Having discussed how Johor’s encounter with the ape initiates him into the virtual memory regarding the Shammat’s mistreatments of the astray ape, I next examine how Johor tunes into Giant-Mind to search for more information about the catastrophic fall caused by Shammat and thereby exert action: record, warn, and rescue. By tuning into Giant-Mind, Johor approaches Taufiq and gains access to the Giants’ memories, which serve as a conduit to Taufiq, a previous galactic messenger who has failed in his job. For Johor to accomplish his own job on Shikasta, he must retrieve useful information from Taufiq and, if possible, rescue him. The Giants can lead Johor to the mind of Taufiq and help him delve into the Giants’ memory, a memory that is “genetic” and involves what Deleuze calls “the past in general.” The Giants can function as the conduit to Taufiq because they possess a similar temperament—“an excess of self-esteem, pride, silliness”—
which is caused by the infection of the Degenerative Disease, Individualism. In order to
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locate Taufiq, Johor risks being infected with the Degenerative Disease by the Giants. His being infected is both negative and positive: Johor risks losing his sanity, like Taufiq, and Johor’s entering Giant-Mind enables him to form an unnatural alliance with the pack of Giants. Johor says:
“You [Giants] must sit where you are, till I come back. It is through you I can make this journey.” And surrounded by these hosts of the dead, sustained by their awful arrogance, I was able to part the mists that divided me from the realities of Shikasta, and search for my friend Taufiq. (Shikasta 11)
It is only with the help of the Giants that Johor can grasp “the realities” of Shikasta and
“search for” Taufiq. Through the Giants’ arrogance, individualism, which they share with Taufiq, Johor is able to locate his friend. His alliance with the Giants is a relationship of
“contagion,” as Deleuze calls it, a relationship of unnatural assemblage of different beings.
Johor and the Giants form an unnatural assemblage when Johor is infected by the Giants’
Degenerative Disease, which connects him to them. Deleuze explores the process of contagion by illustrating how a virus can connect two heterogeneous beings in the case of
“virus C.” According to Deleuze and Guattari,
A virus can connect to germ cells and transmit itself as the cellular gene of a complex species; moreover, it can take flight, move into the cells of an entirely different species, but not without bringing with it "genetic
information" from the first host (for example Benveniste and Todaro's
current research on a type C virus, with its double connection to baboon DNA and the DNA of certain kinds of domestic cats). (Thousand Plateaus 31;emphasis mine)
In this case, the baboon and the cat are connected through the C virus that carries with it the host’s genetic information and memory and thereby infects the second host. The
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connection is not established through heredity; instead, it is accomplished through contagion. The virus intervenes in the reproductive process of germ cells and transmits itself by disguising itself as a germ cell. In Shikasta, the virus that can intervene in the colonial process is the Degenerative Disease of Individualism, which causes disobedience to the colonial master plan: “disobedience to the Master Plan was always, everywhere, the first sign of the Degenerative Disease” (Shikasta 32). This disobedience to the cosmic plan is a lethal disease that results in the downfall of Shikasta. After tuning into Giant-Mind, Johor is connected with the Giants through the virus, the Degenerative Disease. Thanks to the traversing of the Degenerative Disease, the boundary between Johor and the Giants is blurred. With the newly-acquired infected disease, Johor gains access to genetic
information and the Giants’ memory, and he sees things from their perspectives.
The Giant’s memory, like the ape’s memory, is “virtual” for Johor. But these two kinds of memory refer to two different levels of Johor’s virtual memory. There is no logical sequence or a relationship of cause and effect between the two levels. What connect the two are the images of Shammatan conspiracy. The ape and the metal column help Johor recall the image of the lurking Shammat and perceive the Shammat’s sabotage and mistreatments of the ape along with his companions on Shikasta. The Giants’
memory, on the other hand, indicates their blind complacence toward the existence of the enemy and further alerts Johor of Shammatan danger. The collective Giant-Mind alerts Johor to the source of the fall: the ignorance of the existence of the enemy, the pirating Shammat. The process of Johor’s learning of the ignorance of the Giants involves what Deleuze calls “the past in general” and the “contraction” of the past, which constitutes a
“memory cone.” “The past in general” is what makes the aforementioned circuit of memory possible, and the act of “contraction” refers to a circuit.
In Bergsonism, Deleuze describes how the process of searching for a recollection
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starts with an act of placing ourselves “firstly into the past in general, then into a certain region of the past” (61). Does each level of the past contain particular recollections?
Deleuze offers the concept of contraction. He says, “It is a case of there being distinct levels, each one of which contains the whole of our past, but in a more or less contracted state” (61; emphasis mine). We will be initiated into a certain level of ontological
memory because different images lead us to different levels, “around certain variable
dominant recollections” (64; emphasis mine). We place ourselves “in a particular region
of the past, at a particular level of contraction (63; emphasis mine) so as to retrieve the dominant images. It is the degree of contraction that determines which level of the past we will be led into. It is the mechanism of “dominant recollections” that initiates us into the right plane of the past.Johor returns to the past with the recognition that the catastrophe happens because of some divergences; therefore, he tries to find out what went wrong when he reminisces on what he said to the Giants in the ancient time. His present perception, the dominant image, affects his reevaluation of the past. Were it not for the catastrophe, Johor might have missed the sign of degeneration. His scout in the past alerts him to the defect of the present cosmic Master Plan.
When Johor is infected with the Degenerative Disease and tunes into the Giants’
memory, he is removed from his personal, psychological memory and catapulted into the virtual past, “the past in general,” in order to retrieve the recollections related to “the dominant image” of the Shammat, which is closely related to the source or cause of the fall of the Giants and Shikasta. Not that each level of the past contains the specific images but, rather, that each level of the past includes the whole virtual past, and each is
contracted differently so that certain images will be highlighted while others are obscured.
In this case, the image of the enemy, the pirating Shammat, is evoked.
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Johor descends to the past and encounters different regions of the past ordered by their distance or nearness to the present. His descents into the past include the First Time, the Time of the Giants, the Century of Destruction, and many others so that he might detect the cause of cosmic catastrophe and restore the power of cosmic evolution. Johor records, “But first I shall set down my recovered memories of my visit to Shikasta, then Rohanda, in the First Time, when this race was a glory and a hope of Canopus. I am also making use of records of other visits to Shikasta in the Time of the Giants” (Shikasta 11).
Johor leaps into different levels of the virtual past so as to retrieve recollection-images closely associated with the dominant image of the lurking, pirating Shammat, which the Giants naively ignore.
Here, I am careful not to confuse the virtual past with the actualized
recollection-images. Deleuze explains, “The past is not to be confused with the mental existence of recollection-images which actualize it in us. It is preserved in time: it is the virtual element into which we penetrate to look for the ‘pure recollection’ which will become actual in a ‘recollection-image’ ” (Cinema II 98). The pure past is virtual while the recollection-image is actual. Via the recollection-image, the ignorance and revelation of the pirating Shammat, Johor is enabled to realize the fall of the Giants and Shikasta from a different angle. However, we must bear in mind that “the past in general” is virtual and non-chronological so that it is only after the virtual past is actualized as
recollection-image that non-linear time can be dated.
When Johor recalls his conversation with the Giants, he starts to be aware of the problem that lurks behind the seemingly peaceful atmosphere. The problem is that the Giants are not aware of their key enemies, the Shammat, even though Johor reminds them of their existence. After gaining access to the Giants’ memory, now Johor is aware what is wrong with the Giants: they do not have the idea of enemy. Even after Johor reminds them
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of Shammatan danger, the Giants just do not keep themselves alert. Poignantly, Johor tells the Giants, “I have to tell you something more and worse—worse from the point of view of the Natives, if not yours. This planet has an enemy. Were you not aware of it?”
(Shikasta 29). Since the Giants, keyed to harmonious, symbiotic existence, never
considered opposition and theft, their reaction to Johor’s warning is “silence. Again, the word ‘enemy’ seemed to fade away from them (Shikasta 29). If the Giants fail to see the image of the enemy, the pirating Shammat, then how can Johor see it?
Johor witnesses the catastrophe and learns its cause from the ape. Being aware of the sabotage of pirating Shammat, he is able to perceive what is originally invisible to him and can develop a more complete picture of Canopus and the colonial Master Plan. The image of the Shammat triggers Johor’s memory of degeneration in the past, which points to “the past in general.” The present image of the pirating Shammat becomes
contemporaneous with the image of degeneration in the past. Deleuze, in Bergsonism, explains the coexistence of the present and the past:
We have seen that pure recollection was contemporaneous with the present that it had been. Recollection, in the course of actualizing itself, thus tends to be actualized in an image that is itself contemporaneous to this present. (71) The image initiates us into pure recollection, the virtual past, retrieves the
recollection-images, and actualizes them. In Shikasta, the leap to the past is significant in revealing the virtual, shadowy past of the Shammat that complements the present image of catastrophe.
Johor’s encounters with the past transform him and vice versa. It is a reciprocal relationship. His observations of different traits influence his temporal jumps since he will be directed to different planes of the past through focusing on certain images that echo the present situation. For instance, he returns to the past with the recognition that the
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catastrophe happens because of some divergences; therefore, he tries to find out what has gone wrong when he recalls his talk with the Giants in the ancient time. His present perception affects his reevaluation of the past. Were it not for the present catastrophe, Johor might miss the sign of the past degeneration. On the contrary, his scout in the past alerts him to the defect of the present cosmic Master Plan. When he recalls his
conversation with the Giants, he starts to be aware of the problem that lurks behind the seemingly peaceful atmosphere. The problem is that the Giants are not aware of any enemies, the Shammat in particular, even though Johor reminds them. This complacency alerts Johor to the same attitude in Canopus itself. Canopeans are cocksure they are so advanced that the other planets dare not challenge them. Johor returns to the different sheets of the past with different focuses. Every return to the past is triggered by different images and transforms the present and the future or assemblages of the two.
However, the “virtual” process of Johor’s coming to see the real cause of the catastrophe is not functional if the “virtual” process is not followed by a process of actualization that puts the virtual into use. The virtual memory is not useful if Johor does not record it so as to avoid the same mistake, the same complacent attitude toward the evil other, in this case, the pirating Shammat. Having asked previously how Johor can leap into the virtual past so that he can escape from his personal, psychological memory, I now ask another crucial question: How can Johor actualize the virtual memory so as to make it useful in cosmic evolution?
This question echoes Deleuze’s question in Bergsonism: “How can pure recollection take on a psychological existence” (62)? To transform pure recollection into
psychological memory, a process of translation is needed. In order to retrieve memory, we must turn “intensive, ontological contraction—where all the levels coexist virtually, contracted or relaxed (detendus)”—into “translative, psychological contraction through
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which recollection on its own level (however relaxed [detendu] it is) must pass in order to be actualized and thereby become image” (64-65). Here, Deleuze raises another crucial question: “Can this translation-contraction be identical with the variable contraction of regions and levels of the past that we were discussing earlier” (64)? Bergson seems to suggest they are identical because he “constantly invokes translation-contraction with regard to sections of the cone, that is, levels of the past” (64). Nevertheless, Deleuze claims that, if we examine it closely, we will see the difference between them. When Bergson speaks of levels or regions of the past, says Deleuze,
these levels are no less virtual than the past in general; moreover, each one of them contains the whole of the past, but in a more or less contracted state, around certain variable dominant recollections. The extent of the contraction, therefore, expresses the difference between one level and another. On the other hand, when Bergson speaks of translation, it involves a movement that is necessary in the actualization of a recollection taken from a particular level.
Here contraction no longer expresses the ontological difference between two virtual levels, but the movement by which a recollection is (psychologically) actualized, at the same time as the level that belongs to it. (64)
I am careful in distinguishing the two types of contractions. The ontological contraction refers to the extra-psychological coexistence of the past, which the psychological contraction helps to actualize. I bear in mind that the translative, psychological contraction is totally different from the intensive, ontological contraction in that the former is related to the personal mechanism of transforming the virtual, impersonal memory into the actual, personal memory while the latter entails how different levels
“coexist virtually, contracted or relaxed” (Bergsonism 65). The
“recollection-becoming-image passes through “planes of consciousness” (65), instead of
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the intermediate virtual levels of the past, so as to enter into “a ‘coalescence’ with the present” (65). The immediate actualization of the virtual past into the actual present is thus accomplished by the process of translative, psychological translation, which enables the past to progress toward the present instead of the present moving toward the past.
Memory, for Deleuze, always involves a particular level of the past and the present actualization of this level of past into recollection. The process of this actualization of past memory is the process of “translation” or “contraction.” The process of translation echoes the contraction of the memory cone at Point S. In “The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy, Leonard Lawlor and Valentine Moulard summarize the mechanism of
Bergson’s memory cone:The image of the cone is constructed with a plane and an inverted cone whose summit is inserted into the plane. The plane, “plane P,” as Bergson calls it, is the “plane of my actual representation of the universe.” The cone
“SAB,” of course, is supposed to symbolize memory, specifically, the true memory or regressive memory. At the cone's base, “AB,” we have
unconscious memories, the oldest surviving memories, which come forward spontaneously, for example, in dreams. As we descend, we have different regions of the past ordered by their distance or nearness to the present. The second cone image represents these different regions with horizontal lines trisecting the cone. At the summit of the cone, “S,” we have the image of my body which is concentrated into a point, into the present perception. The summit is inserted into the plane and thus the image of my body “participates in the plane” of my actual representation of the universe. (Lawlor 35) The cones’ different levels reveal the virtual coexistence of multiple levels of the past. At the summit of the cone, “S,” the body contracts into a point, “into the present perception.
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This insertion into the “plane of my actual representation of the universe” helps individuals gain agency. They are able to participate in the plane of their actual representation of the universe.
In Shikasta, Johor actualizes the virtual memory of the pirating Shammat into the actual memory, at Point S on the cone, which reveals how the impassive, virtual memory turns into the active, present memory. His recording of the Shammat scheme and evil deeds will alert all readers of the Archive, especially the colonial guidebook, to be wary of such enemy sabotage. By translating the virtual memory into the psychological memory, Johor gains the power to change the present. He participates actively in his plane of the universe. The plane of P records Johor’s transforming the inactive past memory into the useful present image. Bergson, in Matter and Memory, already mentions how “we tend to concentrate ourselves in S in the measure that we attach ourselves more firmly to the present reality (211). The link to the present endows Johor with the ability to intervene and change the interplay between the present and the past.
The previous section explores how the actual, personal memory enters into the impersonal memory and how the virtual past and the present coalesce and interact so as to change both. The next section explores how the virtual is actualized through the
psychological contraction of translation and gains the active power to change the present and the past.
After the ape’s and the Giants’ memory takes us away from Johor’s actual, psychological memory, Johor’s translation of the dormant image into the active image indicates another way of experiencing memory. Johor actualizes virtual, impersonal memory into actual memory so as to intervene and change the disposition of memory.
After the ape’s and the Giants’ memory takes us away from Johor’s actual, psychological memory, Johor’s translation of the dormant image into the active image indicates another way of experiencing memory. Johor actualizes virtual, impersonal memory into actual memory so as to intervene and change the disposition of memory.