"The two of us [Deleuze & Guattari] wrote Anti-Oedipus together. Since each of us was several, there was already quite a crowd. Here we have made use of everything that came within range, what was closest as well as farthest away. We have assigned clever pseudonyms to prevent recognition. Why have we kept our own names? Out of habit, purely out of habit. To make ourselves recognizable in turn. To render imperceptible, not ourselves, but what makes us act, feel, and think. Also because it's nice to talk like everybody else, to say the sun rises, when everybody knows it's only a manner of speaking. To reach, not the point where one lo longer says I, but the point where it is no longer of any importance whether one says I. We are no longer ourselves. Each will know his own. We have been aided, inspired, multiplied" (3-4)
* * *
And the following is here for sheer narcissim: because it feels nice to know that I am, that is, that we are -or rather: that we move- not alone in this funny business of rhizomatic, ex-centric lives:
"The rhizome itself assumes very diverse forms, from ramified surface extension in all directions to concretion into bulbs and tubers"
Characteristics of the rhizome:
" Principles of connection and heterogeneity: any point of a rhizome can be connected to anything other, and must be" (7)
" Principle of multiplicity: it is only when the multiple is effectively treated as a substantive, 'multiplicity', that it ceases to have any relation to the One as subject or object, natural or spiritual reality, image and world. Multiplicities are rhizomatic, and expose arborescent pseudomultiplicities for what they are. There is no unity to serve as a pivot in the object or to divide in the subject. There is not even the unity to abort in the object or 'return' in the subject. A multiplicity has neither sujbect nor object, only determinations, magnitudes and dimensions that cannot increase in number without the multiplicity changing in nature (the laws of combination therefore increase in number as the multiplicity grows)" (8-9)
"Principle of asignifying rupture: agaiinst the oversignifying breaks separating structures or cutting across a single structure. A rhizome may be broken, shattered at a given spot, but it will start up again on one of its old lines, or on new lines. You can never get rid of ants because they form an animal rhizome that can rebound time and time again after most of it has been destroyed" (9)
"Principle of cartography and decalcomania: a rhizome is not amenable to any structural or or generative model. It is a stranger to any idea of genetic axis or deep structure" (13)
...and a few conclusions:
"A rhizome has no beginning or end; it is always in the middle, between things, interbeing, intermezzo. The tree is filiation, but the rhizome is alliance, uniquely alliance. The tree imposes the verb 'to be' but the fabric of the rhizome is the conjunction 'and... and...and...'. This conjunction carries enough force to shake and uproot the verb 'to be'. Where are you going? Where are you coming from? What are you heading for? These are totally useless questions" (27)
"Between things does not designate a localizable relation going from one thing to the other and back again, but a perpendicular direction, a transversal movement that sweeps one and the other away, a stream without beginnign or end that undermines its banks and picks up speed in the middle..." (28)
Deleuze, Gilles, Guattari, Felix. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia London: Continuum, 2004 [1980].
1 comments:
oh yeah, but the "centre" of space is centerless "space", which is the same as saying if you are afraid of taking the leap is because you have already taken it ;-)
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