Enter the schizoanalyst
March 11, 2018 12:43 AM Subscribe
"‘How could two such different men, with such distinct sensibilities and styles, pursue their intellectual agenda together for more than 20 years?’ asked Francois Dosse in his 2007 double biography. The answer to this question – and the secret to their alliance – was their mutual distrust of identity. Deleuze and Guattari were both resolutely anti-individualist: whether in the realm of politics, psychotherapy or philosophy, they strived to show that the individual was a deception, summoned up to obscure the nature of reality."
seems consistent with what I have heard about Lacan
posted by thelonius at 8:35 AM on March 11, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 8:35 AM on March 11, 2018 [2 favorites]
okay, I'm learning something ...
The reason for Guattari’s perpetual agitation can be summed up with a single phrase: ‘the threat of Stalinism’. Guattari saw how the collective will of the Russian Revolution had collapsed into the hierarchical power structure of bureaucratic state communism. Now, he saw the same process occurring in miniature in every group he joined. No matter how communal the initial struggle, sooner or later the collective will dissolved into a competition between individual desires – with one person eventually emerging as the leader, at the expense of the others. Why do collaborations always collapse into hierarchies, he asked himself? Why does the group get atomised, rather than retaining a unified voice?
posted by philip-random at 9:50 AM on March 11, 2018 [4 favorites]
The reason for Guattari’s perpetual agitation can be summed up with a single phrase: ‘the threat of Stalinism’. Guattari saw how the collective will of the Russian Revolution had collapsed into the hierarchical power structure of bureaucratic state communism. Now, he saw the same process occurring in miniature in every group he joined. No matter how communal the initial struggle, sooner or later the collective will dissolved into a competition between individual desires – with one person eventually emerging as the leader, at the expense of the others. Why do collaborations always collapse into hierarchies, he asked himself? Why does the group get atomised, rather than retaining a unified voice?
posted by philip-random at 9:50 AM on March 11, 2018 [4 favorites]
This is really exciting. Part of my descent into madness following the American nightmare is exploring ideas like this and the stuff showing up in Thomas Metzinger's Being No One which has a similarly anti-ego take on neurobiology.
posted by TypographicalError at 10:53 AM on March 11, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by TypographicalError at 10:53 AM on March 11, 2018 [2 favorites]
and further ...
Enter the schizoanalyst, somewhere between a psychoanalyst and a political agitator. The role of this figure was to decode the unconscious processes of desire and identify their revolutionary potential. Deleuze and Guattari advocated a three-stage practice for bringing about political change through schizoanalysis. First, find those processes of desire that deviate from capitalism; then follow each to their most extreme conclusions, to allow them to escape from the restrictions of capital; and finally, align these different processes to create a ‘molecular revolution’.
What, exactly, does that mean? Deleuze and Guattari argued that it was impossible to know in advance what such a revolution would look like. Instead of fomenting one according to a pre-ordained plan, they proposed a politics of experimentation. The bodily ordeals of the French dramatist Antonin Artaud’s ‘theatre of cruelty’, and the drug-induced adventures of the American writer William S Burroughs, were two of Deleuze and Guattari’s favourite examples of how one might explore alternative organisations of desire.
Yeah, great stuff ...
posted by philip-random at 12:47 PM on March 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
Enter the schizoanalyst, somewhere between a psychoanalyst and a political agitator. The role of this figure was to decode the unconscious processes of desire and identify their revolutionary potential. Deleuze and Guattari advocated a three-stage practice for bringing about political change through schizoanalysis. First, find those processes of desire that deviate from capitalism; then follow each to their most extreme conclusions, to allow them to escape from the restrictions of capital; and finally, align these different processes to create a ‘molecular revolution’.
What, exactly, does that mean? Deleuze and Guattari argued that it was impossible to know in advance what such a revolution would look like. Instead of fomenting one according to a pre-ordained plan, they proposed a politics of experimentation. The bodily ordeals of the French dramatist Antonin Artaud’s ‘theatre of cruelty’, and the drug-induced adventures of the American writer William S Burroughs, were two of Deleuze and Guattari’s favourite examples of how one might explore alternative organisations of desire.
Yeah, great stuff ...
posted by philip-random at 12:47 PM on March 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
.... exploring ideas like this and the stuff showing up in Thomas Metzinger's Being No One which has a similarly anti-ego take on neurobiology
that's an interesting convergence; AFAIK, D & G weren't coming from neurobiology at all
posted by thelonius at 2:36 PM on March 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
that's an interesting convergence; AFAIK, D & G weren't coming from neurobiology at all
posted by thelonius at 2:36 PM on March 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
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