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rwcarter 's review for:
Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia
by Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari
Let me begin by saying that there was quite a bit I did not get out of this book. But I think that's true for all academic texts, especially philosophical ones. When I come back to it with different knowledge, I'll get different things out of it. For me, I had a hard time with the discussions on Marxism and economy simply because I'm unfamiliar with those topics. I much preferred the psychoanalytic perspective.
One thing that I enjoyed immensely about this text is the idea of multiplicity and the idea that the concept of "limit" is socially determined. By reframing classic psychoanalytic ideas of "lack" as a positive force encountering a territorialization on the Body Without Organs, D&G were able to reframe how I viewed the world. Their emphasis on flows seemed markedly Eastern and was extremely interesting when applied to desire. Desire as a force that flows and is broken, redirected, and eternally productive seems to dovetail with the idea of individual humanism but seems to have immoral implications. What happens when two flows meet? They break. For this to not convey some kind of "limit" on desire, we have to let go of our concept of what is moral and simply let things be. However, to accord with D&G's ideas, this state of 'being' has to be non-oppressive. Breaking flows do not imply oppression because the flows themselves are endlessly productive. In this sense, D&G created the basis for an effective anti-fascist dialogue.
Another thing that blew my mind is the idea that desire has no object and that society, through laws, "plasters a mask" onto desire that validates the laws in themselves. Saying "you can't murder people", implies that if we were left unchecked we would want to murder people. But desire in itself doesn't want X, it just is. It seems like a very structuralist thought -- that society itself determines our self image which, in reality, has no face.
One thing that I enjoyed immensely about this text is the idea of multiplicity and the idea that the concept of "limit" is socially determined. By reframing classic psychoanalytic ideas of "lack" as a positive force encountering a territorialization on the Body Without Organs, D&G were able to reframe how I viewed the world. Their emphasis on flows seemed markedly Eastern and was extremely interesting when applied to desire. Desire as a force that flows and is broken, redirected, and eternally productive seems to dovetail with the idea of individual humanism but seems to have immoral implications. What happens when two flows meet? They break. For this to not convey some kind of "limit" on desire, we have to let go of our concept of what is moral and simply let things be. However, to accord with D&G's ideas, this state of 'being' has to be non-oppressive. Breaking flows do not imply oppression because the flows themselves are endlessly productive. In this sense, D&G created the basis for an effective anti-fascist dialogue.
Another thing that blew my mind is the idea that desire has no object and that society, through laws, "plasters a mask" onto desire that validates the laws in themselves. Saying "you can't murder people", implies that if we were left unchecked we would want to murder people. But desire in itself doesn't want X, it just is. It seems like a very structuralist thought -- that society itself determines our self image which, in reality, has no face.