towards radical difference, towards "and"

For this first chapter, this Introduction, Deleuze&Guattari create a very unusual kind of text. In my mind, they are not so much detailing their thoughts or defining their way of thinking as they are enacting a new tactic of thinking. In their writing they embody a language of thinking away, a radical turn from metaphysical and traditional thought.

Clearly, for Deleuze&Guattari there is a kind of fascism inherent in the symbols and constructions that have become the acceptable manner to think critically. In considering something as a subject it is awarded a certain power. It is a singular thing, operating independently from other things. D&G posit the notion of the multiple against the substantive. Once a thing becomes substantive or solid, singular, unmoving, it is no longer multiple. The multiple must necessarily be alive in order for an assemblage, a multiplicity to be thought of. It is in solidity, subjecthood, in slowness or fixed totality that we find our point of opposition. These call out for difference in the form of ruptures or lines of flight.

So, in reading, care must be taken not to try to formulate something finished or substantive out of what is being said. As readers of other thinkers and as people who have been thought of as human bodies thinking in the world, we desire a narrative, a linear progression of signifiers that function with unique meaning. In that sense, we are being asked to read away from our desires and from the common functions of our minds. We must then remember, one thing does not mimic or signify the other. As with the wasp and the orchid, imitation "is true only on the level of strata--a parallelism between two strata such that a plant organization on one imitates an animal organization on the other" (ATP, 10). These things are parallel in that they both move alongside one another, both moving without condition from the other. This goes for all things, an unreliance but a continuous compliance and cooperation.

Most importantly, even the differences they are asking us to look at should not be thought of in simple binaries to what they oppose, in formulating good and bad things. More accurately, one could say they are advocating active thought, assertive thought that is empowered through difference to think away from dualisms. We are looking not for answers but for possibilities, potentials to be actualized. Rupture that thought, if you think it for even a second and see where its pieces take you.

"the rhizome is alliance, uniquely alliance. The tree imposes the verb "to be" but the fabric of the rhizome is the conjunction, "and...and...and..."...Where are you going? Where are you coming from? Where are you heading for? These are totally useless questions." (ATP, 21).