Deleuze on Nietzsche - Against the Dialectic

Anti-Hegelianism runs through Nietzsche's work as its' cutting edge

Distinctions - Accidental difference:Relative difference::Pure difference

Excerpts (from Video):

In Nietzsche the essential relation of one force to another is never conceived of as a negative element in the essence. In its relation with the other force, which makes itself obeyed, it does not deny the other or that which it is not, it affirms its' own difference and enjoys this difference.  The negative is not present... on the contrary it is the result of activity, of the existence of an active force, and the affirmation of its difference.

Negation "is only a subsequently invented, pale, contrasting image in relation to its' positive basic concept - filled with life and passion." - Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals

Deleuze's Nietzsche wants to affirm difference because guess what, it can create new stuff. There's no good and evil, true and false, in Nietzsche. We invent those because we value them, or we value them because we invented them, the humanist conceit. We can say where Nietzsche affirms difference, Hegel disappears it. Each instance of the will to power is a "yes", an affirmation, whereas every negation or starting with a lack, is a "no".

There is though one, one particularly reactionary force that makes the negative central, Ressentiment, revenge, slave morality. That's what dialectics is, not power, but a representation of power. And representing power is not power in the same way that talking about politics is not politics. And with both politics and power, talking about it lets the world just keep on doing whatever it was already doing. Idle chatter justifies the status quo that permits idle chatter in the first place.  And that is it for dialectic. It's not a dialectic. Don't quote me.

...So let me paint the world for you all the way down to the smallest things that exist, from bouncing molecules that feel or repel each other, to the striving of some species to overcome changes in its environment, to your own will to see something accomplished in the world of things. These are all wills that differentiate. You too are repeated acts of willing, in a great sea of willing. The you that refers to you is not "Identity". It's a repetition of your will to differentiate. Not one force, either, but many forces. Multiplicity not Identity. 

So your acts of willing not only differentiate you from other acts of willing, but every act of willing differentiates anything that is anything. The will to power is not some childish outburst to get your own way, it's the metaphysical reason for why anything is different from anything else. Existence. That's why both Nietzsche and Deleuze put such a high value on creation, movement, artistic practices, and such a low value on debate, resentment, and moralizing.  Creativity, making, is active. While resentment negatively represents yourself as good only because others are more evil than you. That's critique without creation.

So, all things that are, are processes. They're struggles in time to not disappear to the background, that is, to become undifferentiated. Will differentiates. A whole plurality of wills. Even our most permanent objects are processes, mountains, stars, the universe itself, and you.

Now, why is this cool? Through differentiation, a fundamental expression of power, and not just special human power, but the power of anything to continually become, and to continue to exist. This is not the critical, not the negative, but the affirmative attitude towards the world. This is ultimately then a affirmative attitude to the world that reflects the world's own attitude towards itself to create and to repeat the creative act. The scientist creates prospects, the artist creates affects, the philosopher creates concepts. Creation affirms power our power.

Scientists artists and philosophers should be a lot more like dancers. Where Deleuze says dance, laughter, and play are affirmative powers of reflection and development, Nietzsche says, "I know not what the spirit of a philosopher would like better than to be a good dancer, for the dance is his ideal and also his art. In the end, likewise, his soul piety."

So let's go back to those metaphysical categories. Cause, effect, possibility, actuality, sameness, otherness, all begin in difference rather than sameness. Not an accidental difference, which is how the dialectic conceives of it, but pure difference. Differences that are not ultimately sublated within an identity, or an idea. A dance of difference, rather than the boring plotting of ideas through history. And for Deleuze, and for Nietzsche, we don't serve ideas or movements, they serve us. And at their very best, they serve life itself.