The Indomitable Deleuze

DELEUZE / ANTI OEDIPE ET MILLE PLATEAUX

Cours Vincennes – 16/11/1971

 

Capitalism, flows, the decoding of flows, capitalism and schizophrenia, psychoanalysis, Spinoza.

What is it that moves over the body of a society? It is always flows, and a person is always a cutting off [coupure] of a flow. A person is always a point of departure for the production of a flow, a point of destination for the reception of a flow, a flow of any kind; or, better yet, an interception of many flows.

If a person has hair, this hair can move through many stages: the hairstyle of a young girl is not the same as that of a married woman, it is not the same as that of a widow: there is a whole hairstyle code. A person, insofar as she styles her hair, typically presents herself as an interceptor in relation to flows of hair that exceed her and exceed her case and these flows of hair are themselves coded according to very different codes: widow code, young girl code, married woman code, etc. This is ultimately the essential problem of coding and of the territorialization which is always coding flows with it, as a fundamental means of operation: marking persons (because persons are situated at the interception and at the cutting off [coupure] of flows, they exist at the points where flows are cut off [coupure]).

Navigating Movements: an interview with Brian Massumi, Delueze scholar and expert in forms of social control

NAVIGATING MOVEMENTS 

When you walk, each step is the body’s movement against falling — each 

movement is felt in our potential for freedom as we move with the earth’s 

gravitational pull. When we navigate our way through the world, there are 

different pulls, constraints and freedoms that move us forward and propel us 

into life. But in the changing face of capitalism, media information and 

technologies — which circulate the globe in more virtual and less obvious ways 

— how do the constraints on freedom involve our affective and embodied 

dimensions of experience? That is, how do we come to feel and respond to 

life and reality itself when new virtualised forms of power mark our every 

step, when the media and political activity continually feed on our 

insecurities — for instance, when a political leader can deploy overseas troops 

to make a country feel safe and secure in the face of ‘terror’. Our beliefs and 

hopes can be galvanised for this ‘good’, and as a tool for orchestrating attacks 

on ‘evil’ and threats to national security. Against this framework of despair 

that enact our relations to the world — violence, terror and the virtual lines 

of capital flow — what are the hopes for political intervention? 

Philosopher Brian Massumi explores the hopes that lie across these fields of 

movement; the potentials for freedom, and the power relations that operate 

in the new ‘societies of control’. These are all ethical issues — about the 

reality of living, the faith and belief in the world that makes us care for our 

belonging to it. Massumi’s diverse writings and philosophical perspectives 

radicalise ideas of affect — the experiences and dimensions of living — that 

are the force of individual and political reality. His writings are concerned 

with the practice of everyday life, and the relations of experience that 

engage us in the world, and our ethical practices. He is based in Montreal. 

Movements — hope, feeling, affect

DELEUZE: Postscript to Societies of Control

 

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"Postscript on the Societies of Control"
Gilles Deleuze