaic "mask," foregrounding their dispersal while always maintaining an element of transcendence in the younger Khamenei.
Yes, Simondon must have been familiar with Ortega, and there are real similarities between Ortega's circunstancia and Simondon's metastable field. I will have to go back and read some Ortega – he is a bit forgotten now.
One way to look at Iran's view of the "deal" is that they see the process of negotiating as profitable in itself, especially now that they are no longer gathering as sitting ducks in the Supreme Leader's compound. (Though one could argue that that was a necessary sacrifice, since this war has been very good for Iran.) Iran's international reputation is rising and any more sneaky attacks by the US / Israel will only push them even deeper into pariah status.
I think that Russia is taking note on how Iran did not play game and immediately struck the GCC "non-combatants." The stakes are higher in Europe but there are a number of EU nations, not to mention the US and UK, who have already crossed the line into taking part in the war.
On the coincidence of Mosaic and mosaic, that is a Lacanian play on homophony as an unconscious unifying device. We left the normal definition of "mosaic" (a method of tiling) as a void to highlight these two less used version of the word, although its presence is implicit, as a structural metaphor for the multipolar world.
Thanks again for taking the time to work your way through our piece. This one is quite challenging and thus less assessable to a wide audience.
gran articulo!