deleuze and guttari

[berlitz23]

Your Thoughts?

[Reclaimed Dasein]

I'm trying to read through "towards a minor literature." I heard that's their most accessible work. However, it seems to me when people mock a caricature of post-modernism they're mocking a slightly exaggerated version of this. I can't say yet because I'm not finished, but I'm not really liking it at all.

[wallflower]

Deleuze and Guattari were a brilliant pair of thinkers, in my opinion. I'm surprised, Reclaimed Dasein, that you chose to read "Toward a Minor Literature" first; is it because you have experience with Kafka? Personally, I say start with "Anti-Oedipus." This book is amazing in its treatment of collective fantasy, the subjective abstract essence, and - most importantly - fascism, and why anyone would "want" it.

[Reclaimed Dasein]

Deleuze and Guattari were a brilliant pair of thinkers, in my opinion. I'm surprised, Reclaimed Dasein, that you chose to read "Toward a Minor Literature" first; is it because you have experience with Kafka? Personally, I say start with "Anti-Oedipus." This book is amazing in its treatment of collective fantasy, the subjective abstract essence, and - most importantly - fascism, and why anyone would "want" it.
Deleuze and Guattari are certainly difficult so Kafka provides a nice lens by which one can examine them. As for anti-oedipus, maybe it's amazing, but I haven't read it so I can't say. I must say, I'm not impressed with Deleuze and Guattari. Nothing they're arguing for seems interesting or relevant in any way. The imminance of Deleuze and Guattari fails to account for the domination that can come through pure imminance viz. Foucault's discipline and punish. I'm interested to hear what you have to say about them, but I think their anarchism is completely misplaced.

[wallflower]

Anti-Oedipus takes apart the Freudian Oedipus Complex, at times revealing it to be completely ridiculous. Yet, they don't doubt the severity of its implications, nor its virulence. Oedipus spreads, they argue, and at its most diffuse and general, it is fascistic, wherein the dictator assumes the role of Father, the "Homeland" for the "territory" of the mother's body, and the subject as neurotic Child. There is also a little bit of critique of representation there that shouldn't be missed, though I'm told Deleuze takes on representation quite a bit on his own in "Difference and Repetition."

This is just a cursory summary of just one of the intertwined and interconnected theories presented in _Anti-Oedipus_. There's really so much in there that it's hard to pull one or two things out and say "this is what the book is about." But, if you're not all that impressed by D&G (and there are reasons not to be) and if you prefer Foucault, perhaps you might want to leave A-O alone. It gets a bit "hippie" at times, and those are the places that displease me the most. I still recommend it, though...

[Reclaimed Dasein]

Anti-Oedipus takes apart the Freudian Oedipus Complex, at times revealing it to be completely ridiculous. Yet, they don't doubt the severity of its implications, nor its virulence. Oedipus spreads, they argue, and at its most diffuse and general, it is fascistic, wherein the dictator assumes the role of Father, the "Homeland" for the "territory" of the mother's body, and the subject as neurotic Child. There is also a little bit of critique of representation there that shouldn't be missed, though I'm told Deleuze takes on representation quite a bit on his own in "Difference and Repetition."

This is just a cursory summary of just one of the intertwined and interconnected theories presented in _Anti-Oedipus_. There's really so much in there that it's hard to pull one or two things out and say "this is what the book is about." But, if you're not all that impressed by D&G (and there are reasons not to be) and if you prefer Foucault, perhaps you might want to leave A-O alone. It gets a bit "hippie" at times, and those are the places that displease me the most. I still recommend it, though...
Hmm... I think I might read it just so I can proclaim it shitty (given what the Kafka looked like). However, it seems that this work (as presented) was already done by Adorno in Freudian "Theory and the Patterns of Fascist Propaganda?"

On a side note, it's interesting to meet someone on revleft engaged with serious thinkers who weren't dead by 1975.

[obsolete discourse]

I think that D&G have quite bit to offer, most notably a better discursive frame work of the concept of desire. D&G's desire is a force, rather than a lack--something that relates to their ontological position of becoming (interrupting/out of time) rather than Heidegger's "being (in time)". And their notion of "the body without organs" is an incredible theoretical materialization of the end to the Cartesian split (mind/body) with so much useful implications for what it would mean to "act politically" or as Foucault says in the introduction to Anti-Oedipus "to live and anti-fascist life"

I think by far Nomadology: the war-machine, which is published both as a small book and as a chapter in A Thousand Plateaus is one of their best contributions to an anthropology of non-state-form practices of war. I think when reading this along side Tiqqun's Introduction to Civil War and Walter Benjamin's Critique of Violence, one can start to congeal a whole better understanding of what it means to revolt--with the desire for power and all the faculties of the state-form (organization, for exmple) but yet not reproduce the state. Something all would-be vanguardists might benefit from...

[berlitz23]

After hunting down Anti-Oedipus I have to tout them as genuises in their own way, it is one of the most brilliant pieces of philosophical literature I have ever encountered.

[Reclaimed Dasein]

After hunting down Anti-Oedipus I have to tout them as genuises in their own way, it is one of the most brilliant pieces of philosophical literature I have ever encountered.
Why and how? What do you see as their "genius?" I mean, it seems like they're not treading much new ground, and what little they do seems unhelpful. For example, we don't need a "line of escape" from capitalism. It seems like we need a confrontation. I'd be interested to hear your specific thoughts on them.

[blake 3:17]

I'd read Guattari's own work. I think he was much more engaged and concrete than Deleuze.

[kalu]

I don't know, I've only read A Thousand Plateaus so I'm trying to read more Deleuze. Seems he was the main theoretical innovator behind the outfit, and I'm not particularly interested in psychoanalysis so Guattari has less appeal to me. That said, some really interesting vocabulary--ie. useful terms like rhizome, assemblage, war machine--but in terms of critical thought and method I'm going to have to go with Gayatri Spivak on this one and say Derrida is more important (see "Can the Subaltern Speak?") Deleuze and Guattari like to have fun, which is great, but I don't really feel like I'm reading rigorous work that transforms Western philosophy. I mean, I've read Nietzsche, Foucault and Spinoza and it's quite obvious how much those fellows influence D+G, to the detriment perhaps of seriously original thought. But maybe I'm being too harsh (and unconvincing?). I'm waiting until I finish my philosophical review to get to Deleuze's Difference and Repetition. The ontology of multiplicity might seriously be revolutionary, as that's Badiou's point of departure; but again, I'm wary in light of Spivak's damning critique.

[berlitz23]

would people be willing to have a theoretical board devoted to discussing Deleuze and Guattari? Foucault Spivak and Derrida? Most of these thinkers are omitted on the board I don't whether to the lack of interest or....

[berlitz23]

So I guess Deleuze doesn't generate enough interest on this board

[kalu]

Probably should be, considering the two main actively innovating outfits in Marxism I've encountered are deconstructive "post-Marxism" (influenced by Derrida, ie. Laclau and Mouffe) and Marxian neo-anarchism/autonomism (influenced by Foucault, Deleuze, ie. Hardt and Negri). Poststructuralism/postmodernism, and moving beyond it while incorporating its critique, seems to be the demand of the moment. Hell, Martin Jay recognized this at the end of his fantastic review of "Western Marxism" (Lukacs, Bloch, Adorno, Sartre, Althusser, etc.) in Marxism and Totality, although he seems to prefer Habermas. The current innovative debates though are pretty much "x vs. poststructuralism/postmodernism" (Habermas v. Foucault, Zizek v. Butler, Laclau). This in the knowledge that "poststructuralism" only signifies family resemblances, and not a unifying theme or position among disparate authors.

But this is also very philosophically high-minded stuff, tends to not make itself very readable, though D+G at least try to make their work fun for those who don't mind the challenge.

I've heard good things about the Political Philosophy of Poststructuralist Anarchism by Todd May, for those who are interested in Deleuzean anarchism.

[GX.]

The current innovative debates though are pretty much "x vs. poststructuralism/postmodernism" (Habermas v. Foucault, Zizek v. Butler, Laclau).
none of those debates are really current. and how do you figure only the pomos are contributing to Marxism???

[Hiero]

So I guess Deleuze doesn't generate enough interest on this board

Not really.

Considering they are primarily acadamic sources, and very hard to read. To get any understand you need to read them over a lengthy period of time in mass with other works that infleunced these two writers. I have even had a post-structuralist acadamic tell me he hasn't started on Deleuze and Guttari because they are quite difficult to get into. His base theorists (I think everyone has a base theorist that they enter acadamia through) is Foucault and now he studies Derrida. Now for others Foucault and especially Derrida is very hard to get into.

I think then it is a issue of time and also getting use to the language style of these writers, especially the French.

Given all this, very few have an interest about these writers due to their accessibility and the topics that they talk about. I don't know even know what Deleuze and Guttari are interested. I have heard other lecturers use them briefly.

Now with Marxism, alot of aritcle and pamphlet like books and journals have been writen. So you can get a brief idea about what Marx is on abotu without reading his major work Capital. Post-Structuralist are not like this. Even Levi-Strauss wrote a book called "Structural Anthropology", which is specifically to say "This is what structural anthropology is". I have never seen a post structuralist say "This is my philosophy", generall because in alot of causes it can't be taken down to a theory, they are a all "tool boxes".

Asking for a seperate forum for these post-structuralist writers is pointless, the board wont get used.

[kalu]

none of those debates are really current. and how do you figure only the pomos are contributing to Marxism???

"Current" is a wide label, especially in academic circles. Frankly, we are still dealing with the effects of works that were published in the 1970s and 1980s ("pomo"). And I didn't say just "pomos" were contributing to Marxism, but I did say the debates frequently involve them and opposition to them. Is Habermas pomo? Zizek? Callinicos? Eagleton? Don't think so.


Post-Structuralist are not like this.

At the end of the day, we have to recognize that the label itself is an outside imposition. Besides Lyotard's work, I don't know of any self-declared postmodernists/poststructuralists. These are "family resemblances." That's why you probably will never see a "manifesto." Anyways, look at the work of Judith Butler, for example: she uses Derrida and JL Austin, both of whom have gotten into fights. Hell, even within "poststructuralism," Foucault and Derrida never made amends after a stinging review by Derrida of the History of Madness. There are completely different methods at work in their texts, see Spivak.

And the "impenetrability" of the subject is like pretty much all philosophy. You need to be aware of the debates and the context. Yes, there is also the structural framework academic production and social capital, though the ideas cannot be reduced to that. Frankly, I can't understand Saul Kripke or David Lewis ("analytic philosophy"). Anyways, I agree, we don't need a separate board for D+G and poststructuralism, though there probably should be more interest given the fact that continental philosophy has really been maintaining a significant influence in Marxist theory and politics, it's too long to even list. As far as I can tell, analytic philosophy, besides GA Cohen's contribution, has really been focused on liberalism and narrower discussions about deontology or Kantian ethics or whatever (see Rawls v. Nozick). Though the communitarian critiques of MacIntyre and Taylor look interesting.

[blake 3:17]

I need to reread Anti-Oedipus but I`ve been thinking these days that DnG did make a good job of skewering the family as the site of all the original problems in the world. So much therapy dwells on parts of childhood while completely obscuring the abuse and oppression that people experienced, experience, and will experience outside that time of their lives.

[revolt4thewin]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5w4iu9q5Mo
Never waste a good opportunity that being a crisis.