Deleuze and Guattari - Worth Reading?
Sep 24 2008
Has anyone read Anti-Oedipus and/or A Thousand Plateaus? Are they any good and applicable to modern Capitalism? Any regrets after reading 1000+ pages?
Sep 24 2008
#2
Joseph K. wrote:
... D&G will only hinder your understanding of modern capitalism.
Why?
Sep 24 2008
#3
I found 'Anti-Oedipus' to be unreadable when I attempted it a while back, but I more recently tried a collection of Guattari essays and interviews called 'Chaosophy'. It was readable and worth reading, if just for the discussions of psychiatry and May '68.
Sep 24 2008
#4
I've only read the first chapter of 'A Thousand Plateaus', where they outline a rhizomatic theory of knowledge as well as bits here and there from Anti-Oedipis. It was all hard work but highly rewarding and interesting with the aid of a good dictionary (as well as a quick Google image search of 'rhizome'). Hope to read some of the rest soon.
Sep 24 2008
#5
Deleuze and Guattari are brilliant, especially A Thousand Plateaus; I've found it very useful in all kinds of ways.
Sep 24 2008
#6
This is a bit from Deleuze in Chaosophy:
Quote:
Take two examples: in May 1968 the leftists lost a lot of time insisting that professors engage in public self-criticism as agents of bourgeois ideology. It’s stupid and simply fuels the masochistic impulses of academics. The struggle against the competitive examination was abandoned for the benefit of controversy; the more conservative professors had no difficulty reorganizing their power. The problem of education is not an ideological problem, but a problem of the organization of power: it is the specificity of educational power that makes it appear to be an ideology, but it’s pure illusion. Power in the primary schools, that means something. It affects all children. Second example: Christianity. The church is perfectly pleased to be treated as an ideology. This can be argued; it feeds ecumenism. But Christianity has never been an ideology; it’s a very original, very specific organization of power that has assumed diverse forms since the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages, and which was able to invent the idea of international power. It’s far more important than ideology.
Sep 24 2008
#7
jonnylocks wrote:
Joseph K. wrote:
... D&G will only hinder your understanding of modern capitalism.Why?
i think it's just an overlong, obscurantist footnote to marx. i can't think of anything i took away from reading D&G that i couldn't have got in a clearer form from Marx - it struck me as sexy neologisms in lieu of interesting analysis. i mean perhaps i'm being over-critical - if people can give examples of what they find useful in D&G for understanding modern capitalism that might help.
Sep 24 2008
#8
Joseph K. wrote:
tedious, obscurantist bollocks.
I'd add to this 'mainly seen quoted by art students on the justifications they need to write for their projects".
Sep 24 2008
#9
there was also that israeli army general who used their theories of smoothed and striated space to theorise the urban geography of asymmetric conflict, can't find the link to hand though...
Sep 25 2008
#10
Joseph K. wrote:
there was also that israeli army general who used their theories of smoothed and striated space to theorise the urban geography of asymmetric conflict, can't find the link to hand though...
Yeah, I heard about that. But you really can't blame rightist imperialists for co-opting their theories. We can only hope to reappropriate their theories and turn them against modern capitalist society again.
Sep 25 2008
#11
and if someone can give examples of deleuzo-guattarian ideas that can be used like that i might soften my dismissive attitude towards them 
Sep 25 2008
#12
JK wrote:
there was also that israeli army general who used their theories of smoothed and striated space to theorise the urban geography of asymmetric conflict, can't find the link to hand though...
Sep 25 2008
#13
Joseph K. wrote:
jonnylocks wrote:
Joseph K. wrote:
... D&G will only hinder your understanding of modern capitalism.Why?
i think it's just an overlong, obscurantist footnote to marx. i can't think of anything i took away from reading D&G that i couldn't have got in a clearer form from Marx - it struck me as sexy neologisms in lieu of interesting analysis. i mean perhaps i'm being over-critical - if people can give examples of what they find useful in D&G for understanding modern capitalism that might help.
2 points:
1) I think it's very difficult to argue that Deleuze/Guattari are basically writing the same thing as Marx - the biggest difference being that Marx clearly uses a method of dialectic (particularly contradiction and transcendence) - which is one of the key things that D/G are arguing against - on the basis that it's basically a conservative and narrow way of thinking and can also be read as a kind of slave morality that only ends up reifying the thing you want to surpass.
2) I think it has provided some useful insights into the analysis of capitalism. probably most obviously through the impact it had on Negri and the autonomous Marxism associated with him. whether you agree with Negri or not, I think it's difficult to deny that he's had an impact on contemporary understandings of capitalism - which were in turn informed in part by a reading of Deleuze and Guattari.
Sep 25 2008
#14
Ret - cheers!
john wrote:
1) I think it's very difficult to argue that Deleuze/Guattari are basically writing the same thing as Marx - the biggest difference being that Marx clearly uses a method of dialectic (particularly contradiction and transcendence) - which is one of the key things that D/G are arguing against - on the basis that it's basically a conservative and narrow way of thinking and can also be read as a kind of slave morality that only ends up reifying the thing you want to surpass.
i'm not saying they say the same thing, i'm saying to my mind D&G don't really add anything. they are critical of dialectics, but their hostility to marx seems mired in hostility to reason, with their praise of 'schizoanalysis', claims to have written ATP while hallucinating etc, and for all their claims of materialism, their vitalist theory of 'productive desire' does come off as quite idealist.
john wrote:
2) I think it has provided some useful insights into the analysis of capitalism. probably most obviously through the impact it had on Negri and the autonomous Marxism associated with him. whether you agree with Negri or not, I think it's difficult to deny that he's had an impact on contemporary understandings of capitalism - which were in turn informed in part by a reading of Deleuze and Guattari.
I'm not a fan of negri or the much of the more recent 'autonomist' stuff (Virno et al), but he does make some interesting points. However these are mired in an analysis that is ultimately (petit-)bourgeois (see Aufheben's critiques of Negri & Hardt/Virno), and i think much of the responsibility for that is precisely in the love affair with post-modernist philisophy, bourgeois intellectual masturbation par excellence.
I mean specific examples of useful deleuzo-guattarian concepts from their self-described toolbox would really help... for instance i've seen activisty types attack federated anarchist organsiations for being 'arborescent' instead of 'rhizomatic' like the black bloc. what concepts do you think are useful for analysing contemporary capitalism?
Sep 25 2008
#15
Joseph K wrote:
what concepts do you think are useful for analysing contemporary capitalism?
it's more the arguments I find useful, rather than the specific concepts - i agree that some of the neologisms can be annoying/off-putting/unhelpful.
some that are particularly helpful:
1) the critique of representation
2) the notion that we should avoid 'capture' - I think this can be used to try to ensure that organizations like the federations don't stagnate
3) the critique of the capitalist state
all of these, I think, can provide an interesting spin on a more standard Marxist critique of capitalism - and basically enrich an anarcho-communist analysis.
Sep 25 2008
#16
john wrote:
1) the critique of representation
i'm rusty, but i remember it being based in a bourgeois relativist primacy of indivdual 'desiring machines,' hand in hand with a celebration of 'micropolitics' (identity politics etc) as opposed to the 'macropolitics' of class. i may have missed something though?
john wrote:
2) the notion that we should avoid 'capture' - I think this can be used to try to ensure that organizations like the federations don't stagnate
the topic of recuperation/degeneration is a well-worn one. i'm not sure D&G's talk of 'apparatus of capture' capturing deterritorializingflows of productive desire is an improvement on a materialist analysis of the forces causing, say permanent economic organisations tending to become mediators in the class struggle for the benefit of the bourgeoisie rather than organs of working class struggle. i mean, if the notion's there in D&G it's anyhow throughly unoriginal, and it's banality is disguised only by coining sexy neologisms.
john wrote:
3) the critique of the capitalist state
again, i'm rusty. can you refresh my memory? wasn't it all about institutions 'capturing' a 'surplus value of code'? i found the attempt to mash psychoanalytical/semiotic concepts into marxian language quite contrived and unclear to be honest, but maybe i'm thinking of something else.
Sep 25 2008
#17
Joseph K. wrote:
john wrote:
2) the notion that we should avoid 'capture' - I think this can be used to try to ensure that organizations like the federations don't stagnatethe topic of recuperation/degeneration is a well-worn one. ... . i mean, if the notion's there in D&G it's anyhow throughly unoriginal, and it's banality is disguised only by coining sexy neologisms.
the fact that it's well-worn is hardly a fair critique. I mean, you could argue that D/G have had a lot to do with popularizing the critique - so you can hardly then blame them for being unoriginal (30 years after they wrote it and subsequently popularized it)
joseph k wrote:
john wrote:
3) the critique of the capitalist stateagain, i'm rusty. can you refresh my memory? wasn't it all about institutions 'capturing' a 'surplus value of code'? i found the attempt to mash psychoanalytical/semiotic concepts into marxian language quite contrived and unclear to be honest, but maybe i'm thinking of something else.
my view would be that, in trying to understand why the state promotes capitalism, without reducing the explanation to one that simply says, we're in capitalism therefore the state will be capitalist, D/G prompt an important move away from more orthodox Marxism. It opens up and stimulates the generation of alternative critiques of what it is we don't like about the state, irrespective of the economic system within which it's located, whilst nevertheless linking that back to some of the wider relations of captialism. I think, particularly from an anarchist-communist perspective, this is quite interesting and has the potential to be useful.
anyway, if you don't like the neologisms/style of writing I can see what you're saying, but I don't think they can be completely written off as having nothing to say and simply hiding that in obscure language.
if, on the other hand, you think they could have said it all a lot more clearly, then probably I'd be more likely to agree. it doesn't hurt for texts to be entertaining and sometimes puzzling, though. if revolutionary texts all read like an Word instruction manual I don't think they'd necessarily have a wider readership or a more substantial societal impact.
Sep 25 2008
#18
john wrote:
the fact that it's well-worn is hardly a fair critique.
given as my complaint is they add nothing to marx (or indeed others), it kinda is. if everything they say is well-worn, and it is indeed popularised by stating banalities in gratuitously obscure prose that's more damning on the superficiality of 'intellectuals' than anything else. i mean for academics it makes perfect sense, if you can't make ideas sound sexy and new you don't get paid. what's the reader's excuse?
john wrote:
anyway, if you don't like the neologisms/style of writing I can see what you're saying, but I don't think they can be completely written off as having nothing to say and simply hiding that in obscure language.if, on the other hand, you think they could have said it all a lot more clearly, then probably I'd be more likely to agree.
whether the apparent 'substance' would dissappear if they explained it clearly is what i'm trying to find out now. i'm not convinced.
john wrote:
it doesn't hurt for texts to be entertaining and sometimes puzzling, though. if revolutionary texts all read like an Word instruction manual I don't think they'd necessarily have a wider readership or a more substantial societal impact.
that's a false opposition. i mean while this is very subjective, i'm not even saying D&G are style over substance. their style is pretensious, gratuitously obscure intellectual masturbation and it doesn't read very well compared to a good novel say. and as i say i'm not convinced there's any substance to it.
john wrote:
my view would be that, in trying to understand why the state promotes capitalism, without reducing the explanation to one that simply says, we're in capitalism therefore the state will be capitalist, D/G prompt an important move away from more orthodox Marxism. It opens up and stimulates the generation of alternative critiques of what it is we don't like about the state, irrespective of the economic system within which it's located, whilst nevertheless linking that back to some of the wider relations of captialism. I think, particularly from an anarchist-communist perspective, this is quite interesting and has the potential to be useful.
i'm not sure 'orthodox marxism' (usually a straw man of harry cleaver's imaginings) says 'we live in capitalism therefore the state is capitalist' - although there are a whole host of materialist arguments about how the bourgeois state is inseperable from capitalist social relations as a whole (not least as without it there's no private property). what is it specifically that D&G suggest "we don't like about the state", beyond perhaps it 'captures our desire', surely a more verbose version of the tantrum-anarky 'i wanna do whatever i want!!'?
Sep 25 2008
#19
Quote:
'orthodox marxism' (usually a straw man of harry cleaver's imaginings)
I know a lot of chumps that promote a strawman 'orthodox marxism' for them to dismantle but Harry Cleaver's definition is pretty specific and real, no?
Sep 25 2008
#20
I think that some of the practical lessons they took from 68 in France are interesting (their critique of the groupuscules and students), as are their writings on psychology and critiques of armed struggle.
Sep 25 2008
#21
revol68 wrote:
I know a lot of chumps that promote a strawman 'orthodox marxism' for them to dismantle but Harry Cleaver's definition is pretty specific and real, no?
apparently the 'orthodoxy' against which cleaver defines 'autonomist marxism' was more a set of assumptions of the 'autonomists' themselves in their Workerist days, rather than CP orthodoxy per se (which wasn't objectivist/productivist as it had turned to electoralism, in italy that is).
Sep 25 2008
#22
Joseph K. wrote:
revol68 wrote:
I know a lot of chumps that promote a strawman 'orthodox marxism' for them to dismantle but Harry Cleaver's definition is pretty specific and real, no?apparently the 'orthodoxy' against which cleaver defines 'autonomist marxism' was more a set of assumptions of the 'autonomists' themselves in their Workerist days, rather than CP orthodoxy per se (which wasn't objectivist/productivist as it had turned to electoralism, in italy that is).
How i've seen him use orthodox marxism is much more to do assumptions around the objectivism, determinism and the political/economic split of the second international. Whether or not the CPI stood in elections or engaged in whatever opportunism says little about the theoretical underpinnings, for example Lenin and the Bolsheviks quite clearly moved within a extremely wide concrete politics, from a rejection of the soviets to supporting them, from defending electoral politics to insurrection, they even still held a stages concept of Marxism whilst in reality playing a major role in a series of historical events which made them actual voluntarists. Likewise Cleaver makes the point that Rosa Luxemburg and many council communists who upheld the subjective creative power of the working class were still in the grip of objectivism in their theoretical writings.
Sep 25 2008
#23
i'm no expert in 2nd international marxism, and it's a while since i've read cleaver so i'm willing to cede the point. i'm not convinced 'subjectivism' or 'objectivism' are any better than each other though, as equally one-sided approaches.
Sep 25 2008
#24
Joseph K. wrote:
i'm no expert in 2nd international marxism, and it's a while since i've read cleaver so i'm willing to cede the point. i'm not convinced 'subjectivism' or 'objectivism' are any better than each other though, as equally one-sided approaches.
Well precisely, the subjective can only come about in relation to the objective and vice versa. However in the object/subject dialectic of labour and capital, labour is the active side that is objectified in capital, and so the breaking of capitals dialectic requires the the subject (labour) negating the object (capital) and in the process transforms itself as a subject for it's self valorisation rather than capitals.
The subject/object dialectic of capital has to be exploded by the subjective side, as afterall the object (capital) is itself dead labour and can only maintain itself by putting labour to work. The general subject/object dialectic of human subjectivity within the universe is a different matter, indeed trying to explode the objective side of that one might not be the best idea.
Sep 25 2008
#25
well i think that in itself is somewhat one-sided (in that you're describing 'the dialectic of labour'), overlooking the way in which capital itself becomes the subject of capitalist production ('the dialectic of capital'), reducing both workers and capitalists to its objects via an ontological inversion. The Incomplete Marx is good on this stuff.
Sorry this is kinda derailing the D&G thread, though i'd say reading Volume 1 of Capital and The Incomplete Marx would be a far better way to understand modern capitalism that reading Capitalism and Schizophrenia.
Sep 25 2008
#26
Joseph K. wrote:
what is it specifically that D&G suggest "we don't like about the state", beyond perhaps it 'captures our desire', surely a more verbose version of the tantrum-anarky 'i wanna do whatever i want!!'?
yes, there might be something in that.
but, ironic piss-takes aside, that is basically the anarchist (and libertarian communist) critique of the state as well - wow, let's all be free, man. I don't want to be, like, exploited by you crazy power-fiends and money-men no longer, dude.
basically, I take your point about the overly elaborate and confusing language, but I think D/G can be quite interesting and thought-provoking in prompting us to think about ways in which the state feeds off different hierarchies and therefore restricts human development.
Personally, I think this (below) is an interesting way of prompting us to think about hierarchy/control/states, etc.:
Deleuze and Guattari wrote:
The State indeed proceeeds otherwise: it is a phenomenon of intraconsistency. It makes points resonate together, points that are not necessarily already town-poles but very diverse points of order, geographic, ethnic, linguistic, moral, economic, technological particularities. It makes the town resonate with the countryside. It operates by stratification; in other words, it forms a vertical, hierarchized aggregate that spans the horizontal lines in a dimension of depth. In retaining given elements, it necessarily cuts off their relations with other elements, which become exterior, it inhibits, slows down, or controls those relations; if the State has a circuit of its own, it is an internal circuit dependent primarily upon resonance, it is a zone of recurrence that isolates itself from the remainder of the network, even if in order to do so it must exert even stricter controls over its relations with that remainder. The question is not to find out whether what is retained is natural or artificial (boundaries), because in any event there is deterritorialization. But in this case deterritorialization is a result of the territory itself being taken as an object, as a material to stratify, to make resonate. Thus the central power of the State is hierarchical, and constitutes a civil-service sector; the centre is not in the middle, but on top, because the only way it can recombine what it isolates is through subordination.
Sep 25 2008
#27
Joseph K. wrote:
well i think that in itself is somewhat one-sided (in that you're describing 'the dialectic of labour'), overlooking the way in which capital itself becomes the subject of capitalist production ('the dialectic of capital'), reducing both workers and capitalists to its objects via an ontological inversion.
I wasn't talking about the dialectic of capital being simply that between labour and capitalists, but actually one between labour and capital. Ofcourse capitalists are subjects of capitalist production, however this dialectic of capital still rests upon labour and to be negated requires a subjective transformation from labour for the valorisation of capital to labour that seeks to destroy capital, essentially labour for itself as opposed to labour in itself, which of course also means a class that in asserting itself also negates itself.
Sep 25 2008
#28
john wrote:
but, ironic piss-takes aside, that is basically the anarchist (and libertarian communist) critique of the state as well - wow, let's all be free, man.
which is what i mean when i say they're not really saying all that much behind the intellectual appearance.
john wrote:
basically, I take your point about the overly elaborate and confusing language, but I think D/G can be quite interesting and thought-provoking in prompting us to think about ways in which the state feeds off different hierarchies and therefore restricts human development.
well there's no accounting for what provokes thought i guess.
Ok let's try a little translation excercise...
Deleuze & Guattari in a parallel universe wrote:
The state pulls together partcular geographic, ethnic, linguistic, moral, economic, technological elements. It is hierarchical. It defines an interior and an exterior to its rule, in terms of the aforementioned elements. However, the centre of the state is not a geographic location but a political one, at the top of the hierarchy.
not neccessarily wrong, but not really saying much is it?
Sep 25 2008
#29
Joseph K. wrote:
not neccessarily wrong, but not really saying much is it?
well, it's saying enough, for a paragraph, and in an entertaining way. what more do you want from a theoretical text?
Sep 25 2008
#30
revol68 wrote:
Ofcourse capitalists are subjects of capitalist production
that's not what i said, i said that like workers, although in a qualitatively different way, they too are reduced to objects of capitalist production as they become mere human agents of capital, which itself, a mere process rises as the vampire-like subject of production. of course i agree we have to assert ourselves against both capital and our condition, a subjective rupture from our condition as objects of capitalist production ('human resources'), from class in-itself to class for-itself etc.
Yes, no and yes. tedious, obscurantist bollocks. You need to have read Marx to understand it anyway, and if you've done that D&G will only hinder your understanding of modern capitalism.