Words are so fickle. The same word or phrase sometimes has diametrically opposed meanings, depending on how you use them. For example:
Withholding: An “abuser who refuses to listen to his partner, denies her experience, and refuses to share himself with her is violating the primary agreement of a relationship. He is withholding. Withholding speaks as loudly as words and is a category of verbal abuse. Simply put, withholding is a choice to keep virtually all one’s thoughts, feelings, hopes, and dreams to oneself and to remain silent and aloof toward one’s partner, to reveal as little as possible, and to maintain an attitude of cool indifference. A confirmed verbal abuser may go for months or years without attempting to engage his partner and without empathetically responding to her. Withholding can go on for years because the partner, after trying to engage her mate, may assume that he is, after all, a very quiet person, or totally self-contained or, maybe, extremely shy, or has some “hang up,” or is, maybe, slightly autistic. She can conjecture any one of these reasons for the verbal abuser’s behavior more readily than she can conceive of his reality.” Patricia Evans, 2012.
I feel some ambivalence about the above, nevertheless, another version of withholding below:
With/holding: I heard this today. It infers being with someone and holding them. I think it might come from Ettinger but am not sure. This splitting and bringing together of syntax is something she does frequently but I don’t think it’s the name I heard. I will need to confirm.
This frustration with language for being so fickle and contrary may be at the heart of everything I do. Why oh why oh why can you not trust what people say, I have always wondered… Why can’t things be simple?? Straightforward? Easier?
This is not about suitcase words, a phrase coined by Marvin Minsky which infers words into which people can put all sorts of meanings… entanglement is one such word. Emergence or subjectivity are another. Or maybe it is – I am not sure.
Here is something Deleuze and Guattari say which I keep thinking about. Some words or rather some speakers seem to often skate about on the recording surface and that’s where they stay.
“Society constructs its own delirium by recording the process of production; but it is not a conscious delirium, or rather is a true consciousness of a false movement, a true perception of an apparent objective movement, a true perception of the movement that is produced on the recording surface.
Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1983) Anti-Oedipus: capitalism and schizophrenia.” Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 10
From the recording (recoding was my initial typo!) surface of this website, here are some images and source material which may relate to the ‘words’ questions above.
Here is Claude’s description of my screed – does it mean any more or less because it came from an LLM?
The passage explores the complex nature of language, focusing on how words can have contradictory meanings depending on context. It examines two contrasting interpretations of “withholding” – one as a form of verbal abuse in relationships, and another as a positive act of being present and supportive. The author expresses frustration with the unreliability of language and mentions related concepts like “suitcase words” and Deleuze and Guattari’s ideas about society’s perception of movement on a “recording surface.” This ambiguity in language is presented as a central concern in the author’s work.
Postscript
After publishing this post, I read Sense and Literality: Why There Are No Metaphors in Deleuze’s Philosophy by Daniel W. Smith, which I’d downloaded a few weeks ago. (To understand how within an immanent material framework, metaphors either do not exist at all or else language itself is only metaphor). There is so much in it that will be useful for me. But perhaps most critically: “…we are also aware of the fundamental fragility of this surface domain of sense, and the fact that it can break down at any moment into non-sense.” (And don’t we also sometimes long to touch the beyond-sense or move outside-sense despite the possibility being terrifying? And do we not admire those who have that ability, despite its associated or likely link to trauma. I.e. “Is not perhaps the greatness—and the great pathos—of Artaud that he was able to speak and write out of the depths of the primary order of the body? Nietzsche was unable to do so, and lapsed into silence.”) I wish I had access to the paper when I was writing the LAMELLA://pamplet piece, which has never felt complete. It would have been too soon, no doubt, but if I can return to it, this paper will be invaluable.
From Deleuze and Guattari’s Philosophy of Freedom: Freedom’s Refrains, Chapter: 4 Publisher: Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019