Closing Negotiations

Not only pure, irreducible, hyperbolic and systemic but also profound, congenital, absolute, invaluable, contaminative … A conventional conclusion would replace each comma with an explanation of the adjectives they separate so as to recapitulate the ambivalence upon which, in its most general formulation, this book focuses. Pure because, rather than this or that object, the ambivalence bears upon sensibility itself. Irreducible because the positive valence and the negative share a ground that renders them indivisible. Hyperbolic because it intensifies the ascetic tradition broadly understood. Systemic because, rather than the mixed sentiments of an individual named ‘Deleuze’, ambivalence operates the system itself.

This consolidation would serve a purpose, to be sure, but it could never conclude. Not because it would remain too abstract, cryptic or formulaic without the driving arguments that produce this list of adjectives. Not even because the list itself remains unfinished. Even and especially the most exhaustive recapitulation won't suffice because, rather, a certain aporia inhibits all conclusions from closing what they conclude. On the one hand, since pure recapitulation would be at worst superfluous and at best convenient, a conclusion must add something to the argument and analyses it concludes.