[D66] Prophylaxis vs Promiscuous

[R.O.]

  In Praise of the Prophylactic

By
cultureandcommunication.org
3 min
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/Prophylaxis is on everyone's mind these days. Oh what a reversal from 
only a few months ago, when the decades long march of promiscuous 
ontologies seemed unstoppable. Are freedom and mobility unquestionable 
virtues? Should everything touch everything else? Until recently the 
answer was an unmitigated YES. The Spinozians spoke of flat ontologies. 
The network scientists devised rhizomatic mesh networks. Artists were 
obsessed with interactivity and social engagement. The social scientists 
were writing on mobility and mixing. It seems that anything, at any 
time, and for any reason, could conceivably interact with anything else. 
But today the scene has reversed, and prophylaxis is the order of the 
day. The masks worn by Pussy Riot or Anonymous are an eerie 
foreshadowing of N95 protective gear. Édouard Glissant's notion of 
"opacity" is popular in theoretical circles. Even in digital systems, 
scientists speak approvingly of "obfuscation," and proprietary platforms 
have superseded open protocols. In my last book I framed this in terms 
of promiscuous ontologies and prophylactic ontologies, with Deleuze 
being the archetype of the promiscuous and Laruelle the prophylactic. 
I'm excerpting a footnote here that discusses the liberal nature of the 
promiscuous, as opposed to the radical nature of the prophylactic./

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