Interview: Felix Guattari Author(s): Mark D. Seem and Felix Guattari Source: Diacritics, Vol. 4, No.

3 (Autumn, 1974), pp. 38-41 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/465111 Accessed: 23/06/2009 14:43
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If alienation could be seen as a coin, the negative side would be fragmentation. This is basically the concept of alienation as we see it expressed in Marx. But there is another side to the process of alienation, Deleuze and Guattari wager,1 and that side is multiplicity itself. The audacity of this statement and this strategical wager is akin to that of Nietzsche, and their first tome of Capup "in intensity" to The AntiChrist, where negation is turned against a nihilistic enemy. Their basic tone and style, however, is affirmative, decidedly and willfully anti-dialectic, and intensive. Negation is rarely present in their work, and seen as a thing to be "forgotten," that is to say, erased from our Memories and our bodies. This affirmative tone comes from a position which states that there is no such thing as an "individual enunciation," since all productions of enonces are collective: a group phenomenon. This is in keeping with Michel Foucault's own concept of discourse and "discursivepractice." But many have seen in Guattari just a person who helped Deleuze with L'AntiOedipe, and did not realize that it is Guattari who, years earlier, developed this group concept of multiplicity, when he wrote of the division between "subject-groups" and "subjugatedgroups." Guattari, at that time a militant very involved in the aftermath activity surrounding May '68, and a psychiatrist practicing at the unorthodox La Borde clinic,2 became very interested in the way in which groups manifested either subversive "desire," or a more authoritarian type of desire. He defined subjugated groups as those which were subjugatedto Power at one level or another, totalized in nature, and global in ideology. Subject-groups,on the other hand, would be those which are regional, localized, aimed at generating other actions rather than totalizing. The former is "molar," linked to a dynamics of "molar multiplicity" which always operates on the large scale: group activity and Power. The latter is linked to an intense dynamics in "molecular multiplicity," situated at the libidinally subversive level of what Deleuze and Guattari jointly term "desiring production": subversive collectivity. Guattari'stherapeutictactic in terms of the above, then, becomes one of affirming "mad" libidinal flows, those which exist in subject-groups,and also setting up analytic agents within such groups capable of delineating the different spaces of desiring production, such that actions in complicity with Power could be seen as such and denounced, whereas actions in line with desires to counter Power would be affirmed. In terms of his own practice at La Borde, it might be said that his mode of thought is compromised by his own position of Power within an institutional set-up, even though it is progressive. Where Guattari is immediately radical, though, is when he talks of semiology, the productive processes of signs, in a materialist fashion.3 This will become clear in the following interview, and is intensely contained in one sentence from that
interview: Signs work as much as matter. italisme et schizophrenie might well be seen as a follow-

Mark D. Seem: The thing most striking to me about your notion of multiplicity, such as it is developed in Psychanalyse et transversalit--in terms of the distinction which you make between "subject-groups" and "subjugated groups," as well as in L'Anti-Oedipe and articles by you and Deleuze following this book, is precisely the strategical nature of the notion. Would I be incorrect in seeing within the notion of multiplicity, a tactical reformulation of the concept of alienation as Marx develops it? More specifically, it seems to me, for example, that the concept of "molar multiplicity" takes its point of departure in alienation as Marx describes it, but that the notion, or rather thought of "molecular multiplicity" liberates, in a more or less Nietzschean and decidedly affirmative style, what would be a negative concept and praxis: "Man is alienated," "Humanity has been rejected by Nature," "Man lacks." This seems to be accomplished by a game, a network, a whole interplay of affirmation of libidinal forces, intensities or powers which are produced by, and circulate at the very margins of the alienated and alienating Power of Capital. Is your strategy in such a thought of multiplicity, as well as the direction of what you term schizoanalysis, that of seeing within the production of alienation itself not only a symptom of Capitalism, but also, more essentially and affirmatively, potential forces of dissension? Felix Guattari: If you give me the answers at the same time as asking the questions, things will be much easier . . . Yes, in fact . . . you have situated the problem very well. What I would be able to add is that, in essence, what is really important is to break apart the Marxist pseudo-dialectic which depends, in my opinion, constantly on a dualism: a dualism between production on the one hand, and representation on the other. The third element within all that remains an object of an Hegelian nature, such as the State: the State, the problem of a takeover of State power, the party which would be susceptible of assuring this takeover, the party repre-

IG. Deleuze, F. Guattari. Capitalisme et schizophrenie: L'Anti-Oedipe.Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1972; F. Guattari. Psychanalyseet transversalit6.Paris: Maspero, 1973. 'Founded by Jean Oury, an orthodox Lacanian. Oury and Guattari are at opposite poles currently; Guattari is considered a rebel from the ecole freudienne. 'For a discussion of Guattari's writing-practice,see Deleuze's preface "Trois problemes de groupe," to Psychanalyse et transversalite.

sentative of the working class, itself representative of the popular masses . . . Here, therefore, there is always a cut separating production-the production of desire, "desiring production"-from representation, a break between use-values and exchangevalue, a binary opposition of classes, cities versus the country . . . a whole series of dualisms which are only mediated within the realm of representation. Either the representation of different modes of knowledge and learning, or the representativity of the Party which represents the masses. This of course is a move from classical thought, but nevertheless the move was only from a mental representation to a social representativity. I believe that Marxist dialectics procedes from a similar Manichean break, as does Judeo-Christian thought. The mode of thought of multiplicity, then, is something else altogether. Here, we do not oppose the One and the Multiple, nor the representation of the One and the Multiple to the "thing-in-itself." For here, it is maintained that in multiplicity there is no break between production and representation. Within the domain of multiplicity, there is not a Subject before an object, there is not a machine of representation or expression opposed to a machine of production. There is a collective arrangement or set-up (agencement), of semiotic flows, certainly, but also material and social flows, flows of all kinds. Signs work as much as matter. Matter expresses as much as Signs. There is therefore not a cut between subject/object, and representation/production. It follows immediately, then, that the thought of multiplicity, a collective set-up of enunciation, is a type of thought unattributable to a given individual or cast which must assure the representation of the interests of the masses. There is therefore not a particular semiotic link, which would be the prop for a content. There is no avantgarde, no social assembly, which is the prop for the expression of the interests of the masses. There are so many (productive) set-ups, arrangements which themselves produce their own systems of semiotic or linguistic reference. It is for that reason that, in L'Anti-Oedipe, we use the image of a chain into which signifiers, as well as Daddy's mustache or a camel passing through the desert, as well as all sorts into of other things-of different natures-enter This image is used to criticize the limiting noplay. tion of a signifying chain, and to show that signifying elements, semiotic elements, only exist along with other, material, elements. There is a collective set-up of a chain, but we can't even say of production or representation, but rather, and this is the term we are trying to develop, a chain of transduction. There would no longer be a discursivity of expression, but transcursion. There is polyvocity of expression. No longer production, but transduction: transduction is the idea that, in essence, something conducts itself, something happens between chains of semiotic expression, and material chains. MDS: It is precisely the implicit combat within such a thought of multiplicity-a liberation of difference, which seems at several points to join together the target to be attacked which Foucault terms the "monarchy of the signifier," which Deleuze calls the "Regime of Signs" in his current courses at Vincennes, and which you, in turn, call the "dictator-

ship of the Signifier." What would be the relationships between a semiological machine, and the different machines of Power? FG: First of all, I think we have to get out of a catastrophic confusion between the different modes of what I call encodage. I would propose the following classification. Let's first of all distinguish what are the a-semiotic encodages . . . these being all the "natural" codings which are not set up according to the semiotic stratifications as Hjelmslev means it. To give a better idea of this, take the example of a genetic coding arrangement. There can be equivalent systems of signs, but we must cease speaking of a or the system of signs! The different systems exist and intermingle in a transversal fashion, as different relative "totalities," without there ever being one original, ultimate Totality. Secondly, let's delineate the semiological encodages, which constitute autonomous levels of expression and introduce systems of translatability. Then, inside the signifying semiologies, I think we could distinguish presignifying semiologies, which are those which function at the level, for example, of primitive societies, of childhood, of madness etc., and which put different substances of expression into play which are not centered, some in relation to the others. For example, a substance of (gestual) expression, of verbal expression, of inscriptions on the body, of dance, of posture systems, etc. Next, within the signifying semiologies, there would be the semiology of language. That is to say, the system which leads to all the stratas of expression being surcoded by a particular system, which is that of the dominant ecriture (Writing/Scripture) system. This dominant "scriptive" system inscribes itself at the level of written language too, and in particular, the incidence of written language in economic and legal systems. Take this simple example: in a primitive society, to give your word has meaning; to give your word in a Capitalist society has no meaning, it makes no sense-there what counts, is the legalized signature, the ecriture of the Law. In the latter, one is engaged when one has signed, when one has written something. One is not engaged when one has given his or her word. In the same fashion, everything which enters into the order of Economy and the Law, gets played at the level of ecriture. There is a certain surusage of writing/scripture-ecriture-which codes all the strata of signifying semiological expression: that, in a sense, is the dictatorship of the signifier. Next, I would propose distinguishing a third order, what I would call a-signifying semiotics, sign machines which operate independently of any and all production of meaning. There, a body, a couple signified/signifier might exist, but the signified is not retained as such, nor is the signifier. What counts is the arrangement or set-up of systems of signs which, in a sense, produce another organization of reality. The machines of mathematical signs, musical machines, or revolutionary collective set-ups might in appearance have a meaning. But what counts, in the theory of physics for example, is not the meaning to be found at a given link in the chain, but rather the fact that there is what Charles Sanders Peirce calls an effect of diagrammatization. Signs work and produce within

diacritics/Fall

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what is Real, at the same levels as the Real, with the same justification as the Real. And, for example, in contemporary physics, a-signifying semiotics are such that what is the real object cannot be distinguished from what is the machine of signs. In the physico-theoretical experimental complex, a distinction cannot be drawn between what would be a machine of signs at the heart of a physico-chemical theory of a treatment of signs in the computer, a treatment of signs in the experimental complex, and between, finally, a reality which would be, or which would correspond to the referent of the signs under consideration. In other words, what is real and what is sign shortcircuit systems of representation, systems of mediation, let's call them systems of referential thought, whether they be called "images," "icons," "signified" or "mental representations," there's little difference. And finally, I would propose a distinction of mixed semiotics, semiotics which participate in both systems-a-signifying semiotics, and signifying semiologies. For example, there are audio-visual systems, which put into play machines of a-semiotic expression, such as cinema or television, which also put all sorts of materials of expression into play, independently of a production of meaning. For example, there is an overlapping of the semiotic of the image, a semiology of speech, a semiology of sounds, of noises, semiotics of corporal expression and then, on another side, these mixed semiotics are also signifying semiologies. That is to say that Power, the many different power systems, pull all these towards the side of a semiology of the dominant values, whereas they tend to function, from the point of view of their own constitution, as semiotics of desire. Which all shows that these machines which I term mixed are much more important for Authority than the machine of ecriture, since writing bores students, it appears as an obvious sort of despotic imposition in school, whereas machines of mixed semiotics, such as television, cinema etc., capture the desires of the masses and put these to the uses of the signifying machines of Authority. Therefore, with these categories, we see that the operation of structuralism, which has a tendency of mixing up all these modes of encodage, is an operation of mystification! In the case of mixed semiotics, Authority utilizes signifying semiologies in order to capture the desires of the masses. For desire, it is clear, is linked to a mechanism of a-signifying semiotics, as well as to chains of "figures," and chains of all that which organizes the world within directions of desire and desiring production, independently of the dominant semantic redundancies. But if Power uses signifying semiologies for the masses, it utilizes, itself, a-signifying semiotics in order to function. It makes use of the semiotics such as science, monetary economy, audio-visual systems . . . precisely because these are the only ones which are effective. These alone are capable of putting to the use of the system of Power, the metabolism of signs, within the economy of material flows. Therefore, on one hand Power has a public image for its expression, for alienation, which is an image of a signifying economy; but from the viewpoint of its real productive forces, it works in terms of a-signifying semiotics. Here, the distinctions would need to be made to

show the relationship which exists between a-semiotic encodages and what I term post-signifying semiotics, or a-signifying semiotics. For it can be seen, in effect, that there is a certain relationship, that machines of a-signifying semiotics, in which semiotic and material flows intermingle, play on, intervene into, and transform the a-semiotic encodages of the "natural" order. There, then, the break between Nature and semiotics is totally relative. I introduce it nevertheless, so that we don't mix up the different planes, or introduce under the illusion of a universal category, something which would be the Signifier, and which would impregnate, in fact penetrate, into Nature, into all social set-ups, into meaning and its production, into Mass Media, etc. For in that case, we would be in the process of contaminating all the different registers-nature, production, machinismwith meaning. And what Meaning at that, precisely, if not the dominant meanings, the meanings which organize redundancy, Habit and the repetitions of Representation of the dominant "reality"? MDS: Underneath all my questions, this one was central, and specifically strategical in nature. If there are indeed, as you show, libidinal, desiring, intensive productions capable of breaking through the wall of Signs, of Subjects, and of subjugated bodies, in order to liberate bodies, groups, theoretical as well as practical activity etc., there must also be real risks involved in such a struggle of liberation, or openingup. These would seem to me to be the risks of any experience of escape, of limits, of Becoming or Change-becoming Wolf, becoming inhuman as Deleuze says: the risks of all experiences of Becoming Marginal. The two extreme cases, as you point out, would be the schizophrenic and inactivity on the one hand, and the militant and the intensity of action on the other. What, basically, would be the relationships between "mad" productions, and those of a militant nature? Is there a form of madness at work in dissension, as well as a force of contestation in the production of madness? Lastly, for you, what would be the strategy, the essential plan for that person which I will term the politicized intellectual for want of a better term, for an activity directed against all forms of Power ... a struggle which would gain strength from "mad" flows of desire, at the same time as never falling, once and for all, into autism and inactivity? How do we turn passivity into action? FG: My first comment would be that we must not, in my view, oppose on the one hand the paranoiac economy of the libido, to the schizo-revolutionary economy of the libido on the other hand. At any and every level, on the large or the small scales, a revolutionary micro-politics of the libido might exist, a type of system of escape or evasion which places different orders in connection, as well as different semiotics: but there can also always be a recovery, a totalitarian politics of the libido which can, basically, characterize the paranoiac economy, itself part of a molar organization. In other words the struggle, as we have never stopped saying, is not situated in a privileged way at one particular level. The revolutionary struggle exists both on a large scale, as well as on the level of what goes on constantly in school, in prisons, in psychiatric hospitals or even at the level of the family, the Ego . . what,

in fact, is the Freudian Superego, if not, after all, this eventuality of a fascist politics within the individual libidinal economy? Once that is clarified, it follows naturally that there is no way we can make a cut between a space which would be the madness of the "individual," and then political activity in the largest social groupings, whether in communes or political actions on a large scale. To the extent that there is treatment of madness, it is starting from desire at the level of molecular units that we might be in a position to analyze the politics of desire in large scale organizations. MDS: Are you implying that there is one type of "libidinal" analysis, which exists before and outside of the events, and the advent of "desiring production"? FG: Not at all. . . . What I mean is that molecular analysis, the analysis of the smallest elements which exist as subversive potential, is itself implied by all militant struggles on a large scale. What seems to me most important is that we can no longer say: here is where you should be, this is the right movement, the correct Party! We were often told, after the publication of the first tome of Capitalisme et schizophrenie . . . well then, what do you propose, what must be done, where must we situate ourselves, how must we act? As for myself, now I would answer: be where you want to be! In a Hippie Commune, in the Ligue communiste, with the Maoists, in a given undertaking. For in any of these instances, the two politics are both possible, even in the Communist Party. Both are possible: a politics of liberation of revolutionary flows which are going to change these large scale organizations, making them enter into connections, redoing them, revolutionizing them; or a politics which, even in the "best" revolutionary movements, would lead to a sort of disgusting conformism, even if well intentioned. I am thinking, for example, of the attempts to form a People's Daily that the Liberation newspaper people are doing, where there is a very sad conformism, despite the efforts that are put into it, to place themselves within range of a whole series of levels of the Young seeking to change themselves. But we can feel that they are trying to place themselves within range of that struggle, which means that in terms of their own

enterprise, they are not doing this revolutionary job of liberation of desire-of what we term collective set-ups (agencements collectifs) of analysis or of enunciation relative to desire and its production. Therefore, no break between madness and revolutionary action . . . Madness is all sorts of things. If it is a question of asylums, psychiatric hospitals, . . . then let's speak of this, let's analyze that institution of Power which divides people into madmen, nurses, doctors, etc. But if the madness we are referring to is "mad desire," the very flows of desiring production, in that case madness is everywhere, and should be put everywhere. Madness and rationality must not be opposed either. The rationality of Authority, the power of the technocrat, or of bureaucratic organizers, is a type of delirium, and morbid at that! Whereas the madness of desire, and the flows of desire, are the most rational order of the revolution. Therefore, we can't oppose "madness," "confusion," "disorganization," "anarchy," etc., to "organization" and Order. We must instead realize that what is the most "profitable" in terms of struggle, is precisely to liberate the mad flows of desire, the desires of the masses, and that that is what is the most rational right now! What is totally irrational, is to want to conserve models of morbid rationalism which massacre the desire of the masses, thereby putting a halt to any possible struggle. I therefore refuse, absolutely, and strongly object to the opposition which consists in keeping "madness" for the weekend, for the right days, for the days of festivity as it is often termed-the then to "revolutionary festival"-and behave, the rest of the time, as a bureaucrat. Desire concerns any sequence, any and all links in a revolutionary action at whatever level. At the level of a national mot d'ordre, at the level of the behavior of a bureaucrat, with his allies, with militants, with himself . . . the fact of forcing oneself to do something, of failing to recognize the fear one might have, faced by the cops, or even a more simple fear, the fear of simply speaking in front of a group of people . . . this type of thing is too often neglected. All of these powerful signs which massacre desire . . . well that, precisely, would be the place for a revolutionary politics of desire on a small, but essential, scale.

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