Author: Razorsmile

I missed the reading group on October 13^th, when they discussed Chapter 2 (1914: One or several wolves), and so I’m turning to the Chapter 3 10,000BC: The geology of morals. I will return to Chapter 2 when I have time. We read the first half of Chapter 3 on October 20^th, up to but not including the paragraph that begins ‘Most of the audience had left…’ (ATP 57) and will continue with the remainder of Chapter 3 next week. As a reminder, these notes are in no way a report of the reading group, rather they are my notes and thoughts which will be informed by the discussion there, but all mistakes and errors are my own.

The ‘double articulation’ that is the focus of this chapter is that of the ‘codes’ and ‘territories’ that are probably quite familiar to readers of D&G. The processes of code and territory produce many of those curious ‘jargon’ terms so hated by critics, terms like decoding, overcoding, surplus value of code, deterritorialization, reterritorialization. At heart, these two processes, of code and territory, involve processes and because of this the dynamics of those processes, whether they are opening or closing dynamics, are central to D&G’s discussions. What purpose do these processes have in the analytical model of schizoanalysis? They are replacements or alternatives for more traditional philosophical concepts of ‘form’ and ‘content’ and are intended, I think, to transform the analytical categories that are used to understand specific ‘objects’ (concepts) of discussion. So, when talking, for example, about the ‘nature of subjectivity’, we could analyse it in terms of codes and territories rather than in terms of language, experience, ideology, genealogy or substance. We might presumably do something similar for concepts such as ‘nation’, ‘class’, ‘freedom’ or ‘truth’.

There is something more than merely a ‘model’ at stake, however, at least the opening of the chapter appears to pose the problem in more fundamental terms. The double articulation of codes and territories – for which the Lobster is an image – is presented as a way to understand the process of ‘stratification’. Stratification arises ‘simultaneously and inevitably’ (ATP 40) alongside or within the ‘unstable, unformed matters’ that constitutes the Earth. Stratification consists “of giving form to matters, of imprisoning intensities or locking singularities into systems of resonance and redundancy, of producing upon the body of the earth molecules large and small and organising them into molar aggregates” (ibid). In other words, stratification – operating through the double articulation of codes and territories – is the process through which something like a ‘primal flux’ comes to be ordered, a process through which the dynamic flows of matter form something like ‘objects’ or ‘substance’.

Immediately, however, we must double the doubling, specifically we have to take into account the pairing of ‘content’ and ‘expression’ and the fact that each of these terms is, again, doubled. If ‘matter’ is the “unformed, unorganised, nonstratified, or destratified body and all its flows”, then ‘content’ refers to “formed matters, which would now have to be considered from two points of view: substance, insofar as these matters are ‘chosen’, and form, insofar as they are chosen in a certain order (substance and form of content)” whilst ‘expression’ refers to “functional structures, which would also have to be considered from two points of view: the organisation of their own specific form, and substances insofar as they form compounds (form and content of expression)” (ATP 43).

“Double articulation is so extremely variable that we cannot begin with a general model, only a relatively simple case. The first articulation chooses or deducts, from unstable particle-flows, metastable molecular or quasi-molecular units (substances) upon which it imposes a statistical order of connections and successions (forms). The second articulation establishes functional, compact, stable structures (forms), and constructs the molar compounds in which these structures are simultaneously actualised (substances). In a geological stratum, for example, the first articulation is the process of ‘sedimentation’, which deposits units of cyclic sediment according to a statistical order: flysch, with its succession of sandstone and schist. The second articulation is the ‘folding’ that sets up a stable functional structure and effects the passage from sediment to sedimentary rock.” (ATP 41)

The first curiosity here is this use of such a ‘geological’ model. It seems, on the face of it, that a model derived from a natural science such as geology is going to produce category mistakes if we deploy it in analysis focussed on the ‘human’. Aren’t issues of meaning, signification, sense and intention more relevant to political and social analysis? Such an assumption begs the question, despite it’s apparent obviousness to many people who are happy to merely assert some human exceptionalism as though it were incontrovertibly the case. Even if we don’t beg the question, however, there seems something a little odd about deploying ‘geological’ models in a text that purports to be about ‘capitalism and schizophrenia’. How might we connect a ‘geological’ concept of stratification to something ‘human’? Whilst this question already assumes too much importance for the human, it might be useful as a way of being able to understand what political or social implications there are in ATP, and that itself might be necessary because I’m assuming that – broadly speaking – most of the people interested in ATP are interested in such ‘human’ issues rather than in subjects such as geology, which is not to deny that there is also possible interest in the text for geologists.

There is a second curiosity, however, which is that the specific ‘stratum’ that is addressed in the chapter is not geological or even human but the organic. The chapter is staged as a lecture being delivered by Professor Challenger, a character from Arthur Conan Doyle stories. At one point there is clearly a sense of a merging of Challenger with the authors of ATP, most notably when Challenger is described as having “invented a discipline he referred to by various names: rhizomatics, stratoanalysis, schizoanalysis, nomadology, micropolitics, pragmatics, the science of multiplicities.” (ATP 43). Amusingly the text continues as follows – “Yet no one clearly understood what the goals, method, or principles of this discipline were.” (ibid). To return to the discussion in the chapter/lecture hybrid, what we’re reading soon moves from the rather abstract account of double articulation to something more concrete – “the question we must ask is what on a given stratum varies and what does not? What accounts for the unity and diversity on a stratum?” (ATP 45) and this question focusses on the ‘organic’. At the heart of this is a discussion (ATP 45-49) that begins from a staging of the debate between Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire and Cuvier. An account of this debate is given – “Challenger imagined a particularly epistemological dialogue of the dead, in puppet theatre style” (ATP 46) – the purpose of which, however, is to present the ‘paradigm shift’ introduced by Darwin. At the end of the staged debate we find the following passage:

“We have not even taken Darwin, evolutionism, or neoevolutionism into account yet. This, however, is where a decisive phenomenon occurs: our puppet theatre becomes more and more nebulous, in other words, collective and differential. Earlier, we invoked two factors, and their uncertain relations, in order to explain the diversity within a stratum – degrees of development or perfection and types of form. They now undergo a profound transformation. There is a double tendency for types of forms to be understood increasingly in terms of populations, packs and colonies, collectivities or multiplicities: and degrees of development in terms of speeds, rates, coefficients, and differential relations. A double deepening. This, Darwinism’s fundamental contribution, implies a new coupling of individuals and milieus on the stratum. (ATP 47-48)”

It is this ‘new coupling of individuals and milieus on the stratum’ that is the link between ‘geology’ and ‘morals’ and through which the first curiosity I mentioned is in some sense made clearer by the second. It is this ‘new coupling’ that offers a productive and ‘transferable’ set of categories, ones that can move across the analysis of the processes of geological sedimentation into the analysis of the processes of individuation more generally, although quite how generally is still up for question as there is plainly no direct and obvious route from Darwinism to politics or sociology, or at least no direct uncontested route since at the very least we can find ‘socio-biology’ suggesting one, albeit highly contested, possibility of generalisation. The route to generalisation taken by ATP, however, is distinct from any socio-biology I’m aware of, primarily because it’s primary category of generalisation is to be the ‘abstract machine’.

The problem that is posed as the motivation for Challenger’s discussion is the “unity and diversity of a single stratum”, what is it that enables a single stratum to have a “unity of composition, which is what allows it to be called a stratum” (ATP 49). This problem directly arises from the ‘science of multiplicities’, what I called the ‘method of the rhizome’ in my discussions of the first chapter of ATP. If ‘multiplicity’ is to be taken as a substantive and in doing so replace problematics involving a ‘dialectic’ between the One and the All, then the ‘problem of individuation’ can be posed in terms of how it is possible to call something a thing in the singular, in this case, how is it possible to discuss a stratum from within a model of the double articulation of stratification, where at any moment there is always more than one involved – the double bind of double articulation.

In the paragraph that starts “To begin with, a stratum does indeed have a unity of composition…”, just following a brief remark re-emphasising the staging of the chapter as a lecture by Challenger, an initial move to introduce the abstract machine is made. Here the process of individuation of a stratum is posed in terms of “a change in organisation, not an augmentation” and the factors involved in a relation between a stratum and a substratum are reciprocal rather than hierarchical, hence why D&G declare that “we should be on our guard against any kind of ridiculous cosmic evolution” (ATP 49). A substratum is posed as a milieu, as an “exterior milieu for the elements and compounds of the stratum under consideration, but they are not exterior to the stratum” (ibid). They try to illustrate this reciprocal relation of exterior / interior in the composition of a stratum by first offering the example of a crystalline stratum developing from the seed and medium and then move to claim that “the same applies to the organic stratum: the materials furnished by the substrata are an exterior medium constituting the famous prebiotic soup, and catalysts play the role of seed in the formation of interior substantial elements or even compounds” (ATP 49-50). Crucially there are three elements at work here, viz. (1) the (exterior) milieu, the molecular materials (2) the (interior) seed, interior substantial elements, and (3) the limit of exchange between the two, the “membrane conveying the formal relations”, or surface. The abstract machine is the ‘synthesis’ or result of the reciprocal relations between these three elements and is given the name of Ecumenon in contrast to what they call a Planomenon.

Before moving forward it’s worth considering why this abstract machine is important. It offers us the mode of individuation that is going to be able to explain the existence of organisation from the background of a disorganised flow of matter, although ‘explain’ might be too strong here – it offers an account or descriptive framework. It’s worth noting that the whole discussion of stratification within which this existence of the abstract machine plays its role is offered from a factical staring point, that is, the ‘simultaneous and inevitable phenomenon of stratification’ is simply offered alongside the account of the ‘body without organs’, “…the Earth, – the Deterritorialized, the Glacial, the giant Molecule…” (ATP 40). Putting aside the status of the description one thing we can note, however, is that the discussion of abstract machines, the production of an ‘Ecumenon’, is a positive account that in many ways can complement the dissolution that is often associated with D&G. Quite commonly we come across an emphasis on ‘how to make yourself a body without organs’, which might be read as a way to ‘liberate’ oneself from having been organised behind our backs by culture or social norms or ‘ideology’, or some other mode of social construction. The discussion in this chapter, however, offers an account of “how to ‘make’ the body an organism” (ATP 41), which offers itself immediately as a compliment, almost as the other side of the coin of that process of ‘making yourself a body without organs’. As such, for those interested in how D&G or schizoanalysis might offer a route to resistance or revolution and who might be left wondering where the constructive or productive process might be discussed, this is one place to look, at how one might conceive something like the abstract machine of revolution.

Turning to the 5^th and 6^th characteristics of the rhizome – the principle of cartography and decalcomania – we move from discussions of the book, of evolutionary science, of music, to discussions of psychoanalysis, the first real moment in which a continuity between ATP and Anti-Oedipus really makes itself felt.

First, a brief note on that strange word ‘decalcomania’, and an even briefer note on ‘cartography’. Cartography, or map-making, involves the active ‘making’ of maps and that active ‘making’ element is important here, which is why it is not the principle of ‘maps’ but of ‘cartography’, or more colloquially, of ‘mapping’. The productivity of cartography is put in relationship to the practice of ‘tracing’, which is a restrictive, constricting practice. In one sense we can understand cartography as producing openings and decalcomania as producing constrictions. Decalcomania itself appears to refer to a practice of tracing that developed in the 19^th century as a form of decorating pottery. It involved a process of producing a ‘decal’ that was then laid onto pottery or glass and the Wikipedia entry also indicates a couple of other fascinating connections, first to some surrealist practice and second to some work with regard fractals. I’m not sure why D&G would use the idea of ‘decalcomaia’ rather than simply ‘tracings’ here if it wasn’t to at least allude to these particular forms of tracing, since the actual discussion – at least in the English translation – reverts to the term ‘tracings’.

In terms of the actual principles themselves, it’s important to note that they are not claiming that maps are simply better than tracings, even though at one point they say “the rhizome is altogether different, a map and not a tracing. Make a map, not a tracing.” (ATP 12). In the very next paragraph they attempt to make clear that they do not intend to “revert to a simple dualism” (ie, of the form maps=good tracings = bad). Rather the tracing has the danger of ‘neutralising’ the rhizome and in particular “what the tracing reproduces of the map or rhizome are only the impasses, blockages, incipient taproots, or points of structuration” (ATP 13). Therefore “it is a question of method: the tracing should always be put back on the map” (ibid).

The map, in this situation, is an open, experimental and productive process, hence why it is possibly better thought of as ‘mapping’ rather than ‘the map’. In one of the most interesting lines, they claim that “the map does not reproduce an unconscious closed in upon itself; it constructs the unconscious. It fosters connections between fields, the removal of blockages on bodies without organs, the maximum opening of bodies without organs onto a plane of consistency” (ATP 12). In the discussion that follows the concrete examples they draw on come from psychoanalysis – Freud on Little Hans and Klein on Little Richard – and here the rhizome connects clearly to the thematics of Anti-Oedipus. In their criticism of psychoanalysis they say the following:

“You will be allowed to live and speak, but only after every outlet has been obstructed. Once a rhizome has been obstructed, arborified, it’s all over, no desire stirs; for it is always by rhizome that desire moves and produces. Whenever desire climbs a tree, internal repercussions trip it up and it falls to its death; the rhizome, on the other hand, acts on desire by external, productive outgrowths.” (ATP 14)

It becomes increasingly clear that the rhizome is being developed as a method because of it’s political (micro-political) implications. In this situation, the reference made to the relationship between mapping and tracing as involving a method makes more sense – it is a question of method assuming that we wish to liberate desire, it’s a question of a method for the schizoanalyst. In this context, one small reference stands out and that is to the work of Fernand Deligny. As the discussion on psychoanalysis comes to an end D&G refer to “Deligny’s method: map the gestures and movements of an autistic child, combine several maps for the same child, for several different children.” (ibid) Deligny’s work appears to have become a focus for research in recent years and in particular he seems closely connected to the idea of ‘lines of flight’.

(Here’s a short essay on what Deligny called ‘wander lines’ that gives a brief introduction to him and his work and have a look at this Google search for recent researches and connections.) Deligny will return in Chapter 8, the ‘Three novellas’ chapter, at an important moment in the discussion of lines of flight, as a key positive source of inspiration (ATP 202-203), and again at the beginning of Chapter 11, ‘Of the refrain’, once more in a positive ‘opening’ moment (ATP 311-312, fn.1).

After having given these 6 characteristics we find D&G moving the discussion through a kind of loose comparative analysis, whereby they look at the possible understanding of an arborescent/rhizomatic difference in specific fields, primarily in a discussion of a debate from within information science that they read in terms of an arborescent/rhizomatic difference, but there are also comments on the nature of  the difference between West and East in terms of the role of the tree, as well comments about America and bureaucracy. After 4 or 5 pages of this kind of discussion they again summarise the ‘characteristics’ of the rhizome (ATP 21) and then explain their use of ‘plateaus’, which is derived from Gregory Bateson’s work and deployed in order to subvert the book having a beginning, since each plateau is always ‘in the middle’ (intermezzo). Even in this closing discussion, however, we again find a kind of quick, rough and ready comparative analysis being deployed when they briefly discuss history, making the claim that ‘what is lacking is a nomadology’ (ATP 23).

What we find by the end of this first introductory chapter is a baroque and convoluted form of philosophy, one in which a methodology is put forward (the rhizome) as the means by which a particular practice can be developed (schizoanalysis) but where this is done almost in a performative way, as thought it were presenting an example of the kind of rhizomatic practice being articulated and advocated for. Reading through ATP I am reminded of how often I have spun off into one of the references, such as the Deligny, not in order to simply understand what D&G are saying but because the connection offered through that reference opens a whole new world of possibilities. This ‘opening of a world of possibilities’ is, I think, one of the most important ways of encountering the rhizome, the lines of flight, the multiplicity that is schizoanalysis. It is at times intensely infuriating, particularly if what you want to do is ‘understand’ D&G quickly (usually in order to be able to dismiss it in favour of some preferred model). If, however, the goal is to develop what we might call a ‘schizoanalytic’ method, then this first chapter offers a clear example of both the possibilities and problems involved.

One final note – the ‘philosophical’ background to much of the discussion of the rhizome – from within the work of Deleuze – lies in the problem of ‘multiplicity’ and at the heart of that are a whole bunch of interesting discussions regarding space and time, discussions that move from Kant’s account of the pure intuitions, through Bergson, Husserl and Heidegger up to the work of Deleuze in his Bergson book and elsewhere. I haven’t really noted any of this in any detail but wanted to leave a couple of references here for when I return to these notes:

This extract from a lecture by Deleuze on Bergson’s theory of multiplicities, and this useful summary by John Protevi of Chapter 2 of Deleuze’s ‘ book Bergson’ on ‘Time and Free Will’.

There is also this interesting connection to Anti-Oedipus and what is said about multiplicity as a substantive there:

It is only the category of multiplicity, used as a substantive and going beyond both the One and the many, beyond the predicative relation of the One and the many, that can account for desiring-production: desiring-production is pure multiplicity, that is to say, an affirmation that is irreducible to any sort of unity. (AO Ch1, Part 6 end of first paragraph: Athlone 42).

This obviously connects closely to what is said in the 3^rd principle of the rhizome (ATP 8).

There are 6 principles of the rhizome that are outlined in the first chapter of ATP. They are introduced as ways of characterising the rhizome, although these are only “approximate characteristics” (ATP 7). There is something a little incongruous about the way they are introduced. The function of these characteristics, approximate as they may be, is to give a definition for the key methodological framework of the book, the rhizome, but the way that D&G introduce this set of defining principles is by saying that “we get the distinct feeling that we will convince no one unless we enumerate certain approximate characteristics of the rhizome” (ibid). The element of this that strikes me as incongruous is this way of phrasing things – “we get the distinct feeling that we will convince no one…” – which sounds almost patronising or dismissive. On the one hand, presumably, they are acknowledging an intention to ‘convince’ but on the other hand the ‘distinct feeling’ reads as though it were a kind of realisation that the people they are trying to convince would fail to follow along if D&G were to simply do their own thing. It’s as though these principles are offered as a kind of sop to stupidity, as though the need for a clear definition cannot be avoided, even though such a definitional mode is itself almost inherently non-rhizomatic because it presents itself as a foundational moment, a root or radicle.

This performative paradox of a text that advocates rhizomatic readings having to begin by defining what a rhizome is as its foundation is most likely what underlies this odd way of introducing the principles of the rhizome. Despite what they say later in this introduction, that “a rhizome has no beginning or end; it is always in the middle, between things, interbeing, intermezzo” (ATP 25), the book has a physical front and back, it presents in a linear fashion, it builds upon itself as it progresses, it’s a tree, not a rhizome. Advocating for a rhizomatic book inside a book that is classically formed is most odd. In a time of non-linear text functions, with hyperlinks and e-books offering all range of possible horizons of reading, ATP feels a little old-fashioned and incongruous in many ways, advocating for a future in a form from the past that seems almost childishly limited in its possibilities. At the same time, the worry is that something deeper than mere form is the source of the problem here, something closer to the very function of philosophy, reason, argument and ‘convincing’ intellectual positions. Is it, in fact, possible to conceive a rhizomatic thought, one that can begin from the middle? Doesn’t all thought get structured by the fact that it always must begin somewhere and that this beginning is never, can never be, a middle? The problem of the ‘beginning’ of thought would take us right back to Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger and their obsessions with beginnings, and perhaps it’s as an attempt to break away from this that best accounts for the move towards the rhizome.

The six principles are as follows:

• 1 and 2 – principles of connection and heterogeneity
• 3 – principle of multiplicity
• 4 – principle of asignifying rupture
• 5 and 6 – principles of cartography and decalcomania

Some simple observations to begin with. There are supposedly 6 principles but as can be seen the first and last pairs are linked together. It’s also worth noting that in the discussions of both P1&2 and P5&6 the work of Chomsky is in the background as a contrasting perspective. The longest single discussion of any of these principles is of P4, where 3 paragraphs are devoted to it. In comparison P1, 2, and 3 get only a single paragraph each and P5&6 gets 5 paragraphs. It’s also worth noting that the famous example of the wasp and orchid is part of the discussion of P4, asignifying ruptures, not as one might assume from a lot of pub conversation, part of the map/territory discussion of P5&6. Finally, it’s worth noting that P5&6 is not the principle of the map and territory, even though there is a discussion of such, rather it’s the principle of maps and tracings. This notion of the trace, a concept we might more commonly associate with Derrida, is what underlies that strange word ‘decalcomania’. Having made these simple observations, I will briefly work through each principle. Before I do, however, one impressionistic response, which is the following: the presence and centrality of Chomsky, asignification, abstract machines and the rhizome itself seem likely to be derived far more from Guattari than from Deleuze, whereas in Anti-Oedipus the role of the three syntheses, the 5 paralogisms and the general structure of the argument as diagnosing a post hoc ergo procter hoc fallacy within psychoanalysis seems far closer to Deleuze’s classical style of doing philosophy. Roughly and impressionistically speaking this would suggest that of the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Deleuzian influence is strongest conceptually in AO and Guattarian influence stronger conceptually in ATP.

1 and 2 – principles of connection and heterogeneity – “any point of a rhizome can be connected to anything other, and must be” (ATP 7). This begins the attempt to ‘exit language’ that underpins the rhizome as a method, the attempt to break open the linguistic, language and speaking priorities that dominate philosophy and academic analysis more widely, opening our analyses of assemblages to “organisations of power, and circumstances relative to the arts, sciences, and social struggles.” (ibid). It is not meaning that matter but function, although this does not imply that there is no meaning, only that meanings and connections between meanings are little more than moments of wider, more diverse (heterogeneous) types of connections. In Anti-Oedipusthis is the first synthesis, the synthesis of connection, where desire is involved in ‘putting to work’ the body – its’ formula or mode would be = ‘and’, ‘and then…’ (production).  [Paranoiac machine] (cf. Anti-Oedipus, Ch1, S.1; Ch.2, S3). One of the most notable aspects of the discussion of these first two principle is the claim that their criticism of linguistic models “is not that they are too abstract but, on the contrary, that they are not abstract enough, that they do not reach the abstract machine that connects a language to the semantic and pragmatic contents of statements, to collective assemblages of enunciation, to a whole micropolitics of the social field. (ibid)”. This is the first mention of ‘micropolitics’ to occur in ATP. It is, however, the second mention of these curious things called ‘abstract machines’ which are not to be mistaken for ‘abstractions’. I’m still curious about these ‘abstract machines’. They seem to be deployed against abstractions and universals, aiming to perhaps take over the functional role of those concepts whilst removing the recuperative and neutralising effect that Guattari thinks they have (cf. The Machinic Unconscious p52).

3 – 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.” The heart of this principle appears to be an attempt to avoid a series of philosophical problematics that produce paradox or capture arguments, traps that traditional philosophical argument lays for the unwary. In particular, the strategic core of this principle, registered in the phrase ‘only when … effectively treated’, is aimed at attempts to find the essence or unity behind an assemblage under analysis. The key claim here is that “unity always operates in an empty dimension supplementary to that of the system considered (overcoding). The point is that a rhizome or multiplicity never allows itself to be overcoded…” and the reason it can never be overcoded is that in the act of overcoding (as when providing a ‘unity’ through an explanatory essence or principle perhaps) the multiplicity changes its nature (ATP 8). It might be interesting to compare Derrida’s thinking about supplementarity and the quasi-transcendental at this point, but that will have to wait for another time.

4 – principle of asignifying rupture – “against the oversignifying breaks separating structures of cutting across a single structure” (ATP 9). If there is one moment that indicates clearly why we might accurately describe the project of D&G as ‘post-structuralist’ it might be this. If there was one principle I think is most productive for the practice of rhizomatic thinking that is being advocated for in this first chapter of ATP then I think it is this one. Philosophy and academic thinking, in particular, is so heavily imbued with the need to find ‘dualisms’, dichotomies, structural significations (the ‘break’, ‘turn’ or ‘transformation’) that it runs almost counter to rhizomatic thinking. Instead, the ‘wisdom of the plants’ that we might find by apprenticing ourselves to gardening, growing, cultivation, particular on a small non-industrial scale, teaches us far more easily than intellectual chatter. I’m going to declare an entirely biased position at this point, because I’ve been spending the last few years developing an increasing interest in growing and cultivating but despite this rather comical self-bias I can’t help but shake the sense that there is something critical here, something in the messy, connected, dirty business of gardening that has an insight which might be crucial, methodologically, for grasping the rhizome. It is in some sense trivial, but if you want to know what a rhizome is, start growing potatoes and then try removing them – or simply try and deal with an active rhizomatic organism such as bindweed. It is perhaps no surprise that it is in the discussion of this asignifying rupture that we encounter the charlatan shaman Castenada, there is always a fine line between wisdom and foolishness in the words that come out of the mouths of the shamans, although usually, such distinctions disappear rather abruptly in practice. (The other major example of a rhizomatic practice that appears is that of music – this in part explains the image at the head of the chapter and will no doubt connect to the role of the ‘refrain’).

Despite this strong connection to a non-intellectual ‘wisdom’ the core point of the rhizome and of the principles that D&G are outlining is still to provide a methodology for analysing assemblages (for analysing systems in the world) that is effective and useful, that is, we might even want to say ‘better’ (although that always depends on what it is better at). In particular the concept of aparallel evolution that is deployed at this point in the discussion connects strongly with debates, practices and possibilities for evolutionary science, in effect suggesting that one method for thinking about nature within an evolutionary framework is better than another, where better here would mean something like ‘having greater explanatory power’ (ie: it would be better abductive reasoning to deploy rhizomatic methodology). In terms of understanding schizoanalytic ‘jargon’, in particular, the concept of deterritorialization, the discussion of aparallel evolution is illuminating. As opposed to the model of ‘lines of development’ and the evolutionary tree, where the most complicated form might be something like co-evolution or forms of symbiosis, aparallel evolution posits a far higher degree of ‘flow’ and ‘conjunction’ – “evolutionary schemas would no longer follow models of arborescent descent going from the least to the most differentiated, but instead a rhizome operating immediately in the heterogeneous and jumping from one already differentiated line to another” (ATP 10).

At this point I’ll take a break and return to this chapter, beginning from the last two principles, in the next post in this series. This week (13 October) the reading group was covering Chapter 2 (1914: one or several wolves) and next week will be starting on Chapter 3, so my plan is to catch up to where we are at in the group so I can write up my notes after each session.