TY - JOUR

T1 - Idleness as a micro ethico-political action

AU - Karakilic, Emrah Ali

PY - 2021/11/1

Y1 - 2021/11/1

N2 - According to Deleuze and Guattari, the central project of capitalism consists in the articulation of economic production with the production of subjectivity. The first part of this paper expands on how capitalism manufactures a particular mode of existence corresponding to its economic flows. Herein, it is argued that the paradigmatic figure of our neoliberal and machinic times is a self-condemning subject, attached simultaneously to the assemblages of capitalism as slave units in the cybernetic sense. The second part revolves around the question of activating a new process of subjectivation towards a new mode of existence. It is argued that the latter requires a voyage to an immanent outside and returning to the present plane of existence with new perspectives to recombine its elements differently. This spiritual voyage presupposes a suspension of the general mobilisation decreed by capital. In this context, idleness – in the form of meditative life – is offered as a micro ethico-political action that may not only allow us to acknowledge our habitually reactive selves but also give access to the outside where hitherto unknown existential refrains and configurations could be discovered.

AB - According to Deleuze and Guattari, the central project of capitalism consists in the articulation of economic production with the production of subjectivity. The first part of this paper expands on how capitalism manufactures a particular mode of existence corresponding to its economic flows. Herein, it is argued that the paradigmatic figure of our neoliberal and machinic times is a self-condemning subject, attached simultaneously to the assemblages of capitalism as slave units in the cybernetic sense. The second part revolves around the question of activating a new process of subjectivation towards a new mode of existence. It is argued that the latter requires a voyage to an immanent outside and returning to the present plane of existence with new perspectives to recombine its elements differently. This spiritual voyage presupposes a suspension of the general mobilisation decreed by capital. In this context, idleness – in the form of meditative life – is offered as a micro ethico-political action that may not only allow us to acknowledge our habitually reactive selves but also give access to the outside where hitherto unknown existential refrains and configurations could be discovered.

KW - idleness

KW - Deleuze

KW - Guattari

KW - capitalism

KW - political action

U2 - 10.1177/1350508420966744

DO - 10.1177/1350508420966744

M3 - Journal article

VL - 28

SP - 1049

EP - 1058

JO - Organization

JF - Organization

SN - 1350-5084

IS - 6

ER -