Rhythm as Method

We live our lives in rhythm. From the nine-to-five and the week/end, to social events, holidays, festivals, the natural rhythms of seasons and tides, the menstruating body and circadian cycle. There is a musicality to everyday life. We can define this musicality as rhythm: the idea of repetitive temporality. The question then becomes, how can rhythm be understood as method? And, how does this rhythmic method illuminate the social and political context of contemporary everyday life?

In Contemporary Capitalism and Mental Health: Rhythms of Everyday Life, Conor Heaney develops rhythm as method to understand the relationship between contemporary capitalism and mental health. Heaney’s rhythmic method (known as ‘scaping’) is developed throughout Part 1 of the book, in conversation with Félix Guattari, Gilles Deleuze, Bernard Stiegler, and Henri Lefebvre (amongst others). Chapter One provides a wide-ranging discussion of the literature on Rhythmanalysis. Heaney addresses rhythm as habit and presence, before turning to memory, social and biological rhythms before ending with a discussion of the future. Heaney identifies two original factors in his understanding of rhythm: (1) the connection with futurity and (2) the relationship between arrhythmia and hyperrhythmia. Arrhythmia and hyperrhythmia are relational and not to be considered polar opposites. Arrhythmia is a freezing of rhythm, and closes the future; by contrast, hyperrhythmia is chaotic, noisy, and multiple.

As we move further into Part 1, Chapter Two develops the concept of scaping as a rhythmic method. The chapter, in doing so, addresses themes of immanent critique, naturalist ecology, aesthetic interventionism, and revolution. These concepts help Heaney to outline a method of scaping which is creative, constructive, and orientated towards the future. Part 1 draws to a close with a critique of the rhythms of everyday life, developed mainly in conversation with Henri Lefebvre whose work has been central to the field. As he turns to the ‘mental environment’ that will occupy Part 2 of the book, Heaney develops themes of subjectivity, consciousness, unconsciousness, memory, agency, and affect. We are asked to consider, ‘What futures are possible under conditions of contemporary capitalism’s stranglehold upon the rhythms of everyday life in the mental environment?’ (p. 64). In the second half of the book, Heaney develops three case studies, or ‘ecologies of the mental environment’ (p. 124), as he describes them. The three ecologies presented in Part 2 are attention-distraction, happiness-depression, and debt-credit. Drawing on the literature presented in Part 1, Heaney argues that mental health issues are not individual but are generated by contemporary capitalism through the rhythmic effects of everyday life.

Heaney writes in close conversation with the French philosophy which enlivens rhythm as method. Each chapter of the book introduces a range of concepts that are essential to understanding rhythmanalysis and scaping as method. Heaney’s conceptual framework addresses the nature of rhythm (social rhythms, biorhythms, arrhythmia, hyperrhytmia); the method of scaping (immanent critique, naturalist ecology, aesthetic interventionism, revolutionary pluralism); and rhythm ecologies (distraction-attention, happiness-depression, debt-credit, sculpting, and caring milieus). Such a broad conceptual framework can make for a labyrinthian argument. In place of more traditional chapter conclusions, however, Heaney uses the device of ‘reprise’ (e.g. p. 49) to provide a continuous numbered system of key points detailing and sequencing the claims made throughout the text. The reprise is useful in keeping track of detail but also reveals the complexity of the conceptual arguments made.

What might Heaney’s scaping contribute to the growing literature on research methods in Socio-Legal studies? Contemporary Capitalism and Mental Health provides a thorough discussion of Rhythmanalysis and the continental philosophy which illuminates the concept. Socio-Legal scholars working at the intersection with Critical Legal Studies and looking to develop a theoretically grounded understanding of everyday life would likely find the discussion useful. The ecology of distraction-attention is ever-pressing, given the prevalence of ‘fake news’, the influence of social media upon democratic government, and the accelerated temporality of modern life. Similarly, Heaney’s discussion of happiness-depression is critical in the context of a growing tendency for capitalism to individualise mental health. And, in conditions of economic precarity and resource scarcity, the discussion of debt-credit is equally pressing. The book leaves open the possibilities for scaping as Socio-Legal method, given its focus on the theory and concepts which ground Rhythmanalysis. Yet, the ideas presented here are vital in the context of contemporary capitalism and mental health.