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Kristine Lu
Professor Katherine Biers
Writing Machines
15 February 2013
Modulating in a Society Post-Individual
The concept of modulation in Deleuzes Postscript on the Societies of Control can best
be understood simultaneously with its converse, molding. Deleuze employs this dichotomy to
describe the greater historical shift in the condition of economies from what he identifies as
economies of defined molds (enclosures [Postscript 3]), as described in Foucaults Discipline
and Punish, to Societies of Control, which may synonymously, in ways this paper will seek to
illuminate, be called economies of modulation. That is, modulation is the process by which a
Society of Control operates, a distinct departure from the molded, compartmentalized
organization of Foucaults disciplinary societies. To understand what Deleuze specifically means
by modulation, note that it is linked to the colloquial definition of the word: the action or result
of varying the magnitude, degree, etc., of something, esp. so as to regulate it (modulation). The
word and philosophical concept in fact derive from the work of French philosopher Gilles
Simondon. Simondon similarly contrasts modulation with mold, with a primary concern in
metaphysical identity formation, and is therefore a crucial predecessor to Deleuzes own socio-
historical orientation. Modulation and its paradoxical relationship to control are the foundations on
which Deleuzes analysis of a new social-economic order are constructed. With modulation at its
most basic level referring to perpetual change and the fluctuation of boundaries, Deleuze
comprehends this exact uncontrollability and the consequent de-emphasis from individual identity,
privacy, and agency as being the necessary and most dangerous devices of command in his society
of control.
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The action in modulation is essentially that of a passive but prolonged instability, constant
movement away from and without regard to structure and form. Simondons project is to analyze
this effect at its most rudimentary operation: that which occurs in the act of creation, or the process
at which something comes into being. In contrast to the mold, which limits and stabilizes rather
than only imposing a form, (Simondon), modulation is empty of form, or rather somewhat
transcends it: to mold is to modulate in a final way; to modulate is to mold in a continuous and
perpetually variable way (Simondon). In other words, modulation achieves the same effect as the
mold, yet is unconfined by either time or space.
These qualities of timelessness and spacelessness are specific to Deleuzes interests of
social description in Postscript. He further invokes cultural theorist Paul Virilio, explaining that
Virilio also is continually analyzing the ultrarapid forms of free-floating control that replaced the
old disciplines operating in the time frame of a closed system (Postscript 4). Virilios work
identifies the mutation and [] commutation of the mass transportation revolution of the
nineteenth century [and] broadcasting revolution of the twentieth [that affected] both public and
domestic space at the same time, to the point where we are left in some uncertainty of their very
reality, since the urbanization of real space is currently giving way to a preliminary urbanization
of real time (Virilio 9). Very much like Deleuze, Virilio recognizes the decline of social
organization; he remarks that what once was the structuring space of the city and [] family
home [is] finally closing in on the animal body (Virilio 11), thereby acknowledging not only the
collapse of private space, but implying also a collapse of human identity as once was bounded by
the physical body.
Deleuzes unique comprehension of modulation is propelled precisely by this interest in the
breakdown of physical space and real time, a process inevitably intertwined with his primary
project in Postscript of redefining control. For Simondon, the process of individuation
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distinguishing one thing from all others cannot have its principle in the matter or the form []
The true principle of individuation is the genesis itself taking place, i.e. the system in becoming
[and therefore] can neither be sought in what exists before the individuation occurs, nor in what
remains after the individuation is accomplished (Simondon). Much as Simondon runs counter to
the Western philosophical tradition [] thinking the nature of individuation uniquely in terms of
the characteristics of this already given individual (Bowden 136), Deleuze reacts against the
individuation of economic identity from matter or form that were once defined in the age of
discipline. He explains that Foucaults disciplinary societies initiate the organization of vast
spaces of enclosure [] to compose a productive force within the dimension of space-time whose
effect will be greater than the sum of its component forces (Postscript 3). Now, however, [w]e
are in a generalized crisis in relation to all the environments of enclosure (Postscript 3-4), and
while [e]nclosures are molds [] controls are a modulation, like a self-deforming cast that will
continuously change from one moment to the other, or like a sieve whose mesh will transmute
from point to point (Postscript 2). Thus adopting Simondons understanding that identity is
created from continuous fluctuation, Deleuzes apprehension is specifically of the commander
behind modulation in this new society: the corporation, which itself lacks definition as a spirit, a
gas (Postscript 4).
That is, the danger in the society of control is that the controlling organism the
unbounded, pervasive corporation has taken command of the terms of social control, modulation.
In doing so, the corporation manages the processes of individuation, thereby regulating the degree
to which individuation can occur. Deleuze argues that [w]e no longer find ourselves dealing with
the mass/individual pair. Individuals have become dividuals, and masses, samples, data, markets,
or banks (Postscript 5). More disquieting than the de-individualization of society, however, is
that the market exploits the identity-effecting movement of modulation, most notably by
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implementing floating rates of exchange (5); salaries based on constant competitions and
contests (4); and perpetual training (5). Thus, the control society commands the modulating
process so that individuation can only occur so far as to maximize the economic potential of
working society; the worker no longer finds assurance in exacted salaries or discrete examinations
that determine his market worth, but rather is driven by an excellent motivational force in the
brashest rivalry as a healthy form of emulation (Postscript 5).
Insofar as modulation, which defines identity, now has become synonymous to or at least
a core component of what Deleuze recognizes as newly defined control, a society of control is
then also a society of modulation, a society in which the factory has given way to the
corporation, the family, school, army, and factory no longer the distinct analogical spaces []
but coded figuresdeformable and transformable (Postscript 6). This dispersive
(Postscript 6) quality is additionally the defining characteristic of Deleuzes conception of the
machine. As Clare Colebrook explains, Deleuze uses machine here in a specific and
unconventional sense in which [t]here is no aspect of life that is not machinic; all life only works
and is insofar as it connects with some other machine (57). Deleuze sees the machine as a thing
constantly and entirely modulating: There is no such thing as either man or nature now, only a
process that produces the one within the other and couples the machines together [] production
is immediately consumption and a recording process [] without any sort of mediation []
Hence everything is production (Anti-Oedipus 2-4). The de-individuated description of society
and reality as a machine becomes ever more threatening when the conquests of the market are
made by grabbing control[, c]orruption thereby gain[ing] a new power (Postscript 6). It seems,
then, that in the society of control, conventions are inverted and therefore more dangerous:
individuation and the process of becoming individual is by modulation, thereby becoming de-
individuated into data or pure market value, while control at its zenith is uncontrolled, a
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nondiscrete and continual process whose terms are entirely dictated by the ravenous appetite of the
corporate spirit.
Unfortunately, the entire process seems rather disheartening. Deleuze has re-appropriated a
novel concept originally utilized to refine social understanding of identity creation, as driven by
the mere fact of individual existence and thereby ensuring uniqueness, into one that describes a
socio-economic affliction, a debilitating capitalistic infection insatiable for production. Modulation
permits the machine to exist everywhere and for control to be menacingly unstable, individuals
reduced to being, in a sense, the only somewhat bounded mechanisms insofar as they still mediate
in the act of consumption and production. Perhaps this is enough, however, for optimism:
Deleuzes recommendation is not to battle the free-floating forces of modulation, but instead, to
reconsider the possibilities for mechanisms (a mechanism being defined as a closed machine with
a specific function [Colebrook 56]). If modulation is uncontrollable as the controlling means by
which society functions, agency and human improvement must then rely on the conviction that
[t]here is no need to fear or hope, but only to look for new weapons (Postscript 4). By the
conclusion of Postscript, Deleuze returns the challenge to individual potential: [W]ill they give
way to new forms of resistance against the societies of control? Can we already grasp the rough
outlines of these coming forms? (Postscript 7). It seems the only way to regain control in this
new society is to discover new adapted forms, ones that will return individual control in a society
that has become less and less attuned to its independent components. Doing so, says Deleuze, is
the only opportunity for individuals to find respite from the growing perils of relentless
modulation.

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Works Cited
Bowden, Sean. "Gilles Deleuze, a Reader of Gilbert Simondon." Gilbert Simondon: Being and
Technology. By Boever Arne. De. N.p.: n.p., n.d. 135-53. Print.
Colebrook, Claire. Gilles Deleuze. London: Routledge, 2002. Print.
Deleuze, Gilles, and Flix Guattari. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. London:
Continuum, 2004. Print.
Deleuze, Gilles. "Postscript on the Societies of Control." October 59 (1992): 3-7. Print.
"modulation, n.". OED Online. December 2012. Oxford University Press. 15 February 2013
<http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/120684?redirectedFrom=modulation>.
Simondon, Gilbert. Lindividu Et Sa Gense Physico-biologique. Trans. Taylor Adkins. Paris:
Presses Universitaires De France, 1964. Web.
<http://fractalontology.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/microsoft-word-simondon.pdf>.
Virilio, Paul. Open Sky. London: Verso, 1997. Print.