deleuze (and guattari)

"But capitalism still needs a displaced interior limit in another way: precisely in order to neutralize or repel the absolute exterior limit, the schizophrenic limit; it needs to internalize this limit, this time by restricting it, by causing it to pass no longer between social production and the desiring-production..."

i just don't get it, how can capitalism 'need'? this is me just not getting it, i'm not being snarky.

anyone know of any good entry-level guides to d/g?

so in a way i'm olooking at d/g as a way out of that nexus, because i'm following the trajectory of jean-pierre gorin, a filmmaker who was a young maoist at the sorbonne and ended up a deleuzian in southern california. he made a film about, basically, language acquisition that in its own way is a rejection of lacan. i am determined to give d/g a go, because in interviews they do seem a lot more sympathetic than, especially, althusser or his (english) followers. so perhaps it's d/g's version of 'interpellation' that i'm interested in.

(sorry that was autobiographical -- really appreciate the posts, rms)

'poverty of theory' is a number of things, but mainly against the dissolving of history into philosophy, with the main argument being about althusser's definition of 'empirical'. the abject retreat of the british althusserians (hindess and hirst) means that he has a far lower reputation among academic historians than among cultural theorists, i think.

the original 'poverty of theory book' from 1978 is the main anti-althusser piece and three other brilliant polemics, and i can't recommend it highly enough. it isn't hard to find, it's always in oxfam!!

'writing by candlelight' is a bunch of essays from the late 70s about the 'secret state' among other related themes, a state-of-the-nation book, which i like a lot. in the 80s he wrote or edited a few books about the new cold war, in general, when he got involved in END, a cross-iron-curtain anti-nuke organization. he was big in CND in the 50s and 80s.

committing to 'the making of the english working class' is a tall order, and it took me a long time to read it in all truth. it isn't difficult to read -- EPT was good At Writing -- but it's tough all the same and it helps to have some prior knowledge of the period (1780-1830). i must read the william morris book, though it is long.

If you haven't read it already you might enjoy Michele Barrett's The Politics Of Truth, which basically traces the history of "ideology" as a concept from Marx up to Laclau/Mouffe and then contrasts the concept of "ideology" generally against Foucault (who comprehensively does away with the real-truth/perspectives-serving-power-interests divide present in most of Marxism). She doesn't talk about Deleuze & Guattari though.

"For me, a text is nothing but a cog in a larger extra-textual practice. It’s not about using deconstruction, or any other textual practice, to do textual commentary; it’s about seeing what one can do with an extra-textual practice that extends the text."

been tempted by deleuze for a while. not so interested in the french post-marxists he was in dialogue with, but thinking of trying his stuff on hume or kant as I am very curious about his concept of immanence as a possible outgrowth/solution to the problems of the latter. earning the ire of alan sokal is probably a badge of honour, but i'm a little Curious about how he structures his writing - feels like i might need to decide on a character-class before i can read a thousand plateaus.

oh man so classic

- oh yeah?

Negri says in an interview somewhere that Mille Plateaux is sort of like a conceptual history, setting up these huge dynamic systems and then showing what revolutionary transformations look like within them. Not totally sure that I 'get it' (or that I'm representing Negri's words accurately), but there's a thought.

read Nomadology and was straight-up brainblown to the extent where I wrote my greatest academic & creative work, the latter very much as a response to it - and no you don't need to read anything else in preparation, just dive in. I wrote 6 A4 pages of quotes in a notebook, and reading back thru them the other day I'm struck by how fiercer and truer still they seem now

yeah, it's pretty and seductive, but basically snake oil. louis kinda proving my point here^^^

"Sometimes it gets kind of comical, say in post-modern discourse. Especially around Paris, it has become a comic strip, I mean it's all gibberish ... they try to decode it and see what is the actual meaning behind it, things that you could explain to an eight-year old child. There's nothing there." -Chomsky

oh man not this argument again

"this argument"

arrrrrgh

"This is really obscure! But at the same time, I know exactly what he's trying to say, and I could say it more clearly than him so that more people would understand it!"

a way-in is pretty tough because he covers a lot of ground in v different styles and it can be difficult to see where the connections are, and for the same reason there isn't, as far as i know, an all-encompassing introduction that's adequate for both breadth and depth. if immanence is yr thing then the slim and v readable spinoza: practical philosophy may actually be a good place to start. then read the two 'memories of a spinozist' section of a thousand plateaus' 'becoming-intense' chapter. then of course ???, then profit. on the other hand don't listen to me because i'm biased towards certain spinozist perspectives in his writing. i've been working around this fella for three years now and it was only as i was finishing off my 25,000 word dissertation on him that i really felt i had an understanding of him. now, again, i'm not so sure. (p.s. will accept that deleuze was from time to time a bit of a silly hippie, will vehemently oppose any suggestion that he wasn't an excellent scholar and a thinker of huge merit.)

yeah I think that spinoza book was the first one I read (not all of it, but enough to get some idea of where he was coming from) — seconding yr recommendation

[xp to myself] damn so much odd phrasing there, wish i'd proofread before looking like a mealy-mouthed continentalist.

lj is yr great work about kant's categories?

couldn't give a whisper of a shit about what the seer chomsky has to say about anyone's critique of kant.

thanks merdeyeux, the spinoza might be a good call.

[blowing of own trumpet]"I LOVE WRITING" MAIDEN VOYAGE appendix: self-appointed and unwieldy meisterwerks[/blowing of own trumpet]

you must be capable of circular breathing

hahaha yeah sorry about that

'a thousand plateaus' is really... seductive? it 'flows' really well, it submerges you. at the same time im not really reading it skeptically, just admiringly, w/o 'seeing it from the middle' (vs 'seeing it from the inside')

anyway i wish my french wasnt so lousy but its still nice to read, much more so than i remembered

i couldn't manage it in French but yeah it is pure fun times. i'm not sure how you cd read it skeptically since it uses such deft judo to avoid dogmatism. i think about assemblages in the world around me a lot, then i wonder whether i will ever get my head around the body without organs, then you get to a funny joke and forget it for a bit. it's one of those books that when i'm reading it i tell myself i will spend a couple of years or more just re-reading it to the exclusion of everything else.

part of the seductiveness is the adventure of it i think, i never approach them trying to nail down each sentence before moving onto the next, i'm happy to go for a wander and maybe get a bit lost but then find myself somewhere quite recognisable and think "yes this is a thing" and then wander off again. it engages like literature and never pretends to be some banal science thesis.

Lamp, if you start talking here about subjective realism and ooo I am disowning you.

Spec realism, sorry, pwned by preemptive ire

haha i remember reading some thing where deleuze is like "we explained the body without organs to a classroom of seven-year-olds and they all uderstood it immediately" and i was like, uhm, i'll just be over here scratchin my nuts if you need me

http://www.webdeleuze.com/php/texte.php?cle=5&groupe=Anti Oedipe et Mille Plateaux&langue=2

gilles talking to richard pinhas :)

ya this is a v good read, richard understands the relation between music and deleuze's philosophy way better than g himself does, i think.

after the pretty tame references to synthesizers in a thousand plateaus i was surprised to come across the impressive discussion of analog and digital synths in the francis bacon book. then it all made sense when it turned out it was taken straight from pinhas.

it's one of those books that when i'm reading it i tell myself i will spend a couple of years or more just re-reading it to the exclusion of everything else.

this feels p true. there are certainly bits and pieces of it floating around my brain since i read it last year, to the extent that i always feel like im reading it even tho im not

i am currently reading "anti-oedipus" as a result of discussion here and in the "academic obfuscation" thread. focault preface and mark seem intro have made the descent into D&G's language and approach a lot easier than they might have been otherwise. context is everything. i find myself frustrated but intrigued, but wonder if this type of critical thinking is simply alien to my own intrinsic mode of thought. i'm only a few pages in, and already i've wanted to object strongly to several aspects of the premise-building. i'm trying, however, to stay my mind-hand and just burrow in. wish me luck...

the heavy reliance on what are obviously references to other texts/ideas, but that are unsourced and unexplained, for instance, grates

you are obviously not smoking enough weed yet

i have never had enough free time from my own academic pursuits to dive into D&G beyond a general familiarity with them. (i have read and enjoyed Guattari's "Chaosmosis" however.)

oops. i meant to add that i plan to! i have logic of sense and difference and repetition all lined up in my "to read" pile.