Totalization

totalisation

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Summary

Dominique Pagani contrasts totalization, an ongoing process, with a completed totality. In Sartre, in his view, there is only a totalization that never arrives at a totality, because the individual remains primary1. He also reports that Sartre credits Michel Clouscard's L'Être et le Code with an ongoing totalization of a historico-genetic kind2. In Marx, the social is itself a totalization, that is, a socialization, whose end point is the association of workers3. He places post-structuralism at the opposite pole: this current refuses all totalization and conceives of a field without a centre, made of infinite substitutions4. He also uses the distinction to read Rousseau. The general will is never complete: it is a matter of totalization, not of a totality, which contradicts what critics of totalitarianism assume5.

Summary produced automatically from 5 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.

Series · 30 Apr 2021My eco-cabin in the ZAD: autonomy or alienation?

14:36The totality of the general will is never completed: it is a totalization, not a totality, contrary to what critics of totalitarianism assume.

Series · 5 Jul 2018Being and Code

2:23Sartre credits L'Être et le Code with a totalization under way, historico-genetic.
13:46Post-structuralism refuses totalization: a field without a center, made of infinite substitutions.

Talks · 31 Mar 2018Tonight, we repoliticise (part 2)

1:30:08In Sartre, there is only a totalization that never arrives at a totality, because the individual is primary.
1:50:54For Marx, the social is a totalization, a socialization, whose end is the association of workers.