Lines of flight: for another world of possibilities; trans. by andrew goffey

As an analyst, philosopher and militant, Félix Guattari anticipated decentralized forms of political activism that have become increasingly evident around the world since the events of Seattle in 1999. Lines of Flight offers an exciting introduction to the sometimes difficult and dense thinking of an increasingly important 20th century thinker. An editorial introduction by Andrew Goffey links the text to Guattari's long-standing involvement with institutional analysis, his writings with Deleuze, and his consistent emphasis on the importance of group practice - his work with CERFI in the early 1970s in particular. Considering CERFI's work on the 'genealogy of capital' it also points towards the ways in which Lines of Flight anticipates Guattari's later work on Integrated World Capitalism and on ecosophy. Providing a detailed and clearly documented account of his micropolitical critique of psychoanalytic, semiological and linguistic accounts of meaning and subjectivity, this work offers an astonishingly fresh set of conceptual tools for imaginative and engaged thinking about capitalism and effective forms of resistance to it. Cover page 1 Halftitle page 2 Series page 3 Title page 4 Copyright page 5 Contents 6 TRANSLATOR’S INTRODUCTION 10 PART ONE SEMIOTIC SUBJECTION AND COLLECTIVE EQUIPMENT 18 1 THE UNCONSCIOUS IS NOT STRUCTURED LIKE A LANGUAGE 20 The machines of the unconscious 20 The dictatorship of the signifier 22 A non-reductive analytic pragmatics 26 2 WHERE COLLECTIVE EQUIPMENT STARTS AND ENDS 28 General function of Collective equipment 28 The myth of human nature 29 3 THE CAPITALIST REVOLUTION 32 After the ‘black hole’ of the thirteenth century, the ‘Peace of God’: a religious machine 32 The mystique of chivalry and free enterprise 34 Bourgeoisie and feudalism 36 4 BOURGEOISIE AND CAPITALIST FLOWS 40 The bourgeois machine 40 The new bourgeois ‘sensibility’ 43 The withering of the aristocracy 45 Bourgeois reterritorialisations 49 5 SEMIOTIC OPTIONAL MATTER 52 Semiotisation of libidinal investments 52 Rhizomatic semiotic research 54 Example of rhizomatic research: the semiotic factory of childhood 58 6 EQUIPMENT OF POWER AND POLITICAL FACADES 62 The institutional simulacra of instituted politics 62 The mega-network of miniaturised equipment 64 The facialities of power 66 Molar powers and molecular potentials 69 ‘Collective analytic’ interventions and the social unconscious 71 7 A MOLECULAR REVOLUTION 74 The third industrial revolution 74 Abstract machines 76 Bureaucratic socialism, the highest stage of capitalism 80 A new type of struggle 82 An analytico-militant labour at all scales 85 8 THE RHIZOME OF COLLECTIVE ASSEMBLAGES 88 The collective assemblages of desire 88 A rhizomatic cartography 91 The macro-assemblage of audiovisual means 98 9 MICRO-FASCISM 100 Micro-struggles 100 The politics of fascist and Stalinist equipment 104 The micro-fascisms of capitalist societies 105 Liberatory options, micro-fascist options at the molecular level 108 10 SELF-MANAGEMENT AND THE POLITICS OF DESIRE 112 Methodologies of rupture 112 Singularities of desire 114 The traps of ideology 116 Prospects for self-management 118 Social transversalities 121 PART TWO PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF THE SOCIAL UNCONSCIOUS 124 11 INTRODUCTION TO PRINCIPAL THEMES 126 12 PRAGMATICS, THE RUNT OF LINGUISTICS 132 Semiotically formed matters 134 The order of things and the order of signs 135 Abstract machine or signifying abstraction 138 The assemblage of content and expression doesn’t come out of the blue 141 Four kinds of expression-content assemblage 144 Semiotic enslavement 149 Competence as instrument of power 152 Do ‘pragmatic universals’ exist? 154 13 PRAGMATICS : A MICROPOLITICS OF LINGUISTIC FORMATIONS 158 Stratification, stages, and abstract machines 160 A micropolitics of desire 164 There is no language in-itself 167 The unconscious as individual or collective assemblage 169 Tracing and trees, maps and rhizomes 172 Generations and transformations 174 An analytico-militant pragmatics 187 PART THREE EXAMPLE OF A PRAGMATIC COMPONENT: FACIALITY TRAITS 194 14 ON FACIALITY 196 15 THE HIERARCHY OF BEHAVIOUR IN MAN AND ANIMAL 214 16 THE SEMIOTICS OF THE GRASS STEM 224 First series 227 Second series: the Australian finch 228 The traits of matters of expression 233 17 THE LITTLE PHRASE IN VINTEUIL’S SONATA 242 NOTES 262 INDEX 290 "As an analyst, philosopher and militant, Félix Guattari anticipated decentralized forms of political activism that have become increasingly evident around the world since the events of Seattle in 1995. Lines of Flight offers an exciting introduction to the sometimes difficult and dense thinking of an increasingly important 20th century thinker. An editorial introduction by Andrew Goffey links the text to Guattari's long-standing involvement with institutional analysis, his writings with Deleuze, and his consistent emphasis on the importance of group practice - his work with CERFI in the early 1970s in particular. Considering CERFI's work on the 'genealogy of capital' it also points towards the ways in which Lines of Flight anticipates Guattari's later work on Integrated World Capitalism and on ecosophy. Providing a detailed and clearly documented account of his micropolitical critique of psychoanalytic, semiological and linguistic accounts of meaning and subjectivity, this work offers an astonishingly fresh set of conceptual tools for imaginative and engaged thinking about capitalism and effective forms of resistance to it"--> zavihek ščitnega ov "As an analyst, philosopher and militant, Félix Guattari anticipated decentralized forms of political activism that have become increasingly evident around the world since the events of Seattle in 1995. Lines of Flight offers an exciting introduction to the sometimes difficult and dense thinking of an increasingly important 20th century thinker. An editorial introduction by Andrew Goffey links the text to Guattari's long-standing involvement with institutional analysis, his writings with Deleuze, and his consistent emphasis on the importance of group practice - his work with CERFI in the early 1970s in particular. Considering CERFI's work on the 'genealogy of capital' it also points towards the ways in which Lines of Flight anticipates Guattari's later work on Integrated World Capitalism and on ecosophy. Providing a detailed and clearly documented account of his micropolitical critique of psychoanalytic, semiological and linguistic accounts of meaning and subjectivity, this work offers an astonishingly fresh set of conceptual tools for imaginative and engaged thinking about capitalism and effective forms of resistance to it"-- Provided by publisher Introduction by the Translator \ Foreword \ Part I: Semiotic Subjection and Collective Facilities \ 1. The Unconscious is not structured like a language \ 2. Where do collective facilities start, and where do they end? \ 3. The capitalist revolution \ 4. The bourgeoisie and capitalist flows \ 5. A semiotic optional matter \ 6. The apparatus of power and the facades of politics \ 7. A molecular revolution \ 8. The rhizome of collective assemblages \ 9. Microfascism \ 10. Self-management and the politics of desire \ Part II: The Pragmatic Analysis of the Social Unconscious \ 11. Introduction of the principal themes \ 12. Pragmatics, the runt of linguistics \ 13. Pragmatics as the micropolitics of linguistic formations \ Part III: An Example of a Pragmatic Component: Faciality Traits \ 14. On faciality \ 15. The hierarchy of behaviour in man and animal \ 16. The semiotics of a blade of grass \ 17. The little phrase in Vinteuil's sonata