The Politician: Action and Creation in the Practical Ontology of Gilles Deleuze

Abstract

This paper addresses an action that, from a Deleuzian perspective, is capable of modifying the despairing current social situation in which we are immersed, through the creation of political Ideas. Even though Deleuze conceives social Ideas as vast civilizing structures, we propose to bring into the political domain the logic of other acts of creation, such as the artistic or the philosophical, where the monumental coexists with minor figures that are nonetheless capable of introducing novelty into the world. The politician is the figure of those who are capable of having an Idea that allows to break the habits that perpetuate the current situation, and gives consistency to the intensive forms of life that continually create and dissolve themselves in the flow of becoming. Thus, macro- and micro-politics do not oppose each other, but offer in their immanence an alternative to social nihilism.