You are on page 1of 17

The Transmission

of Affect
~

TERESA BRENNAN

CORNJJLL UNIVERSITY l'llES S


ITilACA AND LONDON

-1\liiW,. ''''
' r-

Contents
Copyright 2.004 by Cornell lJniversity
All rights resel'ved. Except for brief quotalionu hl a 1eview1 this book, 01 parts
thereof, must not be reproduced in ony forrn without per1nission in wdHng fro1n
\'he ptthlishet'. For h1forrnation1 Rddt-ess Col'nell University Press, Sage I-louse,

512 En at State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.


First published 2004 by Cornell Unlvel'si.ty Press

Foreword vii

First prhltlng1 Cornall Papci:bucks, 2004


1.

Introduction

Printed hi. the United Sb1tes of America


2.

The Transmission of Affect in the Clinic 24

Library of Congrerm Cataloglng-in-Ptlblicatlon Data

3. Transmission in Groups 51
B1mutan, Thresa, 1952-2003
The trans1nisslon of ~iffect I Tctesa. Brennan.

4.. Tlie New Paradigm 74.

p.c1n.
Includes bibliographical 1-efeia1ceB and index.
ISBN 0 ..8014-3998-1 (cloth: alk, paper)-lSBN 0-8014-8862-1 (pbk.: alk. paper)
1, Affect (Puychology)-Social aspects. I. Title,

BF5y(.B74 .?.003
152,4-dc2.2
2003019730

lJaperback pdntiug

10

9 8 7 6 .5 4 3
10

8 7 6 5 4 3

6. The EducaHon of iJ1e Senses

116

7. Interpreting the Flesh 1.,39

Cornell U11ivel'sity Press strives to use envh'onmentally i't:!Bponsible .supplierR


nl\d mateduls to the fullest exteut possihle ht the publiBh11lg of ita books. Such
n1alerials include vegetable-baaed, 1ow~VOC inks and ackl~free papers that are
rocyded, tol-ally chlorinenfree, or pnrtly compo1:1ed of nonwood fibcl'a. For
further ittfot'1"ation, vislt our website at www.cornellpl.'e:IB.corneII.edu.

Cloth printing

5. The Sealing of the Heart 97

:1;

Notes 165
Wark Cited 203

Index

217

...,_
CIIAPTER

SIX

The Education of the Senses

Paradoxically, feelings are sellsory states produced by thought, while


interrnptive thoughts are produced by affects. Feelings are thoughtftll, and affects are thoughtless. Feelings are mea11t to be informatlon
about whether a state is pleasurable 01 painfol, whether one is at\Tacted to something or averse to it. This is the classic and only basis
for distinguishing feelings and affects. Feelings are meant to say, "I
like it, it feels good lo me," 01 "I don't like it" and to lead to action on
this basis. Jlut if feelings are trncing a logic in the flesh simultaneously
with a logic in history, this means they feel good because they are living. The good feeling of living and the personal liking of the sensations !;hat come with it coincide in what is termed "pleasure.'' Jlu.t
only up to a point. At that point, the point al which the organism
would have to give up a distinct identity in order to go on feeling, it
w.ill generally choose the forme1 even if it then feels bad. Thus a man
gives into social pressure and chooses vanity (the need not to be
ridiculous in the eyc'S of others) over happiness. The organiHm makes
a simila1 choice, for in.stance, when it takes a new job far from those it
loves because tl1ere is a "career advance." niology, like Freud, falters
wl1en it co1nes to inaldng sense of sometl1ing tl1at n1akes no sense for
the living organism, only for the ego. L:ike F1eud, It assimilates the
ego drives to the life drive even when they are opposites (as I have
shown). A real distinction would be drawn in terms of the difference
between what is living and what is dead; the bounda1'ies that matter,
and the only ones that work, are those that shield the organism from

u6

dead maller by stmounding it wil11 a field of living attention directed


outward in a perpetual act of love.
In positing that people in the Weste1'1l world were once aware of the
transxnission of affect, and that we have been sealed against th1B
l<nowledge by the deadening, passifying affects of modem times, I
have implied that knowledge of transmission was once collBcious, although that knowledge is now repressed. Accol'dingly, the problem of
how we discern becomes n:tore acute in the 111odern context. To elate,
the only documented htstances of mode1'1l discernment of the ll'ansmissioll of affect lie in literature and clinics. Despite U\is, I want to
suggest that a faculty of discernment operates al various levels, and
we can identify these readily if we admit that the p1'ac!lce of discetnmcnt long predates its application to matters of transmission. Those
seventeenth-century philosophe1s that we turned om attention to earlier were not alone in turning their attention to the analysis of tl1eir
states of passion. Similar forms of reflective or meditative analysis
have been in practice since the odgins of philosophy (and this practice
originally constituted philosophy). Indeed, awareness of the struggle
with affects or passionA l'UtlS as long as the n1editativc tradition in
which the faculty for concentration in the form of prnyer has been
pitched in battle against the sources of distraction. The Jesuil-trah~ecl
Descartes and the Jewish-educated Spinoza were aware of medital!ve
battle. It carries over to theil' own notions of a struggle with the passions. Botl1 men were aware that the detachment necessary for selfobservatio11 is one thing, the e11ergetic force 11eeded to override a paH~
sion or affect anotl1e1. Other pre-Cartesian instances of stmggle with
the passions are often recorded in the l11ird person. While St. Augustine discusses his infantile a11tics in terms of ego sum, St. Teresa of
Avila refers to h_erself as "a person." Meanli1ne1 the Jesuits' fou11de1~
St. Ignatius of Loyola, aclually wrote (not well) On the Discernment of
Spirits (meaning demons as well as angels, and hence meaning what
we now term affects).' By the twentieth centmy, knowledge of .internal psychological processes was relegated to lhe reabn of depth psychology, itself dismissed for lack of objectivity. The psychology taught
in universitie.s today proceeds on the basis of holding as many factors
constant--till, fixed~as possible. Similarly, all that is left of the meditative tradition in analytical philosophy is a tendency to for.us on the
examples of evel'yday life. The stmggle wiU1 the passions has ret1x~al'ed to the u11conscious; it has beco111e tlle t1nconsciot1B1 Ol' one

The Education of the Senses

117

form of it, as we have seen. But those in analysis, or engaging in the


meditation rites that also resurrect the specter of self-detachment, do
not call their opponents by tl1e name of "de1nons/' let alone "pas~
sions," or even ''affects." They call it the ego/' if they are beit1g ana...
Jyzed properly, and even if they are not.
In the last chapter, I suggested that the ego was nothing more than a
constellation of affects, grouped in clusters of associations (verbal and
visual) around certain S\Jbjective fa11tasmatic positions, in turn the re. .
suit of the subjective standpoint. l lmve also shown how the ego, as
the named enemy, appears in the seventeenth centmy for Pascal and
the authors of the Port-Royal Logic. The argument of this book goes
further, suggesting that the ego replaces the affects because it ls lhe affects in a more solid constellation. These egolc affects have become so
predominant and organized (ht lhe spreading of the foundational fantasy) that we now believe them when they tell us, "This is me." If, as
we supposed in chapter 4, there ls an alternative center for coherence
in the mind, fOI' bringing logic and reason lo bear synthetically on diverse information, there Ls little evidence of its presence. That olher I,
the one who once stmggled with demons, then fought the passions,
and now 11egotiatcs with the ego, is less and less i11 evidence. This is
especially apparent in the decline ofreligious practices and civil codes
of courtesy. As we noted at the outset, civil and religious codes may be
remnants of a conscious knowledge of transmission. In cullmes
whete knowledge of transmission is unconscious, these codes have
less 1neaning m1d are easily displaced by argun1ents tllat one sl1ould
be "free to express one's feelings." As the stolcally ii1cli11ed realized
long since, if freedom means anything, it is freedom from possession
by the negative affects. Where such freedom holds sway, lhe otl1er I of
discernment and sensation gains a hearing. When possessed by an affect with which we are unfan1iliar, it can seem entirely reasonable tu
do things that the unposscssed self would reject oul of hand. Such
things are readily mtionalized at the time, but afterward the perpelratm marvels al how far he forgot himself. This, I think, is what Aristotle
meant when he said that lhe doer of evil does not know at the time
that he is doing evil. From the perspective of the affect i11 commanq of
attention at the time, the action is entirely approptiale.
1'he point here, howeve1~ is that the significance of verbal, enlotional restraint demanded by various declining codes is unclear when
the transmission of affect is miaclmowledgccl. We have established
11

HS

Tile Transmission of Affect

that when I judge the othe.r, l simultaneously direct toward her lhat
stream of negative affect that cuts off my feeling of kinship from her
as a fellow living, suffel'ing, joyful creatme. I will expand on this notion briefly, before moving on. The act of directing negative affects to
the other severs my kin tie with her by objectifyi11g he1. I make her
into an object by directing these affects toward her, because that ad
mad<s her with affects that I reject in myself-"thesc affects do 110t
exist in me, but in her." l assmne thal she does not feel as I do. At lhe
personal level, the olhering underpinned by judgmental projections ls
evident in the scapegoating that occurs in mosl familial or professional communities.' At the cultural level, these judgmental projections feature in othering by race 01 sex or sexual orientation. Here lhe
othei~ collectively, becomes feminized, that is, styled untmthful by na"
ture, too emotional, less logical, 1nore superstitious than us reasoning
beings.' When Rousseau in Emile, or On. Education demands that Sophie be educated to lie, while Emile only speaks the truth, he is doing
no more than putting the realities of modem affective projections into
words. By encouraging attitudes of suspicion, by (worse) encouraging the id<:?a that a prlv1leged class, sex, race, 01 caste is free of dissembling, emotionality, or stupidity, one co1nes to overvalue one's oWn
ca1Jacities.
By examining the affects experienced in judging anothei) one learns
a great deal about how t11e illusion of self-containment is purchased at
the ptice of dumping negative affects on that other. The dyadic and
complex level of affective transmission js marked in terms of how it is
t11at one party cal'1'ies the other's negative affects; his aggressiot\ is experienced as her anxiety <l11d so forth. By means of this piojection, one
believes oneself detached from him or her, when one is, in fact, propelling forward an affect that he will experience as rejection or hurt,
unless he has sMelded himself against these affects by a similar negative propulsion, a passionate judgment of his own.
When one judges, one is possessed by the affects. When one discerns, one is able lo detach from them, to know where one stands, to
be self-possessed. Bence the idea that the slmng identification withthe living of-an actual ethical code is one basis for discerning the affects. Discernment, in the affective wodd, functions best when U is
able to be alert to the moment of fear 01 anxiety 01 grief or other sense
of Joss thal permit the negative affect lo gain a hold. Discemmenl
then is allied lo a position in which one receives and processes with-

The Education of the Senses

119

1''

out the intervention of anxiety ot othe1 fixed obstacles in the wny of


the thinking process.
On the face of it, any faculty of discemment must involve a process
whereby affects pass from the state of sensoty regislrotion to a state of
cognitive or intelligent reflection; this does not mean that the process
of ref!eclion is without affect, just that the affect is other than the affect
that is being reflected upon. James shows that this was the case fO!'
Hobbes; nonetheless, reason and passion or affect and cognition keep
reappearh1g as bi11aries despite the argun1ents against their separalion
in practice. Nevertheless, these binaries are attempts at approximating
a real and necessary distinction between the ego and the facully of
discetnmen.t, between the passions and the "other I" who reflects 011
them. The use of the binaries, in short, may be an approximation of the
palpable experience of being pulled in two directions. One of these directions feels more passionate (the desire to tick someone off); U1e
othet (to listen, to discuss) more reasonable; but U1e licking off can
present itself as coldly rational, while the reasonable discussion ca11 be
warm. Reason and passion, as a distinction, captures some of the ele-.
JI\tl'J.1ts at work here but 111isses tl1e feeling or sensitive component in
reaso11, just as Hmisses t11e calculath1g component in passion.it
However, the point is that discc~mnent-by this argtJment--works
by sensing (touching, hearing, smelling, listening, seeing) and the expression o! the senses, particularly in words. It works by feeling
(sometimes in the dark), and it Works deductively, often with insufficient informatio11; it n1akes 1nistakes wl1en it is ru.'lhed to conclude before ils time (it is rushed by the ego, which always needs a plan) or
when it is delayed by the ego (which is always anxious about doing
the wrong thing). Discemme11t, when it doubts the ego's judgment,
registers as a feeling. Son1ethnes s11ch feelings can be al'ticulated with
r<:>JaHve exactitucle; they can be na111ed, and reasons for their existence
can be adduced. But this, precisely, requires a vocabulary; that is why
we defined feelings as sensations that have found a tr\atch in words.
The naming of the feeling is one thing, but the ability to investigate
its logic requires 1nore. rrhat investigation requires a conceptual vocabulary and a means for circumventing the affects' combined di.stractlons. The notion that we arc susceptible to tr1msmitted affects
.rnakes n1ore sense of IIindu, ru1d related, 1eco1n1nendations for
achieving peace,5 just as it inakes n1ore sense of the 1neditative tradition Descartes inherited. h1 the Jesuit tradition, spirits 01 den1orts

120

The Transmission of Affect

were and are discer11ed, 1nttch as affects are now disce1ned. There is a
rea"on why Descartes's Meditations are called n1editations. The
, p11rsuit of clear and distinct ideas may 110 !angel' mean .what 1t once
meant, but h1 the meditutive context it ineans reasoned ideas H1al" can
be called upon when one is assailed by affects md modes in which
one doubts one's faith.' These affects register as a se.l'ies of apparently
unconnected thoughts, in which one thought inten11pls another
thought's pathway without warning. By this meallB one ls distracted
and led to believe that one's feelings are other than they may be. Such
feelings are recoverable in some cases via reflecli~n, in oth~1s
analysis, but the procedure is essentially the same. It is that of lustoncal recollection, the comparison of 1nentories.
When a man realizes that there is grief behind his anget, and that
what he felt when he heatd this or that is not the passionate affect that
possessed him at the time, but something finer, how does he do so?
He remembers. Then he onlwits the affects by comparmg the state in
whicl1 he was possessed by the othering affects with the stale in
which he discerned and felt. He may do so with an analyst or, occasionally, with the kind of friend who helps him see thmugh the veil of
affects tatl1er than thickening the veil with misplaced sympathysympathy for t11e affects (as in the sharing of indignation).rather than
love for the friend. He reviews the history of his own feelings and affects in the matter. He follows an essentially histotical procedure in
order to recover a truth, and lte does so with loving intelligence 1at11er
than by wallowing in. judgments of himself (guilt and shame) or others (fe1.u and paranoia). 111e limits to this process are not only set by
insight (the process whereby se11sation and feeling connect) but by
language and concept (the means whereby sensation and feeling
nect). The pl'Ocess consists of the redh'ection of energy; the means he
in the comparative sensations of those redeployments, as well as the
words into which we are born. Our man has to have a language for
any 111atte1' involving histod.cal 1eview, al\d lauguage is always cultural and traditional,' but that does not mean the development of !an
gnage is over. In naming a sensation of whiclt he may be aware (energy depa1'1ing and returning) he may be limited by his c1.ment
vocabulary, but he is pushed to expand it in accounting for sensations
in sequence: the knowledge gleaned by comparison.
(~01npariso.n based on 111en1ory is critical h1 all practices of discern1nent. B11t unlike the instanta11eo11s con1parison of positions discussed

br

cm;-

The Education of tile Senses

"21

in the last chapte1; compal'ison based on memory does not depend on,
but ratl1er works against, the agitation of the affects.a ~rhe instanta-

neous comparison of positions effected by the egoic affects demands


an immediate assessment and projection-or inb'ojection-of one's
position vis-a-vis the other. This unpleasant process of "placing" has
no n1en101y, i10 sense of historical ind.ebtedness.9 I--Iistorical comparison, by contrast, is fueled by living attention. It can only proceed by
concentration. Yet in the matemal cases discussed previously, we saw
H1at concei1tration_ can also be impaired when a consta11t stream of at~
tention (the back of one's mind) is diverted toward an infont, leading
to the conclusion that the thing that is marshaled in concentration is
an attentive energy, withottt which concentration is poweiless to de-

feat ti1e affects and fantasies that interrupt it.rn As we have also see11,
the affects and concentration boti1 draw on energy, but the affects
have a direct relation to visual and audito1y fantasy, while mncentrati.on and feelings have a direct relation to words (and that open form
of visio11 and the "ot11er ear/' prevail when these hypot11etical forn1S
of vision and audition are not abducted by fantasy). As blocks in the
way of feeling, vision and audition only serve the ego when one is
wearh1g Freud's #ca1) of hearing on one side/' ~111d seeing with an of~

fending eyeJI
The battle between feelings and affects that has characterized this
argument so far is plainly intensifying. So, in t11is chapte1; will a battle
between ~he notion of "spontaneous" einoHons a11d educated feel-

ings. The education, beghu1ing with t11e discemment, of the affects relies 01\ the feelings, which communicate with the sensations. But the
sensations have a linlited range of self-expression when no language
for 01 practice in theil

r~~cogi1ition

is available. 'fhis does not 1nean

that the education of the senses has been altogether lacking. We shall
look at how the educatl011 of 1110 finer feelings was partially accom
plished through religious codes and codes of courtesy. That is to say,
codes of courtesy and ethical or religious conduct operate on a level
similar to philosophical and psychological discermnent insofar as
they use the sa111e n1eans: con1parison, detach.n1ent, and living attcn~
lion. Ilollowing some refiections on religious and cn\tural codes, and a
related discussion of the virtues embodied in those codes, I shall discuss the level of discernment that is reached by the various philosophical and analytic practices. From "\his discussion there follows
more analysis of living attention and the life drive and of the role

u2

Tl1e Transmission of Affect

played by the theological virtues in transforming as well as resisting


the affects. After that, we shall examine the mechanisms of dlscem
ment in relation to sensation,

Cultural Discernment

Civil codes are not understood, of course, as means for diAce1ning and
resisting the transmission of affect and responding to another's affective states in ways that would help dissipate 11egative and disabling
affects (putting a person at ease),12 But this is what they do. Codes of
courtesy and religious codes compare the passionate hnpulse to act or
cogitate in a certain way with a code of conduct and restraint. When
the code is strong enough to override the in1pulse, whether its origins
are internal or extemal 01 both, the impulse is refused. The ability to
do this as a n1atter of cot1rse, or on occasion, was captured in the old

I.

expression, "finer feeling," something akin to flne sensory distinc-

tions. The level of finer feeling is tli.e level referred to in the Spanish lo
siento: colloquially, "I'm sorry," and literally, "I feel it." On this level
discer1lment and the social cottrtesies de1ived fron1 it ai<e 1nanifest, in~
solar as one is open to otl~ers in a way that wishes them well and
would dissipate their anxiety or so11ow if one could. It is an opening
through which one feels the other's pain or joy as one's own. hl describing friendship, Montaigne put it this way: "11ue friends feel each
otl1er's feelings."13 They feel their joy or !heir sonow. This taking on
of the other's feeling, as a consdo11s thing, presupposes a different
sense of self or boundary than the boundary the ego manufactures by
projecting out-or by being swamped by negative affects: One is not
open to ti1e other through the ego's routes but thmugh the deploy
ment of sensation, mmning feeling. This is the equipment of the discerne1~ as distinct froni. the p1ojecto1'. Civil and spiritual codes t11at re~
strain affects that pass around as well as within cottld lu1ve been
wdtten wlth Hi.is difference in mind. liar instance, a code of child reaiing based on restraining anger does not only repress.14 It also builds
resistance to expressing a wave of passing angry affect. A code based

i
!

on encouraging affective self~expression, on the othe1 hand.1 could


leav~ a person with no defense ttgainsl invading affects1 no ineans of

telling whether they expressed the self or something other than the
self. One stmpects that some understanding of the need for discern-

Tlie Educntion of t/1e Senses

12:i

men! of the affects in child readng iB reflected in language suggestin


that the affects and emotions are not something that originate su~
gen.eris. One is F'beside oneself" or "out of one's mind" or "giving in
to feelings.'' Co11versely, 011e is 11closed in" / at best detached. There are
implications here for ideas that have traditionally been dismissed as
conservative. If affechl wash throu.gh us, "giving in" to then\ or 11108..
1
ing it' in em.otional display means that notions of en1otional reserve
as a good thing1 take on new 1neaning. In t11is respect, as h1others,111;
accou11t is only a 111irror image of H.oussea111s notion of being forced to
be free. 15 When one d.oes not adhere to the dictates of the general will
'
one 1s, for l{ousseau, so1nel1ow estranged fro1n an essential part of
oneself, that part embodied in the collective. By this account, the ability to discern. the transmis.<rion of affect may lead one to oppose the
general will as an undesirable affective force. "fhere is no auto111atic
good in the general will. There is only automatic good in it when it
embodies ihe dit'ection of life.
There are codes that read like remnants of a knowledge of how lo
restrain the seven passifying affects, and which uphold or are based
on vil'tues that do the same. For instance, envy is constrained when
one pl'Ohibits manifestations of spite in general: "If you cm1't say
something nice, say nothing at all"i 01' "qui accuse, ,/accuse." T'hese
al>o co11slrain anger, as well aB envy. Such prohibiHons, together with
Injunctions to humility 01 kindness (read: injtmctions to restrain pride
and not to provoke envy or spite in the othe1), act as social con"
straints. What kindne5s is, I suggest, 1" the refusal to pass on or trans"
mit negative affects and the attempt to prevent the pain they cause
othe1s-to really prevent it, not just be seen to do so. That very refusal
earlies an admixture of love that, when it predomhmles in the psyche,
is also more tha11 kindness; it Is seeing the other in a good light, giving
them the good image, slrnaming one's full attentive energy towa!'d
anot1i,er and another's concerns, rather than one's own. I-Iere it is
enough to say that kindness Is another way of describing the protective attitude that stands between another and the experienoe of nega"
tive affects. It is, then, also a practice of discer1\n1ent to the extent that
it encourages its wotild~be practilio11eis 11ot .to give ill to co1n1non
negative affects. Religions operate on similar principles. Buddha says
to return a flower fo1 the stone that is flnng at you; Christ, like Isaiah
before him, says to turn the other cheek. Both injnnctions aie also injunctions not to contin.ue the translnission of i1egative affect; to stop it

124

The Transmission. of Affect

before it can be passed on or back. They are injunctions, in fact, to ab"


aorb and transmute that affect, although as such they can give rise to a
conflict between mental health (do not allow yourself to be dumped
on) and spfritual health (do not dump back).
The1-e are seven classical virtuea, just as there are seven sins. Recent
tradition divides these vfrtues into four cardinal and three theological
virtues. I noted in the last chapter how the seven glfts of the Holy
Spirit, which match up more or less with the seven virtues, are counterposed to the passifying passions. Consider how the fom cardinal
virtues (fotlilude, justice, tempe1ance, and prudence) stand against
the affects. (I shall return to the theological virtues afte1 the discussion
of discernment.) Strength is .no 11101-e than the comage and ability to
refuse the negative affects under difficult circnmstances. Temperat1ce,
because dealing with another's excesses can often take the form of ex"
cesses of one's own. And I suppose pmde11ce has to have something
to do with the conservation of energy or resomces: Justicc especially. I
submit that justice, and the process of being justified, means taking no
more affect than is appropriate for one's actions and though.ls, and
giving the affect that is also appmpriate for what OM receives as living attention from the other. I-Jenee the Jewish understanding of the
"just inan." One might consider here how the psychoanalytic and
meditative virtues of detachment, modesty, love of tmth, and avoiding self-pity are also excellent benchmatks fo1 behavior designed to
preve11t the trans1nission of Affect. These virtues are also ineans for
implementing the cardinal vi1tucs. Detachment means attempting to
Aort out affects fmm feelings. From their active yet receptive capacity,
I concluded earlier that feelings are also the means fo1 setlsing the
other's needs and dispositions. Kindness is referred to as thoughtful"
ness. This thoughtfttl prncess of itself may be the means for resisting
the other's negative affects; by thinking oneself into another's posi"
tion, patadoxically, one meets all souls kindly, knowing that they too
are possessed by affects they would rather dispel than circulate. Mod"
esty m(:ans not provoking envy or ange1~ which iB prudent. Avoiding
sclf"pily is advisable because self-pity means enjoying the phenome"
non of being hurt, and thls means setting ttp a relation between hook
and fish; to dwell in the hurt is to accept the hook, to become the fish
on the line. I would like to say that negative affects only ever fir1d their
mark if there is something within that accepts the hook. So that if I
blame myself for crimes unlmow11, I am more likely to attract agg1-es-

The Edu.cation of the Senses

.,

''
':

i.

'i

'\

,.

125

sive accusations of wrongdoing in relationships o.t. others' sphel'e...q,16


But oue can also, as we have see11, be dumped upon simpliciter. This is
the case in shock and trauma, and there is the constant and less tangible buffeting by everyday life. Buffeting can be discerned, just as the
vaguely pleasurable process involved in masochistic complicity can
be identified. Bui it takes an act of sustained consciousness, sustained
beca11se this resistance is precarious until o:t unless it becomes a habit.

Perso11a1 Discer111nent
The production of habits appropdate to dlscemmmt is a matter of
personal practices in.volving comparison, recollection and 1netnory;.
and detachment. These practices are held in common in the meditative tradition in philosophy, in psychoaMlysis, and in meditation itself, or passive prayer, although the emphasis on one practice mther
than another varies. Comparison for the religious Wol'ks by comparing one's actual conduct with a religious ideal. For the religious and
the eal'ly moderns alike, ii also works by comparing and contrasting
inner states. But such comparLon of itself does 110! really explain the
decislon to embrace or reject a certain affect. If we conceive the momc11t of judgment as the moment in which we forcefully embrace or
project an affect, then we can accept that the judgment itself is a deployment of energy directed toward an object, and as such, an affective f.orce h1 itself. 17 But because the stream of judgn1ents one Jnakes i11
daily life takes place in the context of affective transmission, the lessons learned from the comparison of states of feeling are constantly
intermpted by waves of affect. It is not only one's own inner states
that are the objects of a meditative investigation by reJfoclion and
evaluation, as they were for Desca1'1es and Hobbes. It is also a qnestion of one-self and the othl~t. But because of the other, we learn the
difference between living attention and draining affects. One can experience directly the effects of receiving atte11tlon (once one k11ows to
look) and the remarkable experience of being bored or dr11ined. (Boredom, after all, is not explicable only on the basis 1of the bore's utterances. Another can say the san\c wo1'(ls and leave one vitalized and
fascinated.)
The more one lives in the emotional world of judging 01 being
judged the more the affects distupt concentration or the pl'Ocess of

J.26

Tlw Tlansmission of Aj}'ect

sustaining attention, One can compare states of feeling as long as one


t'e:rnembers to note their passing, but one cannot attend to an bu1cr
progression when one is possessedi one forgets, one loses t11e thread.
So much is evident when we turn to the scraps of writing on discernment in the clinic. To quote Bion:
Now the experience of counter~transference [meaning the experience of
the otht~1's affect as discussed in chapter 2] appeal's to me to have quite a
distinct quality that shot1ld enable tlte analyst to dlffel'entiate the occa~
sion when he is the object of a projective identification from the occasion
when he is not. The analyst feels he is being nu1nipulated so as to be
playing a pnrt in. son1eone else's fontaay, ol' he would do IJO if it were not
for what in recollection I can only call a te1nporal'y loss of insight, a AenAe
of experiench1g strong feelings. 18

In the clinic, the "temporary loss of insight" 1narks the interruption


of one's chain of associations. Inforn1ally {as the qttestion has not as
yet been subject to a formal survey), cliniclans who experience the
transmission of affect say that they do so because the transmitted affect is al odds with what they ttlldel'Sla:nd of !heh' owl\ feelings, and
the logic of those feelings, at the time of the transmi.sion. The affecL5
attached to ideaB should make sense in a sequence. When certain affects seen,_ disproport.io11ate in terms of their alleged cat1BeB, one
should take note. Shnilarly, when_ a new atld stro1Lg aff:ct comes out
of the compamtive blue, it is suspect. For example, when a woman
was racked by remorse one inorning, over tl1e n1isden1eanor of having
foiled to thank her research assistant fo1 fetching some books, she was
aware that the extent of her self-repmach was too g<'e<tl for the offense. Howeve1; subsequently that same morning, she leamed that
he1 fathe1; who was with her al the time, had also been rcrnOl'seful
over failing to thank her for a ni.ore significant service. As said earlier,
mfucr than say the thought caused the affect, one might say that the
affect caused the thought, especially when the thought it settles on is
not weighty enough for its emoli.onal burden.
Discerning if the affects are disproportionate requires being in a
state to do so. In addition to comparing and contrasting historically,
as well as noting when an affect has no apparent place in one's own
historical sequence, 011e has to be either self-possessed (as distinct
from self-contained) or away from the other (or both). As we dis-

The Education of the Senses

127

'I
.;. --

. cussed earlie1; dls~etnin.g insight ls not achieved in a state of tempestuous defe1we. It 1B ach1<;ved m that brief suspension of the state of
p;ojectlo.n that leaves a refreshing inner silence by its absence, in
which one can detach from any possessing affect, and attend. To detach tn accord with the procedure involved in comparing past and
prese~1t affective states is to 1narsl1al and inove attention toward a

negative affect when one expel'iences it. The key to the nature of this
real detachment (as distinct from a sadodispassionate projection of
detac~ment! is tha~ it is an exercise in feeling, but feeling of a calming
and drncernmg variety. When Kant advised telling an angry man to sit
down, and notes l1ow tl1at net alrendy n1akes him cahner, he is advocating an act of self-regulation that it1 om terms here could be recast
as an act of self-possession. One lets go of the affect by examining its
course or by allowing the course of oU1eI; calmer, feelit1gs to assert itself.19 This examination rneans exercising attention, wlUch is literall
a11. aid. to gro"'.th, ".'hether given to oneself in the pmcess of liberatin~
1eflect10n (antlthellcal to narcissistic fantesy) or to those who need it
For a~tention to be present one would have to be aware, rather tha~
focush1g on an inter11al daydre;Jtn or a preconception about the otller.
In such a case we inight say that attention is, as Fl'eud had it wheii
talking of the best: frame of mind to conduct analysis, "eve1ily su8 _
P end ed " 20 Th'IS." tat e wouId th en be one that is simultaneously active
~nd passive, actively ~ware yet undirected and receptive." As the ego
is always focused on its own ends and judg111ental 8tTucttue1it carulot
at~end in t~is receptive way. Thet-e has to be some agency that does
tins. atten'.lmg, some other regulator of the powers of observation and
foehng. aside :~om the ego"It~ addition, that rngulator has to be capable of rec~lled10.n when rt 1s mvolved in historical comparison. lb be
capable ~I .recalling memories that seem to be lost, it has to be capable
of organ1z1ng and obsel'Ving froni, a distinctive standpoint, a candi~at~ :~l' th~ ':;ther I1 ~hose existence has been inferred throughout
t11is study. I an1 notlung, as 1nany a mystic and Laca11ian has observed. But I am o~ly nothing once l unpack the history out of w.hich
I am composed, htstory gathered in affective clumps of memoties.
AI:~ ;'ho unpacks t~is, if not the attentive other I, iyhose feeling perspe~tive on. events Is not the same as the ego's, but blunted by the
ego .s thuggish affects? This other I has to persist, or li1ere is no one to
1-eahze that I am an illusion, nothing to make the connecting links that
show this.

.28

The Transmiss-lon of Affect

]3ut we are getting ahead of the facts. All we can say is that whatever embodies and directs allention away from fantasy or distraction,
it is not the ego, It is whatever gathers attention together to discem
the affects that disrupt concentration and reflection. This may be another center in the mind, a soul as distinct from an ego; and indeed,
sometimes two selves do seem to be at wmk simultaneously, Conside1 how the mind-as-the-neurological-brain attends both lo subliminal and routine matters while also focusing on a particular fantasy;
hence, fot hwtance, it can drive and daydream or converse at the sa1ne
titne, even if 1r1aiutaining such activities shnultaneously is haza1dous.
Its daydreams are the stuff of its identity maintenance, while its attention keeps it and others alive. But consideration of another agency in
the mind (a soul as opposed to the ego?) has to wait. The immediate
concern is with the fact that attention obviously accords with whatpr6 forn1a-we are ter1ning the life drive, at th.e san1e lin1e as it provides an alternative. to the subject-centered focus.
The focusing of attention, as we have seen, requires both the logicnl
and energetic ability to sustain attention; snch energy is less available
when the passions are monopolizing it. TI1is undoubted fact may have
led to Kant's conclusion that apathy-the state of no passion-is a goal
to strive for1 and s11ch striving makes 111ore sense whe11 passion is undemtood not as joy and pleasure but as waves of negative affect. Stl'iving for apathy-being without passio.ns--makes more sense if the passions one is stl'iving to lose are: (a) acquired and redistributed via
transmission, rather than one's own; ai1d (b) unpleasant. But this does
not mean striving to be without feeling 01 sensual enjoyment, especially when feelings, hypothetically, mark out one's alternative boundari.es. 'fhe state of apathy, strictly, would be 011e in which one was suspended from the prumions, but not bereft of feeling and sensual
enjoyment. On the contrary, joy and enjoyment may intensify when
feeliiig is not blunted by the affects. But drawing this out l'cquires noting that, in the end, the personal discernment of the affects does not
only require t11eir l'esistance, it requires their transformation. More ac-cu1ately, their resistance is their t1ansformation1 as we have already
seen, and the key to it lies in the change in direction effected by a concentrated change it1 thought. We can add here that the living attention
that discerns and transforms the affects grows in climates of love and
hope. That optiml"m also effects a biochemical shlft (where different
hormonal directions lake ovel' from othem) is now a matter of mcord .

The Education of tile Senses

,,i'.',

.f

i.'

i29

c\".'." "

I
t bl. shed the subject-centered ego has lo project negAs we 1ave es a 1
'
.
rd er to inaintain its identity. Or
alive affects on or into the oU1er m o s de ressions. These can be felt

the ego accept~ fat m1hlar edprowie~:l~o~~:: ang~r that propelled them. Or
udginents 111 erna iz
. .
b
as J
.
.
d igiditv in order to ma1nta1n su b
gistered as 1nert1a an r
11
.
they can ere
. .
0 both These affective proiec
. "d l"ty b femmme means. r
ject1ve I en "1
Y
.
e saw at u1e beginning, can
tions and introjections or 1udg1nents, asd"'. ' w'ds llt1t it is obvious
.
d withstoo 111 cro

be discerned in the c1imc an



sist them It
that the fewer of these affects there are, the easier it IS _tor~.
s de c I o now plain that sucl1 resistance is always th~ snnu tadneou
t
is a s
. attention What re1na1ns to be rawn ou
ployment of living, energetic'
.
f
ed in the presence of
t'
affects are trans orm
I
is the way t 1e nega ive
.
I The next sec,
. t f l'ving attention: love, opt11n1s111, og1c.
other var1an so 1
t .
imniary involves evaluation tt1rns to this. Personal discern1nen_, in stf 1
in of the affects.
.
f ie,s inner states and evalt1at1ons o t le or g
hons o o1
. f m one's passionate judg111ents and
These are effected by det~c~yn;b:~rving their sequence. One discerns
affective depress1011s, an
these things with attention.
L

11

1
The Theological Virtues
.
The cardinal v1.rtues

.b

-"n as preservh1g a kind of stasis of

I~Ig~~ ~ s~hey protect the one from the affects


the self in r:la::~ :!~et ed~ :~ts.in themselves change the climate in
y
fl
, h That transformation requHeS the
of the othe '
whicl1 tl1e if1elgativ(ea1a1dff:~t~~er op~:~sge~1ito~s of J~ving atte11tion, such as
presence o ove c
b b
ting
d f "th) To draw this out, we can egm y no
hope, reason, an ai .
.
.
. different animal
that passion, i:1 its, cft1rredn~cyo~::~~~~~~t~: :fv:~tl1y. ~rhe passio11
J( t' d f
from the pass10n re use
.
. n1ent b11t more sinister. an s e 1they ref11sed is not se11sual en1oy
'
. .
. Joint
. .
assio11 as so111ething like an obsession IS a case in l . .
n1tI011 of p
. n of tl1e reasoning process, wh1cl1
.
f . ]( t was the pervers10
'
Pass1011 old aln 'ct. fixed o11 a self-absorbed direction. Psychoanais perverte w 1en 1 IS
i d fro1n
lytically, the calculatio'.lS characteristi~ of obse:::~~a a1~~a1~;:~:; only
the ego's initial forn1ahon 111 a ~an1e ~ co1:npa
b the affects they
tl are tl1ese calcu]ations given energy y

~,:~~eg~~e:;.aie. One can think oneself detac~1e~ f~om t~:1 ~';:;~~~~:~~


still be gripped by the1n, insofar as one ca cu a es co

130

Tlie Transmission of Affect

of whether this 1nistake was ever made by the ancients, it is 1nade by


those who think that coldness is equivalent to detach1nent, or worse,
clear thinking. Being coldly detached is being much too preoccupied
with one's own position, and it narrows one s focus. It forecloses the
feeling intelligence at work in evenly suspended attention" in
which one is open to new ideas about the other. And as that feeling
intelligence works by 1naking connections between new and existing
ideas, any constraint on it (such as a preoccupation with prestige) is a
constraint on the soul's growth through knowledge. When I suggested above that there was so1nething ln attention that connected it
with both love and the life drive as well aB intelligence, I was thinking not only of the their shared processes of connection (documented
in synaptic growth). I also had in mind their close links with sexuality, as did Freud when he conceived of a life drive. I have indicated
why "life drive" is a needlessly homogenizing ter1n, conjuring up a
romantic animism when it should be shedding it. But for now I shall
let it stand, with all its vitalist connotations, because it will remind
the reader that Freud's original use of it connected life with the ego
or self-preservative drives on the one hand (with thinking, action,
and attention) and the libido or love and sexual drives on the other.
Freud did not distinguish between the ego and the other I that thinks
by making connections, but he did note that when too much libido is
diverted inward in narcissisin and fantasyf we fall ilI. M'oreover, such
narcissistic diversion by the ego interrupts the process of logical connection in order to inaintain its present array of judg1nental attitudes
(and hence its existing self-concept). Whether the libido is directed
toward tnaking connections in thought or inaking then1 erotically, it
_must 1nake the1n whenever it directs its energy away fron1 itself. That
is its nature. Apathy in the sense of cold detachment does not fully
resist the affectsf fol' it has not co1npleted turning its attention
around, away from itself and toward the other. It has paused at the
point where it notes what H receives fro1n the other but nol what it
gives to the other. It detaches from the affect, but does not dissipate
it. Dissipation, as we have indicated, is effected by the theological
virtues: faith, hopef and love.
The relation of hope to con1bating the negative affects of trans1nission is obvious enough. It is sin1ilar to the "opti1nisn1 that the future
can be better" that Freud listed together with "the love of truth"
(111eaning honesty) as positive factors in prognosis.22 Optin1isn1-or

1:j

The Ed11cntion of the Senses

i31

hope-repels rather than attracts anger and depression. Faith is a superb shield insofar as it presupposes that one is the focus of a divine
loving intelligence, but the trusting ability it also presupposes is at
odds with the n1odern existential te1npera1nent, which views faith as
symptomatic of a childlike dependence (which it is), an alternative to
the courage to look aloneness full in the face.23 On the other hand, if
the modern person truly wants to grow up, he or she will have the
courage to follow through on reaso11 when its exercise leads to the
recognition of the existence of God, and not deny this conclusion because of an e1notional dependence on the other's social approval. For
111y own part, I think faith depends on reason, insofar as sustaining a
faith hangs on reason rather than the ego's credulousness.2'1 But reason is also tied to love. J_Jove, as we have arg11ed throughout, cannot
really be divorced fro1n attention and, therefore, fro1n thinking. In
short, thinking and loving are closely related in themselves. They are
also-both of then1-forms of resistance in tl1c nonperpetuation of the
negative affects, as it see1ns is any process of 1naking or sustaining
connections consistent with the known facts or the needs of others
and psychical and physical health. In short, the tendency to bind and
bring together, to make things cohere, follows the logic of the life
drive. Without it, the psyche is in pieces. This erotic and cohering energy is absent especially it1 psychosis, whose schizophrenic versions
are marked by the inability to make logical connections and by lack of
sexual affect and/ or loving ties to others.25 (Milder forms of these inabilities also characterize the hysterias, not to mention the disorders
of attention and hyperactivity (see chapter 1). At the same time, while
one inay gauge a thinker a cold fish, that does not n1ean he is witho11t
love; it may be that he is merely channeling all of his ability to connect
with his thoughts rather than siphoning it off by interaction.
B11t t11e 1nain point is about the relation between the virtues and the
pracLice of discern1nent. It is perhaps plain now that the internalization of religio11s codes, and the religio11s observance of codes or courtesy, are also linked (potentially at least) to an inner process of discern1nent, discern1nent at a n1ore private level. 1~his is the case insofar
as these inter11alizations function as an ethical sense\ That deep ethical
sense is a 1neans for differentiating betwee11 one's position (oneself)
a11d the legitin1acy or conviction an invading affect lends to thoughts
that were hitherto kept in their place. Consider an example: I am toying wit11 a fantasy of revenge that I have exan1ined ethically and

132

The Timw111ission of Affect

spurned for what it is. Then I am possessed by a fury, a combination


of anger and the wish that the other should cease to harm me by disappearing, a kind of hate. The thought I had hitherto spurned now
takes over consciousness. Let us also say that this hostile thought is
levered into place by a hostile act on the part of the party 1 want lo be
gone and to feel in his going the affects he has made me feel. Let us
say, too, that this hostile act causes 1ne anxiety, perhaps based on financial insecurity if n1y enen1y is in the workplace.
As long as 1ny religious or secular ethics can counter this anxiety
and force back this invading affect, I am myself, and n1oreover, in a
position to discern the workings of the affect within me. But I cannot
discern it when I a1n driven by anger to act against 1ny provocateur.
Instead, I experience this drive as an inner propulsion. My ego has
been engaged in a manner that permits the affect entry. This is the
place of n1y fear and anxiety, which arc the hooks for aggression, just
as depression is for anger. But the negative affects, as have often been
noted, have a function in self-preservation. As the (good) ego they literally keep us alive, in that reality-based anxieties ren1ove us frorn situations of peril, while aggression can save one's life when deployed in
defense. B11t the arousal of anxiety, as we have seen, 111ay inake n1e
party to an unjust idea, whose inju.stice is evident in the wave of aggression my ill wishes direct toward n1y cnen1y. T'hese ill wishes, this
judging wave of affect, also reinforce the fear and anxiety in 111y foe,
for he too feels the threat from my animus, just as his animosity produced a corresponding fear in me.
Both of us have directed passionate judgments toward the other,
judgments that convey the revengeful constellation across space by
their energetic force. Whal I can 1nobilize against this force is the
strength of my iclenlification with the principle ol forgiveness-and
the discernh1g other I who may emerge if I have a strong identification with that principle. When we love, the other feels it. When we
love those \.Vho are not like us, even though they don't think like us or
read the sa1ne books or read flt nll, those others feel it. Son1eli111es lhe
other even listens, because the love alJows the1n to lower their ovvn
shield (of projected affects or judgments) and permit entry to a new
idea. 26 To love or forgive is to remove oneself fro1n the loop. This is
vvhy the act o.f real forgiveness can be entirely selfish. The forgiver is
the beneficiary, insofar as he or she is then free of trans111itting a negative affect, and so free fro1n attracting inore of the san1e. Moreover, if

The Educntio11 oftlie Senses

-c33

there is a negative affect directed toward one in reality, refusing it may

mind, as do related demands for unpurposeful work, which leave the

irritate the projector un1nercifully, insofar as he or she counts on an

body unrested and prey to passing affects. Attitudes of discernment

aggressive response. Really love those that hale you; do good to them
that persecute you. There is no better escape, no clearer path to freedom. There is also no better revenge.
But if 011e is to be free of the negative affects, one has to give over an
identity based on projected judgments. In the introduction, I proposed t11at an identity based on discern1nent was not the sa1ne as an
identity based on the ego's status-bound boundaries. Enough has
been said about the latter. We can now add that proceeding by discernment and proceeding by judgmental projections are different, but
we can only see this because we have situated both processes in the
context of affective trans1nission. If one n1ai11tains tl1e sense of a distinct identity by discernment, one does so best by meditative practices
and an openness to the distinct being who is sheltering behind the

are 1nore easily adopted and reinforced where there is enjoy1nent and

com1non ego, in 011eself and others alike. Only then can one attend to
one's own sensations a11d feeling for the other, by se11sing what is not
oneself, a11d noting, as well as feeling, when one falls back on the neg-

where there is plenty; the bodily changes in rage and pain are indissolubly tied to those in hunger;27 and too much hunger for too long
can drive a people mad. Yet discern111ent can also be co1n1nunicated in

appalling physical circumstances, otherwise a form of resistance like


Gandhi's satyagraha28 could never have taken hold.
The negative affects are brought to a stop when a dyadic or binary
loop is broken because the response to aggression is to resist it without violence. They are transfor1ned when love or its variants (wit, rea-

son, affection) reorder aggression. They can be deconstructed (the images and energies trapped in them taken apart) and turned around.
For oneself, this can be done in solitude. But the transformation of the
affects at large requires being in the world, rather than living the life
of the mind. It requires subjecting oneself to eddies or even torrents of
affects, wl1ile so1nehow 1naintaining equilibritnn. Such is the practice
of sot1ls who, when assailed by envy or contempt or rage do not take

ative affects. But we have been stretching a point by contfauing to use


the language of an other I, when all we have really shown so far is that
the claims of the feelings and senses can be at war with those of the af-

it personally, for they know that these are forces that possess even the

fects and ego. But we have also shown, a little at least, that a sense of

The other feels it when we love or give generous attention, and


benefits from it. The benefits may not be conscious, but they are real
as long as love is really love, that is to say, the gift is one of attention to
the other's needs rather than an obsession or a demand to be loved. I
hypothesized earlier that light might be cast on some of the unknowns in embryology if the living logic of the mother's flesh constituted a shield against the negative affects, in the same way that her

self anchored in discernment is possible and desirable, and that it is


more likely to take hold where the negative affects, as a social phenon1enon, are dhninished.
If 8- socia] context is one tl1at reinforces the ineans for struggling
against the negative affects thro11gh religious and c1tltural codes, then
tl1e practice of personal discern1nent beco1nes easier and the resistance to tl1e ego-witl1 its world of appearances and things-stronger.
In t11is late-modern context, il1 which affects thicken, discern1nent is

finest souls, whose discerning agencies so1nethnes cower in the corners of their possessed minds, waiting for jt to be over.

energetic attention constit11tes a shield after birth. 13ut the nature of

so weak that people no longer know that there is anything to be dis-

this postnatal shield is different. Loving attention does not provide


the absolute shield that partaking in the living logic does, but it is its

cerned. In such a co11text, tl1e sense of self does depend on boundaries

best approximation.

formed by projecting and introjecting affects, it depends on knowing


who one is by depositing alien affects in the other. The urge to do
tl1is-a11d inai11tain botu1daries by these aggressivz means-intensi.fy
as the affects 011e wants to live without, anxiety especially, thicken so-

Feelings

cially. The affects are thickened, the heart scaled better, when there are

Proceeding further 111eans encountering the subjective standpoint that


stymies tts each tin1e we tur11 to a given area for the state of its research. The active yet receptive capacities of discern1nent and atten-

real threats to living, such as ht1nger, 1101nelessness, and grief. These


tl1reats give rise to anxieties that under1ni11e any atten1pt at peace of

134

The Transmission of Affect

The Ed11c11tion of the Senses

135

tion cry out to be named "the soul." But these capacities, by the definition of feelings employed here, are linked to the unimpeded
se11ses-tl1e se11sitive and vegetative capacities/ s11ch as smell, rather
than the higher ones, such as thought, the traditional abode of the
soul. Setting aside further discussion of the investigation of the other I
or soul for now, we can look at feelings as sucl1, which takes us back
to t11e idea of the senses as 11 the seneschals of attention."
The difficulties in understanding that the senses and the flesh embody a logic that moves far faster than thought are tied to Western
schemas that degrade the body and bodily intelligence. This is because t11e schemas i11variably rank the so11l in ter1ns of intellect first,
followed by the capacity to sense, followed by the fleshly passions
and/ or vegetative soul. The fleshly category is assumed to be the least
intelligent and to 11ave the maximum disorder. It is prilne n1atter
witl1out for1n, or the successor of for1n, thinking intelligence. Yet it is
thro11gh the blood that hormones dance their dance of co1n1nunication, while tl1e senses lTy to inake sense of the1n in a vocabulary that
does 11ot provide the1n with an appropriate 11omenclature.29 More to
the point, all the se11ses, as vehicles of attention, con11ect the supposedly higher cognitive faculty of linguistic thought with the fleshly
knowledge or codes of the body.
By the logic of this argu1nent so far, it would be a grave n1istake to
perpetuate the association between the higl1er aims in 11tnnan encleavor and the 11igher brain functions. For ii1stance, s1nell 1nay appear 1norc prhnitivc than the "l1igher" developn1ent of language, but
it is, nonetheless, incapable of lying. It can be deceived, just as hearing
and vision ca11 be deceived, bt1t one cannot consciot1sly decide to e111it
a smell that is at odds with one's affects. Above all, smell precisely discerns. It does not content itself with wallowing in the primitive affective responses with which it is so often associated. It also works with
great rapidity, processing much in a millisecond, whereas Janguage
takes its thne.
Yet the intelligence of such rapidly moving olfactory knowledge is
regarded as inferior, so1nething like a reflex, rath~r than a faster n1ov~
ing mind within. Why is this? I suggest that there is one reason and
one reason only, ai1d it is na1ned the fotn1dational fantasy. That fantasy results in tl1e disposition to see activity as 1nindless when it is not
directed from the standpoint of self-interest. (In turn, this leads to the

136

The Transmission of Affect

I
i
!

L
l
!

diff!culties in conceiving of the activity of nature-or pregnancy, or


1natter-as passive.) Even when the senses are actively palpating,
they are classified as subordinate to thinking in words and pictures
because they are not directed from the standpoint of self-interest.
In truth or reality, sensory registration bypasses perceptions structured from the subject standpoint in a search for language that works
with the living logic and circumvents the ego. When the senses succeed in producing conscio11s awareness of this or that, they produce
knowledge that can be con11nunicated either to oneself or another in
language (when the words exist or can be learned), but the conscious
awareness it produces precedes that expression, and n1ay stun1ble for
words, although it will run after the words wl1en it sees or hears
them. h1formation is gleaned by the senses, but then it is interpreted
or transliterated by something split from the senses. It may be interpreted by something aligned with the logic of the senses or by something opposed to them, son1ethh1g interested in constructing a world
view based 011 its own whims. Sucl1 interpretations are 1nade by the
ego, and the ego's h1terpretations are tendentious, based 011 censorship. In the interpretation lies room for suggestibility, for paranoia, for
funda1nental inisreading. For instance, if I smell of fear, you may discern this and try to lJUt 1ne at n1y ease. Or you 1nay iniscalibrate 1ny
nervo11sness. You smell something offensive, but you also n1isread my
apprehensive expression. In consequence, you interpret ine as aggressive in 1ny intentions toward yotl.
In the exa1nple jt1st give11, my olfactory senses would work n1ore
subtly than the visual perception that shapes my response. Sensory
registration and perception would not be the same thing.' The infor1nation fro1n the senses conflicts; one is accurate, the other sees
throt1gh a darkened eye, bt1t when they are interpreted in concert,
even t11e acct1rate inforn1ation supports a inisinterprctation. The i11forn1ation it atte1npts to con11nunicate is st1borned to the service of tl1e
ego, whicl1 has censored wl1at it sees and hears as it seeks reasons to
agree with social opinio11. The senses, as I have stressed, are not the
e111otio11s; they are tl1e vel1icles for lheir discernn1ent, just as they are
for alerting us to other aspects (the weathe1; the h'affic) of the environn1ent a11d circu111stances in which we exist. But they work by con11nunicating along variot1s 11eural pathways. Before they co1ne or return to the brain, they .have to negotiate various synaptic censors and
the translations from cl1en1ical tc1 electrical ilnpulses, and vice versa.

The Education of the Senses

137

:"'

These chains of communication are inseparable from the impulse they


communicate. Their matter is their form. Yet what they commtmlcate
also changes in the transliteration to language and concept at the
same time as the impulse to commtmicate persists. It persists in that it
seeks to circumvent the censornhip effected by the ego.
The conscious ego forecloses kitowledge and assumptions that challenge its sense of intellecWal supel'lority in its body; the tmconscious
ego censors similar knowledge by repressing it and keeping it unconscious. By this censornhip and this foreclosure, the ego creates gaps ht

CflAPTER

SEVEN'

Interpreting the Flesh

-conscious tu1derstanding. These gaps mea11 tl1at ego-consciousness

knows less than the senses whose multiple communications battle


with 81e ego's censorship and denial. It means that t11e senses and the
informational channels of the flesh (whose matter is intrinsic to their
form) are intelligent, aware, and stl'llggllng either to overcome or get
tlu'Ongh to a slowei~ thicker person who calls itself 1, or worse, me. It
also means that the extent of one' htlelligence depends olt a struggle
between different ideas, different chains of information, a s\n1ggle me"
dialed by the available concepts as well as the ego's clinging to its own
standpoint.
Now whether the ego speaks its empty speech or the soft voice of
reason prvails, both speak. One is speaking the pas1:1ionate1 henl'tless
language of the affects. The other ls relying on logic (in part) and its
sensing and feeling of the empirical state of things. 31 The outcome of
this struggle depends on how far love or Jiving attention prevails over
the force of affects directed by the ego. To some degree, it also de"
pends on the education of the senses, which improves tlteir cltances of
discerning and resisting those affects. The education of these sci1ses

gives us joy. It is the "arousal fto1n below" that is so significant in rabbinical literature." Yet as the ego loses standing when the fleshly
senses win through to consciousness and direct the body's govem1nent, we also find the1n terrib.le as an arn1y.. leavil1g noth:in.g of us h1
its wake.

Freedom from the affects means freedom for the .feelings to be known
to conscioll8ness. Feelings ca11 be sifted from affects, and better
known to consciousness, thtottgh the deployment of living attention
or love. B11t stLch attc11lion encou11ters a fol'n1idable opposing fotce.
Affects (via hormones and other means o.f projection and 1eception)
arc carried in the blood, and with them is carried the presence of the
other and the social ln the system. (To find an utterly pure soul within,
something untouched by human error, one would have to sustain liv"
Ing atteitlion through a process of complete exsnnguination.) As t1
rule, affects can be sifted from feelings in everyday life through dis"
cemment, 01 through pradicing cultural codes tl1at suppress the affects, or through analysis, These embody llvlng attention dh'ected
toward the other within and withottt. But feelings are less likely to be
known when the heart is sealed, for the reason lhat the 1nore the affects thicken and harden the more difficult discernment becomes. The
hardenlng of t11e affects is a social affair1 so their transfortnation reqt1h(~8

political as well aa p(:1l'sonal attention. In political as well as

personal cases, clmnging the disposition of the affects (from passivityinducing and raging judgments of the other to love 01 affection) requil"es practice and knowledge. The unclerstaitding and deployment
of feelings ls critical in both endeavors as the means for discerning af
fects and reconnecling with the original knowledge of tl1e senses.
Lu siento, it was noted, means, literally, "!feel it." The veib here, sentir, also n1eans to s1nell in the French languages, I 1nention this now

138

The Ttansmission of Affect

139

6. Tl1e Education of the Senses

e~lough to indicate aon1e recognition of the resonances belween Levinas's


philosophy and this one.
3. As val'ious w1iters on "othering11 frotn E. M. Forstcl' to Norina Fuller
have shown, othering at .the personal and the cultural level co1nes together
in the ste1eotypic iepresentntions of the parvenu as the wo1nan 01 man of
another culture 01' class than that of the colonial 1ulera-one who is not to be
trusted.
4. Although feelings ~re cah11, affects are experienced as intmediflte, as a
pressttre seekiI1g instant 1'elease or expl'ession. This hntnediacy feels like a
forn1 of possession. One can even know one is possessed and yet be 1111nble
to silence the voice fueled by the negative a.ffectr whose power or energetic
force overrides the affect attached to the power lo say no to that voice, One
hopes that it is only tempotarily, but H has grnbbed hold of the l'eins of action and language, vehicles of t11e life drives. It is this living energy that
needs to be reapproprlated and redirected through the lively exa1ni11atlon of
o:le's passions, ~hich can lead gradt1a1ly to the overcon1ing of those poss1onR. When the intelligent energy thnt iH the means for this exan1ination is
free of the wuves of angc1 and anxiety that othe1wise impede its path, H rapidly finds words that suit it.
5. The individualist context su11ounding the new popularlly of meditation
in the West obscures the extent to which the exercise of meditation is an exercise in concentration. Saine of its fiindu theorists a1-gue that 1neditatio11 is
concentration, most especially when it is U1e for111 of i11editatjon whose nhn
and inethod is to cease having thougl~ts of any kind. At a cerlnin point, they
conti11ue, such concentration ceases lo be arduous and bec:otnes a state in
which affects cease to bat around fretfully in boredom and also stop following the impassioned directions of the judginents. When concentration has
truly found its resling place it1 this way, i1: knows an energetic peace t1utt fosters loving and logical ideas and right actions consistent with one's purpose,
When pr~yer 01 n1anha meditation takeR one to a place close to this~ it also
does so by focusing attention on a single strand of words or an irnage,
whose constHncy enables one to reduce the nttn1ber of distractions to n
single one, which is why hna_ges. are both good and bad in wor~hip. At the
last, they stand in the wny of a complete release ft'01n t1'1e prison of affects.
6. C. S. Lewis made the sa1ne point when he argued that what one depends
on in 111aintai11ing a faith is not the elnotions but 011c's reason.
7. See I-Inns-Georg Gncla1ue1; Wn-rheit und Method: Grundzilge dner

TI1e Oxford University classics professor Chdstophet Rowland points


out to ine that there ia a world of difference between reading the Spiritual
ExerciBeB of St. Ignatius and practlclng the111. !-:le is right to see St. Ignatius's
writing style as ir1elevant. The fact of practice n1ust alsb be borne in inind
1oVhen reading On the Discern111-ent o.f Spirits.
2. I have not explo1ed the relatioi1ship between this account and En)n1anuel
Levittas's ttnderstanding of alterity in his Alterity and Trunscencfonce, I-Ioweve1',. the notion of othel'ing is derived flon1 Levinas, which in itself is

8. H may br. worth reiterating that the cne1getic deployments consequent to


this positional interaction with the other are what distinguish this account
fro111 the investigation of pheno1nenologicul spflce begun by I--Iusse1'1.
9. This histo1ical process has the great vhtue that, if it persists hard e11ough
and long enough, it C.:'111 wind back the scattexed threads to the knot where
energy was rniRdirecled toward nffects. But as the knot was lied through
1ncn101y contrasting and cotnpro:ing t11e unsatisfactory experience of hallucination and fantasy, so it is that only history can unravel it.

33. Rorty, "Explaining Emotions/' 49.


34. Following Amelie Rorty from an anthropological perspective, R. C.

Soloxnon notes that "the p1hnary entotions, those of the greatest concel'n,
va1'y considen:i.bly fro1n c:ulture to culture. Indian clasaifications and distinctions betW<:!en e1notions, passions, and afflictions display a very different structure .fron1 otn own con.unon taxo.no1nies. Artd even when cert'1.in
einotions t't..>J.11ain superficially the san1e, they lnay have very different sta
tus and play very different roles in social interactions. Angeris is considered
n1e1ely 'fear' in Utku culture, and.fear is inevitably mixed with hu1niliation
in a warrior society. Fa1nily affections, which would see1n essential to virtu.ally every society, a1e very different depending on the conception of family,
the conception of fa1nily roles, and so forth. And these conceptiontt, needw
less to say, undergo change, both giadual and violent, as in the several sop
cial l'evolutions of the past few decodes." R. ('.. 8olo.inon, "Some Notes on

E1notion, 1East and West' 11 , Philosophy East and West 45, no.

(Ap1'il 1995):

171-202.

35. Alisdair Macl11tyxe, Ajler Virtue: A Study in Moral 11ieory (Indiana: University of Notre Daine Press, :r.981).
36, James, p,uwion and Aclion, 174.
37. Ibid., :179.
38. Ibid., 159.
39. Teresa Brennan, I-listory after l.ncan (London: Routledge, 1993), purt 1.

40. Similarly, lhis too was foreshadowed by seventeent!H:cntury philosophers. Our p~1ssions, when warped by grandeut; inake us restless and even
nttt.cl. Madness and knowledge are opposed here, for, 1'by making us restless, our pass16ns undertnine the steadiness and conce11tration that the pux~
suit of knowledge :requires.'1 Ja1nes, Passion and Action, 181. I reltu:n to this
below in the discussion of discern1ncnt.
41. See Freud, "Negation," Stancla-rd Edition, vol. 19, 235-39.
42.. No1 can one ineasure time and distance without n fixed reference inarl<.
43. Augustine, CUy of God, 14.6.
11
11
4t~, Abra1nson1 Like Wate1; 15.
45 Ibid., 19.
46. Ibid., 1g--20.

1.

194

Notes to Pages W4--1'.l9

1i'

i:
'
\.

l''

i
'

:1

PhilosophiRchen 1-lenneneutik (TUbinge.1.1: Molu/ :1975).

Notes /:o !'ages 119-1.~2

195

:to, Thia is why psychoanalysis and shnilar intedocutions directed toward


this dis<.:overy are distinct fro1n so-called therapies based on n1aking the
other feel good by sympaHllzJng with their affects. This is also the difference
between good conversations and those that a1c collaborative agree1nents to
expel the negative affects so1newhere else (gossip), where what is said matters less than the pleasures of trashing, a pleasure H\at comefl frotn locati11g
the affect in another person, soinewhere else. One can always tell the difference between a good analyst and a bad thera.pist because the latter dwells in
sy1npathy with the affects, wl1ile the fo~1ner tries to unravel lhent.
11. Freud discusses the ego's onewsided cap of hearing in "The Ego and the
Id" ln Standard EdUion, vol. 19, i9-'>7.
1.2, Norbel't Elias, The Civilizing Proceos, t11.u1s. Edmund Jephcott (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1992).
i.3. Michel de Montaigne, "On Friendship,'' in Essays, ttans. J. M. Cohen
(London: Penguin, 1958).
:t4. Posl._Winnicott child rearh1g is ruled by the idea that if a child feels absolutely loved, it will be capable of loving others. But love is misunderstood
when it ineun~ the free expression of all feelings. If a child is washed by a
torrent of 1age against which it has no defenses, it needa to learn to erect
those defenses by understanding that l'age is not ,'Jomcthing to give h1 to.
The more practice one has at this, the inore one fortifies one's defenses
against a rage that is not one's own. It is diffe1'ent when the rage Is one's
own, however, just as it is different when one cat'l'ies the other's rage as
one's own depression.
i.5. For Roui:;senu also has Ernile's tu!:or remark that 11one is 1nore free under
the social pact than in the stale of nature." Jean-facques Rousseutt1 Emile, or
On Education, teans. Allan Bloon1 (New York: Dasie Books, 1979)1 book 51
part 41 84'.i. But in Rousseau 1s case, there is so1neth:ing missing that ls only
supplied by the general will: "Our trne self is not whole entirely inside of
us11 CEm;lle, 461). Dy contrast, if one is discerning affects, discerning what is
not ours but inside of us is the aim of the exercise,
:t6. For Freud this c1hne was the itnaginary murder of the father, a inurder
co1n1nitted eve1y tinte the fnthcl' was surpassed by the son. See Freud,
"Those Who A1:e W1ecked by Sui::ccss/' Standard EdUion. 1 vol. 14. There ls always an interlock in any relationship between lwo in which the energy and
capacities of the one are enhanced at the expense 0 the other, unlesFJ it is u
case of rape, so-called Aeducllons of the young and physically vulnerable,
physical violence or intimidation, and abusive language or verbal violei1ce.
We know when another's anger shatterR us, altnost as though the sound barrier we i11fe11ed earlier is a real thing, so'n1ething vulnerable to aggressive
tonalities, especially when they me repeated, as well us to physical trau1na.
These, st.t'lctly speaking, are the n1echanisms of dun1plng pure and shnple, as
distinct fron1 the hook p1ovided by projective identification, for good or ill.
'J.7, It is a force that can displace that other I who holds sway with 1nore discern.ment. But the fact of this movrr.blc force does not explnin Lhose 1no1nents
when energy and insight are in lockstep. As we shall see, the energy that

96

Notes to Pages :cl2-t26

bats al-'Ottnd freHully ll1 bo1edo1n 01 follows in frustl'ution the opinionated


dh-eclions of the judg1nents is energy that has lost son1e of its links with the
logos. Ilu't it can rmnake those links when it is once rnore aligned with con~
sci.oi1s11ess. In such a case, Schopenl1auer 1s will, at the hmnan level1 is no
longer blinded. wrhe soul has achieved its denrest ailn of ttnion with the
body,11 as Angustine put it.
-16. Ilion, ExperienC!es ht Groups, 149.
19. Even passions in !(ant's 1-eshicled, obsessional sense-perversions of
the reasoning process-can he explained by the distortions effected by posi~
Honing. TheRe posilions a:i:e not the affects, but they p1oduce the affects. The
idea that they operate without the l'edceming fuel of hu1nan ernotions
(which at least leaveH us capable of co1npassion) feels evil because the connection with flesh and blood is so tenuous, the body a shnple tneans to an
end at odds with its purpose. The arnbiguity in l<ant's treatment of the pas~
sions and affecla, as with his apparently shifl:i11g allegiance betv.;een ani~
rnis1n and rncchtntism, is consistent with the notion that feelings regulate
the just relation between the inside and the outside~for exa111ple 1 how
inuch of gl'ief should be retC1ined, how rl.iuch should be released? This is a
mechanicnl relation related to pressure; however, the build up of affects is
different f1un1 the feelings that sense those buildups and find pleasure in
their release. The affects can either overwheltn the feelings (negative affects,
unpleastU'e) or be regulated by the111, but they a:re not the sa.n1e aR the1n. Not'
neP.d they only come from within.
.2.0, Freud, "Reconuncndations to Physicians Practicing Psycho-Analysis''
Sfnndard Edition, vol 12, 111.-20. In discussing how an analyst can possibly
re1ne1nber all that is expected by several patients nt once, Freud recol-n111ended a "very simple" technique. "It consists simply in not directing onc1s
nolice and in xnalnlaining the sarne 'evenly-suspeudcd attention' (as I have
called it) it1 the face of nil that one hears. In this way we spare ourselves a
strain on our attention which could not in any case be kept up fo1 several
hours daily, and we avoid a danger which is inseparable Iro111 the exercise of
deliberate attention. Fo1 as Boon ns anyone deliberately concentrates hia attention tu a certain deg1-ee, lte begins to select flXJn1 the material before him;
one point will be fixed in his 111ind with pa1'ticular clearness and Ro1ne other
will be co!'l'espondingly disregm<lced, and in making this selectio11 he will be
followh1g his expectations or inclinations. This, howeve1; is precisely what
nn1st not be done" (Ibid., 111-12). It n1ust not be done if one is to re1ne1nber
and to understand and learn, rather than confirn:iing what one already
knows. But perhaps it must fl1so b~ done if one is to discern the origin of af~
fectH and, as suggested above, to enter into another's vhiion of U1e wodd jn
the 1nost literal sense,
2..1-. Justaa the life drive is organized, this agency 1nustbe organized as well
to work V1rith it,
22. Preud, 11l{emen1bering1 Repenting, and Wo1'1dngMlhrough (Further Reconunendations of the Technique o! Psycho-Analysis)," Standard Editlon 1 vol.
:12, 147-56.

Notes to Pages :127-:131

:'

197

23. But this courage is only really courage if what it does is socially difficult;
that is to sa,y, if it risks the loss of the love of friends and fa1nily at one extren1e, or even ~he general good approval of others, intellectually or financially. Atheis1n in the nineteenth century was socially difficult, but thal" is no
longer the case,
24. See C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.
2.r;. Freud nu1de the same polnt when he said that those who are well have
the ability to love and worl~
.
:z6. Gillian Rose, Love's Worlc (London: ChaHo and Windusr 1995).
27. W. B. Connon, Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear, and Rage (New York:
Evanston, 1963).
28. The act of resistance is loving, intelligent, never neutral, and always his~
torically based, whether it is exercised in an isolated or a socinl context.
29 Forn1 was always intelligence in ~hat it organized 1natter into intentio1ml
patterns thftt gave each pattern its distinct being or alln. That is the point of
the \ogos as proportionate i11atter, a point that is obscured the ntore the ego
gets things otlt of propo1tion, as is ita wont.
30. See Freud's account of the perceptual apparatus in chapter 7 of Tlw Interpret-ation of Dreams, Standard EdiHon, vol. 5.
31. The experience of rival interpreters in one's head is probably less con.1:inon than the experience of rival inte:tpretationa, but I would hazard that
inne1 dialogues are as recognizable an experience as throwill.g one's reason
to the winds when gripped by passh1g affects.
J2. See Abra1nson, "Like Water/' 16. As Abra1nson notes, the arousal ftorn
belff'V has been connected by respected Cabalists with the ir:nmediate co1n111unication between hen1ts, which is connected by Abratnson with the
sense of s1nell.
1

7, Interpreting the Fleslt

The, ego is slowe1 in its calculntiona and its ability to reach a conclusion,
slower than what is comn1011ly called inhlitio.t1. I hove argued that it ls
slower because it ulinost alwoyB re1noves itself, lo a greater or lesser extent,
frorn the present. (See Exhausting Modernity, chapter 3.) The ego-as the I'.e"
fleeting part of the mind-exists in past and fulttre thne, either calcttlaHng,
a1\ticipating, desiring, regretting, rctne1nbering, Ol' ill reverie. Oceasionally1
the mind is occupied by co11centratecl attention following a path ali.gned
with the living logic1 in which case 1everie functions to l'edirect I am not
saying that anticipation nnd l'Cflection can be avoided. The idea-rather is
U1at their exercise has a living cost. Really, all I tun doing here is making
1--Jegel's old point that refleclion and na1ning kill the vel-y thing they na1n'e,
"like capturing the fly in aspic/1 as Lacan later put the sa1nc point. See Lucio
Colletti, Marxisrn and ffegel 1 Ltt111s, Lawrence Garner (LondotL New Left
Books, 1973), 52-67, and jnc<[Ue,9 Lacan, Le Semluaire livm 20: Encore (Paris:
Seult 1975), For Augtu~tine, a sii:nilar contradiction between nwareness and

1,

i98

Notes to Pages 132-14.1.

consciousness is evident when he obseives that until he is asked the time he


knows the tin:-ie, but when he says the time he no longer knows the tirne.
Augustine, Confessions, trans. R. Warner (New Yol'k: New Atnerican Library,
1963), 1:17,
2. Befoie proceeding, I note that there are two forrns of reflection. In nddiH
tion to calculation, there is the reflection that unblocks ene1gy, the tilne-out
that enables feeling and energy lo retutn as the knots of anxiety are undone
and the slowdown in logic caused by the affects-which register visttally
and aurally as fantasies and judg1nents-is reversed.
3. Brennan, Exl1aust'lng Madernlty, chapter 9.
4, Fo1 u co1nprehensive account of the influence of notions of syste1nB and
structures on twentleth~century lhoaght, see Anthony Wilden, Systern and
Structure: Essays in Ccmtimmication and Exchange .(London: Tavistock, 1972),
Wilden traces systemic and fllt'ttchtral thinkers from Saussure to Bateson
and iacan1 arguing, rightly, that thinking in tern1s of systems n11d structures
with tl1eh own logic is the specific (:ontl'ibution of the lwenticth centUl'Y to
knowledge.
5. Ferd1nand Saussure, Couriie in General Linguistics (New York: McGraw~
Hill, 1959).
6, C1aude l.evl"Stmuss, Sh'ucturol. Anlhropnlogy, trnns. Claire Jacobson and
Brooke Grundfest Schoepf (New York: Basic Books, 1.963).
7. "The htttnan being's development is in no way directly deducible from
the construction of, Irom the inte1ferences between1 fro1n the composition
of, , . 1neanings (sign~fi.cationa), that is, instincts (in.sttncts)." Lacan is clear
that inore is ut stake here than subject/ object percept~on, noting that dealing
with the "bodily, ex.c1ei11ent:al, pregenital exchn11ges are quite enough for
stiucturing a wo1ld of objects, n wo1ld ... in which there a:1.e subjecti vities.'1
Jacques Lacan, Le Setninahe li'Ore 3: Les Psychoses (Paris: Seuil, 1973), 189.
8. Ibid., 190.
9. Ibid,, t89-9i.
10. Ibid., 190. What is also h1teresting about this discussion is that Lacan de~
fines n1eanings (sisnljication) in tcrn1s of death and being towurd death;
these ter1ns are, he stresses, antithetical to the endleH1:1 chain of signification
(which has no bP.ginning and no end).
n. See the discussion of Derrida in Richard Rorly, Philoso11l1y and the Mirror
qfNature (Prh1ceton: Princelon Univers}ty Press, 1979), for the clearest expo~
sition of the contradiction.
12. Lacan, Les Psychoses, 187.
3. Ibid., 187c89,
14. Ibid.
15. One speuk1:1 one's truths to the extent that one speaks f1'01n one's place in
a logic~l chain rather than flon1 one's place as a subject.
16. Not that U1ese perspectives are nc~essarily opposed, anymore than a1e
free will and detertninis1n, or in Nietzsche's tenns, will and necessity. )1or
instance, if ceasing to exploit the planet beyond its capacity and hu1na11 necessity is also necessary to the continuation of life on that planet, then

Notes to Pages :14:L-147

199

You might also like