stankovic, sasa thesis.pdf - Atrium - University of Guelph

Zourabichvili argues that “there is no identity to Life, nor is there Life in general, there are only
differentiated ways of living (and ways of thinking that envelop living). Life exists only in being
differentiated, in its internal difference, or that which affirms itself only in differing from itself,
ceaselessly repeating itself at various levels” (Zourabichvili 195). Thus it is the singular life that
is the determining principle of forces and bodies. Deleuze argues that there are two qualities of
the will to power. In other words, there are two ways in which the singular life is the determining
principle of forces and bodies. “It is therefore essential to insist on the terms used by Nietzsche;
active and reactive designate the original qualities of force but affirmative and negative designate
the primordial qualities of the will to power” (NP 54). Deleuze distinguishes between active and
reactive forces by means of the affirmative and negative will to power.
A force is active to the extent that it affirms its own difference. In other words, a force is
active to the extent that it affirms itself as different, that is, acts on that which is different and
makes itself different. “‘What is active? – reaching out for power.’ Appropriating, possessing,
subjugating, dominating – these are the characteristics of active force. To appropriate means to
impose forms, to create forms by exploiting circumstances” (NP 42). In this way, the force is
active to the extent that it becomes. “For Nietzsche, as for energetic, energy which is capable of
transforming itself is called ‘noble.’ The power of transformation, the Dionysian power, is the
primary definition of activity” (NP 42). On the other hand, the opposite is true of reactive force.
The reactive force “is an exhausted force which does not have the strength to affirm its
difference, a force which no longer acts but rather reacts to the forces which dominate it – only
such a force brings to the foreground the negative element in its relation to the other. Such a
force denies all that it is not and makes this negation its own essence and the principle of
existence” (NP 9). Thus the reactive force does not seem to become. In the Time-Image Deleuze
229