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Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation (Post-Contemporary Interventions)

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While many philosophical texts can lay claim to a good cerebral work-out Massumi makes sure you don't forget that the body and sensation are very much part of this process. As he says "There is no thought that is not accompanied by a physical sensation of effort of agitation, (if only a knitting of the brows, a pursing of the lips, or a quickening of the heartbeat). This sensation, which may be muscular,...tactile, or visceral is backgrounded. This doesn't mean it disappears into the background. It means that it appears as the background against which the conscious thought stands out: its felt environment." These musings on the sensations and functioning of the body are not without larger consequence. Massumi elequently re-introduces movement, dynamism into the static and spatially orientated positional grid that is the basis of much analysis.

This is one of the best, most thought-provoking books I own. The essay on Reagan and the virtual is fascinating, as is the essay on the color blue. The guy blows me away. He doesn't just slavishly repeat Deleuzo-Guattarianisms like you might expect. He takes from them and then participates in the creativity that they inspire. I particularly like the way that he uses such real things to discuss the "philosophical." Indeed, Massumi does express a higher empiricism (one unencumbered by prefabricated categories and other forms of abstraction).

Massumi, noted translator of Deleuze and Guatarri's 'A Thousand Plateaus,' puts cultural theory in a radical new light. Approaches based on discourse, ideological critique, even many facets of post-structuralism, rely on notions such as positioning that map bodies onto a static cultural terrain. Ideological systems may inform how we make sense of the world, but they do not themselves sense. Movement, sensation, and affect are frequently lost among these cultural theorists.

Massumi's method, though imposing at first (his writing reflects the complexity of his philosophy), is actually very ordered. Each chapter, excluding the fifth, is basically a close reading (a "parable") illustrating novel sets of relations among movement, sensation, and affect. And the subjects of his readings are refreshingly novel too. Chapter 2 focuses on Ronald Reagan, the reciprocity between his affective character as president and his failure as an actor. Four chapters (1,6,7,9) examine experiments on vision and perception; in an amusing one (Ch 6), a pilot anesthetizes his 'ass' and loses all sense of orientation during flight. In Chapter 8, Massumi discusses his own experience of mistaken orientation in an office building, drawing on studies of synesthesia to highlight his reorienting mechanisms. Chapter 4 looks at performance artist Sterlac's body-as-object exhibitions. And Chapter 3 provides an incredibly insightful vision of soccer, and the 'transduction' of its affects into television and domestic violence.

The applicability of his work is wide. Research on embodiment and affect will find an indispensable guide that moves well beyond 'the body' and Foucault. Process philosophers, Deleuzian scholars, visual studies, social research on mobility, feminists looking to complicate the personal is political axiom, queer theorists seeking to complicate notions of performativity, all will find some critical use in this book. More generally, those interested in issues surrounding complex systems, though Massumi does not directly take up complexity theories, will recognize many familiar terms used in novel contexts. Thinkers such as Michael Hardt, William Connolly, Jane Bennett, Manuel DeLanda, and John Protevi resonate with Massami's theory. But 'Parables for the Virtual' is a singular accomplishment, standing apart from Massumi's other fine work.

Deliberately obtuse language used intentionally to disguise a lack of ideas and ankle deep philosophy. Or the "black hole prose" is Massumi's self conscious defense of a serious deficiency in his ability to write in the English language. Occasionally this book perverts science in completely infuriating ways. No one ever reviewing this book ever comments specifically on the ideas contained in the book because they either can't figure out what the hell Massumi is saying, or they have pieced together what Massumi is rambling on about and think it must be deeper and more intelligent than they think. To reiterate, this book is either an elaborate joke, a philosophical version of Borat, or completely pretentious and an utter waste of time for any serious person. Book works great as a door stop and reading comprehension test. If you need neither, skip it.