“Haecceity” : it’s about Labels on your Forehead – #Deleuze

Haecceity. I learned about this strange word in a book about Gilles Deleuze, a French Philosopher.

When we argue, when we talk, when we define ourselves, when you get an official letter, it puts a label on us. It says : “You are that”. So there!

It depends on the box, it depends how the society calls you :

Sociology, Psychology, Religion, Morals, Urbanism, Politics, Literature, Anthropology : every discipline PINS you on a board, as a woman, a muslim or a lover, a mother or a manager, et voilà!

The problem is WE ARE NOT AN ELEMENT OF A STOCK. We are human beings, and that implies that we are plugged, we change all along the day(s), we grow, we stop, we meet, etc.

Haecceity, says Deleuze, says that we should use more the word AND. Jean is a woman and a mother and a knitter and a fan of this group and has four good friends and likes France and just decided to divorce and plans to move and just began to blog and loves to bake with fruits, etc, she’s an INFINITY, and a moving one!

We are made of a series of events, of connections, of changes, and what defines us is our nature but also, a constant variation of plugs and deplugs, multi-events, joy, powers, feelings, intensities…

Wiki says :

Haecceity : the discrete qualities, properties or characteristics of a person that make it a particular thing. Haecceity is a person’s or object’s thisness.

There’s a danger is the way we write “We Are”, which label us and then put us “stuck in a stock”.

Deleuze says we are more accurately longitudes and latitudes, a group of different speeds and slownesses, an individual, a singularity, constantly inventing grapes of possibilities, a play of forces or encounters.

So play with words. Let people define you and other people. But don’t forget they are words. You are more than that.

There’s a article on WordPress about Deleuze’s singularities here.

Thanks for reading!