postmodernism

Beginning D&G's Anti-Oedipus, I was struck by the invocation of orphans, atheists, and nomads as categories that gesture towards rhizomatic thinking and living, because it reminded me very much of Harraway's similar use of the language of seemingly 'disenfranchised', 'fringe' groups to open the discussion about the cyborg rupture. I-and judging by the last twelve hours on the blog I'm not alone in this- see strong parallels between rhizomatic thinking/being and cyborg epistemology/ontology. I see some differences, however, in the ways the becoming-processes for either.

Can someone with a background in science weigh in on the claims D&G make about biology and evolution supporting their rhizome theories? This is a last minute grab to insert science into today's in class discussion agenda...

D+G's schizophrenic celebrates the desiring-machine, becoming a miraculating -or celibate - machine as opposed to a paranoic - machine. They write, "The schizophrenic deliberately seeks out the very limit of capitalism: he is its inherent tendency brought to fulfillment, its surplus product, its proletariat, and its exterminating angel" (35). Is this ultraconformity as a means of subversion (3NT) or merely the proper use of capitalism?

D+G (A Thousand Plateus) : "The map has to do with performance, whereas the tracing always involves an alleged 'competence'...schizoanalysis rejects any idea of pretraced destiny, whatever name is given to it, divine, anagogic, historical, economic, structural, hereditary, or syntagmatic" (12-13)

Bulgarian crowd theorist Elias Canetti also writes about Judge Schreber in 'Crowds and Power,' so I thought I would share a little for those who were tantalized by the sunbeam-ass segment in D+G:

I'm surprised that no one has posted yet about D+G's segments on rhizomic consciousness. The key slogan ('Write with slogans!') is at 15 in TP: 'Many people have a tree growing in their heads, but the brain itself is much more a grass than a tree.'

In the Introduction to the Anti-Oedipus, I thought the section on Desire was interesting since we just came out of talking about Foucault and sexuality last week. The repression of desire is discussed in this essay in a very negative way, however. Desire, if repressed, "no matter how small, is capable of calling into question the established order of a society" (xxiii).

Do people think that this contradicts or parallels Foucault's discussion of sexuality? Foucault, however, discussed sexuality in almost a desireless sense with the concepts of scientia sexualis.

So from what I understand, the anti-oedipus is what is going to save everybody, or rather "redeem mankind", from the ideals and future nihilism to come. But Deleuze differs from Nietzsche's form of antinihilist discussion based on the fact that Nietzsche went mad, and "madness is a radical break from power in the form of a disconnection". The concept of how power works through the connection to everything is very interesting. Some statements in this essay are somewhat appalling. Deleuze/Guattari literally seem to be connecting everything to everything.

I thought this quote from the Anti-Oedipus was very postmodern:

Even revolutionary groups deal gingerly with the fascisizing elements we all carry deep within us, and yet they often possess a rarely analyzed but overriding group 'superego' that leads them to state, much like Nietzsche's man of ressentiment, that the other is evil (the Fascist! the Capitalist! the Communist!), and hence that they themselves are good (xvi).

I thought it was really interesting in the Anti-Oedipus where the discussion of how "everybody wants to be a fascist" takes place (xx). The ultimate goal seems to be to "forget about our egos" which would supposedly rid of all conflict such as the opposition of the desires of singularity vs. collectivity (xxi). These "collective expressions of desire", however, could possibly be argued as an aspect of Fascism, something that Deleuze/Guattari clearly abhor.