Massumi on Judgement

Mary Zournazi: The non-judgmental is interesting, you know, because you are always somehow implicated in trying to make judgments ... To not make judgments in critical thought is a very hard thing to do. It takes a lot courage to move in that direction, because otherwise...

Brian Massumi: Well it requires a willingness to take risks, to make mistakes and even to come across as silly. A critical perspective that tries to come to a definitive judgment on something is always in some way a failure, because it is happening at a remove from the process it’s judging. Something could have happened in the intervening time, or something barely perceptible might have been happening away from the centre of critical focus. These developments may become important later. The process of pinning down and separating out is also a weakness in judgment, because it doesn’t allow for these seeds of change, connections in the making that might not be activated or obvious at the moment. In a sense, judgmental reason is an extremely weak form of thought, precisely because it is so sure of itself. This is not to say that it shouldn’t be used. But I think it should be complemented by other practices of thought, it shouldn’t be relied on exclusively. It’s limiting if it’s the only or even the primary stance of the intellectual.


Link to affect/affordance capital & critical judgement can narrow options of hope... how extend these/unblock- Judgement as distinction the start of conceptualisation, what before ? Field Effect? Awareness/Emergence from Whole System...