Abstract
In his book Deleuze and Lifelong Learning, originally a PhD thesis completed at Canterbury Christ Church University, Christian Beighton attempts to offer an ethics of practice. This ethics, drawing on Deleuze, suggests that the production of creativity and novelty, conceived as an engagement with multiplicities and uncertainty rather than a strategy of finding solutions and certainty, is ethical in itself in its concern with how we should learn and live in the world at an ontological level. The book calls for a shift in focus regarding creativity “from space and objects to time and processes” (p. 17), from actual outcomes to virtual movements or relations. Primacy is accorded to relational dynamism, a fundamental condition of human life, rather than to objects or outcomes in reconceptualizing humans’ lifelong learning and its essence of creativity. The book should provide a reference for those interested in a unique or critical lens to reflect on creativity and lifelong learning development.
Instead of starting by introducing Deleuze’s work, the author begins by examining the trend of lifelong learning practice and the taken-for-granted approach to creativity. Following an introduction that provides readers with a preview of what to expect, the book is organized into three parts consisting of 10 chapters and a conclusion. In part I, Lifelong Learning, the author argues that lifelong learning (chapter 1) tends to be subordinated to market and economic demands and serves as a commodity in exchange relations, whereas creativity (chapter 2) is often viewed as a linear, problem-solving process for a further goal (e.g., for utility, improvement, or response to change). Part II, Events, considers a return to genuine creative practices (chapter 3) through what Beighton terms “operative creativity,” which is “no longer concerned with the objects produced by creativity, but by the dynamic movements which produce creative thought” (p. 45), in contrast with “functional creativity,” which conforms to utility and humans’ need for certainty. One’s engagement in “events” must be primary in establishing creative and lifelong learning practices, which indicates an internal, relational dynamism embedded in the material world of emergence. Time, in this engagement, “has a fundamental effect on events” (p. 41). Beighton makes a fascinating distinction between “being differential” and “being different”; the former refers to changes in relations, whereas the latter may refer to a focus on variation, but relations between subjects and objects remain unchanged. For readers unfamiliar with Italian films (chapter 4), it takes time to follow and to grasp Antonioni’s films, which reflect the meaning of operative creativity. Antonioni, the director, treats filmmaking as a “rhizomatic,” emergent whole instead of a series of linear, predetermined shots to be acted upon.
Part III, Ethics, contains six chapters that address (1) creativity for lifelong learning, (2) professionalism, (3) improvisation in research, (4) taking chances in pedagogy, (5) errors and learning, and (6) a “healthy” lifelong learning practice. This book has merit in arguing that creative lifelong learning practices do not work to generate static, certain objects but rather work on people’s affective and bodily movement in creativity in relational terms. The learner, as a “nomadic subject” (p. 145), is put at the center of creative thought and develops toward what is becoming in an ontological sense, and any attempt to regulate creativity and the learner’s subjectivity is considered redundant. The book concludes by fostering a lifelong learning practice characterized by what Deleuze terms “counter-actualization,” which is marked by multiplicity rather than by finality in considering that, for instance, problems raised in events and life are not to be solved but are to be developed and may even lead to new problems. Improvisation, taking chances and errors, which become the fundamental basic condition of human learning, start to be normal without being disavowed.
The author considers teacher educators, as lifelong learners themselves, central to the analysis of the lifelong learning phenomenon to offer “an ethic of teacher education practice” (p. 7). However, the text does not delve into or ground relevant themes in teacher-education settings, and the connections among the chapters are not clear. Nonetheless, reading the text chapter by chapter may provide a sense of the inner logic and essence of the author’s thought. The book explains that what matters is a focus on the production of creativity itself rather than on actualized creative outcomes or results and on reconceptualizing creativity and lifelong learning practices in relational rather than object-oriented terms. However, it would have been beneficial to further address the implications and the need for this relational perspective as part of an adult and lifelong education policy and institutional focus.