Difference is the singularity of worlds that are derived from creative
projection, and that are only consolidated in friendship, in sharing
desire.
Only lovers know difference.
But from within this movement (which for the sake of simplicity we
have defined as 1968) was also born the consciousness of an irre-
ducibility of the processes to any historical totalization. Anti-Oedipus
represents the passageway to this consciousness.
From the failure of the dialectical and totalizing aspirations of
1968 emerged a path of disillusionment that was manifested through
Heideggerism.
These philosophies that in the 70s and 80s (in different ways, Derrida
and Vattimo) reintroduced Nietzsche and Heidegger had understood
thought as dialogical activity, as infinite retreat within the web of
interpretations.
In this way, language institutes the sayable of the world but does not
constitute any dimension able to sustain a path, neither of an histor-
ical nor an existential type.
‘Weak thinking’ [il pensiero debole] freed itself from the totalitarian
pretext of founding the historicity of the world, but lacked the goal of
projecting a plane of consistency. Weak thinking does not succeed in
conceptualizing singularity.
But precisely because it is incapable of conceptualizing singularity, of
assembling it in friendship, in desire, the world at the end of the
century fell back into the barbarity of identity.
The need for belonging and for identitarian bases followed the
panic unleashed by the postmodern condition. This was because
from 1989 no transparency resulted, because the result was the
reemergence and valorization of opacities, that is, of integralist
particularisms.
Deleuze and Guattari’s thought, on the contrary, proposes an ethical
desiring singularity.
What founds communication is desire. Friendship is a desiring play
that is able to be singular.
Historical-dialectical thought proposed an imperious seriousness of
enunciation – language that pretends to act on the world in a totaliz-
ing way and institutes in effect a violent totality.
The desiring thought of Gilles and Félix conceives of the pathway as
sharing in lightness. Enunciation is not guaranteed by any truth, nor
can it be imposed, nor can it institute a world that is imposed by other
enunciations.The Provisional Eternity of Friendship 1399780230_221192_13_cha12.pdf 10/3/08 11:36 AM Page 139