becoming not human -- becoming alive

For this chapter, since it's a lot to discuss and will span two weeks of discussion, I'd like to begin by presenting some quotations from the text and my thoughts about them rather than a more complete response. Hopefully I'll get there next week and I will also address concepts in the rest of the chapter (I really only broach the first 20 pages in this entry).

Becoming produces nothing by filiation; all filiation is imaginary. Becoming is always of a different order than filiation. It concerns alliance...Propagation by epidemic, by contagion, has nothing to do with filiation by heredity, even if the two themes intermingle and require each other. (ATP, 238&241)

For Deleuze&Guattari, becoming is not concerned with the connections of the self (as it has been constructed, as subject, as human: human is the key to what we are parting from in this chapter in that the first delineation that is made, before race, sex, etc is that between human and animal. We define ourselves as human in that we are not animal, we are civilized, we are possessing of a great intelligence...). Becoming is instead, "alliance". Alliance implies a kind of cooperation, a working along side. It is not filiation with its forced ties, to human, to mother, to father, to body; alliance reveals instead a choice, a decision. So foremost, becoming is about alligning oneself with things that surprise. What is human? In becoming, you must think on what is not human.

There is no "like", no filiation, no mimecry. There is only the speed you pick up that is beyond what you thought possible when running, becoming cheetah. Thinking, faster, you are becoming computer, becoming virtual. But always, always becoming. It is contagious, it is viral in that is constantly changing as it replicates and infects.

...Becoming and multiplicity are the same thing. A multiplicity is defined not by its elements, nor by a center of unification or comprehension. It is defined by the number of dimensions it has; it is not divisible, it cannot lose or gain a dimension without changing its nature...If we imagined the position of a fascinated Self, it was because the multiplicity toward which it leans, stretching to the breaking point, is the continuation of another multiplicity that works it and strains it from the inside. In fact, the self is only a threshold, a door, a becoming between two multiplicities. (ATP, 249)

I like to think about multiplicites as these interconnected rings. Within those, in the movement of the circles, the speed of those lines as they go around and around is becoming. Further, across these, within them or cutting across we find a "plane of consistency", a location of imperceptibility where everything is understood through its vibrations. Again, motion is key, the continuous motion of all things, of every conceivable thing. If it can be thought then it is set into motion, it is alive in the vibrations leaving and approaching, within and without.



There is therefore a unity to the plane of nature, which applies equally to the inanimate and the animate, the artifical and the natural...Its unity has nothing to do with a ground buried deep within things, nor with an end or a project in the mind of God. (ATP, 254)

I especially like this bit, where they seem to be digging in a bit to the limitations of the metaphysical project, or of any project for that matter. Again, we find a turn away from something that is buried, something before, or a desire for completion, a finished thing, an end. Things are not conceived in the mind, of God or any other; rather they are alive in the world, vibrating fiercely, alligning and encountering us, ultimately becoming.