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7 - Ageing, Perpetual Perishing and the Event as Pure Novelty: Péguy, Whitehead and Deleuze on Time and History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2012

James Williams
Affiliation:
University of Dundee
Jeffrey Bell
Affiliation:
Southeastern Louisiana University
Claire Colebrook
Affiliation:
Penn State University
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Summary

On History as Ageing

‘But I know there is ageing.’ Are these wise words designed to mine the unconscious of believers in the eternal supply of new events, or a false counsel of despair? Is this sensitivity to the ever-presence of ageing an experienced brake on unconditional confidence in absolute novelty, or a conservative rearguard action against change? Or maybe it's just a resigned reflection in reaction to particular times (the First World War is, after all, just round the corner and the author of these words has accurately presaged his death, aged forty, leading his troops in the opening exchanges of the conflict)? Perhaps, then, it is a view on time that we moderns can safely ignore with our perspective on history as a source of ever stronger hope.

The words come from Charles Péguy's Clio, his rich and poetic essay on history in relation to life. The book is lauded by Gilles Deleuze as a great work on the event, yet he overlooks Péguy's refrain on ageing, either by interpreting Péguy's examples of repetition as consistent with his own (Deleuze 1968: 8–17), or by selecting passages for their closeness to his own definition of the event as aleatory, emergent and inclusive of a moment of pure novelty (Deleuze 1969: 68).

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Deleuze and History , pp. 142 - 160
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Print publication year: 2009

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