1 Affectivity

The concept of affectivity has assumed central importance in much recent scholarship, and many in the social sciences and humanities now talk of an ‘affective turn’. The concept of affectivity at play in this ‘turn’ remains, however, somewhat vague and slippery. Starting with Silvan Tomkins’ influential theory of affect, this paper will explore the relevance of the general assumptions (or ‘utmost abstractions’) that inform thinking about affectivity. The technological and instrumentalist character of Tomkins’ basic assumption will be traced through four socio-historical-technological configurations in the context of which thinking about affectivity is shaped. The political relevance of this instrumentalist utmost abstraction concerning affectivity is articulated by reference to Hobbes’ development of political science. In this way, through a critique of the instrumentalism informing Tomkins’ mode of thought, a way is opened for a revised general assumption concerning affectivity, based on process thinking. Introduction: basic assumptions and facts of experience The utmost abstractions are the true weapons with which to control our thought of concrete fact (Whitehead, 1985: 41) The great instigators of violence have encouraged themselves with the thought of how blind, mechanical force is sovereign throughout the whole universe. (Weil, 2002: 11) In his recent novel Solar, Ian McEwan recounts an interesting episode in the fictitious life of Michael Beard, an emotionally dysfunctional Nobel Prize winning physicist whose carelessly lived life progressively disintegrates. On his way to deliver a speech about global warming, Beard buys a packet of potato crisps and boards a train, taking a seat opposite a tough-looking, shaven-headed, well-built young man. Beard opens the snack in front of him, and savours the taste of two or three crisps at length before noticing, with some discomfort, his fellow passenger staring at him. Shock follows when the stranger takes the liberty of reaching over into the packet, taking a crisp and flagrantly proceeding to eat it. Both men remain impassive despite the affectivity at play, and stare unblinkingly into one another’s eyes. Beneath these masculine masks, however, McEwan describes how Beard’s feelings fluctuate between fear and anger as he imagines, first, his imminent physical defeat, second, an unfathomable scene of possible seduction, and third, the possibility that he might be confronting a dangerous ‘psychiatric case’. He decides to take another crisp and the man does the same, this time taking two. This scene is repeated until, in a gesture Beard interprets as the final insult, the stranger picks up the packet, offers the obese physicist the last