Anti-Oedipus
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Anti-Oedipus and Desiring-Machines
- This text serves as the front matter and table of contents for the seminal work 'Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia' by Deleuze and Guattari.
- The authors introduce the concept of 'desiring-production,' framing the unconscious as a factory rather than a theater of representation.
- The work outlines three distinct syntheses: the connective synthesis of production, the disjunctive synthesis of recording, and the conjunctive synthesis of consumption.
- A central theme is the 'Body without Organs,' which acts as a surface of anti-production that appropriates productive forces.
- The text critiques traditional psychoanalysis and the Oedipus complex, proposing a materialist psychiatry that links social and desiring production.
Desiring-machines are machines, no metaphor.
CAPITALISM AND
SCHIZOPHRENIA
by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari
Translated from the French by Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane
Preface by Michel Foucault
University of Minnesota Press
Minneapolis
Copyright 1983 by the University of Minnesota
All rights reserved.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
111 Third Avenue South, Su ite 290, Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520
http://www.upress.umn.edu
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
Tenth printing 2000
Originally published as
L'Anti-Oedipe
© 1972 by Les Editions de Minuit
English language translation Copyright © Viking Penguin, 1977
Reprinted by arrangement with Viking Penquin, a division of Penquin
Books USA Inc.
Library of Congress Catal oging in Publication Data
Deleuze, Gilles.
Anti-Oedipus.
Translation of: L'anti-Oedipe.
Reprint. Originally published: New York: Viking Press, 1977.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Social psychiatry. 2. Psychoanalysis—Social aspects. 3. Oedipus
complex—Social aspects. 4. Capitalism. 5. Schizophrenia—Social aspects. I.
Guattari, Felix. II. Title.
RC455.D42213 1983 I50.19'52 83-14748
ISBN 0-8166-1225-0 (pbk.)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Calder and Boyars Ltd.: From Collected Works, Antonin Artaud.
City Lights: From "(Caddish" from Kaddish & Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg.
Copyright © 1961 by Allen Ginsberg. From Artaud Anthology by Antonin Artaud.
Copyright © 1956, 1961, 1965 by Editions Gallimard and City Lights Books.
Reprinted by permission of City Lights Books.
Humanities Press Inc. and Athlone Press: From Rethinking Anthropology by E. R.
Leach.
Mercure de France: From Nietzsche ou le Cercle Vicieux by Pierre Klossowski.
Pantheon Books, a Division of Random House, Inc.: From Madness and Civilization
by Michel Foucauit, translated by Richard Howard. Copyright © 1965 by Random
House, Inc.
Presses Universitaires de France: From L Affect by Andre Green.
CONTENTS
PREFACE by Michel Foucault xi
INTRODUCTION by Mark Seem xv
THE DESIRING-MACHINES
1. Desiring-Production I
The schizo's stroll • Nature and industry • The process •
Desiring-machine, partial objects and flows: and . . . and ...» The first
synthesis: the connective synthesi s or production of production • The
production of the body without organs •
2. The Body without Organs 9
Anti-production • Repulsion and the paranoiac machine •
Desiring-production and social production: how anti-production
appropriates the productive forces • A ppropriation or attraction, and the
miraculating-machine—The second synthe sis: the disjunctive synthesis or
production of recording • Either . . . or . . . • The schizophrenic
genealogy •
3. The Subject and Enjoyment 16
The celibate machine • The third synthesis- the conjunctive synthesis or
production of consumption-consummation • So it's ...» Matter, egg, and
intensities: I feel • The names in history •
4. A Materialist Psychiatry 22
The unconscious and the category of production • Theater or factory?
• The process as production process • The idealist conception of
desire as lack (fantasy) • The real and. desiring-production: the passive
syntheses • One and the same production, social and desiring • The
reality of the group fantasy o The differences in regime between
desiring-production and social produ ction • The socius and the body
without organs • Capitalism, and schi zophrenia as its limit (the counter
acted tendency) • Neurosis, psychosis, and perversion •
5. The Machines 36
Desiring-machines are machines, no metaphor • The first mode of break:
flows and selection from flows • The second mode: chains or codes, and
detachments from them • The th ird mode: subject and residue •
6. The Whole and Its Parts 42
The status of multiplicities • The partial objects • The critique of
Oedipus, the Oedipal mystification • Already the child ... • The
orphan-conscious • What is wrong with psychoanalysis? •
Desiring-Machines and Oedipal Imperialism
- The text defines desiring-machines as literal mechanisms of production rather than metaphors, operating through flows and selections.
- A critique of psychoanalysis is presented, arguing that it imposes an 'Oedipal mystification' that flattens the complexity of delirium.
- The authors explore three syntheses—connective, disjunctive, and conjunctive—to explain how desire is produced, recorded, and consumed.
- Every delirium is identified as fundamentally social, historical, and political, rather than being confined to the private family unit.
- The concept of the 'socius' is introduced as a social machine that codes flows by marking bodies rather than simply exchanging goods.
Desiring-machines are machines, no metaphor.
without organs • Capitalism, and schi zophrenia as its limit (the counter
acted tendency) • Neurosis, psychosis, and perversion •
5. The Machines 36
Desiring-machines are machines, no metaphor • The first mode of break:
flows and selection from flows • The second mode: chains or codes, and
detachments from them • The th ird mode: subject and residue •
6. The Whole and Its Parts 42
The status of multiplicities • The partial objects • The critique of
Oedipus, the Oedipal mystification • Already the child ... • The
orphan-conscious • What is wrong with psychoanalysis? •
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM:
THE HOLY FAMILY
1. The Imperialism of Oedipus 51
Its modes • The Oedipal turning-point in psychoanalysis •
Desiring-production and representation • The abandonment of the
desiring-machines »
2. Three Texts of Freud 56
Oedipalization • The flattening-out of Judge Schreber's
delirium
• How psychoanalysis is still pious • The ideology of lack: castra
tion • Every fantasy is collective • The libido as flow • The rebellion
of the flows •
3. The Connective Synthesis of Production 68
Its two uses, global and specific, pa rtial and non-specific • The family
and the couple, filiation and alliance: triangulation • Th e triangulation's
cause • The first paralogism of ps ychoanalysis: extrapolation • The
transcendent use and the immanent use •
4. The Disjunctive Synthesis of Recording 75
Its two uses, exclusive and restrictive, inclusive, and nonrestric-tive • The
inclusive disjunctions: genealogy • The exclusive differen-
tiations and the nondifferentiated • The second paralogism of psycho-
analysis: the Oedipal double-bind • Oedipus wins at every turn • Does the
borderline pass between the Symbolic and the Imaginary?
5. The Conjunctive Synthesis of Consumption-Consummation 84
Its two uses, segregative and biunivocal, nomadic and polyvocal • The
body without organs and intensities • Voyages, passages: I am becoming
• Every delirium is social, historical, and political • Races • The meaning
of identification • How psychoanalysis suppresses sociopolitical content •
An unrepentant familialism • The family and the social field •
Desiring-production and the investment of social production • From
childhood • The third paralogism of psychoanalysis: Oedipus as a
biunivocal "application" • The disgrace of psychoanalysis with regard to
history • Desire and the infrastruc ture • Segregation and nomadism •
6. A Recapitulation of the Three Syntheses 106
Oedipus would make fools of us all • Oedipus and "belief" • Meaning is
use • The immanent criteria of desiring-production • Desire knows
nothing of the law, lack, and the signifier • "Were you born Hamlet . . . ?
•
7. Social Repression and Psychic Repression 113
The law • The fourth paralogism of psychoanalysis: the displacement, or
the disfiguration of the repressed • Desire is revolutionary • The
delegated agent, of psychic repression • It is not psychoanalysis that
invents Oedipus •
8. Neurosis and Psychosis 122
Reality • The inverse relation • "Undecidable" Oedipus: resonance • The
meaning of actual factors • The fifth paralogism of psychoanalysis: the
afterward • The actuality of desiring-production •
9. The Process 130
Leaving • The painter Turner • The inte rruptions of the process: neurosis,
psychosis, and perversion • The movement of deterritoriali-zation and
territorialities •
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN
1. The Inscribing Socius 139
The recording process • In what sens e capitalism is universal • The social
machine • The problem of the socius , coding the flows • Not exchanging,
but marking and being marked • The i nvestment and the disinvestment of
organs • Cruelty: creating a memory for man •
2. The Primitive Territorial Machine 145
Socius and Social Machines
- The text outlines the evolution of social organization through primitive territorial, barbarian despotic, and civilized capitalist machines.
- It explores how the socius functions not through exchange, but by marking bodies and coding flows of desire and debt.
- The transition to capitalism is defined by the decoding of flows and the transformation of surplus value of code into surplus value of flux.
- Oedipus is analyzed as a limit-case and a tool of colonization that re-territorializes desire within the family unit.
- The concept of the 'Urstaat' is introduced as a transcendent category of the State that becomes increasingly immanent in modern capitalism.
Not exchanging, but marking and being marked.
Leaving • The painter Turner • The inte rruptions of the process: neurosis,
psychosis, and perversion • The movement of deterritoriali-zation and
territorialities •
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN
1. The Inscribing Socius 139
The recording process • In what sens e capitalism is universal • The social
machine • The problem of the socius , coding the flows • Not exchanging,
but marking and being marked • The i nvestment and the disinvestment of
organs • Cruelty: creating a memory for man •
2. The Primitive Territorial Machine 145
The full body of the earth • Filiati on and alliance: their irreducibili-
ty • The village pervert and local groups • Filiative stock and blocks of
alliance debt • Functional disequilibrium : surplus value of code • It only
works by breaking down • The segmenta ry machine • The great fear of
decoded flows • Death which rises from within, but comes from without •
3. The Problem of Oedipus 154
Incest • The inclusive disjunctions on the full body of the earth • From
intensities to extension: the sign • In what sense incest is impossible •
The limit • The conditions of coding • The in-depth elements of
representation: the repressed representative, the repressing representation,
the displaced represented •
4. Psychoanalysis and Ethnology 166
Continuation of the Oedipal problem • A process of treatment in Africa •
The conditions of Oedipus and colonization • Oedipus and ethnocide •
Those who oedipalize don't know what they're doing • On what is psychic
repression brought to bear? • Culturalists and univer-salists: their
common postulates • In what sense Oedipus is indeed universal: the five
meanings of limit, Oedipus as one of them • Use, or functionalism in
ethnology • The desiring-machines do not mean anything • Molar and
molecular •
5. Territorial Representation 184
Its surface elements • Debts and exchange • The five postulates of the
exchangist conception • Voice, graphism, and eye: the theater of cruelty •
Nietzsche • The death of the territorial system •
6. The Barbarian Despotic Machine 192
The full body of the despot • New alliance and direct filiation • The
paranoiac • Asiatic production • The bricks • The mystifications of the
State • Despotic deterritorialization and the infinite debt » Over-coding
the flows •
7. Barbarian or Imperial Representation 200
Its elements • Incest and overcoding • The in-depth elements and the
migration of Oedipus: incest become s possible • The surface elements,
the new voice-graphism relationship • The transcendent object from on
high • The signifier as the deterritoria lized sign • The despotic signifi-er,
and the signifieds of incest • Terror, the law • The form of the infinite
debt: latency, vengeance, and ressentiment • This is still not Oedipus ...»
8. The Urstaat 217
A single State? ® The State as a category • Beginning and origin • The
evolution of the State:becoming-concrete and becoming-immanent •
9. The Civilized Capitalist Machine 222
The full body of money-capital * Decoding and the conjunction of
decoded flows • Cynicism • Filiative capital and alliance
capi-
tal • The transformation of surplus value of code into a surplus value of
flux • The two forms of money, th e two inscriptions • The falling
tendency • Capitalism and deterritorialization • Human surplus value and
machinic surplus value • Anti-production • The various aspects of the
capitalist immanence • The flows •
10. Capitalist Representation 240
Its elements • The figures or schizz es-flows • The two meanings of the
schiz-flow: capitalism and schiz ophrenia • The difference between a code
and an axiomatic • The capitalist State, its relationship with the Urstaat •
The class • Class bipolarity • Desire and interest • Capitalist
deterritorialization and re-territorial izations: their relationship, and the
law of the falling tendency • The two pol es of the axiomatic: the despotic
Introduction to Schizoanalysis
- The text outlines the transition from social machines of coding and overcoding to the capitalist axiomatic of decoding and deterritorialization.
- It critiques the psychoanalytic focus on the Oedipus complex, arguing that social reproduction and libidinal investment precede familial structures.
- Schizoanalysis is presented as a destructive task aimed at cleansing the unconscious of mythic, tragic, and structuralist representations.
- The unconscious is redefined as a molecular cycle of desiring-machines rather than a theater of lack or familial drama.
- The authors distinguish between preconscious class interests and unconscious libidinal investments that drive social and revolutionary movements.
The destructive task of schizoanalysis, cleansing the unconscious: a malevolent activity.
capitalist immanence • The flows •
10. Capitalist Representation 240
Its elements • The figures or schizz es-flows • The two meanings of the
schiz-flow: capitalism and schiz ophrenia • The difference between a code
and an axiomatic • The capitalist State, its relationship with the Urstaat •
The class • Class bipolarity • Desire and interest • Capitalist
deterritorialization and re-territorial izations: their relationship, and the
law of the falling tendency • The two pol es of the axiomatic: the despotic
signifier and the schizophrenic figu re, paranoia and schizophrenia • A
recapitulation of the three great soci al machines: the territorial, the
despotic, and the capitalist (coding, overcoding, decoding) •
11. Oedipus at Last 262
Application • Social reproduction and human reproduction • The two
orders of images • Oedipus and its limits • Oedipus and the recapitulation
of the three states • The despotic symbol and capitalist images • Bad
conscience • Adam Smith and Freud •
4 INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS
1. The Social Field 273
Father and child • Oedipus, a father's idea • The unconscious as a cycle •
The primacy of the social investment: its two poles, paranoia and
schizophrenia • Molar and molecular •
2. The Molecular Unconscious 283
Desire and machine • Beyond vitalism and mechanism • The two states of
the machine • Molecular functionalism • The syntheses • The libido, the
large aggregates and the micro-multiplicities • The gigantism and the
dwarfism of desire • The nonhuman sex: not one, not two, but n sexes.
3. Psychoanalysis and Capitalism 296
Representation • Representation a nd production • Against myth and
tragedy • The ambiguous attitude of psychoanalysis with regard to myth
and tragedy • In what sense psychoan alysis fractures representation, in
what sense it restores representation • The requirements of capitalism •
Mythic, tragic, and psychoanalyti c representation • The theater •
Subjective representation and structur al representation • Structuralism,
familialism, and the cult of lack • Th e destructive task of schizoanalysis,
cleansing the unconscious: a malevolent activity • Deterritorialization and
re-territorialization: their relationship, and dreams • The machinic indices
• Politicization: social alienation and mental alienation • Artifice and
process, old earths and the new earth •
4. The First Positive Task of Schizoanalysis 322
Desiring-production and its machines • The status of partial objects • The
passive syntheses • The status of the body without organs • The
signifying chain and codes • The body without organs, death, and desire •
Schizophrenizing death • The strange death cult in psychoanalysis: the
pseudo-instinct • The problem of a ffinities between the molar and the
molecular • The mechanic's task of schizoanalysis •
5. The Second Positive Task 340
Social production and its machines • The theory of the two
poles • The first thesis: every investment is molar and social • Gregari-
ousness, selection, and the form of gregariousness • The second thesis:
distinguish in social investments the preconscious investment of class or
interest, from the unconscious libid inal investment of desire or
group • The nature of this libidinal in vestment of the social field • The
two groups • The role of sexuality, th e "sexual revolution" • The third
thesis: the libidinal investment of the social field is primary in relation to
the familial investments • The theory of "maids" in Freud, Oedipus and
universal familialism • The poverty of psychoanalysis: 4, 3, 2, 1,
0 • Even antipsychiatry ...» What is the schizophrenic sick
from? • The fourth thesis: the two pol es of the libidinal social invest
ment • Art and science • The task of schizoanalysis in relation to the
revolutionary movements.
REFERENCE NOTES 383
INDEX 397
PREFACE
by Michel Foucault
During the years 1945-1965 (I am referring to Europe),
Foucault on Anti-Oedipus
- Michel Foucault describes the intellectual landscape of 1945-1965 as dominated by a strict adherence to Marx, Freud, and the signifier.
- The events of the late 1960s challenged these traditional models, moving toward political struggles and technologies of desire that no longer fit Marxist or Freudian prescriptions.
- Anti-Oedipus is presented not as a totalizing new philosophy or a 'flashy Hegel,' but as an 'art' comparable to an erotic art.
- The text focuses on the concrete 'how' of introducing desire into thought, discourse, and action to overturn the established order.
- Foucault identifies the book's primary task as exploring how desire can deploy its forces within the political domain to become more intense.
One had to be on familiar terms with Marx, not let one's dreams stray too far from Freud.
group • The nature of this libidinal in vestment of the social field • The
two groups • The role of sexuality, th e "sexual revolution" • The third
thesis: the libidinal investment of the social field is primary in relation to
the familial investments • The theory of "maids" in Freud, Oedipus and
universal familialism • The poverty of psychoanalysis: 4, 3, 2, 1,
0 • Even antipsychiatry ...» What is the schizophrenic sick
from? • The fourth thesis: the two pol es of the libidinal social invest
ment • Art and science • The task of schizoanalysis in relation to the
revolutionary movements.
REFERENCE NOTES 383
INDEX 397
PREFACE
by Michel Foucault
During the years 1945-1965 (I am referring to Europe),
there was a certain way of thinking correctly, a certain style of political
discourse, a certain ethics of the intellectual. One had to be on familiar
terms with Marx, not let one's dream s stray too far from Freud. And one
had to treat sign-systems—the signi fier—with the greatest respect.
These were the three requirements th at made the stra nge occupation of
writing and speaking a measure of truth about oneself and one's time
acceptable.
Then came the five brief, impassioned, jubilant, enigmatic years. At
the gates of our world, there was Viet nam, of course, and the first major
blow to the powers that be. But here, inside our walls, what exactly was
taking place? An amalgam of revolutionary and antirepressive politics?
A war fought on two fronts: agains t social exploitation and psychic
repression? A surge of libido modulated by the class struggle? Perhaps.
At any rate, it is this familiar, dualistic interpretation that has laid claim
xl
to the events of those years. The dream that cast its spell, between the
First World War and fascism, over the dreamiest parts of Europe—the
Germany of Wilhelm Reich, and the France of the surrealists—had
returned and set fire to reality itself: Marx and Freud in the same
incandescent light.
But is that really what happened? Had the Utopian project of the
thirties been resumed, this time on the scale of historical practice? Or
was there, on the contrary, a movement toward political struggles that
no longer conformed to the model that Marxist tradition had prescribed?
Toward an experience and a technolog y of desire that were no longer
Freudian. It is true that the old banners were raised, but the combat
shifted and spread into new zones.
Anti-Oedipus shows first of all how much ground has been covered.
But it does much more than that. It wastes no time in discrediting the old
idols, even though it does have a gr eat deal of fun with Freud. Most
important, it motivates us to go further.
It would be a mistake to read Anti-Oedipus as the new theoretical
reference (you know, that much-heralded theory that finally encompasses
everything, that finally totalizes and reassures, the one we are told we
"need so badly" in our age of dispersion and specialization where "hope"
is lacking). One must not look for a "philosophy" amid the extraordinary
profusion of new notions and surprise concepts: Anti-Oedipus is not a
flashy Hegel. I think that Anti-Oedipus can best be read as an "art," in the
sense that is conveyed by the term "erotic art," for example. Informed by
the seemingly abstract notions of multiplicities, flows, arrangements, and
connections, the analysis of the relations hip of desire to reality and to the
capitalist "machine" yields answers to concrete questions. Questions that
are less concerned with why this or that than with how to proceed. How
does one introduce desire into thought, into discourse, into action? How
can and must desire deploy its forces within the political domain and
grow more intense in the process of overturning the established order?
Ars erotica, ars theoretica, ars politico.
Whence the three adversaries confronted by Anti-Oedipus. Three
adversaries who do not have the same strength, who represent varying
Introduction to Non-Fascist Life
- The text identifies three primary adversaries: political bureaucrats who prioritize theory over life, psychoanalysts who reduce desire to lack, and the internal fascism present in everyday behavior.
- Fascism is defined not just as a historical political movement, but as a psychological state that causes individuals to desire their own domination and exploitation.
- Anti-Oedipus is framed as a book of ethics that provides a guide for purging fascist tendencies from one's speech, actions, and pleasures.
- The author proposes a 'nomadic' approach to thought and action, favoring multiplicity, difference, and mobile arrangements over hierarchical systems.
- Militancy is reimagined as a joyful connection of desire to reality rather than a sad, ascetic adherence to totalizing political truths.
How do we ferret out the fascism that is ingrained in our behavior?
capitalist "machine" yields answers to concrete questions. Questions that
are less concerned with why this or that than with how to proceed. How
does one introduce desire into thought, into discourse, into action? How
can and must desire deploy its forces within the political domain and
grow more intense in the process of overturning the established order?
Ars erotica, ars theoretica, ars politico.
Whence the three adversaries confronted by Anti-Oedipus. Three
adversaries who do not have the same strength, who represent varying
degrees of danger, and whom th e book combats in different ways:
1. The political ascetics, the sad militants, the terrorists of theory,
those who would preserve the pure order of politics and political
discourse. Bureaucrats of the revolution and civil servants of Truth.
2. The poor technicians of desire —psychoanalysts and semiolo-
xli PREFACE
gists of every sign and symptom—who would subjugate the multiplicity
of desire to the twofold law of structure and lack.
3. Last but not least, the major enemy, the strategic adversary is
fascism (whereas Anti-Oedipus' opposition to the others is more of a
tactical engagement). A nd not only historical fascism, the fascism of
Hitler and Mussolini—which was able to mobilize and use the desire of
the masses so effectively—but also the fascism in us all, in our heads and
in our everyday behavior, the fascism that causes us to love power, to
desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us.
I would say that Anti-Oedipus (may its authors forgive me) is a book
of ethics, the first book of ethics to be written in France in quite a long
time (perhaps that explains why its success was not limited to a
particular "readership": being anti-oedipal has become a life style, a way
of thinking and living). How does one keep from being fascist, even
(especially) when one believes oneself to be a revolutionary militant?
How do we rid our speech and our acts , our hearts and our pleasures, of
fascism? How do we ferret out the fascism that is ingrained in our
behavior? The Christian moralists s ought out the traces of the flesh
lodged deep within the soul. Deleuze and Guattari, for their part, pursue
the slightest traces of fascism in the body.
Paying a modest tribute to Saint Francis de Sales,* one might say
that Anti-Oedipus is an Introduction to the Non-Fascist Life.
This art of living count er to all forms of fascism, whether already
present or impending, carries with it a certain number of essential
principles which I would summarize as follows if I were to make this
great book into a manual or guide to everyday life:
• Free political action from all unitary and totalizing paranoia.
• Develop action, thought, and desire s by proliferation, juxtaposi-
tion, and disjunction, and not by subdivision and pyramidal
hierarchiza-tion.
• Withdraw allegiance from the old categories of the Negative (law,
limit, castration, lack, lacuna), which Western thought has so long held
sacred as a form of power and an access to reality. Prefer what is
positive and multiple, difference over uniformity, flows over unities,
mobile arrangements over systems. Be lieve that what is productive is
not sedentary but nomadic.
• Do not think that one has to be sad in order to be militant, even
though the thing one is fighting is a bominable. It is the connection of
*A seventeenth-century priest a nd Bishop of Geneva, known for his Introduction to the Devout Life.
PREFACE xiil
desire to reality (and not its retreat in to the forms of representation) that
possesses revolutionary force.
• Do not use thought to ground a pol itical practice in Truth; nor
political action to discredit, as mere speculation, a line of thought. Use
political practice as an intensifier of thought, and analysis as a multiplier
of the forms and domains for the intervention of political action.
• Do not demand of politics that it restore the "rights" of the
The Anti-Oedipal Revolution
- The text advocates for a political practice that intensifies thought rather than grounding it in fixed truths.
- It challenges the traditional concept of the individual, suggesting that the ego is a product of power that must be de-individualized.
- The authors seek to track down all forms of fascism, ranging from massive political structures to the petty tyrannies of everyday life.
- Psychoanalysis is critiqued as a modern church that traps individuals in a 'holy family' complex of daddy-mommy-me.
- The work is described as a sequel to Nietzsche's attack on Christianity, aiming to overturn the 'Oedipal rock' of human identity.
The traps of Anti-Oedipus are those of humor: so many invitations to let oneself be put out, to take one's leave of the text and slam the door shut.
though the thing one is fighting is a bominable. It is the connection of
*A seventeenth-century priest a nd Bishop of Geneva, known for his Introduction to the Devout Life.
PREFACE xiil
desire to reality (and not its retreat in to the forms of representation) that
possesses revolutionary force.
• Do not use thought to ground a pol itical practice in Truth; nor
political action to discredit, as mere speculation, a line of thought. Use
political practice as an intensifier of thought, and analysis as a multiplier
of the forms and domains for the intervention of political action.
• Do not demand of politics that it restore the "rights" of the
individual, as philosophy has defined them. The individual is the product
of power. What is needed is to "de-individualize" by means of multipli-
cation and displacement, diverse combinations. The group must not be
the organic bond uniting hierarchized individuals, but a constant genera-
tor of de-individualization.
• Do not become enamored of power.
It could even be said that Deleuze and Guattari care so little for
power that they have tried to neutra lize the effects of power linked to
their own discourse. Hence the games and snares scattered throughout
the book, rendering its translation a feat of real prowess. But these are
not the familiar traps of rhetoric; the latter work to sway the reader
without his being aware of the mani pulation, and ultimately win him
over against his will. The traps of Anti-Oedipus ate those of humor: so
many invitations to let oneself be put out, to take one's leave of the text
and slam the door shut. The book ofte n leads one to believe it is all fun
and games, when something essentia l is taking place, something of
extreme seriousness: the tracking down of all varieties of fascism,from
the enormous ones that surround a nd crush us to the petty ones that
constitute the tyrannical bitterness of our everyday lives.
Kitf PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
by Mark Seem
"We must die as egos and be born
again in the swarm, not separate
and self-hypnotized, but individual
and related."
—Henry Miller, Sexus
The Anti-Ego
"Lie down, then, on the soft couch which the analyst
provides, and try to think up some thing different. The analyst has
endless time and patience; every minut e you detain him means money in
his pocket. . . . Whether you whine, howl, beg, weep, cajole, pray or
curse—he listens. He is just a bi g ear minus a sympathetic nervous
system. He is impervious to everything but truth. If you think it pays to
fool him then fool him. Who will be the loser? If you think he can help
you, and not yourself, then stick to him until you rot."1* So concludes
Henry Miller in Sexus, and Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari are quick
to agree in their attack on psychoa nalysis' own Oedipus complex (the
holy family: daddy-mommy-me), an attack that is at times brutal and
without pity, at other times sympat hetic and full of a profound love of
•Reference notes begin on page 383.
life, and often enormously amusing. An attack on the ego, on what is
all-too-human in mankind, on oedipali zed and oedipalizing analyses and
neurotic modes of living.
In confronting and finally overturning the Oedipal rock on which
Man has chosen to take his stand, Anti-Oedipus comes as a kind of
sequel to another similar venture, the attack on Christ, Christianity, and
the herd in Nietzsche's The Antic hrist. For who would deny,
Anti-Oedipus begins, that psychoanalysis was from the start, still is, and
perhaps always will be a well-c onstituted church and a form of
treatment based on a set of beliefs that only the very faithful could
adhere to, ie., those who believe in a security that amounts to being lost
in the herd and defined in terms of common and external goals? But
where do such beliefs originate? What are they based on? For it is
absolutely hopeless to think in terms of security, as Miller states in
The Desire for Repression
- The text critiques psychoanalysis as a 'well-constituted church' that offers a false sense of security through herd-like conformity.
- It revives Wilhelm Reich's question regarding how the masses can be manipulated into desiring their own repression and fascism.
- The author argues that fascism is not merely an external historical event but a internal psychological tendency rooted in 'ressentiment'.
- Deleuze and Guattari propose 'schizoanalysis' as a diagnostic cure for the sickness of traditional psychoanalytic treatment.
- The 'schizophrenic out for a walk' is presented as a healthier, more liberated model of existence than the neurotic on the analyst's couch.
The man who looks for security, even in the mind, is like a man who would chop off his limbs in order to have artificial ones which will give him no pain or trouble.
the herd in Nietzsche's The Antic hrist. For who would deny,
Anti-Oedipus begins, that psychoanalysis was from the start, still is, and
perhaps always will be a well-c onstituted church and a form of
treatment based on a set of beliefs that only the very faithful could
adhere to, ie., those who believe in a security that amounts to being lost
in the herd and defined in terms of common and external goals? But
where do such beliefs originate? What are they based on? For it is
absolutely hopeless to think in terms of security, as Miller states in
Sexus; "there is none. The man who looks for security, even in the mind,
is like a man who would chop off his limbs in order to have artificial ones
which will give him no pain or trouble" (page 428). No pain, no
trouble—this is the neurotic's dream of a tranquilized and conflict-free
existence.
Such a set of beliefs, Deleuze and Guattari demonstrate, such a
herd instinct, is based on the desire to be led, the desire to have someone
else legislate life. The very desire that was brought so glaringly into
focus in Europe with Hitler, Mussolini, and fascism; the desire that is
still at work, making us all sick, today. Anti-Oedipus starts by reviving
Reich's completely serious question with respect to the rise of fascism:
'How could the masses be made to desi re their own repression?' This is
a question which the English and Americans are reluctant to deal with
directly, tending too often to res pond: "Fascism is a phenomenon that
took place elsewhere, something that could only happen to others, but
not to us; it's their problem." Is it though? Is fascism really a problem
for others to deal with? Even revolutionary groups deal gingerly with the
fascisizing elements we all carry deep within us, and yet they often
possess a rarely analyzed but overri ding group 'superego' that leads
them to state, much like Nietzsche's man of ressentiment, that the other
is evil (the Fascist! the Capitalist! the Communist!), and hence that they
themselves are good. This conclusion is reached as an afterthought and a
justification, a supremely se//-righte ous rationalization for a politics that
can only "squint" at life, through the thick clouds of foul-smelling air
that permeates secret meeting places and "security" councils. The man
of ressentiment, as Nietzsche explains, "loves hiding places, secret paths
and back doors, everything covert entices him as his world, his security,
his refreshment; he understands how to keep silent, how not to forget,
ml INTRODUCTION
how to wait, how to be provisionally self-deprecating and humble."2
Such a man, Nietzsche concludes, needs very much to believe in some
neutral, independent "subject"—the ego—for he is prompted by an
instinct of self-affirmation and Jeff-p reservation that cares little about
preserving or affirming life, an in stinct "in which every lie is sancti-
fied."3 This is the realm of the silent majority. And it is into these back
rooms, behind the closed doors of the analyst's office, in the wings of the
Oedipal theater, that Deleuze and Guattari weave their way, exclaiming
as does Nietzsche that it smells bad there, and that what is needed is "a
breath of fresh air, a relations hip with the outside world."
In examining the problem of the subject, the behind-the-scenes
reactive and reactionary man, Anti-Oedipus develops an approach that is
decidedly diagnostic ("What constitutes our sickness today?") and
profoundly healing as well. What it attempts to cure us of is the cure
itself. Deleuze and Guattari term their approach "schizoanalysis," which
they oppose on every count to psychoanalysis. Where the latter
measures everything agai nst neurosis and castration, schizoanalysis
begins with the schizo, his breakdow ns and his breakthroughs. For, they
affirm, "a schizophrenic out for a walk is a better model than a neurotic
lying on the analyst's couch. . . ." Against the Oedipal and oedipalized
Schizoanalysis and the Economy of Flows
- Deleuze and Guattari introduce 'schizoanalysis' as a diagnostic and healing alternative to psychoanalysis, focusing on breakthroughs rather than neurosis.
- The text argues that a schizophrenic out for a walk is a more productive model for understanding desire than a neurotic on an analyst's couch.
- The authors reject the traditional separation of political economy and libidinal economy, proposing instead a single unified economy of flows.
- By staging a confrontation between Marx and Nietzsche, the book renders traditional psychoanalysis 'impossible' while refining Marxist theory for modern use.
- The investigation explores a scale of intensity ranging from the 'body without organs' to the totalizing schizophrenic process of desire.
For, they affirm, 'a schizophrenic out for a walk is a better model than a neurotic lying on the analyst's couch. . . .'
decidedly diagnostic ("What constitutes our sickness today?") and
profoundly healing as well. What it attempts to cure us of is the cure
itself. Deleuze and Guattari term their approach "schizoanalysis," which
they oppose on every count to psychoanalysis. Where the latter
measures everything agai nst neurosis and castration, schizoanalysis
begins with the schizo, his breakdow ns and his breakthroughs. For, they
affirm, "a schizophrenic out for a walk is a better model than a neurotic
lying on the analyst's couch. . . ." Against the Oedipal and oedipalized
territorialities (Family, Church, Sc hool, Nation, Party), and especially
the territoriality of the individual, Anti-Oedipus seeks to discover the
"deterritorialized" flows of desire, the flows that have not been reduced
to the Oedipal codes and the neuroticized territorialities, the
desiring-machines that escape such codes as lines of escap e leading
elsewhere.
Much like R.D.Laing, Deleuze and Guattari aim to develop a
materialistically and experientially based analysis of the "breakdowns"
and the "breakthroughs " that characterize some of those labeled
schizophrenic by psychiatry. Rather than view the creations and pro-
ductions of desire—all of desiri ng-production—from the point of view
of the norm and the normal, they force their analysis into the sphere of
extremes. From paranoia to schizophr enia, from fascism to revolution,
from breakdowns to breakthroughs, what is investigated is the process
of life flows as they oscillate from one extreme to the other, on a scale of
intensity that goes from 0 ("I never asked to be born . . . leave me in
peace"), the body without organs, to the nth power ("I am all that exists,
all the names in history"), the schizophrenic process of desire.
The Experience of Delirium
In order to carry out this ambitious undertaking,
Anti-Oedipus makes joyously unorthodox use of many writers and
thinkers,
INTRODUCTION xvll
whose concepts flow together with a ll the other elements in the book in
what might well be described as a carefully constructed and executed
experiment in delirium.
While Deleuze and Guattari quote frequently from Marx and Freud,
it would be an error to view Anti-Oedipus as yet another attempt at a
Freud/Marx synthesis. For such an attempt always treats political
economy (the flows of capital and interest) and the economy of the
libido (the flows of desire) as two se parate economies, even in the work
of Reich, who went as far as possi ble in this direction. Deleuze and
Guattari, on the other hand, postulate one and the same economy, the
economy of flows. The flows and productions of desire will simply be
viewed as the unconscious of the social productions. Behind every
investment of time and interest and cap ital, an investment of desire, and
vice versa.
In order to reach this conclusion a new confrontation was required.
Not the standard confrontation between a bourgeois Freud and a
revolutionary Marx, where Freud ends up the loser, but a more radical
confrontation, between Marx the revolutionary and Nietzsche the
madman. The result of this confrontation, as the authors demonstrate
convincingly, is that Freud and psychoanalysis (and perhaps even
Lacan, although they remain ambiguous on this point) become "impossi-
ble."
"Why Marx and Nietzsche? Now that's really mixing things up!"
one might protest at this point. But there is really no cause for alarm.
Readers of Marx will be happy to learn that Marx fares quite well in this
confrontation. One might even say he is trimmed down to bare essentials
and improved upon from the point of vi ew of use. Given Deleuze and
Guattari's perspective, this confront ation was inevitable. If one wants to
do an analysis of the flows of money and capital that circulate in society,
nothing is more useful than Marx and the Marxist theory of money. But
if one wishes also to analyze the flows of desire, the fears and the
The Strategical Machine
- Deleuze and Guattari synthesize Marx's theory of capital with Nietzsche's theory of affects to analyze both monetary and libidinal flows.
- The text argues that psychoanalysis fails by reducing social desire to the familial complex, whereas Nietzsche connects desire directly to the social field.
- Anti-Oedipus operates through a tension between philosophy and militancy, creating a strategical machine aimed at the 'fascist in each of us.'
- The authors employ an eclectic, non-academic style that treats ideas as points of intensity and signs pointing toward a new style of politics.
- By focusing on the nonhuman forces and desires within man, the work seeks to extend thought to the point of madness and action to the point of revolution.
Extending thought to the point of madness and action to the point of revolution, theirs is indeed a politics of experience.
one might protest at this point. But there is really no cause for alarm.
Readers of Marx will be happy to learn that Marx fares quite well in this
confrontation. One might even say he is trimmed down to bare essentials
and improved upon from the point of vi ew of use. Given Deleuze and
Guattari's perspective, this confront ation was inevitable. If one wants to
do an analysis of the flows of money and capital that circulate in society,
nothing is more useful than Marx and the Marxist theory of money. But
if one wishes also to analyze the flows of desire, the fears and the
anxieties, the loves and the despairs that traverse the social field as
intensive notes from the underground (i.e., libidinal economy), one must
look elsewhere. Since psychoanalysis is of no help, reducing as it does
every social manifestation of desire to the familial complex, where is
one to turn? To Nietzsche, and the Nietzschean theory of affects and
intensity, Anti-Oedipus suggests. For here, and especially in On the
Genealogy of Morals, is a theory of desire and will, of the conscious and
the unconscious forces, that relates desire directly to the social field and
to a monetary system based on profit. What Nietzsche teaches, as a
complement to Marx's theory of alienation, is how the history of
mankind is the history of a becoming-reactive. And it is Nietzsche,
xviii INTRODUCTION
Deleuze and Guattari stress, whose thought already pointed a way out
for humanity, whereas Marx and Freud were too ingrained in the culture
that they were working against.
One could not really view Anti-Oedipus as a purely Nietzschean
undertaking, however, for the book would be nothing without the
tension between Nietzsche and Marx , between philosophy and politics
between thought and revolution; the te nsion, in short, between Deleuze
the philosopher and Guattari the militant. This tension is quite novel,
and leads to a combination of the ar tistic "machine," the revolutionary
"machine," and the analytical "machine"; a combination of three modes
of knowledge—the intuitive, the practical, and the reflective, which all
become joined as bits and pieces of one and the same strategical
machine whose target is the ego and the fascist in each of us. Extending
thought to the point of madness and action to the point of revolution,
theirs is indeed a politics of experi ence. The experience, however, is no
longer that of man, but of what is nonhuman in man, hi s desires and his
forces: a politics of desire directed against all that is egoic—and
heroic—in man.
In addition to Nietzsche they also found it necessary to listen to
others: to Miller and Lawrence a nd Kafka and Beckett, to Proust and
Reich and Foucault, to Burroughs and Ginsberg, each of whom had
different insights concerning ma dness and dissensi on, politics and
desire. They needed everything they could get their hands on and they
took whatever they could find, in an eclectic fashion closer to Henry
Miller than it is to Marx or Freud. More poetic, undoubtedly, but also
more fun.
While Deleuze and Guattari use many authors and concepts, this is
never done in an academic fashion aimed at persuading the reader.
Rather, they use these names and ideas as effects that traverse their
analyses, generating ever new effects, as points of reference indeed, but
also as points of intensity and signs pointing a way out: points-signs that
offer a multiplicity of solutions and a variety of directions for a new
style of politics. Such an approach carries much along with it, in the
course of its flow, but it also leaves much behind. Chunks of Marx and
Freud that cannot keep up with the fast current will be left behind,
buried or forgotten, while everything in Marx and Freud that has to do
with how things and people and desires actually flow will be kept, and
added to the infernal machine evoked above. This politic al analysis of
Schizoanalysis and the Internal Colony
- Schizoanalysis is presented as a political tool that discards outdated elements of Marx and Freud to focus on the actual flow of human desire.
- The authors urge a rejection of anthropomorphic and existential frameworks to uncover the nonhuman forces and mutations within man.
- Oedipus is redefined not just as a psychological complex, but as a tool of state imperialism and an 'internal colony' used to subjugate individuals.
- The text argues that traditional social sciences function to tame people into docile subjects by projecting icons instead of perceiving raw power flows.
- Neurosis and depression are characterized as agencies of the State that teach individuals to perversely desire their own repression.
Oedipus is the figurehead of imperialism, 'colonization pursued by other means, it is the interior colony, and we shall see that even here at home ... it is our intimate colonial education.'
also as points of intensity and signs pointing a way out: points-signs that
offer a multiplicity of solutions and a variety of directions for a new
style of politics. Such an approach carries much along with it, in the
course of its flow, but it also leaves much behind. Chunks of Marx and
Freud that cannot keep up with the fast current will be left behind,
buried or forgotten, while everything in Marx and Freud that has to do
with how things and people and desires actually flow will be kept, and
added to the infernal machine evoked above. This politic al analysis of
desire, this schizoanalysis, becomes a mighty tool where schizophrenia
as a process—the schiz—serves as a point of departure as well as a point
of destination. Like Laing, they encourage mankind to take a journey,
the journey through ego-loss. They go much further than Laing on this
INTRODUCTION xlx
point, however. They urge mankind to strip itself of all anthropomorphic
and anthropological armoring, all myth and tragedy, and all existential-
ism, in order to perceive what is nonhuman in man, his will and his
forces, his transformations and mutations. The human and social
sciences have accustomed us to see the figure of Man behind every
social event, just as Chri stianity taught us to see the Eye of the Lord
looking down upon us. Such forms of knowledge project an image of
reality, at the expense of reality itself. They talk figures and icons and
signs, but fail to perceive forces and flows. They blind us to other
realities, and especially the reality of power as it subjugates us. Their
function is to tame, and the result is the fabrication of docile and
obedient subjects.
Schizoanalysis and Collectivity
To be anti-oedipal is to be anti-ego as well as anti-homo,
willfully attacking all reductive psychoanalytic and political analyses
that remain caught within the sphere of totality and unity, in order to
free the multiplicity of desire from the deadly neurotic and Oedipal
yoke. For Oedipus is not a mere ps ychoanalytic construct, Deleuze and
Guattari explain. Oedipus is the fi gurehead of imperialism, "colonization
pursued by other means, it is the interior colony, and we shall see that
even here at home ... it is our intimate colonial education." This
internalization of man by man, this "oedipalization," creates a new
meaning for suffering, internal suffering, and a new tone for life: the
depressive tone. Now depr ession does not just come about one fine day,
Anti-Oedipus goes on, nor does Oedipus appe ar one day in the Family
and feel secure in remaining there. Depression and Oedipus are agencies
of the State, agencies of paranoia, agencies of power, long before being
delegated to the family. Oedipus is th e figure of power as such, just as
neurosis is the result of power on individuals. Oedipus is everywhere.
For anti-oedipalists the ego, like Oedipus, is "part of those things we
must dismantle through the united assault of analytical and political
forces ."4 Oedipus is belief injected into the unconscious, it is what gives
us faith as it robs us of power, it is what teaches us to desire our own
repression. Everybody has been oedipa lized and neuroticized at home, at
school, at work. Everybody wants to be a fascist. Dele uze and Guattari
want to know how these beliefs succeed in taking hold of a body,
thereby silencing the productive machines of the libido. They also want
to know how the opposite situation is brought about, where a body
successfully wards off the effects of power. Reversing the Freudian
distinction between neurosis and ps ychosis that measures everything
XX INTRODUCTION
against the former, Anti-Oedipus concludes: the neurotic is the one on
whom the Oedipal imprints take, whereas the psychotic is the one
Schizoanalysis and Radical Desire
- Deleuze and Guattari explore how fascist beliefs take hold of the body and silence the productive machines of the libido.
- The text redefines the psychotic as one who is incapable of being 'oedipalized,' offering a model for shaking off the yoke of power.
- Schizoanalysis seeks to break the holds of power by instituting a new collective subjectivity that moves beyond the individual ego.
- A true revolutionary group must subordinate the forms of power to desiring-production rather than remaining a subjugated group.
- Theory is presented as a practical toolbox intended to produce tools that work for the construction of new social arrangements.
To be cured we must rise from our graves and throw off the cerements of the dead.
school, at work. Everybody wants to be a fascist. Dele uze and Guattari
want to know how these beliefs succeed in taking hold of a body,
thereby silencing the productive machines of the libido. They also want
to know how the opposite situation is brought about, where a body
successfully wards off the effects of power. Reversing the Freudian
distinction between neurosis and ps ychosis that measures everything
XX INTRODUCTION
against the former, Anti-Oedipus concludes: the neurotic is the one on
whom the Oedipal imprints take, whereas the psychotic is the one
incapable of being oedipalized, even and especially by psychoanalysis.
The first task of the revolutionary, they add, is to learn from the
psychotic how to shake off the Oedipal yoke and the effects of power, in
order to initiate a radical politics of desire freed from all beliefs. Such a
politics dissolves the mystifications of power through the kindling, on all
levels, of anti-oedipal forces—the schizzes-flows—forces that escape
coding, scramble the codes, and flee in all directions: orphans (no
daddy-mommy-me), atheists (no beliefs), and nomads (no habits, no
territories).
A schizoanalysis schizophrenizes in order to break the holds of
power and institute research into a new collective subjectivity and a
revolutionary healing of mankind. Fo r we are sick, so sick, of our selves!
It is actually not accurate to say that Deleuze and Guattari develop
the schizoanalytic approach, for, as they show, it has always been at
work in writers like Miller or Nietzsche or Artaud. Stoned thinking
based on intensely lived experiences: Pop Philosophy.
To put it simply, as does Miller, "everybody becomes a healer the
moment he forgets abou t himself." And Miller continues: "Reality is
here and now, everywhere, gleaming through every reflection that meets
the eye. . . . Everybody is a neuro tic, down to the last man and woman.
The healer, or the analyst, if you like, is only a super-neurotic. ... To be
cured we must rise from our graves and throw off the cerements of the
dead. Nobody can do it for another—it is a private affair which is best
done collectively."5 Once we forget about our egos a non-neurotic form
of politics becomes possible, where singularity and collectivity are no
longer at odds with each other, and where collective expressions of
desire are possible. Such a politics doe s not seek to regiment individuals
according to a totalitarian system of norms, but to de-normalize and
de-individualize through a multiplicity of new, collective arrangements
against power. Its goal is the transfor mation of human relationships in a
struggle against power. And it urges militant groups, as well as lone
individuals, to analyze and fight ag ainst the effects of power that
subjugate them: "For a revolutionary group at the preconscious level
remains a subjugated group, even in seizing power, as long as this power
itself refers to a form of force that continues to enslave and crush
desiring-production. ... A subject-group, on the contrary, is a group
whose libidinal investments are themselves revolutionary, it causes
desire to penetrate into the social field, and subordinates the socius or
the forms of power to desiring-production; productive of desire and a
desire that produces, the subject- group always invents mortal forma-
INTRODUCTION xxi
tions that exorcize the effusion in it of a death instinct; it opposes real
coefficients of transversality to the symbolic determinations of subjuga-
tion, coefficients without a hierarchy or a group superego." There can be
no revolutionary actions, Anti-Oedipus concludes, where the the rela-
tions between people and groups are re lations of exclusion and segrega-
tion. Groups must multiply and connect in ever new ways, freeing up
territorialities for the construction of new social arrangements. Theory
must therefore be conceived as a toolbox, producing tools that work; or
The Collective Anti-Oedipus
- Revolutionary action requires the rejection of exclusion and segregation, favoring the multiplication of new social connections and arrangements.
- Theory is redefined as a practical 'toolbox' or a set of 'tools for conviviality' that prioritize personal energy and control over professional expertise.
- The text argues that neurosis is a state of being bogged down in arrangements where escape is possible, suggesting that the only truly incurable state is the neurotic one.
- Ego-loss is presented not as a pathology but as a healing process that reconnects the individual with a primal, collective experience of existence.
- The 'anti-Oedipus' is a nonfascist subject that seeks to redeem humanity from nihilism through collective subjectivity rather than isolated madness.
For to be bogged down in arrangements from which escape is possible is to be neurotic, seeing an irresolvable crisis where alternatives in fact exist.
tions that exorcize the effusion in it of a death instinct; it opposes real
coefficients of transversality to the symbolic determinations of subjuga-
tion, coefficients without a hierarchy or a group superego." There can be
no revolutionary actions, Anti-Oedipus concludes, where the the rela-
tions between people and groups are re lations of exclusion and segrega-
tion. Groups must multiply and connect in ever new ways, freeing up
territorialities for the construction of new social arrangements. Theory
must therefore be conceived as a toolbox, producing tools that work; or
as Ivan Illich says, we must learn to construct tools for conviviality
through the use of counterfoil research.6 When Illich speaks of "conviv-
ial reconstruction," he is very clos e to Deleuze and Guattari's notion of
a "desiring-revolution." Like Deleuze and Guattari, Illich also calls for a
radical reversal of the relationships between individuals and tools or
machines: "This reversal would perm it the evolution of a life-style and
of a political system which give priority to the protection, the maximum
use, and the enjoyment of the one resource that is almost equally
distributed among all people: personal energy under personal control."7
All three authors agree that such a reversal must be governed by a
collective political proce ss, and not by professionals and experts. The
ultimate answer to neurotic dependencies on professionals is mutual
self-care.8
Freed from a psychoanalytic framework, the political group or
collective cannot, however, push aside the problem of desire. Nor can it
leave desire in the hands of new expe rts. It must analyze the function of
desire, in itself and in the groups with which it is involved. What is the
function of desire, Anti-Oedipus asks, if not one of making connections?
For to be bogged down in arrangements from which escape is possible is
to be neurotic, seeing an irresolvable crisis where alternatives in fact
exist. And as Deleuze and Guattari comment, "perhaps it will be
discovered that the only in curable is the neurotic."
We defend so cautiously against our egoically limited experiences,
states Laing in The Politics of Ex perience, that it is not surprising to see
people grow defensive and panic at the idea of experiencing ego-loss
through the use of drugs or collective experiences. But there is nothing
pathological about ego-loss, Laing a dds; quite the contrary. Ego-loss is
the experience of all mankind, "of the primal man, of Adam and perhaps
even [a journey] further into the beings of animals, vegetables and
minerals."9 No age, Laing concludes, has so lost touch with this healing
process as has ours. Deleuze and Guattari's schizoanalytic approach
serves to begin such a healing proce ss. Its major task is to destroy the
oedipalized and neuroticized indivi dual dependencies through the forg-
SHH INTRODUCTION
ing of a collective subjectivity, a nonfascist subject—anti-Oedipus.
Anti-Oedipus is an individual or a group that no longer functions in
terms of beliefs and that comes to redeem mankind, as Nietzsche
foresaw, not only from the ideals th at weighed it down, "but also from
that which was bound to grow out of it, the great nausea, the will to
nothingness, nihilism; this bell-stroke of noon and of the great decision
that liberates the will again and restores its goal to the earth and his hope
to man; this Antichrist and antinihilist. . . He must come one day. —"10
Unlike Nietzsche's antinihilist, however, Deleuze and Guattari's
anti-Oedipus is not alone. Anti-Oedi pus is not the superman, It is not
transcendent. Where Nietzsche grew progressively more isolated to the
point of madness, Deleuze and Guattari call for actions and passions of a
collective nature, here and now. Madness is a radical break from power
in the form of a disconnection. Mili tancy, in Deleuze and Guattari's
framework, would learn from madness but then move beyond it, beyond
Desiring-Machines and Collective Militancy
- Deleuze and Guattari distinguish their 'anti-Oedipus' from Nietzsche's isolated superman by emphasizing collective action and social connection over madness.
- The authors argue that desire is not naturally focused on the family (Oedipus) but is forced into that mask by social repression to prevent its explosive potential.
- Desire is described as a productive force that, when unleashed, is capable of demolishing established social sectors and questioning the entire social order.
- The concept of 'desiring-production' views the body and nature as a series of interconnected machines, such as the breast-machine and the mouth-machine.
- Militancy is redefined as a process of making new connections and embracing the 'current of life' rather than worrying about traditional morality or justice.
It breathes, it heats, it eats. It shits and fucks. What a mistake to have ever said the id.
that liberates the will again and restores its goal to the earth and his hope
to man; this Antichrist and antinihilist. . . He must come one day. —"10
Unlike Nietzsche's antinihilist, however, Deleuze and Guattari's
anti-Oedipus is not alone. Anti-Oedi pus is not the superman, It is not
transcendent. Where Nietzsche grew progressively more isolated to the
point of madness, Deleuze and Guattari call for actions and passions of a
collective nature, here and now. Madness is a radical break from power
in the form of a disconnection. Mili tancy, in Deleuze and Guattari's
framework, would learn from madness but then move beyond it, beyond
disconnections and deterritorializa tions, to ever new connections. A
politics of desire would see loneline ss and depression as the first things
to go. Such is the anti-oedipal strategy: if man is connected to the
machines of the universe, if he is in tune with his de sires, if he is
"anchored," "he ceases to worry about the fitness of things, about the
behavior of his fellow-men, about right or wrong and justice and
injustice. If his roots are in the current of life he will float on the surface
like a lotus and he will blossom and give forth fruit. . . . The life that's in
him will manifest itself in growth, and growth is an endless, eternal
process. The process is everything."11 It is this process—of
desiring-production—that Anti-Oedipus sets out to analyze.
For if desire is repressed in a society, Deleuze and Guattari state,
this is hardly because "it is a desire for the mother or for the death of the
father; on the contrary, desire becomes that only because it is repressed,
it takes that mask on under the reign of the repression that models the
mask for it and plasters it on its face. . . . The real danger is elsewhere.
If desire is repressed, it is becaus e every position of desire, no matter
how small, is capable of calling into question the established order of a
society: not that desire is asocial; on the contrary . But it is explosive;
there is no desiring-machine capable of being assembled without demol-
ishing entire social sectors."
Deleuze and Guattari conclude that desire, any desiring-machine, i;
always a combination of various elemen ts and forces of all types. Hence
the need to listen not only to revolu tionaries but to all those who know
how to be truly objective: "Revolutionaries, artists, and seers an
INTRODUCTION srai!
content to be objective, merely objec tive: they know that desire clasps
life in its powerfully productive embr ace, and reproduces it in a way all
the more intense because it has few needs. And never mind those who
believe that this is very easy to say, or that it is the sort of idea to be
found in books."
xxiv INTRODUCTION
ANT| EDIP
THE
DESIRING-MACHINES
Translated by Helen R. Lane, Robert Hurley, and Mark Seem
1 Desiring-Production
It is at work everywhere, fu nctioning smoothly at times,
at other times in fits and starts. It breathes, it heats, it eats. It shits and
fucks. What a mistake to have ever said the id. Everywhere it is
machines—real ones, not figurative ones: machines driving other ma-
chines, machines being driven by other machines, with all the necessary
couplings and connections. An organ-machine is plugged into an
energy-source-machine: the one produces a flow that the other inter-
rupts. The breast is a machine th at produces milk , and the mouth i
machine coupled to it. The mouth of the anorexic wavers between
several functions: its possessor is uncertain as to whether it is an
eating-machine, an anal machine, a talking-machine, or a breathing
machine (asthma attacks). Hence we are all handymen: each with his
little machines. For every organ-machine, an energy-machine: all the
time, flows and interruptions. Judge Sc hreber* has sunbeams in his ass. A solar
anus. And rest assured that it works: Judge Schreber feels something, produces
The Machine of Desire
- The human body is conceptualized as a collection of organ-machines coupled to external energy-machines through flows and interruptions.
- Schizophrenic experience is presented as a model of production that bypasses the traditional man-nature dichotomy.
- The text contrasts the social and familial constraints of the analyst's couch with the liberating 'stroll' of the schizophrenic in nature.
- Desiring-machines function as real productive forces rather than mere metaphors, dissolving the boundaries between self and non-self.
- The introduction of Oedipal structures is viewed as a form of repression that interrupts the fluid connections of the desiring-machine.
Judge Schreber has sunbeams in his ass.
rupts. The breast is a machine th at produces milk , and the mouth i
machine coupled to it. The mouth of the anorexic wavers between
several functions: its possessor is uncertain as to whether it is an
eating-machine, an anal machine, a talking-machine, or a breathing
machine (asthma attacks). Hence we are all handymen: each with his
little machines. For every organ-machine, an energy-machine: all the
time, flows and interruptions. Judge Sc hreber* has sunbeams in his ass. A solar
anus. And rest assured that it works: Judge Schreber feels something, produces
something, and is capable of explaining the process theoretically. Something is
produced: the effects of a machine, not mere metaphors.
A schizophrenic out for a walk is a better model than a neurotic lying on the
analyst's couch. A breath of fresh air, a relationship with the outside world.
Lenz's stroll, for example, as reconstr ucted by Buchner. This walk outdoors is
different from the moments when Lenz fi nds himself closeted with his pastor,
who forces him to situate himself soci ally, in relationship to the God of
established religion, in relationship to his father, to his mother. While taking a
stroll outdoors, on the other hand, he is in the mountains, amid falling
snowfiakes, with other gods or without an y gods at all, without a family, without
a father or a mother, with nature. "Wha t does my father want? Can he offer me
more than that? Impossibl e. Leave me in peace."1 Everything is a machine.
Celestial machines, the stars or rainbows in the sky, alpine machines— all of
them connected to those of his body. The continual whirr of machines. "He
thought that it must be a feeling of e ndless bliss to be in contact with the
profound life of every form, to have a soul for rocks, metals, water, and plants, to
take into himself, as in a dream, every element of nature, like flowers that breathe
with the waxing and waning of the moon."la To be a chlorophyll- or a
photosynthesis-machine, or at least slip his body into such machines as one part
among the others. Lenz has projected hi mself back to a time before the
man-nature dichotomy, before all the co-ordinates based on this fundamental
dichotomy have been laid down. He doe s not live nature as nature, but as a
process of production. There is no such thing as either man or nature now, only a
process that produces the one within the other and couples the machines together.
Producing-machines, desiring-machines everywhere, schizophrenic machines, all
of species life: the self and the non-self , outside and inside , no longer have any
meaning whatsoever.
Now that we have had a l ook at this stroll of a schizo, let us compare what
happens when Samuel Beckett's characters decide to venture outdoors. Their
various gaits and methods of self-locomo tion constitute, in and of themselves, a
finely tuned machine. And then there is the function of the bicycle in Beckett's
works: what relationship does the bicycle-horn machine have with the
mother-anus machine? "What a
*Daniel Paul Schreber was a German judge who began ps ychiatric treatment in 1884 at the age of forty-two,
and spent the remaining twenty-seven years of his life in and out of mental institutions. In 1903, at the age
of sixty-one, he published his Denkwiirdigkeiten ernes Nervenkranken (Memoirs of a Nervous Illness ),
which Freud used as the basis of hi s influential 1911 study on paranoia, "Psycho-Analytic Notes" (reference
note 7, page 384 of this volume), pp. 390-472. (Translators'note.)
9, ANTI-OEDIPUS
rest to speak of bicycles and horns. Unfo rtunately it is not of them I have to
speak, but of her who brought me into the world, through the hole in her arse if
my memory is correct."2 It is often thought that Oedipus* is an easy subject to
deal with, something perfectly obvious, a "given" that is there from the very
beginning. But that is not so at all: Oedipus presupposes a fantastic repression of
Desiring-Machines and Oedipal Repression
- The text challenges the idea of the Oedipus complex as a natural given, arguing instead that it is a construct requiring the repression of 'desiring-machines.'
- Schizophrenia is presented not as a withdrawal from reality, but as an experience of nature as a continuous process of production.
- The authors use Beckettian imagery, such as the stone-sucking circuit, to illustrate how mechanical processes and bodily functions intersect.
- A distinction is made between the formal structures of industry and nature, suggesting that at a deeper level, they are part of the same productive process.
- The passage questions the utility of geometrical descriptions in understanding the actual function and effect of complex human and social machines.
Under the skin the body is an over-heated factory, and outside, the invalid shines, glows, from every burst pore.
*Daniel Paul Schreber was a German judge who began ps ychiatric treatment in 1884 at the age of forty-two,
and spent the remaining twenty-seven years of his life in and out of mental institutions. In 1903, at the age
of sixty-one, he published his Denkwiirdigkeiten ernes Nervenkranken (Memoirs of a Nervous Illness ),
which Freud used as the basis of hi s influential 1911 study on paranoia, "Psycho-Analytic Notes" (reference
note 7, page 384 of this volume), pp. 390-472. (Translators'note.)
9, ANTI-OEDIPUS
rest to speak of bicycles and horns. Unfo rtunately it is not of them I have to
speak, but of her who brought me into the world, through the hole in her arse if
my memory is correct."2 It is often thought that Oedipus* is an easy subject to
deal with, something perfectly obvious, a "given" that is there from the very
beginning. But that is not so at all: Oedipus presupposes a fantastic repression of
desiring-machines. And why are they repressed? To what end? Is it really
necessary or desirable to submit to such repression? And what means are to be
used to accomplish this? What ought to go in side the Oedipal triangle, what sort
of thing is required to construct it? Are a bicycle horn and my mother's arse
sufficient to do the job? Aren't there more important questions than these,
however? Given a certain effect, what machine is capable of producing it? And
given a certain machine, what can it be used for? Can we possibly guess, for
instance, what a knife rest is used for if all we are given is a geometrical
description of it? Or yet another exampl e: on being confronted with a complete
machine made up of six stones in the right-hand pocket of my coat (the pocket
that serves as the source of the stones), five stones in the right-hand pocket of my
trousers, and five in the left-hand pocket (transmission pockets), with the
remaining pocket of my coat receiving th e stones that have already been handled,
as each of the stones moves forward one poc ket, how can we determine the effect
of this circuit of distribution in which the mouth, too, plays a role as a
stone-sucking machine? Where in this en tire circuit do we find the production of
sexual pleasure? At the end of Malone Dies, Lady Pedal takes th e schizophrenics
out for a ride in a van and a rowboat, a nd on a picnic in the midst of nature: an
infernal machine is being assembled. "U nder the skin the body is an over-heated
factory,/ and outside,/ the invalid shines,/ glows,/ from every burst pore."3
This does not mean that we are attempting to make nature one of the poles
of schizophrenia. What the schizophrenic experiences, both as an individual and
as a member of the human species, is not at all any one specific aspect of nature,
but nature as a process of production. What do we mean here by process? It is
probable that at a certain level nature a nd industry are two separate and distinct
things: from one point of view, industry is the opposite of nature; from another,
industry extracts its raw materials from nature; from yet another, it returns its
refuse to nature; and so on. Even within society, this characteristic man-nature,
industry-nature, society-nature relationship is responsible for the dis-
*As will be seen below, the term Oedi pus has many widely varying connotations in this volume. It refers, for
instance, not only to the Greek myth of Oedipus and to the Oedipus complex as defined by classical
psychoanalysis, but also to Oedipal mechanisms, pr ocesses, and structures. The translators follow the
authors' use and employ the word "Oedipus" by itself, using the more traditional term "Oedipus complex"
only when the authors do so. (Translators'note.)
THE DESIRING-MACHINES 3
tinction of relatively autonomous s pheres that are called production,
distribution, consumption. But in genera l this entire level of distinctions,
examined from the point of view of its formal developed structures,
The Process of Universal Production
- The authors challenge the traditional economic separation of production, distribution, and consumption, arguing these spheres are actually a single, unmediated process.
- Capitalist consciousness is described as a 'false consciousness' that imposes artificial distinctions upon what is essentially a continuous flow of production.
- Everything in existence—including passions, anxieties, and recording processes—is redefined as a form of production within a singular circuit.
- The distinction between man and nature is dissolved, viewing both as a unified 'industry' where the human is not a master but a component of a universal machine.
- The concept of 'process' is redefined to incorporate the act of recording and the act of consuming directly into the act of producing.
Not man as the king of creation, but rather as the being who is in intimate contact with the profound life of all forms or all types of beings, who is responsible for even the stars and animal life, and who ceaselessly plugs an organ-machine into an energy-machine, a tree into his body, a breast into his mouth, the sun into his asshole: the eternal custodian of the machines of the universe.
*As will be seen below, the term Oedi pus has many widely varying connotations in this volume. It refers, for
instance, not only to the Greek myth of Oedipus and to the Oedipus complex as defined by classical
psychoanalysis, but also to Oedipal mechanisms, pr ocesses, and structures. The translators follow the
authors' use and employ the word "Oedipus" by itself, using the more traditional term "Oedipus complex"
only when the authors do so. (Translators'note.)
THE DESIRING-MACHINES 3
tinction of relatively autonomous s pheres that are called production,
distribution, consumption. But in genera l this entire level of distinctions,
examined from the point of view of its formal developed structures,
presupposes (as Marx has demonstr ated) not only the existence of
capital and the division of labor, but al so the false consciousness that the
capitalist being necessarily acquires, bot h of itself and of the supposedly
fixed elements within an over-all process. For the real truth of the
matter—the glaring, sober truth that resides in delirium—is that there is
no such thing as relatively independent spheres or circuits: production is
immediately consumption and a recording process (enregistrement*),
without any sort of mediation, and the recording process and consump-
tion directly determine production, though they do so within the
production process itself. Hence everything is production: production of
productions, of actions and of passions; productions of recording
processes, of distributions and of co-ordinates that serve as points of
reference; productions of consumptions, of sensual pleasures, of anxie-
ties, and of pain. Everything is produc tion, since the recording processes
are immediately consumed, immediately consummated, and these con-
sumptions directly reproduced.+ This is the first meaning of process as
we use the term: incorporating recording and consumption within
production itself, thus making them th e productions of one and the same
process.
Second, we make no distinction between man and nature: the
human essence of nature and the natural essence of man become one
within nature in the form of production or industry, just as they do
within the life of man as a species. Industry is then no longer considered
from the extrinsic point of view of utility, but rather from the point of
view of its fundamental identity with nature as production of man and
by man.4 Not man as the king of creation, but rather as the being who is
in intimate contact with the profound life of all forms or all types of
beings, who is responsible for even the stars and animal life, and who
ceaselessly plugs an organ-machine into an energy-machine, a tree into
his body, a breast into his mouth, th e sun into his asshole: the eternal
custodian of the machines of the unive rse. This is the second meaning of
process as we use the term: man and nature are not like two opposite
*The French term enregistrement has a number of meanings, among them the process of making a
recording to be played back by a mechanical devi ce (e.g., a phonograph), the recording so made (e.g., a
phonograph record or a magnetic tape), and the entering of births, deaths, deeds, marriages,and so on, in an
official register. {Translators' note.)
tWhen Georges Bataille spea ks of sumptuary, nonproductive expenditu res or consumptions in connection
with the energy of nature, these are expenditures or consumptions that are not part of the supposedly
independent sphere of huma n production, insofar as the la tter is determined by "the useful." They therefore
have to do with what we call the produc tion of consumption. See George s Bataille, La part maudite,
precede de La notion de depense (Paris: Editions de Minuit).
4 ANTI-OEDIPUS
terms confronting each other—not even in the sense of bipolar opposites
within a relationship of causation, ideation, or expression (cause and
effect, subject and object, etc.); rather, they are one and the same
The Universe of Desiring-Machines
- Production and product are viewed as a single essential reality where the process of desiring-production transcends idealistic categories.
- Schizophrenia is defined not as a clinical entity but as the universal primary production of man and nature.
- Desiring-machines operate through binary associations where one machine produces a flow and another interrupts or draws from it.
- The process of production must be viewed as a movement toward completion rather than an infinite, destructive intensification.
- Every organ-machine interprets the entire world through the specific flux of its own energy and function.
Desire constantly couples continuous flows and partial objects that are by nature fragmentary and fragmented.
tWhen Georges Bataille spea ks of sumptuary, nonproductive expenditu res or consumptions in connection
with the energy of nature, these are expenditures or consumptions that are not part of the supposedly
independent sphere of huma n production, insofar as the la tter is determined by "the useful." They therefore
have to do with what we call the produc tion of consumption. See George s Bataille, La part maudite,
precede de La notion de depense (Paris: Editions de Minuit).
4 ANTI-OEDIPUS
terms confronting each other—not even in the sense of bipolar opposites
within a relationship of causation, ideation, or expression (cause and
effect, subject and object, etc.); rather, they are one and the same
essential reality, the producer-produc t. Production as process overtakes
all idealistic categories and constitutes a cycle whose relationship to
desire is that of an immanent prin ciple. That is why desiring-production
is the principal concern of a materialist psychiatry, which conceives of
and deals with the schizo as Homo natura. This will be the case,
however, only on one condition, which in fact constitutes the third
meaning of process as we use the term: it must not be viewed as a goal or
an end in itself, nor must it be confus ed with an infinite perpetuation of
itself. Putting an end to the proce ss or prolonging it indefinitely—which,
strictly speaking, is tantamount to ending it abruptly and prematurely—
is what creates the artificial schiz ophrenic found in mental institutions: a
limp rag forced into autistic behavior , produced as an entirely separate
and independent entity. D. H. Lawren ce says of love: "We have pushed
a process into a goal. The aim of any process is not the perpetuation of
that process, but the completion thereo f. . . . The process should work to
a completion, not to some horror of intensification and extremity
wherein the soul and body ultimately perish."5 Schizophrenia is like
love: there is no specifically schizophrenic phenomenon or entity;
schizophrenia is the universe of productive and reproductive
desiring-machines, universal primary pr oduction as "the essential reality
of man and nature."
Desiring-machines are binary mach ines, obeying a binary law or set
of rules governing associations: one machine is always coupled with
another. The productive synthesis, the production of production, is
inherently connective in nature: "and . . ." "and then . . ." This is
because there is always a flow-producing machine, and another machine
connected to it that interrupts or dr aws off part of this flow (the
breast—the mouth). And because the first machine is in turn connected
to another whose flow it interrupts or partially drains off, the binary
series is linear in every direction. Desire constantly couples continuous
flows and partial objects that are by nature fragmentary and fragmented.
Desire causes the current to flow, itself flows in turn, and breaks the
flows. "I love everything that flows, even the menstrual flow that carries
away the seed unfecund."* Amniotic fluid spilling out of the sac and
kidney stones; flowing hair; a flow of spittle, a flow of sperm, shit, 01
urine that are produced by partial objects and constantly cut off by othei
*Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer, Ch. 13. See in this same chapter the celebration of desire-as-fiu
expressed in the phrase: ". . . and my guts spilled out in a grand schizophrenic rush, an evacuation thz
leaves me face to face with the Absolute."
THE DESIRING-MACHINES
partial objects, which in turn produce other flows, interrupted by other
partial objects. Every "object" pres upposes the continuity of a flow;
every flow, the fragmentation of the object. Doubtless each
organ-machine interprets the entire world from the perspective of its own
flux, from the point of view of the energy that flows from it: the eye
interprets everything—speaking, understanding, shitting, fucking—in
The Desiring-Machines
- Desire is conceptualized as a system of partial objects and flows where every machine is connected to another in a continuous cycle of production.
- Each organ-machine interprets the entire world through its own specific flux, such as the eye viewing all activities in terms of seeing.
- The process of production is described as being grafted onto the product, creating a 'production of production' that rejects idealist categories of expression.
- The schizophrenic object is defined by its process of production rather than as a static entity, illustrated by Henri Michaux's description of a non-functional, 'overstuffed' table.
- The schizophrenic is identified as the universal producer, where the distinction between the act of producing and the final product effectively disappears.
A table which lent itself to no function, self-protective, denying itself to service and communication alike.
kidney stones; flowing hair; a flow of spittle, a flow of sperm, shit, 01
urine that are produced by partial objects and constantly cut off by othei
*Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer, Ch. 13. See in this same chapter the celebration of desire-as-fiu
expressed in the phrase: ". . . and my guts spilled out in a grand schizophrenic rush, an evacuation thz
leaves me face to face with the Absolute."
THE DESIRING-MACHINES
partial objects, which in turn produce other flows, interrupted by other
partial objects. Every "object" pres upposes the continuity of a flow;
every flow, the fragmentation of the object. Doubtless each
organ-machine interprets the entire world from the perspective of its own
flux, from the point of view of the energy that flows from it: the eye
interprets everything—speaking, understanding, shitting, fucking—in
terms of seeing. But a connection with another machine is always
established, along a transverse path, so that one machine interrupts the
current of the other or "sees" its own current interrupted.
Hence the coupling that takes place within the partial object-flow
connective synthesis also has anot her form: product/producing. Produc-
ing is always something "grafted onto" the product; and for that reason
desiring-production is production of production, just as every machine
is a machine connected to another machine. We cannot accept the
idealist category of "expression" as a satisfactory or sufficient explana-
tion of this phenomenon. We cannot, we must not attempt to describe
the schizophrenic object without relating it to the process of production.
The Cahiers de I'art brut* a re a striking confirmation of this principle,
since by taking such an approach they deny that there is any such thing
as a specific, identifiable schizophrenic entity. Or to take another
example, Henri Michaux describes a schizophrenic table in terms of a
process of production which is th at of desire: "Once noticed, it
continued to occupy one's mind. It ev en persisted, as it were, in going
about its own business. . . . The striking thing was that it was neither
simple nor really complex, initially or intentionally complex, or con-
structed according to a complicated plan. Instead, it had been
desimpli-fied in the course of its carpentering. ... As it stood, it was a
table of additions, much like certai n schizophrenics' drawings, described
as 'overstuffed,' and if finished it was only in so far as there was no way
of adding anything more to it, the table having become more and more
an accumulation, less and less a table. ... It was not intended for any
specific purpose, for anything one expects of a table. Heavy, cumber-
some, it was virtually i mmovable. One didn't know how to handle it
(mentally or physically). Its top surface, the useful part of the table,
having been gradually reduced, was disa ppearing, with so little relation
to the clumsy framework that the thin g did not strike one as a table, but
as some freak piece of furniture, an unfamiliar instrument ... for which
there was no purpose. A dehumanized table, nothing cozy about it,
nothing 'middle-class,' nothing rustic , nothing countrified, not a kitchen
table or a work table. A table which lent itself to no function,
*A series of monographs, issued peri odically, containing reproductions of art works created by inmates of
the psychiatric asylums of Europe. L'Art brut is edited by Jean DubufFet.
6 A N T I - O E D i P U S
self-protective, denying itself to service and communication alike. There
was something stunned about it, someth ing petrified. Perhaps it suggest-
ed a stalled engine."6
The schizophrenic is the universal producer. There is no need to
distinguish here between producing and its product. We need merely
The Schizophrenic as Universal Producer
- The schizophrenic is described as a universal producer where the distinction between the act of producing and the final product is entirely dissolved.
- The concept of bricolage is introduced to explain a mode of production that uses a hodgepodge of materials to continually rearrange fragments into new configurations.
- Desiring-machines operate on a rule of primary production, where the act of producing is grafted directly onto the product in a continuous cycle.
- The process involves a tension between the drive to produce and a counter-desire for a total standstill or an escape from the 'wheel of continual birth and rebirth.'
- The text argues that even young children hook their internal desiring-machines into the larger technical and social machines of the world.
Everything stops dead for a moment, everything freezes in place—and then the whole process will begin all over again.
table or a work table. A table which lent itself to no function,
*A series of monographs, issued peri odically, containing reproductions of art works created by inmates of
the psychiatric asylums of Europe. L'Art brut is edited by Jean DubufFet.
6 A N T I - O E D i P U S
self-protective, denying itself to service and communication alike. There
was something stunned about it, someth ing petrified. Perhaps it suggest-
ed a stalled engine."6
The schizophrenic is the universal producer. There is no need to
distinguish here between producing and its product. We need merely
note that the pure "thisness" of the object produced is carried over into a
new act of producing. The table conti nues to "go about its business." The
surface of the table, however, is eaten up by the supporting framework.
The nontermination of the table is a necessary consequence of its mode
of production. When Cla ude Levi-Strauss defines bricolage* he does so
in terms of a set of closely relate d characteristics: the possession of a
stock of materials or of rules of t humb that are fairly extensive, though
more or less a hodgepodge—multiple and at the same time limited; the
ability to rearrange fragments continually in new and different patterns
or configurations; and as a conseque nce, an indifference toward the act
of producing and toward the product, toward the set of instruments to be
used and toward the over-all result to be achieved.t The satisfaction the
handyman experiences when he plugs something into an electric socket
or diverts a stream of water can scarcely be explained in terms of
"playing mommy and daddy," or by the pleasure of violating a taboo.
The rule of continually producing production, of grafting producing onto
the product, is a characteristic of desiring-machines or of primary
production: the production of production. A painting by Richard
Lindner, "Boy with Machine," shows a huge, pudgy, bloated boy
working one of his little desiring-machines, after having hooked it up to
a vast technical social machine—which, as we shall see, is what even the
very young child does.
Producing, a product: a producing/product identity. It is this identity
that constitutes a third term in the linear series: an enormous
undifferentiated object. Everything stops dead for a moment, everything
freezes in place—and then the whole process will begin all over again.
From a certain point of view it would be much better if nothing worked,
if nothing functioned. Never being bor n, escaping the wheel of continual
birth and rebirth, no mouth to suck with, no anus to shit through. Will
*bricolage: The tinkering about of the bricoleur, or amateur handyman. The art of making do with what's at
hand. {Translators' note.)
tCIaude Levi-Strauss, The Savage Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966), p. 17: "The 'bricoleur'
is adept at performing a large number of diverse tasks; but unlike the engineer, he does not subordinate each
of them to the availability of raw materials and tools conceived and procured for the purpose of the project.
His universe of instruments is closed and the rules of his game are always to make do with 'whatever is at
hand,' that is to say with a set of tools and materials which is always finite and is also heterogeneous because
what it contains bears no relation to the current project, or indeed to any particular project, but is the
contingent result of all the occasions there have been to renew or enrich the stock or to maintain it with the
remains of previous constr uctions or destructions."
THE DESIRING-MACHINES 7
The Body without Organs
- The concept of the 'bricoleur' is introduced as one who creates using a finite, heterogeneous set of tools and materials at hand rather than specialized equipment.
- Desiring-machines are characterized by their tendency to break down, and it is through this continuous breaking down that they actually function.
- The 'body without organs' represents a state of antiproduction, a sterile and unorganized mass that exists in tension with the productive organs of the organism.
- Desire is described as seeking both life through the working machine and death through the motor of the full, unorganized body.
- The body without organs is not a literal body or an image, but an imageless surface where production and antiproduction are coupled in a connective synthesis.
Desiring-machines work only when they break down, and by continually breaking down.
tCIaude Levi-Strauss, The Savage Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966), p. 17: "The 'bricoleur'
is adept at performing a large number of diverse tasks; but unlike the engineer, he does not subordinate each
of them to the availability of raw materials and tools conceived and procured for the purpose of the project.
His universe of instruments is closed and the rules of his game are always to make do with 'whatever is at
hand,' that is to say with a set of tools and materials which is always finite and is also heterogeneous because
what it contains bears no relation to the current project, or indeed to any particular project, but is the
contingent result of all the occasions there have been to renew or enrich the stock or to maintain it with the
remains of previous constr uctions or destructions."
THE DESIRING-MACHINES 7
the machines run so badly, their component pieces fall apart to such a
point that they will return to nothi ngness and thus allow us to return to
nothingness? It would seem, however, th at the flows of energy are still
too closely connected, the partial obje cts still too organic, for this to
happen. What would be required is a pure fluid in a free state, flowing
without interruption, streaming ove r the surface of a full body.
Desiring-machines make us an organi sm; but at the very heart of this
production, within the very production of this production, the body
suffers from being organized in this way, from not having some other
sort of organization, or no organiza tion at all. "An incomprehensible,
absolutely rigid stasis" in the very midst of process, as a third stage: "No
mouth. No tongue. No teeth . No laryn x. No es ophagus. No belly. N o
anus." The automata stop dead and set free the unorganized mass they
once served to articulate. The fu ll body without organs is the
unproductive, the sterile, the unengende red, the unconsumable. Antonin
Artaud discovered this one day, findi ng himself with no shape or form
whatsoever, right there where he was at that moment. The death
instinct: that is its name, and death is not without a model. For desire
desires death also, because the full body of death is its motor, just as it
desires life, because the organs of life are the working machine. We shall
not inquire how all this fits together so that the machine will run: the
question itself is the result of a process of abstraction.
Desiring-machines work only when they break down, and by
continually breaking down. Judge Schreber "lived for a long time
without a stomach, without intestines, almost without lungs, with a torn
oesophagus, without a bladder, and with shattered ribs; he used some-
times to swallow part of his own larynx with his food, etc."7 The body
without organs is nonproductive; nonethel ess it is produced, at a certain
place and a certain time in the conne ctive synthesis, as the identity of
producing and the product: the schizophrenic table is a body without
organs. The body without organs is not the proof of an original
nothingness, nor is it what remains of a lost totality. Above all, it is not a
projection; it has nothing whatsoever to do with the body itself, or with
an image of the body. It is the body without an image. This imageless,
organless body, the nonproductive, exists right there where it is pro-
duced, in the third stage of the binary-linear series. It is perpetually
reinserted into the process of production. The catatonic body is pro-
duced in the water of the hydrotherapy tub. The full body without
organs belongs to the realm of antiproduction; but yet another charac-
teristic of the connective or productiv e synthesis is the fact that it
couples production with antiproduction, with an element of antiproduc-
tion.
8 A N T I - O E D ! P U S
2 The Body without Organs
An apparent conflict arises between desiring-machines and the
body without organs. Every coupling of machines, every production of a
The Body without Organs
- The body without organs represents a state of antiproduction that exists in a tense, connective synthesis with desiring-machines.
- A fundamental conflict arises as the body without organs repels the 'organ-machines,' perceiving them as a persecutory apparatus of larvae and worms.
- To resist the articulated flows of production, the body without organs presents a smooth, opaque surface and emits unarticulated gasps and cries.
- Primary repression is redefined not as a psychological countercathexis, but as the physical repulsion of desiring-machines by the body without organs.
- The paranoiac machine emerges when the body without organs can no longer tolerate the intrusion of machines and begins to invest in agents of persecution.
The body is the body/it is all by itself/and has no need of organs/the body is never an organism/ organisms are the enemies of the body.
reinserted into the process of production. The catatonic body is pro-
duced in the water of the hydrotherapy tub. The full body without
organs belongs to the realm of antiproduction; but yet another charac-
teristic of the connective or productiv e synthesis is the fact that it
couples production with antiproduction, with an element of antiproduc-
tion.
8 A N T I - O E D ! P U S
2 The Body without Organs
An apparent conflict arises between desiring-machines and the
body without organs. Every coupling of machines, every production of a
machine, every sound of a machine r unning, becomes unbearable to the body
without organs. Beneath its organs it senses there are larvae and loathsome
worms, and a God at work messing it all up or strangling it by organizing it. "The
body is the body/it is all by itself/and has no need of organs/the body is never an
organism/ organisms are the enemies of the body."* Merely so many nails
piercing the flesh, so many forms of torture. In order to resist organ-machines,
the body without organs presents its smoot h, slippery, opaque, taut surface as a
barrier. In order to resist linked, conn ected, and interrupted flows, it sets up a
counterflow of amorphous, undifferentiated fl uid. In order to resist using words
composed of articulated phonetic units, it utters only gasps and cries that are
sheer unarticulated blocks of sound. We ar e of the opinion that what is ordinarily
referred to as "primary repression" means precisely that: it is not a
"countercathexis," but rather this repulsion of desiring-machines by the body
without organs. This is the real meaning of the paranoiac machine: the
desiring-machines attempt to break into the body without organs, and the body
without organs repels them , since it experiences them as an over-all persecution
apparatus. Thus we cannot agree with Victor Tausk when he regards the
paranoiac machine as a mere projection of "a person's own body" and the genital
organs.8 The genesis of the machine lies pr ecisely here: in the opposition of the
process of production of the desiring-machines and the nonproductive stasis of
the body without organs. The anonymous nature of the machine and the
nondifferentiated nature of its surface are proof of this. Projection enters the
picture only secondarily, as does counter-i nvestment,t as the body without organs
invests a counterinside or a counteroutside , in the form of a persecuting organ or
some exterior agent of persecution. But in and of itself the paranoiac machine is
merely an avatar of the desiring-machi nes: it is a result of the relationship
between the desiring-machines and the body without organs, and occurs when the
latter can no longer tolerate these machines.
*Antonin Artaud, in 84, nos. 5-6 (1948). The French text reads: "Le corps est !e corps/il est seul/et n'a pas
besoin d'organe/le corps n'est jamais un organi sme/les organismes sont les ennemis du corps." {Translators'
note.) (Throughout, all English translations of works cited in the text are by the translators, unless otherwise
noted.)
■fWe have adopted this term throughout, except when quoting directly from psychoanalytic literature,
because it renders more faithfully the meaning of Investlssement, which in French does service in libidinal
as well as political economy. We ha ve likewise chosen to translate investir as "to invest" instead of "to
cathect." (Translators'note.)
THE DESIRING-MACHINES 8
If we wish to have some idea of the forces that the body without
organs exerts later on in the uninterrupted process, we must first
establish a parallel between desiri ng-production and social production.
We intend such a parallel to be re garded as merely phenomenological:
we are here drawing no conclusions whatsoever as to the nature and the
relationship of the two productions, nor does the parallel we are about to
establish provide any sort of a priori answer to the question whether
The Socius and Capital
- The authors establish a phenomenological parallel between desiring-production and social production to show how both involve a nonproductive element.
- The socius, whether as the earth, a tyrant, or capital, acts as a 'full body' that functions as a recording surface for all productive forces.
- This recording surface appropriates the entire process of production, making it appear as though the products emanate from the socius as a quasi cause.
- Capital functions as the 'body without organs' of the capitalist, transforming the sterility of money into a self-reproducing force of surplus value.
- Society constructs a 'true consciousness of a false movement' by perceiving the objective movement of production as it is recorded on this surface.
But a perverted, bewitched world quickly comes into being, as capital increasingly plays the role of a recording surface that falls back on all of production.
THE DESIRING-MACHINES 8
If we wish to have some idea of the forces that the body without
organs exerts later on in the uninterrupted process, we must first
establish a parallel between desiri ng-production and social production.
We intend such a parallel to be re garded as merely phenomenological:
we are here drawing no conclusions whatsoever as to the nature and the
relationship of the two productions, nor does the parallel we are about to
establish provide any sort of a priori answer to the question whether
desiring-production and social producti on are really two separate and
distinct productions. Its one purpose is to point out the fact that the
forms of social production, like those of desiring-production, involve an
unengendered nonproductive attitude, an element of antiproduction
coupled with the process, a full body that functions as a socius. This
socius may be the body of the earth, that of the tyrant, or capital. This is
the body that Marx is referring to when he says that it is not the product
of labor, but rather appears as its natural or divine presupposition. In
fact, it does not restrict itself merely to opposing productive forces in
and of themselves. It falls back on (il se rabat sur) * all production,
constituting a surface over which the forces and agents of production are
distributed, thereby appropriating for itself all surplus production and
arrogating to itself both the whole a nd the parts of the process, which
now seem to emanate from it as a quasi cause. Forces and agents come
to represent a miraculous form of its own power: they appear to be
"miraculated" (miracules) by it. In a word, the socius as a full body
forms a surface where all production is recorded, whereupon the entire
process appears to emanate from this recording surface. Society con-
structs its own delirium by recording the process of production; but it is
not a conscious delirium, or rather is a true consciousness of a false
movement, a true perception of an apparent objective movement, a true
perception of the movement that is produced on the recording surface.
Capital is indeed the body without or gans of the capitalist, or rather
of the capitalist being. But as such, it is not only the fluid and petrified
substance of money, for it will give to the sterility of money the form
whereby money produces money. It pr oduces surplus value, just as the
body without organs reproduces itself, puts forth shoots, and branches
out to the farthest corners of the universe. It makes the machine
responsible for producing a relative surplus value, while embodying
itself in the machine as fixed capita l. Machines and agents cling so
*The verb se rabattre sur (and the noun rebattemenl), used by the authors here and in numerous instances in
the text below, has several different connotations, as lor instance: in descriptive geometry, to describe the
rotation of a plane so as to coincide with another plane, usually followed by a reverse rotation back into its
original position; a retreat to a previously held positi on, as in a battle; and a reduction to a lower level. In
the English text below, it will be translated in various ways, depending on the context, followed by the
French expression in parentheses. (Translators'note.)
1 0 A N T I - O E D I P U S
closely to capital that their very functioning appears to be miraculated by it.
Everything seems objectively to be produced by capital as quasi cause. As Marx
observes, in the be ginning capitalists are necessarily conscious of the opposition
between capital and labor, and of the us e of capital as a means of extorting
surplus labor. But a perverted, bewitche d world quickly comes into being, as
capital increasingly plays the role of a recording surface that falls back on (se
rabat sur) all of production. (Furnishing or realizing surplus value is what
establishes recording rights.) "With the de velopment of relativ e surplus-value in
The Miraculating Body of Capital
- Capital functions as a recording surface that appropriates the productive forces of labor, making it appear as though production issues from capital itself.
- This process creates a 'bewitched world' where the true source of value is obscured by a fetishistic objective movement.
- The body without organs acts as an unproductive surface that attracts and appropriates desiring-production, mirroring the way capital appropriates labor.
- A transition occurs from the law of connective synthesis to a law of distribution, where machines attach themselves to a nonproductive element.
- The schizophrenic experience and political economy are linked through the way organs are 'miraculated' or regenerated on a recording surface.
Capital thus becomes a very mystic being since all of labour's social productive forces appear to be due to capital, rather than labour as such, and seem to issue from the womb of capital itself.
closely to capital that their very functioning appears to be miraculated by it.
Everything seems objectively to be produced by capital as quasi cause. As Marx
observes, in the be ginning capitalists are necessarily conscious of the opposition
between capital and labor, and of the us e of capital as a means of extorting
surplus labor. But a perverted, bewitche d world quickly comes into being, as
capital increasingly plays the role of a recording surface that falls back on (se
rabat sur) all of production. (Furnishing or realizing surplus value is what
establishes recording rights.) "With the de velopment of relativ e surplus-value in
the actual specifically capitalist mode of production, whereby the productive
powers of social labour are developed, these productive powers and the social
interrelations of labour in the direct labour-process seem transferred from labour
to capital. Capital thus becomes a very my stic being since all of labour's social
productive forces appear to be due to capita l, rather than labour as such, and seem
to issue from the womb of capital itself."9 What is specifically capitalist here is
the role of money and the use of capital as a full body to constitute the recording
or inscribing surface. But some kind of full body, that of the earth or the despot, a
recording surface, an apparent objective movement, a fetishistic, perverted,
bewitched world are characteristic of all ty pes of society as a constant of social
reproduction.
The body without organs now falls back on (se rabat sur)
desiring-production, attracts it, a nd appropriates it for its own. The
organ-machines now cling to the body wit hout organs as though it were a fencer's
padded jacket, or as though these organ- machines were medals pinned onto the
jersey of a wrestler who makes them jingle as he starts toward his opponent. An
attraction-machine now takes the place, or may take the place, of a
repulsion-machine: a miraculating-mach ine succeeding the paranoiac machine.
But what is meant here by "succeeding" ? The two coexist, rather, and black
humor does not attempt to resolve contradictions, but to make it so that there are
none, and never were any. The body without organs, the unproductive, the
unconsumable, serves as a surface for th e recording of the entire process of
production of desire, so that desiring-mach ines seem to emanate from it in the
apparent objective movement that es tablishes a relationship between the
machines and the body without organs. The organs are regenerated, "miraculated"
on the body of Judge Schreber, who attract s God's rays to himself. Doubtless the
former paranoiac machine continues to exis t in the form of mocking voices that
attempt to "de-miraculate" (demiracu-ler) the organs, the Judge's anus in
particular. But the essential thing is the establishment of an enchanted recording
or inscribing surface that arrogates to its elf all the productive forces and all the
organs of
THE DESIRING-MACHINES 11
production, and that acts as a quasi cause by communicating the
apparent movement (the fetish) to them. So true is it that the schizo
practices political economy, and th at all sexuality is a matter of
economy.
Production is not recorded in the same way it is produced, however.
Or rather, it is not reproduced within the apparent objective movement
in the same way in which it is produced within the process of
constitution. In fact, we have passed imperceptibly into a domain of the
production of recording, whose law is not the same as that of the
production of production. The law governing the latter was connective
synthesis or coupling. But when the productive connections pass from
machines to the body without organs (as from labor to capital), it would
seem that they then come under another law that expresses a distribution
in relation to the nonproductive elem ent as a "natural or divine
presupposition" (the disjunctions of capital). Machines attach them-
The Law of Recording
- The text describes a shift from the 'connective synthesis' of production to a 'disjunctive synthesis' of recording on the body without organs.
- Unlike traditional logic that demands a choice between terms, the schizophrenic 'either... or' represents a system of permutations where all differences slide across a slippery surface.
- Desiring-production energy, or libido, is partially transformed into 'Numen,' a divine energy that governs the inscription of these disjunctions.
- The concept of God is redefined not as a religious entity, but as the master of the disjunctive syllogism and the principle of division for all secondary realities.
- The schizophrenic body becomes a recording surface where minute permutations of movement and speech serve as a response to the world.
The 'either ... or . . . or' of the schizophrenic takes over from the 'and then': no matter what two organs are involved, the way in which they are attached to the body without organs must be such that all the disjunctive syntheses between the two amount to the same on the slippery surface.
constitution. In fact, we have passed imperceptibly into a domain of the
production of recording, whose law is not the same as that of the
production of production. The law governing the latter was connective
synthesis or coupling. But when the productive connections pass from
machines to the body without organs (as from labor to capital), it would
seem that they then come under another law that expresses a distribution
in relation to the nonproductive elem ent as a "natural or divine
presupposition" (the disjunctions of capital). Machines attach them-
selves to the body without organs as so many points of disjunction,
between which an entire network of new syntheses is now woven,
marking the surface off into co-ordinates, like a grid. The "either ... or . .
. or" of the schizophrenic takes over from the "and then": no matter what
two organs are involved, the way in wh ich they are attached to the body
without organs must be such that all the disjunctive syntheses between
the two amount to the same on th e slippery surface. Whereas the
"either/or" claims to mark decisive choices between immutable terms
(the alternative: e ither this or that), the schizophrenic "either . . . or . . .
or" refers to the system of possibl e permutations between differences
that always amount to the same as th ey shift and slide about. As in the
case of Beckett's mouth that speaks and feet that walk: "He sometimes
halted without saying anything. Either he had finally nothing to say, or
while having something to say he finally decided not to say it. . . . Other
main examples suggest themselves to the mind. Immediate continuous
communication with immediate redepa rture. Same thing with delayed
redeparture. Delayed continuous communication with immediate
redeparture. Same thing with delayed redeparture. Immediate
discontinuous communication with imme diate redeparture. Same thing
with delayed redeparture. Delaye d discontinuous communication with
immediate redeparture. Same th ing with delayed redeparture."10
Thus the schizophrenic, the possessor of the most touchingly
meager capital—Malone's belongi ngs, for instance—inscribes on his
own body the litany of disjunctions, and creates for himself a world of
parries where the most minute of pe rmutations is supposed to be a
response to the new situation or a repl y to the indiscreet questioner. The
disjunctive synthesis of recording therefore comes to overlap the
1 2 A N T I - O E D I P U S
connective syntheses of production. The process as process of produc-
tion extends into the method as method of inscription. Or rather, if what
we term libido is the connective "labor" of desiring-production, it
should be said that a part of this energy is transformed into the energy of
disjunctive inscription (Numen). A transformation of energy. But why
call this new form of energy divine, why label it Numen, in view of all
the ambiguities caused by a problem of the unconscious that is only
apparently religious? The body without organs is not God, quite the
contrary. But the energy that sweeps through it is divine, when it attracts
to itself the entire process of production and server as its miraculate,
enchanted surface, inscribing it in ea ch and every one of its disjunctions.
Hence the strange relationship that Schreber has with God. To anyone
who asks: "Do you believe in God?" we should reply in strictly Kantian
or Schreberian terms: "Of course , but only as the master of the
disjunctive syllogism, or as its a pr iori principle (God defined as the
Omnitudo realitatis, from which all secondary realities are derived by a
process of division)."
Hence the sole thing that is divine is the nature of an energy of
disjunctions. Schreber's divine is in separable from the disjunctions he
employs to divide himself up into pa rts: earlier empires, later empires;
later empires of a superior God, an d those of an inferior God. Freud
Disjunctions and the Oedipal Trap
- The text redefines God as the master of the disjunctive syllogism, representing a divine energy of division rather than a personal deity.
- Freud is criticized for attempting to reduce the complex, decomposed elements of paranoia back into the condensed identifications of the Oedipal complex.
- The authors suggest that the Oedipus complex is not a natural stage of desire but a social requirement used to domesticate intractable genealogical forms.
- Schizophrenics are subjected to social interrogation—exemplified by Beckett's Molloy—where they are forced to translate their experiences into the code of family names.
- Psychoanalysis is portrayed as an extension of social control that insists on finding 'daddy' and 'mommy' behind every divine or psychotic vision.
Is it not more likely that Oedipus is a requirement or a consequence of social reproduction, insofar as this latter aims at domesticating a genealogical form and content that are in every way intractable?
who asks: "Do you believe in God?" we should reply in strictly Kantian
or Schreberian terms: "Of course , but only as the master of the
disjunctive syllogism, or as its a pr iori principle (God defined as the
Omnitudo realitatis, from which all secondary realities are derived by a
process of division)."
Hence the sole thing that is divine is the nature of an energy of
disjunctions. Schreber's divine is in separable from the disjunctions he
employs to divide himself up into pa rts: earlier empires, later empires;
later empires of a superior God, an d those of an inferior God. Freud
stresses the importance of these disj unctive syntheses in Schreber's
delirium in particular, but also in delirium as a general phenomenon. "A
process of decomposition of this kind is very characteristic of paranoia.
Paranoia decomposes just as hysteria condenses. Or rather, paranoia
resolves once more into their elemen ts the products of the condensa-
tions and identifications which are effected in the unconscious."11 But
why does Freud thus add that, on second thought, hysterical neurosis
comes first, and that disjunctions appear only as a result of the
projection of a more basic, primordial condensed material? Doubtless
this is a way of maintaining intact the rights of Oedipus in the God of
delirium and the schizoparanoiac record ing process. And for that very
reason we must pose the most far-reaching question in this regard: does
the recording of desire go by way of the various stages in the formation
of the Oedipus complex? Disjunctions are the form that the genealogy of
desire assumes; but is this genealogy Oedipal, is it recorded in the
Oedipal triangulation? Is it not more likely that Oedipus is a requirement
or a consequence of social reproduction, insofar as this latter aims at
domesticating a genealogical form and content that are in every way
intractable? For there is no doubting the fact that the schizo is
constantly subjected to interrogation, constantly cross-examined. Pre-
cisely because his relationship with nature does not constitute a specific
THE DESIRING-MACHINES 13
pole, the questions put to him are fo rmulated in terms of the existing
social code: your name, your father, your mother? In the course of his
exercises in desiring-production, Becket t's Molloy is cross-examined by
a policeman: "Your name is Molloy, sa id the sergeant. Yes, I said, now I
remember. And your mother? said the sergeant. I didn't follow. Is your
mother's name Molloy too? said th e sergeant. I thought it over. Your
mother, said the sergeant, is your mo ther's— Let me think! I cried. At
least I imagine that's how it was. Take your time, said the sergeant. Was
mother's name Molloy? Very likely. Her name must be Molloy too, I
said. They took me away, to the gua rdroom I suppose, and there I was
told to sit down. I must have tried to explain."12
We cannot say that psychoanalys is is very innovative in this
respect: it continues to ask its questions and develop its interpretations
from the depths of the Oedipal triangl e as its basic perspective, even
though today it is acutely aware that th is frame of reference is not at all
adequate to explain so-called psychotic phenomena. The psychoanalyst
says that we must necessarily discover Schreber's daddy beneath his
superior God, and doubtless also his elder brother beneath his inferior
God. At times the schi zophrenic loses his patience and demands to be
left alone. Other times he goes along with the whole game and even
invents a few tricks of his own, in troducing his own reference points in
the model put before him and undermining it from within ("Yes, that's
my mother, all right, but my mother's the Virgin Mary, you know"). One
can easily imagine Schreber answering Freud: "Yes, I quite agree,
naturally the talking birds are young gi rls, and the superior God is my
daddy and the inferior God my brot her." But little by little he will
Schizophrenic Resistance to Oedipus
- The schizophrenic resists the imposition of the Oedipal triangle by parodying its terms or expanding them into divine and complex forms.
- The body without organs acts as a site of self-production that rejects the notion of being a product of biological parents.
- Schizophrenic delirium utilizes a fluid recording code that deliberately scrambles social and genealogical categories to maintain autonomy.
- By shifting between different explanations and codes, the schizophrenic undermines the simplistic functions of the family model from within.
- The process of 'desimplification' allows the subject to identify as their own father, mother, and son simultaneously, breaking linear time.
The code of delirium or of desire proves to have an extraordinary fluidity.
God. At times the schi zophrenic loses his patience and demands to be
left alone. Other times he goes along with the whole game and even
invents a few tricks of his own, in troducing his own reference points in
the model put before him and undermining it from within ("Yes, that's
my mother, all right, but my mother's the Virgin Mary, you know"). One
can easily imagine Schreber answering Freud: "Yes, I quite agree,
naturally the talking birds are young gi rls, and the superior God is my
daddy and the inferior God my brot her." But little by little he will
surreptitiously "reimpregnate" the series of young girls with all talking
birds, his father with the superior G od, and his brother with the inferior
God, all of them divine forms th at become complicated, or rather
"desimplified," as they break thr ough the simplistic terms and functions
of the Oedipal triangle. As Artaud put it:
I don't believe in father
in mother,
got no papamummy
Desiring-production forms a binary-linear system. The full body is
introduced as a third term in the se ries, without destroying, however, the
essential binary-linear nature of this series: 2, 1, 2, 1. . . . The series is
completely refractory to a transcription that would transform and mold
M ANTI-OEDIPUS
it into a specifically ternary and triangul ar schema such as Oedipus. The full body
without organs is produced as antiproduction, that is to say it intervenes within
the process as such for the sole purpose of rejecting any attempt to impose on it
any sort of triangulation implying that it was produced by parents. How could this
body have been produced by parents, when by its very nature it is such eloquent
witness of its own self-production, of its own engendering of itself? And it is
precisely here on this body, right where it is, that the Numen is distributed and
disjunctions are established, indepe ndent of any sort of projection. Yes, I have
been my father and I have been m y son. "I, Antonin Artaud, am my son, my
father, my mother, and myself ."12a The schizo has his own system of co-ordinates
for situating himself at his disposal, because, first of all, he has at his disposal his
very own recording code, which does not coincide with the social code, or
coincides with it only in order to parody it. The code of delirium or of desire
proves to have an extraordinary fluidity. It might be said that the schizophrenic
passes from one code to the other, that he deliberately scrambles all the codes, by
quickly shifting from one to another, acco rding to the questions asked him, never
giving the same explanation from one da y to the next, never invoking the same
genealogy, never recording the same event in the same way. When he is more or
less forced into it and is not in a touchy mood, he may even accept the banal
Oedipal code, so long as he can stuff it fu ll of all the disjunctions that this code
was designed to eliminate.
Adolf Wolfli's drawings reveal the workings of all sorts of clocks, turbines,
dynamos, celestial machines, house-machin es, and so on. And these machines
work in a connective fashion, from the perimeter to the center, in successive
layers or segments. But the "explanations " that he provides for them, which he
changes as often as the mood strikes him, are based on genealogical series that
constitute the recording of each of his draw ings. What is even more important, the
recording process affects the drawings themselves, showing up in the form of
lines standing for "catastrophe" or "colla pse" that are so many disjunctions
surrounded by spirals.13 The schizo maintains a sh aky balance for the simple
reason that the result is always the same, no matter what the disjunctions.
Although the organ-machines attach themse lves to the body without organs, the
Recording and the Residual Subject
- The body without organs remains a fluid, uncreated surface where agents of production and genealogical recordings swarm like fleas on a lion's mane.
- Recording acts as a middle stage between production and consumption, where a strange, wandering subject begins to emerge without a fixed identity.
- This subject is defined by the 'residual share' of pleasure it takes from the process, being reborn with each new state it consumes.
- Judge Schreber's case illustrates how the subject accepts small amounts of sensual pleasure as a compensation for the suffering required to satisfy a demanding God.
- Desiring-production transforms libido into different energies: Numen for recording and Voluptas for the energy of consummation.
The surface of this uncreated body swarms with them, as a lion's mane swarms with fleas.
work in a connective fashion, from the perimeter to the center, in successive
layers or segments. But the "explanations " that he provides for them, which he
changes as often as the mood strikes him, are based on genealogical series that
constitute the recording of each of his draw ings. What is even more important, the
recording process affects the drawings themselves, showing up in the form of
lines standing for "catastrophe" or "colla pse" that are so many disjunctions
surrounded by spirals.13 The schizo maintains a sh aky balance for the simple
reason that the result is always the same, no matter what the disjunctions.
Although the organ-machines attach themse lves to the body without organs, the
latter continues nonetheless to be wit hout organs and does not become an
organism in the ordinary sense of the word. It remains fluid and slippery. Agents
of production likewise alight on Schreber 's body and cling to it—the sunbeams,
for instance, that he attracts, which contain thousands of tiny spermatozoids.
Sunbeams,
THE DES1RING-MACHINES 15
birds, voices, nerves enter into ch angeable and genealogically complex
relationships with God and forms of G od derived from the godhead by division.
But all this happens and is all recorded on the surface of the body without
organs: even the copulations of the agents , even the divisions of God, even the
genealogies marking it off into squares like a grid, and their permutations. The
surface of this uncreated body swarms with them, as a lion's mane swarms with
fleas.
3 The Subject and Enjoyment
Conforming to the meaning of the word "process," recording
falls back on (se rabat sur) production, but the production of recording itself is
produced by the production of production. Similarly, recording is followed by
consumption, but the production of consumption is produced in and through the
production of recording. This is because something on the order of a subject can
be discerned on the recording surface. It is a strange subject, however, with no
fixed identity, wandering about over th e body without organs, but always
remaining peripheral to the desiring-machines, being defined by the share of the
product it takes for itself, garnering here, there, and everywhere a reward in the
form of a becoming or an avatar, being born of the states that it consumes and
being reborn with each new state. "It's me, and so it's mine. . . ." Even suffering,
as Marx says, is a form of self-enjoym ent. Doubtless all desiring-production is, in
and of itself, immediately consumptio n and consummation, and therefore,
"sensual pleasure." But this is not yet the case for a subject that can situate itself
only in terms of the disjunctions of a reco rding surface, in what is left after each
division. Returning yet again to the case of Judge Schreber, we note that he is
vividly aware of this fact: the rate of co smic sexual pleasure remains constant, so
that God will find a way of taking his pleas ure with Schreber, even if in order to
do so Schreber must transform himself into a woman. But Schreber experiences
only a residual share of this pleasure, as a recompense for his suffering or as a
reward for his becoming-woman. "O n the other hand, God demands a constant
state of enjoyment. . . and it is my duty to provide him with this ... in the shape of
the greatest possible output of spiritual voluptuousness. And if, in this process, a
little sensual pleasure falls to my share, I feel justified in accepting it as some
slight compensation for the inordinate me asure of suffering and privation that has
been mine for so many past years."14 Just as a part of the libido as energy of
production was transformed into energy of recording (Numen), a part of this
energy
18 A N T I - O E D I P U S
of recording is transformed into energy of consummation (Voluptas).* It is this
The Celibate Machine
- The text describes the third synthesis of the unconscious, known as the conjunctive synthesis, which produces the subject as a residual effect of consumption.
- A transition occurs from the paranoiac machine of repulsion to a miraculating machine of attraction, eventually leading to a reconciliation between desiring-machines and the body without organs.
- Schreber's process of self-cure involves a 'becoming-woman' where he accepts a state of spiritual voluptuousness as a duty to provide God with enjoyment.
- The 'celibate machine' is introduced as a mechanism that forms a new alliance between machines and the body to birth a 'glorious organism' or a new humanity.
- The subject is produced alongside these machines, experiencing a moment of realization characterized by the wonderstruck exclamation: 'So that's what it was!'
I am sometimes to be found, standing before the mirror or elsewhere, with the upper portion of my body partly bared, and wearing sundry feminine adornments, such as ribbons, trumpery necklaces, and the like.
only a residual share of this pleasure, as a recompense for his suffering or as a
reward for his becoming-woman. "O n the other hand, God demands a constant
state of enjoyment. . . and it is my duty to provide him with this ... in the shape of
the greatest possible output of spiritual voluptuousness. And if, in this process, a
little sensual pleasure falls to my share, I feel justified in accepting it as some
slight compensation for the inordinate me asure of suffering and privation that has
been mine for so many past years."14 Just as a part of the libido as energy of
production was transformed into energy of recording (Numen), a part of this
energy
18 A N T I - O E D I P U S
of recording is transformed into energy of consummation (Voluptas).* It is this
residual energy that is the motive force behind the third synthesis of the
unconscious: the conjunctive synthesis "s o it's . . . ," or the production of
consumption.
We must examine how this synthesis is formed or how the subject is
produced. Our point of departure was the opposition between desiring-machines
and the body without organs. The repulsion of these machines, as found in the
paranoiac machine of primary repression, gave way to an attraction in the
miraculating machine. But the oppositi on between attraction and repulsion
persists. It would seem that a genuine reconciliation of the two can take place
only on the level of a new machine, functioni ng as "the return of the repressed."
There are a number of proofs that such a reconciliation does or can exist. With no
further details being provided, we are told of Robert Gie, the very talented
designer of paranoiac electrical machines: "Since he was unable to free himself
of these currents that were tormenting hi m, he gives every appearance of having
finally joined forces with them, taking passionate pride in portraying them in
their total victory, in their triumph."15 Freud is more specific when he stresses the
crucial turning point that occurs in Sc hreber's illness when Schreber becomes
reconciled to becoming-woman and embarks upon a process of self-cure that
brings him back to the equation Nature = Production (the production of a new
humanity). As a matter of fact, Schreber finds himself frozen in the pose and
trapped in the paraphernalia of a transves tite, at a moment when he is practically
cured and has recovered all his faculties: "I am sometimes to be found, standing
before the mirror or elsewhere, with the upper portion of my body partly bared,
and wearing sundry feminine adornments, such as ribbons, trumpery necklaces,
and the like. This occurs onl y, I may add, when I am by myself, and never, at
least so far as I am able to avoid it, in the presence of other people."16 Let us
borrow the term "celibate m achine" to designate this machine that succeeds the
paranoiac machine and the miraculati ng machine, forming a new alliance
between the desiring-machines and the body w ithout organs so as to give birth to
a new humanity or a glorious organism. This is tantamount to saying that the
subject is produced as a mere residuum alongside the desiring-machines, or that
he confuses himself with this third productive machine and with the residual
reconciliation that it brings about: a
*The French term here is energie de consommalion. The word consommation has a number of meanings in
French, among thern consummation (as of a marriage); an ultimate fulfillment or perfection; and
consumption (as of raw material, fuel, or products). The term has therefore been translated variously below,
depending on the context. (Translators' note.)
THE DESIRING-MACHINES IT
conjunctive synthesis of consummati on in the form of a wonderstruck
"So that's what it was!"
Michel Carrouges has identified a certain number of fantastic
machines—"celibate machines"—that he has discovered in works of
literature. The examples he points to are of many very different sorts,
The Celibate Machine
- The celibate machine represents a shift from ancient paranoiac machines of torture toward a new, solar force of automatic pleasure.
- This machine achieves a genuine consummation or radiant ecstasy that liberates unlimited forces through an autoerotic mechanism.
- The primary output of the celibate machine is intensive quantities, which are experienced as pure, naked states of transition.
- These intensities precede hallucination and delirium, rooted in a primary 'I feel' that experiences becoming rather than fixed identity.
- All intensities are positive values measured against the zero intensity of the full body without organs.
A genuine consummation is achieved by the new machine, a pleasure that can rightly be called autoerotic, or rather automatic: the nuptial celebration of a new alliance, a new birth, a radiant ecstasy, as though the eroticism of the machine liberated other unlimited forces.
*The French term here is energie de consommalion. The word consommation has a number of meanings in
French, among thern consummation (as of a marriage); an ultimate fulfillment or perfection; and
consumption (as of raw material, fuel, or products). The term has therefore been translated variously below,
depending on the context. (Translators' note.)
THE DESIRING-MACHINES IT
conjunctive synthesis of consummati on in the form of a wonderstruck
"So that's what it was!"
Michel Carrouges has identified a certain number of fantastic
machines—"celibate machines"—that he has discovered in works of
literature. The examples he points to are of many very different sorts,
and at first glance do not seem to belong to a single category: Marcel
Duchamp's painting "La mariee mise a nu par ses celibataires, meme"
("The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even"), the machine in
Kafka's "In the Penal Colony," Raymond Roussel's machines, those of
Jarry's Surmale ( Supermale), certain of Edgar Allan Poe's machines,
Villiers's Eve fu ture ( The Futur e E ve), etc.17 The characteristics that
allow us to classify all of them in this one category—though their
importance varies according to the example considered—are as follows:
the celibate machine first of all reveals the existence of a much older
paranoiac machine, with its tortures, its dark shadows, its ancient Law.
The celibate machine itself is not a paranoiac machine, however.
Everything about it is different: its cogs, its sliding carriage, its shears,
needles, magnets, rays. Even when it tortures or kills, it manifests
something new and different, a solar force. In the second place, this
transfiguration cannot be explaine d by the "miraculating" powers the
machine possesses due to the inscrip tion hidden inside it, though it in
fact contains within itself the most impressive sort of inscriptions (cf.
the recording supplied by Edison for Eve future). A genuine consumma-
tion is achieved by the new machine, a pleasure that can rightly be called
autoerotic, or rather automatic: the nuptial celebration of a new alliance,
a new birth, a radiant ecstasy, as though the eroticism of the machine
liberated other unlimited forces.
The question becomes: what does the celibate machine produce?
what is produced by means of it? The answer would seem to be:
intensive quantities. There is a schi zophrenic experience of intensive
quantities in their pure state, to a point that is almost unbearable—a
celibate misery and glory experienced to the fullest, like a cry suspended
between life and death, an intense fee ling of transition, states of pure,
naked intensity stripped of all shape and form. These are often described
as hallucinations and delirium, but the basic phenomenon of
hallucination (/ see, I h ear) and the basic phenomenon of delirium (J
think . . . ) presuppose an I feel at an even deeper level, which gives
hallucinations their object and thought delirium its content—an "I feel
that I am becoming a woman," "that I am becoming a god," and so on,
which is neither delirious nor hallucinatory, but will project the halluci-
nation or internalize the delirium. Delirium and hallucination are secon-
dary in relation to the really prim ary emotion, which in the beginning
1 8 A N T I - O E D I P U S
only experiences intensities, becomings, transitions.* Where do these pure
intensities come from? They come from the two preceding forces, repulsion and
attraction, and from the opposition of these tw o forces. It must not be thought that
the intensities themselves are in opposition to one another, arriving at a state of
balance around a neutral state. On the contrary, they are all positive in
relationship to the zero intensity that designates the full body without organs.
And they undergo relative rises or falls depending on the complex relationship
between them and the variations in the relative strength of attraction and
Intensities and the Schizoid Body
- Intensities arise from the dynamic opposition of attraction and repulsion, creating a series of positive states rather than a balanced equilibrium.
- The body without organs functions as an egg, marked by gradients, thresholds, and vectors that define the subject's becoming.
- Schizophrenic experience is described as a direct contact with the 'burning, living center of matter' rather than a withdrawal from reality.
- The text critiques psychiatry and psychoanalysis for reducing complex intensive experiences to 'dead things' or simplistic Oedipal narratives.
- Lived experience on the body without organs is non-representative; for example, the feeling of breasts is a zone of intensity rather than a literal hallucination.
One's entire soul flows into this emotion that makes the mind aware of the terribly disturbing sound of matter, and passes through its white-hot flame.
intensities come from? They come from the two preceding forces, repulsion and
attraction, and from the opposition of these tw o forces. It must not be thought that
the intensities themselves are in opposition to one another, arriving at a state of
balance around a neutral state. On the contrary, they are all positive in
relationship to the zero intensity that designates the full body without organs.
And they undergo relative rises or falls depending on the complex relationship
between them and the variations in the relative strength of attraction and
repulsion as determining factors. In a word, the opposition of the forces of
attraction and repulsion produces an open seri es of intensive elements, all of them
positive, that are never an expression of the final equilibrium of a system, but
consist, rather, of an unlimited number of stationary, metastable states through
which a subject passes. The Kantian th eory according to which intensive
quantities fill up, to varying degrees, matter that has no empty sp aces, is
profoundly schizoid.
Further, if we are to believe Judge Schreber's doctrine, attraction and
repulsion produce intense nervous states that fill up the body without organs to
varying degrees—states through which Schr eber-the-subject passes, becoming a
woman and many other things as well, following an endless circle of eternal
return. The breasts on the judge's naked torso are neither delirious nor
hallucinatory phenomena: they designate, fi rst of all, a band of intensity, a zone
of intensity on his body without organs. Th e body without organs is an egg: it is
crisscrossed with axes and thresholds, with latitudes and l ongitudes and geodesic
lines, traversed by gradients marking the transitions and the becomings, the
destinations of the subject developing along these particular vectors. Nothing
here is representative; rather, it is all life and lived experience: the actual, lived
emotion of having breasts does not resemb le breasts, it does not represent them,
any more than a predestined zone in the egg resembles the organ that it is going
to be stimulated to produce within itself. Nothing but bands of intensity,
potentials, thresholds, and gradients. A harrowing, emotionally overwhelming
experience, which brings the schizo as close as possible to matter, to a burning,
living center of matter: ". . . this emotion, situated outside of the particular point
where the mind is searching for it . . . one 's entire soul flows into this emotion
that makes the mind aware of the terribl y disturbing sound of matter, and passes
through its white-hot flame."18
How is it possible that the schizo was conceived of as the autistic
*W.R.Bion is the first to have stressed this importance of the I feel, but he places it in the realm of fantasy
and makes it an affective parallel of the / think. See Elements of Psycho-analysis (London: Heinemann,
1963), pp. 94ff.
THE DESIRING-MACHINES IS
rag—separated from the real and cut off from life—that he is so often
thought to be? Worse still: how can psychiatric practice have made him
this sort of rag, how can it have reduced him to this state of a body
without organs that has become a d ead thing—this schizo who sought to
remain at that unbearable point where the mind touches matter and lives
its every intensity, consumes it? A nd shouldn't this question immediately
compel us to raise another one, which at first glance seems quite
different: how does psychoanalysis go about reducing a person, who this
time is not a schizophrenic but a ne urotic, to a piti ful creature who
eternally consumes daddy-and-mommy and nothing else whatsoever?
How could the conjunctive synthesis of "So that's what it was!" and
"So it's me!" have been reduced to the endless, dreary discovery of
Oedipus: "So it's my father, my mo ther"? We cannot answer these two
questions at this point. We merely see how very little the consumption
The Decentered Subject
- The text critiques psychoanalysis for reducing the complex intensive experiences of the subject to a narrow, 'dreary' obsession with parental figures and the Oedipal complex.
- The subject is described not as a central ego, but as a peripheral residuum or 'spare part' produced alongside the desiring-machine.
- Identity is presented as a series of fortuitous states or oscillations on the body without organs, rather than a fixed or stable self.
- The Nietzschean subject exemplifies this process by passing through various historical identities, claiming that 'every name in history is I.'
- The 'celibate machine' produces a series of intensive states that the subject consumes and is reborn from at every moment.
This subject itself is not at the center, which is occupied by the machine, but on the periphery, with no fixed identity, forever decentered, defined by the states through which it passes.
compel us to raise another one, which at first glance seems quite
different: how does psychoanalysis go about reducing a person, who this
time is not a schizophrenic but a ne urotic, to a piti ful creature who
eternally consumes daddy-and-mommy and nothing else whatsoever?
How could the conjunctive synthesis of "So that's what it was!" and
"So it's me!" have been reduced to the endless, dreary discovery of
Oedipus: "So it's my father, my mo ther"? We cannot answer these two
questions at this point. We merely see how very little the consumption
of pure intensities has to do with family figures, and how very different
the connective tissue of the "So it's . . ." is from the Oedipal tissue.
How can we sum up this entire vita l progression? Let us trace it
along a first path (the shortest route): the points of disjunction on the
body without organs form circles that converge on the
desiring-machines; then the subject—produced as a residuum alongside
the machine, as an appendix, or as a spare part adjacent to the
machine-passes through all the degrees of the circle, and passes from one
circle to another. This subject itself is not at the center, which is
occupied by the machine, but on th e periphery, with no fixed identity,
forever decen-tered, defined by the states through which it passes. Thus
the circles traced by Beckett's U nnamable: "a succession of irregular
loops, now sharp and short as in the waltz, now of a parabolic sweep,"19
with Murphy, Watt, Merrier, etc., as states, without the family having
anything whatsoever to do with all of this. Or, to follow a path that is
more complex, but leads in the end to the same thing: by means of the
paranoiac machine and the miracula ting machine, the proportions of
attraction and repulsion on the body without organs produce, starting
from zero, a series of states in the celibate machine; and the subject is
born of each state in the series, is continually reborn of the following
state that determines him at a gi ven moment, consum ing-consummating
all these states that cause him to be born and reborn (the lived state
coming first, in relation to the subject that lives it).
This is what Klossowski has admirably demonstrated in his com-
mentary on Nietzsche: the presence of the Stimmung as a material
emotion, constitutive of the most lofty thought and the most acute
perception. "The centrifugal forces do not flee the center forever, but
approach it once again, only to retreat from it yet again: such is the
SO ANTI-OEDIPUS
nature of the violent oscillations that overwhelm an individual so long as
he seeks only his own center and is incapable of seeing the circle of
which he himself is a part; for if th ese oscillations overwhelm him, it is
because each one of them corresponds to an individual other than the
one he believes himself to be, from th e point of view of the unlocatable
center. As a result, an identity is essentially fortuitous, and a series of
individualities must be undergone by eac h of these oscillations, so that
as a consequence the fortuitousness of this or that particular individual-
ity will render all of them necessary."20 The forces of attraction and
repulsion, of soaring ascents and plunging falls, produce a series of
intensive states based on the intensity = 0 that designates the body
without organs ("but what is most unusual is that here again a new afflux
is necessary, merely to signify this absence"21). There is no
Nietzsche-the-self, professor of ph ilology, who suddenly loses his mind
and supposedly identifies with all sorts of strange people; rather, there is
the Nietzschean subject who passes th rough a series of states, and who
identifies these states with the names of history: "every name in history
is I. . . ."22 The subject spreads itself out along the entire circumference
of the circle, the center of which has been abandoned by the ego. At the
Nietzsche and Materialist Psychiatry
- The Nietzschean subject is redefined not as a stable ego, but as a series of states that identify with every name in history.
- The 'desiring-machine' occupies the center of the subject's experience, producing a euphoric reward through the Eternal Return.
- Schizophrenic experience is characterized by the consumption of universal history, transforming 'Homo natura' into 'Homo historia.'
- Psychiatrist G. de Clérambault’s theory suggests that global delirium is a secondary effect of local, mechanical automatisms.
- The text argues that mental automatism should be viewed as a process of economic production rather than a mere neurological malfunction.
The subject spreads itself out along the entire circumference of the circle, the center of which has been abandoned by the ego.
is necessary, merely to signify this absence"21). There is no
Nietzsche-the-self, professor of ph ilology, who suddenly loses his mind
and supposedly identifies with all sorts of strange people; rather, there is
the Nietzschean subject who passes th rough a series of states, and who
identifies these states with the names of history: "every name in history
is I. . . ."22 The subject spreads itself out along the entire circumference
of the circle, the center of which has been abandoned by the ego. At the
center is the desiring-machine, the celibate machine of the Eternal
Return. A residual subject of the machine, Nietzsche-as-subject garners
a euphoric reward (Voluptas) from ev erything that this machine turns
out, a product that the reader had thought to be no more than the
fragmented oeuvre by Nietzsche. "Nietzsche believes that he is now
pursuing, not the realization of a system, but the application of a
program ... in the form of residues of the Nietzschean discourse, which
have now become the repertory, so to speak, of his histrioni-cism."23 It
is not a matter of identifying with various historical personages, but
rather identifying the names of history with zones of intensity on the
body without organs; and each tim e Nietzsche-as-s ubject exclaims:
'They're me\ So it's me\" No one has ever been as deeply involved in
history as the schizo, or dealt with it in this way. He consumes all of
universal history in one fell swoop. We began by defining him as Homo
natura, and lo and behold, he has turned out to be Homo historia. This
long road that leads from the one to the other stretches from Holderlin
to Nietzsche, and the pace becomes faster and faster. "The euphoria
could not be prolonged in Nietzsche for as long a time as the
contemplative alienation of Holder lin. . . . The vision of the world
granted to Nietzsche does not in augurate a more or less regular
succession of landscapes or still lifes, extending over a period of forty
years or so; it is, rather, a parody of the process of recollection of an
event: a single actor will play the whole of it in pantomime in the course
THE DESIRING-MACHINES 21
of a single solemn day—because the whole of it reaches expression and
then disappears once again in the space of just one day—even though it
may appear to have taken plac e between December 31 and January
6—in a realm above and beyond the usual rational calendar."24
4 A Materialist Psychiatry
The famous hypothesis put forward by the psychiatrist
G. de Clerambault seems well founded: delirium, which is by nature
global and systematic, is a seconda ry phenomenon, a consequence of
partial and local automatistic phenomena. Delirium is in fact character-
istic of the recording that is made of the process of production of the
desiring-machines; and though there are syntheses and disorders (affec-
tions) that are peculiar to this recording process, as we see in paranoia
and even in the paranoid forms of schizophrenia, it does not constitute
an autonomous sphere, for it depe nds on the functioning and the
breakdowns of desiring-machines. No netheless Clerambault used the
term "(mental) automatism" to de signate only athematic phenomena—
echolalia, the uttering of odd sounds , or sudden irrational outbursts—
which he attributed to the mechanical effects of infections or intoxica-
tions. Moreover, he explained a large part of delirium in turn as an effect
of automatism; as for the rest of it, the "personal" part, in his view it
was of the nature of a reaction and had to do with "character," the
manifestations of which might well precede the automatism (as in the
paranoiac character, for instance).25 Hence Clerambault regarded au-
tomatism as merely a ne urological mechanism in the most general sense
of the word, rather than a process of economic production involving
desiring-machines. As for history, he was content merely to mention its
Materialist Psychiatry and Schizophrenic Resistance
- Clerambault is criticized for viewing automatism as a neurological mechanism rather than a productive process of desiring-machines.
- The traditional trinary schema of schizophrenia—dissociation, autism, and space-time—is rejected for tethering the disorder to the ego and the body image.
- A truly materialist psychiatry must introduce desire into the mechanism and production into desire, moving beyond spiritualist and positivist limits.
- The schizophrenic is described as having moved beyond the concept of the ego, viewing attempts to restore their 'I' as a form of clinical harassment.
- Freud's failure to understand schizophrenia is attributed to his 'Oedipal imperialism' and a personal dislike for those who resist being oedipalized.
All of which the schizo sums up by saying: they're fucking me over again.
tions. Moreover, he explained a large part of delirium in turn as an effect
of automatism; as for the rest of it, the "personal" part, in his view it
was of the nature of a reaction and had to do with "character," the
manifestations of which might well precede the automatism (as in the
paranoiac character, for instance).25 Hence Clerambault regarded au-
tomatism as merely a ne urological mechanism in the most general sense
of the word, rather than a process of economic production involving
desiring-machines. As for history, he was content merely to mention its
innate or acquired nature . Clerambault is the Feuerbach of psychiatry, in
the sense in which Marx remarks: "Whenever Feuerbach looks at things
as a materialist, there is no history in his works, and whenever he takes
history into account, he no longer is a materialist." A truly materialist
psychiatry can be defined, on the contrary, by the twofold task it sets
itself: introducing desire into the mechanism, and introducing production
into desire.
There is no very great difference between false materialism and
typical forms of idealism. The theory of schizophrenia is formulated in
terms of three concepts that constitute its trinary schema: dissociation
(Kraepelin), autism (Bleuler), and space-time or being-in-the-world
(Binswanger). The first of these is an explanatory concept that suppos-
edly locates the specific dysfunction or primary deficiency. The second
Z 2 ANTI-OEDIPUS
is an ideational concept indicating the specific nature of the effect of the disorder:
the delirium itself or the complete withdrawal from the outside world, "the
detachment from reality, accompanied by a relative or an abso lute predominance
of [the schizophrenic's] inner life." The third concept is a descriptive one,
discovering or rediscovering the delirious person in his own specific world. What
is common to these three concepts is the fact that they all relate the problem of
schizophrenia to the ego through the inte rmediary of the "body image"—the final
avatar of the soul, a vague conjoining of the requirements of spiritualism and
positivism.
The ego, however, is like daddy-mommy: the schizo has long since ceased
to believe in it. He is somewhere else, beyond or behind or below these problems,
rather than immersed in them. And wherever he is, there are problems,
insurmountable sufferings, unbearable need s. But why try to bring him back to
what he has escaped from, why set him back down amid problems that are no
longer problems to him, why mock his truth by believing that we have paid it its
due by merely figuratively taking our hats off to it? There are those who will
maintain that the schizo is incapable of uttering the word I, and that we must
restore his ability to pronounce this hallowe d word. All of which the schizo sums
up by saying: they're fucking me over agai n. "I won't say / a ny more, I'll never
utter the word again; it's just too damn stupid. Every time I hear it, I'll use the
third person instead, if I happen to remember to. If it amuses them. And it won't
make one bit of difference."26 And if he does chance to utter the word I again,
that won't make any difference either. He is too far removed from these problems,
too far past them.
Even Freud never went beyond this narrow and limited conception of the
ego. And what prevented him from doi ng so was his own tr ipartite formula—the
Oedipal, neurotic one: daddy-mommy-me. We may well ponder the possibility
that the analytic imperialism of the Oedi pus complex led Freud to rediscover, and
to lend all the weight of his authority to, the unfortunate misapplication of the
concept of autism to schizophrenia. For we must not delude ourselves: Freud
doesn't like schizophrenics. He doesn't lik e their resistance to being oedipalized,
and tends to treat them more or less as animals. They mist ake words for things,
he says. They are apathetic, narcissistic, cut off from reality, incapable of
The Productive Unconscious vs Oedipus
- The text critiques Freud's application of the Oedipus complex to schizophrenia, suggesting he viewed schizophrenics with a certain disdain for their resistance to being 'oedipalized.'
- Psychoanalysis originally discovered the unconscious as a site of desire production, but later replaced this 'factory' model with a 'classical theater' of representation and myth.
- By framing the unconscious through Oedipal idealism, the real relationship of production is lost in favor of symbolic interpretation and causal comprehension.
- Schizophrenia should be understood as a material process of desiring-machines rather than a static, terminal mental state or a specific 'essence' of a dissociated ego.
- The authors argue that focusing on the product rather than the process of production makes the schizophrenic appear as a distinct, isolated 'autist' in a void.
A classical theater was substituted for the unconscious as a factory; representation was substituted for the units of production of the unconscious.
Oedipal, neurotic one: daddy-mommy-me. We may well ponder the possibility
that the analytic imperialism of the Oedi pus complex led Freud to rediscover, and
to lend all the weight of his authority to, the unfortunate misapplication of the
concept of autism to schizophrenia. For we must not delude ourselves: Freud
doesn't like schizophrenics. He doesn't lik e their resistance to being oedipalized,
and tends to treat them more or less as animals. They mist ake words for things,
he says. They are apathetic, narcissistic, cut off from reality, incapable of
achieving transference; they resemble philosophers—"an undesirable
resemblance."
The question as to how to deal analy tically with the relationship between
drives (pulsions) and symptoms, between the symbol and what is symbolized, has
arisen again and again. Is this relationship to be
THE DESIRING-MACHINES 23
considered causal? Or is it a relationship of comprehension? A mode of
expression? The question, however, has been posed too theoretically.
The fact is, from the moment that we are placed within the framework of
Oedipus—from the moment that we are measured in terms of
Oedipus—the cards are stacked against us, and the only real relation-
ship, that of production, has been done away with. The great discovery
of psychoanalysis was that of the production of desire, of the produc-
tions of the unconscious. But once Oedipus entered the picture, this
discovery was soon buried beneath a new brand of idealism: a classical
theater was substituted for the uncons cious as a factory; representation
was substituted for the units of pr oduction of the unconscious; and an
unconscious that was capable of not hing but expressing itself—in myth,
tragedy, dreams—was substituted for the productive unconscious.
Every time that the problem of schizophrenia is explained in terms
of the ego, all we can do is "sample" a supposed essence or a presumed
specific nature of the schizo, regardless of whether we do so with love
and pity or disgustedly spit out the mouthful we have tasted. We have
"sampled" him once as a dissociated ego, another time as an ego cut off
from the world, and yet again—most temptingly—as an ego that had not
ceased to be, who was there in the most specific way, but in his very own
world, though he might re veal himself to a clever psychiatrist, a
sympathetic superobserver—in short, a phenomenologist. Let us re-
member once again one of Marx's cav eats: we cannot tell from the mere
taste of wheat who grew it; the product gives us no hint as to the system
and the relations of production. The product appears to be all the more
specific, incredibly specific and readily describable, the more closely the
theoretician relates it to ideal forms of causati on, comprehensi on, o r
expression, rather than to the r eal process o f p roduction on w hich it
depends. The schizophrenic appears all the more specific and recogniza-
ble as a distinct personality if the proces s is halted, or if it is made an end
and a goal in itself, or if it is allowed to go on and on endlessly in a void,
so as to provoke that "horror of . . . extremity wherein the soul and body
ultimately perish"27 (the autist). Kraepelin's celebrated terminal state. . .
But the moment that one describes, on the contrary, the material process
of production, the specificity of the product tends to evaporate, while at
the same time the possibility of another outcome, another end result of
the process appears. Before being a mental state of the schizophrenic
who has made himself into an artificial person through autism,
schizophrenia is the process of the production of desire and
desiring-machines. How does one get fro m one to the other, and is this
transition inevitable? This remains th e crucial question. Karl Jaspers has
24 A N T I - O E D I P U S
given us precious insights, on this point as on so many others, because his
Desire as Production
- The authors redefine schizophrenia not as a mental state of autism, but as a material process of producing desire and 'desiring-machines.'
- Karl Jaspers is credited with viewing the schizophrenic process as a 'demoniacal' intrusion, though he failed to link it to material economic reality.
- Traditional Platonic logic is criticized for defining desire as a 'lack' of an object, which relegates desire to the realm of acquisition and nihilism.
- Kant's attempt to link desire to the production of reality is dismissed as insufficient because it limits this productivity to psychic or hallucinatory fantasies.
- Psychoanalysis is accused of maintaining a dualism where real objects belong to social production while desire only produces imaginary doubles or 'theatrical' machines.
From the moment that we place desire on the side of acquisition, we make desire an idealistic (dialectical, nihilistic) conception, which causes us to look upon it as primarily a lack: a lack of an object, a lack of the real object.
the same time the possibility of another outcome, another end result of
the process appears. Before being a mental state of the schizophrenic
who has made himself into an artificial person through autism,
schizophrenia is the process of the production of desire and
desiring-machines. How does one get fro m one to the other, and is this
transition inevitable? This remains th e crucial question. Karl Jaspers has
24 A N T I - O E D I P U S
given us precious insights, on this point as on so many others, because his
"idealism" was remarkably atypical. C ontrasting the concept of process with
those of reaction formation or developmen t of the personality, he views process
as a rupture or intrusion, having nothi ng to do with an imaginary relationship
with the ego; rather, it is a relationship with the "demoniacal" in nature. The one
thing Jaspers failed to do was to view process as material economic reality, as the
process of production wherein Nature = Industry, Nature = History.
To a certain degree, the traditional logic of desire is all wrong from the very
outset: from the very first step that the Platonic logic of desire forces us to take,
making us choose between production and acquisition. From the moment that we
place desire on the side of acquisition, we make desire an idealistic (dialectical,
nihilistic) conception, which causes us to look upon it as primarily a lack: a lack
of an object, a lack of the real object. It is true that the other side, the
"production" side, has not been entirely ignored. Kant, for instance, must be
credited with effecting a critical revolutio n as regards the theory of desire, by
attributing to it "the faculty of being, through its representations, the cause of the
reality of the objects of these representations."28 But it is not by chance that Kant
chooses superstitious beliefs, hallucinations, and fantasies as illustrations of this
definition of desire: as Kant would have it, we are well aware that the real object
can be produced only by an external causality and external mechanisms;
nonetheless this knowledge does not preven t us from believing in the intrinsic
power of desire to create its own object—if only in an unreal, hallucinatory, or
delirious form—or from representing th is causality as stemming from within
desire itself. The reality of the object, inso far as it is produced by desire, is thus a
psychic reality. Hence it can be said that Kant 's critical revolution changes
nothing essential: this way of conceivi ng of productivity does not question the
validity of the classical c onception of desire as a lack; rather, it uses this
conception as a support and a buttress, and merely examines its implications
more carefully.
In point of fact, if desire is the lack of the real object, its very nature as a
real entity depends upon an "essence of l ack" that produces the fantasized object.
Desire thus conceived of as produc tion, though merely the production of
fantasies, has been explained perfectly by psychoanalysis. On the very lowest
level of interpretation, this means that the real object that desire lacks is related
to an extrinsic natural or social production, whereas desire intrinsically produces
an imaginary object that functions as a double of reality, as though there were a
"dreamed-of object behind every real object," or a mental production
THE DESIRING-MACHINES as
behind all real productions. This conception does not necessarily compel
psychoanalysis to engage in a study of gadgets and markets, in the form of an
utterly dreary and dull psychoanalysis of the object: psychoanalytic studies of
packages of noodles, cars, or "thingu majigs." But even when the fantasy is
interpreted in depth, not simply as an obj ect, but as a specific machine that brings
desire itself front and center, this machine is merely theatrical, and the
Desire as Productive Reality
- Traditional psychoanalysis incorrectly defines desire as a 'lack' or an 'incurable insufficiency of being' that seeks a missing object.
- The authors argue that desire is not a mental fantasy but a process of 'industrial' production that engineers the real world.
- Desire and its object are functionally identical, operating as interconnected machines rather than separate entities of need.
- Lack is not the origin of desire but a social and natural counterproduct deposited within the reality that desire has already produced.
- The subject is not the master of desire but a 'nomad' residuum that emerges from the process of production.
Desire does not lack anything; it does not lack its object. It is, rather, the subject that is missing in desire, or desire that lacks a fixed subject; there is no fixed subject unless there is repression.
"dreamed-of object behind every real object," or a mental production
THE DESIRING-MACHINES as
behind all real productions. This conception does not necessarily compel
psychoanalysis to engage in a study of gadgets and markets, in the form of an
utterly dreary and dull psychoanalysis of the object: psychoanalytic studies of
packages of noodles, cars, or "thingu majigs." But even when the fantasy is
interpreted in depth, not simply as an obj ect, but as a specific machine that brings
desire itself front and center, this machine is merely theatrical, and the
complementarity of what it sets apart still remains: it is now need that is defined
in terms of a relative lack and determin ed by its own object, whereas desire is
regarded as what produces the fantasy and produces itself by detaching itself
from the object, though at the same time it intensifies the lack by making it
absolute: an "incurable insufficiency of being," an "i nability-to-be that is life
itself." Hence the presentation of desire as something supported by needs, while
these needs, and their relationship to the object as something that is lacking or
missing, continue to be the basis of th e productivity of desire (theory of an
underlying support). In a word, when the theoretician reduces
desiring-production to a production of fantas y, he is content to exploit to the
fullest the idealist principle that defines de sire as a lack, rather than a process of
production, of "industrial" production. Clement Rosset puts it very well: every
time the emphasis is put on a lack that de sire supposedly suffers from as a way of
defining its object, "the world acquires as its double some other sort of world, in
accordance with the following line of argument: there is an object that desire
feels the lack of; hence the world does not contain each and every object that
exists; there is at least one object missing, the one that desire feels the lack of;
hence there exists some other place that contains the key to desire (missing in this
world)."29
If desire produces, its product is real. If desire is productive, it can be
productive only in the real world and can produce only reality. Desire is the set
of passive synthes es that engineer partial objects, flows, and bodies, and that
function as units of production. The real is the end product, the result of the
passive syntheses of desire as autoproduction of the unconscious. Desire does not
lack anything; it does not lack its object. It is, rather, the subject that is missing in
desire, or desire that lacks a fixed subject; there is no fixed subject unless there is
repression. Desire and its object are one and the same thing: the machine, as a
machine of a machine. Desire is a machine, and the object of desire is another
machine connected to it. Hence the product is something removed or deducted
from the process of producing: between the act of producing and the product,
something becomes detached, thus giving the vagabond, nomad subject a
residuum. The objective being of desire
2® ANTI-OEDIPUS
is the Real in and of itself.* There is no particular form of existence that can be
labeled "psychic reality." As Marx notes, what exists in fact is not lack, but
passion, as a "natural and sensuous object." Desire is not bolstered by needs, but
rather the contrary; needs are derived from desire: they are counterproducts
within the real that desire produces. La ck is a countereffect of desire; it is
deposited, distributed, vacuolized within a real that is natural and social. Desire
always remains in close touch with the conditions of objective existence; it
Desire and Social Lack
- Desire is defined as a productive force within the real rather than a psychological state based on lack or fantasy.
- Needs are not the foundation of desire but are instead counterproducts derived from it when desire is withdrawn from its objective conditions.
- Social production deliberately organizes and creates 'lack' as a mechanism of control, imposing it upon the productive forces of desire.
- True revolutionaries and visionaries embrace an objective existence where desire requires few possessions and focuses on the production of life itself.
- The phantasmal world of lack is a ball and chain tied to the past, whereas the future belongs to the conquest of the real through desire.
Lack (manque) is created, planned, and organized in and through social production.
is the Real in and of itself.* There is no particular form of existence that can be
labeled "psychic reality." As Marx notes, what exists in fact is not lack, but
passion, as a "natural and sensuous object." Desire is not bolstered by needs, but
rather the contrary; needs are derived from desire: they are counterproducts
within the real that desire produces. La ck is a countereffect of desire; it is
deposited, distributed, vacuolized within a real that is natural and social. Desire
always remains in close touch with the conditions of objective existence; it
embraces them and follows them, shifts when they shift, and does not outlive
them. For that reason it so often becomes the desire to die, whereas need is a
measure of the withdrawal of a subject that has lost its desire at the same time that
it loses the passive syntheses of thes e conditions. This is precisely the
significance of need as a search in a void: hunting about, trying to capture or
become a parasite of passive syntheses in whatever vague world they may happen
to exist in. It is no use saying: We are not green plants; we have long since been
unable to synthesize chlorophyll, so it's nece ssary to eat. . . . Desire then becomes
this abject fear of lacking something. Bu t it should be noted that this is not a
phrase uttered by the poor or the dispossessed. On the contrary, such people know
that they are close to grass, almost akin to it, and that desire "needs" very few
things— not those leftovers that chance to come their way, but the very things that
are continually taken from them —and that what is missing is not things a subject
feels the lack of somewhere deep down inside himself, but ra ther the objectivity
of man, the objective being of man, for whom to desire is to produce, to produce
within the realm of the real. The real is not impossible; on the contrary, within the
real everything is possible, everything becomes possible. Desire does not express
a molar lack within the subject; rather, th e molar organization deprives desire of
its objective being. Revolutionaries, artists, and seers are content to be objective,
merely objective: they know that desire clasps life in its powerfully productive
embrace, and reproduces it in a way that is all the more intense because it has few
needs. And never mind those who believe that this is very easy to say, or that it is
the sort of idea to be found in books. "From the little reading I had done I had
observed that the men who were most in life, who were moulding life, who were
life itself, ate little, slept little, owned little or nothing. They had no illusions
about duty, or the perpetuation of thei r kith and kin, or the preservation
*Lacan's admirable theory of desire appears to us to have two poles: one related to "the object small a" as a
desiring-machine, which defines desire in terms of a real production, thus going beyond both any idea of
need and any idea of fantasy; and the other related to the "great Other" as a signifier, which reintroduces a
certain notion of lack. In Serge Leclaire's article "La re'alite du desir" (Ch. 4, reference note 26), the
oscillation between these two poles can be seen quite clearly.
THE DESIRING-MACHINES 27
of the State. . . . The phantasmal world is the world which has never been fully
conquered over. It is the world of the past , never of the future. To move forward
clinging to the past is like dragging a ball and chain."30 The true visionary is a
Spinoza in the garb of a Neapolitan revolutionary. We know very well where
lack—and its subjective correlative—come from. Lack (manque)* is created,
planned, and organized in and through social production. It is counterproduced
as a result of the pressure of antiproduction;the latter falls back on (serab at sur)
the forces of production and appropriates them. It is never primary; production is
never organized on the basis of a pre-existing need or lack (manque). It is lack
The Production of Lack
- Lack is not a primordial human condition but is deliberately organized and counterproduced by the dominant class within social production.
- Market economies intentionally create wants and needs amid abundance to make desire subservient to the fear of scarcity.
- The text rejects the separation of social reality and individual fantasy, arguing that social production is simply desiring-production under specific conditions.
- Traditional parallels between Marxism and Psychoanalysis, such as the equation of money and excrement, are dismissed as sterile and insignificant.
- Libido directly invests in the social field without the need for psychic mediation, sublimation, or internal transformations.
To move forward clinging to the past is like dragging a ball and chain.
of the State. . . . The phantasmal world is the world which has never been fully
conquered over. It is the world of the past , never of the future. To move forward
clinging to the past is like dragging a ball and chain."30 The true visionary is a
Spinoza in the garb of a Neapolitan revolutionary. We know very well where
lack—and its subjective correlative—come from. Lack (manque)* is created,
planned, and organized in and through social production. It is counterproduced
as a result of the pressure of antiproduction;the latter falls back on (serab at sur)
the forces of production and appropriates them. It is never primary; production is
never organized on the basis of a pre-existing need or lack (manque). It is lack
that infiltrates itself, creates empty spaces or vacuoles, and propagates itself in
accordance with the organization of an already existing organization of
production.f The deliberate creation of lack as a function of market economy is
the art of a dominant class. This i nvolves deliberately organizing wants and
needs (manque) amid an abundance of production; making all of desire teeter
and fall victim to the great fear of not having one's needs satisfied; and making
the object dependent upon a real production th at is supposedly exterior to desire
(the demands of rationality), while at the same time the production of desire is
categorized as fantasy and nothing but fantasy.
There is no such thing as the social production of reality on the one hand,
and a desiring-production that is mere fa ntasy on the other. The only connections
that could be established between th ese two productions would be secondary
ones of introjection and projection, as though all social practices had their
precise counterpart in introjected or in ternal mental practices, or as though
mental practices were projected upon soci al systems, without either of the two
sets of practices ever having any real or concrete effect upon the other. As long
as we are content to establish a perfect parallel between money, gold, capital,
and the capitalist triangle on the one hand, and the libido, the anus, the phallus,
and the family triangle on the other, we are engaging in an enjoyable pastime,
but the mechanisms of money remain tota lly unaffected by the anal projections
of those who manipulate money. The Marx-Freud parallelism between the two
remains utterly sterile and
*The French word manque may mean both lack and need in a psychological sense, as well as want or
privation or scarcity in an economic sense. Depending upon the context, it will hence be translated in
various ways below. (Translators'note.)
+Maurice Clave! remarks, apropos of Jean-Paul Sartre, that a Marxis t philosophy cannot allow itself to
introduce the notion of scarcity as its initial premise: "Such a scarcity antedating exploitation makes of the
law of supply and demand a reality that will remain forever independent, since it is situated at a primordial
level. Hence it is no longer a question of including or deducing this law within Marxism, since it is
immediately evident at a prior stage, at a level from which Marxism itself derives. Being a rigorous thinker,
Marx refuses to employ the notion of scarcity, and is quite correct to do so, for this category would be his
undoing." In Qui est aliene? (Paris: Flammarion, 1970), p. 330.
28 ANTI-OEDIPUS
insignificant as long as it is e xpressed in terms that make them
introjections or projections of each other without ceasing to be utterly
alien to each other, as in the famous equation money = shit. The truth of
the matter is that social production is purely and simply
desiring-production itself under determinat e co nditions. We maintain
that the social field is immediately invested by desire, that it is the
historically determined product of de sire, and that libido has no need of
any mediation or sublimation, any psychic operation, any transforma-
Desire and Social Production
- The authors argue that social production and desiring-production are identical, meaning the social field is immediately invested by libido without the need for sublimation.
- A central problem of political philosophy is why individuals fight for their own servitude and tolerate exploitation as if it were their salvation.
- Wilhelm Reich is credited with recognizing that the masses were not merely duped by fascism, but that at a specific point, they actually desired it.
- The text critiques Reich for ultimately failing to bridge the gap between rational social production and irrational desire, maintaining a dualism he should have collapsed.
- Desiring-machines are not merely mental fantasies or dreams; they are the same material reality as technical and social machines.
Why do men fight for their servitude as stubbornly as though it were their salvation?
insignificant as long as it is e xpressed in terms that make them
introjections or projections of each other without ceasing to be utterly
alien to each other, as in the famous equation money = shit. The truth of
the matter is that social production is purely and simply
desiring-production itself under determinat e co nditions. We maintain
that the social field is immediately invested by desire, that it is the
historically determined product of de sire, and that libido has no need of
any mediation or sublimation, any psychic operation, any transforma-
tion, in order to invade and invest the productive forces and the rela-
tions of production. There is on ly desire and th e social, and no thing
else.
Even the most repressive and the most deadly forms of social
reproduction are produced by desire within the organization that is the
consequence of such production under various conditions that we must
analyze. That is why the fundamental problem of political philosophy is
still precisely the one that Spinoza saw so clearly, and that Wilhelm
Reich rediscovered: "Why do men fight for their servitude as stubbornly
as though it were their salvation? " How can people possibly reach the
point of shouting: "More taxes! Le ss bread!"? As Reich remarks, the
astonishing thing is not that some people steal or that others occasional-
ly go out on strike, but rather that all those who are starving do not steal
as a regular practice, and all those who are exploited are not continually
out on strike: after centuries of exploitation, why do people still tolerate
being humiliated and enslaved, to such a point, indeed, that they actually
want humiliation and slavery not only fo r others but for themselves?
Reich is at his profoundest as a thinker when he refuses to accept
ignorance or illusion on the part of the masses as an explanation of
fascism, and demands an explanation that will take their desires into
account, an explanation formulated in terms of desire: no, the masses
were not innocent dupes; at a cert ain point, under a certain set of
conditions, they wanted fascism, and it is this perversion of the desire of
the masses that needs to be accounted for.31
Yet Reich himself never manages to provide a satisfactory explana-
tion of this phenomenon, because at a certain point he reintroduces
precisely the line of argument that he was in the process of demolishing,
by creating a distinction between rationa lity as it is or ought to be in the
process of social production, and the irrational element in desire, and by
regarding only this latter as a suitable subject for psychoanalytic
investigation. Hence the sole task he assigns psychoanalysis is the
explanation of the "negative," the "subjective," the "inhibited" within
the social field. He therefore necessarily returns to a dualism between
the real object rationally produce d on the one hand, and irrational,
THE DESIRING MACHINES 38
fantasizing production on the other.* He gives up trying to discover the
common denominator or the coextension of the social field and de sire. In
order to establish the basis for a genui nely materialistic psychiatry, there
was a category that Reich was sorely in need of: that of
desiring-production, which would apply to the real in both its so-called
rational and irrational forms.
The fact there is massive social repression that has an enormous
effect on desiring-production in no wa y vitiates our principle: desire
produces reality, or stated another way, desiring-production is one and
the same thing as social production. It is not possible to attribute a
special form of existence to desire, a mental or psychic reality that is
presumably different from the material reality of social production.
Desiring-machines are not fantasy-machines or dream-machines, which
supposedly can be distinguished fro m technical and so cial machines.
Rather, fantasies are secondary expr essions, deriving from the identical
Identity of Desiring-Production
- Desiring-production and social production are fundamentally the same process, meaning desire produces reality rather than existing in a separate psychic realm.
- Desiring-machines are not merely tools of fantasy or dreams; they are identical in nature to the technical and social machines that organize society.
- Fantasy is never an individual phenomenon but is always a group expression that derives from the intersection of desire and social institutions.
- The libido can either invest in repressive social structures or launch a revolutionary counterinvestment to de-institutionalize the current social field.
- Socialist Utopias function as group fantasies that act as agents of real productivity, allowing for the disinvestment of existing social regimes.
Desiring-machines are not fantasy-machines or dream-machines, which supposedly can be distinguished from technical and social machines.
effect on desiring-production in no wa y vitiates our principle: desire
produces reality, or stated another way, desiring-production is one and
the same thing as social production. It is not possible to attribute a
special form of existence to desire, a mental or psychic reality that is
presumably different from the material reality of social production.
Desiring-machines are not fantasy-machines or dream-machines, which
supposedly can be distinguished fro m technical and so cial machines.
Rather, fantasies are secondary expr essions, deriving from the identical
nature of the two sorts of machines in any given set of circumstances.
Thus fantasy is never individual: it is group fantasy —as institutional
analysis+ has successfully demonstrated. And if there is such a thing as
two sorts of group fantasy, it is because two different readings of this
identity are possible, depending upon wh ether the desiring-machines are
regarded from the point of view of the great gregarious masses that they
form, or whether social machines are considered from the point of view
of the elementary forces of desire that serve as a basis for them. Hence
in group fantasy the libido may invest all of an existing social field,
including the latter's most repressive forms; or on the contrary, it may
launch a counterinvestment whereby revolutionary desire is plugged
into the existing social field as a source of energy. (The great socialist
Utopias of the nineteenth century f unction, for example, not as ideal
*We find in the case of culturalists a distinction between rational systems and projective systems, with
psychoanalysis applying only to these latter (as for example in Abram Kardiner). Despite their hostility to
culturalism, we find in both Wilhelm Reich and Herbert Marcuse certain traces of this same dualism, even
though they define the rational and the irrational in a completely different way and assign them quite
different roles.
t Institutional analysis is the more political tendency of instituti onal psychotherapy, begun in the late 1950s
as an attempt to collectively deal with what psychoanalysis so hypocritically avoided, namely the
psychoses. La Borde Clinic, established in 1955 by Jean Oury of the Ecole Freudienne de Paris, served as
the locus for discussions on institutional psychotherapy, and Jacques Lacan's seminars served as the
intellectual basis for these discussions "in the beginning ." Felix Guattari joined the clinic in 1956, as a
militant interested in the notions of desire under discussion—a topic rarely dealt with by militants at that
time. Preferring the term "institutional analysis" over "institutional psychotherapy," Guattari sought to push
the movement in a more political dire ction, toward what he later describe d as a political analysis of desire.
In any case this injection of a psychoanalytical discourse (Lacan's version) into a custodial institution led to
a collectivization of the analytical concepts. Transference came to be seen as institutional, and fantasies
were seen to be collective: desire was a problem of groups and jor groups. See Jacques Donzelot's excellent
article on Anti-Oedipus, "Une anti-sociologie" in Esprit, December 1972, and Gilles Deleuze's detailed
discussion of Guattari's notion of groups and desire, "Trois problemes de groupe" in Felix Guattari,
Psychanalyse et transversalile (Paris: Maspero, 1972). (Translators' note.)
30 ANTI-OEDIPUS
models but as group fantasies—that is, as agents of the real productivity of desire,
making it possible to disinvest the current so cial field, to "deinstitutionalize" it, to
further the revolutionary in stitution of desire itself.) But there is never any
difference in nature between the desiring-machines and the technical social
machines. There is a certain distinction between them, but it is merely a
distinction of regime,* depending on their relationships of size. Except for this
Desiring-Machines and Social Production
- The authors argue that desiring-machines and technical social machines are fundamentally the same, differing only in their 'regime' or scale of operation.
- Technical machines are defined by a strict distinction between the means of production and the product, typically functioning until they wear out.
- In contrast, desiring-machines are characterized by their tendency to break down as they run, where the breakdown itself is a functional part of the process.
- Art serves as a medium for group fantasies that use desiring-production to short-circuit and undermine the reproductive functions of social technical machines.
- The artist acts as a master of broken objects, converting social products into desiring-machines through methods like critical paranoia or deliberate dysfunction.
Desiring-machines, on the contrary, continually break down as they run, and in fact run only when they are not functioning properly.
Psychanalyse et transversalile (Paris: Maspero, 1972). (Translators' note.)
30 ANTI-OEDIPUS
models but as group fantasies—that is, as agents of the real productivity of desire,
making it possible to disinvest the current so cial field, to "deinstitutionalize" it, to
further the revolutionary in stitution of desire itself.) But there is never any
difference in nature between the desiring-machines and the technical social
machines. There is a certain distinction between them, but it is merely a
distinction of regime,* depending on their relationships of size. Except for this
difference in regime, they are the same machines, as group fantasies clearly
prove.
When in the course of our discussion above, we laid down the broad outlines
of a parallelism between social producti on and desiring-production, in order to
show that in both cases there is a strong tendency on the part of the forces of
antiproduction to operate retroactively on (se rabattre sur) productive forms and
appropriate them, this parallelism was in no way meant as an exhaustive
description of the relationship between th e two systems of production. It merely
enables us to point to certain phenome na having to do with the difference in
regime between them. In the first place, technical machines obviously work only
if they are not out of orde r; they ordinarily stop work ing not because they break
down but because they wear out. Marx makes use of this simple principle to show
that the regime of technical machines is characterized by a strict distinction
between the means of production and the product; thanks to this distinction, the
machine transmits value to the product, but only the value that the machine itself
loses as it wears out. Desiring-machines, on the contrary, continually break down
as they run, and in fact run only when they are not functioning properly: the
product is always an offshoot of production, implanting itself upon it like a graft,
and at the same time the parts of the machine are the fuel that makes it run.
Art often takes advantage of this prope rty of desiring-machines by creating
veritable group fantasies in which desiri ng-production is used to short-circuit
social production, and to interfere with the reproductive function of technical
machines by introducing an element of dysfunction. Arman's charred violins, for
instance, or Cesar's compressed car bodi es. More generally, Dali's method of
critical paranoia assures the explosion of a desiring-machine within an object of
social production. But even earlier, Ravel preferred to throw his inventions
entirely out of gear rather than let them simply run down, and chose to end his
compositions with abrupt breaks, hesitations, tremolos, discordant notes, and
unresolved chords, rather than allowing them to slowly wind
*The word regime has a number of different meanings in French, including: regimen or form of government;
a set of laws, rules, or regulations; ra te of flow, as of a current; rate or speed of operation, as of a motor or
engine. Since the authors use the word in several senses, the French word regime has been retained
throughout the English text. (Translators'note.)
THE DESIRING-MACHINES 31
down to a close or graduall y die away into silence.32 The artist is the
master of objects; he puts before us shattered, burned, broken-down
objects, converting them to the regi me of desiring-machines, breaking
down is part of the very functioni ng of desiring-machines; the artist
presents paranoiac machines, miraculating-machines, and celibate ma-
chines as so many technical machines, so as to cause desiring-machines
to undermine technical machines. Even more important, the work of art
is itself a desiring-machine. The artist stores up his treasures so as to
create an immediate explosion, and that is why, to his way of thinking,
destructions can never take plac e as rapidly as they ought to.
Desiring-Machines and the Socius
- Artistic works function as desiring-machines that utilize technical forms to undermine the rigid structures of technical machines.
- Technical machines serve as indices for specific social forms, such as the relationship between industrial machines and capitalism.
- Desiring-production and social production are fundamentally the same process governed by two distinct regimes of repression.
- The socius acts as a social machine designed to codify, record, and regulate the flows of desire to prevent them from escaping control.
- The body without organs is not a primordial entity but rather the ultimate residuum of a deterritorialized social machine.
The artist stores up his treasures so as to create an immediate explosion, and that is why, to his way of thinking, destructions can never take place as rapidly as they ought to.
objects, converting them to the regi me of desiring-machines, breaking
down is part of the very functioni ng of desiring-machines; the artist
presents paranoiac machines, miraculating-machines, and celibate ma-
chines as so many technical machines, so as to cause desiring-machines
to undermine technical machines. Even more important, the work of art
is itself a desiring-machine. The artist stores up his treasures so as to
create an immediate explosion, and that is why, to his way of thinking,
destructions can never take plac e as rapidly as they ought to.
From this, a second difference in re gime results: desiring-machines
produce antiproduction all by themselves, whereas the antiproduction
characteristic of technical machines takes place only within the extrinsic
conditions of the reproduction of the process (even though these
conditions do not come into being at some "later stage"). That is why
technical machines are not an economic category, and always refer back
to a socius or a social machine that is quite distinct from these machines,
and that conditions this reproduction. A technical machine is therefore
not a cause but merely an index of a general form of social production:
thus there are manual machines and primitive societies, hydraulic
machines and "Asiatic" forms of society, industrial machines and
capitalism. Hence when we posited the socius as the analogue of a full
body without organs, there was noneth eless one important difference.
For desiring-machines are the fundamental category of the economy of
desire; they produce a body without organs all by themselves, and make
no distinction between agents and their own parts, or between the
relations of production and their ow n relations, or between the social
order and technology. Desiring-machines are both technical and social.
It is in this sense that desiring-production is the locus of a primal psychic
repression,33 whereas social production is where social repression takes
place, and it is between the former and the latter that there occurs
something that resembles secondary psychic repression in the "strictest"
sense: the situation of the body without organs or its equivalent is the
crucial factor here, depending on whethe r it is the result of an internal
process or of an extrinsic condition (and thus affects the role of the death
instinct in particular).
But at the same time they are the same machines, despite the fact
that they are governed by two different regimes—and despite the fact
that it is admittedly a strange adventure for desire to desire repression.
There is only one kind of production, the production of the real. And
doubtless we can express this identit y in two different ways, even
though these two ways together constitute the autoproduction of the
3£ ANTI-OEDIPUS
unconscious as a cycle. We can say that social production, under determinate
conditions, derives primarily from desi ring-production: which is to say that
Homo natur a comes first. But we must also say, more accurately, that
desiring-production is first and foremost soci al in nature, and tends to free itself
only at the end: which is to say that Homo historia comes first. The body without
organs is not an original primordial entity that later projects itself into different
sorts of socius,as though it were a raving paranoiac, the chieftain of the primitive
horde, who was initially responsible for so cial organization. The social machine
or socius may be the body of the Earth, the body of the Despot, the body of
Money. It is never a projection, howev er, of the body without organs. On the
contrary: the body without organs is the u ltimate residuum of a deterritorialized
socius. The prime function incumbent upon the socius, has always been to codify
the flows of desire, to inscribe them, to record them, to see to it that no flow
exists that is not properly dammed up, channeled, regulated. When the primitive
Capitalism and the Schizophrenic Limit
- The social machine or 'socius' historically functions to codify, dam, and regulate the flows of human desire.
- Unlike primitive or despotic systems that overcode desire, capitalism is defined by the decoding and deterritorialization of these flows.
- Capitalism emerges from the encounter between decoded money-capital and the decoded labor of the 'free worker,' replacing social codes with an axiomatic of abstract quantities.
- Schizophrenia is identified as the characteristic malady of the capitalist era, representing the limit where social structures dissolve into a body without organs.
- The capitalist process of production generates an accumulation of schizophrenic energy that functions as both its primary raw material and its ultimate destructive tendency.
It tends, with all the strength at its command, to produce the schizo as the subject of the decoded flows on the body without organs—more capitalist than the capitalist and more proletarian than the proletariat.
horde, who was initially responsible for so cial organization. The social machine
or socius may be the body of the Earth, the body of the Despot, the body of
Money. It is never a projection, howev er, of the body without organs. On the
contrary: the body without organs is the u ltimate residuum of a deterritorialized
socius. The prime function incumbent upon the socius, has always been to codify
the flows of desire, to inscribe them, to record them, to see to it that no flow
exists that is not properly dammed up, channeled, regulated. When the primitive
territorial machine proved inadequate to the task, the despotic machine set up a
kind of overcoding system. But the capitalist machine, insofar as it was built on
the ruins of a despotic State more or less far removed in time, finds itself in a
totally new situation: it is faced with the task of decoding and deterritorializing
the flows. Capitalism does not confront this situation from the outside, since it
experiences it as the very fabric of its existence, as both its primary determinant
and its fundamental raw material, its fo rm and its function, and deliberately
perpetuates it, in all its violence, with all the powers at its command. Its
sovereign production and repression can be achieved in no other way. Capitalism
is in fact born of the encounter of tw o sorts of flows: the decoded flows of
production in the form of money-capital, and the decoded flows of labor in the
form of the "free worker." Hence, unlike previous social machines, the capitalist
machine is incapable of providing a code that will apply to the whole of the
social field. By substituting money for the very notion of a code, it has created an
axiomatic of abstract quantities that k eeps moving further and further in the
direction of the deterritorialization of the socius. Capitalism tends toward a
threshold of decoding that will destroy the socius in order to make it a body
without organs and unleash the flows of de sire on this body as a deterritorialized
field. Is it correct to say that in this sense schizophrenia is the product of the
capitalist machine, as manic-depression and paranoia are the product of the
despotic machine, and hysteria the product of the territorial machine?*
*On hysteria, schizophrenia, and their relationships with social struct ures, see the analyses by Georges
Devereux in his Essais d'ethnopsychiatrie generate (Paris: Gallimard), p. 67tf„ and the wonderful pages in
Karl Jaspers' Strindberg und Van Gogh (Berlin: J. Springer, 1926). (English translation, Strindberg
THE DESIR1NG-MACHINES 33
The decoding of flows and the deterr itorialization of the socius thus
constitutes the most characteristic and the most important tendency of capitalism.
It continually draws near to its limit, wh ich is a genuinely schizophrenic limit. It
tends, with all the strength at its comma nd, to produce the schizo as the subject
of the decoded flows on the body without organs—more capitalist than the
capitalist and more proletarian than the prol etariat. This tendency is being carried
further and further, to the point that capitalism with all its flows may dispatch
itself straight to the moon: we really have n't seen anything yet! When we say that
schizophrenia is our characteristic mala dy, the malady of our era, we do not
merely mean to say that modern life driv es people mad. It is not a question of a
way of life, but of a process of production. Nor is it merely a question of a simple
parallelism, even though from the point of view of the failure of codes, such a
parallelism is a much more precise form ulation of the relationship between, for
example, the phenomena of shifting of me aning in the case of schizophrenics and
the mechanisms of ever increasing disharmony and discord at every level of
industrial society.
What we are really trying to say is that capitalism, through its process of
production, produces an awesome schiz ophrenic accumulation of energy or
Capitalism and Schizophrenic Production
- Capitalism is defined not just by a way of life but by a process of production that generates a massive accumulation of schizophrenic energy.
- The system operates through a 'law of counteracted tendency,' simultaneously decoding flows of desire while violently reterritorializing them into artificial structures.
- Modern institutions like the state, nation, and family serve as residual territorialities used to rechannel individuals who have been reduced to abstract quantities.
- The neurotic is defined as someone who collapses these artificial territorialities into the singular, reconstructed framework of the Oedipal complex.
- As the capitalist machine deterritorializes to extract surplus value, its bureaucratic and legal apparatuses work harder to absorb that value through social control.
Everything returns or recurs: States, nations, families. That is what makes the ideology of capitalism 'a motley painting of everything that has ever been believed.'
capitalist and more proletarian than the prol etariat. This tendency is being carried
further and further, to the point that capitalism with all its flows may dispatch
itself straight to the moon: we really have n't seen anything yet! When we say that
schizophrenia is our characteristic mala dy, the malady of our era, we do not
merely mean to say that modern life driv es people mad. It is not a question of a
way of life, but of a process of production. Nor is it merely a question of a simple
parallelism, even though from the point of view of the failure of codes, such a
parallelism is a much more precise form ulation of the relationship between, for
example, the phenomena of shifting of me aning in the case of schizophrenics and
the mechanisms of ever increasing disharmony and discord at every level of
industrial society.
What we are really trying to say is that capitalism, through its process of
production, produces an awesome schiz ophrenic accumulation of energy or
charge, against which it brings all its vast powers of repression to bear, but which
nonetheless continues to act as capita lism's limit. For capitalism constantly
counteracts, constantly inhibits this i nherent tendency while at the same time
allowing it free rein; it continually seeks to avoid reaching its limit while
simultaneously tending toward that limit. Capitalism institutes or restores all
sorts of residual and artificial, imaginar y, or symbolic territorialities, thereby
attempting, as best it can, to recode, to rechannel persons who have been defined
in terms of abstract quantities. Everything returns or recurs: States, nations,
families. That is what makes the ideo logy of capitalism "a motley painting of
everything that has ever been believed." The real is not impossible; it is simply
more and more artificial. Marx termed the twofold movement of the tendency to
a falling rate of profit, and the increase in the absolute quantity of surplus value,
the law of the counteracted tendency. As a corollary of this law, there is the
twofold movement of decoding or deterr itorializing flows on the one hand, and
their violent and artificial reterr itorialization on the other. The
and Van Gogh, trans. Oskar Grunow [Tucson, Arizona: Universi ty of Arizona Press.]) The question has
been asked: is madness in our time "a state of total sincerity, in areas where in less chaotic times one would
have been capable of honest experience and expression without it?" Jaspers reformulates this question by
adding: ''We have seen that in former times human beings attempted to drive themselves into hysteria; and
we might say that today many human beings attempt to drive themselves into madness in much the same
way. But if the former attempt was to a certain extent psychologically possible, the latter is not possible at
all, and can lead only to inauthenticity."
34 A N T I - O E D I P U S
more the capitalist machine deterritorializes, decoding and axiomatizing flows in
order to extract surplus value from them, the more its ancillary apparatuses, such
as government bureaucracies and the forces of law and order, do their utmost to
reterritorialize, absorbing in the process a larger and larger share of surplus value.
There is no doubt that at this point in history the neurotic, the pervert, and
the psychotic cannot be adequately define d in terms of drives, for drives are
simply the desiring-machines themselves. They must be defined in terms of
modern territorialities. The neurotic is trapped within the residual or artificial
territorialities of our society, and reduces all of them (les rabat toutes) to Oedipus
as the ultimate territoriality—as reconstruc ted in the analyst's office and projected
upon the full body of the psychoanalyst (yes, my boss is my father, and so is the
Chief of State, and so are you, Docto r). The pervert is someone who takes the
artifice seriously and plays the game to the hilt: if you want them, you can have
Desiring-Machines and Schizophrenic Limits
- The neurotic reduces all social territorialities to the singular, artificial structure of the Oedipal complex.
- The schizophrenic represents the ultimate limit of capitalism, acting as its inherent tendency brought to fulfillment and its 'exterminating angel.'
- Schizophrenia is defined as the point where desiring-production reaches the limit of social production, scrambling all established codes.
- Machines are defined not metaphorically but as systems of interruptions that cut into continuous material flows, such as the mouth cutting the flow of milk.
- Materialist psychiatry seeks to integrate the concept of production into the understanding of desire and its relationship to revolutionary machines.
He scrambles all the codes and is the transmitter of the decoded flows of desire.
simply the desiring-machines themselves. They must be defined in terms of
modern territorialities. The neurotic is trapped within the residual or artificial
territorialities of our society, and reduces all of them (les rabat toutes) to Oedipus
as the ultimate territoriality—as reconstruc ted in the analyst's office and projected
upon the full body of the psychoanalyst (yes, my boss is my father, and so is the
Chief of State, and so are you, Docto r). The pervert is someone who takes the
artifice seriously and plays the game to the hilt: if you want them, you can have
them—territorialities infinitely more artific ial than the ones that society offers us,
totally artificial new families, secret lunar societies. As for the schizo, continually
wandering about, migrating here, there, and everywhere as best he can, he
plunges further and further into the real m of deterritorialization, reaching the
furthest limits of the decomposition of the socius on the surface of his own body
without organs. It may well be that th ese peregrinations are the schizo's own
particular way of rediscovering the earth . The schizophrenic deliberately seeks
out the very limit of capitalism: he is its inherent tendency brought to fulfillment,
its surplus product, its proletariat, and its exterminating angel. He scrambles all
the codes and is the transmitter of the decoded flows of desire. The real continues
to flow. In the schizo, the two aspects of process are conjoined: the metaphysical
process that puts us in contact with the "demoniacal" element in nature or within
the heart of the earth, and the historical process of social production that restores
the autonomy of desiring-machines in re lation to the deterritori-alized social
machine. Schizophrenia is desiring-produc tion as the limit of social production.
Desiring-production, and its difference in regime as compared to social
production, are thus end points, not points of departure. Between the two there is
nothing but an ongoing process of becoming that is the becoming of reality. And
if materialist psychiatry may be define d as the psychiatry that introduces the
concept of production into consideration of the problem of desire, it cannot avoid
posing in eschatological terms the problem of the ultimate relationship between
the analytic machine, the revolutiona ry machine, and desiring-machines.
THE DESIRING-MACHINES 35
5 The Machines
In what respect are desiring-machines really machines, in
anything more than a metaphorical sense? A machine may be defined as a system
of interruptions or breaks (coupures). These breaks should in no way be
considered as a separation from reality; rather, they operate along lines that vary
according to whatever aspect of them we are considering. Every machine, in the
first place, is related to a continual material flow (hyle) that it cuts into. It
functions like a ham-slicing machine, removing portions* from the associative
flow: the anus and the flow of shit it cuts off, for instance; the mouth that cuts
off not only the flow of milk but also the flow of air and sound; the penis that
interrupts not only the flow of urine but al so the flow of sperm. Each associative
flow must be seen as an ideal thing, an endless flux, flowing from something not
unlike the immense thigh of a pig. The term hyle in fact designates the pure
continuity that any one sort of matter ideally possesses. When Robert Jaulin
The Law of Production
- Desiring-machines function like ham-slicing machines, creating interruptions or 'breaks' in an otherwise continuous associative flow.
- Every machine is defined by its connection to another machine, where one produces a flow and the next cuts into it to create a sample.
- The concept of 'hyle' represents the ideal continuity of matter that exists only because a machine has intervened to define its limits.
- The process of 'production of production' occurs when the interruption and the connection fuse into a single 'break-flow' from which desire wells up.
- The case of 'little Joey' illustrates how schizophrenic desiring-production requires being literally or figuratively plugged into mechanical systems to function.
Each associative flow must be seen as an ideal thing, an endless flux, flowing from something not unlike the immense thigh of a pig.
functions like a ham-slicing machine, removing portions* from the associative
flow: the anus and the flow of shit it cuts off, for instance; the mouth that cuts
off not only the flow of milk but also the flow of air and sound; the penis that
interrupts not only the flow of urine but al so the flow of sperm. Each associative
flow must be seen as an ideal thing, an endless flux, flowing from something not
unlike the immense thigh of a pig. The term hyle in fact designates the pure
continuity that any one sort of matter ideally possesses. When Robert Jaulin
describes the little balls and pinches of snuff used in a certain initiation
ceremony, he shows that they are produced each year as a sample taken from "an
infinite series that theoretically has one and only one origin," a single ball that
extends to the very limits of the universe.34 Far from being the opposite of
continuity, the break or interruption cond itions this continuity : it presupposes or
defines what it cuts into as an ideal con tinuity. This is because, as we have seen,
every machine is a machine of a machine. The machine produ ces an interruption
of the flow only insofar as it is conn ected to another machine that supposedly
produces this flow. And doubtless this second machine in turn is really an
interruption or break, too. But it is such only in relationship to a third machine
that ideally— that is to say, relativel y—produces a continuous, infinite flux: for
example, the anus-machine and the intes tine-machine, the intestine-machine and
the stomach-machine, the stomach-m achine and the mouth-machine, the
mouth-machine and the flow of milk of a herd of dairy cattle ("and then . . . and
then . . . and then . . ."). In a word, every machine functions as a break in the
flow in relation to the machine to which it is connected, but at the same time is
also a flow itself, or the production of a flow, in relation to the machine
connected to it. This is the law of the production of production. That is why, at
the limit point of
*The authors' word for this process is pretevement. The French word has a numbe r of meanings, including:
a skimming or a draining off; a removal of a certain quantity as a sample or for purposes of testing; a setting
apart of a portion or share of the whole; a deducti on from a sum of money on deposit. In the English text
that follows, in a number of cases the noun prelevement or the corresponding verb prelever will be indicated
in parentheses followi ng its translation. (Translators' note.)
38 A N T I - O E D I P U S
all the transverse or transfinite connec tions, the partial object and the continuous
flux, the interruption and the connection, fuse into one: everywhere there are
breaks-flows out of which desire wells up, thereby constituting its productivity
and continually grafting the process of pr oduction onto the product. (It is very
curious that Melanie Klein, whose discovery of partial objects was so
far-reaching, neglects to study flows from this point of view and declares that
they are of no importance; she thus short-circuits all the connections.)*
"Connecticut, Connect-I-cut!" cries little Joey. In his study The Empt y
Fortress, Bruno Bettelheim paints the portrait of this young child who can live,
eat, defecate, and sleep only if he is plugged into machines provided with
motors, wires, lights,carburetors, propellers, and steering wheels: an electrical
feeding machine, a car-machine that enable s him to breathe, an anal machine that
lights up. There are very few examples that cast as much light on the regime of
desiring-production, and the way in which breaking down constitutes an integral
part of the functioning, or the way in whic h the cutting off is an integral part of
mechanical connections. Doubtless there are those who will object that this
mechanical, schizophrenic life expresse s the absence and the destruction of
The Regime of Desiring-Production
- The text explores the case of 'little Joey' to illustrate how schizophrenic behavior manifests as a complex system of mechanical connections and desiring-machines.
- It argues that mechanical life in children is not an absence of desire but a specific investment of desire where breaking down is an integral part of the machine's functioning.
- The 'body without organs' acts as a site of counterproduction that frustrates or diverts the flow of production while remaining a part of the overall process.
- Every machine contains an internal code that dictates how bodily regions relate to one another and how various flows are interrupted or transmitted.
- The unconscious is described as a grid of disjunctions where organs can waver between functions, such as an anorectic mouth taking on the regime of another organ.
There are very few examples that cast as much light on the regime of desiring-production, and the way in which breaking down constitutes an integral part of the functioning.
motors, wires, lights,carburetors, propellers, and steering wheels: an electrical
feeding machine, a car-machine that enable s him to breathe, an anal machine that
lights up. There are very few examples that cast as much light on the regime of
desiring-production, and the way in which breaking down constitutes an integral
part of the functioning, or the way in whic h the cutting off is an integral part of
mechanical connections. Doubtless there are those who will object that this
mechanical, schizophrenic life expresse s the absence and the destruction of
desire rather than desire itself, and presupposes certain extremely negative
attitudes on the part of his parents to which the child reacts by turning himself
into a machine. But even Bettelheim, who has a noticeable bias in favor of
Oedipal or pre-oedipal causality, admits that this sort of causa lity intervenes only
in response to autonomous aspects of the productivity or the activity of the child,
although he later discerns in him a nonpro ductive stasis or an attitude of total
withdrawal. Hence there is first of all, according to Bettelheim, an autonomous
reaction to the total life experience, of wh ich the mother is only a part. Also we
must not think that the machines themselv es are proof of the loss or repression of
desire (which Bettelheim translates in terms of autism). We find ourselves
confronted with the same problem on ce again: How has the process of the
production of desire, how have the child's desiring-machines begun to turn
endlessly round and round in a total vacuum, so as to produce the
child-machine? How has the process turned into an end in itself? Or how has the
child become the victim of a premature inte rruption or a terrible frustration? It is
only by means of the body without organs (eyes closed tight, nostrils pinched
shut, ears
*"Children of both sexes regard urine in its positive aspect as equivalent to their mother's milk, in
accordance with the unconscious, which equates all bodily substances with one another." Melanie Klein,
The Psycho-Analysis of Children, trans. Alix Strachey, The International Psycho-Analytic Library, no. 22
(London: Hogarth Press and the In stitute of Psycho-Analysis, 1954), p. 291. (First edition, 1932.)
THE DESIRING-MACHINES 37
stopped up) that something is produced, counterproduced, something that diverts
or frustrates the entire process of pr oduction, of which it is nonetheless still a
part. But the machine remains desire, an investment of desire whose history
unfolds, by way of the primary repression and the return of the repressed, in the
succession of the states of paranoiac machines, miraculating machines, and
celibate machines through which little Joey passes as Bettelheim's therapy
progresses.
In the second place, every machine has a so rt of code built into it, stored up
inside it. This code is inseparable not onl y from the way in which it is recorded
and transmitted to each of the different regions of the body, but also from the
way in which the relations of each of the regions with all the others are recorded.
An organ may have connections that associ ate it with several different flows; it
may waver between se veral functions, and even take on the regime of another
organ—the anorectic mouth, for instance. All sorts of functional questions thus
arise: What flow to break? Where to inte rrupt it? How and by what means? What
place should be left for other producers or antiproducers (the place of one's little
brother, for instance)? Should one, or s hould one not, suffocate from what one
eats, swallow air, shit with one's mout h? The data, the bits of information
recorded, and their transmission form a grid of disjunctions of a type that differs
from the previous connections. We owe to Jacques Lacan the discovery of this
fertile domain of a code of the uncons cious, incorporating the entire chain—or
The Polyvocal Chains of Desire
- The unconscious operates through a grid of disjunctions and signifying chains that function more like a jargon than a structured language.
- These chains are inscribed upon the 'body without organs,' which serves as an immaterial support for indifferent signs that follow no pre-ordained plan.
- The system is characterized by a 'real inorganization' where signs from different alphabets and images—like an elephant or a mustache—mix without exclusion.
- Each chain extracts surplus value from others, functioning like a Markov chain of aleatory phenomena rather than a linear, discursive narrative.
- The primary vocation of these signs is not to signify a specific meaning, but to engineer and produce desire in every direction.
No chain is homogeneous; all of them resemble, rather, a succession of characters from different alphabets in which an ideogram, a pictogram, a tiny image of an elephant passing by, or a rising sun may suddenly make its appearance.
arise: What flow to break? Where to inte rrupt it? How and by what means? What
place should be left for other producers or antiproducers (the place of one's little
brother, for instance)? Should one, or s hould one not, suffocate from what one
eats, swallow air, shit with one's mout h? The data, the bits of information
recorded, and their transmission form a grid of disjunctions of a type that differs
from the previous connections. We owe to Jacques Lacan the discovery of this
fertile domain of a code of the uncons cious, incorporating the entire chain—or
several chains—of meaning: a discovery t hus totally transforming analysis. (The
basic text in this connection is his La lettre volee [ The Purloined Letter}) But
how very strange this domain seems, simply because of its multiplicity—a
multiplicity so complex that we can scarcely speak of one chain or even of one
code of desire. The chains are called "signifying chains" (chaines signifiantes)
because they are made up of signs, but these signs are not themselves signifying.
The code resembles not so much a language as a jargon, an open-ended,
polyvocal formation. The nature of the si gns within it is insignificant, as these
signs have little or nothing to do with wh at supports them. Or rather, isn't the
support completely immaterial to these signs? The support is the body without
organs. These indifferent signs follow no plan, they function at all levels and
enter into any and every so rt of connection; each one speaks its own language,
and establishes syntheses with others that are quite direct along transverse
vectors, whereas the vectors between the basic elements that constitute them are
quite indirect.
The disjunctions characteristic of these chains still do not involve any
exclusion, however, since exclusions can arise only as a function of
3$ ANTI-OEDIPUS
inhibiters and repressers that eventually determine the support and firmly define a
specific, personal subject.* No chain is homogeneous; all of them resemble,
rather, a succession of characters from diffe rent alphabets in which an ideogram,
a pictogram, a tiny image of an elephant passing by, or a rising sun may suddenly
make its appearance. In a chain that mi xes together phonemes, morphemes, etc.,
without combining them, papa's mustache, mama's upraised arm, a ribbon, a little
girl, a cop, a shoe suddenly turn up. Each chain captures fragments of other
chains from which it "extracts" a surplus va lue, just as the orchid code "attracts"
the figure of a wasp: both phenomena demons trate the surplus value of a code. It
is an entire system of shuntings along certain tracks, and of selections by lot, that
bring about partially dependent, aleatory phenomena bearing a close resemblance
to a Markov chain. The recordings and transmissions that have come from the
internal codes, from the outside worl d, from one region to another of the
organism, all intersect, following the endlessly ramified paths of the great
disjunctive synthesis. If this constitute s a system of writing, it is a writing
inscribed on the very surface of the Real: a strangely polyvocal kind of writing,
never a biunivocalized, linearized one; a tr anscursive system of writing, never a
discursive one; a writing that constitute s the entire domain of the "real
inorganization" of the passive syntheses, where we would search in vain for
something that might be labeled the Si gnifier—writing that ceaselessly composes
and decomposes the chains into signs that have nothing that impels them to
become signifying. The one vocation of the sign is to produce desire, engineering
it in every direction.
These chains are the locus of continual detachments—schizzesf on every
hand that are valuable in and of themselv es and above all must not be filled in.
This is thus the second characteristic of the machine: breaks th at are a detachment
(coupures-detachements), which must not be confused with breaks that are a
The Code of Desire
- The Signifier acts as a mechanism that ceaselessly composes and decomposes chains of signs to engineer desire in every direction.
- A distinction is made between 'breaks as slicing off' related to continuous flows and 'breaks as detachment' (schizzes) related to heterogeneous chains.
- Desiring-machines utilize mobile, detachable segments likened to 'flying bricks' that contain inscriptions from different alphabets and heterogeneous elements.
- While a despotic Signifier attempts to linearize and immobilize these units into an imperial wall, the schizo works them loose to create a new polyvocity.
- The nervous system is described as a chronogeneous 'music box' machine that produces nonspatial melodies through the interaction of these fragmented paths.
We must conceive of each brick as having been launched from a distance and as being composed of heterogeneous elements: containing within it not only an inscription with signs from different alphabets, but also various figures, plus one or several straws, and perhaps a corpse.
something that might be labeled the Si gnifier—writing that ceaselessly composes
and decomposes the chains into signs that have nothing that impels them to
become signifying. The one vocation of the sign is to produce desire, engineering
it in every direction.
These chains are the locus of continual detachments—schizzesf on every
hand that are valuable in and of themselv es and above all must not be filled in.
This is thus the second characteristic of the machine: breaks th at are a detachment
(coupures-detachements), which must not be confused with breaks that are a
slicing off (coupures-prelevements). The latter have to do with continuous fluxes
and are related to partial objects. Schizzes have to do with heterogeneous chains,
and as their basic unit use detachable segments or mobile stocks resembling
building
*See Jacques Lacan, "Remarque sur le rapport de Daniet Lagache," in Ecrils (reference note 36), of "an
exclusion having its source in these signs as such being able to come about only as a condition of
consistency within a chain that is to be constituted; let us also add that the one dimension limiting this
condition is the translation of which such a chain is capable. Let us consider this game of lotto for just a
moment more. We may then discover that it is only because these elements turn up by sheer chance within
an ordinal series, in a truly unorganized way, that their appearance makes us draw lots" (p. 658).
+A coined word (French schize), based on the Greek verb schizsin, "to split," "to cleave," "to divide."
(Translators' note.)
THE DESIRING-MACHINES 39
blocks or flying bricks. We must concei ve of each brick as having been launched
from a distance and as being composed of heterogeneous elements: containing
within it not only an inscription with si gns from different alphabets, but also
various figures, plus one or several straws, and perhaps a corpse. Cutting into the
flows (le prelevement du flux) involves detachment of something from a chain;
and the partial objects of production presuppos e stocks of material or recording
bricks within the coexistence and th e interaction of all the syntheses.
How could part of a flow be drawn off without a fragmentary detachment
taking place within the code that comes to inform the flow? When we noted a
moment ago that the schizo is at the very limit of the decoded flows of desire, we
meant that he was at the very limit of the social codes, where a despotic Signifier
destroys all the chains, linearizes them, biunivocalizes them, and uses the bricks
as so many immobile units for the cons truction of an imperial Great Wall of
China. But the schizo continually detach es them, continually works them loose
and carries them off in every direction in order to create a new polyvocity that is
the code of desire. Every composition, and also every decomposition, uses
mobile bricks as the basic unit. Diaschisis and diaspasis, as Monakow put it:
either a lesion spreads along fibers that li nk it to other regions and thus gives rise
at a distance to phenomena that are incomprehensible from a purely mechanistic
(but not a machinic) point of view; or else a humoral disturbance brings on a
shift in nervous energy and creates broken, fragmented paths within the sphere of
instincts. These bricks or blocks are the essential parts of desiring-machines from
the point of view of the recording process: they are at once component parts and
products of the process of decomposition that are spatially localized only at
certain moments, by contrast with the nervous system, which is a great
chronogeneous machine: a melody-producing machine of the "music box" type,
with a nonspatial localization.35 What makes Monakow and Mourgue's study an
unparalleled one, going far beyond the en tire Jacksonist philosophy that
originally inspired it, is the theory of bricks or blocks, their detachment and
The Subject as Residuum
- The nervous system is described as a chronogeneous machine, functioning like a music box that produces melody through nonspatial localization.
- The introduction of desire into neurology allows for a theory of bricks or blocks where components are detached and fragmented.
- A third type of break, the residual break, produces a subject that exists alongside the machine as a peripheral part without a fixed personal identity.
- This subject is born anew from each state it consumes, filling the body without organs in an instant through a process of self-engendering.
- The three modes of the desiring-machine—connective, disjunctive, and conjunctive—mobilize libido, Numen, and Voluptas as different forms of energy.
In this case, only after the subject has partitioned itself does it proceed to its parturition.
the point of view of the recording process: they are at once component parts and
products of the process of decomposition that are spatially localized only at
certain moments, by contrast with the nervous system, which is a great
chronogeneous machine: a melody-producing machine of the "music box" type,
with a nonspatial localization.35 What makes Monakow and Mourgue's study an
unparalleled one, going far beyond the en tire Jacksonist philosophy that
originally inspired it, is the theory of bricks or blocks, their detachment and
fragmentation, and above all what such a theory presupposes: the introduction of
desire into neurology.
The third type of interruption or break characteristic of the
desiring-machine is the residual break (coupure-reste) or residuum, which
produces a subject alongside the machine, functioning as a part adjacent to the
machine. And if this subject has no specific or personal identity, if it traverses
the body without organs without destroying its indifference, it is because it is not
only a part that is peripheral to the machin e, but also a part that is itself divided
into parts that corres-
40 ANTI-OEDIPUS
pond to the detachments from the chain (detachements de chaine) and the
removals from the flow (prelevements de flux ) brought about by the machine.
Thus this subject consumes and consum mates each of the states through which it
passes, and is born of each of them anew , continuously emerging from them as a
part made up of parts, each one of wh ich completely fills up the body without
organs in the space of an instant. This is what allows Lacan to postulate and
describe in detail an interplay of el ements that is more machinic than
etymological: parere: to procure; separare: to separate; se parere: to engender
oneself. At the same time he points out the intensive nature of this interplay: the
part has nothing to do with the whole; "it performs its role all by itself. In this
case, only after the subject has partitioned itself does it proceed to its parturition .
. . that is why the subject can procure what is of particular concern to it here, a
state that we would label a legitimate stat us within society. No thing in the life of
any subject would sacrifice a very large part of its interests."36
Like all the other breaks, the subjective break is not at all an indication of a
lack or need (manque), but on the contrary a share that falls to the subject as a
part of a whole, income that comes its way as something left over. (Here again,
how bad a model the Oedipal model of cas tration is!) That is because breaks or
interruptions are not the result of an anal ysis; rather, in and of themselves, they
are syntheses. Syntheses produce divisions. Let us consider, for example, the
milk the baby throws up when it burps; it is at one and the same time the
restitution of something that has been levied from the associative flux {restitution
de prelevement s ur le flux associatif); the reproduction of the process of
detachment from the signifying chain (reproduction de detachement sur la
chaine signifiante); and a residuum (residu) that constitutes the subject's share of
the whole. The desiring-machine is not a metaphor; it is what interrupts and is
interrupted in accordance with these three modes. The first mode has to do with
the connective synthesis, and mob ilizes libido as withdrawal energy (energie de
prelevement). The second has to do with the disj unctive synthesis, and mobilizes
the Numen as detachment energy (energie de detachement) . The third has to do
with the conjunctive synthesis, and m obilizes Voluptas as residual energy
(energie residuelle). It is these three aspects that make the process of
desiring-production at once the production of production, the production of
The Logic of Multiplicity
- Desiring-production operates through three distinct syntheses—connective, disjunctive, and conjunctive—which function as real material operations rather than metaphors.
- The process of desiring-machines is defined by productive breaks, failures, and hiatuses that prevent the formation of a traditional, unified whole.
- Modern thought has moved past the myth of a lost primordial totality or a future harmonious unity, embracing instead the concept of pure multiplicity.
- A whole may exist alongside its parts, but it functions as a separate, peripheral part added to the collection rather than a force that unifies or totalizes them.
- Literary works like those of Proust and Balzac exemplify this 'machine' logic, where fragments are related only by their sheer difference and lack of communication.
We live today in the age of partial objects, bricks that have been shattered to bits, and leftovers.
the whole. The desiring-machine is not a metaphor; it is what interrupts and is
interrupted in accordance with these three modes. The first mode has to do with
the connective synthesis, and mob ilizes libido as withdrawal energy (energie de
prelevement). The second has to do with the disj unctive synthesis, and mobilizes
the Numen as detachment energy (energie de detachement) . The third has to do
with the conjunctive synthesis, and m obilizes Voluptas as residual energy
(energie residuelle). It is these three aspects that make the process of
desiring-production at once the production of production, the production of
recording, and the production of consump tion. To withdraw a part from the
whole, to detach, to "have something left over," is to produce, and to carry out
real operations of desire in the material world.
THE DESIRING-MACHINES 41
6 The Whole and Its Parts
In desiring-machines everything functions at the same
time, but amid hiatuses and ruptur es, breakdowns and failures, stalling
and short circuits, distances and fragm entations, within a sum that never
succeeds in bringing its various parts together so as to form a whole.
That is because the breaks in th e process are productive, and are
reassemblies in and of themselves. Di sjunctions, by the very fact that
they are disjunctions, are inclusive. Even consumptions are transitions,
processes of becoming, and returns. Maurice Blanchot has found a way
to pose the problem in the most rigorous terms, at the level of the
literary machine: how to produce, how to think about fragments whose
sole relationship is sheer difference— fragments that are related to one
another only in that each of them is different—without having recourse
either to any sort of original totality (not even one that has been lost), or
to a subsequent totality that may not yet have come about?37 It is only
the category of multiplicity, used as a substantive and going beyond both
the One and the many, beyond the predicative relation of the One and
the many, that can account for de siring-production: desiring-production
is pure multiplicity, that is to say, an affirmation that is irreducible to any
sort of unity.
We live today in the age of partial objects, bricks that have been
shattered to bits, and leftovers. We no longer believe in the myth of the
existence of fragments that, like pieces of an antique statue, are merely
waiting for the last one to be turned up, so that they may all be glued
back together to create a unity that is precisely the same as the original
unity. We no longer believe in a primordial totality that once existed, or
in a final totality that aw aits us at some future date. We no longer believe
in the dull gray outlines of a dreary, colorless dialectic of evolution,
aimed at forming a harmonious whol e out of heterogeneous bits by
rounding off their rough edges. We be lieve only in totalities that are
peripheral. And if we discover such a totality alongside various separate
parts, it is a whole of these particular parts but does not totalize them; it
is a unity of all of these particular parts but does not unify them; rather,
it is added to them as a new part fabricated separately.
"It comes into being, but applying this time to the whole as some
inspired fragment composed separately . . . ." So Proust writes of the
unity of Balzac's creation, though his remark is also an apt description
of his own oeuvre.39 In the literary machine that Proust's In S earch of
Lost Time constitutes, we are struck by the fact that all the parts are
produced as asymmetrical sections, pa ths that suddenly come to an end,
hermetically sealed boxes, noncomm unicating vessels, watertight com-
42 ANTI-OEDIPUS
partments, in which there are gaps even between things that are
contiguous, gaps that are affirmati ons, pieces of a puzzle belonging not
to any one puzzle but to many, pieces assembled by forcing them into a
Proust and Schizoid Production
- Proust's literary work is described as a 'schizoid' machine composed of noncommunicating vessels and hermetically sealed boxes.
- The text argues that the apparent theme of guilt in Proust is merely a cover for a deeper, innocent madness found in fragmented universes.
- The 'Whole' is redefined not as a unifying totality, but as a separate part produced alongside other parts to establish aberrant paths of communication.
- This process of 'reweaving' intermittent fragments is compared to Joyce's concept of re-embodying and the biological mechanism of amino acid assembly.
- The body without organs functions as a surface for polyvocal inscriptions where the whole coexists contiguously with its partial objects.
It is a schizoid work par excellence: it is almost as though the author's guilt, his confessions of guilt are merely a sort of joke.
of his own oeuvre.39 In the literary machine that Proust's In S earch of
Lost Time constitutes, we are struck by the fact that all the parts are
produced as asymmetrical sections, pa ths that suddenly come to an end,
hermetically sealed boxes, noncomm unicating vessels, watertight com-
42 ANTI-OEDIPUS
partments, in which there are gaps even between things that are
contiguous, gaps that are affirmati ons, pieces of a puzzle belonging not
to any one puzzle but to many, pieces assembled by forcing them into a
certain place where they may or may not belong, their unmatched edges
violently bent out of shape, forcibly made to fit together, to interlock,
with a number of pieces always left over. It is a schizoid work par
excellence: it is almost as though the author's guilt, his confessions of
guilt are merely a sort of joke. (In Kleinian terms, it might be said that
the depressive position is only a cover-up for a more deeply rooted
schizoid attitude.) For the rigors of the law are only an apparent
expression of the protest of the One, whereas their real object is the
absolution of fragmented universes, in which the law never unites
anything in a single Whole, but on th e contrary measures and maps out
the divergences, the dispersions, the exploding into fragments of
something that is innocent precisely because its source is madness. This
is why in Proust's work the apparent theme of guilt is tightly interwoven
with a completely different theme totally contradicting it; the plantlike
innocence that results from the total compartmentalization of the sexes,
both in Charlus's encounters and in Albertine's slumber, where flowers
blossom in profusion and the utter innocence of madness is revealed,
whether it be the patent madness of Charlus or the supposed madness of
Albertine.
Hence Proust maintained that the Whole itself is a product,
produced as nothing more than a part alongside other parts, which it
neither unifies nor totalizes, though it has an effect on these other parts
simply because it establishes abe rrant paths of communication between
noncommunicating vessels, transverse unities between elements that
retain all their differences within their own particular boundaries. Thus
in the trip on the train in In Search of Lost Time, there is never a totality
of what is seen nor a unity of the points of view, except along the
transversal that the frantic passenger traces from one window to the
other, "in order to draw together, in order to reweave intermittent and
opposite fragments." This drawing t ogether, this reweaving is what
Joyce called re-embodying. The body without organs is produced as a
whole, but in its own particular plac e within the process of production,
alongside the parts that it neither uni fies nor totalizes. And when it
operates on them, when it turns back upon them (se rabat sur elles), it
brings about transverse communica tions, transfinite summarizations,
polyvocal and transcursive inscripti ons on its own surface, on which the
functional breaks of partial objects are continually intersected by breaks
in the signifying chains, and by breaks effected by a subject that uses
them as reference points in order to locate itself. The whole not only
THE DESIRING-MACHINES 43
coexists with all the parts; it is co ntiguous to them, it exists as a product
that is produced apart from them and yet at the same time is related to
them. Geneticists have noted the same phenomenon in the particular
language of their science: ". . . amino acids are assimilated individually
into the cell, and then are arranged in the proper sequence by a
mechanism analogous to a template onto which the distinctive side chain
of each acid keys into its proper position."39 As a general rule, the
problem of the relationships between parts and the whole continues to
be rather awkwardly formulated by classic mechanism and vitalism, so
Partial Objects and Desiring-Machines
- The text argues that the relationship between parts and the whole is misunderstood by both mechanism and vitalism, failing to account for the production of desire.
- Melanie Klein is credited with discovering 'partial objects' but is criticized for viewing them as fantasies of consumption rather than real production.
- Klein's failure to grasp the logic of these objects stems from her insistence on relating them to an original or eventual 'complete Object' or global person.
- Partial objects are described as having an inherent power to dismantle the Oedipal framework and its claim to represent the unconscious.
- The author proposes an 'anoedipal' nature of desire that exists independently of developmental or structural relationships to the family triangle.
Melanie Klein was responsible for the marvelous discovery of partial objects, that world of explosions, rotations, vibrations.
coexists with all the parts; it is co ntiguous to them, it exists as a product
that is produced apart from them and yet at the same time is related to
them. Geneticists have noted the same phenomenon in the particular
language of their science: ". . . amino acids are assimilated individually
into the cell, and then are arranged in the proper sequence by a
mechanism analogous to a template onto which the distinctive side chain
of each acid keys into its proper position."39 As a general rule, the
problem of the relationships between parts and the whole continues to
be rather awkwardly formulated by classic mechanism and vitalism, so
long as the whole is considered as a totality derived from the parts, or as
an original totality from which the parts emanate, or as a dialectical
totalization. Neither mechanism nor vitalism has really understood the
nature of desiring-machines, nor the twofold need to consider the role of
production in desire and the role of desire in mechanics.
There is no sort of evolution of dr ives that would cause these drives
and their objects to progress in the direction of an integrated whole, any
more than there is an original totality from which they can be derived.
Melanie Klein was responsible for th e marvelous discovery of partial
objects, that world of explosions, ro tations, vibrations. But how can we
explain the fact that she has nonetheless failed to grasp the logic of these
objects? It is doubtless because, first of all, she conceives of them as
fantasies and judges them from the poi nt of view of consumption, rather
than regarding them as genuine produc tion. She explains them in terms
of causal mechanisms (introjection and projection, for instance), of
mechanisms that produce certain effe cts (gratification and frustration),
and of mechanisms of expression (good or bad)—an approach that
forces her to adopt an idealist conception of the partial object. She does
not relate these partial objects to a real process of production—of the
sort carried out by desiring-machines, for instance. In the second place,
she cannot rid herself of the notion that schizoparanoid partial objects
are related to a whole, either to an original whole that has existed earlier
in a primary phase, or to a whole that will eventually appear in a final
depressive stage (the complete Object). Partial objects hence appear to
her to be derived from (preleves sur) global persons; not only are they
destined to play a role in totalities aimed at integrating the ego, the
object, and drives later in life, but they also constitute the original type
of object relation between the ego, the mother, and the father. And in
the final analysis that is where the crux of the matter lies. Partial objects
unquestionably have a sufficient charge in and of themselves to blow up
all of Oedipus and totally demolish it s ridiculous claim to represent the
unconscious, to triangulate the unconscious, to encompass the entire
production of desire. The question that thus arises here is not at all that
$4 ANTI-OEDIPUS
of the relative importance of what might be called the pre-oedipal in relation to
Oedipus itself, since "pre-oedipal" s till has a developmental or structural
relationship to Oedipus. The question, rather, is that of the absolutely anoedipal
nature of the production of desire. But because Melanie Klein insists on
considering desire from the point of view of the whole, of global persons, and of
complete objects—and also, perhaps, because she is eager to avoid any sort of
contretemps with the International Psycho- Analytic Association that bears above
The Terrorism of Oedipus
- The text argues that psychoanalysis forcibly imposes the Oedipal framework onto the naturally anoedipal production of desire.
- Even Melanie Klein, who worked with partial objects, is criticized for using them to miniaturize and extend Oedipus into the earliest stages of life.
- The clinical example of 'Dick' illustrates how analysts aggressively map parental symbols onto a child's mechanical and spatial interests.
- The authors contend that partial objects are not representations of family members but are components of 'desiring-machines' that exist prior to any familial structure.
- Psychoanalytic practice is described as a form of 'sheer terrorism' that replaces the exploration of desire with the enforcement of parental images.
The psychoanalyst no longer says to the patient: 'Tell me a little bit about your desiring-machines, won't you?' Instead he screams: 'Answer daddy-and-mommy when I speak to you!'
of the relative importance of what might be called the pre-oedipal in relation to
Oedipus itself, since "pre-oedipal" s till has a developmental or structural
relationship to Oedipus. The question, rather, is that of the absolutely anoedipal
nature of the production of desire. But because Melanie Klein insists on
considering desire from the point of view of the whole, of global persons, and of
complete objects—and also, perhaps, because she is eager to avoid any sort of
contretemps with the International Psycho- Analytic Association that bears above
its door the inscription "Let no one enter here who does not believe in
Oedipus"— she does not make use of partial objects to shatter the iron collar of
Oedipus; on the contrary, she uses them—or makes a pretense of using them—to
water Oedipus down, to miniaturize it, to find it everywhere, to extend it to the
very earliest years of life.
If we here choose the example of the analyst least prone to see everything
in terms of Oedipus, we do so only in order to demonstrate what a forcing was
necessary for her to make Oedipus the sole measure of desiring-production. And
naturally this is all the more true in the case of run-of-the-mill practitioners who
no longer have the slightest notion of what the psychoanalytic "movement" is all
about. It is no longer a question of sugges tion, but of sheer terrorism. Melanie
Klein herself writes: "The first time Dick ca me to me ... he manifested no sort of
affect when his nurse handed him over to me. When I showed him the toys I had
put ready, he looked at them without the faintest interest. I took a big train and
put it beside a smaller one and called them 'Daddy-train' and 'Dick-train.'
Thereupon he picked up the train I called 'D ick' and made it roll to the window
and said 'Station.' I explained: 'The station is mummy; Dick is going into
mummy.' He left the train, ran into the space between the outer and inner doors
of the room, shutting himself in, saying 'dark,' and ran out again directly. He
went through this performance several times. I explained to him: 'It is dark inside
mummy. Dick is inside dark mummy.' M eantime he picked up the train again,
but soon ran back into the space between the doors. While I was saying that he
was going into dark mummy, he said twic e in a questioning way: 'Nurse?' . . . As
his analysis pr ogressed . . . Dick had also discovered the wash-basin as
symbolizing the mother's body, and he disp layed an extraordinary dread of being
wetted with water." Say that it's Oedipus, or you'll get a slap in the face. The
psychoanalyst no longer says to the patient: "Tell me a little bit about your
desiring-machines, won't you?" Instead he screams: "Answer daddy-and-mommy
when I speak to you!" Even Melanie Klein. So the entire process of
desiring-production is trampled underfoot and reduced to (rabuttu sur) parental
images, laid out step by step in accordance with supposed pre-oedipal stages,
THE DESIRING-MACHINES 45
totalized in Oedipus, and the logic of partial objects is thereby reduced
to nothing. Oedipus thus becomes at th is point the crucial premise in the
logic of psychoanalysis. For as we suspected at the very beginning,
partial objects are only apparently derived from (preleves s ur) global
persons; they are really produced by being drawn from (preleves sur) a
flow or a nonpersonal hyle, with which they re-establish contact by
connecting themselves to other pa rtial objects. The unconscious is
totally unaware of persons as such. Partial objects are not representa-
tions of parental figures or of the ba sic patterns of family relations; they
are parts of desiring-machines, having to do with a process and with
relations of production that are both irreducible and prior to anything
that may be made to conform to the Oedipal figure.
When the break between Freud and Jung is discussed, the modest
and practical point of disagreement that marked the beginning of their
Desiring-Machines and Partial Objects
- The unconscious operates through partial objects and desiring-machines rather than recognizing whole persons or parental figures.
- The authors critique the Freudian tendency to reduce all childhood experiences and play to the Oedipal family structure.
- Jung's break with Freud is highlighted by his observation that patients often view analysts as gods or sorcerers rather than just parents.
- A child's interaction with the world, such as playing with a train or exploring a room, involves direct relations of production rather than symbolic representations.
- The libido is argued to invest directly in social and metaphysical fields without requiring the mediation of the family unit.
The train is not necessarily daddy, nor is the train station necessarily mommy.
connecting themselves to other pa rtial objects. The unconscious is
totally unaware of persons as such. Partial objects are not representa-
tions of parental figures or of the ba sic patterns of family relations; they
are parts of desiring-machines, having to do with a process and with
relations of production that are both irreducible and prior to anything
that may be made to conform to the Oedipal figure.
When the break between Freud and Jung is discussed, the modest
and practical point of disagreement that marked the beginning of their
differences is too often forgotten: J ung remarked that in the process of
transference the psychoanalyst frequently appeared in the guise of a
devil, a god, or a sorcerer, and that the roles he assumed in the patient's
eyes went far beyond any sort of pa rental images. They eventually came
to a total parting of the ways, yet J ung's initial reservation was a telling
one. The same remark holds true of children's games. A child never
confines himself to playing hous e, to playing only at being
daddy-and-mommy. He also plays at being a magician, a cowboy, a cop
or a robber, a train, a little car. The train is not necessarily daddy, nor is
the train station necessarily mommy. The problem has to do not with the
sexual nature of desiring-machines, but with the family nature of this
sexuality. Admittedly, once the child has grown up, he finds himself
deeply involved in social relations that are no longer familial relations.
But since these relations supposedly co me into being at a later stage in
life, there are only two possible ways in which this can be explained: it
must be granted either that sexuality is sublimated or neutralized in and
through social (and metaphysical) relations, in the form of an analytic
"afterward"; or else that these re lations bring into play a nonsexual
energy, for which sexuality has mere ly served as the symbol of an
anagogical "beyond."
It was their disagreement on this particular point that eventually
made the break between Freud and J ung irreconcilable. Yet at the same
time the two of them continued to sh are the belief that the libido cannot
invest a social or metaphysical fiel d without some sort of mediation.
This is not the case, however. Let us consider a child at play, or a child
crawling about exploring the various rooms of the house he lives in. He
looks intently at an electrical outlet, he moves his body about like a
machine, he uses one of his legs as though it were an oar, he goes into
46 ANTI-OEDIPUS
the kitchen, into the study, he runs toy cars back and forth. It is obvious that his
parents are present all this time, and that the child would have nothing were it not
for them. But that is not the real matter at issue. The matter at issue is to find out
whether everything he touches is experien ced as a representative of his parents.
Ever since birth his crib, his mother's breast, her nipple, his bowel movements are
desiring-machines connected to parts of his body. It seems to us
self-contradictory to maintain, on the one hand, that the child lives among partial
objects, and that on the other hand he conceives of these partial objects as being
his parents, or even different parts of his parents' bodies. Strictly speaking, it is
not true that a baby experiences his mother 's breast as a separate part of her body.
It exists, rather, as a part of a desiri ng-machine connected to the baby's mouth,
and is experienced as an object providi ng a nonpersonal flow of milk, be it
copious or scanty. A desiring-machine and a partial object do not represent
anything, A partial object is not repres entative, even though it admittedly serves
as a basis of relations and as a means of assigning agents a place and a function;
but these agents are not persons, any more than these relations are intersubjective.
They are relations of production as such, and agents of production and
Desiring-Machines and the Oedipal Trap
- The infant does not initially experience the mother's breast as a personal body part, but as a partial object within a nonpersonal desiring-machine.
- Psychoanalysis mistakenly forces the complex, nonfamilial experience of the child into the restrictive and narrow code of the Oedipal triangle.
- Parents function as special agents within a broader social field of production rather than being the primary source of the child's desire.
- The relationship between the child and the parent is a secondary 'inscription' or report of desire, rather than a natural productive relationship.
- The central problem of psychoanalysis is understanding the forces that cause the open social field of desire to close up into the familial Oedipal structure.
It exists, rather, as a part of a desiring-machine connected to the baby's mouth, and is experienced as an object providing a nonpersonal flow of milk, be it copious or scanty.
self-contradictory to maintain, on the one hand, that the child lives among partial
objects, and that on the other hand he conceives of these partial objects as being
his parents, or even different parts of his parents' bodies. Strictly speaking, it is
not true that a baby experiences his mother 's breast as a separate part of her body.
It exists, rather, as a part of a desiri ng-machine connected to the baby's mouth,
and is experienced as an object providi ng a nonpersonal flow of milk, be it
copious or scanty. A desiring-machine and a partial object do not represent
anything, A partial object is not repres entative, even though it admittedly serves
as a basis of relations and as a means of assigning agents a place and a function;
but these agents are not persons, any more than these relations are intersubjective.
They are relations of production as such, and agents of production and
antiproduction. Ray Bradbury demonstrates this very well when he describes the
nursery as a place where desiring-production and group fantasy occur, as a place
where the only connection is that be tween partial objects and agents.41 The small
child lives with his family around the clock; but within the bosom of this family,
and from the very first days of his life, he immediately begins having an amazing
nonfamilial experience that psychoanalysi s has completely failed to take into
account. Lindner's painting attracts our attention once again.
It is not a question of denying the v ital importance of pa rents or the love
attachment of children to their mothers and fathers. It is a question of knowing
what the place and the function of parent s are within desiring-production, rather
than doing the opposite and forcing the en tire interplay of desiring-machines to
fit within (rabattre tout le jeu des machines desirantes dans) the restricted code
of Oedipus. How does the child first come to define the places and the functions
that the parents are going to occupy as sp ecial agents, closely related to other
agents? From the very beginning Oedipus ex ists in one form and one form only:
open in all directions to a social field, to a field of production directly invested by
libido. It would seem obvious that parents indeed make their appearance on the
recording surface of desiring- production. But this is in fact the crux of the entire
Oedipal problem: What are the precise for ces that cause the Oedipal triangulation
to close up? Under what conditions does this triangulation divert desire so that it
flows across a
THE DESIRING-MACHINES «
surface within a narrow channel that is not a natural conformation of
this surface? How does it form a type of inscription for experiences and
the workings of mechanisms that extend far beyond it in every direc-
tion? It is in this sense and this sense only that the child relates the breast
as a partial object to the person of his mother, and constantly watches
the expression on his mother's face. The word "relate" in this case does
not designate a natural productive relationship, but rather a relation in
the sense of a report or an account, an inscription within the over-all
process of inscription, within th e Numen. From hi s very earliest
infancy, the child has a wide-rangi ng life of desire—a whole set of
nonfamilial relations with the objects and the machines of desire—that
is not related to the parents from the point of view of immediate
production, but that is ascribed to th em (with either love or hatred) from
the point of view of the recording of the process, and in accordance with
the very special conditions of this r ecording, including the effect of these
conditions upon the process itself (feedback).
It is amid partial objects and within the nonfamilial relations of
desiring-production that the child lives his life and ponders what it
means to live, even though the question must be "related" to his parents
and the only possible tentative an swer must be sought in family
The Orphaned Unconscious
- The text argues that the child's metaphysical inquiries into existence are produced by desiring-machines rather than familial relationships.
- Psychological recording mistakenly ascribes the origins of desire to parents, whereas the process is actually independent of them.
- The authors claim that the unconscious is an 'orphan' that produces itself through the identity of nature and man.
- Confining childhood development to the Oedipus complex fails to account for the collective mechanisms and primal repression of the unconscious.
- Desiring-production begins in the earliest days of life through relations with partial objects and factors of antiproduction.
For the unconscious is an orphan, and produces itself within the identity of nature and man.
is not related to the parents from the point of view of immediate
production, but that is ascribed to th em (with either love or hatred) from
the point of view of the recording of the process, and in accordance with
the very special conditions of this r ecording, including the effect of these
conditions upon the process itself (feedback).
It is amid partial objects and within the nonfamilial relations of
desiring-production that the child lives his life and ponders what it
means to live, even though the question must be "related" to his parents
and the only possible tentative an swer must be sought in family
relations. "I remember that ever since I was eight years old, and even
before that, I always wondered who I was, what I was, and why I was
alive; I remember that at the age of six, on a house on the Boulevard de
la Blancarde in Marseilles (number 29, to be precise), just as I was eating
my afternoon snack—a chocolate bar th at a certain woman known as my
mother gave me—I asked myself what it meant to exist, to be alive, what
it meant to be conscious of onesel f breathing, and I remember that I
wanted to inhale myself in order to prove that I was alive and to see if I
liked being alive, and if so why."42 That is the crucial point: a question
occurs to the child that will perhaps be "related" to the woman known as
mommy, but that is not formulated in terms of her, but rather produced
within the interplay of desiring-mach ines—at the level, for example, of
the mouth-air machine or the tasting-machine: What does it mean to be
alive? What does it mean to breathe? What am I? What sort of thing is
this breathing-machine on my body without organs?
The child is a metaphysical being. As in the case of the Cartesian
cogito, parents have nothing to do with these questions. And we are
guilty of an error when we confus e the fact that this question is
"related" to the parents, in the sens e of being recounted or communicated
to them, with the notion that it is "related" to them in the sense of a
fundamental connection with them. By boxing the life of the child up
within the Oedipus complex, by making familial relations the universal
48 ANTI-OEDIPUS
mediation of childhood, we cannot help but fail to understand the
production of the unconscious itself, a nd the collective mechanisms that
have an immediate bearing on the unconscious: in particular, the entire
interplay between primal psychic re pression, the desiring-machines, and
the body without organs. For the unconscio us is an orpha n, and
produces itself within the identity of nature and man. The
autoproduc-tion of the unconscious suddenly became evident when the
subject of the Cartesian cogito realized that it had no parents, when the
socialist thinker discovered the unity of man and nature within the
process of production, and when th e cycle discovers its independence
from an indefinite parental regre ssion. To quote Artaud once again: "I
got no/papamummy."
We have seen how a confusion arose between the two meanings of
"process": process as the metaphysi cal production of the demoniacal
within nature, and process as soci al production of desiring-machines
within history. Neither social relations nor metaphysical relations
constitute an "afterward" or a "beyond." The role of such relations must
be recognized in all psychopathologica l processes, and their importance
will be all the greater when we are dealing with psychotic syndromes
that would appear to be the most animal-like and the most desocialized.
It is in the child's very first days of life, in the most elementary behavior
patterns of the suckling babe, that these relations with partial objects,
with the agents of production, with the factors of antiproduction are
woven, in accordance with the laws of desiring-production as a whole.
By failing from the beginning to see what the precise nature of this
desiring-production is, and how, under what conditions, and in response
The Oedipal Yoke
- The text argues that desiring-production begins in the earliest days of life through relations with partial objects, long before the family structure is imposed.
- Psychoanalysis is criticized for trapping sexuality within a 'dirty little secret' of bourgeois motifs rather than viewing it as a productive factory of nature.
- By framing madness and desire through the lens of the parental complex, psychoanalysis reinforces nineteenth-century moralized discourses of guilt and responsibility.
- The authors contend that the Oedipal dogma serves as a tool for bourgeois repression, keeping humanity harnessed to the 'daddy-mommy' triangle.
- D.H. Lawrence's critique is highlighted as a defense of sexuality's true power against the restrictive, artificial theater of the psychoanalytic couch.
In Lawrence's case, at least, his reservations with regard to psychoanalysis did not stem from terror at having discovered what real sexuality was.
that would appear to be the most animal-like and the most desocialized.
It is in the child's very first days of life, in the most elementary behavior
patterns of the suckling babe, that these relations with partial objects,
with the agents of production, with the factors of antiproduction are
woven, in accordance with the laws of desiring-production as a whole.
By failing from the beginning to see what the precise nature of this
desiring-production is, and how, under what conditions, and in response
to what pressures, the Oedipal triangul ation plays a role in the recording
of the process, we find ourselves trapped in the net of a diffuse,
generalized oedipalism that radically di storts the life of the child and his
later development, the neurotic and ps ychotic problems of the adult, and
sexuality as a whole. Let us keep D.H. Lawrence's reaction to
psychoanalysis in mind, and never forget it. In Lawrence's case, at least,
his reservations with regard to ps ychoanalysis did not stem from terror
at having discovered what real sexuality was. But he had the
impression—the purely instinctive impression—that psychoanalysis was
shutting sexuality up in a bizarre sort of box painted with bourgeois
motifs, in a kind of rather repugnant artifical triangle, thereby stifling
the whole of sexuality as production of desire so as to recast it along
entirely different lines, making of it a "dirty little secret," the dirty little
family secret, a private theater rather than the fantastic factory of Nature
and Production. Lawrence had the im pression that se xuality possessed
more power or more potentiality than that. And
THE DESIRING-MACHINES 49
though psychoanalysis may perhaps have managed to "disinfect the dirty little
secret," the dreary, dirty little secret of Oedipus-the-modern-tyrant benefited
very little from having been thus disinfected.
Is it possible that, by taking the path th at it has, psychoanalysis is reviving
an age-old tendency to humble us, to demean us, and to make us feel guilty?
Foucault has noted that the relationship between madness and the family can be
traced back in large part to a developmen t that affected the whole of bourgeois
society in the nineteenth century: the family was entrusted with functions that
became the measuring rod of the responsibility of its members and their possible
guilt. Insofar as psychoanalysis cloaks insanity in the mantle of a "parental
complex," and regards the patterns of self-punishment resulting from Oedipus as
a confession of guilt, its theories are not at all radical or innovative. On the
contrary: it is co mpleting the task begun by ninete enth-century psycholo gy,
namely, to develop a moralized, familial discourse of mental pathology, linking
madness to the "half-real, half-imaginary dialectic of the Family," deciphering
within it "the unending attempt to murder the father," "the dull thud of instincts
hammering at the solidity of the family as an institution and at its most archaic
symbols."43 Hence, instead of participating in an undertaking that will bring about
genuine liberation, psychoanalysis is taking part in the work of bourgeois
repression at its most far-reaching level, that is to say, keeping European
humanity harnessed to the yoke of daddy-mommy and making n o effor t to do
away with this problem once and for all.
so ANTI-OEDIPUS
PSYCHO 2
ANALYSIS
AND FAMILIALISM:
THE HOLY FAMILY
Translated by Robert Hurley and Mark Seem
1 The Imperialism of Oedipus
Oedipus restrained is the figure of the daddy-mommy-me
triangle, the familial constellation in pe rson. But when psychoanalysis makes of
Oedipus its dogma, it is not unaware of the existence of relations said to be
pre-oedipal in the child, exo-oedipal in th e psychotic, para-oedipal in others. The
function of Oedipus as dogma, or as the " nuclear complex," is inseparable from a
forcing by which the psychoanalyst as theoretician elevates himself to the
The Imperialism of Oedipus
- Psychoanalysis elevates Oedipus to a universal dogma by generalizing the familial triangle into a structural system of positions and functions.
- The theory expands to include a 'group Oedipus' that accounts for multiple generations, often blaming grandparents for the onset of psychosis.
- Structural interpretation transforms Oedipus into a 'universal Catholic symbol' that serves as a referential axis for all psychological phenomena.
- The authors argue that this structuralist approach still functions to repress 'desiring-production' by forcing every experience into an Oedipal orbit.
- Even when a subject like a schizophrenic shows no Oedipal link, the theory uses concepts like 'foreclosure' to reposition them within the complex.
Wouldn't the real difference be between Oedipus, structural as well as imaginary, and something else that all the Oedipuses crush and repress: desiring-production—the machines of desire?
Translated by Robert Hurley and Mark Seem
1 The Imperialism of Oedipus
Oedipus restrained is the figure of the daddy-mommy-me
triangle, the familial constellation in pe rson. But when psychoanalysis makes of
Oedipus its dogma, it is not unaware of the existence of relations said to be
pre-oedipal in the child, exo-oedipal in th e psychotic, para-oedipal in others. The
function of Oedipus as dogma, or as the " nuclear complex," is inseparable from a
forcing by which the psychoanalyst as theoretician elevates himself to the
conception of a generalized Oedipus. On the one hand, for each subject of either
sex, he takes into consideration an inte nsive series of instincts, affects, and
relations that link the normal and positive fo rm of the complex to its inverse or
negative form: a standard model Oedipus, such as Freud presents in The Ego and
the Id, which makes it possible to connect the pre-Oedipal phases with the
negative complex when this seems called for. On the
51
other hand, he takes into considerati on the coexistence in extension of the
subjects themselves and their multiple in teractions: a group Oedipus that brings
together relatives, descendants, and asce ndants. (It is in this manner that the
schizophrenic's visible resistance to oe dipalization, the obvious absence of the
Oedipal link, can be obscured in a grandpa rental constellation, either because an
accumulation of three generations is deem ed necessary in order to produce a
psychotic, or because an even more di rect mechanism of intervention by the
grandparents in the psychosis is discovered, and Oedipuses of Oedipus are
constituted, to the second power: neurosis , that's father-mother, but grandma,
that's psychosis.) Finally, the distin ction between the Imaginary* and the
Symbolic* permits the emergence of an Oedipal structure as a system of
positions and functions that do not confor m to the variable figure of those who
come to occupy them in a given social or pathological forma tion: a structural
Oedipus (3 + 1) that does not conform to a triangle, but performs all the possible
triangulations by distributing in a give n domain desire, its object, and the law.
It is certain that the two preceding m odes of generalization attain their full
scope only in structural interpretation. Structural interpretation makes Oedipus
into a kind of universal Catholic symbol , beyond all the imaginary modalities. It
makes Oedipus into a referential axis not only for the pre-oedipal phases, but
also for the para-oedipal varieties, an d the exo-oedipal phenomena. The notion of
"foreclosure," for example, seems to indicate a specifically structural deficiency,
by means of which the schizophrenic is of course repositioned on the Oedipal
axis, set back into the Oedi pal orbit in the perspective, for example, of the three
generations, where the mother was not ab le to posit her desire toward her own
father, nor the son, consequently, toward the mother. One of Lacan's disciples
writes: we are going to consider "the means by which the Oedipal organization
plays a role in psychoses; next, what th e forms of psychotic pregenitality are and
how they are able to maintain the Oedi pal reference." Our preceding criticism of
Oedipus therefore risks being judged totally superficial and petty, as if it applied
solely to an imaginary Oedipus and aimed at the role of parental figures, without
at all penetrating the structure and its order of symbolic positions and functions.
For us, however, the problem is one of knowing if, indeed, that is where the
difference enters in. Wouldn't the real di fference be between Oedipus, structural
as well as imaginary, and something else that all the Oedipuses crush and
repress: desiring-production—the machines of
*In capitalizing these terms, we have followed the suggestion of Jacques Lacan's translator, Anthony
Wilden; see T7ie Language of the Self (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ ersity Press, 1968), p. xv.
Shattering the Oedipal Collar
- The authors challenge the psychoanalytic insistence on the Oedipus complex as a structural invariant for understanding the unconscious.
- They propose that 'desiring-production' exists as a Real force that is crushed and repressed by both imaginary and structural Oedipal frameworks.
- The text advocates for 'schizophrenizing' the unconscious to rediscover the machinic nature of desire beyond symbolic representation.
- A distinction is drawn between the unconscious as a representational theater and the unconscious as a factory that engineers and produces.
- The historical development of the Oedipus complex in Freud's work is noted as being surprisingly marginal and delayed in its theoretical generalization.
Wouldn't it be better to schizophrenize—to schizophrenize the domain of the unconscious as well as the sociohistorical domain, so as to shatter the iron collar of Oedipus and rediscover everywhere the force of desiring-production?
writes: we are going to consider "the means by which the Oedipal organization
plays a role in psychoses; next, what th e forms of psychotic pregenitality are and
how they are able to maintain the Oedi pal reference." Our preceding criticism of
Oedipus therefore risks being judged totally superficial and petty, as if it applied
solely to an imaginary Oedipus and aimed at the role of parental figures, without
at all penetrating the structure and its order of symbolic positions and functions.
For us, however, the problem is one of knowing if, indeed, that is where the
difference enters in. Wouldn't the real di fference be between Oedipus, structural
as well as imaginary, and something else that all the Oedipuses crush and
repress: desiring-production—the machines of
*In capitalizing these terms, we have followed the suggestion of Jacques Lacan's translator, Anthony
Wilden; see T7ie Language of the Self (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ ersity Press, 1968), p. xv.
52 A N T I - O E D I P U S
desire that no longer allow themselves to be reduced to the structure any more
than to persons, and that constitute th e Real in itself, beyond or beneath the
Symbolic as well as the Imaginary? We in no way claim to be taking up an
endeavor such as Malinowsk i's, showing that the figures vary according to the
social form under consideration. We even believe what we are told when
Oedipus is presented as a kind of inva riant. But the question is altogether
different: is there an equivalence between the productions of the unconscious and
this invariant—between the desiring-mach ines and the Oedipal structure? Or
rather, does not the invariant merely e xpress the history of a long mistake,
throughout all its variations and modalities; the strain of an endless repression?
What we are calling into question is th e frantic Oedipalization to which psycho-
analysis devotes itself, practically and th eoretically, with the combined resources
of image and structure. And despite so me fine books by certain disciples of
Lacan, we wonder if Lacan's thought really goes in this direction. Is it merely a
matter of oedipalizing even the schizo? Or is it a question of something else, and
even the contrary?* Wouldn't it be better to schizophrenize—to schizophrenize
the domain of the unconscious as well as the sociohistorical domain, so as to
shatter the iron collar of Oedipus and rediscover everywhere the force of
desiring-production; to renew, on the le vel of the Real, the tie between the
analytic machine, desire, and production? For the unconscious itself is no more
structural than personal, it does not sy mbolize any more than it imagines or
represents; it engineers, it is machinic. Neither imaginary nor symbolic, it is the
Real in itself, the "impossible real" and its production.
But what is this long history, if we consider it only during the period of
psychoanalysis? It does not take place w ithout doubts, detours, and repentances.
Laplanche and Pontalis note that Freud "discovers" the Oedipus complex in 1897
in the course of his self-analysis, but that he doesn't give a generalized
theoretical form to it until 1923, in The Ego and the I d, and that, between these
two formulations, Oedipus leads a more or less marginal existe nce, "confined for
example to a separate chapter on object-choice at puberty (Three Essays), or to a
chapter on typical dreams (The Interpretation of Dreams)." They say that this is
because a certain abandonment by Freud of the theory of traumatism
The Imperialism of Oedipus
- Freud's discovery of the Oedipus complex evolved from a marginal self-analysis in 1897 to a generalized theoretical sovereign by 1923.
- The authors argue that the rise of Oedipus led to the sacrifice of the 'productive unconscious' in favor of a mere 'expressive' one.
- Early psychoanalysis initially glimpsed a domain of free syntheses and 'desiring-machines' that connected psychic life directly to social production.
- The establishment of the Oedipus complex linearized the unconscious, replacing polyvocal connections with a 'despotic signifier' and a univocal impasse.
- By prioritizing representation over production, psychoanalysis reduced the unconscious to the structures of myth, tragedy, and the family unit.
The desiring-machines pound away and throb in the depths of the unconscious: Irma's injection, the Wolf Man's ticktock, Anna's coughing machine.
Laplanche and Pontalis note that Freud "discovers" the Oedipus complex in 1897
in the course of his self-analysis, but that he doesn't give a generalized
theoretical form to it until 1923, in The Ego and the I d, and that, between these
two formulations, Oedipus leads a more or less marginal existe nce, "confined for
example to a separate chapter on object-choice at puberty (Three Essays), or to a
chapter on typical dreams (The Interpretation of Dreams)." They say that this is
because a certain abandonment by Freud of the theory of traumatism
""'Nevertheless, it is not because I preach a return to Freud that I am not able to say that Totem and Taboo
is a twisted story. It is in fact for that reason that we must return to Freud. No one helped me to make this
known: the formations of the unconscious. ... I am not saying Oedipus serves no purpose, nor that it (co)
bears no relationship with w:hat we do. it serves no purpose for the psychoanalysts, that is indeed true! But
since psychoanalysts are assuredly not psychoanalysts, that proves nothing. . . . These are things I set forth
in their appropriate time and place; that was a time when I was speaking to people who had to be dealt with
tactfully—psychoanalysts. On that level, I spoke of the paternal metaphor, I have never spoken of an
Oedipus complex." (Jacques Lacan in a seminar, 1970.)
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY S3
and seduction leads not to a univocal determination of Oedipus, but to the
description as well of a spontaneous infantile sexuality of an endogenous nature.
It is as if "Freud never managed to ar ticulate the interrelations of Oedipus and
infantile sexuality," the latter referring to a biological reality of development, the
former to a psychic fantasy reality. Oedipus is what all but got lost "for the sake
of a biological realism."1
But is it correct to present things in this way? Did the imperialism of
Oedipus require only the renunciation of bi ological realism? Or wasn't something
else sacrificed to Oedipus, something infinitely stronger? For what Freud and the
first analysts discover is the domain of free syntheses where everything is
possible: endless connections, nonexclusive disjunctions, nonspecific
conjunctions, partial objects and flows. The desiring-machines pound away and
throb in the depths of the unconscious: Ir ma's injection, the Wolf Man's ticktock,
Anna's coughing machine, and also all the explanatory apparatuses set into
motion by Freud, all those neurobiologico -desiring-machines. And the discovery
of the productive unconscious has what appear to be two correlates: on the one
hand, the direct confrontation be tween desiring-production and social
production, between symptomological a nd collective formations, given their
identical nature and their differing regime s; and on the other hand, the repression
that the social machine exercises on de siring-machines, and the relationship of
psychic repression with social repression. This will all be lost, or at least
singularly compromised, with the establishment of a sovereign Oedipus. Free
association, rather than opening onto pol yvocal connections, confines itself to a
univocal impasse. All the chains of th e unconscious are biunivocalized, linear-
ized, suspended from a despotic signifier. The whole of desiring-production is
crushed, subjected to the requirements of representation, and to the dreary games
of what is representative and represente d in representation. And there is the
essential thing: the reproduction of desire gives way to a simple representation,
in the process as well as theory of the cure. The productive unconscious makes
way for an unconscious that knows only how to express itself—express itself in
myth, in tragedy, in dream.
But who says that dream, tragedy, and myth are adequate to the formations
of the unconscious, even if the work of transformation is taken into account?
From Factory to Theater
- The text argues that Freud transformed the unconscious from a productive 'factory' or 'workshop' into a classical theater of representation.
- Freud is criticized for retreating from the 'wild production' of desire to impose a classical order based on Greek tragedy and the Oedipal myth.
- The author suggests that Freud's discovery of Oedipus was influenced more by his classical Goethian culture than by objective self-analysis.
- Psychoanalysis is compared to the Russian Revolution, suggesting a gradual betrayal of its original revolutionary potential regarding desiring-production.
- Desiring-machines are relegated to the 'wings' of the consulting room, where they are denied in favor of the 'daddy-mommy' familial triangle.
The unconscious ceases to be what it is—a factory, a workshop—to become a theater, a scene and its staging.
crushed, subjected to the requirements of representation, and to the dreary games
of what is representative and represente d in representation. And there is the
essential thing: the reproduction of desire gives way to a simple representation,
in the process as well as theory of the cure. The productive unconscious makes
way for an unconscious that knows only how to express itself—express itself in
myth, in tragedy, in dream.
But who says that dream, tragedy, and myth are adequate to the formations
of the unconscious, even if the work of transformation is taken into account?
Groddeck remained more faithful than Freud to an autoproduction of the
unconscious in the coextension of man and Nature. It is as if Freud had drawn
back from this world of wild producti on and explosive desire, wanting at all
costs to restore a little order there, an order made classical owing to the ancient
Greek theater.
54 ANTi-OEDIPUS
For what does it mean to say that Freud discovered Oedipus in his own
self-analysis? Was it in his self-analysis, or rather in his Goethian classical
culture? In his self-analysis he discove rs something about which he remarks:
Well now, that looks like Oedipus! And at first he considers this something as a
variant of the "familial romance," a pa ranoiac recording by which desire causes
precisely the familial determinations to explode. It is only little by little that he
makes the familial romance, on the contrary, into a mere dependence on Oedipus,
and that he neuroticizes everything in the unconscious at the same time as he
oedipalizes, and closes the familial tr iangle over the entire unconscious. The
schizo—there is the enemy! Desiring- production is personalized, or rather
personologized (personnologisee), imaginarized (imaginarisee), structuralized.
(We have seen that the real difference or frontier did not lie between these terms,
which are perhaps complementary.) Production is reduced to mere fantasy
production, production of expression. The unconscious ceases to be what it is—a
factory, a workshop—to become a theater, a scene and its staging. And not even
an avant-garde theater, su ch as existed in Freud's day (Wedekind), but the
classical theater, the classical order of representation. The psychoanalyst becomes
a director for a private theater, rather than the engineer or mechanic who sets up
units of production, and grapples with collective agents of production and
antiproduction.
Psychoanalysis is like the Russian Revolution; we don't know when it
started going bad. We have to keep going back further. To the Americans? To the
First International? To the secret Committee? To the first ruptures, which signify
renunciations by Freud as much as betray als by those who break with him? To
Freud himself, from the moment of the "discovery" of Oedipus? Oedipus is the
idealist turning point. Yet it cannot be said that psychoanalysis set to work
unaware of desiring-production. The fundamental notions of the economy of
desire—work and investment—keep their im portance, but are subordinated to the
forms of an expressive unconscious a nd no longer to the formations of the
productive unconscious. The anoedipal nature of desiring-production remains
present, but it is fitted over the co-ordinat es of Oedipus, which translate it into
"pre-oedipal," "para-oedipal," "quasi-oed ipal," etc. The desiring-machines are
always there, but they no longer function except behind the consulting-room
walls. Behind the walls or in the wings, such is the place the primal fantasy
concedes to desiring-machines, when it reduces everything to the Oedipal
scene.18 They continue nevertheless to make a hellish racket. Even the psycho-
analyst can't ignore them. He tends therefor e to maintain an attitude of denial: all
of that is surely true, but it is still daddy-mommy. Over the
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 55
consulting-room door is written, "L eave your desiring-machines at the
The Oedipalization of Desire
- Psychoanalysis forces the complex 'desiring-machines' of the unconscious into the narrow, restrictive frame of the Oedipal family scene.
- The clinical setting demands that patients abandon their external 'machines' and social realities to participate in a contractual exchange of speech for money.
- Introducing a physical third element, like a tape recorder, into a session shatters the psychoanalytic contract and exposes the analyst's reliance on authority.
- The analyst acts as an agent of 'antiproduction,' mirroring the logic of Capital by claiming all productive forces emanate from the parental complex.
- Freud's analysis of Judge Schreber illustrates the tension between a rich, divine delirium and the reductive paternal themes imposed by the practitioner.
Over the consulting-room door is written, 'Leave your desiring-machines at the door, give up your orphan and celibate machines, your tape recorder and your little bike, enter and allow yourself to be oedipalized.'
always there, but they no longer function except behind the consulting-room
walls. Behind the walls or in the wings, such is the place the primal fantasy
concedes to desiring-machines, when it reduces everything to the Oedipal
scene.18 They continue nevertheless to make a hellish racket. Even the psycho-
analyst can't ignore them. He tends therefor e to maintain an attitude of denial: all
of that is surely true, but it is still daddy-mommy. Over the
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 55
consulting-room door is written, "L eave your desiring-machines at the
door, give up your orphan and celibate machines, your tape recorder and
your little bike, enter and allow yourself to be oedipalized." Everything
follows from that, beginning with the unreliable character of the cure, its
interminable and highly contractual na ture, flows of speech in exchange
for flows of money. All that is need ed is what is called a psychotic
episode: after a schizophrenic flash, one day we bring our tape recorder
into the analyst's office—stop!—with this insertion of a
desiring-machine everything is revers ed: we have broken the contract,
we are not faithful to the major principl e of the exclusion of a third party,
we have introduced a third element—the desiring-machine in person.*
Yet every psychoanalyst should know that, underneath Oedipus, through
Oedipus, behind Oedipus, his business is with desiring-machines. At the
beginning, psychoanalysts could not be unaware of the forcing
employed to introduce Oedipus, to inject it into the unconscious. Then
Oedipus fell back on and appropriat ed desiring-production as if all the
productive forces emanated from Oedipus itself. The psychoanalyst
became the carrier of Oedipus, the great agent of antiproduction in
desire. The same history as that of Capital, with its enchanted,
"miraculated" world. (Also at the beginning, said Marx, the first
capitalists could not be unaware of ...)
2 Three Texts of Freud
It is easy to see that the problem is first of all practical,
that it concerns above all else the pr actice of the cure. For the frenzied
oedipalization process takes form pr ecisely at the moment when Oedi-
pus has not yet received its full theoretical formulation as the "nuclear
complex" and leads a marginal existence. The fact that Schreber's
analysis was not in vivo detracts nothing from its exemplary value from
the point of view of practice. In th is text (1911) Freud encounters the
most formidable of questions: how doe s one dare reduce to the paternal
theme a delirium so rich, so differentiated, so "divine" as the Judge's—
since the Judge in his memoirs makes only very brief references to the
*Jean-Jacques Abrahams, "L'homme au ma gnetophone, dialogue psychanalytique," Les Temps modernes,
no. 274 (April 1969): "A: You see, it really isn't so serious; I'm not your father, and I can still shout, of
course not! There, that's enough.— Dr. X: You are imitating your father at this moment?— A: Of course not,
come off it, I'm imitating your father! The one I see in your eyes.— Dr. X: You are trying to take the role. . .
. —A: . . . You can't cure people, you can only palm off your father problems on them—problems you can't
get away from. And from session to session you drag along your victims that way with your father problem
. . . .1 was the sick oncyow were the doctor. You'd finally reversed your childhood problem of being the
child to your father. . . . — Dr. X: I was just telephoning extension 609 to make you leave—609, the police,
to have you thrown out.—A: The police? That's it—Daddy! Your father's a policeman! And you were going
to call your father to come get me. . . . What insani ty! You got all unnerved, exc ited, just because I brought
out a little device that'll let us understand what's going on here."
56 A N T I - O E D I P U S
The Posthumous Oedipalization of Schreber
- The text critiques how psychoanalysis reduces complex deliriums to a monotonous repetition of the father figure.
- Freud justifies the constant presence of the father in analysis by claiming it is a result of sexuality's inherent symbolism.
- The authors argue that Freud ignores the vast political and social content of Judge Schreber's delirium to focus solely on the familial complex.
- By measuring the unconscious against myth and religion, psychoanalysis substitutes expressive forms for actual productive formations.
- The agreement between Freud and Jung persists in their shared assumption that the unconscious is adequately expressed through mythological models.
It should be noted that Judge Schreber's destiny was not merely that of being sodomized, while still alive, by the rays from heaven, but also that of being posthumously oedipalized by Freud.
no. 274 (April 1969): "A: You see, it really isn't so serious; I'm not your father, and I can still shout, of
course not! There, that's enough.— Dr. X: You are imitating your father at this moment?— A: Of course not,
come off it, I'm imitating your father! The one I see in your eyes.— Dr. X: You are trying to take the role. . .
. —A: . . . You can't cure people, you can only palm off your father problems on them—problems you can't
get away from. And from session to session you drag along your victims that way with your father problem
. . . .1 was the sick oncyow were the doctor. You'd finally reversed your childhood problem of being the
child to your father. . . . — Dr. X: I was just telephoning extension 609 to make you leave—609, the police,
to have you thrown out.—A: The police? That's it—Daddy! Your father's a policeman! And you were going
to call your father to come get me. . . . What insani ty! You got all unnerved, exc ited, just because I brought
out a little device that'll let us understand what's going on here."
56 A N T I - O E D I P U S
memory of his father. On several occas ions Freud's text marks the extent
to which he felt the difficulty: to begin with, it appears difficult to assign
as cause of the malady—even if onl y an occasional cause—an "outburst
of homosexual libido" direct ed at Dr. Flechsig's person.2 But when we
replace the doctor with the father and commission the father to explain
the God of delirium, we ourselves have trouble following this ascension;
we take liberties that can be justifie d only by the advantages they afford
us in our attempt to understand the delirium.3 Yet the more Freud states
such scruples, the more he thrusts them aside and sweeps them away
with a firm and confident response. An d this response is double: it is not
my fault if psychoanalysis attests to a great monotony and encounters
the father everywhere—in Flechsig, in the God, in the sun; it is the fault
of sexuality and its stubborn symbolism.4 Furthermore, it is not
surprising that the father returns cons tantly in current deliriums in the
most hidden and least recognizable guises, since he returns in fact
everywhere and more visibly in religions and ancient myths, which
express forces or mechanisms eternally active in the unconscious.5 It
should be noted that Judge Schreber's destiny was not merely that of
being sodomized, whil e still alive, by the rays from heaven, but also that
of being posthumously oedipalized by Freud. From the enormous
political, social, and historical content of Schreber's delirium, not o ne
word is retain ed, as though the libido did not bother itself with such
things. Freud invokes only a sexual argument, which consists in
bringing about the union of sexuality and the familial complex, and a
mythological argument, which consists in positing the adequation of the
productive force of the unconscious and the "edifying forces of myths
and religions."
This latter argument is very impor tant, and it is not by chance that
here Freud declares himself in agr eement with Jung. In a certain way
this agreement subsists after their break. If the unconscious is thought to
express itself adequately in myths and religions (taking into account, of
course, the work of transformation), there are two ways of reading this
adequation, but they have in common the postulate that measures the
unconscious against myth, and that from the start substitutes mere
expressive forms for the productive formations. The basic question is
never asked, but cast aside: Why return to myth? Why take it as the
model? The supposed adequation can then be interpreted in what is
termed anagogical fashion, toward the "higher." Or inversely, in analyti-
cal fashion, toward the "lower," relating the myth to the drives. But
since the drives are transferred from myth, traced from myth with the
transformations taken into account. . . What we mean is that, starting
The Religious Unconscious and Oedipus
- The text argues that both Freud and Jung inject religious structures into the unconscious by using myth as a model for psychic production.
- While Freud maintains a heroic atheism, his followers eventually reconciled psychoanalysis with religious institutions and 'pious' sentiments.
- True liberation requires reaching a state of 'autoproduction' where the unconscious is immediately atheist and orphan, needing no mediation from myth.
- The 'imperialism of Oedipus' is often founded on an absence, where the father figure is a construction of analysis rather than a conscious reality.
- By tethering sexuality to the familial complex, Freud limits desire's ability to invest directly in social and metaphysical relations.
But to render religion unconscious, or the unconscious religious, still amounts to injecting something religious into the unconscious.
unconscious against myth, and that from the start substitutes mere
expressive forms for the productive formations. The basic question is
never asked, but cast aside: Why return to myth? Why take it as the
model? The supposed adequation can then be interpreted in what is
termed anagogical fashion, toward the "higher." Or inversely, in analyti-
cal fashion, toward the "lower," relating the myth to the drives. But
since the drives are transferred from myth, traced from myth with the
transformations taken into account. . . What we mean is that, starting
from the same postulate, Jung is le d to restore the most diffuse and
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY ST
spiritualized religiosity, whereas Freud is confirmed in his most rigorous
atheism. Freud needs to deny the existe nce of God as much as Jung needs to
affirm the essence of the divine, in or der to interpret the commonly postulated
adequation. But to render religion unconsci ous, or the unconscious religious, still
amounts to injecting something religious into the unconscious. (And what would
Freudian analysis be without the celeb rated guilt feelings ascribed to the
unconscious?)
What came to pass in the history of psychoanalysis? Freud held to his
atheism in heroic fashion. But all around him, more and more, they respectfully
allowed him to speak, they let the old man speak, ready to prepare behind his
back the reconciliation of the churches a nd psychoanalysis, the moment when the
Church would train its own psychoanalyst s, and when it would become possible
to write in the history of the movement: so even we are still pious! Let us recall
Marx's great declaration: he who deni es God does only a "secondary thing," for
he denies God in order to posit the existe nce of man, to put man in God's place
(the transformation taken into account).6 But the person who knows that the place
of man is entirely elsewhere does not even allow the possibility of a question to
subsist concerning "an alien being, a be ing placed above man and nature": he no
longer needs the mediation of myth, he no longer needs to go by way of this
mediation—the negation of the existence of God—since he has attained those
regions of an autoproduction of the unconscious where the unconscious is no less
atheist than orphan—immediately atheis t, immediately orphan. And doubtless an
examination of the first argument would lead us to a similar conclusion. By
joining sexuality to the familial complex, by making Oedipus into the criterion of
sexuality in analysis—the test of orthodoxy par excellence—Freud himself
posited the whole of social and metaphysical relations as an afterward or a
beyond that desire was incapable of in vesting immediately. He then became
rather indifferent to the fact that this beyond derives from the familial complex
through the analytical transformation of desire, or is signified by it in an
anagogical symbolization.
Let us consider another text of Freud's, a later one, where Oedipus is
already designated as the "nuclear co mplex": "A Child Is Being Beaten."7 The
reader cannot escape the impression of a disquieting strangeness. Never was the
paternal theme less visible, and yet neve r was it affirmed with as much passion
and resolution. The imperialism of Oedipus is founded here on an absence. After
all, of the three supposed phases of the girl 's fantasy, the first is such that the
father does not yet appear, while in the third the father no longer appears: that
leaves the second, then, where the father shines forth in all his brilliance, "clearly
58 ANTI-OEDIPUS
without doubt"—but indeed, "this second phase has never had a real
existence. It is never remembered, it has never succeeded in becoming
conscious. It is a construction of anal ysis, but it is no less a necessity on
that account."8
What is at issue in this fantasy? Some boys are beaten by some-
one—the teacher, for example—in the presence of the little girls. We are
The Imperialism of Oedipus
- Freud reduces the group character of fantasies to a purely individual dimension by insisting that all figures are substitutes for the subject or the father.
- The central 'paternal' phase of the beating fantasy is described as a necessary analytical construction that has never actually existed in consciousness.
- Psychoanalysis uses the concept of castration to distribute a 'lack' across two asymmetrical series, forcing a choice between being a boy or a girl.
- The ultimate goal of this Freudian framework is to teach resignation to the Oedipal structure and the 'assumption of one's sex.'
- The Phallus serves as a transcendent commonality that establishes exclusive disjunctions within the unconscious.
It is a construction of analysis, but it is no less a necessity on that account.
paternal theme less visible, and yet neve r was it affirmed with as much passion
and resolution. The imperialism of Oedipus is founded here on an absence. After
all, of the three supposed phases of the girl 's fantasy, the first is such that the
father does not yet appear, while in the third the father no longer appears: that
leaves the second, then, where the father shines forth in all his brilliance, "clearly
58 ANTI-OEDIPUS
without doubt"—but indeed, "this second phase has never had a real
existence. It is never remembered, it has never succeeded in becoming
conscious. It is a construction of anal ysis, but it is no less a necessity on
that account."8
What is at issue in this fantasy? Some boys are beaten by some-
one—the teacher, for example—in the presence of the little girls. We are
present from the start at a double Freudian reduction, which is in no way
imposed by the fantasy, but is required by Freud in the manner of a
presupposition. On the one hand Freud wants to deliberately reduce the
group character of the fantasy to a purely individual dimension: the
beaten children must in a way be the ego ("substitutes for the subject
himself") and the one who does the beating must be the father ("father
substitute"). On the other hand it is necessary for the variations of the
fantasy to be organized in disjunc tions whose use must be strictly
exclusive. Hence there will be a girl-series and a boy-series, but
dissymmetrical, the female fantasy having three phases, the last of
which is "boys are beaten by the teacher," while the male fantasy has
only two, the last of which is "m y mother beats me." The only common
phase—the second for the girls and the first for the boys—affirms
without doubt the prevalence of the fath er in both cases, but this is the
famous nonexistent phase.
Such is always the case with Fr eud. Something common to the two
sexes is required, but something that w ill be lacking in both, and that will
distribute the lack in two nonsymme trical series, establishing the
exclusive use of the disjunctions: you are girl or boy! Such is the case
with Oedipus and its "resolution," differe nt in boys and in girls. Such is
the case with castration, and its relationship to Oedipus in both
instances. Castration is at once the common lot—that is, the prevalent
and transcendent Phallus, and the exclusive distribution that presents
itself in girls as desire for the penis, and in boys as fear of losing it or
refusal of a passive attitude. This something in common must lay the
foundation for the exclusive use of the disjunctions of the uncon-
scious—and teach us resignation. Resignation to Oedipus, to castration:
for girls, renunciation of their desire for the penis; for boys, renunciation
of male protest—in short, "assumption of one's sex."* This
*Sigmund Freud, "Analysis Terminab le and Interminable" (1937), in Standard Edition of the Complete
Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, ed. James Strachey (New Yo rk: Macmillan; London: Hogarth
Press, 1964), Vol. 23, pp. 250-52: "The two corre sponding themes are in the female, an envy for the
penis —a positive striving to possess a male genital—and, in the male, a st ruggle against his passive or
feminine attitude to another male. ... At no other point . . . does one suffer more from an oppressive feeling
that one has been "preaching to the winds,' than wh en one is trying to persuade a woman to abandon her
wish for a penis on the ground of its bein g unrealizable or when one is seeking to convince a man that a
passive attitude to men does not always signify castration and that it is indispensable in many relationships
in life. The rebellious overcompensation of the male pr oduces one of the strongest transference-resistances.
He refuses to subject himself to a father-substitute, or to feel indebted to him
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY St
something in common, the great Phallus, the Lack with two
The Fallacy of Castration
- Freud identifies the core of psychological resistance as the female envy for the penis and the male struggle against a passive attitude toward other men.
- The text argues that the 'Phallus' is a mythical construct of negative theology that introduces a false sense of lack into the nature of human desire.
- Contrary to Freud's focus on deprivation, the authors propose a model of partial objects where nothing is lacking and disjunctions are inclusive rather than exclusive.
- The concept of bisexuality is presented as a missed opportunity for Freud to move beyond the binary of castration and the fixed ego.
- Castration is described not as a psychological reality but as a practical operation performed by psychoanalysis to 'castrate the unconscious' itself.
Castration designates the operation by which psychoanalysis castrates the unconscious, injects castration into the unconscious.
*Sigmund Freud, "Analysis Terminab le and Interminable" (1937), in Standard Edition of the Complete
Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, ed. James Strachey (New Yo rk: Macmillan; London: Hogarth
Press, 1964), Vol. 23, pp. 250-52: "The two corre sponding themes are in the female, an envy for the
penis —a positive striving to possess a male genital—and, in the male, a st ruggle against his passive or
feminine attitude to another male. ... At no other point . . . does one suffer more from an oppressive feeling
that one has been "preaching to the winds,' than wh en one is trying to persuade a woman to abandon her
wish for a penis on the ground of its bein g unrealizable or when one is seeking to convince a man that a
passive attitude to men does not always signify castration and that it is indispensable in many relationships
in life. The rebellious overcompensation of the male pr oduces one of the strongest transference-resistances.
He refuses to subject himself to a father-substitute, or to feel indebted to him
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY St
something in common, the great Phallus, the Lack with two
nonsuperim-posable sides, is purely mythical; it is like the One in
negative theology, it introduces lack into desire and causes exclusive
series to emanate, to which it attri butes a goal, an origin, and a path of
resignation.
The contrary should be said: neither is there anything in common
between the two sexes, nor do they cease communicating with each
other in a transverse mode where each subject possesses both of them,
but with the two of them partitioned off, and where each subject
communicates with one sex or the other in another subject. Such is the
law of partial objects. Nothing is lacking, nothing can be defined as a
lack; nor are the disjunctions in the unconscious ever exclusive, but
rather the object of a properly inclusive use that we must analyze. Freud
had a concept at his disposal for stating this contrary notion: the concept
of bisexuality; and it was not by chan ce that he was never able or never
wanted to give this concept the analytical position and extension it
required. Without even going that far, a lively controversy developed
when certain analysts, following Melanie Klein, tried to define the
unconscious forces of the female sexual organ by positive characteris-
tics in terms of partial objects and flow s. This slight shift—which did not
suppress mythical castration but made it depend secondarily on the
organ, instead of the organ's depending on it—met with great opposition
from Freud.9 He maintained that the organ, from the viewpoint of the
unconscious, could not be understood except by proceeding from a lack
or a primal deprivation, and not the opposite.
Here we have a properly analytical fallacy (which will be found
again, to a considerable degree, in the theory of the signifier) that
consists in passing from the detachable partial object to the position of a
complete object as the thing detached (phallus). This passage implies a
subject, defined as a fixed ego of one sex or the other, who necessarily
experiences as a lack his subordi nation to the tyrannical complete
object. This is perhaps no longer the case when the partial object is
posited for itself on the body without organs, with—as its sole
subject—not an "ego," but the driv e that forms the desiring-machine
along with it, and that enters into relationships of connection, disjunc-
tion, and conjunction with other partial objects, at the core of the
corresponding multiplicity whose every element can only be defined
positively. We must speak of "castration" in the same way we speak of
oedipalization, whose crowning moment it is: castration designates the
operation by which psychoanalysis castrates the unconscious, injects
castration into the unconscious. Cast ration as a practical operation on
Castration and the Unconscious
- The subject is defined not as an ego but as a drive forming a desiring-machine that connects with other partial objects.
- Psychoanalysis is accused of performing a practical operation that injects the concept of castration into a productive unconscious.
- The unconscious is described as being entirely ignorant of Oedipus, parents, gods, laws, or the concept of lack.
- The text questions how the unconscious is transformed from a productive force into a passive vessel for beliefs that align with the established social order.
- Group fantasies like 'a child is being beaten' are analyzed as products of a social desiring-machine rather than isolated ego-driven family dramas.
- The authors argue that individual desire invests directly into the social field and its repressive forms through complex gendered and masochistic montages.
We must speak of "castration" in the same way we speak of oedipalization, whose crowning moment it is: castration designates the operation by which psychoanalysis castrates the unconscious, injects castration into the unconscious.
subject—not an "ego," but the driv e that forms the desiring-machine
along with it, and that enters into relationships of connection, disjunc-
tion, and conjunction with other partial objects, at the core of the
corresponding multiplicity whose every element can only be defined
positively. We must speak of "castration" in the same way we speak of
oedipalization, whose crowning moment it is: castration designates the
operation by which psychoanalysis castrates the unconscious, injects
castration into the unconscious. Cast ration as a practical operation on
for anything, and consequently he refuses to accept his recovery from the doctor." (Translators' note:
Hereafter this source will be cited as Standard Edition.)
60 ANTI-OEDIPUS
the unconscious is achieved when the thousand breaks-flows of
desiring-machines—all pos itive, all productive—are projected into the
same mythical space, the unary stroke of the signifier.
We have not finished chanting the litany of the ignorances of the
unconscious; it knows nothing of castration or Oedipus, just as it knows
nothing of parents, gods, the law, lack. The Women's Liberation
movements are correct in saying: We are not castrated, so you get
fucked.10 And far from being able to get by with anything like the
wretched maneuver where men answer that this itself is proof that
women are castrated—or even console women by saying that men are
castrated, too, all the while rejoicing that they are castrated the other
way, on the side that is not supe rimposable—it should be recognized
that Women's Liberation movements c ontain, in a more or less ambigu-
ous state, what belongs to all requirements of liberation: the force of the
unconscious itself, the investment by desire of the social field, the
disinvestment of repressi ve structures. Nor are we going to say that the
question is not that of knowing if wo men are castrated, but only if the
unconscious "believes it," since all th e ambiguity lies there. What does
belief applied to the unconscious signi fy? What is an unconscious that
no longer does anything but "believe," rather than produce? What are
the operations, the artifices that inje ct the unconscious with "beliefs"
that are not even irrational, but on the contrary only too reasonable and
consistent with the established order?
Let us return to the fantasy, "a child is being beaten, children are
beaten"—a typical group fantasy where desire invests the social field
and its repressive forms. If there is a mise en scene, it is directed by a
social desiring-machine whose product should not be considered ab-
stractly, separating the girl's and the boy's cases, as if each were a little
ego taking up its own business with da ddy and mommy. On the contrary,
we should consider the complementary emsemble made up of boy-girl
and parents-agents of production and antiproduction, this ensemble
being present at the same time in each individual and in the socius that
presides over the organization of the group fantasy. Simultaneously the
boys are beaten-initiated by the teacher on the little girl's erotic stage
(seeing-machine), and obtain satisfaction in a masochistic fantasy
involving the mother (anal machine). Th e result is that the boys are able
to see only by becoming little girls, and the girls cannot experience the
pleasure of punishment except by beco ming boys. It is a whole chorus, a
montage: back in the village after a raid in Vietnam, in the presence of
their weeping sisters, the filthy Marines are beaten by their instructor, on
whose knees the mommy is seated, and they have orgasms for having
been so evil, for having tortured so well. It's so bad, but also so good!
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIAUSM: THE HOLY FAMILY 81
Perhaps one will recall a sequence from the film Hearts and Minds:
we see Colonel Patton, the general's son, saying that his guys are great,
that they love their mothers, their fathers, and their country, that they
Group Fantasy and the Socius
- The text critiques traditional psychoanalysis for reducing complex social desires and libidinal investments to simple familial determinations like the Oedipal triangle.
- Individual fantasy is described as an imaginary mechanism that confers immortality onto social institutions, allowing the ego to resign itself to repression and death.
- Group fantasy is distinguished by its direct connection to the real symbolic articulations of the social field rather than imaginary familial substitutes.
- A revolutionary group fantasy is defined by the capacity to view institutions as mortal and changeable, turning the death instinct into institutional creativity.
- The authors argue that social figures like the colonel or the instructor are not merely father-substitutes but are collective agents directly invested by the libido.
The terms of Oedipus do not form a triangle, but exist shattered into all corners of the social field—the mother on the instructor's knees, the father next to the colonel.
involving the mother (anal machine). Th e result is that the boys are able
to see only by becoming little girls, and the girls cannot experience the
pleasure of punishment except by beco ming boys. It is a whole chorus, a
montage: back in the village after a raid in Vietnam, in the presence of
their weeping sisters, the filthy Marines are beaten by their instructor, on
whose knees the mommy is seated, and they have orgasms for having
been so evil, for having tortured so well. It's so bad, but also so good!
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIAUSM: THE HOLY FAMILY 81
Perhaps one will recall a sequence from the film Hearts and Minds:
we see Colonel Patton, the general's son, saying that his guys are great,
that they love their mothers, their fathers, and their country, that they
cry at the religious serv ices for their dead buddies, fine boys; then the
colonel's face changes, grimaces, and reveals a big paranoiac in uniform
who shouts in conclusion: but still, they're a bloody good bunch of
killers! It is obvious that when trad itional psychoanalysis explains that
the instructor is the father, and that the colonel too is the father, and that
the mother is nonetheless the father too, it reduces all of desire to a
familial determination that no longer has anything to do with the social
field actually invested by the libido. Of course there is always something
from the father or the mother that is taken up in the signifying
chain—daddy's mustache, the mother's raised arm—but it comes fur-
tively to occupy a place among the collective agents. The terms of
Oedipus do not form a triangle, but exist shattered into all corners of the
social field—the mother on the instructor's knees, the father next to the
colonel. Group fantasy is plugged in to and machined on the socius.
Being fucked by the socius, wanting to be fucked by the socius, does not
derive from the father and mother, even though the father and mother
have their roles there as subordinate agents of transmission or execu-
tion.
When the notion of group fantasy was elaborated in the perspective
of institutional analysis—in the works of the team at La Borde Clinic,
assembled around Jean Oury—the first task was to show how it differed
from individual fantasy. It becam e evident that group fantasy was
inseparable from the "symbolic" articulations that define a social field
insofar as it is real, whereas the individual fantasy fitted the whole of
this field over "imaginary" givens. If this first distinction is drawn out,
we see that the individual fantasy is itself plugged into the existing social
field, but apprehends it in the form of imaginary qualities that confer on
it a kind of transcendence or immo rtality under the shelter of which the
individual, the ego, plays out its pse udo destiny: what does it matter if I
die, says the general, since the Army is immortal? The imaginary
dimension of the individual fantasy has a decisive importance over the
death instinct, insofar as the immortality conferred on the existing social
order carried into the ego all th e investments of repression, the
phenomena of identification, of "supe regoization" and castration, all the
resignation-desires (becoming a genera l; acquiring low, middle, or high
rank), including the resignation to dying in the service of this order,
whereas the drive itself is projected onto the outside and turned against
the others (death to the foreigner, to those who are not of our own
ranks!). The revolutionary pole of group fantasy becomes visible, on the
« 2 A N T I - O E D I P U S
contrary, in the power to experience institu tions themselves as mortal, to destroy
them or change them according to the articulations of desire and the social field,
by making the death instinct into a ver itable institutional creativity. For that is
precisely the criterion—at least the formal criterion—that distinguishes the
Revolutionary Group Fantasy
- The revolutionary pole of group fantasy is defined by the power to experience institutions as mortal and subject to change through desire.
- Individual fantasy is centered on an ego determined by legal institutions, whereas group fantasy is driven by the desiring-machines themselves.
- In group fantasy, subjects are discharged of personal identity but retain their singularities, communicating through partial objects on the body without organs.
- Social production and relations of production are fundamentally institutions of desire, with affects and drives forming part of the economic infrastructure.
- The distinction between subject-groups and subjugated groups reveals that individual fantasy is an imaginary structure imposed by the law.
As Nietzsche says; churches, armies, States—which of all these dogs wants to die?
the others (death to the foreigner, to those who are not of our own
ranks!). The revolutionary pole of group fantasy becomes visible, on the
« 2 A N T I - O E D I P U S
contrary, in the power to experience institu tions themselves as mortal, to destroy
them or change them according to the articulations of desire and the social field,
by making the death instinct into a ver itable institutional creativity. For that is
precisely the criterion—at least the formal criterion—that distinguishes the
revolutionary institution from the enorm ous inertia which the law communicates
to institutions in an established order. As Nietzsche says; churches, armies,
States—which of all these dogs wants to die?
There results a third difference between group fantasy and the so-called
individual fantasy. The latter has as subject the ego, insofar as it is determined by
the legal and legalized institutions in wh ich it "imagines itself," to the point
where, even in its perversions, the ego conforms to the exclusive use of the
disjunctions imposed by the law (for example, Oedipal homosexuality). But
group fantasy no longer has anything but th e drives themselves as subject, and
the desiring-machines formed by them with the revolutionary institutions. The
group fantasy includes the disjunctions, in the sense that each subject, discharged
of his personal identity but not of his si ngularities, enters into relations with
others following the communication proper to partial objects: everyone passes
into the body of the other on the body without organs.
In this respect Klossowski has convi ncingly shown the inverse relationship
that pulls the fantasy in two directions, as the economic law establishes
perversion in the "psychic exchanges, " or as the psychic exchanges on the
contrary promote a subversion of the law: "Anachronistic, relative to the
institutional level of gregariousness, the singular state can, according to its more
or less forceful intensity, bring about a deactualization of the institution itself and
denounce it in turn as anachronistic."11 The two kinds of fantasy, or rather the two
regimes, are therefore distinguished accord ing to whether the social production of
"goods" imposes its rule on desire thr ough the intermediary of an ego whose
fictional unity is guaranteed by the goods themselves, or whether the
desiring-production of affects imposes its rule on institutions whose elements are
no longer anything but drives. If we must still speak of Utopia in this sense, a la
Fourier, it is most assuredly not as an id eal model, but as revolutionary action and
passion. In his recent works Klossowski indicates to us the only means of
bypassing the sterile parallelism where we flounder between Fr eud and Marx: by
discovering how social production and rela tions of production are an institution
of desire, and how affects or drives form part of the infrastructure itself. For they
are part of it, the y are present the re in every way while creating within the
economic forms their own repression, as well as the means for breaking this
repression.-
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMIUALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 63
The development of distinctions between group and individual
fantasy shows sufficiently well, at last, that there is no individual
fantasy. Instead there are two types of groups, subject-groups and
subjugated groups, with Oedipus a nd castration forming the imaginary
structure under which members of the subjugated groups are induced to
live or fantasize individually their membership in the group. It must still
be said that the two types of groups are perpetually shifting, a
subject-group always being threaten ed with subjugation, a subjugated
group capable in certain cases of bei ng forced to take on a revolutionary
role. It is therefore all the more disturbing to see to what extent Freudian
analysis retains from the fantasy only its lines of exclusive disjunction,
Subjugated Groups and Psychoanalytic Debt
- The text distinguishes between subject-groups and subjugated groups, noting that Freudian analysis often flattens revolutionary group potential into individual fantasies.
- By reducing social figures like teachers and colonels to familial roles like 'daddy,' psychoanalysis forces the libido to internalize the Oedipal structure.
- The author critiques the psychoanalytic relationship as a bourgeois contract that fosters abject dependence and an inexhaustible debt through transference.
- Institutional analysis is presented as a path to escape the repressive structures of both traditional hospitals and contractual psychoanalysis.
- Freud's later work is examined for its concrete struggle with whether the analytic process can ever truly be terminated or if it is condemned to self-perpetuation.
How can we ward off, in the practice of the cure, this abject desire that makes us bend our knees, lays us on the couch, and makes us remain there?
structure under which members of the subjugated groups are induced to
live or fantasize individually their membership in the group. It must still
be said that the two types of groups are perpetually shifting, a
subject-group always being threaten ed with subjugation, a subjugated
group capable in certain cases of bei ng forced to take on a revolutionary
role. It is therefore all the more disturbing to see to what extent Freudian
analysis retains from the fantasy only its lines of exclusive disjunction,
and flattens it into its individual or pseudoindividual dimensions, which
by their very nature refer the fantasy to subjugated groups, rather than
carrying out the opposite operation an d disengaging in the fantasy the
underlying element of a revolutionary group potential. When we learn
that the instructor, the teacher, is daddy, and the colonel too, and also
the mother— when all the agents of soc ial production and antiproduction
are i n t his way reduced t o t he fi gures of familial re production —we can
understand why the panicked libido no longer risks abandoning Oedipus,
and internalizes it. The libido internalizes it in the form of a castrating
duality between the subject of the statement (I'enonce) and the subject
of the enunciation, as is characteri stic of the pseudoindividual fantasy
("I, as a man, understand you, but as judge, as boss, as colonel or
general, that is to say as the father, I condemn you"). But this duality is
artificial, derived, and supposes a di rect relationship proceeding from
the statement to the collective agents of enunciation in the group
fantasy.
Institutional analysis tries to tra ce its difficult path between the
repressive asylum and the legalis tic hospital on the one hand, and
contractual psychoanalysis on the othe r. From the outset, the psychoan-
alytic relationship modeled itself afte r the contractual relationship of the
most traditional bourgeois medicine: the feigned exclusion of a third
party; the hypocritical role of m oney, to which psychoanalysis brought
farcical new justifications; the pretended time limitation that contradicts
itself by reproducing a debt to infi nity, by feeding an inexhaustible
transference, and by always nursing new "conflicts." We are astonished
when we hear that a terminated analysis is by that very fact a failure,
even if this proposition is accompan ied by the analyst's little smile. We
are surprised when we hear a knowledgeable analyst mention, in
passing, that one of his "patients" sti ll dreams of being invited to eat or
have a drink at his place, after severa l years of analysis, as if this were
6<S ANTI-OEDIPUS
not a tiny sign of the abject dependence to which analysis reduced the patients.
How can we ward off, in the practice of the cure, this abject desire that makes us
bend our knees, lays us on the couch, and makes us remain there?
Let us consider a third and final text of Freud's, "Analysis Terminable and
Interminable" (1937).12 We prefer not to follow a recent suggestion that it would
be better to translate "Analysis Finite, Anal ysis Infinite," since finite-infinite is
almost mathematics or logic, whereas th e problem is particularly practical and
concrete. Does this story have an endi ng? Can an analysis be ended, can the
process of analysis be terminated, yes or no? Can it be completed, or is it
condemned to a constant self-perpetuatio n? As Freud says, can a currently given
"conflict" be exhausted, can the one who is sick be forewarned against ulterior
conflicts, can even new conflicts be aw akened for a preventive purpose? A great
beauty animates this text of Freud's: an undefined something that is hopeless,
The Interminable Problem of Analysis
- Freud’s final works reflect a disenchanted serenity as he questions whether the process of psychoanalysis can ever truly be terminated or completed.
- The text identifies the 'rock of castration' and qualitative libidinal oppositions as primary obstacles that prevent the successful exhaustion of psychic conflicts.
- A significant resistance to treatment arises from the 'viscosity' or 'liquidity' of a subject's libido, which prevents the analytic process from taking hold.
- André Green categorizes analytic sessions into types where the patient's discourse either becomes a 'leaden' descriptive narration or a 'torrential' flow that slides off without consequence.
- These qualitative factors in the desiring-economy suggest that the ego's 'pact' with the analyst is often undermined by forces that outweigh simple quantitative dynamics.
It would seem that certain subjects have such a viscous libido, or on the contrary such a liquid one, that nothing succeeds in 'taking hold.'
almost mathematics or logic, whereas th e problem is particularly practical and
concrete. Does this story have an endi ng? Can an analysis be ended, can the
process of analysis be terminated, yes or no? Can it be completed, or is it
condemned to a constant self-perpetuatio n? As Freud says, can a currently given
"conflict" be exhausted, can the one who is sick be forewarned against ulterior
conflicts, can even new conflicts be aw akened for a preventive purpose? A great
beauty animates this text of Freud's: an undefined something that is hopeless,
disenchanted, tired, and at the same time a serenity, a certitude in the finished
work. It is Freud's testament. He is going to die, and knows it. He knows
something is wrong in psychoanalysis. The cure tends to be more and more
interminable! He knows that soon he w ill no longer be there to see how things
are going. So he takes stock of the obstacles to treatment, with the serenity of the
person who senses what a treasure his wo rk is, but senses too the poisons that
have already filtered in. Everything woul d be fine if the economic problem of
desire were merely quantitative; it would be a matter of reinforcing the ego
against the drives. The celebrated strong, mature ego, the "contract," the "pact"
between the analyst and an ego that is normal in spite of everything . . . Except
that there are qualitative factors in the desiring-economy that indeed present an
obstacle to treatment, and Freud reproaches himself for not having taken them
sufficiently into account.
The first of these factors is the "rock" of castration, the rock with two
nonsymmetrical faces, which creates in us an incurable alveous, and against
which the analyst stumbles. The second is a qualitative aptitude for conflict,
which means that the quantity of libido doe s not branch into two variable forces
corresponding to heterosexuality and homosexuality, but creates in most people
irreducible oppositions between the two for ces. Finally, the third factor—of such
economic importance that it outwe ighs the dynamic and topical
considerations—concerns a type of resistance that is nonlocalizable. It would
seem that certain subjects have such a viscous libido, or on the contrary such a
liquid one, that nothing succeeds in "taking hold." It would be a mistake to see in
this
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 85
remark of Freud's nothing more than an observation of detail, a mere
anecdote. In fact, it concerns what is most essential in the phenomenon
of desire: the qualitative flows of the libido.
In some fine pages, Andre Green recently took up the question
again by making up a list of three ty pes of "sessions," the first two of
which comprise counterindications, the third alone constituting the ideal
session in analysis. According to Ty pe I (viscosity, resistance of a
hysterical form), "the session is dominated by a heavy, weighty, boggy
climate. The silences are leaden, the discourse is dominated by the
events of the day, ... is uniform, it is a descriptive narration where no
reference to the past is disclosable, it unfolds along a continuous thread,
unable to allow itself any break. . . . Dreams are narrated, ... the enigma
of dream is taken up in the secondary elaboration that makes dream as
narration and as event take preceden ce over dream as a working over of
thoughts. . . . Sticky transference. . . ."la According to Type II (liquidity,
resistance of an obsessional form), "here the session is dominated by an
extreme mobility of representations of all sorts, . . . the language is
unfettered, rapid, almost torrential, . . . everything enters here, . . . the
patient could just as easily say the opposite of everything he is uttering
without changing anything fundamental to the analytic situation. . . . All
of this is without consequence, sin ce the analysis slides off the couch
like water off a duck's back. The unconscious does not cause anything to
The Limits of Oedipalization
- The text distinguishes between volatile transference, where language is rapid but inconsequential, and a 'good' analysis where meaning is retrospectively anchored in a chain of signifiers.
- Freud is criticized for viewing patient resistance as an obstacle to the cure rather than a shortcoming of the psychoanalytic method itself.
- The authors argue that castration and Oedipal conflict are not inherent states but are effects precipitated and accentuated by the artificial conditions of the treatment.
- Desiring-production is described as an intense outcry or flow that resists being plugged by the 'Oedipal wad' or the category of the phallus.
- The 'cure' is framed as a reductive process where complex personal histories are crushed into a singular, simplified meaning centered on Oedipus and castration.
Against the walls of the triangle, toward the outside, flows exert the irresistible pressure of lava or the invincible oozing of water.
resistance of an obsessional form), "here the session is dominated by an
extreme mobility of representations of all sorts, . . . the language is
unfettered, rapid, almost torrential, . . . everything enters here, . . . the
patient could just as easily say the opposite of everything he is uttering
without changing anything fundamental to the analytic situation. . . . All
of this is without consequence, sin ce the analysis slides off the couch
like water off a duck's back. The unconscious does not cause anything to
'stick,' there is no anchoring in the transference. Here the transference is
volatile. .. ." Only the third type re mains, whose characteristics define a
good analysis. The patient "speaks in order to constitute the process of a
chain of signifiers. The meaning is not attached to the signified to which
each of the enunciated signifiers refe rs, but is constituted by process,
suture, the concatenation of bound elements. . . . Every interpretation
furnished by [the patient] can offer itself as an already-signified
awaiting its meaning. For this reason interpretation is always
retrospective, as th e perceived meaning. So tha t was what this meant.
..."
What is serious is that Freud never questions the process of the
cure. Of course it is too late for him, but is it too late for those who come
after him? He interprets these things as obstacles to the cure, and not as
shortcomings of the treatm ent itself, or as effects or countereffects of his
method. For castration as an anal yzable state—or nonanalyzable; the
ultimate rock—is the effect of castration as a psychoanalytic act. And
Oedipal homosexuality—the qualitative aptitude for conflict—is rather
the effect of oedipali zation, which the treatment does not invent, but
precipitates and accentuates within the artificial conditions of its exer-
cise (transference). And inversely, when flows of libido resist therapeu-
66 ANTI-OEDIPUS
tic practice, rather than being a resistance of the ego, this is the intense
outcry of all of desiring-production. We already knew that the pervert
resisted oedipalization: why should he surrender, since he has invented
for himself other territorialities, more artificial still and more lunar than
that of Oedipus? We knew the schizo was not oedipali zable, because he
is beyond territoriality, because he has carried his flows right into the
desert. But what remains, once we learn that "resistances" of an
hysterical or an obsessional form b ear witness to the anoedipal quality
of the flows of desire on the very te rrain of Oedipus? That is precisely
what qualitative economy shows: flows ooze, they traverse the triangle,
breaking apart its vertices. The Oedipal wad does not absorb these
flows, any more than it could seal o ff a jar of jam or plug a dike. Against
the walls of the triangle, toward the outside, flows exert the irresistible
pressure of lava or the invincible oozing of water.
What are the most favorable conditions for the cure, it is asked? A
flow that lets itself be plugged by Oedipus; partial obje cts that let
themselves be subs umed under the category of a complete object, even if
absent—the phallus of castration; breaks-flows that let themselves be
projected onto a mythical space; poly vocal chains that let themselves be
biunivocalized, linearized, suspended from a signifier; an unconscious
that lets itself be expressed; connect ive syntheses that let themselves be
taken in a global and specific use; disjunctive syntheses that let
themselves be taken in an exclusive, restrictive use; conjunctive synthe-
ses that let themselves be taken in a personal and segregative use. For
what is the meaning of "so that was what this meant"? The crushing of
the "so" onto Oedipus and castration. The sigh of relief: you see, the
colonel, the instructor, the teacher, the boss, all of this meant that:
Oedipus and castration, "all history in a new version."
Oedipalization vs Desiring-Production
- The text critiques the reduction of all human experience and history to the narrow frameworks of Oedipus and castration.
- Psychoanalysis is accused of neuroticizing individuals by forcing their desires into familial structures rather than allowing for 'schizophrenization.'
- The authors argue that we are all composed of deterritorialized flows and 'schizoid' libidos that exceed the boundaries of the nuclear family.
- Using Proust as an example, the text suggests that contradictions in desire are actually degrees of humor and intensity rather than psychological failings.
- The fundamental problem is identified as the 'cure' itself, which interrupts the productive process of desire to install a sense of guilt.
But in any case the harm has been done, the treatment has chosen the path of oedipalization, all cluttered with refuse, instead of the schizophrenization that must cure us of the cure.
that lets itself be expressed; connect ive syntheses that let themselves be
taken in a global and specific use; disjunctive syntheses that let
themselves be taken in an exclusive, restrictive use; conjunctive synthe-
ses that let themselves be taken in a personal and segregative use. For
what is the meaning of "so that was what this meant"? The crushing of
the "so" onto Oedipus and castration. The sigh of relief: you see, the
colonel, the instructor, the teacher, the boss, all of this meant that:
Oedipus and castration, "all history in a new version."
We are not saying that Oedipus and castration do not amount to
anything. We are oedipalized, we are castrated; psychoanalysis didn't
invent these operations, to which it merely lends the new resources and
methods of its genius. But is this sufficient to silence the outcry of
desiring-production: We are all schizo s! We are all perverts! We are all
libidos that are too viscous and too fluid—and not by preference, but
wherever we have been carried by the deterritorialized flows. What
neurotic, provided he is somewhat serious, is not leaning against the
rock of schizophrenia, a rock in this case mobile, aerolitic? Who does
not haunt the perverse territoriali ties, beyond the kindergartens of
Oedipus? Who does not feel in the flow s of his desire both the lava and
the water? And above all, what br ings about our sickness? Schizophre-
nia itself, as a process? Or is it brought about by the frantic
neuroticiza-tion to which we have been delivered, and for which
psychoanalysis has
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMIUALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY S7
invented new means—Oedipus and cast ration? Is it schizophrenia as a
process that makes us sick, or is it the self-perpetuation of the process in
the void—a horrible exasperation (the production of the
schizophrenic-as-entity)? Or is it the confusion of the process with a
goal (the production of the pervert-artifice), or the premature
interruption of the process (the produc tion of the neurotic analysis)? We
are forcibly confronted with Oedipus and castration, we are reduced to
them: either so as to measure us agai nst that cross, or to establish that
we cannot measure up to it. But in an y case the harm has been done, the
treatment has chosen the path of oedipalization, all cluttered with
refuse, instead of the sc hizophrenization that must cure us of the cure.
The Connective Synthesis
of Production
Given the syntheses of the unconscious, the practical
problem is that of their use, legitimate or not, an d of the conditions that
define a use of synthesis as legitimate or not. Take the example of
homosexuality—though it is something more than an example. We noted
how, in Proust, the famous pages of Sodom and Gomorrah (Cities of the
Plain) interlaced two openly contradi ctory themes; the fundamental
guilt of the "accursed races" and the radical innocence of flowers. The
diagnosis of Oedipal homosexuality with a mother fixation, of a domi-
nant depressive nature and a sadomas ochistic guilt, was quickly applied
to Proust. In a more general way still, some critics were too quick in
discovering contradictions, either in order to declare them irreducible,
or to resolve them, or to show that they were merely apparent, according
to preference. In truth, there are never contradictions, apparent or real,
but only degrees of humor. And inas much as reading itself has its
degrees of humor, from black to white, with which it evaluates the
coexisting degrees of what it reads, the sole problem is always one of
allocation on a scale of intensities that assigns the position and use of
each thing, each being, or each scene: there is this and then that, and
let's make do with it, too ba d if it doesn't suit us.
In this regard it is possible that Charlus's coarse admonition is
prophetic: "A lot we care about our old grandmother, you little shit!"
For what does in fact take place in In Search of Lost Time, one and the
Proust and Schizophrenic Multiplicity
- The narrator in Proust's work functions as a 'body without organs' or a spider in a web, reacting to signs and vibrations rather than observing objects.
- Perception moves from molar statistical wholes, like a group of girls, toward a molecular breakdown where faces and bodies shatter into partial objects.
- The artist is described as one who scales the 'schizophrenic wall' to reach a land of the unknown, transcending time and social milieu.
- The text reinterprets sexuality through a vegetal theme of innocence, where bisexuality is a partitioned multiplicity of noncommunicating parts.
- Guilt is erased at the level of elementary combinations where male and female parts of different individuals enter into transversal, aberrant communications.
If schizophrenia is the universal, the great artist is indeed the one who scales the schizophrenic wall and reaches the land of the unknown, where he no longer belongs to any time, any milieu, any school.
degrees of humor, from black to white, with which it evaluates the
coexisting degrees of what it reads, the sole problem is always one of
allocation on a scale of intensities that assigns the position and use of
each thing, each being, or each scene: there is this and then that, and
let's make do with it, too ba d if it doesn't suit us.
In this regard it is possible that Charlus's coarse admonition is
prophetic: "A lot we care about our old grandmother, you little shit!"
For what does in fact take place in In Search of Lost Time, one and the
same story with infinite variations? It is clear that the narrator sees
nothing, hears nothing, and that he is a body without organs, or like a
spider poised in its web, obser ving nothing, but responding to the
slightest sign, to the slightest vibration by springing on its prey.
Everything begins with nebulae, st atistical wholes whose outlines are
88 ANTI-OEDIPUS
blurred, molar or collective formations comprising singularities distributed
haphazardly (a living room, a group of girl s, a landscape). Then, within these
nebulae or these collectives, "sides" take shape, series are arranged, persons
figure in these series, under strange laws of lack, absence, asymmetry,
exclusion, noncommunication, vice, and guilt. Next, everything becomes blurred
again, everything comes apart, but this time in a molecular and pure multiplicity,
where the partial objects, the "boxes," the "vessels" all have their positive
determinations, and enter into aberrant communication following a transversal
that runs through the whole work; an immense flow that each partial object
produces and cuts again, reproduces and cu ts at the same time. More than vice,
says Proust, it is madness and its innocence that disturb us. If schizophrenia is
the universal, the great artist is indeed th e one who scales the schizophrenic wall
and reaches the land of the unknown, wh ere he no longer belongs to any time,
any milieu, any school.
Such is the case in an illustrative passage, the first kiss given Albertine.
Albertine's face is at first a nebula, barely extracted from the collective of girls.
Then her person disengages itself, through a series of views that are like distinct
personalities, with Albertine's face jumping from one plane to another as the
narrator's lips draw nearer her cheek. At last, within the magnified proximity,
everything falls apart like a face drawn in sand, Albertine's face shatters into
molecular partial objects, while thos e on the narrator's face rejoin the body
without organs, eyes closed, nosrils pinched shut, mouth filled. What is more,
their entire love tells the same story. Fr om the statistical nebula, from the molar
entirety of men-women loves, there emer ge the two accursed and guilty series
that bear witness to the same castrati on with two nonsuperimposable sides, the
Sodom series and the Gomorrah series, each one excluding the other.
This is not all, however, since the vegetal theme—the innocence of
flowers—brings us yet another message a nd another code: everyone is bisexual,
everyone has two sexes, but partitione d, noncommunicating; the man is merely
the one in whom the male part, and the woman the one in whom the female part,
dominates statistically. So that at the le vel of elementary combinations, at least
two men and two women must be made to intervene to constitute the
multiplicity in which transverse commun ications are established—connections
of partial objects and flows14: the male part of a man can communicate with the
female part of a woman, but also with the male part of a woman, or with the
female part of another man, or yet again w ith the male part of the other man, etc.
Here all guilt ceases, for it cannot cling to su ch flowers as these. In contrast to
the alternative of the "either/o r" exclusions, there is the
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 88
Transverse Communications and Oedipal Triangulation
- The text proposes a model of desire based on transverse communications between partial objects and flows rather than fixed identities.
- It distinguishes between a molar, exclusive sexuality and a molecular, transsexual state where differences coexist without exclusion.
- Proust's work is used to illustrate a non-Oedipal homosexuality that includes women through complex, non-specific roles and localizations.
- The author argues that global persons and the ego are not pre-existing entities but are constructed through the prohibitions of the Oedipal triangulation.
- Desire is simultaneously given its first complete objects and forbidden from them by the same social and psychological operations.
In reality, global persons—even the very form of persons—do not exist prior to the prohibitions that weigh on them and constitute them.
multiplicity in which transverse commun ications are established—connections
of partial objects and flows14: the male part of a man can communicate with the
female part of a woman, but also with the male part of a woman, or with the
female part of another man, or yet again w ith the male part of the other man, etc.
Here all guilt ceases, for it cannot cling to su ch flowers as these. In contrast to
the alternative of the "either/o r" exclusions, there is the
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 88
"either ... or ... or" of the combinations and permutations where the differences
amount to the same without ceasing to be differences.
We are statistically or molarly hete rosexual, but personally homosexual,
without knowing it or being fully aware of it, and finally we are transsexual in an
elemental, molecular sense. That is why Proust, the first to deny all oedipalizing
interpretations of his own interpretations , contrasts two kinds of homosexuality,
or rather two regions only one of which is Oedipal, exclusive, and depressive, the
other being anoedipal schi zoid, included, and inclusive: "For some, doubtless
those whose childhoods were timid, the material kind of pleasure they take does
not matter, so long as they can relate it to a male co untenance. While others,
whose sensuality is doubtless more violent, give their material pleasure certain
imperious localizations. The second gr oup would shock most people by their
avowals. They live perhaps less exclusiv ely under Saturn's satellite, for in their
case women are not entirely excluded. . . . But those in the second group seek out
women who prefer women, women who suggest young men . . . indeed, they can
take, with such w omen, the same pleasure as with a man. . . . For in their
relations with women, they play—for the woman who prefers women—the role
of another woman , and at the same time a woman offers them approximately
what they find in a man."15
The opposition here is between two uses of the connective syntheses: a
global and specific use, and a partial and nons pecific use. In the first, desire at
the same time receives a fixed subject, an ego specified according to a given sex,
and complete objects defined as globa l persons. The complexity and the
foundations of such an operation appear more distinctly if we consider the
mutual reactions between the different syntheses of the unconscious following a
given use. It is first of all the synthesis of recording that in effect situates, on its
surface of inscription within the conditions of Oedipus, a definable and
differentiable ego in relation to parental images serving as co-ordinates (mother,
father). There we have a triangulation that implies in its essence a constituent
prohibition, and that conditions the di fferentiation between persons: prohibition
of incest with the mother, prohibition against taking the father's place. But a
strange sort of reasoning leads one to conclude that, since it is forbidden, that
very thing was desired. In reality, global persons—even the very form of
persons—do not exist prior to the prohibitions that weigh on them and constitute
them, any more than they exist prior to the triangulation into which they enter:
desire receives its first complete objects and is forbidden them at one and the
same time. Therefore it is indeed the same Oedipal operation that lays the
foundations for the possibility of its ow n "resolution," by way of a differentia-
70 ANTi-OEDIPUS
tion of persons in conformity with the prohibition, as well as the possibility for
its own failure or stagnation, by falling into the undifferentiated as the reverse
side of the differentiation created by the prohibitions (incest by identification
with the father, homosexuality by identification with the mother). The personal
material of transgression does not exist pr ior to the prohibiti on, any more than
does the form of persons.
The Oedipal Displacement
- The text argues that individual persons do not exist prior to the prohibitions that constitute them, meaning desire and its forbidden objects are created simultaneously.
- The Oedipal operation functions by differentiating persons through prohibition, while failure to differentiate results in 'undifferentiated' states like incest or homosexuality.
- Prohibition evolves from a negative form regarding the mother to a positive form regarding the sister, which mandates social exchange and the alliance with a spouse.
- This transition ensures the reproduction of the Oedipal triangle, as the individual takes a wife to form a new triangle rather than remaining 'incestuous, homosexual, and a zombie.'
- The regime of pairing people replaces the connection of partial objects, transforming sexual organs into legal possessions within the framework of marriage and familial reproduction.
Kant draws upon centuries of Roman juridical reflection when he defines marriage as the tie that makes a person the owner of the sexual organs of another person.
persons—do not exist prior to the prohibitions that weigh on them and constitute
them, any more than they exist prior to the triangulation into which they enter:
desire receives its first complete objects and is forbidden them at one and the
same time. Therefore it is indeed the same Oedipal operation that lays the
foundations for the possibility of its ow n "resolution," by way of a differentia-
70 ANTi-OEDIPUS
tion of persons in conformity with the prohibition, as well as the possibility for
its own failure or stagnation, by falling into the undifferentiated as the reverse
side of the differentiation created by the prohibitions (incest by identification
with the father, homosexuality by identification with the mother). The personal
material of transgression does not exist pr ior to the prohibiti on, any more than
does the form of persons.
We can therefore see the property the prohibition has of displacing itself,
since from the start it displaces desire. It displaces itself in the sense that the
Oedipal inscription does not force its way into the synthesis of recording without
reacting on the synthesis of production, and profoundly changing the connections
of this synthesis by introducing new global persons. These new images of
persons are the sister and the spouse, afte r the father and the mother. It has often
been remarked in fact that the prohibiti on existed in two forms, the one negative,
having to do above all with the mother and imposing differentiation, the other
positive, concerning the sister and requi ring exchange: I have a moral obligation
to take as wife someone other than my si ster, and an obligation to keep my sister
for someone else; I must give up my sister to a brother-in-law, receive my wife
from a father-in-law.16 And although new stases or relapses are produced at this
level, such as new forms of incest a nd homosexuality, it is certain that the
Oedipal triangle would have no way of transmitting and reproducing itself
without this second step: the first step ela borates the form of the triangle, but it is
only the second step that ensures the transmission of this figure. I take a woman
other than my sister in order to constitute the differentiated base of a new triangle
whose inverted vertex will be my ch ild—which is called surmounting Oedipus,
but reproducing it as well, transmitting it ra ther than dying all alone, incestuous,
homosexual, and a zombie.
Thus the parental or familial use of the synthesis of recording extends into a
conjugal use, or an alliance use, of th e connective syntheses of production: a
regime for the pairing of people replaces the connection of partial objects. On the
whole, the connections of organ-machin es suited to desiring-production give way
to a pairing of people under the rules of familial reproduction. Partial objects now
seem to be taken from people, rather than from the nonpersonal flows that pass
from one person to another. The reason is that persons are derived from abstract
quantities, instead of from flows. Instead of a connective a ppropriation, partial
objects become the possessions of a person and, when required, the property of
another person. Just as he draws upon centuries of scholastic reflection in
defining God as the principle of the disjunctive syllogism, Kant draws upon
centuries of Roman juridical
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 71
reflection when he defines marriage as the tie that makes a person the owner of
the sexual organs of another person.17 One need only consult a religious manual
of sexual casuistry to see with what restrictions the organ-desiring machine
connections remain tolerated within the regime for the pairing of people, which
legally determines what may be appr opriated from the body of the wife.
Clearer still, the difference in regime becomes apparent each time a society
Desire and the Oedipal Triangle
- The text contrasts the 'regime of pairing' and legal ownership of sexual organs with the fluid, non-proprietary nature of desiring-production.
- Desire is described as a process that machines partial objects and flows on a body without organs, effectively destroying the unity of the possessive ego.
- Triangulation occurs when parental and conjugal uses of desire introduce a transcendent 'lack' that forces desire into a specific, restricted mold.
- Psychoanalysis is criticized for extrapolating a universal 'something'—the phallus or the law—to impose an exclusive direction on the disjunction of the sexes.
- The 'Oedipus formula' is defined as 3 + 1, where a single transcendent signifier acts as the formal cause that creates and reproduces the familial triangle.
The only subject is desire itself on the body without organs, inasmuch as it machines partial objects and flows, selecting and cutting the one with the other, passing from one body to another, following connections and appropriations that each time destroy the factitious unity of a possessive or proprietary ego.
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 71
reflection when he defines marriage as the tie that makes a person the owner of
the sexual organs of another person.17 One need only consult a religious manual
of sexual casuistry to see with what restrictions the organ-desiring machine
connections remain tolerated within the regime for the pairing of people, which
legally determines what may be appr opriated from the body of the wife.
Clearer still, the difference in regime becomes apparent each time a society
permits an infantile stage of sexual prom iscuity to subsist, where everything is
permitted until the age when the young man in turn submits to the principle of
pairing that regulates the social production of children. It is true that the
connections of desiring-production were f ound to comply with a binary rule; and
we have even seen that a third term intervened in this binarity, the body without
organs that reinjects producing into the product, extends the connections of
machines, and serves as a surface of record ing. But here no biunivocal process is
in fact produced that would fit producti on into the mold of representatives; no
triangulation appears at this level that w ould refer the objects of desire to global
persons, or desire to a specific subject. The only subject is desire itself on the
body without organs, inasmuch as it machines partial objects and flows,
selecting and cutting the one with the other, passing from one body to another,
following connections and appropriations that each time destroy the factitious
unity of a possessive or proprie tary ego (anoedi pal sexuality).
The triangle takes form in the parental use, and reproduces itself in the
conjugal use. We do not yet know what forces bring about this triangulation that
interferes with the recording of desire in order to transform all its productive
connections. But we are able at least to follow, abstractly, the manner in which
these forces proceed. We are told that partial objects are caught up in an intuition
of precocious totality, just as the ego is caught up in an intuition of unity that
precedes its fulfillment. (Even in Melanie Klein, the schizoid partial object is
related to a whole that prepares for th e advent of the complete object in the
depressive phase.) It is clear that such a totality-unity is posite d only in terms of
a certain mode of absence, as that wh ich partial objects and subjects of desire
"lack." Consequently, everything is played out from the start: everywhere we
encounter the analytic proce ss that consists in extrapolating a transcendent and
common something, but that is a common-universal for the sole purpose of
introducing lack into desire, in situa ting and specifying persons and an ego
under one aspect or another of its absence, and imposing an exclusive direction
on the disjunction of the sexes.
Such is the case in Freud: for Oedipus, for castration, for the
7 2 A N T i - O E D l P U S
second phase of the fantasy "A Child Is Being Beaten," or again for the
famous latency period where the analytical mystification culminates.
This common, transcendent, absent something will be called phallus or
law, in order to designate "the" signi fier that distributes the effects of
meaning throughout the chain and in troduces exclusions there (whence
the oedipalizing interpretations of La canism). This signifier acts as the
formal cause of the triangulation—that is to say, makes possible both the
form of the triangle and its reproduction: Oedipus has as its formula 3 +
1, the One of the transcendent phallus without which the terms
considered would not take the form of a triangle.* It is as if the so-called
signifying chain, made up of elements that are themselves
nonsignifying—of polyvocal writing and detachable fragments—were
the object of a special treatment, a crushing operation that extracted a
detached object from the chain, a despotic signifier from whose law the
The Despotic Oedipal Signifier
- The Oedipus complex functions through a 3+1 formula where a transcendent phallus acts as a despotic signifier to triangulate all desire.
- This process involves a 'crushing operation' that extracts a detached object from the non-signifying chain of partial objects to impose a law of lack.
- Just as money is converted into capital in a capitalist code, the libido is converted into the phallus to recast all previous history in the light of castration.
- The authors argue that psychoanalysis reinforces a basic illusion by subjecting desiring-production to higher social and cultural laws.
- By surmounting the 'pre-oedipal' stage, psychoanalysis forces an integration that strips partial objects of their original virulence and efficacy.
It is as if the so-called signifying chain, made up of elements that are themselves nonsignifying—of polyvocal writing and detachable fragments—were the object of a special treatment, a crushing operation that extracted a detached object from the chain.
formal cause of the triangulation—that is to say, makes possible both the
form of the triangle and its reproduction: Oedipus has as its formula 3 +
1, the One of the transcendent phallus without which the terms
considered would not take the form of a triangle.* It is as if the so-called
signifying chain, made up of elements that are themselves
nonsignifying—of polyvocal writing and detachable fragments—were
the object of a special treatment, a crushing operation that extracted a
detached object from the chain, a despotic signifier from whose law the
entire chain seems consequently to be suspended, each link triangulated.
There we have a curious paralogism implying a transcendent use of the
syntheses of the unconscious." we pass from detachable partial objects to
the detache d co mplete o bject, from which global perso ns derive by a n
assigning of la ck. For example, in the capitalist code and its trinitary
expression, money as detachable chain is converted into capital as
detached object, which exists only in the fetishist view of stocks and
lacks.
The same is true of the Oedipal code: the libido as energy of
selection and detachment is converted into the phallus as detached
object, the latter existing only in the tr anscendent form of stock and lack
(something common and absent that is just as lacking in men as in
women). It is this conversion that makes the whole of sexuality shift into
the Oedipal framework: this projec tion of all the breaks-flows onto the
same mythical locale, and all the non signifying signs into the same major
signifier. "The effective triangulation makes it possible to assign sexuality
to one of the sexes. The partial obj ects have lost nothing of their
virulence and efficacy. Yet the reference to the penis gives its full
meaning to castration. Through it, all the external experiences linked to
deprivation, to frustration, to the lack of partial objects take on meaning
after the fact. All previous history is recast in a new version in the light
of castration."18
That is indeed what disturbs us, this recasting of history and this
"lack" attributed to partial object s. And how could partial objects not
have lost their virulence and effi cacy, once they had been introduced
*M. C. and Edmond Ortigues, Oedipe africain (Ch. 3, reference note 22), p. 83: "In order that the necessary
conditions for the existence of a structure in the familial institution or in the Oedipus complex be fulfilled, at
least four terms are required—that is, one term more than is naturally necessary."
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 73
into a use of synthesis that remains f undamentally illegitimate with regard to
them? We do not deny that there is an Oedipal sexuality, an Oedipal
heterosexuality and homosexuality, an Oedi pal castration, as well as complete
objects, global images, and specific egos. We deny that these are productions of
the unconscious. What is more, castration and oedipaliza tion beget a basic
illusion that makes us believe that real desiring-production is answerable to
higher formations that integrate it, subj ect it to transcendent laws, and make it
serve a higher social and cultural production; there then appears a kind of
"unsticking" of the social field with rega rd to the production of desire, in whose
name all resignations are justified in advance. Psychoanalysis, at the most
concrete level of therapy, reinforces th is apparent movement with its combined
forces. Psychoanalysis itself ensures this conversion of the unconscious. In what
it calls the pre-oedipal, it sees a stage th at must be surmounted in the direction of
an evolutive integration (toward the de pressive position under the reign of the
complete object), or organized in the direction of a structural integration (toward
the position of a despotic signifier, under the reign of the phallus). The aptitude
for conflict of which Freud spoke , the qualitative opposition between
The Critique of Oedipal Metaphysics
- Psychoanalysis functions as a conversion mechanism that forces the unconscious into an Oedipal framework, treating pre-oedipal stages as mere precursors to structural integration.
- The authors propose the existence of an 'anoedipal' sexuality where desiring-production is not projected onto mythical locales or specific qualitative oppositions.
- Drawing a parallel to Kantian philosophy, the text argues that psychoanalysis employs a 'transcendent' use of syntheses that constitutes its own form of metaphysics.
- Schizoanalysis is introduced as a materialist critique intended to rediscover a transcendental unconscious defined by immanent rather than imposed criteria.
- The Oedipal triangle imposes a restrictive 'either/or' logic on the individual, forcing rigid identities regarding gender, family roles, and even the state of being alive or dead.
Everywhere, in this reversion, the innocence of flowers instead of the guilt of conversion.
concrete level of therapy, reinforces th is apparent movement with its combined
forces. Psychoanalysis itself ensures this conversion of the unconscious. In what
it calls the pre-oedipal, it sees a stage th at must be surmounted in the direction of
an evolutive integration (toward the de pressive position under the reign of the
complete object), or organized in the direction of a structural integration (toward
the position of a despotic signifier, under the reign of the phallus). The aptitude
for conflict of which Freud spoke , the qualitative opposition between
homosexuality and heterosexuality, is in f act a consequence of Oedipus: far from
being an obstacle to treatment encountered from without, it is a product of
oedipalization, and a countereffect of the treatment that reinforces it.
In reality the problem has nothing to do with pre-oedipal stages that would
still revolve around an Oedipal axis, but ra ther with the existence and the nature
of an anoedipal sexuality, an anoedipa l heterosexuality and homosexuality, an
anoedipal castration: the breaks-fl ows of desiring-production do not let
themselves be projected onto a mythical locale; the signs of desire do not let
themselves be extrapolated from a signifier; transsexuality does not let any
qualitative opposition between a local and n onspecific heterosexuality and a
local and nons pecific homosexuality arise. Everywhere, in this reversion, the
innocence of flowers instead of the guilt of conversion. But rath er than ensuring,
or tending to ensure, the reversion of the entire unconscious according to the
anoedipal form and within the anoedipal content of desiring-production, analytic
theory and practice never cease to promote the conversion of the unconscious to
Oedipus, form and content. (We shall see in effect what psychoanalysis calls
"resolving" Oedipus.) This conversion is therefore promoted by psychoanalysis
first of all by making a global and specific use of the connective syntheses. This
use can be defined as transcendent, a nd implies a first paralogism in the
psychoanalytic process. For a simple reason, we again make use of
74 ANTI-OEDIPUS
Kantian terminology. In what he termed the critical revolution, Kant intended to
discover criteria immanent to understanding so as to distinguish the legitimate
and the illegitimate uses of the syntheses of consciousness. In the name of
transcendental philosophy (immanence of criteria), he therefore denounced the
transcendent use of syntheses such as a ppeared in metaphysics. In like fashion we
are compelled to say that psychoanalysis has its metaphysics—its name is
Oedipus. And that a revolution^this time materialist—can proceed only by way of
a critique of Oedipus, by denouncing the illegitimate use of the syntheses of the
unconscious as found in Oedipal psychoanalysis, so as to rediscover a
transcendental unconscious defined by the immanence of its criteria, and a
corresponding practice that we shall call schizoanalysis.
The Disjunctive Synthesis of
Recording
When Oedipus slips into the disjunctive syntheses of
desiring-recording, it imposes the ideal of a certain restrictive or exclusive use on
them that becomes identical with the form of triangula-tion: being daddy,
mommy, or child. This is the reign of the "either/or" in the differentiating
function of the prohibition of incest: here is where mommy begins, there daddy,
and there you are—stay in y our place. Oedipus's misfortune is indeed that it no
longer knows who begins where, nor who is who. And "being parent or child" is
also accompanied by two other differentiati ons on the other sides of the triangle;
"being man or woman," "being dead or alive." Oedipus must not know whether it
is alive or dead, man or woman, any more than it knows whether it is parent or
child. Commit incest and you'll be a zombie and a hermaphrodite. In this sense,
indeed, the three major neuroses that are termed familial seem to correspond to
The Disjunctive Synthesis of Oedipus
- The Oedipal structure functions as a restrictive 'either/or' mechanism that differentiates the ego based on generation, sex, and vital state.
- Neuroses such as phobia, obsession, and hysteria are framed as failures to maintain these rigid boundaries between parent/child, dead/alive, or man/woman.
- Psychoanalysis traditionally enforces an exclusive use of the disjunctive synthesis, demanding that individuals stay within their assigned coordinates.
- Schizophrenia offers an alternative 'inclusive' disjunction where the subject affirms both sides of a divide without being restricted by one or the other.
- Unlike the Oedipal ego, the schizophrenic exists at both terminal points of a distance, moving between identities like man and woman or dead and alive.
Commit incest and you'll be a zombie and a hermaphrodite.
mommy, or child. This is the reign of the "either/or" in the differentiating
function of the prohibition of incest: here is where mommy begins, there daddy,
and there you are—stay in y our place. Oedipus's misfortune is indeed that it no
longer knows who begins where, nor who is who. And "being parent or child" is
also accompanied by two other differentiati ons on the other sides of the triangle;
"being man or woman," "being dead or alive." Oedipus must not know whether it
is alive or dead, man or woman, any more than it knows whether it is parent or
child. Commit incest and you'll be a zombie and a hermaphrodite. In this sense,
indeed, the three major neuroses that are termed familial seem to correspond to
Oedipal lapses in the differentiating func tion or in the disjunctive synthesis: the
phobic person can no longer be sure whether he is parent or child; the obsessed
person, whether he is dead or alive; the hysterical person, whether he is man or
woman.19 In short, the familial triangula tion represents the minimum condition
under which an "ego" takes on the co-ordinates that differentiate it at one and the
same time with regard to generation, se x, and vital state. And the religious
triangulation confirms this result in another mode: thus in the trinity, the
obliteration of the feminine image in favor of a phallic symbol demonstrates how
the triangle displaces itself toward its own cause and attempts to integrate it. This
time it is a matter of the maximum conditions under which persons are
differentiated. Hence the importance of the Kantian definition that posits God as
the a priori
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM-. THE HOLY FAMILY 75
principle of the disjunctive syllogism, so that all things derive from it by
a restriction of a larger reality (omnitudo realitat is): Kant's humor
makes God into the master of a syllogism.
The action characteristic of Oedipa l recording is the introduction of
an exclusive, restrictive, and negative use of the disjunctive synthesis.
We are so molded by Oedipus that we find it hard to imagine another
use, and even the three familial ne uroses do not escape this use,
although they suffer from no longe r being capable of applying it.
Everywhere in psychoanalysis, in Freud, we have seen this taste for
exclusive disjunctions assert itself. It becomes nevertheless apparent
that schizophrenia teaches us a singular extra-Oedipal lesson, and
reveals to us an unknown force of the disjunctive synthesis, an
immanent use that would no longer be exclusive or restrictive, but fully
affirmative, nonrestrictive, inclusive. A disjunction that remains disjunc-
tive, and that still affirms the disjoine d terms, that affirms them through-
out their entire distance, without restricting one by the other or excluding
the other from the one, is perhaps the greatest paradox. "Either ... or . . .
or," instead of "either/or."
The schizophrenic is not man and wo man. He is man or woman, but
he belongs precisely to both sides, man on the side of men, woman on
the side of women. Likable Jayet (Albert Desire, matriculation number
54161001) intones the litany of the para llel series of the masculine and
the feminine, and places himself on both sides: "Mat Albert 5416 ricu-le
sultan remain vesin," "Mat Desire 1001 ricu-la sultane romaine vesine"
("Mat Albert 5416 ricu-the insane Roman sultan," Mat Desire 1001
ricu-the insane Roman sultaness").20 The schizophrenic is dead or alive,
not both at once, but each of the two as the terminal point of a distance
over which he glides. He is child or parent, not both, but the one at the
end of the other, like the two ends of a stick in a nondecomposable
space. This is the meaning of the disjunctions where Beckett records his
characters and the events that befall them: everything divides, but into
The Schizophrenic Inclusive Disjunction
- The schizophrenic experience replaces restrictive, exclusive disjunctions with an affirmative use of difference.
- Rather than synthesizing contradictions into a single identity, the subject affirms the distance between opposing states like life and death.
- This process transforms the individual into a 'transpositional subject' who occupies multiple singularities simultaneously.
- The schizophrenic God is contrasted with the religious God, acting as a 'prince of modifications' who drifts through all possible predicates.
- The breakdown of the 'closed box' of the self liberates a space where persons are replaced by evanescent agents of production.
I was then no longer this closed box to which I owed being so well preserved, but a partition came crashing down.
sultan remain vesin," "Mat Desire 1001 ricu-la sultane romaine vesine"
("Mat Albert 5416 ricu-the insane Roman sultan," Mat Desire 1001
ricu-the insane Roman sultaness").20 The schizophrenic is dead or alive,
not both at once, but each of the two as the terminal point of a distance
over which he glides. He is child or parent, not both, but the one at the
end of the other, like the two ends of a stick in a nondecomposable
space. This is the meaning of the disjunctions where Beckett records his
characters and the events that befall them: everything divides, but into
itself. Even the distances are positive, at the same time as the included
disjunctions.
It would be a total misunderstanding of this order of thought if we
concluded that the schizophrenic substituted vague syntheses of identi-
fication of contradictory elements fo r disjunctions, like the last of the
Hegelian philosophers. He does not substitute syntheses of contradicto-
ry elements for disjunctive syntheses; rather, for the exclusive and
restrictive use of the disjunctive synthesis, he substitutes an affirmative
use. He is and remains in disjuncti on: he does not abolish disjunction by
identifying the contradictory elements by means of elaboration; instead,
he affirms it through a continuous overflight spanning an indivisible
76 ANTI-OEDIPUS
distance. He is not simply bisexual, or between the two, or intersexual.
He is transsexual. He is trans-alivedead, trans-parentchild. He does not
reduce two contraries to an identity of the same; he affirms their
distance as that which relates the tw o as different. He does not confine
himself inside contradictions; on th e contrary, he opens out and, like a
spore case inflated with spores, releases them as so many singularities
that he had improperly shut off, so me of which he intended to exclude,
while retaining others, but which now become points-signs
(points-signes),21 all affirmed by their new distance. The disjunction,
being now inclusive, does not closet itself inside its own terms. On the
contrary it is nonrestrictive. "I was then no longer this closed box to
which I owed being so well preserved, but a partition came crashing
down"—an event that will liberate a space where Molloy and Moran no
longer designate persons, but singul arities flocking from all sides,
evanescent agents of production. This is free disjunction; the differential
positions persist in their entirety, th ey even take on a free quality, but
they are all inhabited by a faceless and transpositional subject. Schreber
is man and woman, parent and child, dead and alive: which is to say, he
is situated wherever there is a singul arity, in all the series and in all the
branches marked by a singular point, because he is himself this distance
that transforms him into a woman, and at its terminal point he is already
the mother of a new humanity and can finally die.
That is why the schizophrenic God has so little to do with the God
of religion, even though they are related to the same syllogism. In Le
Baphomet Klossowski contrasts God as the master of the exclusions and
restrictions that derive from the disjunctive syllogism, with an antichrist
who is the prince of modifications, de termining instead the passage of a
subject through all possible predicates . I am God I am not God, I am
God I am Man: it is not a matter of a synthesis that would go beyond the
negative disjunctions of the derived reality, in an original reality of
Man-God, but rather of an inclus ive disjunction that carries out the
synthesis itself in drifting from one term to another and following the
distance between terms. Nothing is primal. It is like the famous
conclusion to Molloy: "It is midnight. The rain is beating on the
windows. It was not midnight. It was not raining."22 Nijinsky wrote: "I
The Inclusive Disjunction
- The text explores a 'generalized drift' where the subject passes through all possible predicates, such as being God, a bird, or both husband and wife.
- Schizophrenic experience utilizes an inclusive disjunction that affirms all terms simultaneously rather than forcing a choice between them.
- Psychoanalysis is criticized for imposing 'Oedipalization,' which forces exclusive alternatives and restricts the unconscious to familial roles.
- The body without organs serves as the surface where all intensities and genealogical materials are recorded without being subordinated to global persons.
- The author argues that the 'madman' explodes traditional genealogy by navigating a disjunctive network that spans indivisible distances.
I am the letter and the pen and the paper. It was in this fashion that Nijinsky kept his diary: yes, I was my father and I was my son.
who is the prince of modifications, de termining instead the passage of a
subject through all possible predicates . I am God I am not God, I am
God I am Man: it is not a matter of a synthesis that would go beyond the
negative disjunctions of the derived reality, in an original reality of
Man-God, but rather of an inclus ive disjunction that carries out the
synthesis itself in drifting from one term to another and following the
distance between terms. Nothing is primal. It is like the famous
conclusion to Molloy: "It is midnight. The rain is beating on the
windows. It was not midnight. It was not raining."22 Nijinsky wrote: "I
am God I was not God I am a clow n of God; I am Apis. I am an
Egyptian. I am a red Indian. I am a Negro. I am a Chinaman. I am a
Japanese. I am a foreigner, a stranger . I am a sea bird. I am a land bird. I
am the tree of Tolstoy. 1 am the root s of Tolstoy. ... I am husband and
wife in one. I love my wife. I love my husband."23
What counts is not parental de signations, nor racial or divine
designations, but merely the use made of them. No problem of meaning,
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 77
but only of usage. Nothing original or derived, but a generalized drift. It
would seem that the schizo libe rates a raw geneal ogical material,
nonrestrictive, where he can situate himself, record himself, and take his
bearings in all the branches at once, on all sides. He explodes the
Oedipal genealogy. Through graduated relationships he performs abso-
lute overflights spanning indivisibl e distances. The genealogist-madman
lays out a disjunctive network on the body without organs. And God,
who designates none other than the energy of recording, can be the
greatest enemy in the paranoiac inscription, but also the greatest friend
in the miraculating inscription. In any case, the question of a being
superior to man and to nature does not arise here at all. Everything is on
the body without organs, both what is inscribed and the energy that
inscribes it. On the unengendered bod y, the nondecomposable distances
are necessarily surveyed, while the disjoined terms are all affirmed. I am
the letter and the pen and the paper. It was in this fashion that Nijinsky
kept his diary: yes, I was my father and I was my son.
The disjunctive synthesis of recording therefore leads us to the
same result as the connective synthesis: it too is capable of two uses, the
one immanent, the other transcendent. And here again, why does
psychoanalysis reinforce the transcendent use that introduces exclusions
and restrictions everywhere in the disjunctive network, and that makes
the unconscious swing over into Oedipus? And why is oedipaliza-tion
precisely that? It is because the exclusive relation introduced by
Oedipus comes into play not only between the various disjunctions
conceived as differentiations, but between the wh ole of the diff erentia-
tions that it imp oses and an undifferen tiated ( un indifferencie) that it
presupposes. Oedipus informs us: if you don't follow the lines of
differentiation daddy-mommy-me, and the exclusive alternatives that
delineate them, you will fall into the black night of the undifferentiated.
It should be made clear that the excl usive disjunctions are not at all the
same as the inclusive disjunctions; neither God nor the parental
designations play the same role in the two. In exclusive disjunctions,
parental appellations no longer desi gnate intensive states through which
the subject passes on the body without organs and in the unconscious
that remains an orphan (yes, I was . . .); rather, they designate global
persons who do not exist prior to the prohibitions that found them, and
they differentiate among these global pe rsons and in relation to the ego.
So that the transgression of the prohibition becomes correlatively a
confusion of persons, where the ego id entifies with the global persons,
The Oedipal Double Bind
- The Oedipus complex functions by simultaneously creating parental differentiations and threatening the subject with the undifferentiated state it just invented.
- Desire is forced into a triangular structure where it is prohibited from satisfying itself with the very objects it is commanded to recognize.
- Psychoanalytic resolution of Oedipus is described as a trap where the subject internalizes authority only to rediscover it in the social sphere.
- The authors argue that Oedipus acts as a ligature that cuts off desiring-production, crushing the unconscious and replacing its fluidity with restrictive disjunctions.
- The situation is framed as a 'double bind' where every exit is blocked, forcing the subject to either internalize the triangle or fall into neurotic identification.
Oedipus is like the labyrinth, you only get out by re-entering it—or by making someone else enter it.
parental appellations no longer desi gnate intensive states through which
the subject passes on the body without organs and in the unconscious
that remains an orphan (yes, I was . . .); rather, they designate global
persons who do not exist prior to the prohibitions that found them, and
they differentiate among these global pe rsons and in relation to the ego.
So that the transgression of the prohibition becomes correlatively a
confusion of persons, where the ego id entifies with the global persons,
with the loss of differentiating rules or differential functions.
But we should stress the fact that Oedipus creates both the
differentiations that it orders and the undifferentiated with which it
78 ANTI-OEDIPUS
threatens us. With the same movement the Oedi pus complex inserts desire into
triangulation, and prohibits desire from satisfying itself with the terms of the
triangulation. It forces desire to take as its object the differentiated parental
persons, and, brandishing the threats of the undifferentiated, prohibits the
correlative ego from satisfying its desires with these persons, in the name of the
same requirements of differentiation. But it is this undifferentiated that Oedipus
creates as the rev erse of the differe ntiations that it creates. Oedipus says to us:
either you will internalize the differentia l functions that rule over the exclusive
disjunctions, and thereby "resolve" Oedipus , or you will fall into the neurotic
night of imaginary identif ications. Either you will follow the lines of the
triangle—lines that structure and differentia te the three terms—or you will always
bring one term into play as if it were one too many in relation to the other two,
and you will reproduce in every sense the dual relations of identification in the
undifferentiated. But there is Oedipus on either side. And everybody knows what
psychoanalysis means by resolving Oedipus: internalizing it so as to better
rediscover it on the outside, in social authority, where it will be made to
proliferate and be passed on to the children. "The child becomes a man only by
resolving the Oedipus complex, whose re solution introduces him into society,
where he finds, within the figure of Authority, the obligation to relive it, this time
with no way out. Nor is it by any mean s certain that, between the impossible
return to that which precedes the stage of culture and the growing malaise that this
stage provokes, a point of equilibrium can be found."24 Oedipus is like the
labyrinth, you only get out by re-enteri ng it—or by making someone else enter it.
Oedipus as either problem or solution is the two ends of a ligature that cuts off all
desiring-production. The screws are tight ened, nothing relating to production can
make its way through any longer, except for a far-distant murmur. The
unconscious has been crushed, triangulated, and confronted with a choice that is
not its own. With all of the exits now blocked, there is no longer any possible use
for the inclusive, nonrestrictive disjuncti ons. Parents have been found for the
(orphan) unconscious!
Double bind is the term used by Gregory Bateson to describe the
simultaneous transmission of two kinds of messages, one of which contradicts the
other, as for example the father who sa ys to his son: go ahead, criticize me, but
strongly hints that all effective criticism—at least a certain type of criticism—will
be very unwelcome. Bateson sees in this phenomenon a particularly
schizophrenizing situation, wh ich he interprets as a "c ontrary" from the viewpoint
of Russell's theory of types.22 It seems to us that the double bind, the double
impasse, is instead a common situati on, bedipalizing par excellence. And
although it
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 78
would require formalization, the other ty pe of non-sense spoken of by Russell is
brought to mind by the double-bind situation: an alternative, an exclusive
The Oedipal Double Impasse
- The authors redefine Bateson's 'double bind' as the fundamental structure of the Oedipal complex, creating a situation where both neurosis and normality are blocked paths.
- Schizophrenia is presented not as a failure of development, but as a desperate withdrawal to the 'body without organs' to escape the impossible choices of the Oedipal series.
- Freud's concept of 'latency' is criticized as a psychoanalytic mystification that merely masks the transition between murderous identification and the restoration of paternal authority.
- Modern industrial society is viewed as a 'society without the father' that paradoxically seeks new, anonymous ways to restore equivalent forms of social repression.
- Psychoanalysis is accused of collaborating with social repression by calling upon the asylum or the police to handle those who refuse to be oedipalized.
The police on our side!—never did psychoanalysis better display its taste for supporting the movement of social repression, and for participating in it with enthusiasm.
be very unwelcome. Bateson sees in this phenomenon a particularly
schizophrenizing situation, wh ich he interprets as a "c ontrary" from the viewpoint
of Russell's theory of types.22 It seems to us that the double bind, the double
impasse, is instead a common situati on, bedipalizing par excellence. And
although it
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 78
would require formalization, the other ty pe of non-sense spoken of by Russell is
brought to mind by the double-bind situation: an alternative, an exclusive
disjunction is defined in terms of a prin ciple which, however, constitutes its two
terms or underlying wholes, and where the principle itself enters into the
alternative (a completely different case from what happens when the disjunction
is inclusive). Here we have the second paralogism of psychoanalysis. In short,
the "double bind"is none other than the whole of Oedipus. It is in this sense that
Oedipus should be presented as a series , or an oscillation between two poles: the
neurotic identification, and the internali zation that is said to be normative. On
either side is Oedipus, the double impasse. A nd if a schizo is produced here as an
entity, this occurs for the simple reason that there is no other means of escaping
this double path, where normality is no less blocked than neurosis, and where the
solution offers no more of a way out th an does the problem. Hence the schizo's
withdrawal to the body without organs.
It seems that Freud himself was acute ly aware of Oedipus's inseparability
from a double impasse into which he was precipitating the unconscious. Thus in
the 1936 letter to Romain Rolland, Freud writes: "Everything unfolds as if the
essential were to go beyond the father, as if going beyond the father were always
forbidden." This becomes even more cl ear when Freud elaborates the entire
historico-mythical series: at one end the Oedipal bond is established by the
murderous identification, at the other en d it is reinforced by the restoration and
internalization of paternal authority ("revival of the old state of things at a new
level").26 Between the two there is latency—the celebrated latency—which is
without doubt the greatest psychoanalytic mystification: this society of
"brothers" who forbid themselves the fru its of the crime, and spend all the time
necessary for internalizing. But we are wa rned: the society of brothers is very
dejected, unstable, and dangerous, it must prepare the way for the rediscovery of
an equivalent to parental authority, it must cause us to pass over to the other
pole. In accord with a suggestion of Fr eud's, American society—the industrial
society with anonymous management a nd vanishing personal power, etc.—is
presented to us as a resurgence of the "society without the father." Not
surprisingly, the industrial society is burde ned with the search for original modes
for the restoration of the equivalent—for example, the astonishing discovery by
Mitscherlich that the British Royal Family , after all, is not such a bad thing.27
It is therefore understood that we leav e one pole of Oedipus only to pass on
to the other. No way of getting out, neurosis or normality. The society of
brothers rediscovers nothing of production and desiring-
80 ANTI-OEDIPUS
machines; on the contrary, it spreads the ve il of latency. As to those who refuse
to be oedipalized in one form or another, at one end or the other in the treatment,
the psychoanalyst is there to call the as ylum or the police for help. The police on
our side!—never did psychoanalysis bette r display its taste for supporting the
movement of social repression, and for pa rticipating in it with enthusiasm. Let it
not be thought that we are alluding to th e folkloric aspects of psychoanalysis.
The fact that there are some, around Lacan, who are developing another
The Oedipal Dragnet
- The authors argue that psychoanalysis acts as a tool for social repression, using the police or asylums to enforce the Oedipal structure on those who resist it.
- Oedipus is described as a useless myth that serves only to tie off the unconscious and trap individuals between familial and social authority.
- While Freud opened the possibility of living beyond the father's law, psychoanalysis has paradoxically reinforced that law rather than achieving liberation.
- Schizoanalysis aims to 'de-oedipalize' the unconscious, reaching a state where the problem of Oedipus can no longer even be raised.
- The text suggests an internal reversal is possible, turning the analytic machine into a vital component of revolutionary machinery.
Oedipus is one of those things that becomes all the more dangerous the less people believe in it; then the cops are there to replace the high priests.
machines; on the contrary, it spreads the ve il of latency. As to those who refuse
to be oedipalized in one form or another, at one end or the other in the treatment,
the psychoanalyst is there to call the as ylum or the police for help. The police on
our side!—never did psychoanalysis bette r display its taste for supporting the
movement of social repression, and for pa rticipating in it with enthusiasm. Let it
not be thought that we are alluding to th e folkloric aspects of psychoanalysis.
The fact that there are some, around Lacan, who are developing another
conception of psychoanalysis, does not mean that we should take no notice of the
dominant tone in the most respected a ssociations: consider Dr. Mendel and the
Drs. Stephane, the state of fury that is theirs, and their literally police-like appeal
at the thought that someone might claim to escape the Oedipal dragnet. Oedipus
is one of those things that becomes all the more dangerous the less people
believe in it; then the cops are there to replace the high priests. The first profound
example of an analysis of double bind, in this sense, can be found in Marx's On
the Jewish Question: between the family and the State—the Oedipus of familial
authority and the Oedipus of social authority.
Oedipus is completely useless, except for tying off the unconscious on both
sides. We shall see in what sense Oedipus is strictly "undecid-able"
(indecidable) , as the mathematicians would put it. We are extremely tired of
those stories where one is said to be in good health because of Oedipus, sick
from Oedipus, and suffering from various illnesses under the influence of
Oedipus. It sometimes happens that an analyst becomes fed up with this myth
that is the bed and board of psychoanalysis, and goes back to the sources: Freud
never managed to escape the world of the fa ther, or of guilt. . . . While offering
the possibility of constructing a logic of the relation to the father, he was the first
to open the way for a release from the fa ther's hold on man. The possibility of
living beyond the father's law, beyond all law, is perhaps the most essential
possibility brought forth by Freudian ps ychoanalysis. But paradoxically, and
perhaps because of Freud, everything leads us to conclude that this release, made
possible by psychoanalysis, will be achieved, is already being achieved, outside
it.28
We cannot, however, share either this pe ssimism or this optimism. For there
is much optimism in thinking psychoanalysis makes possible a veritable solution
to Oedipus: Oedipus is like God; the father is like God; the problem is not
resolved until we do away with both the problem and the solution. It is not the
purpose of schizoanalysis to resolve Oedipus, it does not intend to resolve it
better than Oedipal psychoanalysis does. Its aim is to de-oedipalize the
unconscious in order to reach the real problems. Schizoanalysis proposes to
reach those regions of the
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 81
orphan unconscious—indeed "beyond all law"—where the problem of
Oedipus can no longer even be rais ed. By the same token, we do not
share the pessimism that consists in thinking that this change, this
release, can be achieved only outside psychoanalysis. We believe, on the
contrary, in the possibility of an internal reversal that would make the
analytic machine into an indispensable part of the revolutionary machin-
ery. What is more, the objective conditions for such a practice appear to
be already present.
Everything takes place as if Oedi pus of itself had two poles: one
pole characterized by imaginary figures that lend themselves to a
process of identification, and a s econd pole characterized by symbolic
functions that lend themselves to a process of differentiation. But in any
case we are oedipalized: if we don't ha ve Oedipus as a crisis, we have it
as a structure. Then the crisis is passed on to others, and the whole
The Double Impasse of Oedipus
- The Oedipus complex operates between two poles: an imaginary pole of identification and a symbolic pole of structural differentiation.
- Replacing parental figures with symbolic 'functions' merely universalizes Oedipus and fuses desire more tightly to law and prohibition.
- The authors argue that Oedipus-as-structure is essentially the Christian Trinity, while Oedipus-as-crisis is a familial version lacking faith.
- The distinction between the Imaginary and the Symbolic is presented as a 'double pincer action' that crushes the unconscious in a perpetual pendulum swing.
- True difference is found not in these psychological structures, but in the 'real machinic element' that exists outside the Oedipal disjunction.
A double pincer action that crushes the unconscious caught in its exclusive disjunction.
ery. What is more, the objective conditions for such a practice appear to
be already present.
Everything takes place as if Oedi pus of itself had two poles: one
pole characterized by imaginary figures that lend themselves to a
process of identification, and a s econd pole characterized by symbolic
functions that lend themselves to a process of differentiation. But in any
case we are oedipalized: if we don't ha ve Oedipus as a crisis, we have it
as a structure. Then the crisis is passed on to others, and the whole
movement starts all over again. Su ch is the Oedipai disjunction, the
swing of the pendulum, the exclusive inverse reasoning. That is why,
when we are invited to go beyond a simplistic conception of Oedipus
based on parental images, in order to define symbolic functions within a
structure, it is in vain that the traditional daddy-mommy are replaced by
a mother-function, a father-function; we don't quite see what there is to
gain by this, except for the founding of the universality of Oedipus
beyond the variability of images; the fusing of desire even more strongly
to law and prohibitions; and the pushi ng of the process of oedipalization
of the unconscious to its limits. Here Oedipus encounters its two
extremes, its minimum and its maximum, depending on whether it is
regarded as tending toward an undifferentiated value of its variable
images, or toward the force of differentiation of its symbolic functions.
"When one draws nearer to the material imagination, the differential
function diminishes, one tends toward equivalences; when one draws
nearer to the formative elements, the differential function increases, one
tends toward distinctive valences."29 It will hardly come as a surprise to
learn that Oedipus as a structure is the Christian Trinity, whereas
Oedipus as a crisis is a familial trin ity insufficiently structured by faith:
always the two poles in inverse proportion, Oedipus forever!*
How many interpretations of Lacanism, overtly or secretly pious as
the case may be, have in this manne r invoked a structural Oedipus to
create and shut the double impasse, to l ead us back to the question of the
*See J. M. Pohier, "La paternite de Dieu," L'Inconscient, no. 5 (January 1968). This article contains a
perfect formulation of Oedipus as double bind: "The psychic life of man unfolds in a sort of dialectical
tension between two ways of living the Oedipus complex: one that consists in living it, and the other that
consists in living according to the structures that might be called Oedipai. Experience also shows us that
these structures are not foreign to the most critical phase of this complex. For Freud, man is definitively
marked by this complex: it constitutes both hi s grandeur and his misery," etc. (pp. 57-58).
82 A N T I - O E D I P U S
father, to oedipalize even the schizo, a nd to show that a gap in the Symbolic
would bring us back to the Imaginary, and inversely that imaginary drivel or
confusions would lead us to the structur e! As a famous predecessor said to these
creatures, you've already made this into an old refrain. As for us, that is why we
were unable to posit any difference in nature, any border line, any limit at all
between the Imaginary and the Symbolic , or between Oedipus-as-crisis and
Oedipus-as-structure, or between the probl em and its solution. It is solely a
question of a correlative double impasse, a swing of a pendulum responsible for
sweeping away the entire unconscious, and that continuously carries us from one
pole to the other. A double pincer action that crushes the unconscious caught in
its exclusive disjunction.
The true difference in nature is not between the Symbolic and the
Imaginary, but between the real machinic (machinique) element, which
Desiring-Production vs. Oedipal Myth
- The text argues that the primary conflict is not between the Imaginary and the Symbolic, but between the real machinic element of desiring-production and the structural whole of the Oedipal myth.
- Oedipus is described as a 'double pincer action' that crushes the unconscious through exclusive disjunctions, regardless of whether it uses imaginary figures or symbolic functions.
- The authors critique the second generation of Lacanian disciples for re-oedipalizing the subject and reintroducing 'lack' into the series of desire through a despotic signifier.
- The 'body without organs' is redefined as an egg-like intensive field traversed by potentials and thresholds, suggesting a biochemical rather than purely psychological basis for schizophrenia.
- A distinction is made between the 'anoedipal' use of inclusive disjunctions and the restrictive, segregating nature of the Oedipal structure.
A double pincer action that crushes the unconscious caught in its exclusive disjunction.
between the Imaginary and the Symbolic , or between Oedipus-as-crisis and
Oedipus-as-structure, or between the probl em and its solution. It is solely a
question of a correlative double impasse, a swing of a pendulum responsible for
sweeping away the entire unconscious, and that continuously carries us from one
pole to the other. A double pincer action that crushes the unconscious caught in
its exclusive disjunction.
The true difference in nature is not between the Symbolic and the
Imaginary, but between the real machinic (machinique) element, which
constitutes desiring-pr oduction, and the structural w hole of the Imaginary and the
Symbolic, which merely forms a myth a nd its variants. The difference is not
between two uses of Oedipus, but between the anoedipal use of the inclusive,
nonrestrictive disjunctions, and the Oedipal use of exclusive disjunctions,
whether this last use borrows from the paths of the Imaginary or the values of the
Symbolic. It would also be necessary to heed Lacan's word of caution concerning
the Freudian myth of Oedipus, which "has no way of holding its own indefinitely
in the forms of society where the tragic sense is increasingly lost . . . : a myth
cannot sustain itself when it supports no ritual, and psychoanalysis is not the
Oedipus ritual."30 E v e n i f w e g o b a c k f r o m t h e images to the structure, from
imaginary figures to symbolic functions, from the father to the law, from the
mother to the great Other, in truth the question merely retreats. And if we try to
envisage the time put into this retreat, Lacan goes on to say, the sole foundation
for the society of brothers, for fraternity, is "segregation" (what does he mean
here?).
In any case, it was inopportune to ti ghten the nuts and bolts where Lacan
had just loosened them; or to oedipalize the schizo where on the contrary he had
just schizophrenized even neurosis, inj ecting a schizophrenic flow capable of
subverting the field of psychoanalysis. Th e object (small o) erupts at the heart of
the structural equilibrium in the ma nner of an infernal machine, the
desiring-machine. Then a second generati on of disciples of Lacan supervenes,
less and less sensitive to the false problem s of Oedipus. But if the first disciples
were tempted to reclose the Oedipus yoke, didn't they do so to the extent that
Lacan seemed to maintain a kind of pr ojection of the signifying chains onto a
despotic signifier, lacking unto itself and reintroducing lack into the series of
desire on which it imposed an exclusive use? Was it possible to
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 83
denounce Oedipus-as-myth, and nevert heless maintain that the castra-
tion complex itself was not a myth but in fact something real? (Wasn't
this tantamount to taking up the cry of Aristotle: "We really must come
to a halt," in the face of this Freudian Ananke, this Rock?)
The Conjunctive Synthesis
of Consumption-Consummation
In the third synthesis, the conjunctive synthesis of con-
sumption, we have seen how the body without organs was in fact an egg,
crisscrossed with axes, banded with zones, localized with areas and
fields, measured off by gradients, traversed by potentials, marked by
thresholds. In this sense, we believ e in a biochemistry of schizophrenia
(in conjunction with the biochemistry of drugs), that will be progressively
more capable of determining the nature of this egg and the distribution of
field-gradient-threshold. It is a matter of relationships of intensities
through which the subject passes on the body without organs, a process
that engages him in becomings, rises and falls, migrations and displace-
ments. R. D. Laing is entirely right in defining the schizophrenic process
The Intensive Order of Schizophrenia
- Schizophrenia is described as a biochemical and transcendental voyage of initiation involving the loss of the Ego and the navigation of pure intensities.
- The body without organs serves as a field of potentials where the subject undergoes morphogenetic movements, migrations, and displacements.
- Delirium is characterized by a commingling of historical and geographical identities, where the subject 'becomes' various races, gods, and historical figures.
- This process is not a representation of external reality but an intensive order where races and cultures designate specific zones of intensity on the body.
- The authors argue that all delirium is fundamentally racial and historical, involving a proliferation of identities that transcends individual or familial limits.
I am becoming God, I am becoming woman, I was Joan of Arc and I am Heliogabalus and the Great Mongol, I am a Chinaman, a redskin, a Templar, I was my father and I was my son.
thresholds. In this sense, we believ e in a biochemistry of schizophrenia
(in conjunction with the biochemistry of drugs), that will be progressively
more capable of determining the nature of this egg and the distribution of
field-gradient-threshold. It is a matter of relationships of intensities
through which the subject passes on the body without organs, a process
that engages him in becomings, rises and falls, migrations and displace-
ments. R. D. Laing is entirely right in defining the schizophrenic process
as a voyage of initiation, a transcendental experience of the loss of the
Ego, which causes a subject to rema rk: "I had existed since the very
beginning . . . from the lowest form of life [the body without organs] to
the present time, ... I was looking . . . —not looking so much as just
feeling —ahead of me was lying the most horrific journey."31 When we
speak here of a voyage, this is no more a metaphor than before when we
spoke of an egg, and of what takes place in and on it—morphogenetic
movements, displacements of cellular groups, stretchings, folds, migra-
tions, and local variations of potentia ls. There is no reason to oppose an
interior voyage to exterior ones: Lenz's stroll, Nijinsky's stroll, the
promenades of Beckett's creatures are effective realities, but where the
reality of matter has abandoned all exte nsion, just as the interior voyage
has abandoned all form and quality, henceforth causing pure
intensities—coupled together, almost unbearable—to radiate within and
without, intensities through which a nom adic subject passes. Here it is
not a case of an hallucinatory expe rience nor of a delirious mode of
thought, but a feeling, a series of em otions and feelings as a consumma-
tion and a consumption of intensive qua ntities, that form the material for
subsequent hallucinations and delir iums. The intensive emotion, the
affect, is both the common root and the principle of differentiation of
deliriums and hallucinations.
We are also of a mind to believe that everything commingles in
these intense becomings, passages, and migrations—all this drift that
84 ANTI-OEDIPUS
ascends and descends the flows of time: countries, races, families, parental
appellations, divine appellations, geogra phical and historical designations, and
even miscellaneous news items. (I feel that) I am becoming God, I am becoming
woman, I was Joan of Arc and I am Heliogabalus and the Great Mongol, I am a
Chinaman, a redskin, a Templar, I was my father and I was my son. And all the
criminals, the whole list of criminals, the decent criminals and the scoundrels:
Szondi rather than Freud and his Oedipus . "Perhaps it's by trying to be Worm
that I'll finally succeed in being Mahood. . . . Then all I'll have to do is be Worm.
Which no doubt I shall achieve by trying to be Jones. Then all I'll have to do is
be Jones." But if everything commingles in this fashion it does so in intensity,
with no confusion of spaces and forms, since these have indeed been undone on
behalf of a new order: the intense and intensive order.
What is the nature of this order? Th e first things to be distributed on the
body without organs are races, cultures, and their gods. The fact has often been
overlooked that the schizo indeed participates in history; he hallucinates and
raves universal history, and proliferates the races. All delirium is racial, which
does not necessarily mean racist. It is not a matter of the regions of the body
without organs "representing" races and cultures. The full body does not
represent anything at all. On the contrary, the races and cultures designate
regions on this body—that is, zones of intensities, fields of potentials.
Phenomena of individualization and sexualization are produced within these
Delirium and Universal History
- The schizophrenic experience is not a withdrawal from reality but an active participation in universal history through racial and cultural delirium.
- Races and cultures are redefined as zones of intensity and fields of potential on the 'body without organs' rather than representational categories.
- Individual identity is replaced by a process of constant migration across thresholds, where one becomes other sexes, races, and historical figures.
- Proper names function not as markers of a stable ego, but as designations for specific intensive states and historical forces within a production of quantities.
- The delirium of figures like Artaud, Rimbaud, and Nietzsche demonstrates a rejection of the family unit in favor of identifying with the entirety of history.
The unpleasant thing, and one that nags at my modesty, is that at root every name in history is I.
overlooked that the schizo indeed participates in history; he hallucinates and
raves universal history, and proliferates the races. All delirium is racial, which
does not necessarily mean racist. It is not a matter of the regions of the body
without organs "representing" races and cultures. The full body does not
represent anything at all. On the contrary, the races and cultures designate
regions on this body—that is, zones of intensities, fields of potentials.
Phenomena of individualization and sexualization are produced within these
fields. We pass from one field to anothe r by crossing thresholds: we never stop
migrating, we become othe r individuals as well as ot her sexes, and departing
becomes as easy as being born or dying. Along the way we struggle against other
races, we destroy civilizations, in the manner of the great migrants in whose
wake nothing is left standing once they have passed through— although these
destructions can be brought about, as we shall see, in two very different ways.
The crossing of a threshold entails ravages elsewhere—how could it be
otherwise? The body without organs cl oses round the deserted places. The
theater of cruelty cannot be separated fr om the struggle against our culture, from
the confrontation of the "races," and from Artaud's great migration toward
Mexico, its forces, and its religions: individuations are produced only within
fields of forces expressly defined by in tensive vibrations, and that animate cruel
personages only in so far as they are i nduced organs, parts of desiring-macnines
(mannequins).32 A season in hell—how could it be separated from denunciations
of European families, from the call fo r destructions that don't come quickly
enough, from the admiration for the convict, from
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAM1LIALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 85
the intense crossing of the thresholds of history, and from this prodi-
gious migration, this becoming-woma n, this becoming-Scandinavian or
Mongol, this "displacement of races and of continents," this feeling of
raw intensity that presides over de lirium as well as over hallucinations,
and especially this deliberate, stubborn, material will to be "of a race
inferior for all eternity": "I have known every son of good birth, I have
never been of this people, I have never been Christian, . . . yes my eyes
are closed to your light. I am a beast, a Negro."33
And can Zarathustra be separated from the "grand politics," and
from the bringing to life of the races that leads Nietzsche to say, I'm not
a German, I'm Polish. Here again individuations are brought about
solely within complexes of forces that determine persons as so many
intensive states embodied in a "crimi nal," ceaselessly passing beyond a
threshold while destroying the factitious unity of a family and an ego: "I
am Prado, I am also Prado's father. I venture to say that I am also
Lesseps. . . .I wanted to give my Parisians, whom I love, a new
idea—that of a decent criminal. I am also Chambige—also a decent
criminal. . . . The unpleasant thing, a nd one that nags at my modesty, is
that at root every name in history is I. "34 Yet it was never a question of
identifying oneself with personages, as when it is erroneously main-
tained that a madman "takes himself for so-and-so. . . ." It is a question
of something quite different: identifying races, cultures, and gods with
fields of intensity on the body without organs, identifying personages
with states that fill these fields, and with effects that fulgurate within and
traverse these fields. Whence the role of names, with a magic all their
own: there is no ego that identifies with races, peoples, and persons in a
theater of representation, but proper names that identify races, peoples,
and persons with regions, threshol ds, or effects in a production of
intensive quantities. The theory of proper names should not be con-
ceived of in terms of representation; it refers instead to the class of
The Schizophrenic Production of Reality
- Proper names in history and physics function as 'effects' that designate the occupation of intensive fields rather than representing individual egos.
- The schizophrenic body without organs acts as a desert or indivisible distance over which the subject glides to connect with everything real.
- Reality is redefined not as a principle of abstract quantity, but as a product that envelops intensive distances and changing forms.
- Simulation is presented as a polyvocal form of writing that carries the real beyond mere representation until the copy becomes the Real itself.
- The schizophrenic 'histrionism' involves a total identification with all the triumphs and pogroms of history as a surplus of reality.
The point where the copy ceases to be a copy in order to become the Real and its artifice.
with states that fill these fields, and with effects that fulgurate within and
traverse these fields. Whence the role of names, with a magic all their
own: there is no ego that identifies with races, peoples, and persons in a
theater of representation, but proper names that identify races, peoples,
and persons with regions, threshol ds, or effects in a production of
intensive quantities. The theory of proper names should not be con-
ceived of in terms of representation; it refers instead to the class of
"effects": effects that are not a mere dependence on causes, but the
occupation of a domain, and the operati on of a system of signs. This can
be clearly seen in physics, where proper names designate such effects
within fields of potentials: the Joule effect, the Seebeck effect, the
Kelvin effect. History is like physics: a Joan of Arc effect, a
Heliogaba-lus effect—all the names of history, and not the name of the
father.
Everything has been said about the paucity of reality, the loss of
reality, the lack of c ontact with life, autism and athymia. Schizophrenics
themselves have said everything th ere is to say about this, and have
been quick to slip into the expected clinical mold. Dark world, growing
desert: a solitary machine hums on the beach, an atomic factory
installed in the desert. But if the body without organs is indeed this
86 ANTI-OEDIPUS
desert, it is as an indivisible, nondeco mposable distance over which the schizo
glides in order to be everywhere so mething real is produced, everywhere
something real has been and will be produced. It is true that reality has ceased to
be a principle. According to such a principl e, the reality of the real was posed as a
divisible abstract quantity, whereas the real was divided up into qualified unities,
into distinct qualitative forms. But now the real is a product that envelops the
distances within intensive quantities. The indivisible is enve loped,and signifies
that what envelops it does not divide w ithout changing its nature or form. The
schizo has no principles: he is somethi ng only by being something else. He is
Mahood only by being Worm, and Worm only by being Jones. He is a girl only
by being an old man who is miming or si mulating the girl. Or rather, by being
someone who is simulating an old man simu lating a girl. Or rather, by simulating
someone . . . , etc. This was already true of the completely oriental art of the
Roman Emperors, the twelve paranoiacs of Suetonius. In a great book by Jacques
Besse, we encounter once again the double stroll of the schizo, the geographic
exterior voyage following nondecomposable distances, and the interior historical
voyage enveloping intensities: Christopher Columbus calms his mutinous crew
and becomes admiral again only by simulating a (false) admiral who is simulating
a whore who is dancing.35
But simulation must be understood in the same way as we spoke of
identification. It expresses those nondeco mposable distances always enveloped in
the intensities that divide into one another while changing their form. If
identification is a nomination, a desi gnation, then simulation is the writing
corresponding to it, a writing that is strange ly polyvocal, flush with the real. It
carries the real beyond its principle to the point where it is effectively produced
by the desiring-machine. The point where th e copy ceases to be a copy in order to
become the Real and its artifice. To seize an intensive real as produced in the
coextension of nature and history, to ransack the Roman Empire, the Mexican
cities, the Greek gods, and the discovered continents so as to extract from them
this always-surplus reality, and to form the treasure of the paranoiac tortures and
the celibate glories—all the pogroms of hi story, that's what I am, and all the
triumphs, too, as if a few simple univocal events could be extricated from this
extreme polyvocity: such is the "histri onism" of the schizophrenic, according to
The Schizophrenic Production of Reality
- The schizophrenic experience is described not as a loss of contact with life, but as an intense proximity to the 'beating heart' of reality and its production.
- Schizophrenic 'histrionism' involves a polyvocal engagement with history, where the individual assumes the identities of various historical figures as intensive states.
- The text argues that the schizophrenic does not identify with a single person, but rather traverses a series of singularities and states within a disjunctive network.
- The 'residual subject' or ego is merely a byproduct of these oscillations through different states, rather than a central organizing force.
- Delirium is framed as having a world-historical and political character, rather than being confined to personal or familial neuroses.
With respect to their experiencing of life, the neurotic patient and the perverted individual are to the schizophrenic as the petty thief is to the daring safecracker.
corresponding to it, a writing that is strange ly polyvocal, flush with the real. It
carries the real beyond its principle to the point where it is effectively produced
by the desiring-machine. The point where th e copy ceases to be a copy in order to
become the Real and its artifice. To seize an intensive real as produced in the
coextension of nature and history, to ransack the Roman Empire, the Mexican
cities, the Greek gods, and the discovered continents so as to extract from them
this always-surplus reality, and to form the treasure of the paranoiac tortures and
the celibate glories—all the pogroms of hi story, that's what I am, and all the
triumphs, too, as if a few simple univocal events could be extricated from this
extreme polyvocity: such is the "histri onism" of the schizophrenic, according to
Klossowski's formula, the true program for a theater of cruelty, the mise-en-scene
of a machine to produce the real. Far from having lost who knows what contact
with life, the schizophrenic is closest to the beating heart of reality, to an intense
point identical with the production of the r eal, and that leads Reich to say: "What
belongs specifically to the schizophrenic patient is
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIAUSM: THE HOLY FAMILY 87
that ... he experiences the vital biology of the body. . . . With respect to
their experiencing of life, the neurotic patient and the perverted
individual are to the schizophrenic as the petty thief is to the daring
safecracker."36 So the question returns: what reduces the schizophrenic
to his autistic, hospitalized profile, cut off from reality? Is it the process,
or is it rather the interruption of the process, its aggravation, its
continuation in the void? What forces the schizophrenic to withdraw to
a body without organs that has become deaf, dumb, and blind?
We often hear it said: he thinks he's Louis XVII. Not true. In the
Louis XVII affair, or rather in the finest case, that of the pretender
Richemont, there is a desiring-machine or a celibate machine in the
center: the horse with short, jointe d paws, inside which they supposedly
put the Dauphin so he could flee. And then, all around, there are agents
of production and antiproduction, the organizers of the escape, the
accomplices, the allied sovereigns, the revolutionary enemies, the
jealous and hostile uncles, who are not persons but so many states of
rising and falling through which th e pretender passes. Moreover, the
pretender Richemont's stroke of genius is not simply that he "takes into
account" Louis XVII, or that he take s other pretenders into account by
denouncing them as fake. What is so ingenious is that he takes other
pretenders into account by assumi ng them, by authenticating them—that
is to say, by making them too into states through which he passes: I am
Louis XVII, but I am also Hervagault and Mathurin Bruneau, who
claimed to be Louis XVII.37 Richemont doesn't identify with Louis
XVII, he lays claim to the premium due the person who traverses all the
singularities of the series converging around the machine for kidnapping
Louis XVII. There is no ego at the center, any more than there are
persons distributed on the periphery. Nothing but a series of singulari-
ties in the disjunctive network, or intensive states in the conjunctive
tissue, and a transpositional subject moving full circle, passing through
all the states, triumphing over some as over his enemies, relishing others
as his allies, collecting everywhere the fraudulent premium of his
avatars. Partial object: a well s ituated scar—ambiguous besides—is
better proof than all the memories of childhood that the pretender lacks.
The conjunctive synthesis can therefore be expressed: "So I am the
king! So the kingdom belongs to me!" But this me is merely the residual
subject that sweeps the circle and concludes a self from its oscillations
on the circle.
All delirium possesses a world-historical, political, and racial con-
Delirium and the Historical Subject
- The subject of delirium is a residual effect of oscillations that sweeps across historical, political, and racial identities.
- Delirium is not a derivative of the Oedipal family structure but contains a world-historical content that explodes familial boundaries.
- Traditional psychoanalysis is criticized for squashing the vast socio-political content of madness into the narrow triangle of father, mother, and child.
- Judge Schreber's memoirs illustrate how a patient's identity shifts through racial and national thresholds, such as becoming a Mongol prince or a girl defending Alsace.
- The text argues that historical signifiers and racial masses are primary threads of latency rather than mere substitutes for the 'name of the father'.
All delirium possesses a world-historical, political, and racial content, mixing and sweeping along races, cultures, continents, and kingdoms; some wonder whether this long drift merely constitutes a derivative of Oedipus.
all the states, triumphing over some as over his enemies, relishing others
as his allies, collecting everywhere the fraudulent premium of his
avatars. Partial object: a well s ituated scar—ambiguous besides—is
better proof than all the memories of childhood that the pretender lacks.
The conjunctive synthesis can therefore be expressed: "So I am the
king! So the kingdom belongs to me!" But this me is merely the residual
subject that sweeps the circle and concludes a self from its oscillations
on the circle.
All delirium possesses a world-historical, political, and racial con-
tent, mixing and sweeping along races, cultures, continents, and king-
doms; some wonder whether this long drift merely constitutes a
derivative of Oedipus. The familial order explodes, families are chal-
ks ANTI-OEDIPUS
lenged, son, father, mother, sister—"I mean those families like my own,
that owe all to the Declaration of th e Rights of Man!"; "When I seek out
my most profound opposite, I always encounter my mother and my
sister; to see myself related to such German rabble is, as it were, a
blasphemy with respect to my doctrine of the Eternal Return!" It is a
question of knowing if the historico-political, the racial, and the cultural
are merely part of a manifest conten t and formally depend on a work of
elaboration, or if, on the contrary, th is content should be followed as the
thread of latency that the order of families hides from us. Should the
rupture with families be taken as a sort of "familial romance" that would
indeed bring us back again to families and refer us to an event or a
structural determination inside the fami ly itself? Or is this rather the sign
that the problem must be raised in a completely different manner,
because it is already raised elsewhere for the schizo himself, outside the
family? Are "the names of history" derivatives of the name of the father,
and are the races, cultures, and continents substitutes for
daddy-mommy, dependent on the Oe dipal genealogy? Is history's
signifier the dead father?
Once again let us consider Judge Schreber's delirium. To be sure,
the use of races and the mobilization or notion of history are developed
there in a manner totally different from that employed by the authors we
have previously mentioned. The fact remains that Schreber's memoirs
are filled with a theory of God's c hosen peoples, and with the dangers
that face the currently chosen people, the Germans, who are threatened
by the Jews, the Catholics, and the Slavs. In his intense metamorphoses
and passages, Schreber becomes a pup il of the Jesuits, the burgomaster
of a city where the Germans are fighting against the Slavs, and a girl
defending Alsace against the French . At last he crosses the Aryan
gradient or threshold to become a Mongol prince. What does this
becoming-pupil, burgomaster, girl, and Mongol signify? All paranoiac
deliriums stir up similar historical , geographic, and ra cial masses. The
error would lie in concluding, for example, that fascists are mere
paranoiacs. This would be an error precisely because, in the current
state of affairs, this would still amount to leading th e historical and
political content of the delirium back to an internal familial determina-
tion. And what is even more disturbing to us is the fact that the entirety
of this enormous content disappears completely from Freud's analysis:
not one trace of it remains; everything is ground, squashed, triangulated
into Oedipus; everything is reduced to the father, in such a way as to
reveal in the crudest fashion the inadequacies of an Oedipal psychoanal-
ysis.
Let us consider another paranoia c delirium as related by Maud
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 89
Mannoni, a delirium whose political natu re is especially vivid. This
example appears all the more striki ng to us, given our great admiration
for Maud Mannoni's work and for the manner in which she poses
The Forced Oedipalization of Delirium
- The text criticizes psychoanalysis for reducing complex historical and political delusions into the narrow framework of the Oedipal family structure.
- Maud Mannoni’s case study of a patient from Martinique illustrates how a delirium involving the Algerian War and racial identity is interpreted as a paternal lack.
- Lacanian concepts like foreclosure are used to argue that political revolt in psychosis stems from a symbolic void regarding the name of the father.
- The authors contend that this approach flings the subject between imaginary maternal identifications and symbolic paternal lack, ignoring the real social content.
- The central question is whether familial structures truly serve as the primary symbolic organizer for the vast historical themes present in schizophrenia.
Not one trace of it remains; everything is ground, squashed, triangulated into Oedipus; everything is reduced to the father.
not one trace of it remains; everything is ground, squashed, triangulated
into Oedipus; everything is reduced to the father, in such a way as to
reveal in the crudest fashion the inadequacies of an Oedipal psychoanal-
ysis.
Let us consider another paranoia c delirium as related by Maud
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 89
Mannoni, a delirium whose political natu re is especially vivid. This
example appears all the more striki ng to us, given our great admiration
for Maud Mannoni's work and for the manner in which she poses
antipsychiatric and institutional problems. Here then we see a man from
Martinique who, in the process of his delirium, situates himself in
relation to the Arabs and the Algerian War, in relation to the whites and
the May '68 events, and so on: "I fell sick from the Algerian problem. I
had partaken in the same foolishness as they (sexual pleasure). They
adopted me as one of their own race. Mongol blood flows through my
veins. Every time I attempted to put something into effect, the Algerians
argued against it. I had racist no tions. ... I descend from the Gallic
dynasty. By this right I am a man of noble lineage. . . . Let my name be
determined, let it be determined scientifically, and then I shall be able to
set up a harem."38 Though aware of the character of "revolt" and of
"truth for all" implied in the psychosis, Maud Mannoni argues that the
origin of the breakup of familial rela tions in favor of themes that the
subject himself declares to be racist, metaphysical, and political, is to be
found in the familial structure serving as a matrix. This origin would
exist therefore in the symbolic void or in "the initial foreclosure
(forclusion) of the signifier of the father."39 The name to be determined
scientifically, the name that haunts all history, is simply the paternal
name.
In this case as in many others, the utilization of the Lacanian
concept of foreclosure leads to the forced oedipalization of the rebel: the
absence of Oedipus is interpreted as a lack with regard to the father, a
gaping hole in the structure; next, in the name of this lack, we are
referred to the other Oedipal pole, the pole of imaginary identifications
within the maternal undifferentiated. The law of the double bind
operates relentlessly, ruthlessly, flinging us from one pole to the other, in
such a way that what is foreclosed in the Symbolic must reappear in the
Real in a hallucinatory form. But in this fashion the ent ire
historico-political theme get s interpreted as a constell ation of imaginary
identifications depending on Oedipus, or on that which the subject
"lacks" in order to become oedipalized.* And to be sure, it is not a
question of knowing whether or not the familial determinations or
indeterminations play a role. It is obvious that they do. But is this an
initial role as
*"The Oedipal personages are all in their places, but in the play of permutations brought about, there is
something like an empty place. . .. What appears as rejected is everything referring to the phallus and the
father. . . . Each time George s tries to take hold of himself as a desiri ng-person, he is driven back to a form
of dissolution of identities. He is another, enthralled by a maternal image. ... He remains trapped within an
imaginary position in which he is captivated by the maternal imago; he situates himself within the Oedipal
triangle in terms of this locale, which implies an impossible process of identif ication, involving forever
after, in the mode of a pure imaginary dialectic , the destruction of one or the other of the
partners."—Mannoni (reference note 38), pp. 104-107.
90 ANTI-OEDIPUS
symbolic organizer (or symbolic disorgan izer) from which the floating contents
of the historical delirium would derive, as so many glittering reflections in an
imaginary mirror? Is the trinitary formula for the schizo—which leads him,
Oedipus as Inductor
- The text challenges the psychoanalytic view that the Oedipal triangle acts as a symbolic organizer for the schizophrenic experience.
- Schizophrenia is framed not as a lack of Oedipal structure, but as a resistance to the repressive process of being 'oedipalized' by society and analysts.
- Using a biological analogy, the authors argue that parental figures are merely 'inductors' or stimuli rather than the true architects of a person's development.
- The schizophrenic's refusal to be 'cured' is interpreted as a refusal to submit to the familial and social masks that psychoanalysis attempts to impose.
- The nature of the stimulus is ultimately indifferent, as the underlying processes of the 'schizophrenic egg' possess their own specific potentials for development.
Is the schizophrenic sick and cut off from reality because he lacks Oedipus, because he 'is lacking' in something only to be found in Oedipus—or on the contrary is he sick by virtue of the oedipalization he is unable to bear?
*"The Oedipal personages are all in their places, but in the play of permutations brought about, there is
something like an empty place. . .. What appears as rejected is everything referring to the phallus and the
father. . . . Each time George s tries to take hold of himself as a desiri ng-person, he is driven back to a form
of dissolution of identities. He is another, enthralled by a maternal image. ... He remains trapped within an
imaginary position in which he is captivated by the maternal imago; he situates himself within the Oedipal
triangle in terms of this locale, which implies an impossible process of identif ication, involving forever
after, in the mode of a pure imaginary dialectic , the destruction of one or the other of the
partners."—Mannoni (reference note 38), pp. 104-107.
90 ANTI-OEDIPUS
symbolic organizer (or symbolic disorgan izer) from which the floating contents
of the historical delirium would derive, as so many glittering reflections in an
imaginary mirror? Is the trinitary formula for the schizo—which leads him,
forced and constrained, back to Oedipus —this void left by the absence of the
father and this cancerous development of the mother and the sister? And yet, as
we have seen, if there is one problem that does not exist in schizophrenia, it is the
problem of identifications. And if getti ng well amounts to getting oedipalized, we
can easily understand the outbursts of the patient who "does not want to be
cured," and who treats the analyst as one of the family, then as an ally of the
police. Is the schizophrenic sick and cut off from reality because he lacks
Oedipus, because he "is lacking" in so mething only to be found in Oedipus—or
on the contrary is he sick by virtue of th e oedipalization he is unable to bear, and
around which everything combines in orde r to force him to submit (social
repression even before psychoanalysis)?
The schizophrenic egg is like the biological egg: they have a similar history,
and our knowledge of them has run up agai nst the same sort of difficulties and
illusions. During the development of the di fferentiation of the egg, it was first
believed that veritable "organizers" deci ded the destiny of the parts. But it was
soon noticed that on the one hand, all kinds of other variable substances had the
same action as the envisage d organizing stimulus, and th at on the other hand, the
parts themselves had specific abilities and potentials for development that did not
exist for the stimulus (experiments with grafting). Whence the idea that the
stimuli are not organizers, but mere inductors: ultimately, the nature of these
inductors is a matter of indifference. Many different kinds of substances and
materials, when killed, boiled, and pulver ized, have the same effect. It was the
beginnings of the development that favored the illusion: the simplicity of the
beginning—consisting, for example, of cellular divisions—could lead one to
believe in some sort of adequation betw een the inductor and what is induced. But
we are well aware that, when considered in terms of its beginnings, a thing is
always poorly judged because, in order to become apparent, it is forced to
simulate structural states and to slip into states of forces that serve it as masks.
What is more, from the beginning we can see that it makes use of masks in an
entirely different manner, and that underneath the mask and by means of it, it
already invests the terminal forms and th e specific higher states whose integrity it
will subsequently establish.
Such is the history of Oedipus: the parental figures are in no way
organizers, but rather inductors or stimul i of varying, vague import that trigger
processes of an entirely differe nt nature, processes that are
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 81
endowed with what amounts to an indifference with regard to the
stimulus. Doubtless one can believe that, in the beginning (?), the
The Incurable Familialism of Psychoanalysis
- The text argues that parental figures act merely as indifferent inductors or stimuli rather than the true organizers of the unconscious.
- While psychoanalysis recognizes that real parents are not the active factors, it fails by replacing them with symbolic or structural family matrices.
- By shifting the focus from real parents to the 'Symbolic' or 'Name-of-the-Father,' psychoanalysis renders the family transcendent rather than moving beyond it.
- This 'familialism' effectively crushes desiring-production by forcing the unconscious to operate within the narrow confines of the Oedipal complex.
- The author aligns with Foucault's view that psychoanalysis completes the asylum's project of linking madness to the bourgeois family structure.
There we have it—the incurable familialism of psychoanalysis, enclosing the unconscious within Oedipus, cutting off all vital flows, crushing desiring-production, conditioning the patient to respond daddy-mommy, and to always consume daddy-mommy.
believe in some sort of adequation betw een the inductor and what is induced. But
we are well aware that, when considered in terms of its beginnings, a thing is
always poorly judged because, in order to become apparent, it is forced to
simulate structural states and to slip into states of forces that serve it as masks.
What is more, from the beginning we can see that it makes use of masks in an
entirely different manner, and that underneath the mask and by means of it, it
already invests the terminal forms and th e specific higher states whose integrity it
will subsequently establish.
Such is the history of Oedipus: the parental figures are in no way
organizers, but rather inductors or stimul i of varying, vague import that trigger
processes of an entirely differe nt nature, processes that are
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 81
endowed with what amounts to an indifference with regard to the
stimulus. Doubtless one can believe that, in the beginning (?), the
stimulus—the Oedipal inductor—is a re al organizer. But believing is an
operation of a conscious or preconsci ous nature, an extrinsic perception
rather than an operation of the unconscious upon itself. From the
beginning of the life of the child, it is already an altogether different
undertaking that pierces the mask of Oedipus, a different flow running
through the openings in the mask, a different adventure—that of
desiring-production. Yet it cannot be said that psychoanalysis was
unaware of this in a certain respect. In his theory of the primal fantasy,
of the traces of an archaic heredity, and the endogenous sources of the
superego, Freud constantly asserts that the active factors are not the real
parents, nor even the parents as the child imagines them. Such is also
the case, and all the more so, for Lacan's disciples, when they take up
the distinction between the Imaginary and the Symbolic, when they
oppose the name of the father to the imago, and the foreclosure
concerning the signifier to a real defi ciency or absence of the paternal
personage. There is no better example than this to show that the parental
figures are indifferent inductors and that the true organizer is
elsewhere—on the side of what is induced, not on that of the inductor.
But that is just the beginning of the question, the same question as
in the case of the biological egg. For under these conditions is there no
solution but to revive the notion of a "terrain," whether in the form of a
phylogenetic innateness of preformation, or a cultural symbolic a priori
linked to prematuration? Worse yet: it is clear that by invoking such an a
priori one does not by any means abandon familialism in the strictest
sense, which burdens all of psychoan alysis; on the contrary, one thereby
plunges deeper into familialism and gene ralizes it. Parents have been put
in their true places within the workings of the unconscious, as inductors
of an indifferent nature, yet the role of organizer continues to be
entrusted to symbolic or structural elements that are still part of the
family and its Oedipal matrix. Once again one is caught, without a way
out: it is simply that the means have been found to render the family
transcendent.
There we have it—the incurable familialism of psychoanalysis,
enclosing the unconscious within Oedipus, cutting off all vital flows,
crushing desiring-production, conditioning the patient to respond
daddy-mommy, and to always cons ume daddy-mommy. Thus Foucault
was entirely right in saying that, in a certain sense, the psychoanalyst
completed and perfected what the psychiatry of nineteenth-century
asylums, with Pinel and Tuke, had set out to do: to fuse madness with a
parental complex, to link it to "the half-real, half-ima ginary dialectic of
§ 2 A N T I - O E D I P U S
the Family"; to constitute for the madman a microcosm symbolizing
"the massive structures of bourgeois so ciety and its values," relations of
The Psychoanalytic Family Complex
- The text argues that psychoanalysis perfected the nineteenth-century asylum's goal of fusing madness with a parental complex.
- By establishing the doctor as a figure of Father and Judge, psychoanalysis traps the patient in a cycle where alienation and disalienation both lead back to Oedipus.
- Freudian theory internalizes the family within the patient, while later studies of schizophrenia expanded this triangulation to the entire extended family structure.
- The author critiques psychoanalysis for being unable to truly hear the 'voices of unreason' because it remains anchored to the doctor as an alienating authority figure.
- Various psychotic family structures are identified, including fusionist, divisive, and tubular models that multiply the Oedipal triangle endlessly.
Psychoanalysis can unravel some of the forms of madness; it remains a stranger to the sovereign enterprise of unreason.
daddy-mommy, and to always cons ume daddy-mommy. Thus Foucault
was entirely right in saying that, in a certain sense, the psychoanalyst
completed and perfected what the psychiatry of nineteenth-century
asylums, with Pinel and Tuke, had set out to do: to fuse madness with a
parental complex, to link it to "the half-real, half-ima ginary dialectic of
§ 2 A N T I - O E D I P U S
the Family"; to constitute for the madman a microcosm symbolizing
"the massive structures of bourgeois so ciety and its values," relations of
Family-Child, Transgression-Punish ment, Madness-Disorder; to arrange
things so that disalienation goes the same route as alienation, with
Oedipus at both ends; to establish th e moral authority of the doctor as
Father and Judge, Family and Law; and finally to culminate in the
following paradox: "While the victim of mental illness is entirely
alienated in the real person of his doc tor, the doctor dissipates the reality
of the mental illness in the critica l concept of madness."* Luminous
pages.
Let us add that by enveloping the illness in a familial complex
internal to the patient, and then the familial complex itself in the
transference or the doctor-patient relationship, Freudian psychoanalysis
made a somewhat intensive use of the family. Granted, this use distorted
the nature of the intensive quantities in the unconscious. Nevertheless it
still respected in part the general principle of a production of these
quantities. When it became necessary once again to confront psychosis
directly, however, the family was i mmediately reopened in extension,
and was in itself considered as the indicator for measuring the forces of
alienation and disalienation. In this manner the study of the families of
schizophrenics has breathed new lif e into Oedipus by making it reign
over the extensive order of an expa nded family, where not only each
person would combine to a greater or lesser extent his or her triangle
with the triangle of others, but wher e the entirety of the extended family
also would oscillate between the two poles of a "healthy" triangulation,
structuring and differentiating, and fo rms of perverted triangles, bring-
ing about their fusion in the realm of the undifferentiated.
Jacques Hochman analyzes some in teresting varieties of psychotic
families under the same "fusionist postulate": the properly fusionist
family, where differentiations are no longer made except between the
inside and the outside (those who are outside the family); the divisive
(scissionnelle) family that establishes blocks, clans, or coalitions within
itself; the tubular family, where the triangle multiplies endlessly, each
*Foucault (Ch. 1, reference note 43). "And it is to this degree that all nineteenth-century psychiatry really
converges on Freud, the first man to ac cept in ali its seriousness the realit y of the physician-patient couple.
... To the doctor, Freud transferred all the structures Pinel and Tuke had set up w ithin confinement. He did
deliver the patient from the existence of the asylum within which his 'liberators' had alienated him; but he
did not deliver him from what was esse ntial in this existence; he regr ouped its powers, extending them to
the maximum by uniting them in the doctor's hands; he created the psychoanalytical situation where, by an
inspired short circuit, alienation becomes disalienating because, in the doctor, it becomes a subject.
"The doctor, as an alienating fi gure, remains the key to psychoanalysis. Perhaps because it did not
suppress this ultimate structur e, and because it referred all the others to it, psychoanalysis has not been able,
will not be able, to hear the voices of unreason, nor to decipher in themselves the signs of the madman.
Psychoanalysis can unravel some of th e forms of madness; it remains a stranger to the sovereign enterprise
of unreason" (pp. 254,274, 276-78).
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 83
Psychoanalysis and Extended Familialism
- Foucault argues that Freud did not liberate the patient from the asylum's power structures but instead concentrated those powers within the figure of the doctor.
- Psychoanalysis remains unable to truly hear the 'voices of unreason' because it preserves the doctor as an alienating figure of authority.
- The concept of 'extended familialism' suggests that psychosis is fabricated across multiple generations, often involving a 'holy trinity' of grandparents, parents, and children.
- Modern therapeutic movements often regress into a taxonomy of families, merely shifting the site of alienation from the hospital back to the familial institution.
- Even progressive sectors of antipsychiatry face the danger of falling into the 'Oedipal apparatus' by creating therapeutic quasi-families.
He did deliver the patient from the existence of the asylum within which his 'liberators' had alienated him; but he did not deliver him from what was essential in this existence.
*Foucault (Ch. 1, reference note 43). "And it is to this degree that all nineteenth-century psychiatry really
converges on Freud, the first man to ac cept in ali its seriousness the realit y of the physician-patient couple.
... To the doctor, Freud transferred all the structures Pinel and Tuke had set up w ithin confinement. He did
deliver the patient from the existence of the asylum within which his 'liberators' had alienated him; but he
did not deliver him from what was esse ntial in this existence; he regr ouped its powers, extending them to
the maximum by uniting them in the doctor's hands; he created the psychoanalytical situation where, by an
inspired short circuit, alienation becomes disalienating because, in the doctor, it becomes a subject.
"The doctor, as an alienating fi gure, remains the key to psychoanalysis. Perhaps because it did not
suppress this ultimate structur e, and because it referred all the others to it, psychoanalysis has not been able,
will not be able, to hear the voices of unreason, nor to decipher in themselves the signs of the madman.
Psychoanalysis can unravel some of th e forms of madness; it remains a stranger to the sovereign enterprise
of unreason" (pp. 254,274, 276-78).
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 83
member having his own triangle that interlocks with others without
one's being able to discern the limits of a nuclear family; the foreclosing
family, where differentiation is both included and warded off in the
person of one of its members who has been eliminated, rendered null,
and foreclosed.40
We can understand how such a concept as foreclosure operates
within this extensive framework of a family where several
generations—at least three—form th e condition of fabrication of a
psychotic: as for example when the troubles a mother has with regard to
her own father lead to the son's inability, in turn, to even "posit his
desire" toward his mother. Whence the strange notion that if a psychotic
escapes the Oedipal apparatus, this is solely due to the fact that he is
doubly embedded there, to the second power, in a field of extension that
includes the grandparents. The problem of the cure then becomes rather
similar to an operation of differenti al calculus, where one proceeds by
way of depotentialization in order to rediscover the primary functions
and reestablish the characteristic or nuclear triangle—always a holy
trinity, the means of access to a three-si ded situation. It is clear that this
extended familialism, wherein the family receives the very forces of
alienation and disaliena tion, carries with it a renunciation of the
fundamental positions of psychoanalysis concerning sexuality, despite
the formal conservation of an analyt ic vocabulary. A veritable regres-
sion in favor of a taxonomy of families. This is clearly visible in the
projects of community psychiatry or of so-called familial psychothera-
py, which effectively break apart asylum existence while nonetheless
still maintaining all the presuppositions of the asylum, and basically
renewing the thrust of nineteenth-century psychiatry according to the
slogan put forward by Hochman: "Fro m the family to the institution of
the hospital, from the institution of the hospital to the familial
institution, ... a therapeutic return to the family"!
But even within the progressive or revolutionary sectors of institu-
tional analysis on the one hand, and antipsychiatry on the other, the
danger of this familialism in extension is ever present, conforming to the
double impasse of an extended Oedipus , just as much in the diagnostic
of pathogenic families in themselves as in the constitution of therapeutic
quasi families. Once it has been said that it is no longer a matter of
re-forming cadres of familial and social adaptation or integration, but
rather of instituting original forms of active groups, the question arises
The Trap of Familialism
- The authors argue that even revolutionary psychiatry often fails by recreating 'artificial families' that remain trapped in an Oedipal framework.
- They critique the tendency to treat the family as a microcosm or matrix that mediates social reality, effectively suppressing the true nature of desiring-production.
- The text suggests that reducing a patient's delusions—such as being controlled by outer space—to mere breakfast-table family dynamics is a form of reductionism.
- By focusing on the family as the primary site of alienation, psychiatrists risk ignoring the broader political, cultural, and world-historical forces at play.
- The authors advocate for breaking away from the 'holy trinity' of the family to prevent the suffocation of the problems inherent in desiring-production.
These metaphysical men from outer space are the literal mother, father, and sibling who sit around the breakfast table with the so-called psychotic patient.
tional analysis on the one hand, and antipsychiatry on the other, the
danger of this familialism in extension is ever present, conforming to the
double impasse of an extended Oedipus , just as much in the diagnostic
of pathogenic families in themselves as in the constitution of therapeutic
quasi families. Once it has been said that it is no longer a matter of
re-forming cadres of familial and social adaptation or integration, but
rather of instituting original forms of active groups, the question arises
as to what extent these core groups resemble artificial families, and to
what extent they still lend themselves to oedipalization. These questions
have been analyzed in depth by Jean Oury. They demonstrate how
revolutionary psychiatry broke in vain with the ideals of community
94 ANTI-OEDIPUS
adaptation, with everything that Maud Mannoni calls the adaptation police force,
since at every moment it still risks being thrust back into the framework of a
structural Oedipus whose deficiencies are diagnosed but whose integrity is
restored; a holy trinity that conti nues to strangle desiring-production and
suffocate its problems. The political, cultural, world-historical, and racial content
is left behind, crushed in the Oedipal treadmill. This is because psychiatrists
persist in treating the family as a matr ix, or better still as a microcosm, an
expressive milieu that provides its own justifi cations, and that—however capable
of expressing the action of the alienating forces*—"mediates" them precisely by
suppressing the true categories of production in the machines of desire.
It seems to us that such a viewpoint is present even in Cooper. (In this
respect Laing is better able to disengage himself from familialism, thanks to the
resources of a flux from the Orient.) Cooper writes: "Families mediate social
reality to their children. If the social reality in question is rife with alienated
social forms, then this alienation will be mediated to the individual child and will
be experienced as estrangement in the fa mily relationships . . . for example he
may say that his mind is controlled by an electrical machine or by men from outer
space. These constructions, however, ar e largely embodiments of the family
process, which has the illusion of substa ntiality but which is none other than the
alienated form of the action of praxis of the family members that literally
dominates the mind of the psychotic member. These metaphysical men from
outer space are the literal mother, father, and sibling who sit around the breakfast
table with the so-called psychotic patient."41 Even the essential hypothesis of
antipsychiatry, which ultimately posits an identity in nature between social
alienation and mental alienation, must be understood in terms of a maintained
familialism, and not in terms of a refutation of this familialism. For it is to the
extent that the family-microcosm, the fa mily-social-indicator, expresses social
alienation that it is believed to "organize" mental alienation in the mind of its own
members or its psychotic member. (And among all the members, who is the real
psychotic?)
With his general conception of microcosm-macrocosm relationships,
Bergson brought about a discreet revolution that deserves further consideration.
Likening the living to a microcosm is an ancient platitude. But if the living
organism was thought to be similar to the world, this was attr ibuted to the fact
that it was or tended to be an isolated system, naturally closed: the comparison
between microcosm and macrocosm
*des forces alienantes: The French word alienation means both social alienation and what we
English-speakers call "mental derangement." Obviously, the authors aim at discrediting the distinction
between the two terms. (Translators' note.)
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 9S
I
was thus a comparison between two closed figures, one of which
The Exploded Oedipal Triangle
- Bergson's philosophy shifts the view of living organisms from closed systems to open entities that develop within an irreducible temporal dimension.
- The authors argue that the Oedipal triangle is not a closed family unit but is always open to the broader social and historical field.
- Desire and the unconscious are shaped by external agents such as missionaries, tax collectors, and colonizers rather than just parental figures.
- Frantz Fanon’s work demonstrates that psychological trauma in colonized subjects is rooted in political violence rather than abstract familial guilt.
- The 'normal' Oedipal complex is a bourgeois construct that fails to account for the social flows and historical battlefields that define the unconscious.
It is strange that we had to wait for the dreams of colonized peoples in order to see that, on the vertices of the pseudo triangle, mommy was dancing with the missionary, daddy was being fucked by the tax collector, while the self was being beaten by a white man.
Bergson brought about a discreet revolution that deserves further consideration.
Likening the living to a microcosm is an ancient platitude. But if the living
organism was thought to be similar to the world, this was attr ibuted to the fact
that it was or tended to be an isolated system, naturally closed: the comparison
between microcosm and macrocosm
*des forces alienantes: The French word alienation means both social alienation and what we
English-speakers call "mental derangement." Obviously, the authors aim at discrediting the distinction
between the two terms. (Translators' note.)
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 9S
I
was thus a comparison between two closed figures, one of which
expressed the other and was inscribed within the other. At the beginning
of Creative Evolution, Bergson completely alters the scope of the
comparison by opening up both ends. If the living being resembles the
world, this is true, on the contrary, insofar as it opens itself to the
opening of the world; if it is a whole, this is true to the extent that the
whole, of the world as of the living being, is always in the process of
becoming, developing, coming into be ing or advancing, and inscribing
itself within a temporal dimension that is irreducible and nonclosed.
We believe that this is also true in the case of the family-society
relationship. There is no Oedipal tria ngle: Oedipus is always open in an
open social field. Oedipus opens to the four winds, to the four corners of
the social field (not even 3 + 1, but 4 + n ). A poorly closed triangle, a
porous or seeping triangle, an exploded triangle from which the flows of
desire escape in the direction of other territories. It is strange that we
had to wait for the dreams of colonized peoples in order to see that, on
the vertices of the pseudo triangl e, mommy was dancing with the
missionary, daddy was being fucked by the tax collector, while the self
was being beaten by a white man. It is precisely this pairing of the
parental figures with agents of another nature, their locking embrace
similar to that of wrestlers, that k eeps the triangle from closing up again,
from being valid in itself, and from claiming to express or represent this
different nature of the agents that are in question in the unconscious
itself. When Frantz Fanon encounters a case of persecution psychosis
linked to the death of the mother, he first asks himself if he has "to deal
with an unconscious guilt complex following on the death of the mother,
as Freud had described in Mourning and Mela ncholia." But he soon
learns that the mother has been killed by a French soldier, and that the
subject himself has murdered the wi fe of a colonist whose disembow-
eled ghost perpetually appears before him, carrying along with it and
tearing apart the memory of the mother.42 It could always be said that
these extreme situations of war trauma , of colonization, of dire poverty,
and so on, are unfavorable to the construction of the Oedipal
apparatus—and that it is precisely be cause of this that these situations
favor a psychotic development or explosion—but we have a strong
feeling that the problem lies elsewhere. Apart from the fact that a certain
degree of comfort found in the bourgeois family is admittedly necessary
to turn out oedipalized subj ects, the question of knowing what is
actually invested in the comfortable conditions of a supposedly normal
or normative Oedipus is pushed still further into the background.
The revolutionary is the first to have the right to say: "Oedipus?
Never heard of it." For the disjoi nted fragments of Oedipus remain
95 A N T I - O E D I P U S
stuck to all the corners of the historic al social field, as a battlefield and
not a scene from bourgeois tlieater. Too bad if the psychoanalysts roar
their disapproval at this point. Fanon pointed out that troubled times had
The Eccentric Family Structure
- The authors argue that the Oedipal complex is a bourgeois theatrical scene that fails to account for the historical and social battlefield of the unconscious.
- The unconscious is not limited to familial figures like 'daddy-mommy' but is directly coupled to political agents such as the soldier, the cop, and the boss.
- The family is described as naturally eccentric and decentered, unable to function as an autonomous microcosm because it is constantly transected by external social breaks.
- Major historical events like the Spanish Civil War or May '68 form unconscious complexes that are more effective and real than the traditional Oedipal structure.
- Structures are not found in the mind or cultural abstractions but in the 'immediate impossible real' of political and interhuman conflict.
The family is by nature eccentric, decentered.
actually invested in the comfortable conditions of a supposedly normal
or normative Oedipus is pushed still further into the background.
The revolutionary is the first to have the right to say: "Oedipus?
Never heard of it." For the disjoi nted fragments of Oedipus remain
95 A N T I - O E D I P U S
stuck to all the corners of the historic al social field, as a battlefield and
not a scene from bourgeois tlieater. Too bad if the psychoanalysts roar
their disapproval at this point. Fanon pointed out that troubled times had
unconscious effects not only on the active militants, but also on those
claiming to be neutral and to remain outside the affair, uninvolved in
politics. The same could also be said with respect to apparently peaceful
times: what a grotesque error to thi nk that the unconscious-as-child is
acquainted only with daddy-mommy, and that it doesn't know "in its
own way" that its father has a boss who is not a father's father, or
moreover that its father himself is a boss who is not a father. Therefore
we formulate the following rule, which we feel to be applicable in all
cases: the father and the mother exist only as fragments, and are never
organized into a figure or a structure able both to represent the
unconscious, and to represent in it the various agents of the collectivity;
rather, they always shatter into fragments that come into contact with
these agents, meet them face to face , square off with them, or settle the
differences with them as in hand-to-hand combat.
The father, the mother, and the self are at grips with, and directly
coupled to, the elements of the po litical and historical situation—the
soldier, the cop, the occupier, the collaborator, the radical, the resister,
the boss, the boss's wife—who consta ntly break all triangulations, and
who prevent the entire situation from falling back on the familial
complex and becoming internalized in it. In a word, the family is never a
microcosm in the sense of an autonomous figure, even when inscribed in
a larger circle that it is said to mediate and express. The family is by
nature eccentric, decentered. We are to ld of fusional, divisive, tubular,
and foreclosing families. But what produces the hiatuses (coupwes) and
their distribution that indeed keep the family from being an "interior"?
There is always an uncle from America; a brother who went bad; an aunt
who took off with a military man; a cousin out of work, bankrupt, or a
victim of the Crash; an anarchist grandfather; a grandmother in the
hospital, crazy or senile. The family does not engender its own ruptures.
Families are filled with gaps and transected by breaks that are not
familial: the Commune, the Dreyfus Affair, religion and atheism, the
Spanish Civil War, the rise of fascism, Stalinism, the Vietnam war, May
'68—all these things form complexes of the unconscious, more effective
than everlasting Oedipus. And the uncons cious is indeed at issue here. If
in fact there are structures, they do not exist in the mind, in the shadow
of a fantastic phallus distributing the lacunae, the passages, and the
articulations. Structures exist in the immediate impossible real. As
Witold Grombrowicz says, the structuralists "search for their structures
in culture. As for myself, I look for them in the immediate reality. My
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIAUSM: THE HOLY FAMILY 9?
way of seeing things was in direct relationship to the events of the times:
Hitlerism, Stalinism, fasc ism. ... I was fascinated by the grotesque and
terrifying forms that surfaced in the sphere of the interhuman, destroy-
ing all that was held dear until then."43
Hellenists were right to remind us that, even in the case of worthy
Oedipus, it was already a matter of "politics." They are simply wrong in
concluding from this that the libido has nothing to do with any of it.
Quite the contrary: what is invested by the libido throughout the
Schizoanalysis and Social Production
- The author argues that the libido is not confined to the family but directly invests in the social and political fields of history.
- Schizoanalysis is defined as a militant form of psychoanalysis that seeks to uncover unconscious libidinal investments in sociohistorical production.
- The text critiques the traditional Oedipal model for reducing the unconscious to an expressive familial symbolism rather than a productive system.
- Historical events like the Dreyfus Affair and World War I are seen as forces that cut across families and modify the libido from the outside.
- The family is described as a qualitatively indifferent stimulus, whereas the true unconscious response always originates from the wider social field.
There is no signifying chain without a Chinaman, an Arab, and a black who drop in to trouble the night of a white paranoiac.
way of seeing things was in direct relationship to the events of the times:
Hitlerism, Stalinism, fasc ism. ... I was fascinated by the grotesque and
terrifying forms that surfaced in the sphere of the interhuman, destroy-
ing all that was held dear until then."43
Hellenists were right to remind us that, even in the case of worthy
Oedipus, it was already a matter of "politics." They are simply wrong in
concluding from this that the libido has nothing to do with any of it.
Quite the contrary: what is invested by the libido throughout the
disjoined elements of Oedipus—especially given the fact that these
elements never form a mental st ructure that is autonomous and
expressive—are these extrafamilial, subfamilial gaps and breaks
(cou-pures), these forms of so cial prod uction in conjunction with
desiring-production. Schizoanalysis therefore does not hide the fact that
it is a political and social psychoanalysis, a militant analysis: not
because it would go about generalizing Oedipus in culture, under the
ridiculous conditions that have been the norm until now. It is a militant
analysis, on the contrary, because it proposes to demonstrate the
existence of an unconscious libidina l investment of sociohistorical
production, distinct from the conscious investments coexisting with it.
Proust is not wrong in saying that, far from being the author of an
"intimate" work, he goes further than the proponents of a populist or
proletarian art who are content to describe the social and the political in
"willfully" expressive works. For his part, he is interested in the manner
in which the Dreyfus Affair and then World War I cut across families,
introducing into them new breaks and new connections resulting in a
modification of the heterosexual and homosexual libido (in the
decomposed milieu of the Guermantes, for example).
It is the function of the libido to invest the social field in uncon-
scious forms, thereby hallucinating all history, reproducing in delirium
entire civilizations, races, and continents, and intensely "feeling" the
becoming of the world. There is no signifying chain without a Chinaman,
an Arab, and a black who drop in to trouble the night of a white
paranoiac. Schizoanalysis sets out to undo the expressive Oedipal
unconscious, always artificial, repressive and repressed, mediated by the
family, in order to attain the immediate productive unconscious. Yes,
the family is a stimulus —but a stimulus that is qu alitatively indifferent,
an inductor that is neither an organizer nor a disorganizer. As for the
response, it always comes from another direction. If there is indeed
language (langage), it is on the side of the response, not the stimulus.
Even Oedipal psychoanalysis recognized the indifference of the effec-
tive parental images, the irreducibility of the response to the stimulation
performed by these images. But it contented itself with understanding
8 8 A N T I - O E D I P U S
the response by starting from an expressive symbolism that was still familial,
instead of interpreting it in an unconscious system of production as such
(analytical economy).
The great argument of familialism is: "at least in the beginning . . ." This
argument may be explicitly formulated, but it also persists implicitly in theories
that nevertheless refuse th e viewpoint of genesis. At least in the beginni ng, this
argument runs, the unconscious is expressed in a state of familial relations and
constellations where the Real, the Imaginar y, and the Symbolic intermingle. In
this conception, the metaphysical and social relations arise afterward, in the
manner of a beyond. And since the beginni ng always proceeds by twos—this is
even the necessary condition for renderi ng escape impossible—a first pre-oedipal
beginning is invoked, "the primitive nondi fferentiation of the most precocious
The Oedipal Reduction
- The text critiques the psychoanalytic tendency to reduce all unconscious development to the familial framework of the Oedipus complex.
- It argues that the 'pre-oedipal' and 'beyond' stages are merely closed loops designed to keep the subject trapped within the law of the father.
- Actual factors such as money, social class, and political events are present from childhood and determine libidinal investments independently of the family.
- The authors suggest that parents act merely as agents of social production rather than the primary objects of a child's desire.
- Freud is accused of a form of 'blackmail' by forcing a choice between accepting the Oedipal model or denying infantile sexuality entirely.
The Freudian blackmail is this: either you recognize the Oedipal character of infantile sexuality, or you abandon all positions of sexuality.
that nevertheless refuse th e viewpoint of genesis. At least in the beginni ng, this
argument runs, the unconscious is expressed in a state of familial relations and
constellations where the Real, the Imaginar y, and the Symbolic intermingle. In
this conception, the metaphysical and social relations arise afterward, in the
manner of a beyond. And since the beginni ng always proceeds by twos—this is
even the necessary condition for renderi ng escape impossible—a first pre-oedipal
beginning is invoked, "the primitive nondi fferentiation of the most precocious
stages of the personality" in the relati onship with the mother; then a second
beginning is invoked; Oedipus itself with the law of the father and the exclusive
differentiations that this law prescribes at the heart of the family; and finally
latency, the celebrated latency, after which the beyond begins. But since this
beyond consists in duping others into taki ng the same path (the children to come),
and also since the first beginning is said to be "pre-oedipal" only to indicate that it
already belongs to Oedipus as a referential axis, it is quite clea r that the two ends
of Oedipus have simply been closed, a nd that the beyond and the afterward will
always be interpreted in terms of Oedi pus, in relation to Oedipus, within the
framework of Oedipus. Everything will be reduced to Oedipus, as the discussions
on the comparative role of childhood factor s and actual factors in neurosis bear
out: how could it be otherwise, so long as the "actual" factor is conceived of in
this form of the afterward?
But we know in point of fact that the actual factors are there from
childhood, and that they determine the libidinal investments in terms of breaks
and connections that they introduce into the family. Over the heads of the
members of the family, and underneath, it is desiring-production and social
production that manifest, through the childhood experience, their identical
natures and their differing regimes. In this regard let us consider three important
works about children: L'Enfant by Jules Valles, Bas les coeurs by Georges
Darien,Mort a credit by L.-F. Celine. In them we see how bread, money,
dwelling place, social promotion, bourgeois and revolutionary values, wealth and
poverty, oppression and revolt, social cla sses, political events, metaphysical and
collective problems—what does it mean to be able to breathe? why be poor? why
are there rich people?—form the object of investments in which the parents
merely have a role as agents of a special production or
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 99
antiproduction, always grappling with other agents that they express all the less
as they are increasingly at grips with th em in the heaven and hell of the child.
And the child says: Why? Freud's Rat Man does not wait until he is a man to
invest the rich woman and the poor woma n who constitute the actual factor of
his obsession. For inadmissible reasons, the existence of an infantile sexuality is
denied; but for hardly more admissible reasons, this sexuality is reduced to
desiring mommy and wanting the place of the father. The Freudian blackmail is
this: either you recognize the Oedipal ch aracter of infantile sexuality, or you
abandon all positions of sexuality.
And yet, not even in the shadow of a transcendent phallus are the
unconscious effects of a "signified" estab lished throughout the determinations of
a social field; on the contrary, it is the libidinal investment of these
determinations that situates their par ticular use in desiring-production, and the
comparative operation of this production with social production, whence derive
The Oedipal Flattening of Desire
- The text critiques the 'Freudian blackmail' which forces a choice between accepting the Oedipal framework or abandoning the study of sexuality entirely.
- It argues that children are 'little scientists' engaged in immediate desiring-production that connects them directly to social and historical realities rather than just family units.
- The authors posit that while repression is Oedipal, the actual production of the unconscious is 'anoedipal' and functions like an orphan or a social meditator.
- Oedipalization is described as a reductive 'application' that folds the complex social field into a simple triangle of father, mother, and ego.
- This process results in a 'biunivocalization' where the polyvocal reality of desire is flattened into a symbolic relationship that always concludes with 'so that is what this meant.'
In this sense every child is a little scientist, a little Cantor.
desiring mommy and wanting the place of the father. The Freudian blackmail is
this: either you recognize the Oedipal ch aracter of infantile sexuality, or you
abandon all positions of sexuality.
And yet, not even in the shadow of a transcendent phallus are the
unconscious effects of a "signified" estab lished throughout the determinations of
a social field; on the contrary, it is the libidinal investment of these
determinations that situates their par ticular use in desiring-production, and the
comparative operation of this production with social production, whence derive
the state of desire and its repression, th e distribution of the agents, and the degree
of oedipalization of sexuality. Lacan expl ains well how, in terms of the crises
and the ruptures (coupures) within science, there is a drama for the scientist that
at times goes as far as madness, and that "would have no way of including itself
in the Oedipal apparatus, unless by ca lling it into question" by way of a
consequence.44 In this sense every child is a little scientist, a little Cantor.* Go
back through the course of the ages, y ou will never find a child caught in a
familial order that is autonomous, expressive, or signifying. Even the nursing
child, in his games as in his feedings, hi s chains, and his meditations, is already
caught up in an immediate desiring-producti on where the parents play the role of
partial objects, witnesses, reporters, and agents, in a process that outflanks them
on all sides, and places desire in an imme diate relationship with a historical and
social reality. It is true that nothing is pre-oedipal, and that we must take Oedipus
back to the earliest age, but within the order of a repression of the unconscious. It
is equally true that everything within the order of production is anoedipal, and
that there are non-oedipal, anoedipal curre nts that begin as early as Oedipus and
continue just as long, with another rhyt hm, in a different mode of operation, in
another dimension, with other uses of sy ntheses that feed the autoproduction of
the unconscious—the unconscious-as-or phan, the playful unconscious, the
meditative and social unconscious.
The Oedipal operation consists in esta blishing a constellation of biunivocal
relations between the agents of social production, reproduc-
*Georg Cantor (1845-1918), a Germ an mathematician known for his th eory of transfinite numbers.
(Translators' note.)
100 ANTI-OEDIPUS
tion, and antiproduction on the one hand, a nd the agents of the so-called natural
reproduction of the family on the ot her. This operation is called an application. It
is as if a tablecloth were being folded, as if its 4 (+n) corners were reduced to 3
(+1, to designate the transcendent fact or performing the operation). From that
moment it is a foregone conclusion that th e collective agents will be interpreted
as derivatives of, or substitutes for, pare ntal figures, in a system of equivalence
that rediscovers everywhere the father, the mother, and the ego. (And one merely
pushes the difficulty into the background when one considers the system as a
whole and then makes it depend on the transcendent term, the phallus). There we
have a faulty use of the conjunctive synt hesis, leading to the statement, "So it
was your father, so it was your mother . . ." It is not at all surprising that only
afterward is it discovered that all of this was the father and the mother, since this
is assumed to be the case from the beginning, but is subsequently
forgotten-repressed, though s till subject to a later rediscovery in relation to more
recent developments.* Wh ence the magical formula that characterizes
biunivocalization—the flattening of the pol yvocal real in favor of a symbolic
relationship between two articulations: so that is what this meant. Everything is
made to begin with Oedipus, by means of explanation, with all the more
certainty as one has reduced everything to Oedipus by means of application.
The Ideology of Oedipus
- Oedipus is described as an ideological fabrication that flattens the complex, polyvocal reality of social production into a symbolic family drama.
- The text argues that psychoanalysis reduces vast social formations—classes, races, and histories—into the narrow 'daddy, mommy, and me' triad.
- Oedipus serves as a tool to internalize and neutralize the revolutionary potential of desiring-production by displacing it into a private, subjugated territoriality.
- The authors contend that society prefers a population of neurotics over a single successful 'schizophrenic' who has escaped molar organization.
- Psychoanalysis is criticized for its historical disgrace of reducing political movements to the interactions between a 'Great Man' and a 'Crowd' through an oedipal lens.
In the aggregate of departure there is the social formation, or rather the social formations: the races, the classes, the continents, the peoples, the kingdoms, the sovereignties; Joan of Arc and the Great Mongol, Luther and the Aztec Serpent. In the aggregate of destination, there remains only daddy, mommy, and me.
is assumed to be the case from the beginning, but is subsequently
forgotten-repressed, though s till subject to a later rediscovery in relation to more
recent developments.* Wh ence the magical formula that characterizes
biunivocalization—the flattening of the pol yvocal real in favor of a symbolic
relationship between two articulations: so that is what this meant. Everything is
made to begin with Oedipus, by means of explanation, with all the more
certainty as one has reduced everything to Oedipus by means of application.
Only in appearance is Oedipus a beginning, either as a historical or
prehistorical origin, or as a structural foundation. In reality it is a completely
ideological beginning, for the sake of id eology. Oedipus is always and solely an
aggregate of destination fabricated to m eet the requirements of an aggregate of
departure constituted by a social formation. It can be applied to everything, in
that the agents and relations of social production, and the libidinal investments
corresponding to them, are made to conform to the figures of familial
reproduction. In the aggregate of departure th ere is the social formation, or rather
the social formations: the races, the cl asses, the continents, the peoples, the
kingdoms, the sovereignties; Joan of Arc and the Great Mongol, Luther and the
Aztec Serpent. In the aggregate of destination, there remains only daddy,
mommy, and me.
Thus it must be said of Oedipus as well as of desiring -production: it is at
the end, not at the beginning. But not at all in the same fashion. We have seen
that desiring-production was the limit of social production, always thwarted in
the capitalist formation: the body without organs at
♦Perhaps the reader would enjoy this parody of psychoanalytic logic in the authors' French: "Et qu'on
decouvre seulement par apres que tout ca c'etait le pere et la mere, n'a rien d'etonnant, puisqu'on suppose
que ca Test des le debut, mais que c'est ensuite oublie-refoute, quitte a le retrouver apres par rapport a
I'ensuite." {Translators' note.)
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 101
the edge of the deterritorialized socius, the desert at the gates of the city.
But it is urgent, it is essential that the limit be displaced, rendered
inoffensive, and that it pass or seem to pass into the social formation
itself. Schizophrenia or desiring-production is the boundary between the
molar organization and the molecular multiplicity of desire; this limit of
deterritorialization must now pass into the interior of the molar organi-
zation, and it must be applied to a factitious and subjugated territoriality.
We are now able to surmise what Oedipus signifies: it displaces the limit,
it internalizes the limit. Rather a soci ety of neurotics than one successful
schizophrenic who has not been made autistic. Oedipus, the incompara-
ble instrument of gregariousness, is the ultimate private and subjugated
territoriality of European man. (Moreover the displaced, exorcised limit
or border shifts to the interior of Oedipus, betwee n its two poles.)
One word here on the disgrace of psychoanalysis in history and
politics. The procedure is well known: two figures are made to appear,
the Great Man and the Crowd. One then claims to make history with
these two entities , these two puppets, the Gr eat Crustacean and the
Crazy Invertebrate. Oedipus is placed at the beginning. On the one side
there is the great man defined oedipally: so he killed the father, in a
murder without end, either to annihilate him and identify with the
mother, or to internalize him, to take his place or reach a reconciliation
(with a host of variations in detail that correspond to neurotic, psychot-
The Nauseating Politics of Oedipus
- Psychoanalysis reduces historical movements to a theatrical encounter between two puppets: the Great Man and the Crowd.
- Historical figures like Hitler and Luther are analyzed solely through their internal solutions to the Oedipal conflict and parental imagery.
- The authors argue that applying Oedipal triangles to social institutions is a reductive process that ignores the direct libidinal investment of the social field.
- Even when analysts avoid political application, they retreat into a phallocentric focus on castration that isolates the individual from the broader social reality.
- The text asserts that Oedipus is not a universal truth but a specific application used to domesticate the revolutionary potential of the libido.
One then claims to make history with these two entities, these two puppets, the Great Crustacean and the Crazy Invertebrate.
politics. The procedure is well known: two figures are made to appear,
the Great Man and the Crowd. One then claims to make history with
these two entities , these two puppets, the Gr eat Crustacean and the
Crazy Invertebrate. Oedipus is placed at the beginning. On the one side
there is the great man defined oedipally: so he killed the father, in a
murder without end, either to annihilate him and identify with the
mother, or to internalize him, to take his place or reach a reconciliation
(with a host of variations in detail that correspond to neurotic, psychot-
ic, perverse, or "normal" solutions, th at is to say solutions of sublima-
tion). In any case the great man is already great because, for good or for
evil, he has found a certain original solution to the Oedipal conflict.
Hitler annihilates the father and unleashes in him the forces of the Bad
Mother; Luther internalizes the father and reaches a compromise with
the superego. On the other side there is the crowd, also defined
oedipally, by means of parental im ages of a second order, this time
collective; the encounter can theref ore take place between Luther and
the sixteenth-century Christians, or between Hitler and the German
people, with corresponding elements that do not necessarily imply
identity: Hitler plays the role of father through "homosexual transfu-
sion" and in relation to the female crowd; Luther plays the role of
woman in relation to the God of the Christians. Naturally, to ensure
against the historian's justified anger, the psychoanalyst specifies that he
is concerned only with a certain causal order, that one must take "other"
causes into account, but that he alone cannot do everything. Besides, he
deals just enough with other causes so as to give us a foretaste: he takes
into account the institutions of a particular period (from the
sixteenth-century Church to twentieth -century capitalist power), if only
to see in them parental images of yet another order, associating the
father and the
102 ANTI-OEDIPUS
mother, who will then be dissociated and otherwise regrouped within the
action of the great man and the crowd. It hardly matters whether the
tone of these books is orthodox Freudian, culturalist, or Jungian.
Books like those are nauseating. Let's not dismiss them by saying
that they belong to the distant past of psychoanalysis: similar books—a
lot of them—are still written today. Let's not say that it is merely a
question of a careless use of Oedipus: what other use could be made of
Oedipus? Nor is it a case of an ambiguous dimension of "applied
psychoanalysis"; for all Oedipus—Oedi pus in and of itself—is already
an application, in the strictest sense of the word. And when the best
psychoanalysts forbid themselves hi storico-political applications, we
can't say things are much better, since the analysts retreat to the rock of
castration presented as the locus of an "untenable truth" that is
irreducible: they closet themselves in a phallocentrism that leads them
to think of the analytic activity as always having to evolve within a
familial microcosm, and they continue to treat the libido's direct
investments of the social field as simple imaginary dependencies on
Oedipus, where it becomes necessary to denounce "a fusional dream,"
"a fantasy of a-return-to-Oneness." "Castration," they say, "is what
separates us from politics, is what makes for our originality as
analysts—we who do not forget that society too is triangular and
symbolic!"
If it is true that Oedipus is obtaine d by reduction or application, it
presupposes in itself a certain kind of libidinal investment of the social
field, of the production and the formati on of this field. There is no more
an individual Oedipus than there is an individual fantasy. Oedipus is a
Oedipus and Social Segregation
- The authors argue that Oedipus is not an individual fantasy but a means of integration into the social group through libidinal investment.
- Oedipal applications are shown to depend on the determinations of subjugated groups and their repressive forms rather than the other way around.
- A segregative use of the unconscious creates a sense of belonging to a 'superior race' or group, serving as a weapon for the dominating class.
- Desire is identified as part of the infrastructure, explaining why individuals often act against their own class interests due to unconscious investments.
- The social field is reduced to familial ties only by presupposing an archaism or an incarnation of the race that validates group identity.
It is not a question of ideology. There is an unconscious libidinal investment of the social field that coexists, but does not necessarily coincide, with the preconscious investments.
Oedipus, where it becomes necessary to denounce "a fusional dream,"
"a fantasy of a-return-to-Oneness." "Castration," they say, "is what
separates us from politics, is what makes for our originality as
analysts—we who do not forget that society too is triangular and
symbolic!"
If it is true that Oedipus is obtaine d by reduction or application, it
presupposes in itself a certain kind of libidinal investment of the social
field, of the production and the formati on of this field. There is no more
an individual Oedipus than there is an individual fantasy. Oedipus is a
means of integration into the group, in both the adaptive form of its own
reproduction that makes it pass from one generation to the next, and in
its unadapted neurotic stases that block desire at prearranged impasses.
Oedipus also flourishes in subjugated groups, where an established order
is invested through the group's own repressive forms. And it is not the
forms of the subjugated group that depend on Oedipal projections and
identifications, but the reverse: it is Oedipal applications that depend on
the determinations of the subjugated group as an aggregate of departure
and on their libidinal investment (from the age of thirteen I've worked
hard, rising on the social ladder, get ting promotions, bei ng a part of the
exploiters). There is therefore a segregative u se of the conjunctive
syntheses of the unconscious, a use that does not coincide with divisions
between classes, although it is an incomparable weapon in the service of
a dominating class: it is this use that brings about the feeling of "indeed
being one of us," of being part of a superior race threatened by enemies
from outside. Thus the Little White pioneers' son, the Irish Protestant
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 103
who commemorates the victory of his an cestors, the fascist who belongs to the
master race.
Oedipus depends on this sort of nati onalistic, religious, racist sentiment,
and not the reverse: it is not the father who is projected onto the boss, but the
boss who is applied to the father, either in order to tell us "you will not surpass
your father," or "you will surpass him to find our forefathers." Lacan has
demonstrated in a profound way the link between Oedipus and segregation. Not,
however, in the sense where segregation would be a consequence of Oedipus,
subjacent to the fraternity of the brot hers once the father is dead. On the
contrary, the segregative use is a precondition of Oedipus, to the extent that the
social field is not reduced to the familial tie except by presupposing an enormous
archaism, an incarnation of the race in person or in spirit: yes, I am one of you.
It is not a question of ideology. There is an unconscious libidinal investment
of the social field that coexists, but does not necessarily coincide, with the
preconscious investments, or with what the precon-scious investments "ought to
be." That is why, when subjects, individuals, or groups act manifestly counter to
their class interests—when they rally to the interests and ideals of a class that
their own objective situation should lead them to combat—it is not enough to say:
they were fooled, the masses have been fool ed. It is not an ideological problem, a
problem of failing to recognize, or of being subject to, an illusion. It is a problem
of desire, and desire is part of the infrastructure. Preconscious investments are
made, or should be made, according to the interests of the opposing classes. But
unconscious investments are made according to positions of desire and uses of
synthesis, very different from the interest s of the subject, individual or collective,
who desires.
These investments of an unconscious nature can ensure the general
submission to a dominant class by making cuts (coupures) and segregations pass
Desire and Social Repression
- Individuals often act against their own class interests because desire operates as a fundamental part of the social infrastructure rather than a mere ideological illusion.
- Unconscious libidinal investments can lead subjects to desire their own repression or the dominance of a class that exploits them.
- Socioeconomic structures like the military-industrial complex function as unconscious complexes that generate a 'voluptuous wave' of arousal throughout their hierarchy.
- Schizoanalysis aims to reveal how desire is channeled into economic and political spheres, often creating a conflict between conscious revolutionary goals and unconscious reactionary investments.
- Revolutionary desire is defined by its ability to break social segregations and 'hallucinate history,' moving beyond the restrictive applications of the Oedipal framework.
Hence the goal of schizoanalysis: to analyze the specific nature of the libidinal investments in the economic and political spheres, and thereby to show how, in the subject who desires, desire can be made to desire its own repression.
be." That is why, when subjects, individuals, or groups act manifestly counter to
their class interests—when they rally to the interests and ideals of a class that
their own objective situation should lead them to combat—it is not enough to say:
they were fooled, the masses have been fool ed. It is not an ideological problem, a
problem of failing to recognize, or of being subject to, an illusion. It is a problem
of desire, and desire is part of the infrastructure. Preconscious investments are
made, or should be made, according to the interests of the opposing classes. But
unconscious investments are made according to positions of desire and uses of
synthesis, very different from the interest s of the subject, individual or collective,
who desires.
These investments of an unconscious nature can ensure the general
submission to a dominant class by making cuts (coupures) and segregations pass
over into a social field, insofar as it is effectively invested by desire and no
longer by interests. A form of social production and reproduction, along with its
economic and financial mechanisms, its po litical formations, and so on, can be
desired as such, in whole or in part, independently of the interests of the
desiring-subject. It was not by means of a metaphor, even a paternal metaphor,
that Hitler was able to sexually arouse the fascists. It is not by means of a
metaphor that a banking or stock-market transaction, a claim, a coupon, a credit,
is able to arouse people who are not n ecessarily bankers. And what about the
effects of money that grows, money that produces more money? There are
socioeconomic "complexes" that are also veritable complexes of the
unconscious, and that communicate a voluptuous wave from the top to
104 ANTI-OEDIPUS
the bottom of their hierarchy (the mi litary-industrial complex). And ideology,
Oedipus, and the phallus have nothing to do with this, becau se they depend on it
rather than being its impetus. For it is a matter of flows, of stocks, of breaks in
and fluctuations of flows; desire is pr esent wherever something flows and runs,
carrying along with it interested subj ects—but also drunken or slumbering
subjects—toward lethal destinations.
Hence the goal of schizoanalysis: to analyze the specific nature of the
libidinal investments in the economic and political spheres, and thereby to show
how, in the subject who desires, desi re can be made to desire its own
repression—whence the role of the death instinct in the circuit connecting desire
to the social sphere. All this happens, not in ideology, but well beneath it. An
unconscious investment of a fascist or reactionary type can exist alongside a
conscious revolutionary i nvestment. Inversely, it can happen—rarely—that a
revolutionary investment on the level of desire coexists with a reactionary
investment conforming to a conscious interest. In any case conscious and
unconscious investments are not of the same type, even when they coincide or
are superimposed on each other. We define the reactionary unconscious
investment as the investment that conforms to the intere st of the dominant class,
but operates on its own account, according to the terms of desire, through the
segregative use of the conjunctive syntheses from which Oedipus is derived: I am
of the superior race. The revolutionary unconscious investment is such that
desire, still in its own mode, cuts across th e interest of the dominated, exploited
classes, and causes flows to move that are capable of breaking apart both the
segregations and their Oedipal applications—flows capable of hallucinating
history, of reanimating the races in delirium, of setting continents ablaze. No, I
am not of your kind, I am the outsider a nd the deterritorialized, "I am of a race
inferior for all eternity. ... I am a beast, a Negro,"45
There again it is a question of an intense potential for investment and
Desire and the Death of God
- Desire acts as a deterritorializing force that can break through social segregations and Oedipal structures by reanimating history and delirium.
- The unconscious oscillates between a paranoiac-segregative pole and a schizonomadic-revolutionary pole, creating an inherent ambiguity in racial and social investments.
- Reading is redefined as a productive use of a 'literary machine' to extract revolutionary force rather than a search for static meanings or signifiers.
- The text critiques the psychoanalytic obsession with the 'death of the father,' arguing that repression continues regardless of whether the authority figure is living or dead.
- Nietzsche's perspective is used to mock the long-winded internalization of paternal images, suggesting that the event of God's death is less important than the time it takes to bear fruit.
No, I am not of your kind, I am the outsider and the deterritorialized, 'I am of a race inferior for all eternity. ... I am a beast, a Negro.'
desire, still in its own mode, cuts across th e interest of the dominated, exploited
classes, and causes flows to move that are capable of breaking apart both the
segregations and their Oedipal applications—flows capable of hallucinating
history, of reanimating the races in delirium, of setting continents ablaze. No, I
am not of your kind, I am the outsider a nd the deterritorialized, "I am of a race
inferior for all eternity. ... I am a beast, a Negro,"45
There again it is a question of an intense potential for investment and
counterinvestment in the unconscious. Oe dipus disintegrates because its very
conditions have disintegrated. The nomadic and polyvocal use of the conjunctive
syntheses is in opposition to the segregative an d biu nivocal use. Delirium has
something like two poles, racist a nd racial, paranoiac-segregative and
schizonomadic. And between the two, ever so many s ubtle, uncertain shiftings
where the unconscious itself oscillates be tween its reactionary charge and its
revolutionary potential. Even Schreber finds himself to be the Great Mongol
when he breaks through the Aryan segregation. Whence the ambiguity in the
texts of great authors, when they develop the theme of races, as rich in ambiguity
as destiny itself. Here schizoan alysis must unravel the thread.
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMIUALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 105
For reading a text is never a scholarly exer cise in search of what is signified, still
less a highly textual exercise in search of a signifier. Rather it is a productive use
of the literary machine, a montage of desiring-machines, a schizo id exercise that
extracts from the text its revolutionary fo rce. The exclamation "So it's . . . !", or
the meditation of Igitur on race, in an essential relationship with madness.
A Recapitulation of the
Three Syntheses
Stupefying Oedipus, inexhaustible and ever present. We are told
that the father died "over a period of t housands of years" (well, well!) and that
the "internalization" corresponding to the paternal image was produced during
the Paleolithic right up until the start of the Neolithic, "approximately 8,000 years
ago."*3 One analyzes historically or one doesn 't. But honestly, as to the death of
the father, news doesn't travel very fa st: it would be a mistake to embark
Nietzsche on that particular voyage through history. For Nietzsche is not the kind
to ruminate over the death of the fath er, and spend all his Paleolithic period
internalizing him. On the contrary, Nietzsche is exceedingly tired of all these
stories revolving around the death of the fa ther, the death of God, and wants to
put an end to the interminable discourse s of this nature, discourses already in
vogue in his Hegelian epoch. Alas, he wa s wrong, the discourses have continued.
But Nietzsche wanted us finally to pass on to serious things. He gives us twelve
or thirteen versions of the death of God, for good measure and to be done with it,
so as to render the event comical. And he explains that strictly speaking this
event has no importance whatever, that it merely concerns the latest Pope: God
dead or not dead, the father dead or no t dead, it amounts to the same thing, since
the same psychic repression (refoulement) and the same social repression
{repression) continue unabated, here in the name of God or a living father, there
in the name of man or the dead father.
Nietzsche says that what is important is not the news that God is dead, but
the time this news takes to bear fruit. Here the psychoanalyst perks up his ears,
believing he has heard a familiar chord: it is well known that the unconscious
takes a lot of time to digest a bit of ne ws; one can even quote some texts of Freud
on the unconscious being ignorant of time, conserving its objects like an
Egyptian tomb. But that is not at all what Nietzsche is saying: he does not mean
The Death of Belief
- Nietzsche's news of the death of God is interpreted not as a psychological trauma, but as the realization that the death of God makes no difference to the unconscious.
- The authors argue that psychoanalysis remains trapped in a religious mindset by treating Oedipus and castration as structural myths to be believed in.
- Belief is characterized as a false diversion that suffocates the effective production of desire by relating it to external figures like the father and mother.
- A materialist reduction of Oedipus is necessary to recognize desire as a productive force coextensive with nature rather than an abstraction separated from it.
The fruits of this news are not the consequences brought about by the death of God, but this other news that the death of God is of no consequence.
{repression) continue unabated, here in the name of God or a living father, there
in the name of man or the dead father.
Nietzsche says that what is important is not the news that God is dead, but
the time this news takes to bear fruit. Here the psychoanalyst perks up his ears,
believing he has heard a familiar chord: it is well known that the unconscious
takes a lot of time to digest a bit of ne ws; one can even quote some texts of Freud
on the unconscious being ignorant of time, conserving its objects like an
Egyptian tomb. But that is not at all what Nietzsche is saying: he does not mean
that the death of God spends a long time plodding around in the unconscious. He
means that what takes so long in coming to consciousness is the news that the
death of God makes no difference to the unconscious. The fruits of this
10s ANTI-OEDIPUS
news are not the consequences brought about by the deat h of God, but this other
news that the death of God is of no cons equence. In other terms: that God and the
father never existed (or if they did, it was so long ago, perhaps during the
Paleolithic). All they did was kill a dead man, from time immemorial. The fruits
of the news of the death of God do away with the flower of His death as well as
the bud of His life. For, alive or dead, it is still a question of belief: the element of
belief has not been abandoned. The announcement of the father's death
constitutes a last belief, "a belief by vi rtue of nonbelief" about which Nietzsche
says: "This violence always manifests the need for a belief, for a prop, for a
structure." Oedipus-as-strupture.
Engels paid homage to the genius of Bachofen, for having recognized in
myth the figures of a maternal and a pa ternal law, their struggles and their
relationships. But Engels slips in a repr oach that changes everything: it really
seems as if Bachofen believes all this, th at he believes in myths, in the Furies,
Apollo, and Athena.47 The same reproach applies ev en better to psychoanalysts: it
would seem that they believe in all of this—in myth, in Oedipus and castration.
They reply: the question is not one of knowing whether we believe in this, but
whether or not the unconscious itself believes in it. But what is this unconscious
when reduced to the state of belief? Who injects it with belief? Psychoanalysis
cannot become a rigorous discipline unless it accepts putting belief in
parentheses, which is to say a materialist reduction of Oedipus as an ideological
form. It is not a matter of saying that Oe dipus is a false belief, but rather that
belief is necessarily something false th at diverts and suffocates effective
production. That is why seers are the l east believing of men. When we relate
desire to Oedipus, we are condemned to ignore the productive nature of desire:
we condemn desire to vague dreams or imaginations that are merely conscious
expressions of it; we relate it to indepe ndent existences—the father, the mother,
the begetters—that do not yet comprise their elements as internal elements of
desire. The question of the father is like th at of God: born of an abstraction, it
assumes the link to be already broken between man and nature, man and the
world, so that man must be produced as man by something exterior to nature and
to man. On this point Nietzsche makes a re mark completely akin to those of Marx
or Engels: "We now laugh when we find 'Man and World' placed beside one
another, separated by the sublime pr esumption of the little word 'and.' "48
Coextensiveness is another matter en tirely, the coextension of man and
nature; a circular movement by whic h the unconscious, always remaining
subject, produces and reproduces itself. The unconscious
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMIL1ALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 107
does not follow the paths of a gene ration progressing (or regressing)
The Orphaned Unconscious
- The text argues that the concept of the father, like that of God, is an abstraction that falsely separates man from nature.
- True sexuality is described as an autoproduction of the unconscious rather than a mere tool for biological generation.
- The unconscious is characterized as an 'orphan' because it engenders itself through the identity of man and the world.
- Psychoanalysis is criticized for using the Oedipus complex to ideologically produce man through a cycle of infinite regression.
- The author identifies various roles analysts play—cop, priest, or technician—to enforce the 'imperialism of Oedipus' on the individual.
Indeed, in this sense we must say the unconscious has always been an orphan—that is, it has engendered itself in the identity of nature and man, of the world and man.
desire. The question of the father is like th at of God: born of an abstraction, it
assumes the link to be already broken between man and nature, man and the
world, so that man must be produced as man by something exterior to nature and
to man. On this point Nietzsche makes a re mark completely akin to those of Marx
or Engels: "We now laugh when we find 'Man and World' placed beside one
another, separated by the sublime pr esumption of the little word 'and.' "48
Coextensiveness is another matter en tirely, the coextension of man and
nature; a circular movement by whic h the unconscious, always remaining
subject, produces and reproduces itself. The unconscious
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMIL1ALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 107
does not follow the paths of a gene ration progressing (or regressing)
from one body to another: your father, your father's father, and so on.
The organized body is the object of reproduction by generation; it is not
its subject. The sole subject of re production is the unconscious itself,
which holds to the circular form of production. Sexuality is not a means
in the service of generation; rather , the generation of bodies is in the
service of sexuality as an autopr oduction of the unconscious. Sexuality
does not represent a premium for the e go, in exchange for its subordina-
tion to the process of generation; on the contrary, generation is the ego's
solace, its prolongation, the passage from one body to another through
which the unconscious does no more than reproduce itself in itself.
Indeed, in this sense we must say the unconscious has always been an
orphan—that is, it has engendered itself in the identity of nature and
man, of the world and man. The question of the father, the question of
God, is what has become impossible, a matter of indifference, so true is
it that to affirm or deny such a being amounts to the same thing, or to live
it or kill it: one and the same misconception (contresens) concerning the
nature of the unconscious.
But psychoanalysts are bent on producing man abstractly, that is to
say ideologically, for culture. It is Oedipus who produces man in this
fashion, and who gives a structure to the false movement of infinite
progression and regression: your father, and your father's father, a
snowball gathering speed as it moves from Oedipus all the way to the
father of the primal horde, to God and the Paleolithic age. It is Oedipus
who makes us man, for better or fo r worse, say those who would make
fools of us all. The tone may vary, but the message remains basically the
same: you will not escape Oedipus, your sole choice is between the
"neurotic outlet" and the "nonneurotic outlet." The tone may be that of
the scandalized psychoanalyst, the ps ychoanalyst-as-cop: those who do
not bow to the imperialism of Oedipus are dangerous deviants, leftists
who ought to be handed over to social and police repression; they talk
too much and are lacking in anality (Dr. Gerard Mendel, Doctors
Stephane). What kind of disquieting play on words is it that can make
the analyst a promoter of anality? Or there is the
psychoanalyst-as-priest, the pious psychoanalyst who is forever
chanting the incurable insufficiency of being: don't you see that
Oedipus saves us from Oedipus, it is our agony but also our ecstasy,
depending on whether we live it neurotically or live its structure; it is
the mother of the holy faith (J. M. Pohier). Or the technopsychoanalyst,
the reform psychoanalyst obsessed with the triangle, who wraps the
splendid gifts of civilization in Oedipus—identity, manic-depression, and
liberty in an infinite progres-
108 ANTI-OEDIPUS
sion: "Through Oedipus the individua l learns to live the triangular
situation, the token of his identity, and at the same time he discovers—
sometimes in a depressive mode, sometimes in a mode of exaltation—
his fundamental alienation, his irreme diable solitude, the price of his
The Machinic Unconscious
- Traditional psychoanalysis is criticized for reducing the complexity of human identity and liberty to a rigid, triangular Oedipal apparatus.
- The unconscious should not be treated as a site of hidden meaning to be interpreted, but as a functional system of desiring-machines.
- Desire is defined by how it works and what it produces rather than what it represents or signifies in a symbolic sense.
- Schizoanalysis is proposed as a materialist and transcendental alternative that focuses on the productive, molecular, and nonfigurative nature of the unconscious.
- The shift from 'What does it mean?' to 'How does it work?' marks a collapse of traditional interpretation in favor of immanent, practical use.
It represents nothing, but it produces. It means nothing, but it works.
the mother of the holy faith (J. M. Pohier). Or the technopsychoanalyst,
the reform psychoanalyst obsessed with the triangle, who wraps the
splendid gifts of civilization in Oedipus—identity, manic-depression, and
liberty in an infinite progres-
108 ANTI-OEDIPUS
sion: "Through Oedipus the individua l learns to live the triangular
situation, the token of his identity, and at the same time he discovers—
sometimes in a depressive mode, sometimes in a mode of exaltation—
his fundamental alienation, his irreme diable solitude, the price of his
liberty. The basic structure of the Oedipal apparatus must not only be
generalized in time so as to account for all the triangular experiences of
the child and his parents, it must be generalized in space to include those
triangular relations other than the parent-child relations."49
The unconscious poses no problem of meaning, solely problems of
use. The question posed by desire is not "What does it mean?" but
rather "How does it work? " How do these machines, these
desiring-machines, work—yours and mine? With what sort of
breakdowns as a part of their func tioning? How do they pass from one
body to another? How are they attached to the body without organs?
What occurs when their mode of operation confronts the social
machines? A tractable gear is greased, or on the contrary an infernal
machine is made read y. What are the connections, what are the
disjunctions, the conjunctions, what us e is made of the syntheses? It
represents nothing, but it produces . It means nothing, but it works.
Desire makes its entry with the general collapse of the question "What
does it mean?" No one has been able to pose the problem of language
except to the extent that linguists an d logicians have first eliminated
meaning; and the greatest force of language was only discovered once a
work was viewed as a machine, producing certain effects, amenable to a
certain use. Malcolm Lowry says of his work: it's anything you want it
to be, so long as it works—"It works too, believe me, as I have found
out"—a machinery.50 But on condition that meaning be nothing other
than use, that it become a firm prin ciple only if we have at our disposal
immanent criteria capable of determining the legitimate uses, as opposed
to the illegitimate ones that relate use instead to a hypothetical meaning
and re-establish a kind of transcendence.
Analysis termed transcendental is precisely the determination of
these criteria, immanent to the field of the unconscious, insofar as they
are opposed to the transcendent exercises of a "What does it mean?"
Schizoanalysis is at once a transcendental and a materialist analysis. It is
critical in the sense that it leads the criticism of Oedipus, or leads
Oedipus, to the point of its own self-criticism. It sets out to explore a
transcendental unconscious, rather than a metaphysical one; an uncon-
scious that is material rather than ideological; schizophrenic rather than
Oedipal; nonfigurative rather than imag inary; real rather than symbolic;
machinic rather than structural—an unconscious, finally, that is molecu-
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM; THE HOLY FAMILY 108
lar, microphysical, and micrological rather than molar or gregarious; productive
rather than expressive. And it is a matter he re of practical principles as directions
for the "cure."
Thus we have already seen how the immanent criteria of
desiring-production permitted a de finition of legitimate uses of syntheses, uses
completely distinct from Oedipal uses. And in relation to this
desiring-production, the Oedipal illegitimate uses seemed to us to be multiform,
but always to revolve around the same error, and to envelop theoretical and
practical paralogisms. In the first place, a partial and nonspecific use of the
connective syntheses was found to be in opposition to the Oedipal use, itself
global and specific. This global-specifi c use was found to have two aspects,
The Paralogisms of Oedipus
- The text contrasts the legitimate uses of desiring-production with the illegitimate, restrictive syntheses imposed by the Oedipal framework.
- Oedipus relies on a paralogism of extrapolation that extracts a transcendent object to serve as a despotic signifier, fusing desire to lack and law.
- The 'double bind' is identified not as a schizophrenic process but as the method by which Oedipus arrests the unconscious and forces it to respond to familial tropes.
- A third paralogism of application reduces complex social and libidinal investments to a biunivocal relationship with 'daddy-mommy' figures.
- The authors critique psychoanalysis as a narcissistic machine that betrays desire by transforming it into an idealistic, pious conception of the unconscious.
In any case, the double bind is not the schizophrenic process; on the contrary, the double bind is Oedipus insofar as it arrests the motion of the process, or forces it to spin around in the void.
desiring-production permitted a de finition of legitimate uses of syntheses, uses
completely distinct from Oedipal uses. And in relation to this
desiring-production, the Oedipal illegitimate uses seemed to us to be multiform,
but always to revolve around the same error, and to envelop theoretical and
practical paralogisms. In the first place, a partial and nonspecific use of the
connective syntheses was found to be in opposition to the Oedipal use, itself
global and specific. This global-specifi c use was found to have two aspects,
parental and conjugal, to which the triangular form of Oedipus and the
reproduction of this form corresponded. This use rested upon a paralogism of
extrapolation that in fact constituted Oedipus's formal cause—an extrapolation
whose illegitimate nature weighed on th e whole operation: the extraction of a
transcendent complete object from the signifying chain, which served as a
despotic signifier on which the entire ch ain thereafter seemed to depend, assign-
ing an element of lack to each position of desire, fusing desire to a law, and
engendering the illusion that this loosened up and freed the elements of the
chain.
In the second place, an inclusive or nonrestrictive use of the disjunctive
syntheses is in opposition to their Oedipal, exclusive, restrictive use. This
restrictive use in its turn has two poles , imaginary and symbolic, since the only
choice it permits is between the exclusive symbolic differentiations and the
undifferentiated Imaginary, correctively determined by Oedipus. This use
demonstrates this time how Oedipus proceeds, it demonstrates Oedipus's
method: a paralogism of the double bind, the double impasse. (Or, in line with a
suggestion made by Henri Gobard, would it be better to translate this as "double
hold," like a full nelson hold in wrestling, so as to better describe the treatment
forced on the unconscious when it is bound at both ends, leaving it no other
choice than to respond Oedipus, to cry Oedi pus, in sickness as in health, in its
crises as in their outcome, in its resolution as in its problem. In any case, the
double bind is not the schizophrenic process; on the contrary, the double bind is
Oedipus insofar as it arrests the motion of th e process, or forces it to spin around
in the void.)
In the third place, a nomadic and polyvocal use of the conjunctive
syntheses is opposed to the segregative and biunivocal use made of them. There
again this biunivocal use, illegitimate fr om the point of view of the unconscious
itself, has what appear to be two mome nts: first, a moment that is racist,
nationalistic, religious, etc., and that, by means of
110 ANTI-OEDIPUS
a segregation, constitutes an aggregate of departure that is always
presupposed by Oedipus, even if in a totally implicit fashion; next, a
familial moment that constitutes the aggregate of destination by means
of an application. Whence the th ird paralogism, the paralogism of
application, which fixes the precondition for Oedipus by establishing a
set of biunivocal relations between the determinations of the social field
and the familial determinations, th ereby making possible and inevitable
the reduction of libidinal investments to the eternal daddy-mommy. We
still have not exhausted all the paralogisms that lead the practice of the
cure in the direction of a frenzied oedi palization, a betrayal of desire, the
unconscious closeted in a day nursery, a narcissistic machine for
arrogant and mouthy little egos, a perpetual absorption of capitalist
surplus value, flows of words against flows of money, the interminable
story—psychoanalysis.
The three errors concerning desire are called lack, law, and
signifier. It is one and the same error, an idealism that forms a pious
conception of the unconscious. And it is futile to interpret these notions
in terms of a combinative apparatus (line combinatoire) that makes of
The Priest's Psychology
- The text critiques psychoanalysis as a 'narcissistic machine' that absorbs capitalist surplus value and traps the unconscious in a perpetual story of lack.
- The concepts of lack, law, and the signifier are identified as three fundamental errors that impose a pious, theological framework onto the unconscious.
- Structural interpretation is accused of merely rebranding religious notions like guilt and insufficiency under the guise of scientific nonbelief.
- The author argues that desire is a production of the real and a sign of strength rather than a product of repression or castration.
- The horrors attributed to the unconscious are actually products of 'insomniac rationality' and the consciousness of those in power rather than the unconscious itself.
It is not the slumber of reason that engenders monsters, but vigilant and insomniac rationality.
unconscious closeted in a day nursery, a narcissistic machine for
arrogant and mouthy little egos, a perpetual absorption of capitalist
surplus value, flows of words against flows of money, the interminable
story—psychoanalysis.
The three errors concerning desire are called lack, law, and
signifier. It is one and the same error, an idealism that forms a pious
conception of the unconscious. And it is futile to interpret these notions
in terms of a combinative apparatus (line combinatoire) that makes of
lack an empty position and no longer a deprivation, that turns the law
into a rule of the game and no longer a commandment, and the signifier
into a distributor and no longer a meaning, for these notions cannot be
prevented from dragging their theological cortege behind—insufficiency
of being, guilt, signification. Stru ctural interpretation challenges all
beliefs, rises above all images, and from the realm of the mother and the
father retains only functions, defines the prohibition and th e transgres-
sion as structural operations. But what water will cleanse these concepts
of their background, their previous existences—religiosity? Scientific
knowledge as nonbelief is truly the last refuge of belief, and as
Nietzsche put it, there never was but one psychology, that of the priest.
From the moment lack is reintroduced into desire, all of
desiring-production is crushed, reduc ed to being no more than the
production of fantasy; but the sign doe s not produce fantasies, it is a
production of the real and a position of desire within reality. From the
moment desire is welded again to the law—we needn't point out what is
known since time began: that there is no desire without law—the eternal
operation of eternal repression reco mmences, the operation that closes
around the unconscious the circle of prohibition and transgression,
white mass and black mass; but the sign of desire is never a sign of the
law, it is a sign of strength (puissance). And who would dare use the
term "law" for the fact that desire situates and develops its strength, and
that wherever it is, it causes flows to move and substances to be
intersected ("I am careful not to speak of chemical laws, the word has a
moral aftertaste")? From
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 111
the moment desire is made to depend on the signifier, it is put back under the
yoke of a despotism whose effect is cas tration, there where one recognizes the
stroke of the signifier itself; but the sign of desire is never signifying, it exists in
the thousands of productive breaks-flows that never allow themselves to be
signified within the unary stroke of castra tion. It is always a point-sign of many
dimensions, polyvocity as the basis for a punctual semiology.
It is said that the unconscious is da rk and somber. Reich and Marcuse are
often reproached for their "Rousseauism," their naturalism: a conception of the
unconscious that is thought to be too idyllic. But doesn't one indeed lend to the
unconscious horrors that could only be t hose of consciousness, and of a belief
too sure of itself? Would it be an exaggeration to say that in the unconscious
there is necessarily less cruelty and terror, and of a different type, than in the
consciousness of an heir, a soldier, or a Chief of State? The unconscious has its
horrors, but they are not anthropomorphic. It is not the slumber of reason that
engenders monsters, but vigilant and insomniac rationality. The unconscious is
Rousseauistic, being man-nature. And how much malice and ruse there are in
Rousseau! Transgression, guilt, castrati on: are these determinations of the
unconscious, or is this the way a priest sees things? Doubtless there are many
other forces besides psychoanalysis fo r oedipalizing the unconscious, rendering
it guilty, castrating it. But psychoanalysis reinforces the movement, it invents a
Schizoanalysis and the Productive Unconscious
- The authors argue that the unconscious is not naturally cruel or monstrous, but is rendered guilty and castrated by the 'priestly' interventions of traditional psychoanalysis.
- True horror and terror are attributed to vigilant, insomniac rationality and social figures like the Chief of State rather than the 'Rousseauistic' man-nature of the unconscious.
- Schizoanalysis aims to de-oedipalize the subject by breaking the 'daddy-mommy spider web' and restoring the unconscious to its immanent use as a site of production.
- The clinical sadness of the schizophrenic is viewed as a reaction to the suffocating forces of oedipalization rather than an inherent state of the process.
- The goal of this new analysis is to move away from myth and theater toward the concrete production of desiring-machines and social investments.
It is not the slumber of reason that engenders monsters, but vigilant and insomniac rationality.
unconscious that is thought to be too idyllic. But doesn't one indeed lend to the
unconscious horrors that could only be t hose of consciousness, and of a belief
too sure of itself? Would it be an exaggeration to say that in the unconscious
there is necessarily less cruelty and terror, and of a different type, than in the
consciousness of an heir, a soldier, or a Chief of State? The unconscious has its
horrors, but they are not anthropomorphic. It is not the slumber of reason that
engenders monsters, but vigilant and insomniac rationality. The unconscious is
Rousseauistic, being man-nature. And how much malice and ruse there are in
Rousseau! Transgression, guilt, castrati on: are these determinations of the
unconscious, or is this the way a priest sees things? Doubtless there are many
other forces besides psychoanalysis fo r oedipalizing the unconscious, rendering
it guilty, castrating it. But psychoanalysis reinforces the movement, it invents a
last priest. Oedipal analysis imposes a transcendent use on all the syntheses of
the unconscious, ensuring their conversion.
The practical problem of schizoanalysis is, then, to ensure the contrasting
reversion: restoring the syntheses of the unconscious to their immanent use.
De-oedipalizing, undoing the daddy-mommy spider web, undoing the beliefs so
as to attain the production of desiring-machines, and to reach the level of
economic and social investments where the militant analysis comes into play.
Nothing is accomplished as long as machines are not touched upon. This implies
interventions that are in fact very c oncrete; in place of the benevolent pseudo
neutrality of the Oedipal analyst, w ho wants and understa nds only daddy and
mommy, we must substitute a malevolent, an openly malevolent activity: your
Oedipus is a fucking drag, keep it up a nd the analysis will be stopped, or else
we'll apply a shock treatment to you; stop saying daddy-mommy; of course
"Hamlet lives in you as Werther lives in you," and Oedipus too, and anything
you want, but "you grow uterine arms and legs, uterine lips, uterine mustache. In
tracing back the 'memory deaths' your ego becomes a sort of mineral theorem
which constantly proves the futility of living .... Were you born Hamlet? Or did
you not rather create the
112 ANTI-OEDIPUS
type in yourself? Whether this be so or not, what seems infinitely more
important is— why revert to myth ?"51
If myth is given up, a little joy, a little discovery, is restored to
psychoanalysis. For it has become very dismal, very sad, quite intermi-
nable, with everything decided in advance. Will it be retorted that the
schizo is not joyous either? But doe sn't his sadness come from the fact
that he can no longer bear the forces of oedipalization and hamletization
that hem him in on all sides? Better to flee to the body without organs
and hide out there, closing himself up in it. The little joy lies in
schizophrenization as a process, not in the schizo as a clinical entity.
"You have pushed a process into a goal. . . ." If we made a psychoana-
lyst enter into the domains of the productive unconscious, he would feel
as out of place with his theater as an actress from the
Comedie-Francaise in a factory, a priest from the Middle Ages on an
assembly line. We must set up units of production, plug in
desiring-machines. What takes place in this factory, what this process
is, its spasms and its glories, its labors and its joys, still remain
unknown.
Social Repression and Psychic Repression
We have attempted to analyze the form, the reproduc-
tion, the (formal) cause, the method, and the condition of the Oedipal
triangle. But we have postponed the analysis of the real forces, the real
causes on which the triangulation depends. The general line of the
response is simple, it has been sket ched out by Reich: it is social
repression, the forces of social re pression. This response, however,
Social Repression and Oedipal Ruses
- The text explores the tension between social repression and psychic repression, questioning if the Oedipal triangle is a natural desire or a social construct.
- It challenges the Freudian logic that because incest is legally prohibited, it must be an innate human instinct.
- The authors argue that desiring-production is actually indifferent to the family unit, using parents only as ordinary stimuli for broader adventures.
- Psychoanalysis is criticized for its 'mania' of forcing all unconscious hallucinations and apprenticeships into the narrow framework of the Oedipus complex.
- The passage suggests that the law may create the very desires it purports to prohibit, acting as a ruse to contain the expansive nature of desire.
We didn't want the train to be daddy, or the station mommy. We only wanted peace and innocence, and to be left alone to machine our little machines, O desiring-production.
is, its spasms and its glories, its labors and its joys, still remain
unknown.
Social Repression and Psychic Repression
We have attempted to analyze the form, the reproduc-
tion, the (formal) cause, the method, and the condition of the Oedipal
triangle. But we have postponed the analysis of the real forces, the real
causes on which the triangulation depends. The general line of the
response is simple, it has been sket ched out by Reich: it is social
repression, the forces of social re pression. This response, however,
leaves two problems untouched and ma kes them even more urgent: on
the one hand, the specific relations hip between psychic repression and
social repression; on the other hand, the particular situation of Oedipus
in this social repression-psychic repression system. The two problems
are obviously linked because, if psychic repression did bear on incestu-
ous desires, it would thereby gain a certain independence and primacy,
as a condition for constituting a system of exchange or any society, in
relation to social repression, which would then concern only the returns
of the psychically repressed in a constituted society. Therefore we
should first of all consider the sec ond question: does psychic repressior
bear upon the Oedipus complex as an adequate expression of the
unconscious? Must we even follow Freud in saying that the Oedipus
complex, according to one or the other of its two poles, is eithei
repressed (not without leaving behi nd traces and returns that will be
confronted by the prohibitions), or suppressed (not without being passec
on to the children, with whom the same story begins all over again)?5
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY
We wonder if Oedipus in fact expre sses desire; if Oedipus is desired,
then it is indeed on it that psychic repression comes to bear. Now the
Freudian argument is of a nature to leave us wondering: Freud quotes a
remark by Sir J. G. Frazer according to which "the law only forbids men
to do what their instincts incline them to do; . . . Instead of assuming,
therefore, from the legal prohibition of incest that there is a natural
aversion to incest, we ought rather to assume that there is a natural
instinct in favor of it."53 In other words: if it is prohibited, this is
because it is desired—there would be no need to prohibit what is not
desired. Once again, it is this confidence in the law, the unawareness of
the ruses and the procedures of th e law, that leaves us wondering.
The immortal father of Celine's Death on the Installment Plan (Mort
a credit) cries out: So you want to see me die, eh, is that what you want,
speak up? We didn't want anything of the sort, however. We didn't want
the train to be daddy, or the stat ion mommy. We only wanted peace and
innocence, and to be left alone to machine our little machines, O
desiring-production. Of course pieces from the bodies of the mother and
the father are taken up in the connect ions, parental appellations crop up
in the disjunctions of the chain, the parents are there as ordinary stimuli
of an indifferent nature that trigger the becoming of adventures, of races,
and of continents. But what a bizar re Freudian mania—to relate to
Oedipus what overflows it on every side and from all angles, beginning
with the hallucination of books and the delirium of apprenticeships (the
teacher as father-substitute, and th e book as family romance). Freud
couldn't abide a simple humorous rema rk by Jung, to the effect that
Oedipus must not really exist, since even the primitive prefers a pretty
young woman to his mother or his grandmother. If Jung betrayed
everything, it was nevertheless not by way of this remark, which can
Oedipus as a Sham Image
- The authors critique the Freudian tendency to reduce all human experience, including education and literature, to the narrow family romance of Oedipus.
- They argue that the law prohibits fictitious desires, such as incest, primarily to persuade subjects that they actually harbored those guilty intentions.
- Oedipus is described not as the source of desire, but as a 'displaced represented'—a falsified image created by repression to trap and domesticate the unconscious.
- The text posits a three-term system of repression where the prohibited image is a factitious product designed to make the unconscious feel guilty.
- D.H. Lawrence is cited as a critic who recognized that the incest motive is a logical deduction of human reason rather than a natural state of the active unconscious.
And we docile subjects say to ourselves: so that's what I wanted!
and of continents. But what a bizar re Freudian mania—to relate to
Oedipus what overflows it on every side and from all angles, beginning
with the hallucination of books and the delirium of apprenticeships (the
teacher as father-substitute, and th e book as family romance). Freud
couldn't abide a simple humorous rema rk by Jung, to the effect that
Oedipus must not really exist, since even the primitive prefers a pretty
young woman to his mother or his grandmother. If Jung betrayed
everything, it was nevertheless not by way of this remark, which can
only suggest that the mother functions as a pretty girl as much as the
pretty girl functions as mother, since the main thing for the primitive or
the child is to form and put into motion their desiring-machines, to make
flows circulate and to perform breaks in these flows.
The law tells us: You will not marry your mother, and you will not
kill your father. And we docile subjects say to ourselves: so that's what I
wanted! Will it ever be suspected that the law discredits—and has an
interest in discrediting and disgracing—the person it presumes to be
guilty, the person the law wants to be guilty and wants to be made to feel
guilty? One acts as if it were possibl e to conclude directly from psychic
repression the nature of the repressed, and from the prohibition the
nature of what is prohibited. Ther e we have a typical paralogism—yet
another, a fourth paralogism that we shall have to call displacement. For
what really takes place is that the law prohibits something that is
114 ANTI-OEDIPUS
perfectly fictitious in the order of desire or of the "instincts," so as to persuade its
subjects that they had the intention corres ponding to this fiction. This is indeed
the only way the law has of getting a grip on intention, of making the
unconscious guilty. In short, we are not w itness here to a system of two terms
where we could conclude from the formal prohibition what is really prohibited.
Instead we have before us a system of three terms, where this conclusion
becomes completely illegitimate. Distinctions must be made: the repressing
representation which performs the repre ssion; the repressed representative, on
which the repression actually comes to b ear; the displaced represented, which
gives a falsified apparent image that is meant to trap desire.
Such is the nature of Oedipus—the sham image. Repression does not
operate through Oedipus, nor is it directed at Oedipus. It is not a question of the
return of the repressed. Oedipus is a fac titious product of psychi c repression. It is
only the represented, insofar as it is induced by repression. Repression cannot act
without displacing desire, without giving rise to a consequent desire, all ready,
all warm for punishment, and without putting this desire in the place of the
antecedent desire on which repression comes to bear in principle or in reality
("Ah, so that's what it was!").
D. H. Lawrence—who does not struggle against Freud in the name of the
rights of the Ideal, but who speaks by vi rtue of the flows of sexuality and the
intensities of the unconscious, and who is incensed and bewildered by what
Freud is doing when he closets sexua lity in the Oedipal nursery—has a
foreboding of this operation of displacement , and protests with all his might: no,
Oedipus is not a state of desire and the drives, it is an idea, nothing but an idea
that repression inspires in us concerni ng desire; not even a compromise, but an
idea in the service of repression, its pr opaganda, or its propagation. "The incest
motive is a logical deduction of the human r eason, which has recourse to this last
extremity, to save itself . . . which first and foremost is a logical deduction made
by the human reason, even if unconsciously made, and secondly is introduced
into the affective passional sphere, where it now proceeds to serve as a principle
for action. . . .This has nothing to do with the active unconscious [which]
Desire and the Oedipal Trap
- The Oedipus complex is presented not as a natural state of desire, but as a conceptual idea used by repression to mask the true nature of the unconscious.
- Desire is inherently revolutionary and explosive, capable of demolishing social sectors and hierarchies simply by wanting what it wants.
- Societies repress desire because any real position of desire threatens the established order of exploitation and servitude.
- The 'incest motive' is a logical deduction of human reason rather than a biological reality, serving as a bait to trap and disfigure active desire.
- True sexuality and love do not reside in the 'Oedipal nursery' but circulate in wide-open spaces that cannot be contained by social structures.
Desire is revolutionary in its essence—desire, not left-wing holidays!—and no society can tolerate a position of real desire without its structures of exploitation, servitude, and hierarchy being compromised.
Freud is doing when he closets sexua lity in the Oedipal nursery—has a
foreboding of this operation of displacement , and protests with all his might: no,
Oedipus is not a state of desire and the drives, it is an idea, nothing but an idea
that repression inspires in us concerni ng desire; not even a compromise, but an
idea in the service of repression, its pr opaganda, or its propagation. "The incest
motive is a logical deduction of the human r eason, which has recourse to this last
extremity, to save itself . . . which first and foremost is a logical deduction made
by the human reason, even if unconsciously made, and secondly is introduced
into the affective passional sphere, where it now proceeds to serve as a principle
for action. . . .This has nothing to do with the active unconscious [which]
sparkles, vibrates, travels ... we realize that the unconscious contains nothing
ideal, nothing in the least conceptual, a nd hence nothing in th e least personal,
since personality, like the ego, belongs to the conscious or mental-subjective self.
So the first analyses are, or should be, so impersonal that the so-called human
relations are not involved. The first relationship is neither personal nor
biological—a fact which psychoanaly sis has not succeeded in grasping."54
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIAUSM: THE HOLY FAMILY 119
Oedipal desires are not at all repressed, nor do they have any reason
to be. They are nevertheless in an intimate relationship with psychic
repression, but in a different manner. Oedipal desires are the bait, the
disfigured image by means of which repression catches desire in the
trap. If desire is repressed, this is not because it is desire for the mother
and for the death of the father; on th e contrary, desire becomes that only
because it is repressed, it takes on that mask only under the reign of the
repression that models the mask for it and plasters it on its face. Besides,
it is doubtful that incest was a real obstacle to the es tablishment of
society, as the partisans of an exchangist conception claim. We have
seen that there were other obstacles. The real danger is elsewhere. If
desire is repressed, it is because every position of desire, no matter how
small, is capable of calling into question the established order of a
society: not that desire is asocial, on the contrary. But it is explosive;
there is no desiring-machine capable of being assembled without demol-
ishing entire social sectors. Despite what some revolutionaries think
about this, desire is revolutionary in its essence—desire, not left-wing
holidays!—and no society can tolerate a position of real desire without
its structures of exploitation, se rvitude, and hierarchy being compro-
mised.
If a society is identical with its structures—an amusing
hypothesis—then yes, desire threatens its very being. It is therefore of
vital importance for a society to repress desire, and even to find
something more efficient than repression, so that repression, hierarchy,
exploitation, and servitude are themselves desired. It is quite trouble-
some to have to say such rudimentar y things: desire does not threaten a
society because it is a desire to sleep with the mother, but because it is
revolutionary. And that does not at all mean that desire is something
other than sexuality, but that sexua lity and love do not live in the
bedroom of Oedipus, they dream instead of wide-open spaces, and
cause strange flows to circulate that do not let themselves be stocked
within an established order. Desire does not "want" revolution, it is
revolutionary in its own right, as t hough involuntarily, by wanting what
it wants. From the beginning of this study we have maintained both that
social production and desiring-produc tion are one and the same, and that
they have differing regimes, with the result that a social form of
production exercises an essential repr ession of desiring-production, and
Desire and Social Repression
- Desire is inherently revolutionary because it creates flows that cannot be contained within established social orders.
- Social production and desiring-production are fundamentally the same, yet social forms exist to repress the disruptive potential of desire.
- Psychoanalysis shifted from viewing repression as a social phenomenon to a cultural necessity, leading to a conservative 'familialist' ideology.
- The authors argue that Freudianism is a combined formation of revolutionary and reactionary elements that must be analyzed in bits and pieces.
- The focus on the Oedipus complex serves to justify psychic repression by prioritizing civilization's requirements over the reality of desire.
Desire does not "want" revolution, it is revolutionary in its own right, as though involuntarily, by wanting what it wants.
bedroom of Oedipus, they dream instead of wide-open spaces, and
cause strange flows to circulate that do not let themselves be stocked
within an established order. Desire does not "want" revolution, it is
revolutionary in its own right, as t hough involuntarily, by wanting what
it wants. From the beginning of this study we have maintained both that
social production and desiring-produc tion are one and the same, and that
they have differing regimes, with the result that a social form of
production exercises an essential repr ession of desiring-production, and
also that desiring-production—a "real" desire—is potentially capable of
demolishing the social form. But what is a "real"desire, since repression
is also desired? How can we tell them apart? We demand the right to a
very deliberate analysis. For even in their contrary uses, let us make no
mistake about it, the same syntheses are at issue.
118 ANTI-OEDIPUS
It is clear what psychoanalysis expects to gain from claiming a link,
where Oedipus would be the object of repression, and even its subject
through the intermediary of the supere go. From this it expects a cultural
justification for psychic repression—a justification that makes psychic
repression move into the foreground and no longer considers the
problem of social repression as an ything more than secondary from the
point of view of the unconscious. That is why critics have been able to
observe a conservative or reactionary turning point in Freud, from the
moment that he gave an autonomous value to psychic repression as a
condition of culture acting against th e incestuous drives: Reich goes so
far as to say that the crucial turning point of Freudianism, the abandon-
ment of s exuality, comes when Freud accepts the idea of a primary
anxiety that supposedly touches of f psychic repression in an endoge-
nous fashion. Consider the 1908 article on "civilized sexual morality":
Oedipus is not yet named here; psychic repression is considered in terms
of social repression, which gives rise to a displacement and acts on the
partial drives insofar as they represent in their own fashion a sort of
desiring-production, before being exer cised against the incestuous or
other drives threatening legitimate marriage. But it then becomes
evident that, the more the problem of Oedipus and incest comes to
occupy center stage, the more psychic repression and its correlates,
suppression and sublimation, will be founded on supposedly transcend-
ent requirements of civilization, at the same time that the psychoanalyst
plunges deeper into a familialist and ideological vision.
We do not need to relate again the reactionary compromises of
Freudianism, and even its "theoretical surrender": this work has been
accomplished several times, in a profound way, rigorously, and with
nuances.55 We see no special problem in the possibility of a coexistence
of revolutionary, reformist, and reactionary elements at the heart of the
same theoretical and practical doctrine. We refuse to play "take it or
leave it," under the pretext that th eory justifies practice, being born
from it, or that one cannot challenge the process of "cure" except by
starting from elements drawn from this very cure. As if every great
doctrine were not a combined formation, constructed from bits and
pieces, various intermingled codes and flux, partial elements and deriva-
tives, that constitute its very life or its becoming. As if we could
reproach someone for having an ambiguous relationship with psycho-
analysis, without first mentioning that psychoanalysis owes its existence
to a relationship, theore tically and practically am biguous, with what it
discovers and the forces that it wields.
While the critical study of Freudian ideology has been done, and
done well, on the other hand the history of the movement has never even
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIAUSM: THE HOLY FAMILY 117
Psychoanalysis and Social Repression
- The text critiques the history of the psychoanalytic movement, arguing that it has functioned as a group superego that codifies censorship rather than penetrating it.
- Freud is characterized as a contradictory figure: a revolutionary explorer of desire, a classical bourgeois intellectual, and a 'masked Al Capone' seeking institutional respectability.
- Wilhelm Reich is credited with founding materialist psychiatry by demonstrating how social repression utilizes psychic repression to create docile subjects.
- The family acts as a delegated agent of the state, ensuring the mass psychological reproduction of the economic system through the sexual repression of desire.
- While Reich linked desire to the social field, he failed to fully explain how desire is inserted directly into the economic infrastructure and social production.
All these elements were present in Freud, a fantastic Christopher Columbus, a brilliant bourgeois reader of Goethe, Shakespeare, and Sophocles, a masked Al Capone.
tives, that constitute its very life or its becoming. As if we could
reproach someone for having an ambiguous relationship with psycho-
analysis, without first mentioning that psychoanalysis owes its existence
to a relationship, theore tically and practically am biguous, with what it
discovers and the forces that it wields.
While the critical study of Freudian ideology has been done, and
done well, on the other hand the history of the movement has never even
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIAUSM: THE HOLY FAMILY 117
been sketched out: the structure of the psychoanalytic group, its politics,
its tendencies and its focal points, its self-applications, its suicides and
its follies, the enormous group superego—everything that took place on
the body of the master. What has come to be called the monumental
work of Ernest Jones does not penetr ate censorship, it codifies it. And
the way the three elements coexisted: the exploratory, pioneering,
revolutionary element, whereby desiring-production was discovered; the
classical cultural element, which reduces everything to a scene from
Oedipal theatrical representation (the return to myth!); and finally the
third element, the most disturbing, a sort of racket thirsting after
respectability, which will never have done with getting itself recognized
and institutionalized—a formidable enterprise of absorption of surplus
value, with its codification of the interminable cure, its cynical
justification of the role of money, and all the pledges it makes to the
established order. All these elements were present in Freud, a fantastic
Christopher Columbus, a brilliant bourgeois reader of Goethe, Shake-
speare, and Sophocles, a masked Al Capone.
The strength of Reich consists in having shown how psychic
repression depended on social repre ssion. Which in no way implies a
confusion of the two concepts, since social repression needs psychic
repression precisely in order to form docile subjects and to ensure the
reproduction of the social formation, including its repressive structures.
But social repression s hould not be understood by using as a starting
point a familial repression coextensive with civilization—far from it; it is
civilization that must be understood in terms of a social repression
inherent to a given form of social production. Social repression bears on
desire—and not solely on needs or interests—only by means of sexual
repression. The family is indeed the delegated agent of this psychic
repression, insofar as it ensures "a mass psychological reproduction of
the economic system of a society." Of course it should not be concluded
from this that desire is Oedipal. On the contrary, it is the social
repression of desire or se xual repression—that is, the stasis of libidinal
energy—that actualizes Oedipus and engages desire in this requisite
impasse, organized by th e repressive society.
Reich was the first to raise the problem of the relationship between
desire and the social fi eld (and went further than Marcuse, who treats
the problem lightly). He is the true founder of a materialist psychiatry.
Situating the problem in terms of desire, he is the first to reject the
explanations of a summary Marxism too quick to say the masses were
fooled, mystified. But since he ha d not sufficiently formulated the
concept of desiring-production, he di d not succeed in determining the
insertion of desire into the economic infrastructure itself, the insertion
1 1 8 A N T I - O E D I P U S
of the drives into social production. Consequently, revolutionary investment
seemed to him such that the desire moving within it simply coincided with an
economic rationality; as to the reactionary mass investments, they seemed to him
to derive from ideology, so that psychoa nalysis merely had the role of explaining
the subjective, the negative, and the inhib ited, without participating directly as
Desire and Social Repression
- Wilhelm Reich attempted to integrate the analytic machine with the revolutionary machine by inserting desire into the economic infrastructure.
- Psychic repression serves as a delegated tool for social repression, making the inhibition of revolt an unconscious process.
- The family acts as the primary agent of psychic repression, replacing social production with a localized, domestic framework.
- The Oedipus complex functions as a 'distorting mirror' that shames desire by reframing its revolutionary potential as mere incestuous drives.
- By redirecting desire into familial conflicts, the social order successfully wards off the threat of genuine desiring-production and revolt.
By placing the distorting mirror of incest before desire (that's what you wanted, isn't it?), desire is shamed, stupefied, it is placed in a situation without exit.
insertion of desire into the economic infrastructure itself, the insertion
1 1 8 A N T I - O E D I P U S
of the drives into social production. Consequently, revolutionary investment
seemed to him such that the desire moving within it simply coincided with an
economic rationality; as to the reactionary mass investments, they seemed to him
to derive from ideology, so that psychoa nalysis merely had the role of explaining
the subjective, the negative, and the inhib ited, without participating directly as
psychoanalysis in the positivity of the revolutionary movement or in the
desiring-creativity. (To a certain extent, di dn't this amount to a reintroduction of
the error or the illusion?) The fact rema ins that Reich, in the name of desire,
caused a song of life to pass into psychoanalysis. He denounced, in the final
resignation of Freudianism, a fear of life, a resurgence of the ascetic ideal, a
cultural broth of bad consciousness. Better to depart in search of the Orgone, he
said to himself, in search of the vital and cosmic element of desire, than to
continue being a psychoanalyst under thos e conditions. No one forgave him this,
whereas Freud got full pardon. Reich was the first to attempt to make the analytic
machine and the revolutionary machine func tion together. In the end, he only had
his own desiring-machines, his paranoiac, miraculous, and celibate boxes, with
metallic inner walls lined with cotton and wool.
Psychic repression distinguishes its elf from social repression by the
unconscious nature of the operation and by its result ("even the inhibition of
revolt has become unconscious"), a distinction that expresses clearly the
difference in nature between the two repressions. But a real independence cannot
be concluded from this. Psyc hic repression is such that social repression becomes
desired; it induces a consequent desire , a faked image of its object, on which it
bestows the appearance of independence. Strictly speaking, psychic repression is
a means in the service of social repression. What it bears on is also the object of
social repression: desiring-production. But it in fact implies an original double
operation: the repressive social formati on delegates its power to an agent of
psychic repression, and correlatively the re pressed desire is as though masked by
the faked displaced image to which the repression gives rise. Psychic repression
is delegated by the social formation, wh ile the desiring-formation is disfigured,
displaced by psychic repression.
The family is the delegated agent of ps ychic repression, or rather the agent
delegated to psychic repression; the incestuous drives are the disfigured image of
the repressed. The Oedipus complex, the process of oedipalization, is therefore
the result of this double operation. It is in one and the same movement that the
repressive social producti on is repl aced by the repressing family, and that the
latter offers a d isplaced image of de siring-production that represents the
repressed as incestuous familial drives. In this way the family/drives relationship
is substituted for the
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIAUSM: THE HOLY FAMILY 119
relationship between the two orders of production, in a diversion where
the whole of psychoanalysis goes astr ay. And the interest of such an
operation, from the point of view of social production, becomes evident,
for the latter could not otherwise ward off desire's potential for revolt
and revolution. By placing the distorting mirror of incest before desire
(that's what you wanted, isn't it?), desire is shamed, stupefied, it is
placed in a situation without exit, it is easily persuaded to deny "itself"
in the name of the more important interests of civilization (what if
everyone did the same, what if everyone married his mother or kept his
sister for himself? there would no longer be any differentiation, any
The Familial Displacement of Desire
- Social production uses the family as a delegated agent to repress desire and prevent potential revolutionary revolt.
- By framing desire through the lens of incest, society shames and stupefies the individual into denying their own productive drives.
- The family unit intercepts the 'genealogical network' of desire, translating complex productive experiences into simple parental relations.
- This 'translation-betrayal' substitutes a familial recording for the actual recording of desire, creating the Oedipal figure as a displaced image.
- Psychic repression relies on the family to superimpose a secondary repression onto the primal repression already present on the body without organs.
The family slips into and interferes with the network of desiring-genealogy; it assumes the task of alienating the entire genealogy; it confiscates the Numen (but see here, God is daddy).
operation, from the point of view of social production, becomes evident,
for the latter could not otherwise ward off desire's potential for revolt
and revolution. By placing the distorting mirror of incest before desire
(that's what you wanted, isn't it?), desire is shamed, stupefied, it is
placed in a situation without exit, it is easily persuaded to deny "itself"
in the name of the more important interests of civilization (what if
everyone did the same, what if everyone married his mother or kept his
sister for himself? there would no longer be any differentiation, any
exchanges possible). We must act quickly and soon. Incest, a slandered
shallow stream.
Although we can see social production's interest in such an
operation, it is less clea r what makes this operation possible from the
point of view of desiring-production itself. We do have, however, the
elements of a response. Social production would need at its disposal, on
the recording surface of the socius, an agent that is also capable of
acting on, of inscribing the recording surface of desire. Such an agent
exists: the family. It belongs essen tially to the recording of social
production, as a system of reproduction of the producers. And doubt-
less, at the other pole, the recording of desiring-production on the body
without organs is brought about through a genealogical network that is
not familial: parents only intervene here as partial objects, flows, signs,
and agents of a process that outflanks them on all sides. At most, the
child innocently "relates" to his parents some part of the astonishing
productive experience he is undergoing with his desire; but this experi-
ence is not related to them as su ch. Yet this is precisely where the
operation arises. Under the precocious action of social repression, the
family slips into and interferes with the network of desiring-genealogy;
it assumes the task of alienating the en tire genealogy; it confiscates the
Numen (but see here, God is daddy). The desiring-experience is treated
as if it were intrinsically related to the parents, and as if the family were
its supreme law. Partial objects are subjected to the notorious law of
totality-unity acting as "lacking." The disjunctions are subjected to the
alternative of the undifferentiated or exclusion.
The family is therefore introduced into the production of desire and
will perform a displacement, an unpa ralleled repression of desire
commencing with the earliest age of the child. Social production
delegates the family to psychic repression. And if the family is able in
this manner to slip into the recording of desire, it is because the body
without organs on which this record ing is accomplished already exer-
cises on its own account, as we have seen, a primal repression of
120 ANTI-OEDIPUS
desiring-production. It falls to the family to profit from this, and to superimpose
the repression that is properly termed secondary, this being a function delegated
to the family or one to which the family is delegated. (Psychoanalysis has clearly
demonstrated the difference between th ese two repressions, but has not shown
the scope of this difference or the dis tinction between their respective regimes.)
That is why psychic repression in the strict sense does not content itself with
repressing real desiring-production, but offe rs a displaced apparent image of the
repressed, by substituting a familial recording for the recording of desire.
Desiring-production taken as a whole doe s not assume the well-known Oedipal
figure except in the familial translation of its recording. Translation-betrayal.
At times we say that Oedipus is nothing, almost nothing (within the order of
desiring-production, even in the child); at other times we say that it is
everywhere (in the enterprise of domesticating the unconscious, of representing
desire and the unconscious). To be sure, we have never dreamed of saying that
The Oedipalization of Desire
- The text argues that psychoanalysis does not invent the Oedipal complex but rather reinforces a pre-existing social and familial recording of desire.
- Desiring-production is naturally active and triumphant, but it is domesticated and repressed into 'daddy-mommy' reactions by powerful social forces.
- Even artists like Stravinsky succumb to this familial translation, interpreting their creative drives as mere reactions to parental affection or neglect.
- The psychoanalyst's office serves as the final 'territoriality' where the unconscious is forced to speak through the transcendent symbols of the Phallus and the Imaginary.
- Oedipus is described as a delegated application of social production used to defeat the aggressive and productive forces of the unconscious.
What they do is merely to make the unconscious speak according to the transcendent uses of synthesis imposed on it by other forces: Global Persons, the Complete Object, the Great Phallus, the Terrible Undifferentiated of the Imaginary, Symbolic Differentiations, Segregation.
repressed, by substituting a familial recording for the recording of desire.
Desiring-production taken as a whole doe s not assume the well-known Oedipal
figure except in the familial translation of its recording. Translation-betrayal.
At times we say that Oedipus is nothing, almost nothing (within the order of
desiring-production, even in the child); at other times we say that it is
everywhere (in the enterprise of domesticating the unconscious, of representing
desire and the unconscious). To be sure, we have never dreamed of saying that
psychoanalysis invented Oedipus. Everything points in the opposite direction:
the subjects of psychoanalysis arrive al ready oedipalized, they demand it, they
want more. News flash: Stravinsky declar es before dying: "My misfortune, I am
sure of it, came from my father's being so distant with me and from the small
amount of affection shown me by my moth er. So I decided that one day I would
show them." If even artists give in to this, it would be a mistake to stand on
ceremony and hold to the ordinary scrupl es of a diligent psychoanalyst. If a
musician tells us that music does not a ttest to active and conquering forces, but
to reactive forces, to reactions to daddy -mommy, we have only to play again on a
paradox dear to Nietzsche, while ba rely modifying it: Freud-as-musician.
No, psychoanalysts invent nothing, though they have invented much in
another way, and have legislated a lot, re inforced a lot, injected a lot. All that
psychoanalysts do is to reinforce the movement; they add a last burst of energy
to the displacement of the entire uncons cious. What they do is merely to make
the unconscious speak according to the transcendent uses of synthesis imposed
on it by other forces: Global Persons, the Co mplete Object, the Great Phallus, the
Terrible Undifferentiated of the Imag inary, Symbolic Differentiations,
Segregation. What psychoanalysts invent is only the transference, a transference
Oedipus, a consulting-room Oedipus of Oedipus, especially noxious and virulent,
but where the subject finally has what he wants, and sucks away at his Oedipus
on the full body of the analyst. And that's already too much. But Oedipus takes
shape in the family, not in the analyst's office, which merely acts as the last
territoriality. And Oedipus is not made by the
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 121
family. The Oedipal uses of synthesis, oedipalization, triangulation cas-
tration, all refer to forces a bit more powerful, a bit moresubterranean than psychoanalysis, than the family, than ideology, even joined to-gether. There we have all the forces of social production, reproduction, and repression. This can be explained by the simple truth that very powerful forces are required to defeat the forces of desire, lead them to resignation, and substitute everywhere reactions of the daddy-mommy type for what is essentially active, aggressive, artistic, productive, and triumphant in the unconscious itself. It is in this sense, as we have seen, that Oedipus is an application, and the family a delegated agent. Even by application it is hard, it is difficult for a child to live and experience himself as an angle,
Cet enfant
il n'est pas là, il n'est qu'un angle, un angle à venir, et il n'y a pas d'angle.... or ce monde du père-mère est justement ce qui doit s'en aller, c'est ce monde dédoublé-double, en état de désunion constante, en volonté d'unification constante aussi.... autour duquel tourne tout le système de ce monde malignement soutenu par la plus sombre organisation.*
8 Neurosis and Psychosis
In 1924 Freud proposed a simple criterion for distinguish-
ing between neurosis and psychosis: in neurosis the ego obeys the
requirements of reality and stands ready to repress the drives of the id,
whereas in psychosis the ego is under the sway of the id, ready to break
with reality. Freud's ideas often took quite some time before making
Neurosis, Psychosis, and Oedipus
- Freud distinguishes neurosis from psychosis based on whether the ego represses the id's drives to obey reality or breaks with reality to obey the id.
- In psychosis, the familial complex often invades consciousness directly, whereas in neurosis, the complex remains repressed and latent.
- The text suggests that while Oedipal themes appear in psychosis, they act as indifferent stimuli rather than as the primary organizers of the patient's reality.
- The 'loss of reality' in psychosis may be an effect of imposing a false Oedipal standard onto a consciousness that is actually invested in social and historical fields.
- Traditional psychiatry and Freudian theory converge on the idea that madness is fundamentally defined by a rupture with the function of the real.
Oedipus simultaneously invades consciousness and dissolves into itself, testifying to its incapacity to be an 'organizer.'
il n'est pas là, il n'est qu'un angle, un angle à venir, et il n'y a pas d'angle.... or ce monde du père-mère est justement ce qui doit s'en aller, c'est ce monde dédoublé-double, en état de désunion constante, en volonté d'unification constante aussi.... autour duquel tourne tout le système de ce monde malignement soutenu par la plus sombre organisation.*
8 Neurosis and Psychosis
In 1924 Freud proposed a simple criterion for distinguish-
ing between neurosis and psychosis: in neurosis the ego obeys the
requirements of reality and stands ready to repress the drives of the id,
whereas in psychosis the ego is under the sway of the id, ready to break
with reality. Freud's ideas often took quite some time before making
their way into France. Not this one, however; that same year Capgras
and Carrette presented a case of schizophrenia with a delusion of
doubles, where the patient manifested a strong hatred for her mother
and an incestuous desire for her father, but under conditions of reality
loss where the parents were lived as false parents or "doubles." From
this they drew the illustration of the inverse relationship: in neurosis the
object function of reality is preserved, but on condition that the causal
*Antonin Artaud, “Ainsi donc la question...,” in Tel Quel , No. 30 (1967). “This child/he is not there,/
he is but an angle,/an angle to come, and there is no angle.... /and yet it is precisely this world
of father-mother which must go away,/it is this world, split in two--doubled/in a state of constant
disunion, also willing a constant unification..../around which turns the entire system of this
world/maliciously sustained by the most somber organization.”
complex be repressed; in psychosis the complex invades consciousness
and becomes its object, at the price of a "repression" that now bears on
reality itself or the function of the real. Doubtless Freud was merely
insisting on the schematic character of the distinction, for the rupture is
also found in neurosis with the return of the repressed (hysterical
amnesia, obsessional cancellation), while in psychosis a regaining of
reality appears along with the delirious reconstruction. The fact remains
that Freud never dropped this simple distinction.56 And it seems
important that, following an original path, Freud encounters again an
idea dear to traditional psychiatry: that madness is fundamentally
linked to a loss of reality. Thus there is a convergence with the psychi -
atric elaboration of the notions of dissociation and autism. Hence the
reason, perhaps, for the rapid diffusion that the Freudian account en -
joyed.
What interests us is the precise role of the Oedipus complex in this
convergence. For if it is true that the familial themes often erupt into
the psychotic consciousness, we would be all the more surprised-in line
with a remark by Lacan--if Oedipus were in fact "discovered" in neuro -
sis where it is supposed to be latent, rather than in psychosis where it is
held to be patent.57 But isn't it true instead that, in psychosis, the famil -
ial complex appears precisely as a stimulus whose quality is a matter of
indifference, a simple inductor not playing the role of organizer, where
the intensive investments of reality bear on something totally different
(the social, historical, and cultural fields)? Oedipus simultaneously in -
vades consciousness and dissolves into itself, testifying to its incapacity
to be an "organizer."
Once this is admitted, it is enough to measure psychosis against this
fuke standard-enough to lead it to this false criterion, Oedipus-to obtain
the loss-of-reality effect. This is not an abstract operation: an Oedipal
"organization" is imposed on the psychotic, though for the sole purpose
The Violence of Oedipalization
- The text argues that the loss of reality in psychosis is not a symptom of the illness itself, but an effect of forcing the Oedipal framework onto the psychotic.
- Oedipalization acts as a repressive interruption of the schizophrenic's 'journey' through social, historical, and cultural fields.
- The schizo reacts to this forced familial organization with autism and a drop in intensity, effectively retreating to a 'body without organs' to escape repression.
- A distinction is drawn between neurotics who tolerate the Oedipal imprint and psychotics who resist this paternalistic deviation.
- The conflict is framed as a clash between two systems: the expansive desiring-machines and the restrictive Oedipal-narcissistic machine.
As though one were constantly bringing back home the person capable of setting whole continents and cultures adrift.
the intensive investments of reality bear on something totally different
(the social, historical, and cultural fields)? Oedipus simultaneously in -
vades consciousness and dissolves into itself, testifying to its incapacity
to be an "organizer."
Once this is admitted, it is enough to measure psychosis against this
fuke standard-enough to lead it to this false criterion, Oedipus-to obtain
the loss-of-reality effect. This is not an abstract operation: an Oedipal
"organization" is imposed on the psychotic, though for the sole purpose
of assigning the lack of this organization in the psychotic, in his very
body. It is an exercise in naked flesh, in the depths of the soul. The psy -
chotic reacts with autism and the loss of reality. Could it be that the loss
of reality is not the effect of the schizophrenic process, but the effect of
its forced oedipalization, that is to say, its interruption? Must we correct
what we were saying a little earlier, and suppose that some tolerate
oedipalization less well than others? Thus the schizo would not be ill
within the Oedipus complex, from an Oedipus arising all the more In
his hallucinated consciousness as he lacked it in the symbolic organiza -
tion of "his" unconscious. On the contrary, he is ill because of the oedi -
palization to which he is made to submit--the most somber
organization--and which he can no longer tolerate: he who has gone on
a distant journey. As though one were constantly bringing back home
the person capable of setting whole continents and cultures adrift. He is
not suffering from a divided self or a shattered Oedipus, but on the
contrary, from having been brought back to everything he had left. A
drop in intensity to the body without organs = 0, autism: the schizo has
no other means of reacting to this blocking of all his investments of
reality, the barriers placed before him by the Oedipal system of social
and psychic repression. As Laing says, they are interrupted in their
journey. They have lost reality But when did they lose it? During the
journey, or during the interruption of the journey?
Hence another possible formulatio n of an inverse relationship:
there would be something like two groups, the psychotics and neurotics,
those who do not tolerate oedipaliza tion, and those who tolerate it and
are even content with it and evol ve within it. Those on whom the
Oedipal imprint does not take, and t hose on whom it does. "I believe my
friends cast off in a group at the start of the New Age, with forces for a
practical explosion that thrust them into a paternalistic deviation that I
find depraved. . . . A second g roup of loners, of which I am a part,
doubtless constituted by centers of collarbones, was deprived of any
possibility of individual success at the moment they were engaged in
laborious studies in innate science. With regard to them, my rebellion
against the paternalism of the first group placed me from the second year
in a socially difficult position that wa s growing more and more suffocat-
ing. So, do you believe these two groups are capable of being joined?! am
not too angry with these bastards of virile paternalism, I am not
vindictive. ... In any case, if I have won, there will be no more str uggles
between the Father and the Son! ... I am speaking of God's people,
naturally, not of those close to Him who take themselves for his
people."58 It is the recording of desire on the increate body without
organs, and the familial recording on the socius, that are in opposition
throughout the two groups. The innate science in psychosis and the
neurotic experimental sc iences. The schizoid excentric circle and the
neurosis triangle.
On a more general level, it is the two kinds of use made of synthesis
that are in opposition. On the one hand there are the desiring-machines,
and on the other the Oedipal-narcissistic machine. In order to under-
The Family and Desiring-Production
- The family acts as a recording mechanism that appropriates and reorganizes the productive forces of desire into an Oedipal-narcissistic machine.
- Through the logic of universal castration, the family distinguishes between what belongs to its internal triangle and what must be rejected or retained.
- The family functions as a site of retention and resonance, attempting to muffle or direct the deviant cuts and breaks introduced by desiring-machines.
- Neurosis and psychosis cannot be simply divided into intra-oedipal and extra-oedipal categories, as the two groups are fundamentally intertwined through these syntheses.
- The family operates as a biological and social filter, teaching the individual which elements of production to reject and which to direct toward reproducible differentiation.
The family is at the same time an anus that retains, a voice that resounds, and a mouth that consumes: its very own three syntheses, since it is a matter of connecting desire to the ready-made objects of social production.
people."58 It is the recording of desire on the increate body without
organs, and the familial recording on the socius, that are in opposition
throughout the two groups. The innate science in psychosis and the
neurotic experimental sc iences. The schizoid excentric circle and the
neurosis triangle.
On a more general level, it is the two kinds of use made of synthesis
that are in opposition. On the one hand there are the desiring-machines,
and on the other the Oedipal-narcissistic machine. In order to under-
stand the details of this struggle, it must be borne in mind that the family
relentlessly operates on desiring-pr oduction. Inscribing itself into the
recording process of desire, clutching at everything, the family performs
a vast appropriation of the productive forces; it displaces and reorganizes
in its own fashion the entirety of th e connections and the hiatuses that
characterize the machines of desire. It reorganizes them all along the
lines of the universal castration that conditions the family itself ("a dead
124 ANTI-OEDIPUS
rat's ass," said Artaud, "suspended fro m the ceiling of the sky"), but it
also redistributes these breaks in accordance with its own laws and the
requirements of social production. The inscription performed by the
family follows the pattern of its tria ngle, by distinguishing what belongs
to the family from what does not. It also cuts inwardly, along the lines of
differentiation that form global persons: there's daddy, there's mommy,
there you are, and then there's your si ster. Cut into the flow of milk here,
it's your brother's turn, don't take a cr ap here, cut into the stream of shit
over there. Retention is the primary function of the family: it is a matter
of learning what elements of desi ring-production the family is going to
reject, what it is going to retain, wh at it is going to direct along the
dead-end roads leading to its own undifferentiated (the miasma), and
what on the contrary it is going to lead down the paths of a contagious
and reproduceable differentiation. Fo r the family creates at the same
time its disgraces and its honors, th e nondifferentiation of its neurosis
and the differentiation of its ideal, which are distinguishable only in
appearance.
While this is taking place, what is desiring-production doing? The
retained elements do not enter into the new use of synthesis that
imposes such a profound change on them without causing the whole
triangle to reverberate. The desiring-machines are at the door, they
make everything shake when they enter. Moreover, what does not enter
causes perhaps even more vibrations to be felt. The desiring-machines
reintroduce or attempt to reintroduce their deviant cuts and breaks. The
child feels the task required of him. But what is to be put into the
triangle, how are selections to be made? The father's nose or the
mother's ear—will that do, can that be retained, will that constitute a
good Oedipal incision? And the bicycle horn? What is part of the family?
It is the triangle's job to vibrate, to resonate, under the pressure of what
it retains as much as what it thrusts aside. Resonance—here again, either
muffled or public, disgraceful or proud—is the family's second function.
The family is at the same time an anus that retains, a voice that
resounds, and a mouth that consumes : its very own three syntheses,
since it is a matter of connecting desire to the ready-made objects of
social production. Go buy madeleines in Combray if you really want to
feel the vibrations.
We now come to the realization that the simple opposition between
the two groups is inadequate, an opposition that would allow one to
define neurosis as an intra-oedipal disorder, and psychosis as an
extra-oedipal escape. It is not even enough to state that the two groups
are "capable of being joined." Rather it is the possibility of discriminat-
ing directly between the two that creates the difficulty. How can we
The Undecidability of Oedipus
- The traditional distinction between neurosis as an intra-oedipal disorder and psychosis as an extra-oedipal escape is challenged as inadequate.
- Oedipus is described as strictly undecidable because it is impossible to distinguish where familial reproduction ends and desiring-production begins.
- The text argues that fantasies are frontier phenomena that can either reinforce the Oedipal genealogy or facilitate a non-oedipal breakthrough.
- Desiring-production is identified as the ultimate cause of both neurotic reverberations and the psychotic subversions that shatter the Oedipal triangle.
- The schizo accepts the reduction of everything to the mother only because they can use that point to launch into more intense, non-human regions.
The Oedipal triangle vibrates and trembles, but is this in terms of the hold over the machines of desire that it constantly guarantees itself, or in terms of these machines that escape the Oedipal imprint and cause the triangle to release its grip?
social production. Go buy madeleines in Combray if you really want to
feel the vibrations.
We now come to the realization that the simple opposition between
the two groups is inadequate, an opposition that would allow one to
define neurosis as an intra-oedipal disorder, and psychosis as an
extra-oedipal escape. It is not even enough to state that the two groups
are "capable of being joined." Rather it is the possibility of discriminat-
ing directly between the two that creates the difficulty. How can we
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMIL1ALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 12S
distinguish between the pressure th at familial reproduction exercises on
desiring-production, and the pressure that desiring-production exercises
on familial reproduction? The Oedipal triangle vibrates and trembles,
but is this in terms of the hold over the machines of desire that it
constantly guarantees itself, or in terms of these machines that escape
the Oedipal imprint and cause the triangle to release its grip? Where
does the resonance of the triangle reach its limit? A familial romance
expresses an effort to save the Oedipal genealogy, but it also expresses a
free thrust of non-oedipal genealogy. Fantasies are never pregnant
forms, but border or front ier phenomena ready to cross over to one side
or the other. In short, Oedipus is strictly undecidable. It can be found
everywhere all the more readily for being undecidable, and in this sense
it is correct to say that Oedipus is strictly good for nothing.
Let us turn to the beautiful story of Gerard de Nerval: he wants
Aurelie, his fondest love, to be the same as Adrienne, the little girl of his
childhood; he "perceives" them as identical.59 And Aurelie and Adri-
enne, both in one, are his mother. Will it be said that the identification as
"a perceptual identity" is here a sign of psychosis? One then encounters
the criterion of reality: the complex invades the psychotic conscious-
ness only at the price of a rupture with the real, whereas in neurosis the
identity remains that of unconscious representations and does not
compromise perception. But what is there to gain from inscribing
everything in Oedipus, even psychosis? One step further and Aurelie,
Adrienne, and the mother are the Virgin. Nerval seeks the point where
the vibration of the triangle is at its limit. "You are simply seeking for
drama," says Aurelie. Everything is not inscribed in Oedipus without
everything at its extreme fleeing beyond the reach of Oedipus. These
identifications were not identificati ons with persons from the viewpoint
of perception, but identifications of names with regions of intensity that
provide the impetus toward other still more intense regions, stimuli of
one sort or another that set in motio n another journey altogether, stases
that prepare for other breakthroughs, other movements where the
mother is no longer encountered, but the Virgin and God: "And twice I
have crossed and conquered the Acheron."60 Thus the schizo will accept
the reduction of everything to the mother, since it is of no importance
whatsoever: he is sure of being able to make everything rise again from
the mother, and to keep for his own secret use all the Virgins that had
been placed there.
Everything can be converted into neurosis, or warped out of shape
into psychosis: it is therefore not in this fashion that the question must
be posed. It would be inaccurate to maintain an Oedipal interpretation
for the neuroses, and to reserve an extra-oedipal explanation for the
12 S A N T I - O E D I P U S
psychoses. There are not two groups, there is no difference in nature
between neuroses and psychoses. For in any case desiring-produc tion is
the cause, the ultimate cause of both the psychotic subversions that
shatter Oedipus or overwhelm it, and of the neurotic reverberations that
constitute it. Such a principle takes on its full meaning if it is related to
Desiring-Production and the Actual Factor
- The authors argue that there is no fundamental difference in nature between neuroses and psychoses, as both are caused by desiring-production.
- Psychoanalysis struggles to evaluate 'actual factors'—social, somatic, or metaphysical realities—without reducing them to infantile familial complexes.
- Even radical thinkers like Wilhelm Reich are criticized for maintaining a diffuse oedipalism by treating social factors as mere secondary triggers for old conflicts.
- The text critiques the psychoanalytic tendency to internalize external social iniquities, turning real-world oppression into subjective internal disorders.
- The authors suggest that Oedipus serves as a 'fountainhead' where analysts can ignore the world's systemic injustices by focusing on the family unit.
Oedipus, the fountainhead where the psychoanalyst washes his hands of the world's iniquities.
be posed. It would be inaccurate to maintain an Oedipal interpretation
for the neuroses, and to reserve an extra-oedipal explanation for the
12 S A N T I - O E D I P U S
psychoses. There are not two groups, there is no difference in nature
between neuroses and psychoses. For in any case desiring-produc tion is
the cause, the ultimate cause of both the psychotic subversions that
shatter Oedipus or overwhelm it, and of the neurotic reverberations that
constitute it. Such a principle takes on its full meaning if it is related to
the problem of "actual factors." One of the most important points of
psychoanalysis was the evaluation of the role of these actual factors,
even in neurosis, insofar as they are distinguishable from the familial
infantile factors; all the major dissens ions were linked to this evaluation.
The difficulties bore on several aspects. First, the nature of these factors:
were they somatic, social, metaphysical? Were they the famous
"problems of living," through which a very pure desexualized idealism
was reintroduced into psychoanalysis? In the second place, the modality
of these factors: did they act in a negative, privative fashion, by mere
frustration? Finally, their moment, their own time: was it not
self-evident that the actual factor arose afterward, and signified "recent,"
in opposition to the infantile or th e oldest factor that could be
sufficiently explained by the familial complex? Even a writer like
Reich—so careful to situate desire in relation to the forms of social
production, demonstrating thereby that there is no psychoneurosis that is
not also an actual neurosis—continues to present the actual factors as
acting by means of a repressive depriv ation (the "sexual stasis") and as
arising afterward. Which leads him to maintain a kind of diffuse
oedipalism, since the stasis or the act ual privative factor only defines the
energy of the neurosis, but not the content that for its own part refers to
the infantile Oedipal conflict, this old conflict becoming reactivated by
the actual stasis.*
But the oedipalists are not saying anything different from this when
they remark that an actual depriv ation or frustration cannot be experi-
enced except in the midst of an older internal qualitative conflict, which
blocks not merely the roads prohibited by reality, but also those that
reality leaves open and that the ego forbids itself in its turn (the
double-impasse formula): "Could one find examples [illustrating the
diagram of actual neuroses] in th e prisoner or the concentration-camp
victim or the worker harassed by work? It is not certain that they would
furnish a large quota. . . . Our systematic tendency is not to accept the
evident iniquities of reality without taking stock of them, without trying
to disclose in what sense the disorder of the world is manifested in the
subjective disorder, even if it is, with the passing of time, inscribed
*Reich, The Function of the Orgasm, p. 112: "All neurotic fantasies can be traced back to the child's early
sexual relationship to the parents. However, if it were not continually nourished by the contemporary stasis
of excitation which It initially produced, the child-parent conflict could not by itself cause a permanent
disturbance of the psychic equilibrium."
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMIUALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 127
within more or less irreversible structures."61 We understand this
sentence, but can't help finding its tone disturbing. The following choice
is imposed on us: either the actual factor is conceived in a totally
exterior privative fashion (which is an impossibility), or it descends into
an internal qualitative conflict that is necessarily understood in relation
to Oedipus. (Oedipus, the fountainhead where the psychoanalyst washes
his hands of the world's iniquities.)
In an altogether different direction, if we consider the idealist
Desiring-Production vs. Oedipal Myths
- The text critiques psychoanalysis for reducing all internal qualitative conflicts to the framework of the Oedipus complex.
- Jung's attempt to move beyond Oedipus through archetypes is viewed as merely replacing analytical regression with anagogical idealism.
- The authors reject the chronological division of psychoanalytic methods, such as Jung's proposal that different theories apply to different stages of life.
- The true cause of psychological disorders is located in 'desiring-production' and its complex relationship with social production.
- Oedipus is presented not as a primary structure, but as a secondary inductor that depends entirely on the pre-existing organization of desire.
Oedipus, the fountainhead where the psychoanalyst washes his hands of the world's iniquities.
within more or less irreversible structures."61 We understand this
sentence, but can't help finding its tone disturbing. The following choice
is imposed on us: either the actual factor is conceived in a totally
exterior privative fashion (which is an impossibility), or it descends into
an internal qualitative conflict that is necessarily understood in relation
to Oedipus. (Oedipus, the fountainhead where the psychoanalyst washes
his hands of the world's iniquities.)
In an altogether different direction, if we consider the idealist
deviations of psychoanal ysis, we see in them an interesting attempt at
giving the actual factors a status othe r than ulterior or privative. This
came about as two concerns were f ound to be linked in an apparent
paradox, for example in Jung: the concern for curtailing the interminable
cure by addressing oneself to the present or actual state of the disorder,
and the concern for going further than Oedipus, even further than the
pre-oedipal, for going much further back—as if what was most actual
was also the most primary, the shor test, the furthest removed.* Jung
presents his archetypes as actual factors that extend in fact beyond the
familial images in the transference, as well as being archaic factors
infinitely older and from an order of time which is not that of the
infantile factors themselves. But nothing has been gained thereby, since
the actual factor ceases to be privative only provided it enjoys the rights
of the Ideal, and does not cease to be an afterward except by becoming a
beyond, which must be signified anagogically by Oedipus instead of
depending on it analytically. This necessarily results in the
reintroduc-tion of the afterward in the temporal difference, as the
astonishing distribution proposed by Jung attests: for the young, whose
problems concern the family and love, Freud's method! For those less
young, whose problems have to do with social adaptation, Adler! And
Jung for the adults and the old people, whose problems have to do with
the Ideal.62 And we have seen what remains common to Freud and Jung:
the unconscious always measured ag ainst myths (and not against the
units of production), although the m easuring is done in two contrary
directions. But what does it matter, after all, if morality or religion find
an analytical and regressive meaning in Oedipus, or if Oedipus finds an
anagogical and prospec tive meaning in morality or religion?
We maintain that the cause of the disorder, neurosis or psychosis, is
always in desiring-production, in its relation to social production, in their
*The same remark applies to Otto Rank: the birth trauma not only implies going further back than Oedipus,
and the pre-oedipal phase, but should also be a means for shortening the cure. Fre ud notes with bitterness in
the beginning of "Analysis Terminable and Interminab le": "Rank hoped that if this primal trauma were
dealt with by a subsequent analysis the whole neurosis would be got rid of. Thus this one small piece of
analytic work would save the necessity for all the rest."
128 ANTI-OEDIPUS
different or conflicting regimes, a nd the modes of investment that
desiring-production performs in the system of social production. The actual
factor is desiri ng-production insofar as it is caught up in this relationship, this
conflict, and these modalities. Nor is this factor either ulterior or privative. Being
constitutive of the full life of desire, it is contemporar y with the most tender age,
and it accompanies this life with every step . It does not arise after Oedipus, it in
no way presupposes an Oedipal organization, nor a pre-oedipal preorganization.
On the contrary, it is Oedipus that depends on de siring-production, either as a
stimulus of one for m or another, a si mple inductor through which the anoedipal
organization of desiring-production is fo rmed, beginning with early chil dhood,
The Virtual Oedipus
- Desiring-production is an actual, constitutive force that exists from early childhood and is not preceded by Oedipal structures.
- The Oedipus complex is described as a virtual, reactional formation that depends entirely on the repression of desiring-production.
- Psychoanalysis is criticized for trapping itself within the 'artificially closed vessel' of Oedipus, treating it as an isolated abstraction.
- The concept of regression is challenged, suggesting that psychic states are always actual effectuations of desire rather than returns to past stages.
- Innovative therapists like Gisela Pankow and Bruno Bettelheim are cited for moving beyond symbolic satisfaction toward direct engagement with the schizophrenic process.
It is like a Cartesian devil; the regressions and progressions are made only within the artificially closed vessel of Oedipus.
factor is desiri ng-production insofar as it is caught up in this relationship, this
conflict, and these modalities. Nor is this factor either ulterior or privative. Being
constitutive of the full life of desire, it is contemporar y with the most tender age,
and it accompanies this life with every step . It does not arise after Oedipus, it in
no way presupposes an Oedipal organization, nor a pre-oedipal preorganization.
On the contrary, it is Oedipus that depends on de siring-production, either as a
stimulus of one for m or another, a si mple inductor through which the anoedipal
organization of desiring-production is fo rmed, beginning with early chil dhood,
or as an effect of the psychic and social repression impose d on
desiring-production by social repr oduction by means of the family. The term
"actual" is not used because it designate s what is most recent, and because it
would be opposed to "former" or "infantile"; it is used in terms of its difference
with respect to "virtual." And it is the Oedipus complex that is virtual, either
inasmuch as it must be actualized in a ne urotic formation as a derived effect of
the actual factor, or inasmuch as it is dismembered and dissolved in a psychotic
formation as the direct effect of this same factor. It is indeed in this sense that the
idea of the afterward seemed to us to be a final paralogism in psychoanalytic
theory and practice; active desiring-producti on, in its very process, invests from
the beginning a constellation of somatic, social, and metaphysical relations that
do not follow after Oedipal psychological re lations, but that on the contrary will
be applied to the underlying Oedipal constellati on defined by reac tion, or else
will exclude this constellation from the field of investment constituting their
activity. Undecidable, virtual, reactive or reactional (reactionnel), such is Oedi-
pus. It is only a reactional formation, a formation that results from a reaction to
desiring-production. It is a serious mistake to consider this formation in isolation,
abstractly, independently of the actual factor that coexists with it and to which it
reacts.
Yet this is what psychoanalysis does when it closets itself in Oedipus, and
determines its progressions and regressi ons in terms of Oedipus, or even in
relationship to it: thus the idea of pre-oe dipal regression, by means of which one
sometimes attempts to characterize psychos is. It is like a Cartesian devil;* the
regressions and progressions are made onl y within the artificially closed vessel
of Oedipus, and in
*A Cartesian devil, or bottle imp, is a small hollow glass figure used in physics. Immersed in a closed
vessel of water, it can be made to ri se or sink by varying the pressure, and hence the amount of water in the
figure. (Translators'note.)
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMIUALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 129
reality depend on a state of forces that is changing, yet always actual
and contemporary, within anoedipal desiring-production.
Desiring-production has solely an ac tual existence; progressions and
regressions are merely the effectuati ons of a virtually that is always
fulfilled as perfectly as it can be by virtue of the states of desire. Rarely
have psychiatrists and psychoanalysts been able to establish a really
inspired direct relationship with either child or adult schizophrenics;
Gisela Pankow and Bruno Bettelheim break new ground in this area by
the force of their theory and the efficacy of their therapy. It is not by
chance that both of them call into question the notion of regression.
Taking the example of the bodily cares administered to a
schizophrenic—massages, baths, swathings—Gisela Pankow asks if it is
a matter of reaching the invalid at the point of his regression, in order to
give him indirect symbolic satisfacti ons that would allow him to resume
a progression, to take up a progressive pace. It is not at all a question,
Schizophrenia as Process and Limit
- Gisela Pankow and Bruno Bettelheim challenge the concept of regression, arguing that therapy should focus on recognizing unconscious desire rather than satisfying it.
- Schizophrenia is defined as a process of desiring-production that represents the limit of social production under the conditions of capitalism.
- The schizo's journey is described as a stationary voyage in intensity, navigating the 'desert' of the body without organs to produce a flow of acting forces.
- The text posits that there is no difference in nature between neurosis and psychosis, as neither can be truly explained through the lens of Oedipus.
- The figure of the schizo emerges as a 'man of desire' who has ceased to be afraid and can finally act in his own name without seeking permission.
For here is the desert propagated by our world, and also the new earth, and the machine that hums, around which the schizos revolve, planets for a new sun.
Gisela Pankow and Bruno Bettelheim break new ground in this area by
the force of their theory and the efficacy of their therapy. It is not by
chance that both of them call into question the notion of regression.
Taking the example of the bodily cares administered to a
schizophrenic—massages, baths, swathings—Gisela Pankow asks if it is
a matter of reaching the invalid at the point of his regression, in order to
give him indirect symbolic satisfacti ons that would allow him to resume
a progression, to take up a progressive pace. It is not at all a question,
she says, "of administering care that the schizophrenic presumably did
not receive when he was a baby. It is a question of giving the patient
tactile and other bodily sensations that lead him to a recognition of the
limits of his body. ... It is a question of the recognition of an
unconscious desire, and not of this desire's satisfaction."63 Recognizing
the desire is tantamount to setting desiring-production back into motion
on the body without organs, in the very place to which the schizo had
retreated in order to silence and suffocate this production. This
recognition of desire, this position of de sire, this"Sign refers to an order
of real and actual productivity that is not to be confused with an indirect
or symbolic satisfaction, and that, in its stops as in its starts, is as
distinct from a pre-oedipal regressi on as from a progressive restoration
of Oedipus.
The Process
Between neurosis and psychosis there is no difference in
nature, species, or group. Neurosis can no more be explained oedipally
than can psychosis. It is rather th e contrary; neurosis explains Oedipus.
Then how do we conceive of the relationship between psychosis and
neurosis? Everything changes dependi ng on whether we call psychosis
the process itself, or on the contrary, an interruption of the process (and
what type of interruption?). Schizophrenia as a process is
desiring-production, but it is this production as it functions at the end, as
the limit of social production determined by the conditions of capitalism.
It is our very own "malady," modern man's sickness. The end of history
has no other meaning. In it the two meanings of process meet, as the
movement of social production that goes to the very extremes of its
deterritorializa-
ANTI-OEDIPUS
tion, and as the movement of me taphysical production that carries
desire along with it and reproduces it in a new Earth. "The desert grows
. . . the sign is near." The schizo carries along the decoded flows, makes
them traverse the desert of the body without organs, where he installs
his desiring-machines and produces a perpetual outflow of acting forces.
He has crossed over the limit, the schiz, which maintained the
production of desire always at the margins of social production,
tangential and always repelled.
The schizo knows how to leave: he has made departure into
something as simple as being born or dying. But at the same time his
journey is strangely stationary, in pl ace. He does not speak of another
world, he is not from another world: even when he is displacing himself
in space, his is a journey in intensity, around the desiring-machine that is
erected here and remains here. For here is the desert propagated by our
world, and also the new earth, and the machine that hums, around which
the schizos revolve, planets for a new sun. These men of desire—or do
they not yet exist?—are like Zarathustra. They know incredible suffer-
ings, vertigos, and sicknesses. They have their specters. They must
reinvent each gesture. But such a man produces himself as a free man,
irresponsible, solitary, and joyous, finally able to say and do something
simple in his own name, without as king permission; a desire lacking
nothing, a flux that overcomes barrier s and codes, a name that no longer
designates any ego whatever. He has simply ceased being afraid of
Madness as Breakthrough
- The text describes a 'journey in intensity' where the subject reinvents every gesture to become a free, solitary, and joyous man who has ceased to fear madness.
- Psychiatry and psychoanalysis are criticized for their 'familialism' and for failing to understand madness as a potential process of fulfillment.
- R.D. Laing's perspective is highlighted, suggesting that what we call schizophrenia may actually be light breaking through the cracks of closed minds.
- True sanity is presented as requiring the dissolution of the normal ego, while our current 'sanity' is viewed as a form of pseudo-sanity or alienation.
- The artistic evolution of Turner is used as an analogy for scaling the wall of the ego and allowing flows of intensity to pass through the self.
Madness need not be all breakdown. It may also be breakthrough.
something as simple as being born or dying. But at the same time his
journey is strangely stationary, in pl ace. He does not speak of another
world, he is not from another world: even when he is displacing himself
in space, his is a journey in intensity, around the desiring-machine that is
erected here and remains here. For here is the desert propagated by our
world, and also the new earth, and the machine that hums, around which
the schizos revolve, planets for a new sun. These men of desire—or do
they not yet exist?—are like Zarathustra. They know incredible suffer-
ings, vertigos, and sicknesses. They have their specters. They must
reinvent each gesture. But such a man produces himself as a free man,
irresponsible, solitary, and joyous, finally able to say and do something
simple in his own name, without as king permission; a desire lacking
nothing, a flux that overcomes barrier s and codes, a name that no longer
designates any ego whatever. He has simply ceased being afraid of
becoming mad. He experiences and liv es himself as the sublime sickness
that will no longer affect him. Here , what is, what would a psychiatrist
be worth?
In the whole of psychiatry only Jaspers, then Laing have grasped
what process signified, and its fulfillment—and so escaped the
familial-ism that is the ordinary bed and board of psychoanalysis and
psychiatry. "If the human race survives, future men will, I suspect, look
back on our enlightened epoch as a veritable age of Darkness. They will
presumably be able to savor the irony of this situation with more
amusement than we can extract from it. The laugh's on us. They will see
that what we call 'schizophrenia' was one of the forms in which, often
through quite ordinary people, the light began to break through the
cracks in our all-too-closed minds . . . . Madness need not be all
breakdown. It may also be breakthrough. . . . The person going through
ego-loss or transcendental experiences may or may not become in
different ways confused. Then he might legitimately be regarded as mad.
But to be mad is not necessarily to be ill, notwithstanding that in our
culture the two categories have become confused. . . . From the
alienated starting point of our pse udo-sanity, everything is equivocal.
Our sanity is not 'true'
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMIL1ALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 131
sanity. Their madness is not 'tru e' madness. The madness of our
patients is an artifact of the destruction wreaked on them by us and by
them on themselves. Let no one suppose that we meet 'true' madness
any more than that we are truly sane . The madness that we encounter in
'patients' is a gross travesty, a mockery, a grotesque caricature of what
the natural healing of that estranged integration we call sanity might be.
True sanity entails in one way or another the dissolution of the normal
ego."*
The visit to London is our visit to Pythia. Turner is there. Looking
at his paintings, one understands what it means to scale the wall, and yet
to remain behind; to cause flows to pass through, without knowing any
longer whether they are carrying us elsewhere or flowing back over us
already. The paintings range over three periods. If the psychiatrist were
allowed to speak here, he could talk about the first two, although they
are in fact the most reasonable. The first canvases are of
end-of-the-world catastrophes, aval anches, and storms. That's where
Turner begins. The paintings of the second period are somewhat like the
delirious reconstruction, where the delirium hides, or rather where it is
on a par with a lofty technique inheri ted from Poussin, Lorrain, or the
Dutch tradition: the world is reconstructed through archaisms having a
modern function. But something incomparable happens at the level of
The Schizophrenic Breakthrough in Art
- The evolution of Turner's painting culminates in a third, secret period where the canvas is sundered by a hole, a flame, or a tornado.
- This artistic progression represents a breakthrough rather than a breakdown, moving beyond traditional techniques into an ageless, eternal future.
- Anglo-American literature from Lawrence to Kerouac is characterized by the ability to scramble codes and traverse the 'desert of the body without organs.'
- While these creators often face neurotic impasses or social co-option, their works maintain a schizophrenic flow that resists the capitalist barrier.
- True literary greatness is found when an author traces flows that split the order of the signifier and escape ideological containment.
The canvas is truly broken, sundered by what penetrates it.
allowed to speak here, he could talk about the first two, although they
are in fact the most reasonable. The first canvases are of
end-of-the-world catastrophes, aval anches, and storms. That's where
Turner begins. The paintings of the second period are somewhat like the
delirious reconstruction, where the delirium hides, or rather where it is
on a par with a lofty technique inheri ted from Poussin, Lorrain, or the
Dutch tradition: the world is reconstructed through archaisms having a
modern function. But something incomparable happens at the level of
the paintings of the third period, in the series Turner does not exhibit,
but keeps secret. It cannot even be said that he is far ahead of his time:
there is here something ageless, and that comes to us from an eternal
future, or flees toward it. The canvas turns in on itself, it is pierced by a
hole, a lake, a flame, a tornado, an explosion. The themes of the
preceding paintings are to be found again here , their meaning changed.
The canvas is truly broken, sundered by what penetrates it. All that
remains is a background of gold and fog, intense, intensive, traversed in
depth by what has just sundered its breadth: the schiz. Everything
becomes mixed and confused, and it is here that the breakthrough—not
the breakdown—occurs.
Strange Anglo-American literature: from Thomas Hardy, from D. H.
Lawrence to Malcolm Lowry, from Henry Miller to Allen Ginsberg and
Jack Kerouac, men who know how to leave, to scramble the codes,
*Laing, The Politics of Ex perience, pp. 129, 133, 138, 144. In a closely connected sense Michel Foucault
announced: "Perhaps one day one will no longer know clear ly what madness really was. . . . Artaud will
belong to the ground of our language, and not to its rupt ure. . . . Everything that we experience today in the
mode of the limit, or of strangeness, or of the unbearable, will have joined again with the serenity of the
positive. And what for us currently designates this Exterior stands a chance, one day of designating us. . - .
Madness is breaking its kinship ties with mental illness, . . . madness and mental illness are ceasing to
belong to the same anthropological entity" ("La folie, ['absence d'oeuvre," La Table ronde, May 1964).
132 ANTI-OEDIPUS
to cause flows to circulate, to trav erse the desert of the body without
organs. They overcome a limit, they shatter a wall, the capitalist barrier.
And of course they fail to complete the process, they never cease failing
to do so. The neurotic impasse ag ain closes—the daddy-mommy of
oedipalization, America, the return to the native land—or else the
perversion of the exotic territoria lities, then drugs, alcohol—or worse
still, an old fascist dream. Never has delirium oscillated more between
its two poles. But through the impasses and the triangles a schizophrenic
flow moves, irresistibly; sperm, rive r, drainage, inflamed genital mucus,
or a stream of words that do not let themselves be coded, a libido that is
too fluid, too viscous: a violence ag ainst syntax, a concerted destruction
of the signifier, non-sense erected as a flow, polyvocity that returns to
haunt all relations. How poorly the problem of literature is put, starting
from the ideology that it bears, or from the co-option of it by a social
order. People are co-opted, not works, which will always come to awake
a sleeping youth, and which never c ease extending their flame. As for
ideology, it is the most confused noti on because it keeps us from seizing
the relationship of the literary machine with a field of production, and
the moment when the emitted sign breaks through this "form of the
content" that was attempting to maintain the sign within the order of the
signifier. Yet it has been a long time since Engels demonstrated, already
apropos of Balzac, how an author is great because he cannot prevent
himself from tracing flows and causing them to circulate, flows that split
Literature as Schizophrenic Process
- The text argues that true literature is a production of desire rather than a mere expression of ideology or signifying codes.
- Style is redefined as the moment language breaks through grammar and syntax to become a flow that explodes established orders.
- Oedipalization serves as a tool of the established order to reduce literature to a safe, consumable object of neurosis and sublimation.
- The author posits that great literary voices speak from the depths of psychosis to create revolutionary breakthroughs in language.
- Established literature often acts as its own superego, policing the boundaries of acceptable expression to prevent radical 'errors of tact'.
For literature is like schizophrenia: a process and not a goal, a production and not an expression.
a sleeping youth, and which never c ease extending their flame. As for
ideology, it is the most confused noti on because it keeps us from seizing
the relationship of the literary machine with a field of production, and
the moment when the emitted sign breaks through this "form of the
content" that was attempting to maintain the sign within the order of the
signifier. Yet it has been a long time since Engels demonstrated, already
apropos of Balzac, how an author is great because he cannot prevent
himself from tracing flows and causing them to circulate, flows that split
asunder the catholic and despotic signifier of his work, and that
necessarily nourish a revolutionary machine on the horizon. That is
what style is, or rather the absence of style—asyntactic, agrammatical:
the moment when language is no longe r defined by what it says, even
less by what makes it a signifying thing, but by what causes it to move,
to flow, and to explode—desire. For literature is like schizophrenia: a
process and not a goal, a production and not an expression.
Here again, oedipalizat ion is one of the most important factors in
the reduction of literature to an object of consumption conforming to
the established order, and incapable of causing anyone harm. It is not a
question here of the personal oedi palization of the author and his
readers, but of the Oedipai form to which one attempts to enslave the
work itself, to make of it this minor expressive activity that secretes
ideology according to the dominant codes. The work of art is supposed
to inscribe itself in this fashion between the two poles of Oedipus,
problem and solution, neurosis and sublimation, desire and truth—the
one regressive, where the work ha shes out and redistributes the
nonresolved conflicts of childhood, and the other prospective, by which
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 133
the work invents the paths leading towa rd a new solution concerning the future
of man. It is said that the work is constituted by a conversion interior to itself as
"cultural object." From this point of view, there is no longer even any need for
applying psychoanalysis to the work of art, since the work itself constitutes a
successful psychoanalysis, a sublime "tra nsference" with exemplary collective
virtualities. The hypocritical warning re sounds: a little neurosis is good for the
work of art, good material, but not psychosis, especially not psychosis; we draw
a line between the eventually creative neur otic aspect, and the psychotic aspect,
alienating and destructive. As if th e great voices, which were capable of
performing a breakthrough in grammar a nd syntax, and of making all language a
desire, were not speaking from the depths of psychosis, and as if they were not
demonstrating for our benefit an eminen tly psychotic and revolutionary means
of escape.
It is correct to measure established literature against an Oedipal
psychoanalysis, for this literature deploy s a form of superego proper to it, even
more noxious than the nonwritten superego. Oedipus is in fact literary before
being psychoanalytic. There will always be a Breton against Artaud, a Goethe
against Lenz, a Schiller against Holderlin , in order to superegoize literature and
tell us: Careful, go no further! No "errors for lack of tact"! Werther yes, Lenz
no! The Oedipal form of literature is its commodity form. We are free to think
that there is finally even less dishonesty in psychoanalysis than in the established
literature, since the neurotic pure a nd simple produces a solitary work,
irresponsible, illegible, and nonmarketable , which on the contrary must pay not
Artaud and the Schizophrenic Wall
- The text argues that established literature acts as a superego that suppresses radical expression in favor of marketable, Oedipal forms.
- True literature is defined as a process that 'ploughs the crap of being' and acts as an explosive device against market values and linguistic norms.
- The authors reject the binary that Artaud must be either a literary genius or a schizophrenic, asserting instead that his power comes precisely from being both.
- Psychiatry and literary criticism are accused of using the 'signifier' and 'castration' to domesticate desire and prevent a breakthrough of the schizophrenic limit.
- Most people recoil from the 'schizophrenic wall,' choosing instead to retreat into the safety of Oedipal triangulation and social reproduction.
The only literature is that which places an explosive device in its package, fabricating a counterfeit currency, causing the superego and its form of expression to explode.
being psychoanalytic. There will always be a Breton against Artaud, a Goethe
against Lenz, a Schiller against Holderlin , in order to superegoize literature and
tell us: Careful, go no further! No "errors for lack of tact"! Werther yes, Lenz
no! The Oedipal form of literature is its commodity form. We are free to think
that there is finally even less dishonesty in psychoanalysis than in the established
literature, since the neurotic pure a nd simple produces a solitary work,
irresponsible, illegible, and nonmarketable , which on the contrary must pay not
only to be read, but to be translated a nd reduced. He makes at least an economic
error, an error in tact, and does not spread his values. Artaud puts it well: all
writing is so much pig shit—that is to sa y, any literature that takes itself as an
end or sets ends for itself, instead of being a process that "ploughs the crap of
being and its language," transports the weak, the aphasiacs, the illiterate. At least
spare us sublimation. Every writer is a se llout. The only literature is that which
places an explosive device in its packag e, fabricating a counterfeit currency,
causing the superego and its form of e xpression to explode, as. well as the
market value of its form of content.
But some reply: Artaud does not belong to the realm of literature, he is
outside it because he is schizophrenic. Ot hers retort: he is not schizophrenic,
since he belongs to literature, and the most important literature at that, the
textual. Both groups hold at least one th ing in common; they subscribe to the
same puerile and reactionary conception of schizophrenia, and the same
marketable neurotic conception of
134 ANTI-OEDIPUS
literature. A shrewd critic writes: one n eed understand nothing of the concept of
the signifier "in order to declare absolute ly that Artaud's language is that of a
schizophrenic; the psychotic produces an involuntary discourse, fettered,
subjugated: therefore in all respects the contrary of textual writing." But what is
this enormous textual archaism, the signifi er, that subjects literature to the mark
of castration and sanctifies the two asp ects of its Oedipal form? And who told
this shrewd critic that the discourse of the psychotic was "involuntary, fettered,
subjugated"? Not that it is more nearly the opposite, thank God. But these very
oppositions are singularly lacking in relevance. Artaud makes a sham bles of
psychiatry, precisely because he is sc hizophrenic an d not because he is not.
Artaud is the fulfillment of literature, pr ecisely because he is schizophrenic and
not because he is not. It has been a l ong time since he broke down the wall of the
signifier: Artaud the Schizo. From the dept hs of his suffering and his glory, he
has the right to denounce what society make s of the psychotic in the process of
decoding the flows of desire (Van Gogh, the Man S uicided by Society), but also
what it makes of literature when it opposes literature to psychosis in the name of
a neurotic or perverse recoding (Lewis Carroll, or the coward of belles-lettres).
Very few accomplish what Laing calls the breakthrough of this
schizophrenic wall or limit: "quite ordinary people," nevertheless. But the
majority draw near the wall and back away horrified. Better to fall back under the
law of the signifier, marked by castration, triangulated in Oedipus. So they
displace the limit, they make it pass into the interior of the social formation,
between the social production and reproducti on that they invest, and the familial
reproduction that they fall back on, to wh ich they apply all the investments. They
make the limit pass into the interior of the domain thus described by Oedipus,
between the two poles of Oedipus. They never stop involuting and evolving
between these two poles. Oedipus as the la st rock, and castration as the cavern:
the ultimate territoriality, although reduced to the analyst's couch, rather than the
Territorialities of Desire and Madness
- Neurosis is described as a displacement of the social limit into a private, colonial world centered on the familial Oedipus complex.
- Perversion seeks more exotic and artificial societies along the edges of the social wall, yet remains a form of territoriality.
- Psychosis represents a violent rebound against the social wall, resulting in a catatonic retreat to the 'body without organs' where production is arrested.
- The text questions whether schizophrenia should be defined as the breakthrough process of desire or the clinical breakdown that occurs when that process is interrupted.
- Neurosis, perversion, and psychosis are all viewed as different modes of interrupting the flow of desire to avoid being carried off by deterritorialization.
These catatonic bodies have fallen into the river like lead weights, immense transfixed hippopotamuses who will not come back up to the surface.
displace the limit, they make it pass into the interior of the social formation,
between the social production and reproducti on that they invest, and the familial
reproduction that they fall back on, to wh ich they apply all the investments. They
make the limit pass into the interior of the domain thus described by Oedipus,
between the two poles of Oedipus. They never stop involuting and evolving
between these two poles. Oedipus as the la st rock, and castration as the cavern:
the ultimate territoriality, although reduced to the analyst's couch, rather than the
decoded flows of desire that flee, slip aw ay, and take us where? Such is neurosis,
the displacement of the limit, in order to create a little colonial world of one's
own. But others want virgin lands, more truly exotic, families more artificial,
societies more secret that they design and institute along the length of the wall, in
the locales of perversion. Still ot hers, sickened by the utensility (I'ustensilite) of
Oedipus, but also by the shoddiness and aestheticism of perversions, reach the
wall and rebound against it, sometimes with an extreme violence. Then they
become immobile, silent, they retreat to the body without organs, still a
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 138
territoriality, but this time totally desert-like, where all
desiring-production is arrested, or where it becomes rigid, feigning
stoppage: psychosis.
These catatonic bodies ha ve fallen into the ri ver like lead weights,
immense transfixed hippopotamuses who will not come back up to the
surface. They have entrusted all their forces to primal repression, in
order to escape the system of so cial and psychic repression that
fabricates neurotics. But a more naked repression befalls them that
declares them identical with the hospital schizo, the great autistic one,
the clinical entity that "lacks" Oedipus. Why the same word, schizo, to
designate both the process insofar as it goes beyond the limit, and the
result of the process insofar as it runs up against the limit and pounds
endlessly away there? Why the same word to designate both the
eventual breakthrough and the possible breakdown, and all the transi-
tions, the intrications of the two extr emes? In point of fact, of the three
preceding adventures, the adventure of psychosis is the most intimately
related to the process: in the sense of Jaspers' demonstration, when he
shows that the "demonic"—ordinarily repressed—erupts by means of
such a state, or gives rise to such states, which endlessl y run the risk of
making it topple into breakdown and disintegration.
We no longer know if it is the process that must truly be called
madness, the sickness being only disguise or caricature, or if the
sickness is our only madness and the process our only cure. But in any
case, the intimate nature of the relationship appears directly in inverse
ratio: the more the process of produc tion is led off course, brutally
interrupted, the more the schizo-as-entity arises as a specific product.
That is why, on the other hand, we were unable to establish any direct
relationship between neurosis and psychosis. The relationships of
neurosis, psychosis, and also perversion depend on the situation of each
one with regard to the process, and on the manner in which each one
represents a mode of interruption of the process, a residual bit of ground
to which one still clings so as not to be carried off by the deterritorialized
flows of desire. Neurotic territoriality of Oedipus, perverse territoriali-
ties of the artifice, psychotic territoriality of the body without organs:
sometimes the process is caught in the trap and made to turn about
within the triangle, sometimes it takes itself as an end-in-itself, other
times it continues on in the void and substitutes a horrible exasperation
for its fulfillment. Each of these forms has schizophrenia as a founda-
Schizophrenia and Capitalist Flows
- Schizophrenia is defined as a universal process that acts simultaneously as a wall, a breakthrough, and a failure of that breakthrough.
- Capitalism is unique among social machines because it is built on decoded flows, replacing intrinsic social codes with an axiomatic of abstract money.
- Universal history is characterized by contingency and rupture rather than necessity, resulting from accidental encounters between private property and labor.
- The socius attempts to code desire to prevent the anguish of decoded flows, yet capitalism constantly drives toward a limit it simultaneously fears and opposes.
- True revolutionary potential lies in the integration of artistic, analytical, and social machines into a single flow of desiring-production.
Schizophrenia is at once the wall, the breaking through this wall, and the failures of this breakthrough.
one with regard to the process, and on the manner in which each one
represents a mode of interruption of the process, a residual bit of ground
to which one still clings so as not to be carried off by the deterritorialized
flows of desire. Neurotic territoriality of Oedipus, perverse territoriali-
ties of the artifice, psychotic territoriality of the body without organs:
sometimes the process is caught in the trap and made to turn about
within the triangle, sometimes it takes itself as an end-in-itself, other
times it continues on in the void and substitutes a horrible exasperation
for its fulfillment. Each of these forms has schizophrenia as a founda-
tion; schizophrenia as a process is th e only universal. Schizophrenia is at
once the wall, the breaking through this wall, and the failures of this
breakthrough: "How does one get through this wall, for it is useless to
hit it hard, it has to be undermined and penetrated with a file, slowly and
13S ANTI-OEDIPUS
with patience, as I see it".64 What is at stake is not merely art or
literature. For either the artistic mach ine, the analytical machine, and
the revolutionary machine will remain in extrinsic relationships that
make them function in the deadening framework of the system of social
and psychic repression, or they w ill become parts and cogs of one
another in the flow that feeds one and the same desiring-machine, so
many local fires patiently kindled for a generalized explosion—the schiz
and not the signifier.
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM: THE HOLY FAMILY 137
MEN
Translated by Robert Hurley and Mark Seem
1 The Inscribing Socius
If the universal comes at the end—the body without
organs and desiring-production—under the conditions determined by an
apparently victorious capitalism, wh ere do we find enough innocence for
generating universal history? Desiri ng-production also exists from the
beginning: there is desiring-production from the moment there is social
production and reproduction. But in a very precise sense it is true that
precapitalist social machines are inherent in desire: they code it, they
code the flows of desire. To code desire—and the fear, the anguish of
decoded flows—is the business of the socius. As we shall see, capitalism
is the only social machine that is constructed on the basis of decoded
flows, substituting for intrinsic codes an axiomatic of abstract quantities
in the form of money. Capitalism ther efore liberates the flows of desire,
but under the social conditions that define its limit and the possibility of 3 SAVAGES,
BARBARIANS,
CIVILIZED
its own dissolution, so that it is constantly opposing with all its
exasperated strength the movement that drives it toward this limit. At
capitalism's limit the deterritorialized socius gives way to the body
without organs, and the decoded flows throw themselves into
desiring-production. Hence it is correct to retrospectively understand all
history in the light of capitalism, provided that the rules formulated by
Marx are followed exactly.
First of all, universal history is th e history of contingencies, and not
the history of necessity. Ruptures and limits, and not continuity. For
great accidents were necessary, and amazing encounters that could have
happened elsewhere, or before, or might never have happened, in order
for the flows to escape coding and, escaping, to nonetheless fashion a
new machine bearing the determinati ons of the capitalist socius. Thus
the encounter between private property and commodity production,
which presents itself, however, as tw o quite distinct forms of decoding,
by privatization and by abstraction. Or, from th e viewpoint of private
property itself, the encounter betw een flows of convertible wealth
owned by capitalists and a flow of workers possessing nothing more than
their labor capacity* (here again, two distinct forms of
deterritorializa-tion). In a sense, capitalism has haunted all forms of
Capitalism and the Territorial Machine
- Capitalism emerges from the encounter between privatized wealth and a flow of workers who possess only their labor capacity.
- Before its realization, capitalism haunts previous societies as a terrifying nightmare of decoded flows that elude social control.
- Universal history is described as contingent and ironic, existing only because capitalism confronts its own limits and potential destruction.
- The Earth serves as the primitive 'full body' upon which all production is inscribed and where desire becomes bound to its own repression.
- The social machine is distinguished from the technical machine because it is composed of human parts and creates a collective memory for reproduction.
In a sense, capitalism has haunted all forms of society,but it haunts them as their terrifying nightmare, it is the dread they feel of a flow that would elude their codes.
new machine bearing the determinati ons of the capitalist socius. Thus
the encounter between private property and commodity production,
which presents itself, however, as tw o quite distinct forms of decoding,
by privatization and by abstraction. Or, from th e viewpoint of private
property itself, the encounter betw een flows of convertible wealth
owned by capitalists and a flow of workers possessing nothing more than
their labor capacity* (here again, two distinct forms of
deterritorializa-tion). In a sense, capitalism has haunted all forms of
society,but it haunts them as their terrifying nightmare, it is the dread
they feel of a flow that would elude their codes. Then again, if we say
that capitalism determines the conditions and the possibility of a
universal history, this is true only insofar as capitalism has to deal
essentially with its own limit, its own destruction—as Marx says, insofar
as it is capable of self-criticism (at least to a certain point: the point
where the limit appears, in the ve ry movement that counteracts the
tendency).* In a word, universal history is not only retrospective, it is
also contingent, singular, ironic, and critical.
The earth is the primitive, savage unity of desire and production.
For the earth is not merely the multiple and divided object of labor, it is
also the unique, indivisible entity, the full body that falls back on the
forces of production and appropriates them for its own as the natural or
divine precondition. While the gr ound can be the productive element
*force de travail. Here we have followed Martin Ni colaus's translation of Marx's Grundrisse in translating
this Marxian term as "labor capa city" instead of "labor power." (Translators' note.)
*Marx, Grundrisse (see reference note 63), pp. 104-108. Maurice Godelier comments: "The West's line of
development, far from being universal because it will recur everywhere, appears universal because it recurs
nowhere else. ... It is typical therefore because, in its singular progress, it has obtained a universal result. It
has furnished a practical base (industrial economy) and a theoretical conc eption (socialism) that permit it to
leave behind, and to cause all other so cieties to leave behind, the most ancient and the most recent forms of
exploitation of man by man. . . . The authentic universality of the West's line of development lies therefore
in its singularity, in its difference, not in its rese mblance to the other lines of evolution." (Godelier [see
reference note 47], pp. 92-96.)
140 ANTI-OEDIPUS
and the result of appropriation, the Earth is the great unengendered
stasis, the element superior to production that conditions the common
appropriation and utilization of the ground. It is the surface on which the
whole process of production is inscri bed, on which the forces and means
of labor are recorded, and the agents and the products distributed. It
appears here as the quasi cause of production and the object of desire (it
is on the earth that desire becomes bound to its own repression). The
territorial machine is therefore the first form of socius, the machine of
primitive inscription, the "megamachine" that covers a social field. It is
not to be confused with technical machines. In its simplest, so-called
manual forms, the technical machine already implies an acting, a
transmitting, or even a driving element that is nonhuman, and that
extends man's strength and allows for a certain disengagement from it.
The social machine, in contrast, has men for its parts, even if we view
them with their machines, and integrate them, internalize them in an
institutional model at every stage of action, transmission, and motricity.
Hence the social machine fashions a memory without which there would
be no synergy of man and his (technical) machines. The latter do not in
fact contain the conditions for the reproduction of their process; they
The Social Megamachine
- Technical machines lack the conditions for their own reproduction and are instead governed and limited by the social machines that organize them.
- The social machine functions as a collective entity that fashions a memory and integrates human beings as its internal parts or institutional components.
- The primary function of the social machine is the coding of flows—including biological, agricultural, and human flows—to organize production and consumption.
- Society is fundamentally a system of inscription and marking rather than a simple milieu for the exchange of goods or people.
- The primitive territorial machine uses the earth as an immobile motor to encircle and distribute human organs as partial objects within its system.
Flows of women and children, flows of herds and of seed, sperm flows, flows of shit, menstrual flows: nothing must escape coding.
transmitting, or even a driving element that is nonhuman, and that
extends man's strength and allows for a certain disengagement from it.
The social machine, in contrast, has men for its parts, even if we view
them with their machines, and integrate them, internalize them in an
institutional model at every stage of action, transmission, and motricity.
Hence the social machine fashions a memory without which there would
be no synergy of man and his (technical) machines. The latter do not in
fact contain the conditions for the reproduction of their process; they
point to the social machines that condition and organize them, but also
limit and inhibit their development. It will be necessary to await
capitalism to find a semiautonomous organization of technical produc-
tion that tends to appropriate memory and reproduction, and thereby
modifies the forms of the exploitation of man; but as a matter of fact,
this organization presupposes a dismantling of the great social machines
that preceded it.
The same machine can be both technical and social, but only when
viewed from different perspectives: for example, the clock as a technical
machine for measuring uniform time, and as a social machine for
reproducing canonic hours and for assuring order in the city. When
Lewis Mumford coins the word "megamachine" to designate the social
machine as a collective entity, he is literally correct (although he limits
its application to the barbarian despo tic institution): "If, more or less in
agreement with Reuleaux's classic definition, one can consider the
machine to be the combination of solid elements, each having its
specialized function and operating under human control in order to
transmit a movement and perform a task, then the human machine was
indeed a true machine."1 The social machine is literally a machine,
irrespective of any metaphor, inasmuch as it exhibits an immobile motor
and undertakes a variety of interventions: flows are set apart, elements
are detached from a chain, and portions of the tasks to be performed are
distributed. Coding the flows implies all these operations. This is the
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 141
social machine's supreme task, inasmuch as the apportioning of produc-tion
corresponds to extractions from the chai n, resulting in a residual share for each
member, in a global system of desire a nd destiny that organizes the productions
of production, the productions of recording, and the productions of
consumption. Flows of women and childre n, flows of herds and of seed, sperm
flows, flows of shit, menstrual flow s: nothing must escape coding. The
primitive territorial machine, with its im mobile motor, the earth, is already a
social machine, a megamachine, that codes the (lows of production, the flows of
means of production,of producers and consumers: the full body of the goddess
Earth gathers to itself the cultivable sp ecies, the agricultural implements, and
the human organs.
Meyer Fortes makes a passing remark that is joyous and refreshingly
sound: "The circulation of women is not the problem. ... A woman circulates of
herself. She is not at one's disposal, but the juridical rights governing
progeniture are determined for the profit of a specific person." 2 We see no
reason in fact for accepting the postulate that underlies exchangist notions of
society; society is not first of all a milieu for exchange where the essential
would be to circulate or to cause to circ ulate, but rather a socius of inscription
where the essential thing is to mark and to be marked. There is circulation only
if inscription requires or permits it. The method of the primitive territorial
machine is in this sense the collective investment of the organs; for flows are
coded only to the extent that the organs capable respectively of producing and
breaking them are themselves encircled, instituted as partial objects, distributed
Inscription and Anal Privatization
- Primitive societies function as systems of inscription where organs are collectively invested and coded rather than being private properties of individuals.
- Mythology and initiation rituals treat organs as partial objects that are distributed across the social body to regulate the flow of desire.
- Modernity is characterized by the privatization of organs, a process that began with the removal of the anus from the social field to facilitate abstract monetary flows.
- The transition to abstract quantity leads to the disinvestment of organs and the creation of the 'private person' as a unit of measure for capital.
- Sublimation is fundamentally linked to this anal disinvestment, where the detached anus serves as the model for the elevated, abstract ego.
It is not the anal that presents itself for sublimation, it is sublimation in its entirety that is anal; moreover, the simplest critique of sublimation is the fact that it does not by any means rescue us from the shit (only the mind is capable of shitting).
society; society is not first of all a milieu for exchange where the essential
would be to circulate or to cause to circ ulate, but rather a socius of inscription
where the essential thing is to mark and to be marked. There is circulation only
if inscription requires or permits it. The method of the primitive territorial
machine is in this sense the collective investment of the organs; for flows are
coded only to the extent that the organs capable respectively of producing and
breaking them are themselves encircled, instituted as partial objects, distributed
on the socius and attached to it. A ma sk is such an institution of organs.
Initiation societies compose the pieces of a body, which are at the same time
sensory organs, anatomical parts, and joints. Prohibitions (see not, speak not)
apply to those who, in a given state or on a given occasion, are deprived of the
right to enjoy a collectively invest ed organ. The mythologies sing of
organs-partial objects and their relations with a full body that repels or attracts
them: vaginas riveted on the woman's body, an immense penis shared by the
men, an independent anus that assigns itself a body without anus. A Gourma
story begins: "When the mouth was dead, the other parts of the body were
consulted to see which of them would take charge of the burial. . . ." The unities
in question are never found in persons, but rather in series which determine the
connections, disjunctions, and conjunctions of organs. Th at is why fantasies are
group fantasies. It is the collective invest ment of the organs that plugs desire
into the socius and assembles social production and desiring-production into a
whole on the earth.
Our modern societies have instead undertaken a vast privatization
112 ANTI-OED IPUS
of the organs, which corresponds to the decoding of flows that have
become abstract. The first organ to suffer privatization, removal from
the social field, was the anus. It was the anus that offered itself as a
model for privatization, at the same time as money came to express the
flows' new state of abstraction. He nce the relative truth of psychoana-
lytic remarks concerning the anal nature of monetary economy. But the
"logical" order is the following: the substitution of abstract quantity for
the coded flows; the resulting collective disinvestment of the organs, on
the model of the anus; the constituti on of private persons as individual
centers of organs and functions deri ved from the abstract quantity. One
is even compelled to say that, while in our societies the penis has
occupied the position of a detached object distributing lack to the
persons of both sexes and organizing the Oedipal triangle, it is the anus
that in this manner detaches it, it is the anus that removes and sublimates
the penis in a kind of Aufhebung that will constitute the phallus.
Sublimation is profoundly linked to analit y, but this is not to say that the
latter furnishes a material to be sublimated, for want of another use.
Anality does not represent a lower requiring conversion to a higher. It is
the anus itself that ascends on high, under the conditions (which we
must analyze) of its removal from the field, conditions that do not
presuppose sublimation, since on the contrary sublimation results from
them. It is not the anal that pres ents itself for sublimation, it is
sublimation in its entirety that is anal; moreover, the simplest critique of
sublimation is the fact that it does not by any means rescue us from the
shit (only the mind is capable of shittin g). Anality is all the greater once
the anus is disinvested. The libido is indeed the essence of desire; but
when the libido becomes abstract quantity, the elevated and disinvested
anus produces the global persons and the specific egos that serve this
same quantity as units of measure. Artaud expresses it well: this "dead
rat's ass suspended from the ceiling of the sky," whence issues the
The Inscribed Body and Oedipus
- Sublimation fails to rescue the subject from anality, instead transforming the disinvested anus into a source of abstract ego-units and private guilt.
- The Oedipal complex is presented not as a universal human constant, but as a specific result of the collective disinvestment of organs and the decoding of desire.
- Primitive societies lack the superego and guilt associated with Oedipus because they maintain a collective investment in the body's organs.
- The primitive territorial machine functions by marking, tattooing, and scarifying the body to integrate it into the social surface or 'socius.'
- Social inscription transforms man from a biological organism into a 'full body' by creating a collective memory of signs rather than biological effects.
Artaud expresses it well: this 'dead rat's ass suspended from the ceiling of the sky,' whence issues the daddy-mommy-me triangle.
sublimation is the fact that it does not by any means rescue us from the
shit (only the mind is capable of shittin g). Anality is all the greater once
the anus is disinvested. The libido is indeed the essence of desire; but
when the libido becomes abstract quantity, the elevated and disinvested
anus produces the global persons and the specific egos that serve this
same quantity as units of measure. Artaud expresses it well: this "dead
rat's ass suspended from the ceiling of the sky," whence issues the
daddy-mommy-me triangle, "the uter ine mother-father of a frantic
anality," whose child is only an angle, this "kind of covering eternally
hanging on something that is the self."
The whole of Oe dipus is an al and implies an individual overinvest-
ment of the organ to compensate for its collective disinvestment. That is
why the commentators most favorable to the universality of Oedipus
recognize nonetheless that one does not encounter in primitive societies
any of the mechanisms or any of the attitudes that make it a reality in
our society. No superego, no guilt. No identification of a specific ego
with global persons—but group identifi cations that are always partial,
following the compact, agglutinated series of ancestors, and the frag-
mented series of companions an d cousins. No anality—although, or
rather because, there is a collectively invested anus. What remains then
for the making of Oedipus?* The structure—that is to say, an unrealized
potentiality? Are we to believe that a universal Oedipus haunts all
societies, but exactly as capitalism haunts them, that is to say, as the
nightmare and the anxious foreboding of what might result from the
decoding of flows and the collective disinvestment of organs, the
becoming-abstract of the flows of desire, and the becoming-private of
the organs?
The primitive territorial machine codes flows, invests organs, and
marks bodies. To such a degree th at circulating—exchanging—is a
secondary activity in comparison with the task that sums up all the
others: marking bodies, which are the earth's products. The essence of
the recording, inscribing socius, insofa r as it lays claim to the productive
forces and distributes the agents of production, resides in these opera-
tions: tattooing, excising, incising, carving, scarifying, mutilating, encir-
cling, and initiating. Ni etzsche thus defined the "morality of more s ( . .
.)—the labor performed by man upon himself during the greater part of
the existence of the human race, his entire prehistoric labor";3 a system
of evaluations possessing the force of law concerning the various
members and parts of the body. Not only is the criminal deprived of
organs according to a regime (ordre) of collective investments; not only
is the one who has to be eaten, eaten according to social rules as exact as
those followed in carving up and apportioning a steer; but the man who
enjoys the full exercise of his rights and duties has his whole body
marked under a regime that consigns hi s organs and their exercise to the
collectivity (the privatization of th e organs will only begin with "the
shame felt by man at the sight o f man"4). For it is a founding act—that
the organs be hewn into the socius, and that the flows run over its
surface—through which man ceases to be a biological organism and
becomes a full body, an earth, to which his organs become attached,
where they are attracted, repelled, miraculated, following the
requirements of a socius. Nietzsche says: it is a matter of creating a
memory for man; and man, who was constituted by means of an active
faculty of forgetting (oubli), by means of a repression of biological
memory, must create an other memory, one that is collective, a memory
of words (paroles) and no longer a memory of things, a memory of signs
and no longer of effects. This or ganization, which traces its signs
The Mnemotechnics of Cruelty
- Culture functions as a system of cruelty that creates a collective memory by inscribing signs directly onto the human body.
- This 'terrible alphabet' of blood and torture is what allows man to overcome biological forgetting and develop the capacity for language.
- Cruelty is defined not as natural violence, but as the movement of culture forcibly injecting social production into the realm of desire.
- The primitive social machine is characterized by a territoriality that subdivides people on an indivisible earth rather than subdividing the land itself.
- Social organization transforms human organs into functional parts and wheels of a larger socius through these physical inscriptions.
Man could never do without blood, torture, and sacrifices when he felt the need to create a memory for himself; the most dreadful sacrifices and pledges (...), the most repulsive mutilations (...), the cruelest rites of all the religious cults.
becomes a full body, an earth, to which his organs become attached,
where they are attracted, repelled, miraculated, following the
requirements of a socius. Nietzsche says: it is a matter of creating a
memory for man; and man, who was constituted by means of an active
faculty of forgetting (oubli), by means of a repression of biological
memory, must create an other memory, one that is collective, a memory
of words (paroles) and no longer a memory of things, a memory of signs
and no longer of effects. This or ganization, which traces its signs
*Paul Parin et al., Les blancs pensent trop (Paris: Payot, 1963): "The pre-object relations with the mothers
pass over and are divided into relations of identification with the gr oup of companions of the same age. The
conflict with the fathers finds itself ne utralized in relations of identifica tion with the group of older brothers
. . ." (pp. 428-36). Similar analysis and results in M. C. and Edmond Ortigues, Oedipe africain (reference
note 22), pp. 302-305. But these authors indulge in a stra nge gymnastics to maintain the existence of an
Oedipa! problem or complex, despite all the reasons they advance to the contrary, and although they say
this complex is not "clinically accessible."
14 4 A N T I - O E D I P U S
directly on the body, constitutes a system of cruelty, a terrible alphabet.
"Perhaps indeed there was nothing more fearful and uncanny in the
whole prehistory of man than his mnemotechnics (...) Man could never
do without blood, torture, and sacrifices when he felt the need to create a
memory for himself; the most dreadful sacrifices and pledges (...), the
most repulsive mutilations (...), the crue list rites of all the religious cults
. . . one has only to look at our former codes of punish ments to
understand what effort it costs on this earth to breed a 'nation of
thinkers'!"5
Cruelty has nothing to do with some ill-defined or natural violent.
that might be commissioned to explain the history of mankind; cruelty is
the movement of culture that is rea lized in bodies and inscribed on them.
belaboring them. That is what cruelty means. This culture is not the
movement of ideology, on the contrary , it forcibly injects produc-into
desire, and conversely, it forcibly in serts desire into social production
and reproduction. For even death, punishment, and torture are desired,
and are instances of production (compa re the history of fatalism). It
makes men or their organs into th e parts and wheels of the social
machine. The sign is a position of desire; but the first signs are the
territorial signs that plant their flags in bodies. And if one wants to call
this inscription in naked flesh "writing," then it must be said that speech
in fact presupposes writing, and that it is this cruel system of inscribed
signs that renders man capable of language, and gives him a memory of
the spoken word.
The Primitive Territorial Machine
The notion of territoriality merely appears ambiguous
For if it is taken to mean a prin ciple of residence or of geograpic
distribution, it is obvious that the primitive social machine is not
territorial. Only the apparatus of the State will be territorial in this sence
because, following Engel's formula, it "subdivides not the people but the
territory," and substitutes a geographic organization for the organization
of gens. Yet even where kinship seems to predominate over the earth, it
is not difficult to show the importance of local ties. This is because the
primitive machine subdivides the people, but does so on an indivisible
earth where the connective, disjunc tive, and conjunctive relations of
each section are inscribed along with the other relations (thus, for
example, the coexistence or complementarity of the section chief and
the guardian of the earth). When the division extends to the earth itself.
by virtue of an administration that is landed and residential, this cannot
Territorial Machines and Debt Chains
- The primitive socius functions as a territorial machine that inscribes kinship and local ties onto the indivisible body of the earth.
- The transition to the State replaces the immanent unity of the earth with the transcendent unity of the Despot, marking a fundamental deterritorialization.
- Alliance cannot be simply deduced from filiation; while filiation is administrative and hierarchical, alliance is political, economic, and lateral.
- Filiation and alliance function like two forms of primitive capital: fixed filiative stock and circulating mobile blocks of debt.
- The continuity of social structures is maintained laterally through a continuing chain of economic debt relationships rather than just descent.
The full body is no longer that of the earth, it is the full body of the Despot, the Unengendered, which now takes charge of the fertility of the soil as well as the rain from the sky.
of gens. Yet even where kinship seems to predominate over the earth, it
is not difficult to show the importance of local ties. This is because the
primitive machine subdivides the people, but does so on an indivisible
earth where the connective, disjunc tive, and conjunctive relations of
each section are inscribed along with the other relations (thus, for
example, the coexistence or complementarity of the section chief and
the guardian of the earth). When the division extends to the earth itself.
by virtue of an administration that is landed and residential, this cannot
be regarded as a promotion of territori ality; on the contrary, it is rather
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN
the effect of the first great movement of deterritorialization on the primitive
communes. The immanent unity of the earth as the immobile motor gives way to
a transcendent unity of an altogether diffe rent nature—the unity of the State; the
full body is no longer that of the earth, it is the full body of the Despot, the
Unengendered, which now take s charge of the fertility of the soil as well as the
rain from the sky and the general appropriation of the productive forces. Hence
the savage, primitive socius was indeed th e only territorial machine in the strict
sense of the term. And the functioning of such a machine consists in the
following: the declension of alliance and filiation—declining the lineages on the
body of the earth, before there is a State.
If declension characterizes the primitive machine, it is because it is not
possible simply to deduce alliance from f iliation, the alliances from the filiative
lines. It would be erroneous to ascribe to alliance no more than an individuating
power over the persons of a lineage; it produces instead a generalized
distinguishability. E. R. Leach cites cases of very diverse matrimonial regimes
where no difference in filiation can be inferred among the corresponding groups.
In many analyses, "the stress has been upon ties within the unilineal corporation
or between different corporations li nked by ties of common descent. The
structural ties deriving from marriage be tween members of different corporations
have been largely ignored or else assimilated into the all-important descent
concept. Thus Fortes (1953), while recognizing that ties of affinity have
comparable importance to ties of des cent, disguises the former under his
expression complementary filiation. The essence of this concept, which
resembles the Roman distinction between agnation and cognation, is that any
Ego is related to the kinsman of his two parents because he is the descendant of
both parents and not because his parents were married. . . . [However] the cross
ties linking the different patrilineages laterally are not felt by the peoples
themselves to be of the nature of de scent. The continuity of the structure
vertically through time is adequately e xpressed through the agnatic transmission
of a patrilineage name. But the continuity of the structure laterally is not so
expressed. Instead, it is maintained by a continuing chain of debt relationships of
an economic kind. ... It is the existen ce of these outstanding debts which assert
the continuance of the affinal relationship."6
Filiation is administrative and hierarchical, but alliance is political and
economic, and expresses power insofar as it is not fused with the hierarchy and
cannot be deduced from it, and the economy insofar as it is not identical with
administration. Filiation and alliance are like the two forms of a primitive
capital: fixed capital or filiative stock, and circulating capital or mobile blocks of
debts. There are two memories that
146 ANTI-OEDIPUS
correspond to them, the one biofiliative, th e other a memory of aliance and of
words. While production is recorded in the network of filiative disjunctions on
the socius, the connections of labor st ill must detach themselves from the
Kinship as Economic Praxis
- Filiation and alliance function as primitive forms of capital, representing fixed stock and circulating blocks of debt respectively.
- The socius records production through a network of filiative disjunctions, but the economy itself operates through the connective regime of alliance.
- Kinship systems are not abstract mental structures but are instead defined by concrete practices, strategies, and local political-economic maneuvers.
- Alliance acts as the determinant factor that keeps the kinship cycle open, preventing it from becoming a closed, purely structural system.
- The behavior of individuals within these systems is driven by asymmetrical creditor-debtor relationships rather than a desire for generalized exchange.
A kinship system is not a structure but a practice, a praxis, a method, and even a strategy.
economic, and expresses power insofar as it is not fused with the hierarchy and
cannot be deduced from it, and the economy insofar as it is not identical with
administration. Filiation and alliance are like the two forms of a primitive
capital: fixed capital or filiative stock, and circulating capital or mobile blocks of
debts. There are two memories that
146 ANTI-OEDIPUS
correspond to them, the one biofiliative, th e other a memory of aliance and of
words. While production is recorded in the network of filiative disjunctions on
the socius, the connections of labor st ill must detach themselves from the
productive process and pass into the element of recording that appropriates them
for itself as quasi cause. But it can acc omplish this only by reclaiming the
connective regime for its own in the form of an affinal tie or a pairing of persons
that is compatible with the disjunctions of filiation. It is in this sense that the
economy goes by way of alliance. In th e production of children, the child is
inscribed in relation to the disjunctive lines of its father or mother, but inversely,
the disjunctive lines inscribe it only through a connection represented by the
marriage of the father and the mother . At no time, therefore , does alliance
derive from filiation, but both form an e ssentially open cycle where the socius
acts on production, but also where production reacts on the socius.
Marxists are right to remind us that if kinship is dominant in primitive
society, it is determined as dominant by economic and political factors. And if
filiation expresses what is dominant wh ile being iiself determined, alliance
expresses what is determinant, or rather the return of the determinant in the
determinate system of dominance. That is why it is essential to take into
consideration how ties of alliance combine concretely with relations of filiation
on a given territorial surface. Leach has specifically underscored the importance
of local lineages insofar as they are differentiated from lineages of filiation, and
insofar as they operate at the level of small segments: it is these groups of men
residing in the same area, or in nei ghboring areas, who arrange marriages and
shape concrete reality to a much greate r extent than do the systems ui filiation
and the abstract matrimonial classes. A kinship system is noi a structure but a
practice, a praxis, a method, and even a strategy. Louis Berthe, analyzing a
relationship of alliance and hierarchy, shows convincingly that a village
intervenes as a third party to permit ma trimonial connections between elements
that the disjunction of two moieties would forbid from the strict viewpoint of
structure: "The third term must be interpreted much more as a method than as a
true structural element."* Every time one interprets kinship relations in the
primitive commune in terms of a structur e unfolding in the mind, one relapses
into an ideology of la rge segments that makes alliance depend on the major
filiations, and that finds itself contradicted by practice. "It is necessary to ask if
there exists in the asymmetrical systems of alliance a
*Louis Berthe, "Atnes et cadets, l'alliance et fa hierarchic chez les Baduj," L'Homme, July 1965. b.. Luc de
Heusch's statement, in "Levi-Strauss,"L'Arc, no. 26: "A kinship system is also and first or all L praxis" (p.
11).
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN i.i
fundamental tendency toward generalized exchange, that is to say, toward the
closing of the cycle. I have been unable to find anything of that nature among the
Mru. . . . Everyone behaves as if he were, ignorant of the compensation that
would result from the closing of the cycle, and everyone stresses the relationship
of asymmetry, emphasizing the creditor-debtor behavior."7 A kinship system
only appears closed to the extent that it is severed from the political and
economic references that keep it open, and that make alliance something other
Nomadic Flows and Social Coding
- Kinship systems often emphasize asymmetrical creditor-debtor relationships rather than a closed cycle of generalized exchange.
- The nomad hunter represents a paranoiac state characterized by direct filiation with a god and a physical movement that follows productive flows.
- Social coding requires the mutual adaptation of signifying chains and flows of production through a process of deduction and detachment.
- The transition from the bush to the encampment marks a shift from nomadic displacement to the 'perverse' activity of stocking, marrying, and allocating.
- A pure nomad does not exist because the socius is always present to intervene, appropriating production and fixing it within a territoriality.
Me, me, me, 'I am a powerful nature, a nature incensed and aggressive!'
fundamental tendency toward generalized exchange, that is to say, toward the
closing of the cycle. I have been unable to find anything of that nature among the
Mru. . . . Everyone behaves as if he were, ignorant of the compensation that
would result from the closing of the cycle, and everyone stresses the relationship
of asymmetry, emphasizing the creditor-debtor behavior."7 A kinship system
only appears closed to the extent that it is severed from the political and
economic references that keep it open, and that make alliance something other
than an arrangement of matrimoni al classes and filiative lineages.
It is the same for the whole project of coding the flows. How does one
ensure reciprocal adaptation, the resp ective embrace of a signifying chain and
flows of production? The great nomad hunter follows the flows, exhausts them
in place, and moves on with them to another place. He reproduces in an
accelerated fashion his entire filiation, a nd contracts it into a point that keeps
him in a direct relationship with the ances tor or the god. Pierre Clastres describes
the solitary hunter who becomes identical with his force and his destiny, and
delivers his song in a language that beco mes increasingly rapid and distorted:
Me, me, me, "I am a powerful nature , a nature incensed and aggressive!"8 Such
are the two characteristics of the hunter , the great paranoiac of the bush or the
forest: real displacement with the flows a nd direct filiation with the god. It has to
do with the nature of nomadic space, wher e the full body of the socius is as if
adjacent to production; it has not ye t brought production under its sway. The
space of the encampment remains adjacent to that of the forest; it is constantly
reproduced in the process of production, but has not yet appropriated this
process. The apparent objective movement of inscription has not suppressed the
real movement of nomadism. But a pure nomad does not exist; there is always
and already an encampment where it is a matter of stocking—however
little—and where it is a matter of inscribi ng and allocating, of marrying, and of
feeding oneself. (Clastres shows well how, among the Guayaki, the connection
between the hunters and the living animals is succeeded in the encampment by a
disjunction between the dead animals and th e hunters—a disjunction similar to
an incest prohibition, since the hunter cannot consume his own kill.) In short, as
we shall see elsewhere, there is alwa ys a pervert who succeeds the paranoiac or
accompanies him—sometimes the same man in two situations: the bush
paranoiac and the village pervert.
Once the socius becomes fixed, falli ng back on the productive forces and
appropriating them for its own, the problem of coding can no longer be resolved
by the simultaneity of a di splacement from the standpoint of the flows, and an
accelerated reproduction from the
148 ANTI-OEDIPUS
standpoint of the chain. The flows must be the object of deductions
(prelevements) that constitute a minimum of stoc k, and the signifying chain must
be the object of detachments ( detachements) that constitute a minimum of
mediations. A flow is c oded insofar as detachments from the chain and
deductions from the flows are effected in correspondence, united in a mutual
embrace. And this is already the highly perverse activity of local groups who
arrange marriages on the surface of the primitive territoriality: a normal or
nonpathological perversity, as Henry Ey would say, referring to other cases
where "a psychic work of selecti on, refinement, and calculation" was
manifested. And this is the case from the start, since there does not exist a pure
nomad who can be afforded the satisfaction of drifting with the flows and
singing direct filiation, but always a socius waiting to bear down, already
deducting and detaching.
The flow deductions constitute a filiativ e stock in the signifying chain; but
The Primitive Surplus Value
- Primitive territoriality functions through a complex interplay of filiative stocks and mobile debts of alliance.
- The movement of goods and persons is driven by a kinetic energy of gifts and countergifts rather than market exchange.
- Disequilibrium is not a pathological failure of the system but a fundamental and functional necessity for its operation.
- A 'surplus value of code' exists where the detachment of elements from the chain produces excess and deficiency compensated by prestige.
- The primitive economy is characterized by an inherent openness and the conversion of perishable wealth into imperishable status.
Far from being a pathological consequence, the disequilibrium is functional and fundamental.
arrange marriages on the surface of the primitive territoriality: a normal or
nonpathological perversity, as Henry Ey would say, referring to other cases
where "a psychic work of selecti on, refinement, and calculation" was
manifested. And this is the case from the start, since there does not exist a pure
nomad who can be afforded the satisfaction of drifting with the flows and
singing direct filiation, but always a socius waiting to bear down, already
deducting and detaching.
The flow deductions constitute a filiativ e stock in the signifying chain; but
inversely, the detachments from the ch ain constitute mobile debts of alliance
that guide and direct the flows. On the blanket that serves as a familial stock,
affinal stones or cowries are made to circul ate. There is a sort of vast cycle of
flows of production and chains of inscri ption, and a lesser cycle, between the
stocks of filiation that connect or encaste (encastent) the flows, and the blocks of
alliance that cause the chains to flow. Descent is at the same time flow of
production and chain of inscription, stoc k of filiation and fluxion of alliance.
Everything takes place as though the stoc k constituted a surface energy of
inscription or recording, the potential ener gy of the apparent movement; but debt
is the actual direction of this movement, a kinetic energy that is determined by
the respective paths of the gifts and countergifts on the surface. Among the
Kula, the circulation of necklaces and bracelets comes to a standstill in certain
places, on certain occasions, so that a stock may be re-formed. There are no
productive connections without disjunctions of filiation that appropriate them,
but there are no disjunctions of filia tion that do not reconstitute lateral
connections across the alliances and pairi ngs of persons. Not only the flows and
the chains, but the fixed stocks and the mobile debts—insofar as they in turn
imply relations between chai ns and flows in both directions—are in a state of
perpetual relativity: their elements vary—women, consumer goods, ritual
objects, rights, prestige, status.
If one postulates that somewhere there has to be a kind of equilibrium of
prices, one is compelled to see in the ma nifest disequilibrium of the relations a
pathological consequence, which one expl ains by saying that the supposedly
closed system extends in one direction and opens as the prestations become
wider and more complex. But such a
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS. CIVILIZED MEN 149
conception is in contradiction with the primitive "cold economy," which
is without net investment, without money or market, and without
exchangist commodity relations. The mainspring of such an economy is
a veritable surplus v alue of c ode: each detachment from the chain
produces, on one side or the other in the flows of production,phenome-
na of excess and deficiency, phenom ena of lack and accumulation,
which will be compensated for by nonexchangeable elements of the
acquired-prestige or distributed-cons umption type. ("The chief converts
this perishable wealth into imperishable prestige through the medium of
spectacular feasting. The ultimate consum ers are in this way the original
producers.")* Surplus value of code is the primitive form of surplus
value, inasmuch as it corresponds to Mauss's celebrated formula: the
spirit of the thing given, or the force of circumstance that requires that
gifts be reciprocated with interest, being territorial signs of desire and
power (puissance), and principles of abundance and the fructification of
wealth. Far from being a pathological consequence, the disequilibrium is
functional and fundamental. Far from being the extension of a system
that is at first closed, the opening is primary, founded in the heterogenei-
ty of the elements that compose the prestations and that compensate for
the disequilibrium by displacing it. In short, the detachments from the
Functional Disequilibrium in Primitive Societies
- The exchange of gifts and wives in primitive societies is driven by a functional disequilibrium rather than a closed, stable system.
- Surplus value of code is generated through the detachment of segments from the signifying chain, creating status differences and social hierarchies.
- The notion that primitive societies lack history is a myth created by ideologists to preserve a specific Judeo-Christian concept of historical invention.
- Social machines are defined by their instability and disharmony, functioning precisely through their own internal failures and ruptures.
- Kinship rules are not ideal models but are fundamentally inapplicable to real marriages because the system is designed to operate on its own ruins.
But here too it seems that the correct interpretation would be, above all, actual and functional: it is in order to function that a social machine must not function well.
gifts be reciprocated with interest, being territorial signs of desire and
power (puissance), and principles of abundance and the fructification of
wealth. Far from being a pathological consequence, the disequilibrium is
functional and fundamental. Far from being the extension of a system
that is at first closed, the opening is primary, founded in the heterogenei-
ty of the elements that compose the prestations and that compensate for
the disequilibrium by displacing it. In short, the detachments from the
signifying chain, in accordance with the relations of alliance, engender
surplus values of code at the level of the flows, whence are derived
differences in status between the filia tive lines (for example, the superior
or inferior ranks of the givers and receivers of wives). The surplus value
of code carries out the diverse operations of the primitive territorial
machine: detaching segments from the chain, organizing selections from
the flows, and allocating th e portions due each person.
The idea that primitive societies have no history, that they are
dominated by archetypes and their repetition, is especially weak and
inadequate. This idea was not c onceived by ethnologists, but by
ideologists in the service of a tragic Judaeo-Christian consciousness that
they wished to credit with the "inven tion" of history. If what is called
history is a dynamic and open social reality, in a state of functional
disequilibrium, or an oscillating equilibrium, unstable and always com-
pensated, comprising not only instituti onlized conflicts but conflicts that
*Leach, Rethinking Anthropology, p. 89. Also the criticism Leach addresses to Levi-Strauss: "Levi-Strauss
rightly argues that the structural implications of a marriage can only be understood if we think of it as one
item in a whole series of transactions between kin groups. So far, so good. But in none of the examples
which he provides in his book does he carry this principle far enough. . . . Fundamentally he is not really
interested in the nature and significance of the counter-prestations that serve as equivaients for women in
the systems he is discussing. . . . We cannot predict from first principles how the different categories of
prestation will be evaluated in any particular societ y. ... It is very important to distinguish between
consumable and non-consumable material s; it is also very important to appreciate that quite intangible
elements such as 'rights' and 'prestige' form part of the total inventory of 'things' exchanged" (pp. 90, 100).
1 5 0 A N T I - O E D I P U S
generate changes, revolts, ruptures, and scissions, then primitive socie-
ties are fully inside history, and far distant from the stability, or even
from the harmony, attributed to them in the name of a primacy of a
unanimous group. The presence of history in every social machine
plainly appears in the disharmonies that, as Levi-Strauss says, "bear the
unmistakable stamp of time elapsed."* It is true that there are several
ways to interpret such disharmonies: ideally,by the gap between the real
institution and the assumed ideal model; morally, by invoking a structural
bond between law and transgression; ph ysically, as though it were a
question of attrition that would cause the social machine to lose its
capacity to wield its materials. But here too it seems that the correct
interpretation would be, above all, actual and functional: it is in order to
function that a social machine must not function well. This has been
shown precisely with regard to the segmentary system, which is always
destined to reconstitute itself on its own ruins; and likewise for the
organization of the political function in these systems, which in effect is
exercised only by indi cating its own impotence.9 Ethnologists are
constantly saying that kinship rules are neither applied nor applicable to
real marriages: not because these rules are ideal but rather because they
The Function of Dysfunction
- Social machines do not fail due to internal contradictions; rather, they function precisely by breaking down and misfiring.
- Kinship rules and political systems often operate by indicating their own impotence or by being inapplicable to real-world situations.
- The social machine is identical to the desiring-machine, thriving on the crises, anxieties, and spasms it generates.
- Capitalism and primitive segmentary systems alike feed on their own ruins, reconstituting themselves through the very conflicts they provoke.
- The primitive territorial machine uses a segmentary system of lineage and tribe to organize flows of production and alliance through constant opposition.
The social machine's limit is not attrition, but rather its misfirings; it can operate only by fits and starts, by grinding and breaking down, in spasms of minor explosions.
capacity to wield its materials. But here too it seems that the correct
interpretation would be, above all, actual and functional: it is in order to
function that a social machine must not function well. This has been
shown precisely with regard to the segmentary system, which is always
destined to reconstitute itself on its own ruins; and likewise for the
organization of the political function in these systems, which in effect is
exercised only by indi cating its own impotence.9 Ethnologists are
constantly saying that kinship rules are neither applied nor applicable to
real marriages: not because these rules are ideal but rather because they
determine critical points where the apparatus starts up again—provided
it is blocked, and where it necessarily places itself in a negative relation
to the group. Here it becomes appa rent that the social machine is
identical with the desiring-machine. The social machine's limit is not
attrition, but rather its misfirings; it can operate only by fits and starts,
by grinding and breaking down, in spasms of minor explosions. The
dysfunctions are an essential element of its very ability to function,
which is not the least important aspe ct of the system of cruelty. The
death of a social machine has never been heralded by a disharmony or a
dysfunction; on the contrary, social m achines make a habit of feeding on
the contradictions they give rise to, on the crises they provoke, on the
anxieties they engender, and on the infernal oper ations they regenerate.
Capitalism has learned this, and has ceased doubting itself, while even
socialists have abandoned belief in the possibility of capitalism's natural
death by attrition. No one has ever died from contradictions. And the
more it breaks down, the more it schizophrenizes, the better it works, the
American way.
But this is already the point of view required—given a change of
perspective—for examining the primitiv e socius, the territorial machine
*C!aude Levi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology, trans. Claire Jacobs and Brooke Grundfest Schoepf (New
York: Basic Books, Harper Torchbooks, 1963), p. 117, {Translators'note: The French reads: "la marque,
impossible a meconnaitre, de Tevenement." The above tran slation misses the impact of marque [mark] and
evenement [event].)
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN
for declining alliances and filiations. This machine is segmentary be-
cause, through its double apparatus of tribe and lineage, it cuts up
segments of varying lengths: genealogical filiative units of major, minor,
and minimal lineages, with their hierar chy, their respective chiefs, their
elders who guard the stocks and orga nize marriages; territorial tribal
units of primary, secondary, and te rtiary sections, also having their
dominant roles and their alliances. "T he point of separation between the
tribal sections becomes the point of divergence in the clan structure of
the lineages associated with each section. For, as we have seen, clans
and their lineages are not distinct corporate groups, but are embodied in
local communities, through which they function structurally."10 The two
systems intersect, each segment being associated with the flows and the
chains, with the stocked flows and th e passing flows, with selections
from the flows and detachments from the chains (certain production
projects are executed in the framework of the tribal system, others in the
framework of the lineage system). The variability and relativity of the
segments are responsible for all so rts of penetrations between the
inalienable elements of filiation and the mobile elements of alliance. This
is explained by the fact that the length of each segment—or even its
existence as such—is determined only by its opposition to other
segments in a series of interrelated stages. The segmentary machine
mixes rivalries, conflicts, and rupt ures throughout the variations of
The Segmentary Machine and Capitalism
- Primitive segmentary systems operate through a constant tension between fusion against external groups and scission into independent lineages.
- The social machine intentionally maintains weak mechanisms of power and chieftainry to prevent the concentration of authority and the rise of the state.
- Primitive societies actively exorcise and subordinate commerce and industry to prevent decoded flows from destroying their social codes.
- Capitalism represents the 'unnamable' nightmare of generalized decoding that all previous social formations sought to prevent through coding and overcoding.
- History can be read retrospectively through capitalism, which acts as the negative limit that primitive societies sensed and attempted to forestall.
It would appear that social formations experienced a morbid and mournful foreboding of things to come, although what comes to them always comes from without, rushing in through their opening.
projects are executed in the framework of the tribal system, others in the
framework of the lineage system). The variability and relativity of the
segments are responsible for all so rts of penetrations between the
inalienable elements of filiation and the mobile elements of alliance. This
is explained by the fact that the length of each segment—or even its
existence as such—is determined only by its opposition to other
segments in a series of interrelated stages. The segmentary machine
mixes rivalries, conflicts, and rupt ures throughout the variations of
filiation and the fluctuations of alliance. The whole system evolves
between two poles: that of fusion through opposition to other groups,
and that of scission through the c onstant formation of new lineages
aspiring to independence, with capitalization of alliances and filiation.
From one pole to the other, all the misfirings and failures in a system that
is constantly reborn of its own di sharmonies. What does Jeanne Favret
mean when she shows, along with other ethnologists, that "the persist-
ence of a segmentary organization requires paradoxically that its
mechanisms be ineffectual enough so that fear remains the motor of the
whole"? And what is this fear? It would appear that social formations
experienced a morbid and mournful foreboding of things to come,
although what comes to them alwa ys comes from without, rushing in
through their opening. Perhaps it is even for this reason that it arrives
from without; they suffocate its inner potentiality, at the cost of the
dysfunctions that constitute an integr al part of the functioning of their
system.
The segmentary territorial mach ine makes use of scission to
exorcise fusion, and impedes the concentration of power by maintaining
the organs of chieftainry in a rela tionship of impotence with the group:
153 ANTI-OEDIPUS
as though the savages themselves sensed th e rise of the imperial Barbarian, who
will come nonetheless from without and will overcode all their codes. But the
greatest danger would be yet another disp ersion, a scission such that all the
possibilities of coding would be suppressed: decoded flows, fl owing on a blind,
mute, deterritoriahzed socius—such is th e nightmare that the primitive social
machine exorcises with all its forces, a nd all its segmentary articulations. The
primitive machine is not ignorant of ex change, commerce, and industry; it
exorcises them, localizes them, cordons them off, encastes them, and maintains
the merchant and the blacksmith in a subor dinate position, so that the flows of
exchange and the flows of production do not manage to break the codes in favor
of their abstract or fictional quantities. A nd isn't that also what Oedipus, the fear
of incest, is about: the fear of a decoded flow? If capitalism is the universal truth,
it is so in the sense that makes capitalism the negative of all social formations. It
is the thing, the unnamable, the generalized decoding of flows that reveals a
contrario the secret of all these formations, coding the flows, and even
overcoding them, rather than letting anyt hing escape coding. Primitive societies
are not outside history; rather, it is capita lism that is at the end of history, it is
capitalism that results from a long histor y of contingencies and accidents, and
that brings on this end. It cannot be sa id that the previous formations did not
foresee this Thing that only came from w ithout by rising from within, and that at
all costs had to be prevented from rising. Whence the possibility of a
retrospective reading of all history in term s of capitalism. It is already possible to
see signs of classes in precapitalist societies. But ethnologists observe how
difficult it is to distinguish those protoclasses from the castes organized by the
imperial machine and from the rankings distributed by the segmentary primitive
machine. The criteria that distinguish classes, castes, and ranks must not be
Capitalism and Historical Decoding
- Capitalism is presented not as a natural state but as the end of history resulting from a long series of accidents and contingencies.
- The text distinguishes between ranks in primitive societies, castes in imperial states, and classes in capitalist systems based on their relationship to coding and decoding.
- History can be retrospectively read through the lens of capitalism, where classes function as the negative image of previous social organizations.
- The transition to capitalism involves an axiomatic system that replaces traditional codes with a harsh, somber organization of decoded production.
- The 'full body of the earth' serves as a surface for social inscription where genealogical filiation is both mythical and biosocial.
It cannot be said that the previous formations did not foresee this Thing that only came from without by rising from within, and that at all costs had to be prevented from rising.
are not outside history; rather, it is capita lism that is at the end of history, it is
capitalism that results from a long histor y of contingencies and accidents, and
that brings on this end. It cannot be sa id that the previous formations did not
foresee this Thing that only came from w ithout by rising from within, and that at
all costs had to be prevented from rising. Whence the possibility of a
retrospective reading of all history in term s of capitalism. It is already possible to
see signs of classes in precapitalist societies. But ethnologists observe how
difficult it is to distinguish those protoclasses from the castes organized by the
imperial machine and from the rankings distributed by the segmentary primitive
machine. The criteria that distinguish classes, castes, and ranks must not be
sought in a fixity or a permeability, nor in a relative closing or opening; these
criteria always reveal themselves to be deceptive, eminently misleading. But the
ranks are inseparable from the primitive te rritorial coding process, just as castes
are inseparable from the overcoding practiced by the imperial State, while classes
are relative to the process of an i ndustrial and commodity production decoded
under the conditions of capitalism. All hist ory can therefore be read under the
sign of classes, but by observing the rules set forth by Marx, and bearing in mind
that classes are the "negative" of castes and ranks. For it is certain that the regime
of decoding does not signify the absence of organization, but rather the most
somber organization, the harshest compa tibility, with the axiomatic replacing the
codes and incorporating them, always a contrario.
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 1S3
3 The Problem of Oedipus
The full body of the earth is not without distinguishing
characteristics. Suffering and dangerous, unique, universal, it falls back on
production, on the agents and connecti ons of production. But on it, too,
everything is attached and inscribed, everyt hing is attracted, miraculated. It is the
basis of the disjunctive synthesis and its reproduction: a pure force of filiation or
genealogy, Numen. The full body is the unengendered, but filiation is the first
character of inscription marked on this body. And we know the nature of this
intensive filiation, this inclusive disjunc tion where everything divides, but into
itself, and where the same being is ever ywhere, on every side, at every level,
differing only in intensity. The same included being traverses indivisible
distances on the full body, and passes through all the singularities, all the
intensities of a synthesis that shifts and reproduces itself. It serves no purpose to
recall that genealogical filiation is soci al rather than biological, for it is
necessarily biosocial inasmuch as it is inscribed on the cosmic egg of the full
body of the earth. It has a mythical origin that is the One, or rather the primitive
one-two. Should one say the twins or the twin? Which divides and unites into
itself—the Nommo, or the Nom-mos? The disjunctive synthesis distributes the
primordial ancestors, but each member of the primitive community is himself a
Filiation and the Ark of Alliance
- Genealogical filiation is presented as a biosocial inscription on the 'full body of the earth,' where individuals intensively repeat the entire genealogy for themselves.
- The 'full body' acts as both an enchanted surface of inscription and a magical fetish that appears to produce the very connections it merely records.
- Alliance introduces a second form of inscription that imposes a pairing of persons onto productive connections, reacting against the inclusive disjunctions of filiation.
- The transition from filiation to alliance involves a 'derailment' where inclusive disjunctions become exclusive, leading to the separation of the sexes and the dismembering of the primordial full body.
- While alliance and filiation coexist in economic and political systems, mythically they represent a shift from intensive primordial lineages to restricted social extensions.
Once this occurs, there is a dismembering of the full body, a canceling of twinness (la gemelleite), a separation of the sexes marked by circumcision, but also a recomposition of the body according to a new model of connection or conjugation.
distances on the full body, and passes through all the singularities, all the
intensities of a synthesis that shifts and reproduces itself. It serves no purpose to
recall that genealogical filiation is soci al rather than biological, for it is
necessarily biosocial inasmuch as it is inscribed on the cosmic egg of the full
body of the earth. It has a mythical origin that is the One, or rather the primitive
one-two. Should one say the twins or the twin? Which divides and unites into
itself—the Nommo, or the Nom-mos? The disjunctive synthesis distributes the
primordial ancestors, but each member of the primitive community is himself a
complete full body, male and female, binding to itself all the partial objects, with
variations that are solely intensive, and that correspond to the internal zigzag of
the Dogon egg. Each one intensively rep eats the entire genealogy for himself.
And everywhere it is the same, at both ends of the indivisible distance and on
every side, a litany of twins, an intense filiation. At the beginning of Le renard
pale, Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen sketch out a splendid theory of the
sign: the signs of filiation, guide-signs a nd master-signs, signs of desire, intensive
at first, which fall in a spiral and traverse a series of explosions before extending
into images, figures, and drawings.
If the full body falls back on the productive connections and inscribes them
in a network of intensive and inclusive disjunctions, it still has to find again and
reanimate lateral connections in the networ k itself, and it must attribute them to
itself as though it were their cause. These are the two aspects of the full body: an
enchanted surface of inscription, the fa ntastic law, or the apparent objective
movement; but also a magical agent or fetish, the quasi cause. It is not content to
inscribe all things, it must act as if it produced them. It is necessary that the
connections reappear in a form compatible with the inscribed disjunctions, even
if they react in turn on th e form of these disjunctions.
154 ANTI-OEDIPUS
Such is alliance, the second characteristic of inscription: alliance imposes on the
productive connections the extensive form of a pairing of persons, compatible
with the disjunctions of inscription, but inversely reacts on inscription by
determining an exclusive and restrictive use of these same disjunctions. It is
therefore inevitable that alliance be myth ically represented as supervening at a
certain moment in the filiative lines (alt hough in another sense it is already there
from time immemorial). Marcel Gr iaule describes how, among the Dogons,
something is produced at a certain moment , at the level and on the side of the
eighth ancestor: a derailment of the disj unctions, which cease to be inclusive and
become exclusive. Once this occurs, th ere is a dismembering of the full body, a
canceling of twinness (la gemelleit e), a separation of the sexes marked by
circumcision, but also a recomposition of the body according to a new model of
connection or conjugation, an articulation of bodies for and between themselves,
a lateral inscription with articulatory stones of alliance, in short, a whole ark of
alliance.11 Alliances never derive from filiati ons, nor can they be deduced from
them. But, this principle once establis hed, we must distinguish between two
points of view: the one economic and politi cal, where alliance is there from time
immemorial, combining and declining its elf with the extended filiative lineages
that do not exist prior to alliances in a system assumed to be given in extended
form; the other mythical, which shows how the extension of a system takes form
and delimits itself, proceeding from inte nse and primordial filiative lineages that
necessarily lose their inclusive or nonres trictive use. From this viewpoint the
Intensive Filiation and Social Extension
- The text distinguishes between an economic-political viewpoint of alliance and a mythical viewpoint that explains how systems extend from primordial lineages.
- Extended social systems function as a 'memory of alliance' that requires the active repression of an intensive, biocosmic memory of filiation.
- The transition into a social system is not a move from filiation to alliance, but a shift from an intensive energetic order to an extensive system.
- Primary energy, or Numen, exists in a state of prepersonal intensity that lacks distinctions of person or sex until it is captured by the extended system.
- In the extended system, ambiguous signs become positive or negative values based on the exchange of women between lineages.
On the contrary, as intensive filiations they become the object of a separate memory, nocturnal and biocosmic—the memory that indeed must suffer repression in order for the new extended memory to be established.
them. But, this principle once establis hed, we must distinguish between two
points of view: the one economic and politi cal, where alliance is there from time
immemorial, combining and declining its elf with the extended filiative lineages
that do not exist prior to alliances in a system assumed to be given in extended
form; the other mythical, which shows how the extension of a system takes form
and delimits itself, proceeding from inte nse and primordial filiative lineages that
necessarily lose their inclusive or nonres trictive use. From this viewpoint the
extended system is like a memory of a lliance and of words, implying an active
repression of the intense memory of filia tion. For if genealogy and filiations are
the object of an ever vigilant memory, it is to the degree that they are already
apprehended in an extensive sense that they certainly did not possess before the
determinations of alliances conferred it on them. On the contrary, as intensive
filiations they become the object of a separate memory, nocturnal and
biocosmic—the memory that indeed must suffer repression in order for the new
extended memory to be established.
We can better understand why the problem does not in the least consist of
going from filiations to alliances, or of deducing the latter from the former. The
problem is one of passing from an inte nsive energetic order to an extensive
system, which comprises both qualitative alliances and extended filiations.
Nothing is changed by the fact that the primary energy of the intensive
order—the Numen—is an energy of filiati on, for this intense filiation is not yet
extended, and does not as yet comprise any distinction of persons, nor even a
distinction of sexes, but
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 1SS
only prepersonal variations in intensity, taking on the same twinness or
bisexuality in differi ng degrees. The signs belonging to this order are therefore
fundamentally neuter or ambiguous (according to an expression employed by
Leibnitz to designate a sign that can be + a s w e l l a s - ) . I t i s a q u e s t i o n o f
knowing how, starting from this primary intens ity, it will be possible to pass to a
system in extension where (1) the filia tions will be filiations extended in the
form of lineages, comprising distinctions of persons and of pare ntal appellations;
(2) the alliances will be at the same time qualitative relations, which the
filiations presuppose as much as vice ve rsa; (3) in short, the ambiguous intense
signs will cease to be ambiguous and will become positive or negative.
This may be seen clearly in a passage from Levi-Strauss, explaining for the
simple forms of marriage the prohibition of parallel cousins and the approbation
of cross-cousins: each marriage between two lines A and B bears a (+) or (-)
sign, according to whether this couple re sults from a woman being lost to or
acquired by line A or B. In this regard it is not important whether the regime of
filiation is patrilineal or matrilineal. In a patrilineal or patrilocal regime, for
example, "related women are women los t; women brought in by marriage are
women gained. Each family descended from these marriages thus bears a sign,
Kinship as Physical Energy
- The text analyzes Lévi-Strauss's structuralist view of marriage as a system of gains and losses between family lines.
- Kinship signs change based on generation and sex, determining whether a group owes a sister or has the right to a wife.
- The authors argue that this is less a logical apparatus of exchange and more a physical system of energy flows and debts.
- In this system, alliances and filiations function to either block or facilitate the passage of social 'energy' between groups.
- Myth is presented as the necessary tool to determine the intensive conditions of this system, moving beyond mere representation.
In the physical system in extension, something passes through that is of the nature of an energy flow (+- or -+), something does not pass or remains blocked (+ + or —), and something blocks, or on the contrary causes, passage.
simple forms of marriage the prohibition of parallel cousins and the approbation
of cross-cousins: each marriage between two lines A and B bears a (+) or (-)
sign, according to whether this couple re sults from a woman being lost to or
acquired by line A or B. In this regard it is not important whether the regime of
filiation is patrilineal or matrilineal. In a patrilineal or patrilocal regime, for
example, "related women are women los t; women brought in by marriage are
women gained. Each family descended from these marriages thus bears a sign,
which is determined, for the initial group, by whether the children's mother is a
daughter or a daughter-in-law. . . . The sign changes in passing from the brother
to the sister, since the brother gains a wi fe, while the sister is lost to her own
family." But, as Levi-Strauss re marks, one also changes signs in passing from
one generation to the next: "It depends upon whether, from the initial group's
point of view, the father has received a wife, or the mother has been transferred
outside, whether the sons have the right to a woman or owe a sister. Certainly, in
real life this difference does not mean that half the male cousins are destined to
remain bachelors. However, at all ev ents, it does express the law that a man
cannot receive a wife except from the group from which a woman can be
claimed, because in the previous generation a sister or a daughter was lost, while
a brother owes a sister (or a father, a daughter) to the outside world if a woman
was gained in the previous generation. . . . The pivot-couple, formed by an A
man married to a B woman, obviously has two signs, according to whether it is
envisaged from the viewpoint of A, or that of B, and the same is true for
children. It is now only necessary to look at the cousins' generation to establish
that all those in the relationship (+ +) or (—) are parallel to one another, while
all those in the relationship (+-) or (-+) are cross."12
But once the problem is put in this way, it is less a question of applying a
logical combinative apparatus governing an interplay of
1M ANT!-OEDIPUS
exchanges, as Levi-Strauss would ha ve it, than one of establishing a
physical system that will express itself naturally in terms of debts. It
seems to us very significant th at Levi-Strauss himself invokes the
co-ordinates of a physical system, a lthough he sees this as nothing more
than a metaphor. In the physical system in extension, something passes
through that is of the nature of an energy flow (+- or -+), something
does not pass or remains blocked (+ + or —), and something blocks, or
on the contrary causes, passage. Some thing or someone. In this system
in extension there is no primary filiation, nor is there a first generation or
an initial exchange, but there are always and already alliances, at the
same time as the filiations are ex tended, expressing both what must
remain blocked in the filiation and what must pass through in the
alliance.
The essential is not that the signs change according to the sexes and
the generations, but that one passes from the intensive to the extensive,
that is to say, from an order of ambiguous signs to an order of signs that
are changing but determined. It is here that resorting to myth is
indispensable, not because the myth would be a transposed or even an
inverse representation of real relati ons in extension, but because only
the myth can determine the intensive conditions of the system (the
system of production included) in conformity with indigenous thought
and practice. That is why a text of Ma rcel Griaule's, which looks to myth
for a principle that would explain th e avunculate, seems decisive to us,
and seems to avoid the reproach of id ealism that usually greets this kind
of attempt. We have a similar view of the recent article in which Adler
and Cartry return to the question.13 These authors are right in remarking
Myth and Intensive Kinship
- Myth acts as a conditioning principle for social systems rather than a mere expression of them, determining indigenous thought and practice.
- The traditional kinship atom is criticized for excluding the mother as a primary figure, treating her as a secondary kinswoman or affine.
- The myth of the Yourougou illustrates how a subject identifies with the mother's generation through the shared substance of the placenta.
- Kinship roles in this context are not fixed persons but intensive variations and vibratory states within a cosmic system.
- The placenta serves as the 'full body of antiproduction,' a common substance that collapses the distinction between cause and effect in generation.
I am the son, and also my mother's brother and my sister's husband and my own father.
the myth can determine the intensive conditions of the system (the
system of production included) in conformity with indigenous thought
and practice. That is why a text of Ma rcel Griaule's, which looks to myth
for a principle that would explain th e avunculate, seems decisive to us,
and seems to avoid the reproach of id ealism that usually greets this kind
of attempt. We have a similar view of the recent article in which Adler
and Cartry return to the question.13 These authors are right in remarking
that Levi-Strauss's kinship atom —with its four relationships:
brother-sister, husband-wife, father-son, maternal uncle-sister's
son—presents itself as a ready-made whole from which the mother as
such is strangely excluded, alth ough, depending on the circumstances,
she can be more or less a "kinswoman" or more or less an "affine" in
relation to her children. Now this is indeed where the myth takes root,
the myth that does not express but conditions. As Griaule relates it, the
Yourougou, breaking into the piece of pl acenta he has stolen, is like the
brother of his mother, with whom he is united by that fact: "This
individual went away into the distance carrying with him a part of the
nourishing placenta, which is to say a part of his own mother. He saw
this organ as his own and as forming a part of his own person, in such a
way that he identified himself with the one who gave birth to him. She
was the matrix of the world, and he considered himself to be placed on
the same p lane a s s he from the viewpoint of th e generations. . . . He
senses unconsciously his symbolic membership in his mother's
generation and his detachment
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 1ST
from the real generation of which he is a member. . . . Being, according
to him, of the same sub stance and generation a s his mother, he likens
himself to a male twin of his genetrix, and the mythical rule of the union
of two paired members proposes him as the ideal husband. Hence, in his
capacity as pseudo brother to his genetrix, he should be in the position
of his maternal uncle, the desi gnated husband of this woman."14
Doubtless all the dramatis personae w ill be found to come into play
from this point on: mother, father, s on, mother's brother, son's sister.
But it is evident and striking that these are not persons. Their names do
not designate persons, but rather the intensive variations of a "vibratory
spiraling movement," inclusive disjunctions, necessarily twin states
through which a subject passes on the co smic egg. Everything must be
interpreted in intensity. The egg an d the placenta itself, swept by an
unconscious life energy "susceptibl e to augmentation and diminution."
The father is in no way absent. But Amma, the father and genitor, is
himself a high intensive part, immanent to the placenta, inseparable
from the twinness, which relates him to his feminine part. And if the
Yourougou son carries away a part of the placenta in his turn, it is in an
intensive relationship with another part that contains his own sister or
twin sister. But, aiming too high, the part he carries away makes him the
sister of his mother, who eminently replaces the sister, and to whom he
becomes united by replacing Amma . In short, a whole world of
ambiguous signs, included divisions an d bisexual states. I am the son,
and also my mother's brother and my sister's husband and my own
father. Everything rests on the plac enta, which has become the earth,
the unengendered, the full body of antiproduction where the
organs-partial objects of a sacrificed Nommo are attached. It is because
the placenta, as a substance common to the mother and the child, a
common part of their bodies, makes it such that these bodies are not like
cause and effect, but are both pr oducts derived from this same
Germinal Lineage and Mythical Incest
- The text explores the Dogon myth where the placenta serves as a common substance, making the son his mother's twin rather than just her offspring.
- A distinction is drawn between the continuous germinal lineage, which is immortal, and the discontinuous somatic lineage of successive generations.
- The author reinterprets the Hamlet complex, suggesting the son reproaches the uncle for failing to fulfill a role the son himself was somatically barred from.
- Incest prohibitions are framed not as a fear of mixing generations, but as a necessary repression of intensive germinal filiation to allow for social alliances.
- The somatic order collapses the intensive scale of the germinal line to establish a system of extended filiations and lateral social connections.
The subject does not reproach the uncle for having done what he himself wanted to do; he reproaches him for not having done what he the son could not do.
ambiguous signs, included divisions an d bisexual states. I am the son,
and also my mother's brother and my sister's husband and my own
father. Everything rests on the plac enta, which has become the earth,
the unengendered, the full body of antiproduction where the
organs-partial objects of a sacrificed Nommo are attached. It is because
the placenta, as a substance common to the mother and the child, a
common part of their bodies, makes it such that these bodies are not like
cause and effect, but are both pr oducts derived from this same
substance, in relation to which the son is his mother's twin: such is
indeed the axis of the Dogon myth re lated by Griaule. Yes, I have been
my mother and I have been my son. It is rare that one sees myth and
science saying the same thing from such a great distance: the Dogon
narrative develops a mythical Weismannism, where the germinative
plasma forms an immortal and continuous lineage that does not depend
on bodies; on the contrary, the bodies of the parents as well as the
children depend on it. Whence the distinction between two lines, the
one continuous and germinal, but th e other discontinuous and somatic,
it alone being subjected to a succe ssion of generations. (T. D. Lysenko
employed a naturally Dogon tone, turning it back against Weismann, to
reproach him for making the son the genetic or germinal brother of the
mother: "The
1SS ANTI-OEDIPUS
Morganists-Mendelians, following Weismann, start from the idea that the parents
are not genetically the parents of their child ren; if we are to believe their doctrine,
parents and children are brothers and sisters."15) But the son is not somatically his
mother's brother and twin. That is why he cannot marry her (bearing in mind what
we said earlier to be the meaning of "that is why"). The one who should have
married the mother was therefore the ma ternal uncle. The first consequence of
this is that incest with the sister is no t a substitute for incest with the mother, but
on the contrary the intensive model of in cest as a manifestation of the germinal
lineage. Then again, Hamlet is not an extension of Oedipus, an Oedipus to the
second degree; on the contrary, a negativ e or inverse Hamlet is primary in
relation to Oedipus. The subject does not re proach the uncle for having done what
he himself wanted to do; he reproaches him for not having done what he the son
could not do. And why didn' t the uncle marry the mother, his somatic sister?
Because he must not, except in the name of this germinal filiation, marked by
ambiguous signs of twinness and bisexuality, according to which the son could
have done it as well, and could have been himself this uncle in an intense
relationship with the mother-twin. The vicious circle of the germinal lineage
closes (the primitive double bind): neither can the uncle marry his sister, the
mother, nor from that moment can the son marry his own sister—the Yourougou
female twin will be delivered over to the Nommos as a potential affine. The
somatic order causes the whole intensive s cale to collapse again. Actually, if the
son cannot marry his mother, it is not becau se he is somatically from a different
generation. Arguing against Malinowski, Levi-Strauss has demonstrated convinc-
ingly that the mixing of generations was not in the least feared as such, and that
the incest prohibition could not be explained in this manner.16 This is because the
mixing of the generations in the son-mother case has the same effect as their
correspondence in the case of the uncle-sist er, that is, it testifies to one and the
same intensive germinal filiation that must be repressed in both cases. In short, a
somatic system in extension can constitute itself only insofar as the filiations
become extended, correlatively to lateral a lliances that become established. It is
The Repression of Germinal Filiation
- Incest prohibitions serve to transform intensive germinal filiations into extended somatic systems and lateral alliances.
- The mother and sister do not exist as discernible persons prior to the social prohibitions that constitute them as such.
- Social systems replace ambiguous, inclusive disjunctions with exclusive 'either/or' logic to establish clear kinship roles.
- Incest is fundamentally impossible because it requires a series of substitutions that move the subject away from the original intensive state.
- Preferential marriage acts as a symbolic 'first permitted incest' that remains dangerously close to the nonexistent impossible.
It is the great nocturnal memory of the intensive germinal filiation that is repressed for the sake of an extensive somatic memory.
ingly that the mixing of generations was not in the least feared as such, and that
the incest prohibition could not be explained in this manner.16 This is because the
mixing of the generations in the son-mother case has the same effect as their
correspondence in the case of the uncle-sist er, that is, it testifies to one and the
same intensive germinal filiation that must be repressed in both cases. In short, a
somatic system in extension can constitute itself only insofar as the filiations
become extended, correlatively to lateral a lliances that become established. It is
through the prohibition of incest with the sister that the lateral alliance is sealed; it
is through the prohibition of incest with the mother that the filiation becomes
extended. There we find no repression of th e father, no foreclosure of the name of
the father. The respective pos ition of the mother or father as kin or affine, the
patrilineal or matrilineal ch aracter of the filiation, and the patrilateral or
matrilateral character of the marriage, ar e active elements of the repression, and
not objects at which the repression is directed. It is not even the memory of
filiation in
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 159
general that is repressed by a memory of alliance. It is the great nocturnal
memory of the intensive germinal filiation that is repressed for the sake of an
extensive somatic memory, created from filiations that have become extended
(patrilineal or rnatrilineal) and from the alliances that they imply. The entire
Dogon mythology is a patrilineal version of the opposition between the two
genealogies and the two filiations: in in tensity and in extension, the intense
germinal order and the extensive re gime of the somatic generations.
The system in extension is born of the intensive conditions that make it
possible, but it reacts on them, cancels them, represses them, and allows them no
more than a mythical expression. The signs cease to be ambiguous at the same
time as they are determined in relation to the extended filiations and the lateral
alliances: the disjunctions become exclus ive, restrictive (the "either/or else"
replaces the intense "either ... or ... or . . ."); the names, the appellations no
longer designate intensive states, but discernible persons. Discernibility settles
on the sister and the mother as prohibited spouses. The reason is that persons,
with the names that now designate them , do not exist prior to the prohibitions
that constitute them as such. Mother a nd sister do not exist prior to their
prohibition as spouses. Robert Jaulin says it well: "The mythical discourse has as
its theme the passage from indifference to incest to its prohibition. Implicit or
explicit, this theme underlies all the myths; it is therefore a formal property of
this language."17 We must conclude that, strictly speaking, incest does not and
cannot exist. We are always on this side of incest, in a series of intensities that is
ignorant of discernible persons; or else beyond incest, in an extension that
recognizes them, that constitutes them, but that does not constitute them without
rendering them impossible as sexual part ners. One can commit incest only after a
series of substitutions that always moves us away from it, that is to say, with a
person who is equivalent to the mother or the sister only by virtue of not being
either: she who is discernible as a possible spouse. Such is the meaning of
preferential marriage: the first incest that is permitted. But it is not by chance that
this kind of marriage rarely occurs, as though it were still too close to the
nonexistent impossible (for example, th e preferential Dogon marriage with the
uncle's daughter, she being equivalent to the aunt, who is herself equivalent to
the mother).
Griaule's article is without doubt th e text most profoundly inspired by
psychoanalysis in the whole of anthropology. Yet it leads to conclusions that
The Impossibility of Incest
- Incest is described as a pure limit or a boundary line that is always either already crossed or not yet crossed, rendering it effectively impossible.
- The text argues that the prohibition of incest does not prove an original desire for it, as the law essentially disfigures the nature of what is desired.
- Incestuous acts are impossible in a symbolic sense because they require the simultaneous existence of specific persons and their familial names, which are mutually exclusive in the act.
- When the act occurs, either the persons lose their names as partners, or the names become prepersonal intensive states that could apply to anyone.
- Preferential marriage is viewed as the first permitted incest, yet it remains rare because it sits too close to the nonexistent impossible.
In short, the limit is neither a this-side-of nor a beyond: it is the boundary line between the two— Incest, that slandered shallow stream —always crossed already or not yet crossed.
rendering them impossible as sexual part ners. One can commit incest only after a
series of substitutions that always moves us away from it, that is to say, with a
person who is equivalent to the mother or the sister only by virtue of not being
either: she who is discernible as a possible spouse. Such is the meaning of
preferential marriage: the first incest that is permitted. But it is not by chance that
this kind of marriage rarely occurs, as though it were still too close to the
nonexistent impossible (for example, th e preferential Dogon marriage with the
uncle's daughter, she being equivalent to the aunt, who is herself equivalent to
the mother).
Griaule's article is without doubt th e text most profoundly inspired by
psychoanalysis in the whole of anthropology. Yet it leads to conclusions that
cause the whole of Oedipus to shatter, because it is not content to pose the
problem in extension, thereby assuming its solution. These are the conclusions
drawn by Adler and Cartry: "It is customary
1 « S A N T I - O E D I P U S
to consider incestuous relations in myth either as the expression of the desire or
the nostalgia for a world where such relations wouid be possible or would meet
with indifference, or as the expression of a structural function of the inversion of
the social rule, a function destined to found the prohibition a nd its transgression.
... In both instances, one takes as something already constituted what is in fact
the emergence of an order that the myth narrates and explains. In other
words,one reasons as if the myth placed on the stage persons defined as father,
mother, brother, and sister, whereas these roles belong to the order constituted by
the prohibition . . . : incest does not exist."* Incest is a pure limit. Provided that
two false beliefs concerning the limit ar e avoided: one that makes the limit a
matrix or an origin, as though the prohi bition proved that the thing was "first"
desired as such; another that makes the limit a structural function, as though the
supposedly "fundamental" relationship betw een desire and law were manifested
in transgression. It is necessary to re call once more that the law proves nothing
about an original reality of desire because it essentially disfigures the desired;
and that the trangression proves nothing about a functional reality of the law
because, far from being a mockery of the law, it is itself derisory in relation to
what the law prohibits in reality (the reason why revolutions have nothing to do
with transgressions). In short, the limit is neither a this-side-of nor a beyond: it is
the boundary line between the two— Incest, that slandered shallow
stream —always crossed already or not yet cro ssed. For incest is like this motion,
it is impossible. And it is not impossible in the same sense that the Real would be
impossible, but quite the contrary, in the sense that the Symbolic is.
But what does it mean to say that incest is impossible? Isn't it possible to go
to bed with one's sister or mother? And how do we dispense with the old
argument: it must be possible since it is prohibited? The problem lies elsewhere.
The possibility of incest would require both pers ons and n ames —son, sister,
mother, brother, father. Now in the inces tuous act we can have persons at our
disposal, but they lose their names inasmuch as these names are inseparable from
the prohibition that proscribes them as partners; or else the names subsist, and
designate nothing more than prepersonal in tensive states that could just as well
"extend" to other persons, as when one ca lls his legitimate wife "mama," or one's
sister his wife. It is in this sense that we said we are always on this side of it or
beyond. Our mothers and our sisters melt in
The Impossibility of Incest
- The author argues that incest is symbolically impossible because the act itself destroys the social names—mother, sister, brother—required to define it.
- A distinction is made between the physical possibility of the act and the symbolic impossibility of enjoying both the person and their social designation simultaneously.
- Prohibition functions by creating a disfigured image of desire, effectively masking the true nature of what is being repressed.
- True desire is directed toward an intensive, prepersonal flow rather than the specific familial persons defined by social extension.
- The Oedipus complex is critiqued for representing incest as a transgression against persons rather than an intensive state of being.
Our mothers and our sisters melt in our arms; their names slide on their persons like a stamp that is too wet.
stream —always crossed already or not yet cro ssed. For incest is like this motion,
it is impossible. And it is not impossible in the same sense that the Real would be
impossible, but quite the contrary, in the sense that the Symbolic is.
But what does it mean to say that incest is impossible? Isn't it possible to go
to bed with one's sister or mother? And how do we dispense with the old
argument: it must be possible since it is prohibited? The problem lies elsewhere.
The possibility of incest would require both pers ons and n ames —son, sister,
mother, brother, father. Now in the inces tuous act we can have persons at our
disposal, but they lose their names inasmuch as these names are inseparable from
the prohibition that proscribes them as partners; or else the names subsist, and
designate nothing more than prepersonal in tensive states that could just as well
"extend" to other persons, as when one ca lls his legitimate wife "mama," or one's
sister his wife. It is in this sense that we said we are always on this side of it or
beyond. Our mothers and our sisters melt in
*AdIer and Cartry (see reference note 13). Jacques De rrida wrote, in a commentary of Rousseau: "Before
the feast there was no incest because there was no prohibition of incest. After the feast there is no longer
any incest because it is prohibited. . . . The feast itself would be the incest itself if any such
thing— itself—could take place" (De la grammatologie [see reference note 53], pp. 372-77).
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS. CIVILIZED MEN 181
our arms; their names slide on their persons like a stamp that is too wet. This is
because one can never enjoy the person and the name at the same time—yet this
would be the condition for incest. Granted, incest is a lure, it is impossible. But
the problem is only deferred. Is that not the nature of desire, that one desires the
impossible? At least in this instance, the platitude is not even true. We are
reminded how illegitimate it is to conc lude from the prohibition anything
regarding the nature of what is pr ohibited; for the prohibition proceeds by
dishonoring the guilty, that is to say, by inducing a disfigured or displaced image
of the thing that is really prohibited or desired. Indeed, this is how social
repression prolongs itself by means of a psychic repression without which it
would have no grip on desire. What is desired is the intense germinal or
germinative flow, where one would look in vain for persons or even functions
discernible as father, mother, son, sist er, etc., since these names only designate
intensive variations on the full body of the earth determined as the germen. It is
always possible to use the term incest, as well as indifference to incest, for this
regime composed of one and the same being or flow, varying in intensity
according to inclusive disjunctions. But that is precisely the problem; one cannot
confound incest as it would be in this intensive nonpersonal regime that would
institute it, with incest as re presented in extension in the state that prohibits it, and
that defines it as a transgression against persons. Jung is therefore entirely correct
in saying that the Oedipus complex signifi es something altogether different from
The Germinal Flow and Repression
- Desire is fundamentally an intensive germinal flow that precedes the social identification of persons such as father, mother, or son.
- The Oedipal complex acts as a displaced representation or 'fake image' used to repress the non-personal substance of desire.
- Incest as a social prohibition targets the form of discernible persons to conceal the desired substance of the intense earth.
- The primitive socius represses the germinal influx because it represents a flow that is inherently non-codable and resistant to social quantification.
- Social systems require the quantification and qualification of energy to function, necessitating the transition from intensive flows to extensive systems of discernible persons.
The extensive Oedipal figure is its displaced represented, the lure or fake image, born of repression, that comes to conceal desire.
would have no grip on desire. What is desired is the intense germinal or
germinative flow, where one would look in vain for persons or even functions
discernible as father, mother, son, sist er, etc., since these names only designate
intensive variations on the full body of the earth determined as the germen. It is
always possible to use the term incest, as well as indifference to incest, for this
regime composed of one and the same being or flow, varying in intensity
according to inclusive disjunctions. But that is precisely the problem; one cannot
confound incest as it would be in this intensive nonpersonal regime that would
institute it, with incest as re presented in extension in the state that prohibits it, and
that defines it as a transgression against persons. Jung is therefore entirely correct
in saying that the Oedipus complex signifi es something altogether different from
itself, and that in the Oedipal relation the mother is also the earth, and incest is an
infinite renaissance. (He is wrong only in thinking that he has thus "transcended"
sexuality.) The somatic complex refers to a germinal implex. Incest refers to a
this-side-of that cannot be represented as such in the complex, since the complex
is an element derived from this this-side- of. Incest as it is prohibited (the form of
discernible persons) is employed to repre ss incest as it is desired (the substance of
the intense earth). The intensive germinal fl ow is the representative of desire; it is
against this flow that the repression is di rected. The extensive Oedipal figure is its
displaced represented (le r epresents deplace), the lure or fake image, born of
repression, that comes to conceal desire. It matters little that this image is
"impossible": it does its work from the moment that desire lets itself be caught as
though by the impossible itself. You see, that is what you wanted! However it is
this conclusion, going directly from the repression to the repressed, and from the
prohibition to the prohibited, that already implies the whole paralogism of social
repression.
But why is the germinal implex or influx repressed, since it is nevertheless
the territorial representative of desire? Because the thing it
162 ANTI-OEDIPUS
refers to, in its capacity as representative, is a flow that would not be codable,
that would not let itself be coded—specifi cally, the terror of the primitive socius.
No chain could be detached, nothing coul d be selected; nothing would pass from
filiation to descent, but descent would be perpetually reduced to filiation in the
act of re-engendering oneself; the signify ing chain would not form any code, it
would only emit ambiguous si gns and be perpetually er oded by its own energetic
support; what would flow on the full body of the earth would be as unfettered as
the noncoded flows that shift and slide on the desert of a body without organs.
For it is less a question of abundance or scarcity, of a spring or the exhaustion of
a spring (even the drying up of a spring is a flow), than of what is codable or
noncodable. The germinal flow is such that it amounts to the same to say that
everything would pass or flow with it, or on the contrary, that everything would
be blocked. For the flows to be codable, their energy must allow itself to be
quantified and qualified; it is necessary that selections from the flows be made in
relation to detachments from the chain: something must pass through but
something must also be blocked, and something must block and cause to pass
through. Now this is possible only in the sy stem in extension that renders persons
discernible, that makes a determinate use of signs, an exclusive use of the
disjunctive syntheses, and a conjugal use of the connective syntheses. Such is
Coding the Germinal Flow
- The text distinguishes between noncoded flows on the body without organs and the coded flows required for social systems.
- For a flow to be codable, its energy must be quantified and qualified through a system of selective blockages and passages.
- The incest prohibition functions as a physical system in extension that determines which intensities are permitted to pass and which are blocked.
- Kinship structures, such as those of the Dogon or Mru, create a 'surplus value of code' through the distribution of matrimonial prestations and ritualized thefts.
- Social systems are defined not by abundance or scarcity, but by the specific lines of detachment and alliance that govern the movement of signs and persons.
For it is less a question of abundance or scarcity, of a spring or the exhaustion of a spring (even the drying up of a spring is a flow), than of what is codable or noncodable.
would only emit ambiguous si gns and be perpetually er oded by its own energetic
support; what would flow on the full body of the earth would be as unfettered as
the noncoded flows that shift and slide on the desert of a body without organs.
For it is less a question of abundance or scarcity, of a spring or the exhaustion of
a spring (even the drying up of a spring is a flow), than of what is codable or
noncodable. The germinal flow is such that it amounts to the same to say that
everything would pass or flow with it, or on the contrary, that everything would
be blocked. For the flows to be codable, their energy must allow itself to be
quantified and qualified; it is necessary that selections from the flows be made in
relation to detachments from the chain: something must pass through but
something must also be blocked, and something must block and cause to pass
through. Now this is possible only in the sy stem in extension that renders persons
discernible, that makes a determinate use of signs, an exclusive use of the
disjunctive syntheses, and a conjugal use of the connective syntheses. Such is
indeed the meaning of the incest prohibition conceived as the establishment of a
physical system in extension: one must look in each case for the part of the flow
of intensity that passes through, for what does not pass, and for what causes
passage or prevents it, according to the pa trilateral or matrilateral nature of the
marriages, according to the patrilineal or matrilineal nature of the lineages,
according to the general regime of the extended filiations and the lateral alliances.
Let us return to the Dogon preferential marriage as analyzed by Griaule:
what is blocked is the relationship with th e aunt as a substitute for the mother, in
the form of a make-believe parent; what passes through is the relationship with
the aunt's daughter as a substitute for th e aunt, as the first possible or permitted
incest; what does the blocking or causes passage is the maternal uncle. What
passes through leads to—as compensation for what is blocked—a veritable
surplus value of code, which falls to the uncle insofar as he causes passage, while
he suffers a kind of "minus value" insofa r as he does the blocking (thus the ritual
thefts perpetrated by the nephews in the uncle's house, but also, as Griaule says,
"the augmentation and fructification" of the uncle's possessions when the oldest
of the nephews comes to live with him). The fundamental problem—who has the
right to the matrimonial presta-
SAVAGES. BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 183
tions in a given system?—cannot be re solved independently of the lines
of passage and the lines of blockage, as if what was blocked or
prohibited reappeared "in marriages in spectral form,"18 coming to
demand its due. Loftier writes of a specific case: "Among the Mru, the
patrilineal model predominates over the matrilineal tradition: the
brother-sister relationship, which is transmitted from father to son and
from mother to daughter, can be transmitted indefinitely through the
father-son relationship, but not through the mother-daughter relation-
ship, which terminates with the daughter's marriage. A married daughter
transmits to her own daughter a new relationship, name ly that which
joins her to her own brother. At the same time, a daughter who marries
becomes detached not from her brother's line, but solely from that of
her mother's brother. The significance of the payments to the mother's
brother upon the marriage of his niece can be understood only in the
following way: the girl leaves the pr evious family group, to which her
mother belongs. The niece becomes herself a mother and the point of
departure for a new brother-sister rela tionship, on whic h a new alliance
is founded."19 What is prolonged, what comes to a halt, what is
detached, and the different relationships according to which these
actions and passions are distributed, help us to understand the formation
Territorial Representation and Alliance
- The transition of a woman from her family group to a new alliance creates a surplus value of code through the establishment of new brother-sister relationships.
- Alliance functions as a repressing representation that organizes the coding of flows by determining which intensities pass through the social system.
- Marriage is analyzed not as a bond between individuals, but as a transaction between men from different filiations that establishes a primary homosexual tie between groups.
- The authors argue that male homosexuality in this context is a representation of alliance that represses the ambiguous signs of intense bisexual filiation.
- Contrary to traditional psychoanalytic views, the authors assert that alliance cannot be deduced from the Oedipus complex but rather articulates the lines of filiation.
Wherever men meet and assemble to take wives for themselves, to negotiate for them, to share them, etc., one recognizes the perverse tie of a primary homosexuality between local groups.
her mother's brother. The significance of the payments to the mother's
brother upon the marriage of his niece can be understood only in the
following way: the girl leaves the pr evious family group, to which her
mother belongs. The niece becomes herself a mother and the point of
departure for a new brother-sister rela tionship, on whic h a new alliance
is founded."19 What is prolonged, what comes to a halt, what is
detached, and the different relationships according to which these
actions and passions are distributed, help us to understand the formation
mechanism of the surplus value of code as an indispensable element of
any coding of flows.
We are now able to outline the various instances of territorial
representation in the primitive socius. In the first place, the germinal
influx of intensity conditions all representation: it is the representative of
desire. But if it is termed representative, this is because it is equivalent
to the noncodable, noncoded, or decode d flows. In this sense it implies,
in its own way, the socius's limit, the limit or the negative of every
socius; the repression of this limit is possible only to the extent that the
representative itself undergoes a repression. This repression determines
what part of the influx will pass through and what will not in the system
in extension, what will remain blocked or stocked in the extended
filiations, and on the contrary, what will move and flow following the
relations of alliance, in such a way that the systematic coding of the
flows will be carried out. We call this second instance—the repressing
representation itself—alliance, since the filiations become extended only
in terms of lateral alliances that measure their variable segments.
Whence the importance of these "local lines" that Leach has
identified—and which, two by two, organize the alliances and arrange
(machine) the marriages. When we ascribed to them a perverse-normal
activity, we meant that these local gr oups were the agents of repression,
the great coders. Wherever men meet and assemble to take wives for
184 ANTI-OEDIPUS
themselves, to negotiate for them, to share them, etc., one recognizes
the perverse tie of a primary homosexuality betw een local groups,
between brothers-in-law, co-husbands, childhood partners.
Underlining the universal fact that marriage is not an alliance
between a man and a woman, but "an alliance between two families," "a
transaction between men concerning women," Georges Devereux drew
the correct conclusion of a basic homosexual motivation of a group
character.20 Through women, men establish their own connections;
through the man-woman disjunction, wh ich is always the outcome of
filiation, alliance places in connection men from different filiations. The
question why a female homosexuality hasn't given rise to Amazon
groups capable of negotiating for men perhaps finds its reply in
women's affinity with the germinal influx, resulting in the enclosed
position of women in the midst of exte nded filiations (filiation hysteria as
opposed to alliance paranoia). Male homosexuality is therefore the
representation of alliance that repr esses the ambiguous signs of intense
bisexual filiation. Howeve r, Devereux seems to us to be wrong on two
occasions. First, when he admits having recoiled too long before
this—so serious (he says)—discovery of a homosexual representation
(there we merely see a primitive version of the formula "All men are
homosexuals," and to be sure, they are never more so than when they
arrange marriages). Then again—and this is his most serious error—
when he wants to make of this ho mosexuality of alliance a product of
the Oedipus complex as something repressed. Alliance can never be
deduced from the lines of filiation through the intermediary of Oedipus;
on the contrary, alliance articulates them, impelled by the action of the
Oedipus and Territorial Representation
- The author argues that alliance-based homosexuality is a primary social function rather than a repressed product of the Oedipus complex.
- Incest is described as a retroactive effect of social representation that projects categories onto desire to trap and block it.
- Oedipus functions as a 'displaced limit' and a baited image used to capture decoded flows of desire within the socius.
- Primitive families are defined by political praxis and social reproduction rather than the expressive microcosms found in modern psychiatry.
- The text asserts that the conditions for the familial Oedipal complex do not exist within the savage territorial machine.
Oedipus is the baited image with which desire allows itself to be caught (That's what you wanted! The decoded flows were incest!).
this—so serious (he says)—discovery of a homosexual representation
(there we merely see a primitive version of the formula "All men are
homosexuals," and to be sure, they are never more so than when they
arrange marriages). Then again—and this is his most serious error—
when he wants to make of this ho mosexuality of alliance a product of
the Oedipus complex as something repressed. Alliance can never be
deduced from the lines of filiation through the intermediary of Oedipus;
on the contrary, alliance articulates them, impelled by the action of the
local lines and their non-oedipal prim ary homosexuality. And if it is true
that there exists an Oedipal or f iliative homosexuality, this should be
understood merely as a secondary reaction to this group homosexuality,
non-oedipal at first.
As for Oedipus in general, it is not the repre ssed—that is, the
representative of desire, which is on th is side of and completely ignorant
of daddy-mommy. Nor is it the repressing representation, which is
beyond, and which renders the pers ons discernible onl y by subjecting
them to the homosexual rules of alliance. Incest is only the retroactive
effect of the repressing representation on the repressed representative:
the representation disfigures or di splaces this representative against
which it is directed; it projects onto the representative, categories,
rendered discernible, that it has its elf established; it applies to the
representative terms that did not exist before the alliance organized the
positive and the negative into a system in extension—the representation
reduces the representative to what is blocked in this system. Hence
SAVAGES. BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 1iS
Oedipus is indeed the limit, but the displaced limit that now passes into
the interior of the socius. Oedipus is the baited image with which desire
allows itself to be caught (That's what you wanted! The decoded flows
were incest!). Then a long story begi ns, the story of oedipalization. But
to be exact, everything begins in the mind of Laius, the old group
homosexual, the pervert, who sets a tr ap for desire. For desire is that,
too: a trap. Territorial representation comprises these three instances:
the repressed repr esentative, the repressing representation, and the
displaced represented.
Psychoanalysis and Ethnology
We are moving too fast, acting as if Oedipus were already
installed within the savage territorial machine. However, as Nietzsche
says with regard to bad conscience, such a plant does not grow on that
kind of terrain. This is explained by the fact that the necessary
conditions for Oedipus as a "familial complex," existing in the frame-
work of the familialism suited to psychiatry and psychoanalysis, are
obviously not present. Primitive families constitute a praxis, a politics, a
strategy of alliances and filiations; formally, they are the driving
elements of social reproduction; they have nothing to do with an
expressive microcosm; in these families the father, the mother, and the
sister always also function as something other than father, mother, or
sister. And in addition to the father, the mother, etc., there is the affine,
who constitutes the active, concrete reality and makes the relations
between families coextensive with the social field. It would not even be
exact to say that the family determina tions burst apart at every corner of
this field and remain attached to strictly social determinations, since
both kinds of determinations form one and the same component in the
territorial machine. Since familial reproduction is not yet a simple
means, or a material at the servi ce of a social reproduction of another
nature, there is no possibility of reducing (rabattre sur) social reproduc-
tion to familial reproduction, nor is it possible to establish one-to-one
relations between the two that woul d confer on any familial complex
whatever an expressive value and an apparent autonomous form. On the
Schizoanalysis in Primitive Cures
- The authors argue that familial reproduction cannot be separated from social reproduction within the territorial machine.
- Individuals, regardless of age, directly invest in a social and political field that is not reducible to mental or affective structures.
- Primitive cures are described as 'schizoanalysis in action' because they focus on social investments rather than just familial complexes.
- A case study of the Ndembu people shows that divination acts as a form of social analysis to reveal hidden political struggles.
- The illness of the individual is treated by addressing the broader tensions between lineages, alliances, and chieftainships.
Divination becomes a form of social analysis in the course of which hidden struggles between individuals and factions are brought to light, in such a way that they can be treated by traditional ritual methods.
this field and remain attached to strictly social determinations, since
both kinds of determinations form one and the same component in the
territorial machine. Since familial reproduction is not yet a simple
means, or a material at the servi ce of a social reproduction of another
nature, there is no possibility of reducing (rabattre sur) social reproduc-
tion to familial reproduction, nor is it possible to establish one-to-one
relations between the two that woul d confer on any familial complex
whatever an expressive value and an apparent autonomous form. On the
contrary, it is evident that the individual in the family, however young,
directly invests a social , historical, economic, and political fiel d that is
not reducible to any mental structure or affective constellation. That is
why, when one considers pathologica l cases and processes of cure in
primitive societies, it seems to us en tirely insufficient to compare them
with psychoanalytic procedure by relating them to criteria borrowed
from the latter: for example, a familial complex, even if it differs from
1&@ ANTI-OEDIPUS
our own, or cultural material (des con tenus c ulturels), even if it is
brought into relation with an ethnic unconscious—as seen in attempted
parallelisms between the psychoanalytic cure and the shamanistic cure
(Devereux, Levi-Strauss). Our definition of schizoanalysis focused on
two aspects: the destruction of th e expressive pseudo forms of the
unconscious, and the discovery of desi re's unconscious investments of
the social field. It is from this point of view that we must consider many
primitive cures; they are schizoanalysis in action.
Victor Turner gives a remarkable example of such a cure among the
Ndembu.21 The example is the more striking—to our perverted eyes—
for the fact that, at first glance, everything appears Oedipal. Effeminate,
insufferable, vain, failing at everything he tries, the sick K is preyed
upon by the ghost of his maternal grandfather, who cruelly reproaches
him. Although the Ndembu are matrilineal and must live with their
maternal kin, K has stayed an exceptionally long time in the matrilineage
of his father, whose favorite he was, and has entered into marriage with
paternal cousins. But with the death of his father he is driven away, and
returns to the maternal village. Th ere his house expre sses his situation
well, being wedged between two sector s, the houses of the members of
the paternal group and those belonging to his own matrilineage. How
does the divination, responsible for indicating the cause of the illness,
proceed, and the medical cure responsible for treating it? The teeth are
the cause, the two top incisors of the ancestor hunter, contained in a
sacred pouch, but which can escape from the pouch and penetrate the
body of the sick man. In order to diagnose and ward off the effects of the
incisor, the soothsayer and the me dicine man launch into a social
analysis concerning the territory and its environs, the chieftainship and
its subchieftainships, the lineages and their segments, the alliances and
the filiations: they constantly bring to light desire in its relations with
political and economic units—the very point on which, moreover, the
witnesses try to mislead them. "Divination becomes a form of social
analysis in the course of which hidden struggles between individuals and
factions are brought to light, in such a way that they can be treated by
traditional ritual methods . . . , the vague nature of mystical beliefs
allowing them to be manipulated in relation to a great number of social
situations." It seems that the pathological incisor is indeed mainly that of
the maternal grandfather. But the latter was a great chief; his successor,
the "real chief," had had to relinquish the throne for fear of being
bewitched, and his would-be heir, intelligent and ambitious, does not
Social Desire vs Oedipal Reduction
- The Ndembu medicine man conducts a group analysis that treats the sick individual as a nexus of social and political tensions rather than just a family member.
- The illness is linked to the breakdown of traditional chieftainship and the destabilizing effects of British colonial rule on village structure.
- While Western observers might interpret the grandfather's role as Oedipal, the text argues that the figure actually represents a historical and political lineage of power.
- Colonization forces an 'Oedipalization' on the colonized by stripping the family of its social functions and reducing it to a private, triangulated unit.
- The healing ritual functions by mapping unconscious desire onto the entire social field of clans, alliances, and historical drifts rather than the symbolic void of the father.
Instead of everything being projected onto a grotesque hiatus of castration, everything was scattered in the thousand breaks-flows of the chieftainships, the lineages, the relations of colonization.
factions are brought to light, in such a way that they can be treated by
traditional ritual methods . . . , the vague nature of mystical beliefs
allowing them to be manipulated in relation to a great number of social
situations." It seems that the pathological incisor is indeed mainly that of
the maternal grandfather. But the latter was a great chief; his successor,
the "real chief," had had to relinquish the throne for fear of being
bewitched, and his would-be heir, intelligent and ambitious, does not
exercise the power; the actual chief is not the real chief; as for the sick
K, he has not been able to assume th e role of mediator that could have
made him a candidate for chief. Everything becomes complicated
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 1ST
because of the colonizer-colonized relations: the English have not
recognized the chieftainship; the impoverished village is falling into
decrepitude (the two sectors of the village result from a fusion of two
groups that have fled the English; the elders bemoan the current
decadence). The medicine man does not organize a sociodrama, but a
veritable group analysis centering on the sick individual. Giving him
potions, attaching horns to his body for drawing up the incisor, making
the drums beat, the medicine man proceeds with a ceremony interrupted
by halts and fresh departures, flows of all sorts, flows of words and
breaks: the members of the village come to talk, the sick subject talks,
the ghost is invoked, the medicine man explains, everything recom-
mences, drums, chants, trances. It is not only a question of discovering
the preconscious investments of a soci al field by interests, but—more
profoundly—its unconscious investments by desire, such as they pass
by way of the sick person's marriages, his position in the village, and all
the positions of a chief lived in intensity within the group.
We said that the point of departur e seemed Oedipal. It was only the
point of departure for us, conditioned to say Oedipus every time
someone speaks to us of father, mother, grandfather. In fact, the
Ndembu analysis was never Oedipal: it was directly plugged into social
organization and disorganization; sexuality itself, through the women
and the marriages, was just such an investment of desire; the parents
played the role of stimuli in it, a nd not the role of group organizers (or
disorganizers)—the role held by the chief and his personages. Rather
than everything being reduced to the name of the father, or that of the
maternal grandfather, the latter opened onto all the names of history.
Instead of everything being projected onto a grotesque hiatus of
castration, everything was scattered in the thousand breaks-flows of the
chieftainships, the lineages, the re lations of colonization. The whole
interplay of races, clans, alliances, and filiations, this entire historical
and collective drift: exactly the oppos ite of the Oedipal analysis, when it
stubbornly crushes the content of a delirium, when it stuffs it with all its
might into "the symbolic void of the father." Or rather, if it is true that
the analysis doesn't even begin as Oe dipal, except to our way of seeing,
doesn't it become Oedipal neverthele ss, in a certain way—and in what
way? Yes, it becomes Oedipal in part , under the effect of colonization.
The colonizer, for example, abolishes the chieftainship, or uses it to
further his own ends (and he uses many other things besides: the
chieftainship is only a beginning). Th e colonizer says: your father is
your father and nothing else, or your maternal grandfather—don't
mistake them for chiefs; 'you can go have yourself triangulated in your
corner, and place your house between those of your paternal and
1S3 ANTI-OEDIPUS
maternal kin; your family is your fa mily and nothing else; sexual reproduction no
longer passes through those points, although we rightly need your family to
Oedipus as Ethnocide
- Colonization forces a shift from collective social structures to a restricted, privatized family model that isolates the individual.
- The introduction of the Oedipal framework serves as a tool for dispossessing primitives and reducing their universe to a neuroticized microcosm.
- Resistance to oedipalization occurs because the colonized remain tied to the agents of oppressive social reproduction rather than internalizing familial guilt.
- The destruction of traditional habitats and collective houses is a physical prerequisite for the psychological closing of the Oedipal structure.
- Oedipus is described as a form of 'euthanasia within ethnocide,' facilitating the collapse of the collective into an anarchic, individual scale.
Oedipus is something like euthanasia within ethnocide.
further his own ends (and he uses many other things besides: the
chieftainship is only a beginning). Th e colonizer says: your father is
your father and nothing else, or your maternal grandfather—don't
mistake them for chiefs; 'you can go have yourself triangulated in your
corner, and place your house between those of your paternal and
1S3 ANTI-OEDIPUS
maternal kin; your family is your fa mily and nothing else; sexual reproduction no
longer passes through those points, although we rightly need your family to
furnish a material that will be subject ed to a new order of reproduction. Yes,
then, an Oedipal framework is outlined for the dispossessed primitives: a
shantytown Oedipus. We have seen, how ever, that the colonized remained a
typical example of resistance to Oedipus : in fact, that's where the Oedipal
structure does not manage to close itself, and where the terms of the structure
remained stuck to the agents of oppressive social reproduction, either in a
struggle or in a complicity: the White Man, the missionary, the tax collector, the
exporter of goods, the person with standing in the village who becomes the agent
of the administration, the elders who curse the White Man, the young people who
enter into a political struggle, etc. Both are true: the colonized resists
oedipalization, and oedipali zation tends to close around him again. To the degree
that there is oedipalization, it is due to colonization, and it is necessary to add
oedipalization to all the methods that Jaulin was able to describe in La paix
blanche. "The condition of the colonized can lead to a reduction in the
humanization of the universe, so that any solution that is sought will be a solution
on the scale of the individual and the restricted family, with, by way of
consequence, an extreme anarchy or disord er at the level of the collective: an
anarchy whose victim will always be th e individual—with the exception of those
who occupy the key positions in such a system, namely the colonizers, who,
during this same period when the col onized reduce the universe, will tend to
extend it."* Oedipus is something like euthanasia within ethnocide. The more
social reproduction escapes the members of the group, in nature and in extension,
the more it falls back on them, or reduces them to a restricted and neuroticized
familial reproduction whose agent is Oedipus.
After all, how are we to understand t hose who claim to have discovered an
Indian Oedipus or an African Oedipus? Th ey are the first to admit that they
re-encounter none of the mechanisms or attitudes that constitute our own
Oedipus (our own presumed Oedipus). No matter, they say that the structure is
there, although it has no existence whatever that is "accessible to clinical
practice"; or that the problem,
*Robert Jaulin, La paix blanche: introduction a {'ethnocide (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1970), p. 309. Jaulin
analyzes the situation of those Indians whom the Ca pucines "persuaded" to abandon the collective house in
favor of "small personal houses "(pp. 391^100). In the collective house th e familial apartment and personal
intimacy were based on a relationship with the neighbor defined as an ally, so that interfamilial relations
were coextensive with the social fi eld. In the new situation, on the cont rary, "there occurred an excessive
ferment of the elements of the coupi e affecting the couple itself" and th e children, so that the restrictive
family closes into an expressive microcosm where each person reflects his own lineage, while the social and
productive destiny (devenir) escapes him more and more. For Oedipus is not only an ideological process,
but the result of a destruction of the environment, the habitat, etc.
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 189
the point of departure, is indeed Oe dipal, although the developments and the
solutions are completely different from ours (Parin, Ortigues). They say that
Oedipus as Interior Colonization
- The transition from collective housing to small personal houses destroys social alliances and forces the family into a restrictive, expressive microcosm.
- The authors argue that the Oedipus complex is not a universal psychological truth but a result of the destruction of traditional environments and habitats.
- Psychoanalysis in colonial contexts is critiqued as a form of 'interior colony' that imposes Western structural yokes under the guise of progressive therapy.
- Traditional beliefs in supernatural powers and magical aggressions are presented as potentially more adequate investments of the social field than the Oedipal myth.
- The text challenges the notion that individuals adhering to traditional norms have nothing to say in their own name until they are 'oedipalized' by dialogue.
There or here, it's the same thing: Oedipus is always colonization pursued by other means, it is the interior colony, and we shall see that even here at home, where we Europeans are concerned, it is our intimate colonial education.
*Robert Jaulin, La paix blanche: introduction a {'ethnocide (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1970), p. 309. Jaulin
analyzes the situation of those Indians whom the Ca pucines "persuaded" to abandon the collective house in
favor of "small personal houses "(pp. 391^100). In the collective house th e familial apartment and personal
intimacy were based on a relationship with the neighbor defined as an ally, so that interfamilial relations
were coextensive with the social fi eld. In the new situation, on the cont rary, "there occurred an excessive
ferment of the elements of the coupi e affecting the couple itself" and th e children, so that the restrictive
family closes into an expressive microcosm where each person reflects his own lineage, while the social and
productive destiny (devenir) escapes him more and more. For Oedipus is not only an ideological process,
but the result of a destruction of the environment, the habitat, etc.
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 189
the point of departure, is indeed Oe dipal, although the developments and the
solutions are completely different from ours (Parin, Ortigues). They say that
"there is no end to the existence of this Oedipus," when in fact it does not even
have (apart from colonization) the necessary conditions to begin to exist. If it is
true that thought can be evaluated in term s of the degree of oedipalization, then
yes, whites think too much. The competence, the honesty, and the talent of these
authors—psychoanalysts specializing in Africa—are beyond question. But the
same applies to them as to certain psychot herapists here: it would seem that they
don't know what they are doing. We have psychotherapists who sincerely believe
they are engaged in progressive work when they apply new methods for
triangulating the child: but watch out—a stru ctural Oedipus, and this time it isn't
imaginary! The same is true of the ps ychoanalysts in Africa who apply the yoke
of a structural or "problematical" Oedi pus, in the service of their progressive
intentions. There or here, it's the same thing: Oedipus is always colonization
pursued by other means, it is the interior colony, and we shall see that even here
at home, where we Europeans are concerned, it is our intimate colonial
education.
How are we to understand the phrases with which M. C. and Edmond
Ortigues conclude their book? "Illness is cons idered as a sign of an election, of a
special attention coming from supernatural powers, or as a sign of an aggression
of a magical nature, an idea that is difficult to express in profane terms. Analytic
psychotherapy can intervene only starting from the moment a demand can be
formulated by the subject. Our entire re search was therefore conditioned by the
possibility of establishing a psychoanalytic domain. When a subject adhered fully
to the traditional norms and had nothing to say in his own name, he allowed
himself to be taken into the care of th e traditional therapists and the familial
group, or into that of the medical practice of 'medicines.' At time s, the fact that he
wanted to speak to us about traditional treatments corresponded to a beginning of
psychotherapy and became for him a means of situating himself personally in his
own society. ... At other times, the an alytic dialogue was able to unfold to a
greater extent, and in this case the Oedipal problem tended to assume its
diachronic dimension, causing the generation gap to appear."22 Why think that
supernatural powers and magical aggressions constitute a myth that is inferior to
Oedipus? On the contrary, is it not true th at they move desire in the direction of
more intense and more adequate invest ments of the social field, in its
organization as well as its disorganizati ons? Meyer Fortes at least showed Job's
place beside Oedipus. And what entitles one to determine that the subject has
nothing to say in his own name so long as he adheres to the traditional norms?
Doesn't the Ndembu cure demon-
The Myth of Universal Oedipus
- The text challenges the psychoanalytic assumption that the Oedipus complex is a universal human constant superior to traditional myths or supernatural beliefs.
- The authors argue that Oedipus functions as a 'traditional norm' of Western society rather than a neutral tool for personal liberation or social situating.
- Psychoanalytic interpretation is criticized as a modern form of piety that views cultural differences merely as variations of a structural lack or symbolic foreclosure.
- The reduction of desire to the 'grotesque triangle' of family dynamics is presented as a form of neocolonialism that limits the subject's social and political investment.
- The debate between culturalists and orthodox analysts reveals a circular logic where Oedipus is only found because the analyst is trained to look for it.
It was he who said in all seriousness that the Oedipus complex was not to be found if it wasn't looked for.
supernatural powers and magical aggressions constitute a myth that is inferior to
Oedipus? On the contrary, is it not true th at they move desire in the direction of
more intense and more adequate invest ments of the social field, in its
organization as well as its disorganizati ons? Meyer Fortes at least showed Job's
place beside Oedipus. And what entitles one to determine that the subject has
nothing to say in his own name so long as he adheres to the traditional norms?
Doesn't the Ndembu cure demon-
1T0 ANTI-OEDIPUS
strate just the opposite? Could it not be said that Oedipus is also a traditional
norm—our own, to be exact? How can one say that Oedipus makes us speak in
our own name, when one also goes on to say that its resolution teaches us "the
incurable inadequacy of being" and uni versal castration? And what is this
"demand" that is invoked to justify Oedi pus? It goes without saying, the subject
demands and redemands daddy-mommy: but wh ich subject, and in what state? Is
that the means "to situate oneself pers onally in one's own society"? And which
society? The neocolonized society that is constructed for the subject, and that
finally succeeds in what colonization wa s only able to outline: an effective
reduction of the forces of desire to Oedi pus, to a father's name, in the grotesque
triangle?
Let us return to the well-known and inexhaustible debate between
culturalists and orthodox psychoanalysts: Is Oedipus universal? Is Oedipus the
great paternal catholic symbol, the meeti ng place of all the churches? The debate
began between Malinowski and Jones, it continued between Kardiner and Fromm
on one side, and Roheim on the other. It is still pursued between certain
ethnologists and certain disciples of Lacan—those who offered not only an
oedipalizing interpretation of Lacan's doctrine, but also an ethnographic
extension to this interpretation. On the side of the universal there are two poles:
one—outdated, it would seem —that makes of Oedipus an original affective
constellation, and that constitutes an extreme position arguing that Oedipus was a
real event whose effects were transmitted through phylogenetic heredity. And the
other pole, which makes Oedipus into a structure, a pole whose extreme position
argues the possibility of discovering the st ructure in fantasy, in relation to
biological prematura-tion and neoteny. Tw o very different conceptions of the
limit, one as original matrix, the other as structural function. But in both these
senses of the universal, we are invited to "interpret," since the latent presence of
Oedipus appears only through its patent absence, understood as an effect of
psychic repression—or, better still, since the structural constant is discovered
only through its imaginary variations, a ttesting to the need for a symbolic
foreclosure (the father as an empty position). Oedipus-as-universal recommences
the old metaphysical operation that consists in interpreting negation as a
deprivation, as a lack: the symbolic lack of the dead father, or the Great Signifier.
Interpretation is our modern way of be lieving and of being pious. Already Geza
Roheim proposed organizing primitives in to a series of variables converging
toward the structural neotenic constant.23 It was he who said in all seriousness
that the Oedipus complex was not to be found if it wasn't looked for. And that
one wasn't looking if one hadn't had oneself
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS. CIVILIZED MEN 1T1
analyzed. And that is why your daughter is mute, which is to say: the tribes,
daughters of the ethnologist, do not say Oedipus, although it is Oedipus who
makes them speak. Roheim added that it was ridiculous to think that the
Freudian theory of censorship depended on the repressive regime in the empire
of Franz Joseph. He did not seem to see that Franz Joseph was not a pertinent
historical break (coupure), but that perhaps the oral, the written, or even the
Repression and Desiring-Production
- The text critiques the Freudian assumption that the Oedipal complex is a universal constant across all historical and primitive civilizations.
- Ethnological evidence suggests that while phallic symbolism is often public and recognized in primitive societies, the underlying sexual affect is not repressed.
- The authors argue that the prohibition of incest does not prove the existence of a repressed Oedipal desire, but rather that the Oedipal image is a disfiguration created by social repression.
- True repression is not directed at incest or the family unit, but at 'desiring-production'—the noncoded flows of desire that threaten social order.
- Social production functions by capturing specific sexual investments while excluding the revolutionary potential of raw desire.
What is repressed is desiring-production. It is the part of this production that does not enter into social production or reproduction. It is what would introduce disorder and revolution into the socius, the noncoded flows of desire.
one wasn't looking if one hadn't had oneself
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS. CIVILIZED MEN 1T1
analyzed. And that is why your daughter is mute, which is to say: the tribes,
daughters of the ethnologist, do not say Oedipus, although it is Oedipus who
makes them speak. Roheim added that it was ridiculous to think that the
Freudian theory of censorship depended on the repressive regime in the empire
of Franz Joseph. He did not seem to see that Franz Joseph was not a pertinent
historical break (coupure), but that perhaps the oral, the written, or even the
"capitalist" civilizations were such br eaks with which the nature of social
repression (repression), and the meaning and scope of psychic repression
(refoulement), would vary.
This story of psychic repression is quite complicated. Things would be
simpler if the libido or the affect were re pressed, in the most general sense of the
word (suppressed, inhibited, or transformed)—at the same time as the supposed
Oedipal representation. But such is not the case: most ethnologists have clearly
noted the sexual nature of affects in the public symbols of primitive societies,
and this nature remains integrally lived by the members of these societies, even
though they have not been psychoanalyzed, and in spite of the displacement of
the representation. As Leach says apropos of the sex/hair relationship, "displaced
phallic symbolism is very common, but th e phallic origin of the symbolism is
not repressed".24 Must it be said that primitiv es repress the representation and
keep the affect intact? And would the c ontrary be true in our case, in the
patriarchal organization where the repres entation would remain clear, but with
the affects suppressed, inhibited, or tr ansformed? No, in fact: psychoanalysis
tells us that we too repress the representation. And everything tells us that we
too often keep the full sexuality of the aff ect; we know perfectly well what it is
about, without having been psychoanalyzed. But what enables one to speak of an
Oedipal representation that would be th e object of repression? Is it because
incest is prohibited? We always fall back on this pale rationale: incest is desired
because it is prohibited. The prohibiti on of incest would therefore imply an
Oedipal representation, and it would be born of the repression of this
representation and of the latter's return. Now the opposite is clearly the case: not
only does the Oedipal representation presuppose the prohibition of incest, but it
is not even possible to say that the representation is born of the prohibition or
results from it.
Adopting Malinowski's arguments, Reic h added a profound remark: desire
is all the more Oedipal as the prohibitions are aimed, not simply at incest, but "at
all other types of sexual relations," blocking the other paths.25 In a word, the
repression of incest is not'born of a re pressed Oedipal representation any more
than it provokes this repression. But— and this is something altogether
different—the general social repression-ps ychic repression system gives rise to
an Oedipal image as a
172 ANTI-OEDIPUS
disfiguration of the repressed. The fact that this image in turn finally suffers a
repression, that it comes to take the place of the repressed or of the thing that is
effectively desired, insofar as sexual repression is directed at something other
than incest—such is the long history of our society. But the repressed is not first
of all the Oedipal representation. What is repressed is desiring-production. It is
the part of this production that does not enter into social production or
reproduction. It is what would introduce disorder and revolution into the socius,
the noncoded flows of desire. The part that passes, on the contrary, from
desiring-production to social production form s a direct sexual investment of this
social production, without any repression of a sexual nature of the symbolism
Desiring-Production and Oedipal Coding
- The primary object of social repression is not the Oedipal complex but desiring-production, which threatens the socius with noncoded flows of desire.
- Social production involves a direct sexual investment of desire that exists independently of familial symbolism or structural foreclosures.
- Oedipus serves as a mechanism for coding the uncodable, effectively entrapping and displacing desire into a manageable familial framework.
- Culturalism and structuralism both fail by maintaining a familialist perspective that reduces complex social institutions to domestic triangles.
- Libidinal investments in basic needs like food or animals are primary economic anxieties that only secondarily derive images of the mother or father.
As for Oedipus, it is another way of coding the uncodable, of codifying what eludes the codes, or of displacing desire and its object, a way of entrapping them.
than incest—such is the long history of our society. But the repressed is not first
of all the Oedipal representation. What is repressed is desiring-production. It is
the part of this production that does not enter into social production or
reproduction. It is what would introduce disorder and revolution into the socius,
the noncoded flows of desire. The part that passes, on the contrary, from
desiring-production to social production form s a direct sexual investment of this
social production, without any repression of a sexual nature of the symbolism
and the corresponding affects, and above all, without any reference to an
Oedipal representation that could be held to be origina lly repressed or
structurally foreclosed. The animal in us is not merely the object of a
preconscious investment determined by in terest, but the object of a libidinal
investment of desire that only secondarily derives an image of the father from
desiring-production. The same holds true for the libidinal investment of food,
wherever a fear of going hungry is evident, or a pleasure at not being hungry,
and this investment refers only secondarily to an image of the mother.* We have
already seen how the prohibition of incest referred, not to Oedipus, but to the
noncoded flows that constitute desire, and to their representative, the intense
prepersonal flow. As for Oedipus, it is another way of coding the uncodable, of
codifying what eludes the codes, or of displacing desire and its object, a way of
entrapping them.
Culturalists and ethnologists have demonstrated that institutions are
primary in relation to affects and structures. For structures are not mental, they
are present in things (elks sont d ans les choses) , in the forms of social
production and reproduction. Even an author like Marcuse, whom one would not
suspect of complaisance in this regard, acknowledges that culturalism started on
the right track: introducing desire in to production, strengthening the link
"between instinctual and economic structure; and at the same time [indicating]
the possibility of progress beyond the 'patricentric-acquisitive' culture."26 Then
what caused culturalism to go wrong? And here again there is no contradiction
in the fact that it started on the right track, and that it went wrong from the start.
Perhaps the answer lies in the postula te common to Oedipal relativism and
Oedipal absolutism—i.e., the stubborn mainte-
*In his study of the Marquesa Is lands. Abram Kardiner has convincin gly demonstrated the role of a
collective or economic alimentary anxiety that, even from the viewpoint of the unconscious, does not allow
itself to be reduced to the familial relationship with the mother: Tiie Individual and His Society (See
reference note 28), pp. 223ff.
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS. CIVILIZED MEN 173
nance of a familialist perspective, which wreaks havoc everywhere. For
if the institution is first understood as a familial institution, it matters
little to say that the familial complex va ries with the ins titutions, or that
Oedipus is to the contrary a nucle ar constant around which families and
institutions turn. The culturalists invoke other triangles—maternal
uncle-aunt-nephew, for example; but the oedipalists have no difficulty in
demonstrating that these are imaginar y variations of one and the same
structural constant, different figures of one and the same symbolic
triangulation, which are not identical either with the personages who
come to realize the triangulation, or with the attitudes that come to place
these personages in relation to each other. But inversely, the invocation
of such a transcendent symbolism does not rescue the structuralists
from the narrowest familial point of view. The same holds for the
endless debates on "Is it daddy? Is it mommy?" (You are neglecting the
mother! No, you're the one who fails to see the father off to the side, as
the empty position!)
The Trap of Oedipal Triangulation
- Structuralists and psychoanalysts remain trapped in a familial perspective by endlessly debating the relative importance of the mother and father.
- The conflict between culturalists and orthodox analysts fails to transcend the 'familialized social realm,' merely oscillating between maternal and paternal poles.
- The 'primary institution' of the family is often incorrectly viewed as a microcosm that is later projected onto adult social development.
- Both culturalists and symbolists mistakenly accept Oedipus as an inevitable certainty within patriarchal and capitalist societies.
- The text argues that Oedipus must be attacked at its strongest point by revealing how it disfigures desiring-production and libidinal investments.
The same holds for the endless debates on 'Is it daddy? Is it mommy?' (You are neglecting the mother! No, you're the one who fails to see the father off to the side, as the empty position!)
triangulation, which are not identical either with the personages who
come to realize the triangulation, or with the attitudes that come to place
these personages in relation to each other. But inversely, the invocation
of such a transcendent symbolism does not rescue the structuralists
from the narrowest familial point of view. The same holds for the
endless debates on "Is it daddy? Is it mommy?" (You are neglecting the
mother! No, you're the one who fails to see the father off to the side, as
the empty position!)
The conflict between culturalis ts and orthodox psychoanalysts has
often been reduced to these evaluations of the respective roles of the
mother and the father, or of the pre-oedipal and the Oedipal, without
allowing either side to leave the family or even Oedipus, always
oscillating between the famous two poles, the pre-oedipal maternal pole
of the Imaginary, and the Oedipal paternal pole of the structural, both on
the same axis, both speaking the same language of a familialized social
realm, where one pole designates the customary maternal dialects, while
the other designates the imperative law of the language of the father.
The ambiguity of what Kardiner called the "primary institution" has
been clearly shown. In certain ca ses it can be a question of the way
desire invests the social field from childhood, and under the familial
stimuli coming from the adult: all the conditions would then be given for
an adequate (extrafamilial) understa nding of the libido. But more often it
is solely a question of the familial organization in itself, which is thought
to be lived first by the ch ild as a microcosm, then projected into the adult
and social development (devenir).* From this point of view, the discus-
sion can only go round in circles between the holders of a cultural
interpretation and the holders of a symbolic or structural interpretation
of this same organization.
A second postulate common to the cu lturalists and the symbolists
should be added. They all agree that, in our patriarchal and capitalist
*Mikel Dufrenne, analyzing the concepts of Kardiner, ra ises these essential questions: Is it the family that
is "primary," while the political, the economic, and the social are me rely secondary? Which comes first
from the viewpoint of the libido, the familial investment or the social investment? And methodologically is
it necessary to go from the child to the adult, or from the adult to the child? (Mikel Dufrenne, La
personnalite de base [Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1953], pp. 287ff.)
1T4 ANTI-OEDIPUS
society at least, Oedipus is a sure thing (even if they underline, as does Fromm,
the elements of a new matriarchy). They all agree that our society is the
stronghold of Oedipus: the starting point fo r re-encountering an Oedipal structure
everywhere; or on the contrary, they hold that the terms and the relations should
be made to vary within non-oedipal comp lexes that are no less "familial" on that
account. That is why our preceding criticis m was directed at Oedipus as it is
meant to command our respect and to function for us: it is not at the weakest
point—the primitives—that Oe dipus must be attacked, but at the strongest point,
at the level of the strongest link, by revealing the degree of disfiguration it
implies and brings to bear on desiri ng-production, on the syntheses of the
unconscious, and on libidinal investments in our cultural and social milieu. Not
Oedipus and the Capitalist Limit
- The critique of Oedipus must focus on its strongest point—modern capitalist society—rather than its weakest point in primitive cultures.
- Oedipus functions as a mystification of the unconscious that disfigures desiring-production and libidinal investments in our social milieu.
- Schizophrenia represents the absolute limit where decoded flows scramble all codes and deterritorialize the socius entirely.
- Capitalism acts as a relative limit that mobilizes decoded flows while simultaneously imposing a more oppressive quantifying axiomatic.
- The body without organs is described as the wilderness where decoded flows run free, marking the end of the world or the apocalypse.
The body without organs is the deterritorialized socius, the wilderness where the decoded flows run free, the end of the world, the apocalypse.
everywhere; or on the contrary, they hold that the terms and the relations should
be made to vary within non-oedipal comp lexes that are no less "familial" on that
account. That is why our preceding criticis m was directed at Oedipus as it is
meant to command our respect and to function for us: it is not at the weakest
point—the primitives—that Oe dipus must be attacked, but at the strongest point,
at the level of the strongest link, by revealing the degree of disfiguration it
implies and brings to bear on desiri ng-production, on the syntheses of the
unconscious, and on libidinal investments in our cultural and social milieu. Not
that Oedipus counts for nothing in our society: we have said repeatedly that
Oedipus is demanded, and demanded again and again; and even an attempt as
profound as Lacan's at shaking loose from the yoke of Oedipus has been
interpreted as an unhoped-for means of ma king it heavier still and of resecuring it
on the baby and the schizo. To be sure, it is not only legitimate but indispensable
that the ethnological or historical explan ation not be in contradiction with our
social organization, or that this orga nization contain in its own way the basic
elements of the ethnological hypothesis. This is what Marx was saying as he
recalled the requirements of a universal history—but, as he went on to say,
provided that the current organization be capable of conducting its own criticism.
And yet Oedipus's autocritique is somethi ng rarely seen in our organization, of
which psychoanalysis forms a part. In certain respects it is correct to question all
social formations starting from Oedipus. But not because Oedipus might be a
truth of the unconscious that is especia lly visible where we are concerned; on the
contrary, because it is a mystification of the unconscious that has only succeeded
with us by assembling the parts and wheels of its apparatus from elements of the
previous social formations. It is universal in that sense. Thus it is indeed within
capitalist society that the critique of Oedi pus must always resume its point of
departure and find again its point of arrival.
Oedipus is a limit. But "limit" has ma ny different meanings, since it can be
at the beginning as an inaugural event, in the role of a matrix; or in the middle as
a structural function ensuring the media tion of personages and the ground of their
relations; or at the end as an eschatol ogical determination. Now we have seen
that it is only in this last sense that Oedipus is a limit. This is also the case for
desiring-production. But in fact this last sense itself can be understood in many
different ways. In the first place, desiring-production is situated at the
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 17S
limits of social production; the decoded flows, at the limits of the codes
and the territorialities; the body w ithout organs, at the limits of the
socius. We shall speak of an absolute limit every time the schizo-flows
pass through the wall, scramble all the codes, and deterritorialize the
socius: the body without organs is the deterritorialized socius, the
wilderness where the decoded flows run free, the end of the world, the
apocalypse. Secondly, however, the relative lim it is no more nor less
than the capitalist social formation, because the latter engineers (ma-
chine) and mobilizes flows that are effe ctively decoded, but does so by
substituting for the codes a quantifying axiomatic (une a xiomatique
comptable) that is even more oppressive. With the result that
capitalism—in conformity with the movement by which it counteracts
its own tendency—is continually drawing near the wall, while at the
same time pushing the wall further way. Schizophrenia is the absolute
limit, but capitalism is the relative limit. Thirdly, there is no social
formation that does not foresee, or experience a foreboding of, the real
form in which the limit threatens to arrive, and which it wards off with
Capitalism and Decoded Flows
- Capitalism functions by replacing traditional social codes with a quantifying axiomatic that simultaneously approaches and pushes back its own limits.
- Pre-capitalist societies actively resisted the autonomy of money and production to prevent the destruction of their internal social codes.
- The Tiv economy serves as an example of how the introduction of money causes traditional codes to vacillate and collapse into a harsh reality.
- Oedipus is defined as a universal 'displaced limit' used by societies to tame and internalize the terrifying, decoded flows of desire.
- For the Oedipal complex to be fully occupied, social production must become independent of familial reproduction and territorial machines.
How can this nightmare be imagined: the invasion of the socius by noncoded flows that move like lava?
substituting for the codes a quantifying axiomatic (une a xiomatique
comptable) that is even more oppressive. With the result that
capitalism—in conformity with the movement by which it counteracts
its own tendency—is continually drawing near the wall, while at the
same time pushing the wall further way. Schizophrenia is the absolute
limit, but capitalism is the relative limit. Thirdly, there is no social
formation that does not foresee, or experience a foreboding of, the real
form in which the limit threatens to arrive, and which it wards off with
all the strength it can command. Whence the obstinacy with which the
formations preceding capitalism encas te the merchant and the techni-
cian, preventing flows of money and flows of production from assuming
an autonomy that would destroy their codes. Such is the real limit.
When such societies are confronted with this real limit, repressed
from within, but which returns to them from without, they regard this
event with melancholy as the sign of their approaching death. For
example, the Bohannans describe the Tiv economy, which codes three
kinds of flows: consumer goods , prestige goods, and women and
children. When money supervenes, it can only be coded as an object of
prestige, yet merchants use it to la y hold of sectors of consumer goods
traditionally held by the women: all the codes vacillate. Doubtless, to
begin with money and to finish with money is an operation that cannot
be expressed in terms of a code; seeing the trucks that leave loaded with
export goods, "the Tiv elders deplore this situation, and know what is
happening, but do not know wh ere to place their blame"27—a harsh
reality. But, fourthly, this limit inhibited from the interior was already
projected onto a primordial beginning, a mythical matrix as the imagi-
nary limit . How can this nightmare be imagined: the invasion of the
socius by noncoded flows that move like lava? An irrepressible wave of
shit, as in the Fourbe myth; or the intense germinal influx, the
this-side-of incest, as in the Y ourougou myth, which introduces disorder
into the world by acting as the representative of desire. Whence, in the
fifth and last instance, the importance of the task of displacing the limit:
causing it to pass into the interior of the socius, in the middle, between a
beyond of
ITS ANTI-OEDIPUS
alliance and a filiative this-side-of, between a represen tation of alliance and the
representative of filiation, as one attempts to tame the dreaded forces of a river
by digging an artificial rive r bed, or by diverting it into a thousand shallow little
streams. Oedipus is this displaced limit. Yes, Oedipus is universal. But the error
lies in having believed in the following a lternative: either Oedipus is the product
of the social repression-psychic repre ssion system, in which case it is not
universal; or it is universal, and a position of desire. In reality, it is universal
because it is the displacement of the lim it that haunts all societies, the displaced
represented (le represents deplace) that disfigures what all societies dread
absolutely as their most profound negativ e: namely, the decoded flows of desire.
This is not to say that the universal Oe dipal limit is "occupied," strategically
occupied in all social formations. We must take Kardiner's remark seriously: a
Hindu or an Eskimo can dream of Oedipus , without however being subjected to
the complex, without "having the complex."28 For Oedipus to be occupied, a
certain number of conditions are indispensa ble: the field of social production and
reproduction must become independent of familial reproduction, that is,
independent of the territorial machine th at declines alliances and filiations; the
detachable fragments of the chain must be converted, by virtue of this indepen-
dence, into a transcendent detached object that crushes their polyvocal character;
The Colonization of Desire
- The authors argue that the Oedipus complex is not a universal human condition but requires specific social and historical conditions to become 'occupied.'
- For Oedipus to function, the social field must be reduced to the familial field through a folding operation that converts social production into a transcendent detached object.
- Primitive societies resist Oedipalization because their familial structures are coextensive with the social field, maintaining a fluid system of '4+n' rather than the '3+1' reduction.
- Capitalism and colonization impose the Oedipal structure by force, stripping individuals of control over social production and reducing them to familial reproduction.
- The capitalist style of social organization is satirically characterized as a regression to a 'my-dear-little-lamb-I-want-to-see-mommy' mentality.
The capitalist style has been described by D. H. Lawrence: 'our democratic, industrial order of things whose style is my-dear-little-lamb-I-want-to-see-mommy.'
Hindu or an Eskimo can dream of Oedipus , without however being subjected to
the complex, without "having the complex."28 For Oedipus to be occupied, a
certain number of conditions are indispensa ble: the field of social production and
reproduction must become independent of familial reproduction, that is,
independent of the territorial machine th at declines alliances and filiations; the
detachable fragments of the chain must be converted, by virtue of this indepen-
dence, into a transcendent detached object that crushes their polyvocal character;
the detached object (phallus) must perform a kind of folding operation—a kind
of application or reduction (rabattement): a reduction of the social field, defined
as the aggregate of departure, to the fam ilial field, now defined as the aggregate
of destination—and it must establish a network of one-to-one relations between
the two. For Oedipus to be occupied, it is not enough that it be a limit or a
displaced represented in the system of representation; it must migrate to the heart
of this system and itself come to occ upy the position of the representative of
desire. These conditions, inseparable from the paralogisms of the unconscious,
are realized in the capitalist formation; furthermore, they imply certain archaisms
borrowed from the imperial barbarian fo rmations—in particular, the position of
the transcendent object. The capitalist style has been described by D. H.
Lawrence: "our democratic, industrial order of things whose style is
my-dear-little-lamb-I-want-to-see-mommy."
Now on the one hand, it is evident th at the primitive formations do not
come close to fulfilling these conditions . Precisely because the family, when
opened to alliances, is coextensive with and adequate to the social historical
field; because it animates social reproduction itself; because it mobilizes or
causes passage of the detachable fragment s without ever converting them into a
detached object—no reduction
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS. CIVILIZED MEN 171
whatever, no application is possible that would answer to the formula
3+1 (the four corners of the field folded into three, like a tablecloth, plus
the transcendent term that performs the folding operation). "Speaking,
dancing, exchanging, and allowing to flow, and even urinating, in the
midst of the community of men," as Parin himself puts it, to express the
fluidity of the flows and the primitive codes.* At the heart of primitive
production one always finds oneself at 4+n, in the system of ancestors
and affines. Far from being able to claim that here there is no end to
Oedipus, one sees that it never manages to begin; one is always brought
to a halt well before 3+1, and if there is a primitive Oedipus, it is a
neg-Oedipus, in the sense of a neg-entropy. Oedipus is indeed a limit or a
displaced represented, but precisely in such a way that each member of
the group is always on this side of or beyond, without ever occupying
the position (Kardiner has understood this very well in the formula we
cited). It is colonization that causes Oedipus to exist, but an Oedipus
that is taken for what it is, a pure oppression, inasmuch as it assumes
that these Savages are deprived of the control over their own social
production, that they are ripe for being reduced to the only thing they
have left, the familial reproduction imposed on them being no less
oedipalized by force than it is alcoholic or sickly.
On the other hand, when the requi site conditions ar e realized in
capitalist society, it s hould not be thought on that account that Oedipus
ceases to be what it is, the simple displaced represented that comes to
usurp the place of the representativ e of desire, snaring the unconscious
in the trap of its paralogisms, crushing the whole of desiring-production,
Oedipus as Social Effect
- Oedipus is not a primary cause of psychological development but a displaced representation that usurps the place of actual desire.
- The Oedipal complex begins in the mind of the father through his own investments in the social and historical field rather than through familial heredity.
- Capitalist production requires an 'intimate colonial formation' to maintain a hold on the unconscious after traditional social codes have been decoded.
- The family functions as a microcosm or aggregate of destination where social investments are redirected and compressed into familial determinations.
- The relationship between ethnology and psychoanalysis is strained by the latter's tendency to reduce complex social symbols to universal sexual tropes like castration.
Oedipus is never a cause: it depends on a previous social investment of a certain type, capable of falling back on (se rabattre sur) family determinations.
production, that they are ripe for being reduced to the only thing they
have left, the familial reproduction imposed on them being no less
oedipalized by force than it is alcoholic or sickly.
On the other hand, when the requi site conditions ar e realized in
capitalist society, it s hould not be thought on that account that Oedipus
ceases to be what it is, the simple displaced represented that comes to
usurp the place of the representativ e of desire, snaring the unconscious
in the trap of its paralogisms, crushing the whole of desiring-production,
replacing it with a system of beliefs. Oedipus is never a cause: it depends
on a previous social investment of a certain type, capable of falling back
on (se rabattre sur) family determinations. It will be objected that such a
principle is perhaps valid for the adul t, but surely not for the child. But
in effect, Oedipus begins in the mind of the father. And the beginning is
not absolute: it is only constituted starting from investments of the
social historical field that are effected by the father. And if it passes over
to the son, this is not by virtue of a familial heredity, but by virtue of a
much more complex relationship that depends on the communication of
the unconsciouses. With the result that, even in the child, what is
*Paul Parin et al., Les blancs pensent trop, p. 432. Regarding the coextensivity of marriages with the
primitive social field, see Jaulin's remarks. La paix blanche, p. 256: "Marriages are not governed by kinship
iaws, they obey a dynamic that is infinitely more complex, less rigid, whose invention at each moment
utilizes a number of co-ordinates of another order of importance. . . . Marriages are more apt to be a
speculation on the future than on the past, and in any case these marriages and their speculation derive from
what is complex, not from what is elementary, and ne ver from what is rigidly fixed. The reason for this is
not by any means that man knows laws only so that he may violate them. . . ." Whence the stupidity of the
concept of transgression.
ITS ANTI-OEDIPUS
invested through the familial stimuli is s till the social field, and a whole system
of breaks and extrafamilial flows. The fact that the father is first in relation to the
child can only be understood analytically in terms of another primacy, that of
social investments and count erinvestments in relation to familial investments:
this will be seen later, at the level of an analysis of deliriums . But already, if it
appears that Oedipus is an effect, this is because it forms an aggregate of
destination (the family become micr ocosm) on which capitalist production and
reproduction fall back. The organs and the agents of the latter no longer pass
through a coding of flows of alliance and filiation, but through an axiomatic of
decoded flows. Conse quently, the capitalist formation of sovereignty will need an
intimate colonial formation that corresponds to it, to which it will be applied, and
without which it would have no hold on the productions of the unconscious.
Given these conditions, what is there to say about the relationship between
ethnology and psychoanalysis? Must we be content with an uncertain parallelism
where each contemplates the other with perplexity, placing in opposition two
irreducible sectors of symbolism? A social sector of symbols, and a sexual sector
that would constitute a kind of private uni versal, a kind of individual-universal?
(Transversals between the two, since social symbolism can become a sexual
material, and sexuality, a ritual of social aggregation.) But the problem is too
theoretical when posed this way. Practi cally speaking, the psychoanalyst often
claims to explain to the ethnologist the meaning of the symbol: it means phallus,
castration, Oedipus. But the ethnologist as ks other questions, and sincerely asks
Meaning Versus Function
- The text explores the tension between psychoanalytic interpretations of symbols and the ethnological focus on their practical utility.
- A fundamental shift is proposed from asking 'What does it mean?' to asking 'What purpose does it serve?' and 'How does it work?'
- The author suggests that symbols like the phallus or Oedipus may actually serve no useful purpose for the unconscious, despite their assigned meanings.
- Ethnologists and Hellenists argue that a symbol is defined by its function and use within a social formation rather than its representational value.
- Schizo-analysis is introduced as a method that foregoes interpretation in favor of understanding the mechanical 'uses' of the unconscious.
And to what use could the phallus be put, since it is inseparable from the castration that deprives us of its use?
irreducible sectors of symbolism? A social sector of symbols, and a sexual sector
that would constitute a kind of private uni versal, a kind of individual-universal?
(Transversals between the two, since social symbolism can become a sexual
material, and sexuality, a ritual of social aggregation.) But the problem is too
theoretical when posed this way. Practi cally speaking, the psychoanalyst often
claims to explain to the ethnologist the meaning of the symbol: it means phallus,
castration, Oedipus. But the ethnologist as ks other questions, and sincerely asks
himself of what u se can psychoan alytic interpretations be to me? Hence the
duality is displaced, it is no longer between two sectors, but be tween two kinds of
questions, "What does it mean?" and "Wha t purpose does it serve?" Of what use
is it not only to the ethnologist, but wh at purpose does it serve and how does it
work in the very formation that makes us e of the symbol?* Whatever may be the
meaning of a thing, it is not certain that the thing serves any useful purpose
whatever. It is possible, for example, that Oedipus serves no useful purpose,
either for psychoanalysts or for the unc onscious. And to what use could the
phallus be put, since it is inseparable from the castration that deprives us of its
use? Of course we are told not to conf use the signified with the signifier. But
does the signifier take us
*Roger Bastide has systematically developed th e theory of the two symbolic sectors, in Sociologie et
psychanalyse (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1950). But, starting from a viewpoint that is
analogous at first, E. R. Leach is led to displace the duality, causing it to pass between the question of
meaning and that of use, thereby changing the scope of the problem: see "Magical Hair" (reference note 24).
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 179
beyond the question, "What does it mean ?" Is it anything other than this
same question, only this time barred? This is still the domain of
representation.
The true misunderstandings, the misunderstandings between eth-
nologists (or Hellenists) and psychoana lysts, do not come from a faulty
knowledge or recognition of the uncon scious, of sexuality, of the phallic
nature of symbolism. In theory, everyone could reach an agreement on
this point: everything is sexual or sex-influenced (sexue) from one end to
the other. Everyone knows this, beginni ng with the users. The practical
misunderstandings come rather from the profound difference between
the two sorts of questions. Without always formulating it clearly, the
ethnologists and the Hellenists think that a symbol is not denned by
what it means, but by what it does and by what is done with it. It always
means the phallus or something similar, except that what it means does
not tell what purpose it serves. In a word, there is no ethnological
interpretation for the simple reason that there is no ethnographic
material: there are only uses and functionings (des fonctionnements). On
this point, it could be that psychoanalysts have much to learn from
ethnologists: about the unimportance of "What does it mean?" When
Hellenists place themselves in opposition to the Freudian Oedipus, it
should not be thought that they put forward other interpretations to
replace the psychoanalytic interpretati on. It could be that ethnologists
and Hellenists will compel psychoan alysts for their part to make a
similar discovery: namely, that there is no unconscious material either,
nor is there a psychoanalytic interpre tation, but only uses, analytic uses
of the syntheses of the unconscious , which do not allow themselves to
be defined by an assignment of a signifier any more than by the
determination of signifieds. How it works is the sole question.
Schizo-analysis foregoes all inte rpretation because it foregoes
discovering an unconscious material: the unconscious does not mean
The Engineering of Desire
- Schizo-analysis rejects traditional interpretation and the search for unconscious meaning in favor of analyzing how the unconscious functions as a machine.
- The unconscious is defined as a productive and engineering force rather than an expressive or representative one.
- Unlike large social or biological aggregates, desiring-machines are unique because their formation, production, and use are part of the same simultaneous process.
- Symbols are viewed as social machines that function through the investment of desire, characterized by their multivocal and polysemous nature.
- The primary analytical question shifts from 'what does it mean?' to 'how does it work?' within the context of material and signifying flows.
The unconscious does not speak, it engineers.
and Hellenists will compel psychoan alysts for their part to make a
similar discovery: namely, that there is no unconscious material either,
nor is there a psychoanalytic interpre tation, but only uses, analytic uses
of the syntheses of the unconscious , which do not allow themselves to
be defined by an assignment of a signifier any more than by the
determination of signifieds. How it works is the sole question.
Schizo-analysis foregoes all inte rpretation because it foregoes
discovering an unconscious material: the unconscious does not mean
anything. On the other hand the unc onscious constructs machines, which
are machines of desire, whose us e and functioning schizoanalysis
discovers in their immanent relationship with social machines. The
unconscious does not speak, it engineers. It is not expressive or
representative, but productive. A symbol is nothing other than a social
machine that functions as a desiri ng-machine, a desiring-machine that
functions within the social machine, an investment of the social
machine by desire.
It has often been said and demonstrated that an institution cannot
be explained by its use, any more than an organ can. Biological
formations and social formations are not formed in the same way in
which they function. Nor is there a biological, sociological, linguistic,
18 0 A N T I - O E D I P U S
etc., functionalism at the level of large determinate aggregates (des
grands ensembles specifies). But the same does not hold true in the case
of desiring-machines as molecular elements: there, use, functioning,
production, and formation are one and th e same process. And it is this
synthesis of desire that, under cert ain determinate conditions, explains
the molar aggregates (les ensembles molaires) with their specific use in a
biological, social, or li nguistic field. This is because the large molar
machines presuppose pre- established connections that are not explained
by their functioning, since the latter results from them. Only
desiring-machines produce connections according to which they
function, and function by improvising and forming the connections. A
molar functionalism is therefore a functionalism that did not go far
enough, that did not reach those regions where desire engineers,
independently of the macroscopic na ture of what it is engineering:
organic, social, linguistic, etc., elements, all tossed into the same pot to
stew. The only unities-multiplicities that functionalism must know are
the desiring-machines themselves and the configurations they form in
all the sectors of a field of production (the "total fact"). A magical chain
brings together plant life, pieces of organs, a shred of clothing, an
image of daddy, formulas and words: we shall not ask what it means, but
what kind of machine is assembled in this manner—what kind of flows
and breaks in the flows, in relation to other breaks and other flows.
Analyzing the symbolism of the forked branch among the Ndembu,
Victor Turner shows that the names given to them form a part of a chain
that mobilizes the species and the pr operties of the trees from which the
branches are taken, as well as the names of these species in turn, and the
technical procedures with which they are treated. Selections are made
from signifying chains no less than from material flows. The exegetical
meaning (what is said about the thing) is only one element among others,
and is less important than the operativ e use (what is done with the thing)
or the positional functioning (the re lationship with other things in one
and the same complex), according to which the symbol is never in a
one-to-one relationship with what it m eans, but always has a multiplicity
of referents, being "alway s multivocal and polysemous."29 Analyzing
the magical object buti among the Kukuya of the Congo, Pierre Bonnafe
shows how it is inseparable from the practical syntheses that produce,
The Operative Fetish
- The meaning of a symbol is less important than its operative use and its positional functioning within a complex system.
- Symbols like the magical 'buti' object are inseparable from the practical syntheses of production, recording, and consumption.
- Ethnologists critique psychoanalysis for reducing complex political and economic fetishes to the singular 'Phallus-Oedipus-Castration' model.
- Rituals involving hair should be viewed as material parts of a 'separating machine' rather than mere symbolic representations of the father.
- The conflict between ethnology and psychoanalysis stems from whether sexuality is viewed as a private drama or a broader libidinal investment in social machines.
As Leach says, hair as a partial object or as a separable part of the body does not represent an aggressive and separate phallus; hair is a thing in its own right, a material part in an aggressing apparatus, in a separating machine.
meaning (what is said about the thing) is only one element among others,
and is less important than the operativ e use (what is done with the thing)
or the positional functioning (the re lationship with other things in one
and the same complex), according to which the symbol is never in a
one-to-one relationship with what it m eans, but always has a multiplicity
of referents, being "alway s multivocal and polysemous."29 Analyzing
the magical object buti among the Kukuya of the Congo, Pierre Bonnafe
shows how it is inseparable from the practical syntheses that produce,
record, and consume it: the partia l and nonspecific connection that
combines fragments from the body of the subject with those of an
animal; the inclusive disjunction that inscribes the object in the body of
the subject, and transforms the latter into a man-animal; the residual
conjunction that causes the "residue" to submit to a long voyage before
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 181
burying or immersing it.* If present-day ethnologists are again evincing a lively
interest in the hypothetical concept of th e fetish, this is unquestionably due to the
influence of psychoanalysis. But it would seem that psychoanalysis offers them
just as many reasons for doubting the notion as it offers for attracting their
interest. For psychoanalysis has never said Phallus-Oedipus-Castration more
often than apropos of the fetish. While for his part, the ethnologist senses that
there is a problem of political power and economic and religious force
inseparable from the fetish, even when its use is individual and private. Hair, for
example—the rituals of hair-cutting and coif fure: is there any interest in referring
these rituals to the phallus entity as si gnifying the "separate thing," and in
everywhere re-encountering the father as the symbolic representative of the
separation? Wouldn't this be tantamount to remaining at the level of what it
means? The ethnologist finds himself before a flow of hair, with the breaks in
such a flow, and with what passes from one state into another through the break.
As Leach says, hair as a partial object or as a separable part of the body does not
represent an aggressive and separate phallus; hair is a thing in its own right, a
material part in an aggressing apparatus, in a separating machine. Once again, it
is not a question of knowing if the essen ce of a ritual is sexual, or if it is
necessary to take into account political, economic, and religious dimensions that
would go beyond sexuality. So long as the pr oblem is put in this manner, so long
as a choice is imposed between libido and numen, the misunderstanding between
ethnologists and psychoanalysts can only be aggravated—just as it continues to
grow between Hellenists and psychoana lysts apropos of Oedipus. Oedipus, the
clubfooted despot, who clearly invokes an entire political history that brings into
conflict the despotic machine and the old primitive territorial machine—whence
derive both the negation and the persiste nce of autochthony, brought into clear
relief by Levi-Strauss. But this is not enough to desexualize the drama. On the
contrary. In reality, it is a question of knowing how one conceives of sexuality
and libidinal investment. Must they be referred to an event or to something that
is
Microphysics of the Unconscious
- The text contrasts a familial, structural interpretation of Oedipus with a sociohistorical view of libidinal investment.
- Traditional psychoanalysis is criticized for reducing large social machines to an abstract 'daddy-mommy' framework of representation.
- A new perspective proposes that sexuality is a molecular energy that connects partial objects and organizes zones of intensity on the body without organs.
- Desiring-machines are defined as the microphysics of the unconscious, existing as the productive elements beneath macroscopic social formations.
- The authors argue that there is only desire and the social, where unconscious sexual microinvestments directly constitute the economic and political fields.
In this sense, there is only desire and the social.
grow between Hellenists and psychoana lysts apropos of Oedipus. Oedipus, the
clubfooted despot, who clearly invokes an entire political history that brings into
conflict the despotic machine and the old primitive territorial machine—whence
derive both the negation and the persiste nce of autochthony, brought into clear
relief by Levi-Strauss. But this is not enough to desexualize the drama. On the
contrary. In reality, it is a question of knowing how one conceives of sexuality
and libidinal investment. Must they be referred to an event or to something that
is
*Pierre Bonnafe, "Objet magique, sorcellerie et fetichisme?", Nouvelle revue de psychanalyse, no. 2 (1970):
"The Kukuya affirm that the nature of the object matters little: the essential thing is that it acts." See also
Alfred Adler, "L'ethnologue et les fetiches." The interest of this issue of the N.R.P., devoted to "objects of
fetishism," is that in its pages ethnologists do not pl ace one theory in opposition to another, but reflect on
the bearing of psychoanalytic interpretations on their own ethnological practice, and on the social practices
they study. In a paper entitled "Les interpretations de Turner" (Faculte de Nanterre), Eric Laurent was able
to make explicit in a profound way the problems of me thod in this regard: the necessity for performing a
series of reversals, for privileging use over exeges is or justification: produc tivity over expressivity; the
actual state of the social field over the cosmological myths; the exact ritual over structural models; the
"social drama," the political tactic, and strategy over kinship diagrams.
182 ANTI-OEDIPUS
"felt," which remains familial and intimate in spite of everything, an intimate
Oedipal feeling, even when it is interp reted structurally, on behalf of the pure
signifier? Or rather is it necessary to open sexuality and libidin al investment onto
the determinations of a sociohistorical field, where the economic, the political,
and the religious are things that are inve sted by the libido for themselves, and not
the derivatives of a daddy-mommy? In the first instance one studies large molar
aggregates, large social machines—the economic, the political, etc.—and this
entails searching for what they mean by applying them to an abstract familial
whole that is thought to contain the secret of the libido: in this way, one remains
in the framework of representation.
In the second instance one goes beyond these large aggregates, including the
family, toward the molecular elements that form the parts and wheels of
desiring-machines. One searches for the way in which these machines function,
for how they invest and underdetermine (subdeterminent) the social machines that
they constitute on a large scale. One th en reaches the regions of a productive,
molecular, micro-logical, or microphysi cal unconscious that no longer means or
represents anything. Sexuality is no longe r regarded as a specific energy that
unites persons derived from the large aggreg ates, but as the molecular energy that
places molecules-partial objects (libido) in connection, that organizes inclusive
disjunctions on the giant molecule of the body without organs (numen), and that
distributes states of being and becoming according to domains of presence or
zones of intensity (voluptas). For desi ring-machines are precisely that: the
microphysics of the unconscious, the elements of the microunconscious. But as
such they never exist independently of the historical molar aggregates, of the
macroscopic social formations that they c onstitute statistically. In this sense, there
is only desire and the social. Beneath the conscious investments of economic,
political, religious, etc., formations, th ere are unconscious sexual investments,
microinvestments that attest to the way in wh ich desire is present in a social field,
and joins this field to itself as the statis tically determined domain that is bound to
Desire and Social Machines
- Desiring-machines operate as a microphysics of the unconscious, functioning within the larger molar aggregates of social formations.
- Sexuality is defined not by familial representation but as a molecular underdetermination that precedes and produces the Oedipal complex.
- Social representation acts as a form of repression that varies significantly across different historical and cultural social machines.
- The affinity between social and desiring-machines depends on how the social inscription or 'alphabet' of the socius manages the flows of desire.
- Primitive codes of cruelty may maintain a higher affinity with desiring-machines than the capitalist axiomatic, despite the latter's liberation of flows.
In this sense, there is only desire and the social.
microphysics of the unconscious, the elements of the microunconscious. But as
such they never exist independently of the historical molar aggregates, of the
macroscopic social formations that they c onstitute statistically. In this sense, there
is only desire and the social. Beneath the conscious investments of economic,
political, religious, etc., formations, th ere are unconscious sexual investments,
microinvestments that attest to the way in wh ich desire is present in a social field,
and joins this field to itself as the statis tically determined domain that is bound to
it. Desiring-machines function within soci al machines, as though they maintained
their own regime in the molar aggregates that they form at the level of large
numbers. Symbols and fetishes are ma nifestations of desiring-machines.
Sexuality is by no means a molar determination that is representable in a familial
whole; it is the molecular underdetermi nation functioning within social and
secondarily familial aggregates that trace desire's field of presence and its field of
production: an entire non-Oe dipal unconscious that will only produce Oedipus as
one of its
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS. CIVILIZED MEN 183
secondary statistical formations ("complex es"), at the end of a history bringing
into play the destiny of social machin es, their regime compared to that of
desiring-machines.
5 Territorial Representation
While representation is always a social and psychic repression
of desiring-production, it should be borne in mind that this repression is
exercised in very diverse ways, accordi ng to the social formation considered.
The system of representation comprises th ree elements that vary in depth: the
repressed representative, the repressi ng representation, and the displaced
represented. But the agents (les instances) that come to carry them into effect are
themselves variable; there are migrati ons in the system. We see no reason for
believing in the universality of one and the same apparatus of sociocultural
repression (refoulemeni). One can speak instead of a co efficient of affinity that
varies in degree between social machin es and desiring-machines, according to
whether their respective regimes are more or less similar; according to whether
the desiring-machines have a greater or lesser chance of causing their
connections and interactions to pass into the regime of the social machines;
according to whether the social machines execute more or less of a movement of
detachment (decollement) in relation to the desiring- machines; and whether the
death-carrying elements remain caught in the machinery of desire, encasted in
the social machine, or on the contrary join together to form a death instinct that
extends throughout the social machine, crushing desire.
The principal factor in each of these respects is the type or genus of social
inscription, its alphabet, its characteristics: the inscription on the socius is in fact
the agent of a secondary psychic repression, or repression "in the proper sense of
the term," that is necessarily situated in relation to the desiring-inscription of the
body without organs, and in relation to the primary repression that the latter
already performs in the domain of desire —a relation that is essentially variable.
There is always social repression (refoulement), but the apparatus of repression
varies, depending in particular on what pl ays the role of the representative on
which the repression is brought to bear. In this sense it is possible that the
primitive codes, at the moment they ar e acting on the flows of desire with a
maximum of vigilance and extension, binding them in a system of cruelty,
maintain an infinitely greater affinity with desiring-machines than does the
capitalist axiomatic, which nonetheless liberates the decoded flows. This is
because in the primitive socius desire is not yet trapped, not yet introduced into a
set of impasses, the flows have lost
Primitive Inscription and Debt
- The primitive socius functions through inscription and the marking of bodies rather than through a system of universal exchange.
- Debt acts as a primary unit of alliance that codes the flows of desire and creates a 'memory of words' to replace mute filiative memory.
- Primitive systems maintain a closer affinity to desiring-machines than capitalism because they have not yet trapped desire in a set of impasses.
- The authors challenge the structuralist view that debt is merely a superstructure of exchange, arguing instead that debt is the primary mechanism of social coding.
- Social representation is forged through a system of cruelty and mnemotechnics that imposes memory directly onto the naked flesh.
Nietzsche described as humanity's prehistoric labor: the use of the cruelist mnemotechnics, in naked flesh, to impose a memory of words founded on the ancient biocosmic memory.
varies, depending in particular on what pl ays the role of the representative on
which the repression is brought to bear. In this sense it is possible that the
primitive codes, at the moment they ar e acting on the flows of desire with a
maximum of vigilance and extension, binding them in a system of cruelty,
maintain an infinitely greater affinity with desiring-machines than does the
capitalist axiomatic, which nonetheless liberates the decoded flows. This is
because in the primitive socius desire is not yet trapped, not yet introduced into a
set of impasses, the flows have lost
184 ANTI-OEDIPUS
none of their polyvocity, and the simple re presented in representation has not yet
taken the place of the representative. In order to evaluate in every instance the
nature of the apparatus and its effect s on desiring-production, it is therefore
necessary to take into account not only the elements of representation as they are
organized in depth, but the manner in wh ich representation itself is organized at
the surface, on the inscrip tion surface of the socius.
Society is not exchangist, the socius is inscriptive: not exchanging but
marking bodies, which are part of the earth . We have seen that the regime of
debt directly resulted from this savage inscription. For debt is the unit of
alliance, and alliance is representation itself. It is alliance that codes the flows of
desire and that, by means of debt, creates for man a memory of words (paroles).
It is alliance that represses the great , intense, mute filiative memory, the
germinal influx as the representative of the noncoded flows of desire capable of
submerging everything. It is debt that arti culates the alliances with the filiations
that have become extended, in order to form and to forge a system in extension
(representation) based on the repre ssion of nocturnal intensities. The
alliance-debt answers to what Nietzsche described as humanity's prehistoric
labor: the use of the cruelist mnemotechnics , in naked flesh, to impose a memory
of words founded on the ancient biocosmic memory. That is why it is so
important to see debt as a direct consequence of the primitive inscription
process, instead of making it—and the insc riptions themselves—into an indirect
means of universal exchange.
There is a question that Marcel Mauss at least left open: is debt primary in
relation to exchange, or is it merely a mode of exchange, a means in the service
of exchange? But Levi-Strauss seems to have closed the question again with a
categorical reply: debt is no more than a superstructure, a conscious form
whereby the unconscious social reality of exchange is converted into cash.*
What is involved is not a theoretical discussion of the first principles of
anthropology: the whole notion of social practice, and the postulates conveyed
by this practice, are at issue here—a nd the whole problem of the unconscious.
For if exchange underlies everything, wh y is it that what takes place looks like
anything but an exchange? Why must it be a gift, or a countergift, and not an
exchange? And why is it necessary th at the giver also be in the position
*C!aude Levi-Strauss, "Introduction a I'oeuvr e de Marcel Mauss," in Marcel Mauss, Sociologie et
anthropologie (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France), pp. 38-39. And Levi-Strauss, The El ementary
Structures of Kinship, p. 181: ". . . to explain why the system of generalized exchange has remained
subjacent and why the explicit system is formulated in very different terms." To see how, starting from this
principle, Levi-Strauss arrives at a conception of the unconscious as an empty form, indifferent to the
drives of desire, see bis Structural Anthropology, p. 203. It is true that Levi-Strauss's Mythologiques series
elaborates a theory of primitive codes, and of codings of flows and of organs, that goes beyond the
exchangist conception on al! sides.
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS. CIVILIZED MEN 185
Desire Against Exchange
- The text challenges the structuralist assumption that exchange is the primary underlying reality of social relations.
- Primitive societies often treat exchange as a nightmare to be exorcised or restricted to prevent the rise of a commodity economy.
- Desire is characterized not by balanced exchange, but by the asymmetrical logic of the gift and the theft.
- The author argues that the unconscious is not an empty structural form, but a functioning 'desiring-machine' full of material energy.
- Inscribing and marking on the social body are presented as more fundamental processes than the circulation of equivalent values.
Desire knows nothing of exchange, it knows only theft and gift, at times the one within the other under the effect of a primary homosexuality.
by this practice, are at issue here—a nd the whole problem of the unconscious.
For if exchange underlies everything, wh y is it that what takes place looks like
anything but an exchange? Why must it be a gift, or a countergift, and not an
exchange? And why is it necessary th at the giver also be in the position
*C!aude Levi-Strauss, "Introduction a I'oeuvr e de Marcel Mauss," in Marcel Mauss, Sociologie et
anthropologie (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France), pp. 38-39. And Levi-Strauss, The El ementary
Structures of Kinship, p. 181: ". . . to explain why the system of generalized exchange has remained
subjacent and why the explicit system is formulated in very different terms." To see how, starting from this
principle, Levi-Strauss arrives at a conception of the unconscious as an empty form, indifferent to the
drives of desire, see bis Structural Anthropology, p. 203. It is true that Levi-Strauss's Mythologiques series
elaborates a theory of primitive codes, and of codings of flows and of organs, that goes beyond the
exchangist conception on al! sides.
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS. CIVILIZED MEN 185
of someone who has been robbed, so as to demonstrate clearly that he does not
expect an exchange, not even a deferred ex change? It is theft that prevents the
gift and the countergift from entering in to an exchang-ist relation. Desire knows
nothing of exchange, it knows only theft and gift, at times the one within the
other under the effect of a primary homosexuality. Thus the antiexchangist
amorous machine encountered by Joyce in Exiles, and by Klossowski in Roberte.
"In Gourma ideology, it is as though a wife could only be given (the lityuatieli),
or carried away, kidnapped, hence in a cer tain sense stolen (the lipwotali); every
union that could too manifestly appear to be the result of a direct exchange
between two lineages or lineage segments is, in this society, if not prohibited, at
least widely disapproved of."30
Will it be said that, if desire know s nothing of exchange, it is because
exchange is desire's unconscious? Will th is be explained by the exigencies of
generalized exchange? But what entitles one to declare that sh ares of debt are
secondary compared with a totality that is "more real"? Yet exchange is known,
well known in the primitive socius—but as that which must be exorcised,
encasted, severely restricted, so that no corresponding value can develop as an
exchange value that would introduce th e nightmare of a commodity economy.
The primitive market operates through bargaining rather than by fixing an
equivalent that would lead to a decoding of flows and a collapse of the mode of
inscription on the socius. We are brought b ack to our point of departure: the fact
that exchange is inhibited and exorci sed by no means attests to its primary
reality, but demonstrates on the contra ry that the essential process is not
exchanging, but inscribing or marking. And when exchange is made into an
unconscious reality, structural right s are invoked in vain—along with the
necessary inadequation of attitudes a nd ideologies in relation to this
structure—for one does nothing more than hypostatize the principles of an
exchangist psychology to account for institutions that on the other hand are
recognized to be nonexchangist. And above all, what is made of the unconscious
itself, if not its explicit reduction to an empty form, from which desire itself is
absent and expelled? Such a form can serve to define a preconscious, but
certainly not the unconscious. For if it is true that the unconscious has no
material or content, this is assuredly not because it is an empty form, but rather
because it is always and already a functioning machine, a desiring-machine and
not an anorexic structure.
The difference between machine and stru cture appears in the postulates that
implicitly animate the structural and exch angist conception of the socius, with
the correctives that must be introduced into this
Machine versus Structure
- The authors argue that the unconscious is not an empty, anorexic structure but a functioning 'desiring-machine' with its own material reality.
- Structuralist and exchangist conceptions of society often mistakenly prioritize filiation over the lateral alliances and blocks of debt that actually drive the system.
- Social systems should be viewed as physical systems of circulating intensities rather than mere logical or symbolic combinative arrangements.
- The text challenges the Levi-Straussian ideal of equilibrium, suggesting that disequilibrium and instability are functional and fundamental to social systems.
- Exchangist models rely on a false postulate of a closed system, ignoring the essential openness of debt and the molecular elements of the socius.
For if it is true that the unconscious has no material or content, this is assuredly not because it is an empty form, but rather because it is always and already a functioning machine, a desiring-machine and not an anorexic structure.
recognized to be nonexchangist. And above all, what is made of the unconscious
itself, if not its explicit reduction to an empty form, from which desire itself is
absent and expelled? Such a form can serve to define a preconscious, but
certainly not the unconscious. For if it is true that the unconscious has no
material or content, this is assuredly not because it is an empty form, but rather
because it is always and already a functioning machine, a desiring-machine and
not an anorexic structure.
The difference between machine and stru cture appears in the postulates that
implicitly animate the structural and exch angist conception of the socius, with
the correctives that must be introduced into this
IBS ANTI-OEDIPUS
conception so that the structure is able to function. First of a ll, when considering
kinship structures, it is difficult not to proceed as though the alliances derived
from the lines of filiation and their re lationships, although the lateral alliances
and the blocks of debt condition the extended filiations in the system in
extension, and not the opposite. Secondly, th ere is a tendency to make the system
in extension into a logical combinative arrangement, instead of taking it for what
it is: a physical system where intensities are distributed, where some cancel out
and block a current, where others cause the current to circulate, etc. The
objection according to which the qualities developed in the sy stem are not only
physical objects, "but also honors, responsibilities, privileges," seems to indicate
a misunderstanding of the role of th e incommensurable elements and the
inequalities in the conditions of the system . More precisely, in the third place, the
structural exchangist conception tends to postulate a kind of primary equilibrium
of prices, a primary equivalence or e quality in the underlying principles, which
allows it to explain that the inequa lities are necessarily introduced in the
consequences.
Nothing is more significant in this regard than the controversy between
Levi-Strauss and Leach concerning th e Kachin marriage system. Invoking a
"conflict between the egalitarian conditio ns of generalized exchange, and its
aristocratic consequences," Levi-Str auss acts as though he thought the system
were in a state of equilibrium. However, th e problem is altogether different: it is a
question of knowing if the disequilibrium is pathological and a manifestation of
consequences, as Levi-Strauss maintain s, or functional and fundamental, as
Leach argues.31 Is the instability derived in relati on to an ideal of exchange, or is
it already given in the preconditions, incl uded in the heterogeneity of the terms
that compose the prestations and counter-p restations? The more one directs one's
attention to the economic and political co mpromises conveyed by the alliances, to
the nature of the counterprestations that come to compensate the disequilibrium
of the prestations of wives, and gene rally the original manner in which the
aggregate of prestations is evaluated in a particular society, the more clearly the
necessarily open nature of the system in ex tension appears, as in the case of the
primitive mechanism of surplu s value as a surplus value of code. But—and this is
the fourth point—the exchangist concep tion finds it necessary to postulate a
closed system, statistically closed, and to shore up the structure with a
psychological conviction ("confidence that th e cycle will reclose"). Thus not only
the essential opening of the blocks of de bts according to the lateral alliances and
the successive generations, but above all the relationship of the statistical
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 187
formations to their molecular elements , find themselves brought back to the
simple empirical reality, insofar as it is not adequate to the structural model.32
Ail this depends, finally, on a postulate that burdens ethnology to the same
Inscription and Savage Representation
- The text critiques ethnology for reducing social reproduction to mere circulation and exchange, mirroring the errors of bourgeois political economy.
- True social organization is found in 'inscription'—the physical marking of bodies and the creation of debt blocks—rather than the movement of goods or women.
- Savage formations utilize a multidimensional graphic system that is independent of the voice, unlike linear writing which subordinates the graphic to the vocal.
- The process of territorial representation functions through a 'hard machinic element' involving the coordination of the voice of alliance and the hand of graphics.
- Social signs are produced through direct physical contact and saturation, where the body incorporates inscriptions to facilitate the production of desire.
The soft structure would never function, would never cause a circulation, without the hard machinic element that presides over inscriptions.
psychological conviction ("confidence that th e cycle will reclose"). Thus not only
the essential opening of the blocks of de bts according to the lateral alliances and
the successive generations, but above all the relationship of the statistical
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 187
formations to their molecular elements , find themselves brought back to the
simple empirical reality, insofar as it is not adequate to the structural model.32
Ail this depends, finally, on a postulate that burdens ethnology to the same
extent that it has determined bourgeois political economy: the reduction of social
reproduction to the sphere of circulati on. One retains the apparent objective
movement as it is described on the socius, without taking into account the real
instance that inscribes it, and the fo rces—economic and political—with which it
is inscribed; one fails to see that alliance is the form in which the socius
appropriates the connections of labor in the disjunctive order of its inscriptions.
"From the viewpoint of the relations of production, in fact, the circulation of
women appears as a distribution of labor capacity, but in the ideological
representation that the society gives itself of its economic base, this aspect fades
before the relations of exchange, which are, however, merely the form this
distribution takes within the sphere of ci rculation: by isolating the moment of
circulation in the reproduction process, ethnology ratifies this representation,"
and grants bourgeois economy its whole colonial extension.33 In this sense the
essential thing seemed to us to be, not exchange and circulation, which closely
depend on the requirements of inscription, but inscription itself, with its imprint
of fire, its alphabet inscribed in bodies, and its blocks of debts. The soft structure
would never function, would never cause a circulation, without the hard
machinic element that presides over inscriptions.
Savage formations are oral, are vocal, but not because they lack a graphic
system: a dance on the earth, a drawing on a wall, a mark on the body are a
graphic system, a geo-graphism, a ge ography. These formations are oral
precisely because they possess a graphic system that is independent of the voice,
a system that is not aligned on the voice and not subordinate to it, but connected
to it, co-ordinated "in an organization that is radiating, as it were," and
multidimensional. (And it must be said that this graphic system is linear writing's
contrary: civilizations cease being oral only through losing the independence and
the particular dimensions of the graphic system; by aligning itself on the voice,
graphism supplants the voice and induces a fictitious voice.) Andre
Leroi-Gourhan has admirably described these two heterogeneous poles of the
savage inscription process or territorial representation: the couple voice-audition
and hand-graphics.34 How does such a machine work? For it does work: the
voice is like a voice of alliance to which, on the side of the extended filiation, a
graphics is co-ordinated that bears no resemblance. The calabash of the excision
is placed on the body of the young woman. Furnished by the husband's lineage,
the calabash serves
in ANTI-OEDIPUS
as a conductor for the voice of alliance; but the graphism must be traced by a
member of the young woman's clan. The ar ticulation of the two elements takes
place on the body itself, and constitutes the sign, which is not a resemblance or
imitation, nor an effect of a signifier, but rather a position and a production of
desire: "In order for the young woman's transformation to be fully effective, a
direct contact must take place between her stomach, on the one hand, and the
calabash and the signs inscribed on he r, on the other hand. The young woman
must become physically saturated with the signs of procreation and she must
incorporate them. The young women ar e never taught the meaning of the
The Savage Triangle of Inscription
- The text describes a ritualistic system where signs are not mere representations but physical instruments that saturate and transform the body.
- A 'magic triangle' is formed between the voice of alliance, the graphic hand that carves the sign, and the appreciative eye that extracts enjoyment from the resulting pain.
- Pain functions as a surplus value extracted by the collective or divine eye, bridging the gap between the spoken word and the marked flesh.
- This territorial representation organizes a theater of cruelty where the body is treated as a surface for recording social debts and filiations.
- The author argues that Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals provides a superior framework for understanding primitive economy compared to traditional ethnological texts.
And what is his pain if not a pleasure for the eye that regards it, the collective or divine eye that is not motivated by any idea of revenge, but is alone capable of grasping the subtle relationship between the sign engraved in the body and the voice issuing from a face—between the mark and the mask.
as a conductor for the voice of alliance; but the graphism must be traced by a
member of the young woman's clan. The ar ticulation of the two elements takes
place on the body itself, and constitutes the sign, which is not a resemblance or
imitation, nor an effect of a signifier, but rather a position and a production of
desire: "In order for the young woman's transformation to be fully effective, a
direct contact must take place between her stomach, on the one hand, and the
calabash and the signs inscribed on he r, on the other hand. The young woman
must become physically saturated with the signs of procreation and she must
incorporate them. The young women ar e never taught the meaning of the
ideograms during their initiation. The sign acts through its inscription in the
body. . . . The inscription of a mark on the body does not merely possess a
message value here, but is an instrument of action that acts on the body itself. . . .
The signs command the things they signify , and far from being a mere imitator,
the artisan of the signs accomplishes a work that calls to mind the divine
creation."35
But how does one explain the role played by sight, indicated by
Leroi-Gourhan, in the contem plation of the face that is speaking, as well as in the
reading of the manual graphism? Or more precisely, what enables the eye to
grasp a terrible equivalence between the voice of alliance th at inflicts and
constrains, and the body afflicted by the si gn that a hand is carving in it? Isn't it
necessary to add a third element of the sign: eye-pain, in addition to
voice-audition and hand-graphics? In the r ituals of affliction the patient does not
speak, but receives the spoken word. He does not act, but is passive under the
graphic action; he receives the stamp of th e sign. And what is his pain if not a
pleasure for the eye that regards it, the collective or divine eye that is not
motivated by any idea of revenge, but is alone capable of grasping the subtle
relationship between the sign engraved in the body and the voice issuing from a
face—between the mark and the mask. Between these two elements of the code,
pain is like the surplus valu e that the eye extracts, taking hold of the effect of
active speech on the body, but also of the reaction of the body insofar as it is
acted upon. This is indeed what must be called a debt system or territorial
representation: a voice that speaks or intone s, a sign marked in bare flesh, an eye
that extracts enjoyment from the pain; these are the three sides of a savage
triangle forming a territory of resonance and retention, a theater of cruelty that
implies the triple independence of the articulated voice, the graphic hand, and the
appreciative eye. Such is the manner in which territorial representation organizes
itself at the surface, still quite close to a desiring-machine of eye-hand-voice. A
magic triangle. Everything in this system is active, acted upon, or reacted to: the
action of the voice of alliance, the passion
SAVAGES. BARBARIANS. CIVILIZED MEN 18S
of the body of filiation, the reaction of the eye evaluating the declension
of the two. To choose the stone that will make a man of the young
Guayaki, with enough pain and suffering, by cleaving the length of his
back: "It must have a good cutting edge "—says Clastres in an admirable
text—"but not like a sliver of bam boo, which cuts too easily. Choosing
the right stone therefore requires a practiced eye. The whole apparatus
of this new ceremony is reduced to that: a rock. . . . Furrowed skin,
scarified earth, one and the same mark."36
The great book of modern ethnology is not so much Mauss's The
Gift as Nietzsche's On the Genealogy o f Morals. At least it should be.
For the Genealogy, the second essay, is an attempt—and a success
without equal—at interpretating primitive economy in terms of debt, in
the debtor-creditor relationship, by eliminating every consideration of
The Inscription of Debt
- Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals is presented as a superior ethnological framework for understanding primitive economies compared to Mauss's theories of exchange.
- The fundamental problem of the primitive socius is the creation of a collective memory through the physical marking and coding of the human body.
- Debt is not a byproduct of exchange but a primary mechanism of territorial and corporal inscription used to breed man into a social being.
- The 'terrible equation' of debt establishes an equivalence between injury and pain, where suffering serves as a payment extracted by an enjoying eye.
- Initiations and atrocious procedures are designed to repress germinal influxes and form man within the debtor-creditor relationship.
All the stupidity and the arbitrariness of the laws, all the pain of the initiations, the whole perverse apparatus of repression and education, the red-hot irons, and the atrocious procedures have only this meaning: to breed man, to mark him in his flesh.
the right stone therefore requires a practiced eye. The whole apparatus
of this new ceremony is reduced to that: a rock. . . . Furrowed skin,
scarified earth, one and the same mark."36
The great book of modern ethnology is not so much Mauss's The
Gift as Nietzsche's On the Genealogy o f Morals. At least it should be.
For the Genealogy, the second essay, is an attempt—and a success
without equal—at interpretating primitive economy in terms of debt, in
the debtor-creditor relationship, by eliminating every consideration of
exchange or interest "a l'anglaise." And if they are eliminated from
psychology, it is not in order to pl ace them in structure. Nietzsche has
only a meager set of tools at his disposal—some ancient Germanic law, a
little Hindu law. But he does not hesitate, as does Mauss, between
exchange and debt. (Georges Bataille, motivated by a Nietzschean
inspiration, will not hesitate either.) The fundamental problem of the
primitive socius, which is the problem of inscription, of coding, of
marking, has never been raised in su ch an incisive fashion. Man must
constitute himself through the repression of the intense germinal influx,
the great biocosmic memory that threatens to deluge every attempt at
collectivity. But at the same time, how is a new memory to be created
for man—a collective memory of the spoken word and of alliances that
declines the alliances with the exte nded filiations, that endows him with
faculties of resonance and retention, of selection (prelevement) and
detachment, and that effects in this wa y the coding of the flows of desire
as a condition of the socius? The answ er is simple, it is debt—open,
mobile, and finite blocks of debt: this extraordinary composite of the
speaking voice, the marked body, and the enjoying eye. All the stupidity
and the arbitrariness of the laws, all the pain of the initiations, the whole
perverse apparatus of re pression and education, the red-hot irons, and
the atrocious procedures have only this meaning: to breed man,* to mark
him in his flesh, to render him capable of alliance, to form him within the
debtor-creditor relation, which on both sides turns out to be a matter of
memory—a memory straining toward the future.
Far from being an appearance assumed by exchange, debt is the
immediate effect or the direct means of the territorial and corporal
inscription process. Debt is the direct result of inscription. Once again
*'Ldresser l'homme" in the French. See Friedrich Nietzsche, Wilito Power, Book IV, for his discussion of
this notion. {Translators' note.)
180 ANTI-OEDIPUS
no revenge, no ressentiment will be invoked here—that is not the ground
they grow on, any more than does Oedipus. The fact that innocent men
suffer all the marks on their bodies derives from the respective
autonomy of the voice and the graphic action, and also from the
autonomous eye that extracts pleasure from the event. It is not because
everyone is suspected, in advance, of being a future bad debtor; the
contrary would be closer to the truth. It is the bad debtor who must be
understood as if the marks had not sufficiently "taken" on him, as if he
were or had been unmarked. He has merely widened, beyond the limits
allowed, the gap that separated the voice of alliance and the body of
filiation, to such a degree that it is necessary to re-establish the
equilibrium through an increase in pain. Nietzsche doesn't say this, but
what does it matter? For it is indeed here that he encounters the terrible
equation of debt: injury done = pain to be suffered. How does one
explain, he asks, that the criminal's pain can serve as an "equivalent" of
the harm he has done? How can one "pay back" with suffering? An eye
must be invoked that extracts pleasure from the event (this has nothing
to do with vengeance): something that Nietzsche himself calls the
The State and Primitive Debt
- Nietzsche's equation of debt suggests that injury is repaid through the extraction of pain, which serves as a festive spectacle for an evaluating eye.
- Punishment functions as a surplus value of code that re-establishes the equilibrium between the voice of alliance and the physical mark on the body.
- The transition from primitive territorial representation to the State occurs through a sudden, violent rupture imposed by a conqueror race.
- These 'born organizers' act as unconscious artists, imposing a rigid ruling structure that destroys or subordinates all previous primitive codings.
- The State-as-dog represents a single, continuous apparatus of terror that replaces ancient systems of cruelty with a more absolute form of control.
They come like fate, without reason, consideration, or pretext; they appear as lightning appears, too terrible, too convincing, too sudden, too different even to be hated.
filiation, to such a degree that it is necessary to re-establish the
equilibrium through an increase in pain. Nietzsche doesn't say this, but
what does it matter? For it is indeed here that he encounters the terrible
equation of debt: injury done = pain to be suffered. How does one
explain, he asks, that the criminal's pain can serve as an "equivalent" of
the harm he has done? How can one "pay back" with suffering? An eye
must be invoked that extracts pleasure from the event (this has nothing
to do with vengeance): something that Nietzsche himself calls the
evaluating eye, or the eye of the gods who enjoy cruel spectacles, "and
in punishment there is so much that is festive !"37 So much is pain part of
an active life and an obliging gaze. The equation injury = pain has
nothing exchangist about it, and it show s in this extreme case that the
debt itself had nothing to do with exchange. Simply stated, the eye
extracts from the pain it is contemplating a surplus value of code that
compensates the broken relationship between the voice of alliance that
the criminal has wronged, and the mark that had not sufficiently
penetrated his body. The crime, a rupture of the phonographic connec-
tion, re-established by the spectacle of the punishment: as primitive
justice, territorial representation has foreseen everything.
Coding pain and death, it has foreseen everything—except for the
way its own death would come to it from without. "They come like fate,
without reason, consideration, or pretext; they appear as lightning
appears, too terrible, too convincing, too sudden, too different even to be
hated. Their work is an instinctive creation and imposition of forms;
they are the most involuntary, unconscious artists there are—wherever
they appear something new arises, a ruling structure that lives, in which
parts and functions are delimited and coordinated, in which nothing
whatever finds a place that has not first been assigned a 'meaning' in
relation to the whole. They do not know what guilt, responsibility, or
consideration are, these born organi zers; they exemplify that terrible
artist's egoism that has the look of br onze and knows itself justified to all
eternity in its 'work,' like a mother in her child. It is not in them that the
SAVAGES. BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 1S1
'bad conscience' developed, that goes without saying—but it would not
have developed if a tremendous quantity of freedom had not been
expelled from the world, or at least from the visible world, and made as
it were latent under their hammer blow s and artist's violence."38 It is
here that Nietzsche speaks of a break, a rupture, a leap. Who are these
beings, they who come like fate? ("Some pack of blond beasts of prey, a
conqueror and master race which, organized for war and with the ability
to organize, unhesitatingly lays its terrible claws upon a populace
perhaps tremendously superior in numbers but still formless. . . ."39)
Even the most ancient African myths speak to us of these blond men.
They are the founders of the State. Nietzsche will come to establish the
existence of other breaks: those of the Greek city-state, Christianity,
democratic and bourgeois humanism, i ndustrial society, capitalism, and
socialism. But it could be that all these—in vari ous ways—presuppose
this first great hiatus, although they al l claim to repel and to fill it. It
could be that, spiritual or temporal , tyrannical or democratic, capitalist
or socialist, there has never been but a single State, the State-as-dog that
"speaks with flaming roars."40 And Nietzsche suggests how this new
socius proceeds: a terror without precedent, in comparison with which
the ancient system of cruelty, the forms of primitive regimentation and
punishment, are nothing. A concerted destruction of all the primitive
codings, or worse yet, their derisory preservation, their reduction to the
condition of secondary parts in the new machine, and the new apparatus
The Barbarian Despotic Machine
- The transition from primitive societies to the State is marked by a new system of terror that destroys or subordinates ancient codes.
- The Despotic Machine replaces mobile, finite debts with an infinite debt that creates a crushing, inescapable fate for the subject.
- The Despot functions as a paranoiac figure who breaks old community alliances to establish a direct filiation with the deity.
- This new social formation is supported by a 'procession' of perverts, including priests, scribes, and bureaucrats, who institutionalize the Despot's power.
- The despotic formation can manifest as a military empire, a religious movement, or a spiritual dream arising from the ruins of a previous state.
The aim now is to preclude pessimistically, once and for all, the prospect of a final discharge; the aim now is to make the glance recoil disconsolately from an iron impossibility.
could be that, spiritual or temporal , tyrannical or democratic, capitalist
or socialist, there has never been but a single State, the State-as-dog that
"speaks with flaming roars."40 And Nietzsche suggests how this new
socius proceeds: a terror without precedent, in comparison with which
the ancient system of cruelty, the forms of primitive regimentation and
punishment, are nothing. A concerted destruction of all the primitive
codings, or worse yet, their derisory preservation, their reduction to the
condition of secondary parts in the new machine, and the new apparatus
of repression (refoulement). All that constituted the essential element of
the primitive inscription machine—the blocks of mobile, open, finite
debts, "the parcels of destiny"—f inds itself taken into an immense
machinery that renders the de bt infinite and no longer forms anything but
one and the same crushing fate: "the aim now is to preclude pessimisti-
cally, once and for all, the prospect of a final discharge; the aim now is to
make the glance recoil disconso lately from an iron impossibility."41 The
earth becomes a madhouse.
The Barbarian Despotic Machine
The founding of the despotic machine or the barbarian
socius can be summarized in the following way: a new alliance and
direct filiation. The despot challenges the lateral alliances and the
extended filiations of the old community. He imposes a new alliance
system and places himself in direct filiation with the deity: the people
must follow. A leap into a new alliance, a break with the ancient
filiation—this is expressed in a strange machine, or rather a machine of
the strange whose locus is the dese rt, imposing the harshest and the
ANTI-OEDIPUS
most barren of ordeals, and attesting to the resistance of an old order as
well as to the validation of the new order. The machine of the strange is
both a great paranoiac machine, since it expresses the struggle with the
old system, and already a glorious celibate machine, insofar as it exalts
the triumph of the new alliance. The despot is the paranoiac: there is no
longer any reason to forego such a statement, once one has freed oneself
from the characteristic familialism of the concept of paranoia in
psychoanalysis and psychiatry, and pr ovided one sees in paranoia a type
of investment of a social formation. And new perverse groups spread
the despot's invention (perhaps they even fabricated it for him),
broadcast his fame, and impose his power in the towns they found or
conquer. Wherever a despot and his ar my pass, doctors, pr iests, scribes,
and officials are part of the procession. It might be said that the ancient
complementarity has shifted to form a new socius: no longer the bush
paranoiac and the encampment or v illage perverts, but the desert
paranoiac and the town perverts.
In theory the despotic barbarian formation has to be conceived of in
terms of an opposition between it and the primitive territorial machine:
the birth of an empire. But in realit y one can perceive the movement of
this formation just as well when one empire breaks away from a
preceding empire; or even when there arises the dream of a spiritual
empire, wherever temporal empires fall into decadence. It may be that
the enterprise is primar ily military and motivated by conquest, or that it
is primarily religious, the military discipline being converted into
internal asceticism and cohesion. It may be that the paranoiac himself is
either a gentle creature or a raging be ast. But we always rediscover the
figures of this paranoiac and his perverts, the conqueror and his elite
troops, the despot and his bureaucrats, the holy man and his disciples,
the anchorite and his monks, Christ and his Saint Paul. Moses flees from
the Egyptian machine into the wilderness and installs his new machine
there, a holy ark and a portable te mple, and gives his people a new
religious-military organi zation. In order to summarize Saint John the
The Despotic Machine
- The transition from primitive territorial codings to imperial formations is marked by a shift toward 'new alliance' and 'direct filiation' with a central deity or despot.
- Paranoia serves as a creative and destructive force of projection, allowing a subject to leap outside existing social structures to start a new order from zero.
- The barbarian formation supplants primitive rural communities by establishing a higher state unity that claims ultimate ownership of the soil and its surplus.
- In this new socius, the earth is replaced by the body of the despot or his god as the full body of the socius and the sole cause of all collective movement.
- This transformation creates a detached object outside the signifying chain, where all social flows converge into the sovereign's consumption.
The subject leaps outside the intersections of alliance-filiation, installs himself at the limit, at the horizon, in the desert, the subject of a deterritorialized knowledge that links him directly to God and connects him to the people.
internal asceticism and cohesion. It may be that the paranoiac himself is
either a gentle creature or a raging be ast. But we always rediscover the
figures of this paranoiac and his perverts, the conqueror and his elite
troops, the despot and his bureaucrats, the holy man and his disciples,
the anchorite and his monks, Christ and his Saint Paul. Moses flees from
the Egyptian machine into the wilderness and installs his new machine
there, a holy ark and a portable te mple, and gives his people a new
religious-military organi zation. In order to summarize Saint John the
Baptist's enterprise, one author decl ares: "John attacks at its foundation
the central doctrine of Judaeism, the doctrine of the alliance with God
through a filiation that goes back to Abraham."42 There is the essential:
every time the categories of new alliance and direct filiation are
mobilized, we are talking about the im perial barbarian formation or the
despotic machine. And this holds true whatever the context of this
mobilization, whether in a relations hip with preceding empires or not,
since throughout these vicissitudes th e imperial formation is always
defined by a certain type of code and inscription that is in direct
opposition to the primitive territorial codings. The number of elements
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS. CIVILIZED MEN 133
in the alliance makes little difference: new alliance and direct filiation are
specific categories that testify to the exis tence of a new socius, irreducible to the
lateral alliances and the extended filiations that declined the primitive machine.
It is this force of projection that defines paranoia, this strength to start again from
zero, to objectify a complete transformation: the subject leaps outside the
intersections of alliance-filiation, installs himself at the limit, at the horizon, in
the desert, the subject of a deterritoriali zed knowledge that links him directly to
God and connects him to the people. Fo r the first time, something has been
withdrawn from life and fr om the earth that will make it possible to judge life
and to survey the earth from above: a first principle of paranoiac knowledge. The
whole relative play of alliances and filiati ons is carried to the absolute in this
new alliance and this direct filiation.
It remains to be said that, in order to understand the barbarian formation, it
is necessary to relate it not to other fo rmations in competition with it temporally
and spiritually, according to relationships that obscure the essential, but to the
savage primitive formation that it supplants by imposing its own rule of law, but
that continues to haunt it. It is exactly in this way that Marx defines Asiatic
production: a higher unity of the State es tablishes itself on the foundations of the
primitive rural communities, which keep th eir ownership of the soil, while the
State becomes the true owner in conformity with the apparent objective
movement that attributes the surplus product to the State, assigns the productive
forces to it in the great projects undertaken, and makes it appear as the cause of
the collective conditions of appropriation.43 The full body as socius has ceased to
be the earth, it has become the body of th e despot, the despot himself or his god.
The prescriptions and prohibitions that often render him almost incapable of
acting make of him a body without organs. He is the sole quasi cause, the source
and fountainhead and estuary of the apparent objective movement. In place of
mobile detachments from the signifying chain, a detached object has jumped
outside the chain; in place of flow selec tions, all the flows converge into a great
river that constitutes the sovereign's consumption: a radical change of regimes in
The Despotic Megamachine
- The socius shifts from the earth to the body of the despot, who becomes the sole quasi-cause and fountainhead of all social movement.
- The territorial machine is replaced by a state 'megamachine,' a functional pyramid where the despot acts as an immobile motor supported by a bureaucratic apparatus.
- Flows of production and consumption are redirected into a single great river that serves the sovereign's consumption and the accumulation of tribute.
- State formation involves a movement of deterritorialization that subjects individuals to a new imperial inscription and a rigid system of residence.
- The collapse of primitive systems occurs through external contingencies, such as nomadic conquest, which actualize hierarchies already prefigured within the primitive structure.
In place of flow selections, all the flows converge into a great river that constitutes the sovereign's consumption: a radical change of regimes in the fetish or the symbol.
forces to it in the great projects undertaken, and makes it appear as the cause of
the collective conditions of appropriation.43 The full body as socius has ceased to
be the earth, it has become the body of th e despot, the despot himself or his god.
The prescriptions and prohibitions that often render him almost incapable of
acting make of him a body without organs. He is the sole quasi cause, the source
and fountainhead and estuary of the apparent objective movement. In place of
mobile detachments from the signifying chain, a detached object has jumped
outside the chain; in place of flow selec tions, all the flows converge into a great
river that constitutes the sovereign's consumption: a radical change of regimes in
the fetish or the symbol. What counts is not the person of the sovereign, nor even
his function, which can be limited. It is the social machine that has profoundly
changed: in place of the territorial machine, there is the "megamachine" of the
State, a functional pyramid that has the despot at its apex, an immobile motor,
with the bureaucratic apparatus as its la teral surface and its transmission gear,
and the villagers at its base, serving as its working parts. The stocks form the
object of an accumulation, the blocks of de bt become an infinite relation in the
form of the tribute. Th e entire surplus value of
1 9 4 A N T I - O E D I P U S
code is an object of appropriation. This conversion crosses through all the
syntheses: the synthesis of production, with the hydraulic machine and the
mining machine; the synthesis of inscri ption, with the accounting machine, the
writing machine, and the monument machine; and finally the synthesis of
consumption, with the upkeep of the des pot, his court, and the bureaucratic caste.
Far from seeing in the State the principle of a territorialization that would
inscribe people according to their residen ce, we should see in the principle of
residence the effect of a m ovement of deterritorializati on that divides the earth as
an object and subjects men to the new impe rial inscription, to the new full body,
to the new socius. "They come like fate, . . . they appear as lightning appears, too
terrible, too sudden."44
The death of the primitive system always comes from without; history is the
history of contingencies and encounters. Like a cloud blown in from the desert,
the conquerors are there: "In some way that is incomprehensible to me they have
pushed right into the capital, although it is a long way from the frontier. At any
rate, here they are; it seems that every morning there are more of them. . . .
Speech with the nomads is impossibl e. They do not know our own language."45
But this death that comes from without is also that which was rising from within:
the general irreducibility of alliance to f iliation, the independence of the alliance
groups, the way in which they serve as a conducting element for the political and
economic relations, the system of primitive rankings, the mechanism of surplus
value—all this already prefi gured despotic formations and caste hierarchies. And
The Birth of Despotism
- The death of primitive systems occurs through a convergence of external conquest and internal structural vulnerabilities.
- Primitive communities often exist in a state of tension, simultaneously repressing internal despotic tendencies and recovering from past external subjugations.
- The transition to an imperial formation is marked by a 'new alliance' that does not destroy old systems but overcodes them for the State's benefit.
- In the Asiatic mode of production, rural communities continue their traditional functions but are reduced to working parts within a transcendent State machine.
- The State appropriates surplus value by transforming local alliance debts into an infinite relation with a superior, centralized power.
The old inscription remains, but is bricked over by and in the inscription of the State.
The death of the primitive system always comes from without; history is the
history of contingencies and encounters. Like a cloud blown in from the desert,
the conquerors are there: "In some way that is incomprehensible to me they have
pushed right into the capital, although it is a long way from the frontier. At any
rate, here they are; it seems that every morning there are more of them. . . .
Speech with the nomads is impossibl e. They do not know our own language."45
But this death that comes from without is also that which was rising from within:
the general irreducibility of alliance to f iliation, the independence of the alliance
groups, the way in which they serve as a conducting element for the political and
economic relations, the system of primitive rankings, the mechanism of surplus
value—all this already prefi gured despotic formations and caste hierarchies. And
how does one distinguish the way in which the primitive community remains on
its guard with respect to its own instituti ons of chieftainship, and exorcises or
strait-jackets the image of the possible des pot whom it threatens to secrete from
within, from the way in which it binds up the symbol—a symbol that has become
derisory—of a former despot who thru st himself upon the community from the
outside long ago? It is not always easy to know if one is considering a primitive
community that is repressing an endogenous tendency, or one that is regaining its
cohesion as best it can after a terribl e exogenous adventure. The game of
alliances is ambiguous: are we still on this side of the new alliance, or already
beyond it, having fallen back, as it were, into a this-side-of that is residual and
transformed? (Related question: what is the feudal system?) We are only able to
fix the precise moment of the imperial formation as that of the new exogenous
alliance, not only in the place of former alliances, but in relation to them.
This new alliance is something altoge ther different from a treaty or a
contract. What is suppressed is not the former regime of lateral
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN IBS
alliances and extended filiations, but merely their determining character.
They subsist, more or less modified, more or less harnessed by the great
paranoiac, since they furnish the material of surplus value. In point of
fact, that is what forms the specific character of Asiatic production: the
autochthonous rural communities subsist, and continue to produce,
inscribe, and consume; in effect, they are the State's sole concern. The
wheels of the territorial lineage m achine subsist, but are no longer
anything more than the working parts of the State machine. The objects,
the organs, the persons, and the groups retain at least a part of their
intrinsic coding, but these coded flows of the former regime find
themselves overcoded by the transc endent unity that appropriates
surplus value. The old inscription rema ins, but is bricked over by and in
the inscription of the State. The blocks subsist, but have become
encasted and embedded bricks, having only a controlled mobility. The
territorial alliances are not replaced, but are merely allied with the new
alliance; the territorial filiations are not replaced, but are merely
affiliated with the direct filiation. It is like an immense right of the
first-born over all filiations, an immense right of the wedding night over
all alliances. The filiative stock becomes the object of an accumulation
in the other filiation, while the alliance debt becomes an infinite relation
in the other alliance. It is the en tire primitive system that finds itself
mobilized, requisitioned by a superior power, subjugated by new
exterior forces, put in the service of other ends; so true is it, said
Nietzsche, that what is called the evolution of a thing is "a succession of
more or less profound, more or less mutually independent processes of
subduing, plus the resistances they en counter, the attempts at transfor-
The Despotic State Machine
- The State emerges by mobilizing and subjugating primitive systems, transforming them into tools for superior exterior forces.
- State territoriality is a form of deterritorialization that replaces the signs of the earth with abstract signs of state ownership.
- The abolition of small debts by the State often serves as a strategic euphemism to prevent revolutionary agrarian reform and maintain land distribution.
- Money originates not from commerce, but from the State's need to control flows and render debt infinite through taxation.
- Despotic regimes intentionally stifle technological and mercantile progress, such as in 13th-century China, to prevent decoded flows from escaping state monopoly.
The pseudo territoriality is the product of an effective deterritorialization that substitutes abstract signs for the signs of the earth.
in the other filiation, while the alliance debt becomes an infinite relation
in the other alliance. It is the en tire primitive system that finds itself
mobilized, requisitioned by a superior power, subjugated by new
exterior forces, put in the service of other ends; so true is it, said
Nietzsche, that what is called the evolution of a thing is "a succession of
more or less profound, more or less mutually independent processes of
subduing, plus the resistances they en counter, the attempts at transfor-
mation for the purpose of defense and reaction, and the results of
successful counteractions."46
It has often been remarked that the State commences (or recom-
mences) with two fundamental acts, one of which is said to be an act of
territoriality through the fixing of re sidence, and the other, an act of
liberation through the abolition of small debts. But the State operates by
means of euphemisms. The pseudo terr itoriality is the product of an
effective deterritorialization that substitutes abstract signs for the signs
of the earth, and that makes the earth itself into the object of a State
ownership of property, or an owne rship held by the State's richest
servants and officials. (There is no great change, from this point of view,
when the State no longer does anything more than guarantee the private
property of a ruling class that becomes distinct from the State.) The
abolition of debts, when it takes place, is a means of maintaining the
distribution of land, and a means of preventing the entry on stage of a
new territorial machine, possibly re volutionary and capable of raising
1S S A N TI - O E D I P U S
and dealing with the agrarian problem in a comprehensive way. In other cases
where a redistribution occurs, the cycle of credits is maintained, in the new form
established by the State—money. For w ithout question, mone y does not begin by
serving the needs of comm erce, or at least it has no autonomous mercantile
model. The despotic machine holds the fo llowing in common with the primitive
machine, it confirms the latter in this respect: the dread of decoded flows—flows
of production, but also mercantile flows (flux march ands) of exchange and
commerce that might escape the State monopoly, with its tight restrictions and
its plugging of flows. When Etienne Balazs asks why capitalism wasn't born in
China in the thirteenth century, when all the necessary scientific and technical
conditions nevertheless seemed to be presen t, the answer lies in the State, which
closed the mines as soon as the reserves of metal were judged sufficient, and
which retained a monopoly or a narrow c ontrol over commerce (the merchant as
functionary).47
The role of money in commerce hi nges less on commerce itself than on its
control by the State. Commerce's relati onship with money is synthetic, not
analytical. And money is fundamentally inseparable, not from commerce, but
from taxes as the maintenance of the apparatus of the State. Even where
dominant classes set themselves apart from this apparatus and make use of it for
the benefit of private property, the des potic tie between money and taxes remains
visible. Basing himself on the research of Edouard Will, Michel Foucault shows
how, in certain Greek tyrannies, the tax on aristocrats and the distribution of
money to the poor are a means of bringi ng the money back to the rich and a
means of remarkably widening the regime of debts, making it even stronger, by
anticipating and repressing any reterritoria lization that might be produced by the
economic givens of the agrarian problem.48 (As if the Greeks had discovered in
their own way what the Americans redisc overed after the New Deal: that heavy
taxes are good for business.) In a word, money—the circulation of money— is
the means for rendering the debt infinite. And that is what is concealed in the
two acts of the State: the residence or te rritoriality of the State inaugurates the
The Infinite Debt of Despotism
- The despotic State transforms finite, mobile debts into an infinite debt of existence that subordinates all primitive social structures.
- Taxation and money circulation function as mechanisms to widen the regime of debt and prevent the reterritorialization of agrarian resources.
- The State acts as a transcendent higher unity that integrates isolated rural communities while maintaining them as fragmented organs of production.
- A connective synthesis occurs where the State appropriates all forces of production, creating a monumental 'full body' that overcodes existing territorial inscriptions.
- The law is presented not as a natural harmony but as a formal unity reigning over scattered partial objects and fragments of labor.
A time will come when the creditor has not yet lent while the debtor never quits repaying, for repaying is a duty but lending is an option.
how, in certain Greek tyrannies, the tax on aristocrats and the distribution of
money to the poor are a means of bringi ng the money back to the rich and a
means of remarkably widening the regime of debts, making it even stronger, by
anticipating and repressing any reterritoria lization that might be produced by the
economic givens of the agrarian problem.48 (As if the Greeks had discovered in
their own way what the Americans redisc overed after the New Deal: that heavy
taxes are good for business.) In a word, money—the circulation of money— is
the means for rendering the debt infinite. And that is what is concealed in the
two acts of the State: the residence or te rritoriality of the State inaugurates the
great movement of deterr itorialization that subordinates all the primitive
filiations to the despotic machine (the ag rarian problem); the abolition of debts or
their accountable transformation initiates th e duty of an interminable service to
the State that subordinates all the primitiv e alliances to itself (the problem of
debts). The infinite creditor and infinite cr edit have replaced the blocks of mobile
and finite debts. There is always a m onotheism on the horizon of despotism: the
debt becomes a debt of existence, a debt of the existence of the subjects
themselves. A time will come when the cr editor has not yet lent while the debtor
never quits
SAVAGES. BARBARIANS. CIVILIZED MEN 197
repaying, for repaying is a duty but lending is an option—as in Lewis
Carroll's song, the long song about the infinite debt:
A man may surely claim his dues: But,
when there's money to be lent, A man
must be allowed to choose Such times
as are convenient.49
The despotic State, such as it a ppears in the purest conditions of
"Asiatic" production, has two corre lative aspects: on the one hand it
replaces the territorial machine, it forms a new deterritoiialized full
body; on the other hand it maintains the old territorialities, integrates
them as parts or organs of production in the new machine. It is perfected
all at once because it functions on the basis of dispersed rural communi-
ties, which are like pre-existing autonomous or semiautonomous ma-
chines from the viewpoint of producti on; but from this same viewpoint,
it reacts on them in producing the conditions for major work projects
that exceed the capacities of the separate communities. What is pro-
duced on the body of the despot is a connective synthesis of the old
alliances with the new, and a disjunctive synthesis that entails an
overflowing of the old filiations into the direct filiation, gathering all the
subjects into the new machine. The essential action of the State,
therefore, is the creation of a second inscription by which the new full
body—immobile, monumental, immuta ble—appropriates all the forces
and agents of production; but this inscription of the State allows the old
territorial inscriptions to subsist, as "bricks" on the new surface. And
finally, from this appropriation there results the way in which the
conjunction of the two parts is imple mented and the respective portions
are distributed to the higher proprietary unity and to the propertied
communities, to the overcoding process and to the intrinsic codes, to the
appropriated surplus value and to the usufruct put into use, to the State
machine and to the territorial machines. As in Kafka's "The Great Wall
of China," the State is the transce ndent higher unity that integrates
relatively isolated suba ggregates, functioning separately, to which it
assigns a development in bricks and a labor of construction by frag-
ments. Scattered partia l objects hanging on the body without organs. No
one has equaled Kafka in demonstrating that the law had nothing to do
with a natural, harmonious, and immanen t totality, but that it acted as an
eminent formal unity, and reigned accordingly over pieces and fragments
The Despotic State Machine
- The State functions as a transcendent higher unity that integrates fragmented subaggregates into a formal, abstract essence.
- Imperial overcoding forces all primitive flows of desire into a bottleneck, making them the property of the sovereign.
- The transition to the State replaces finite ancestral debts with an infinite debt rendered on the deterritorialized body of the despot.
- This new social inscription cements disparate groups together through major work projects and generalized servitude, regardless of language.
- The State is characterized by a dread of uncoded flows, establishing an ironclad impossibility of liberation through its remorseless machine.
It is overcoding that impoverishes the earth for the benefit of the deterritorialized full body, and that on this full body renders the movement of debt infinite.
machine and to the territorial machines. As in Kafka's "The Great Wall
of China," the State is the transce ndent higher unity that integrates
relatively isolated suba ggregates, functioning separately, to which it
assigns a development in bricks and a labor of construction by frag-
ments. Scattered partia l objects hanging on the body without organs. No
one has equaled Kafka in demonstrating that the law had nothing to do
with a natural, harmonious, and immanen t totality, but that it acted as an
eminent formal unity, and reigned accordingly over pieces and fragments
(the wall and the tower). Hence the State is not primeval, it is an origin
or an abstraction, it is the original abstract essence that is not to be
confused with a beginning. "We th ink only about the Emperor. But not
198 ANTI-OEDIPUS
about the present one; or rather we would think about the present one if
we knew who he was or knew anything definite about him. . . . [The
people] do not know what emperor is reigning, and there exist doubts
regarding even the name of the dynasty. . . . Long-dead emperors are set
on the throne in our villages, and one that only lives in song recently had
a proclamation of his read out by the priest before the altar."50
As for the subaggregates themselv es, the primitive territorial ma-
chines, they are the concrete itself, the concrete base and beginning, but
their segments here enter into rela tionships corresponding to the essence,
they assume precisely this form of bricks that ensures their integration
into the higher unity, and their dist ributive operation, consonant with the
great collective designs of this same unity: major work projects,
extortion of surplus value, tributes, generalized servitude. Two
inscriptions coexist in the imperial formation, and mutually adjust
insofar as the one is imbricated into the other, but the new inscription
cements the whole and brings producers and products into relations with
itself (they do not need to speak the same language). The imperial
inscription countersects all the alliances and filiations, prolongs them,
makes them converge into the direct filiation of the despot with the
deity, and the new alliance of the de spot with the people. All the coded
flows of the primitive machine are now forced into a bottleneck, where
the despotic machine overcodes them. Overcoding is the operation that
constitutes the essence of the State, and that measures both its continuity
and its break with the previous forma tions: the dread of flows of desire
that would resist coding, but also th e establishment of a new inscription
that overcodes, and that makes desire into the property of the sovereign,
even though he be the death instinct itself, The castes are inseparable
from this overcoding, and imply the existence of dominant "classes" that
do not yet manifest themselves as classes, but are merged with a State
apparatus. Who is able to touch the full body of the sovereign? Here we
have a problem of castes. It is overcoding that impoverishes the earth for
the benefit of the deterritorialized full body, and that on this full body
renders the movement of debt infin ite. It is a measure of Nietzsche's
force to have stressed the importance of such a movement that begins
with the founders of States, these ar tists with a look of bronze, creating
"an oppressive and remorseless machine,"51 erecting before any
perspective of liberation an ironclad impossibility. This "infinitivation"
(infinitivation) cannot be understood exactly as Nietzsche would have
it—that is, as a consequence of the interplay of ancestors, profound
genealogies, and extended filiations; rather, when these are
short-circuited, abducted by the new alliance and direct
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS. CIVILIZED MEN 198
filiation, then the ancestor—the master of the mobile and finite blocks—
finds himself dismissed by the deit y, the immobile organizer of the
bricks and of their infinite circuit.
Barbarian and Imperial Representation
- The transition from territorial coding to imperial representation involves the 'infinitivation' of debt and the replacement of finite blocks with an infinite circuit.
- Incest with the sister and incest with the mother are distinguished as belonging to the connective category of alliance and the disjunctive category of filiation respectively.
- The despot or hero occupies a position outside the tribe, where he is prescribed the very endogamy that is proscribed for the subjects within the tribe.
- By marrying the sister outside the tribe, the despot establishes a new alliance that overcodes all existing tribal alliances.
- The hero's eventual marriage to the mother of the tribe establishes a direct filiation that short-circuits traditional extended genealogies.
- This dual incestuous movement allows the sovereign to become the immobile organizer of a new social order, transcending the mobile blocks of the ancestors.
The wilderness, land of betrothal. All the flows converge on a man such as this, all the alliances find themselves countersected by this new alliance that overcodes them.
perspective of liberation an ironclad impossibility. This "infinitivation"
(infinitivation) cannot be understood exactly as Nietzsche would have
it—that is, as a consequence of the interplay of ancestors, profound
genealogies, and extended filiations; rather, when these are
short-circuited, abducted by the new alliance and direct
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS. CIVILIZED MEN 198
filiation, then the ancestor—the master of the mobile and finite blocks—
finds himself dismissed by the deit y, the immobile organizer of the
bricks and of their infinite circuit.
7 Barbarian or Imperial Representation
Incest with the sister and incest with the mother are very
different things. The sister is not a substitute for the mother: the one
belongs to the connective category of alliance, the other to the disjunc-
tive category of filiation. Incest with the sister is prohibited insofar as
the conditions of territorial coding require that alliance not be confound-
ed with filiation; and incest with th e mother, insofar as descent within
filiation must not be allowed to interfere with ascending lines. That is
why the despot's incest is twofold, by virtue of the new alliance and
direct filiation. He begins by marrying the sister. But he enters into this
forbidden endogamous marriage outside the tribe, inasmuch as he is
himself outside his tribe, on the outside or at the outer limits of the
territory. This is what Pierre Gordon showed in his strange book: the
same rule that proscribes incest mu st prescribe it for certain persons.
Exogamy must result in the position of men outside the tribe who for
their part are entitled to an endogamous marriage and are able, by virtue
of this formidable right, to serve as initiators to exogamous subjects of
both sexes: the "sacred deflowerer," the "ritual initiator" on the
mountain or across the waters.* The w ilderness, land of betrothal. All
the flows converge on a man such as this, all the alliances find
themselves countersected by this new alliance that overcodes them.
Endogamous marriage outside the tribe places the hero in a position to
overcode all the endogamous marriages in the tribe.
It is clear that incest with the mother has a completely different
meaning: this time it is a question of th e mother of the tribe, as she exists
in the tribe, as the hero finds her in penetrating into the tribe, or finds her
again in returning to the tribe afte r his first marriage. He countersects
the extended filiations with a direct filiation. The initiated or initiating
hero becomes king. The second marriag e develops the consequences of
the first, it draws out the effects of the first. The hero begins by marrying
the sister, than he marries the mother. The fact that the two acts can, to
varying degrees, be bound together, a ssimilated, does not rule out the
*Pierre Gordon, L'iniUation se xuelle e t Ve 'volutuion re ligieuse (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France,
1946), p. 164: "The sacred personage . . . did not live in the little agricultural village, but in the woods, like
the hero Enkidu of the Chaldean epic, or on the mount ain, in the sacred enclosure. His occupations were
those of a herdsman or a hunter, not those of a cultivator. The obligati on to resort to him for sacred
marriages, the only kind of marriage that enha nced the woman's position, therefore entailed ipso facto an
exogamy. Under these conditions only the young women belonging to the same group as the ritual
deflowerer could be endogamous."
200 ANTI-OEDIPUS
existence of two sequences in the phenomenon: the union with the princess-sister
Incest and the Despotic Machine
- The sacred personage traditionally resides outside the agricultural village, inhabiting the wilderness as a hunter or herdsman rather than a cultivator.
- Ritual defloration by these sacred figures historically necessitated a form of exogamy for women seeking to enhance their social position.
- The despotic hero operates through a double incestuous sequence involving both the princess-sister and the mother-queen.
- The transition from territorial to imperial representation transforms the role of incest within the social machine.
- In the imperial formation, incest shifts from being a displaced object of desire to becoming the repressing representation itself.
- The despot's act of committing incest does not liberate desire but serves as a tool for overcoding and social repression.
The purpose of this double incest is not to produce a flow, not even a magic flow, but to overcode all the existing flows, and to ensure that no intrinsic code, no underlying flow escapes the overcoding of the despotic machine; hence it is by virtue of his sterility that he guarantees the general fecundity.
*Pierre Gordon, L'iniUation se xuelle e t Ve 'volutuion re ligieuse (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France,
1946), p. 164: "The sacred personage . . . did not live in the little agricultural village, but in the woods, like
the hero Enkidu of the Chaldean epic, or on the mount ain, in the sacred enclosure. His occupations were
those of a herdsman or a hunter, not those of a cultivator. The obligati on to resort to him for sacred
marriages, the only kind of marriage that enha nced the woman's position, therefore entailed ipso facto an
exogamy. Under these conditions only the young women belonging to the same group as the ritual
deflowerer could be endogamous."
200 ANTI-OEDIPUS
existence of two sequences in the phenomenon: the union with the princess-sister
and the union with the mother-queen. Incest goes by twos. The hero is always
sitting astride two groups, the one where he leaves to find his sister, the other
where he returns to find his mother again. The purpose of this double incest is
not to produce a flow, not even a magic flow, but to overcode all the existing
flows, and to ensure that no intrin sic code, no underlying flow escapes the
overcoding of the despotic machine; hence it is by virtue of his sterility that he
guarantees the general fecundity.52 The marriage with the sister is on the outside,
it is the wilderness ordeal, it expresses the spatial divergence from the primitive
machine; it provides the old alliances w ith an outcome; it founds the new alliance
by effecting a generalized appropriation of all the alliance debts. The marriage
with the mother is the retu rn to the tribe; it expresses the temporal divergence
from the primitive machine (the diffe rence between the generations); it
constitutes the direct filiation that results from the new alliance, by effecting a
generalized accumulation of filiative stock. Both marriages are essential to the
overcoding, as the two ends of a tie for the despotic knot.
A pause seems in order here while we ask how such a thing is possible.
How is it that incest has become "possible," and not only possible, but the
manifest property and seal of the despot ? Who is this sister, this mother? The
sister and mother of the despot himself? Or should the question be framed in a
different way? For it concerns the whole system of representation when it ceases
to be territorial and becomes imperial. Fi rst of all, we have the impression that
the elements of the in-depth system of representation have begun to move: the
cellular migration has begun that will car ry the Oedipal cell from one locus of
representation to another. In the imperial formation, incest has ceased being the
displaced represe nted of desire to beco me the repressing representati on itself.
For there can be no doubt: this way the despot has of committing incest, and of
making it possible, in no way involves re moving the apparatus of social and
psychic repression (I'appareil repression- refoulement). On the contrary, the
despot's intervention forms part of the a pparatus, it changes only the parts of the
machine; yet it is still as the displaced represented that incest now comes to
occupy the position of the repressing repres entation. Another gain in the sum of
repression, a new economy in the repressive, repressing apparatus (I'appareil
refoulant repressif), a new mark, a new severity. It would be easy, too easy, if it
were enough to make incest possible, and to implement this in sovereign fashion,
so that the exercise of psychic repressi on and the service of social repression
would be made to end. The royal barbarian incest is merely the means to
overcode the flows of
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 201
desire, certainly not a means to liberate them. O Caligula, O
Heliogaba-lus, O mad memory of vanished emperors! Incest never
having been the desire, but merely its displaced represented as it results
from psychic repression, social repression has everything to gain when
The Despot and the Graphism
- The imperial formation utilizes royal incest not as a means of liberation, but as a method to overcode the flows of desire and intensify social repression.
- A fundamental shift occurs in the transition to barbarian civilizations where the graphic system loses its independence and aligns itself with the voice.
- The despot establishes writing as a tool for legislation, bureaucracy, and taxation, creating a system that extracts a deterritorialized flux from speech.
- Writing supplants the voice by subordinating itself to it, simultaneously inducing a 'mute voice from on high' that governs the social body.
- The authors argue that while primitive graphism marks the body directly, imperial writing creates a linear code that renders representation more ruthless and infinite.
In short, graphism in one and the same movement begins to depend on the voice, and induces a mute voice from on high or from the beyond, a voice that begins to depend on graphism.
refoulant repressif), a new mark, a new severity. It would be easy, too easy, if it
were enough to make incest possible, and to implement this in sovereign fashion,
so that the exercise of psychic repressi on and the service of social repression
would be made to end. The royal barbarian incest is merely the means to
overcode the flows of
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 201
desire, certainly not a means to liberate them. O Caligula, O
Heliogaba-lus, O mad memory of vanished emperors! Incest never
having been the desire, but merely its displaced represented as it results
from psychic repression, social repression has everything to gain when
incest comes to take the place of the representation itself, and in this
capacity take charge of the repressing function (la fonction refoulante).
(That is what we have already seen in psychosis, where the intrusion of
the complex into consciousness, according to the traditional criterion,
did not, to be sure, alleviate the repression of desire.) With incest's new
position in the imperial formation, we are therefore speaking only of a
migration in the in-depth elements of representation, which will render
the latter more foreign, more ruthless, more definitive, or more
"infinite" with respect to des'uing-production. But this migration would
never be possible if there did not occur correlatively a considerable
change in the other elements of representation, those elements that
operate on the surface of the inscribing socius.
What changes singularly in the surface organization of representa-
tion is the relationship between the vo ice and graphism: it is the despot
who establishes the practice of wr iting (the most ancient authors saw
this clearly); it is the imperial formation that makes graphism into a
system of writing in the proper sense of the term. Legislation, bureauc-
racy, accounting, the collection of taxes, the State monopoly, imperial
justice, the functionaries' activity, historiography: everything is written
in the despot's procession. Let us return to the paradox that emerges
from the analyses of Leroi-Gourhan: primitive societies are oral not
because they lack a graphic system but because, on the contrary, the
graphic system in these societies is independent of the voice; it marks
signs on the body that respond to the voice, react to th e voice, but that
are autonomous and do not align themse lves on it. In return, barbarian
civilizations are written, not because the voice has been lost, but
because the graphic system has lost its independence and its particular
dimensions, has aligned itself on the voice and has become subordinated
to the voice, enabling it to extract from the voice a deterritorialized
abstract flux that it retains and makes reverberate in the linear code of
writing. In short, graphism in one and the same movement begins to
depend on the voice, and induces a mute voice from on high or from the
beyond, a voice that begins to depe nd on graphism. It is by subordinat-
ing itself to the voice that writing supplants it.
Jacques Derrida is correct in sa ying that every language presuppos-
es a writing system from which it originates, if by that he means the
existence and the connection of some sort of graphism—writing in the
largest sense of the term. He is also right in saying that, within writing in
202 ANTI-OEDIPUS
the narrow sense, hardly any breaks can be established between
pictographic, ideogrammic, and phone tic procedures: there is always
and already an alignment on the voice, at the same time as a substitution
for the voice (supplementarity), and "phonetism is never all-powerful,
but has also always-already begun to labor and elaborate the mute
signifier." He is again correct in linking writing to incest in a mysterious
fashion. But we see nothing in this link that would lead us to conclude in
favor of the constancy of an apparatus of psychic repression, operating
Territorial and Imperial Inscription
- The text distinguishes between writing in the narrow sense, which is subordinate to the voice, and primitive territorial signs that exist as independent rhythms and zigzags.
- Territorial representation functions through a heterogeneity of voice and graphism, where the voice represents words and graphism represents bodies.
- This system of inscription acts as a form of germinal repression, forcing the 'full body of the earth' to yield to the social network of the socius.
- The gap between vocal signs and graphic markings on the body is bridged by the eye, which evaluates the physical suffering caused by the inscription.
- Unlike linear writing, the primitive sign is a position of desire and production rather than a mere expression of ideas or a sign of a sign.
The gap between the two elements is bridged by the eye, which 'sees' the word without reading it, inasmuch as it appraises the pain emanating from the graphism applied to the flesh itself: the eye jumps.
the narrow sense, hardly any breaks can be established between
pictographic, ideogrammic, and phone tic procedures: there is always
and already an alignment on the voice, at the same time as a substitution
for the voice (supplementarity), and "phonetism is never all-powerful,
but has also always-already begun to labor and elaborate the mute
signifier." He is again correct in linking writing to incest in a mysterious
fashion. But we see nothing in this link that would lead us to conclude in
favor of the constancy of an apparatus of psychic repression, operating
in the manner of a graphic machine capable of performing as well by
means of hieroglyphs as by phonemes.53 For there is indeed a break that
changes everything in the world of representation, between this writing
in the narrow sense and writing in th e broad sense—that is, between two
completely different orders of inscri ption: a graphism that leaves the
voice dominant by being independent of the voice while connecting with
it, and a graphism that dominates or supplants the voice by depending on
it in various ways and by subordinating itself to the voice. The primitive
territorial sign is self-validating; it is a position of desire in a state of
multiple connections. It is not a sign of a sign nor a desire of a desire. It
knows nothing of linear subordination and its reciprocity: neither
pictogram nor ideogram, it is rhythm and not form, zigzag and not line,
artifact and not idea, production and not expression. Let us try to
summarize the differences between these two forms of representation,
territorial and imperial.
In the first place, te rritorial representation is made up of two
heterogeneous elements, voice and gr aphism: the former is like the
representation of words constituted in lateral alliance, while the latter is
like the representation of things—of bodies —established in extended
filiation. The former acts on the latter, while the latter reacts on the
former, each element havi ng its own particular force that is connoted
along with that of the other, so as to perform the great task of germinal
intense repression. What is repressed, in fact, is the full body as the
foundation of the intense earth, which must yield its place to the socius
in extension, into which the intensities in question pass or fail to pass.
The full body of the earth must assume an extension in the socius and as
the socius. The primitive socius covers itself in this manner with a
network wherein one is continually jumping from words to things, and
from bodies to appellations, accordi ng to the extensive requirements of
the system in its length and its wi dth. What we call the order of
connotation is an order in which the word (le mo t) as a vocal sign
designates something, but where the thing designated is no less a sign,
because it is furrowed by a graphism that is connoted in conjunction
with the voice. The heterogeneity, th e divergence, the disequilibrium of
SAVAGES. BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 203
the two elements—vocal and graphic—is re solved by a third element: the visual,
the eye. It might be said of this eye that it sees the word —it sees it, it does not
read it—insofar as it evaluates th e suffering caused by the graphism.
Jean-Francois Lyotard has attempted to describe such a system in another
context, where the word has only a designating function but does not of itself
constitute the sign; what becomes a sign is rather the thing or body designated as
such, insofar as it reveals an unknown facet described on it, traced by the
graphism that responds to the word. The gap between the two elements is
bridged by the eye, which "sees" the word without reading it, inasmuch as it
appraises the pain emanating from the gr aphism applied to the flesh itself: the
eye jumps.*
The magic triangle with its three sides—voice-audition, graphism-body,
The System of Cruelty
- The text describes a 'magic triangle' composed of voice-audition, graphism-body, and eye-pain, forming a system of territorial representation.
- Words function as designating tools that transform the bodies or things they mark into signs, revealing hidden facets through the application of pain.
- Territorial representation operates as a complex network that connects affects, sufferings, and graphic traces in a poly-vocal usage that exceeds simple meaning.
- Incest is defined as a failed 'jump' between names and bodies, existing as a displaced limit where appellations and persons fail to adhere to one another.
- This surface organization of representation corresponds to an in-depth organization of desire and repression within the social machine.
The gap between the two elements is bridged by the eye, which 'sees' the word without reading it, inasmuch as it appraises the pain emanating from the graphism applied to the flesh itself: the eye jumps.
context, where the word has only a designating function but does not of itself
constitute the sign; what becomes a sign is rather the thing or body designated as
such, insofar as it reveals an unknown facet described on it, traced by the
graphism that responds to the word. The gap between the two elements is
bridged by the eye, which "sees" the word without reading it, inasmuch as it
appraises the pain emanating from the gr aphism applied to the flesh itself: the
eye jumps.*
The magic triangle with its three sides—voice-audition, graphism-body,
eye-pain—thus seems to us to be an orde r of connotation, a system of cruelty
where the word has an essentially desi gnating function, but where the graphism
itself constitutes a sign in conjunction w ith the thing designa ted, and where the
eye goes from one to the other, extracti ng and measuring the visibility of the one
against the pain of the other. Everythi ng in the system is active, en-acted (agi),
or reacting; everything is a matter of use and function. So that when one
considers the whole of territorial represen tation, one is struck by the complexity
of the networks with which it covers the socius: the chain of territorial signs is
continually jumping from one element to another; radiating in all directions;
emitting detachments wherever there are flows to be selected; including
disjunctions; consuming remains; extrac ting surplus values; connecting words,
bodies, and sufferings, and formulas, th ings, and affects; connoting voices,
graphic traces, and eyes, always in a poly-vocal usage— a way of jumping that
cannot be contained within an order of meaning, still less within a signifier. And
if incest seemed impossible to us from th is point of view, it is because incest is
nothing other than a jump that necessarily fails, this jump that goes from
appellations to persons, from names to bodies: on the one hand, the repressed
this-side-of of appellations that do not yet designate persons, but only intensive
germinal states; on the other hand, the repressing beyond that only applies
appellations to persons by prohibiting persons who answer
*Lyotard re-establishes the overly neglected rights of a theory of pure designati on. He shows the irreducible
gap between the word and the thing in the relationship of designation that connotes them. By virtue of this
gap, it is the thing designated that becomes the sign by revealing an unknown facet as a hidden content.
(Words are not themselves signs, but they transform in to signs the things or bodies they designate.) At the
same time it is the designating word that becomes visible, independently of any writing-reading, by
revealing a strange ability to be seen, not read. See Lyotard, Discours, figure (see reference note 85), pp.
41-82: "Words are not things, but as soon as there is a word, the object designated becomes a sign, which
means precisely that it conceals a hidden content within its manifest identity, and that it reserves another
face for another view focused on it, . . . which perhaps will ne ver be seen"—but which in return will be
viewed in the word itself.
204 ANTI-OEDIPUS
to the names of sister, mother, father. Between the two, the shallow
stream where nothing passes, where the appellations do not adhere to the
persons, where the persons elude the graphic action, and where the eye
no longer has anything to see or evaluate: incest, the simple displaced
limit, neither repressed nor repressi ng, but merely the displaced repre-
sented of desire. From this moment on it appears indeed that the two
dimensions of representation—its surface organization with the ele-
ments voice-graphy-eye, and its in-d epth organization with the repre-
senting instances of desire-repressing representation/displaced repre-
sented—share the same fate, like a system of correspondences in the
heart of a given social machine.
All this finds itself overwhelmed in a new destiny, with the despotic
The Despotic Machine
- The transition to the despotic machine transforms the territorial magic triangle of voice, graphism, and eye into a pyramid of subordination.
- Graphism is flattened onto the voice to become writing, creating a fictitious, transcendent voice that dictates rather than sings.
- This shift introduces a detached, transcendent object—the despot or god—upon which the entire linearized chain of signs now depends.
- The focus of social representation shifts from the practical use and efficacy of signs to the interpretive question of 'What does it mean?'
- The new imperial order replaces polyvocal, body-animating signs with a uniform, deterritorialized flow of writing that demands exegesis.
The voice no longer sings but dictates, decrees; the graphy no longer dances, it ceases to animate bodies, but is set into writing on tablets, stones, and books; the eye sets itself to reading.
limit, neither repressed nor repressi ng, but merely the displaced repre-
sented of desire. From this moment on it appears indeed that the two
dimensions of representation—its surface organization with the ele-
ments voice-graphy-eye, and its in-d epth organization with the repre-
senting instances of desire-repressing representation/displaced repre-
sented—share the same fate, like a system of correspondences in the
heart of a given social machine.
All this finds itself overwhelmed in a new destiny, with the despotic
machine and imperial representation. In the first place, graphism aligns
itself on the voice, falls back on the voice, and becomes writing. At the
same time it induces the voice no longe r as the voice of alliance, but as
that of the new alliance, a fictitious voice from be yond that expresses
itself in the flow of writing as direct filiat ion. These two fundamental
despotic categories are also the move ment of graphism that, at one and
the same time, subordinates itself to the voice in order to subordinate
the voice and supplant it. Then there occurs a crushing of the magic
triangle: the voice no longer sings but dictates, decrees; the graphy no
longer dances, it ceases to animate bodies, but is set into writing on
tablets, stones, and books; the eye se ts itself to reading. (Writing does
not entail but implies a kind of blindness, a loss of vision and of the
ability to appraise; it is now the eye that suffers, although it also acquires
other functions.) Or rather, we are unable to say that the magic triangle
is completely crushed: it subsists as a base and as a brick, insofar as the
territorial machine continues to function in the framework of the new
machine. The triangle has become the base for a pyramid, all of whose
sides cause the vocal, the graphic, and the visual to converge toward the
eminent unity of the despot. If we ca ll the order of representation in a
social system a plane of consistency (plan de consistance), it is evident
that this plane has changed, that it has become a plane of subordination
and no longer one of connotation. And here, in the second place, is the
essential: the flattening of the graphy onto the voice has made a
transcendent object jump outside the chain—a mute voice on which the
whole chain now seems to depend, a nd in relation to which it becomes
linearized. The subordination of graphism to the voice induces a
fictitious voice from on high which, i nversely, no longer expresses itself
except through the writing signs that it emits (revelation). This is
perhaps the first assembling of formal operations that will lead to
Oedipus (the paralogism of extrapol ation): a flattening out or a set of
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 205
biunivocal relations that leads to the breakaway and elevation of a
detached object, and the linearization of the chain that derives from this
object.
It is perhaps at this juncture that the question "What does it mean?"
begins to be heard, and that probl ems of exegesis prevail over problems
of use and efficacy. The emperor, the god—what did he mean? In place
of segments of the chain that are always detachable, a detached partial
object on which the whole chain depends; in place of a poly vocal
graphism flush with the real, a biunivocalization forming the transcend-
ent dimension that gives rise to a linearity; in place of nonsignifying
signs that compose the networks of a territorial chain, a despotic
signifier from which all the signs unifo rmly flow in a deterritorialized
flow of writing. Men have even been seen drinking this flow. Andras
Zempleni shows how, in certain regions of Senegal, Is lam superimposes
a plane of subordination on the ol d plane of connotation of animist
values: "The divine or prophetic word, written or recited, is the
foundation of this universe; the transpar ence of the animist prayer yields
The Despotic Signifier
- The transition from territorial signs to a despotic signifier marks a shift from immanent networks to a plane of subordination.
- Writing acts as the first deterritorialized flow, where the rigid formulas of revelation replace the incantatory efficacy of speech.
- The physical body is transformed by this new regime, moving from being engraved like the earth to prostrating before the engravings of the despot.
- Modern linguistics, despite its focus on structural exchange, remains haunted by the imperial and transcendent origins of the master signifier.
- The signifier is defined as a sign of a sign, a deterritorialized letter that redirects desire toward the desire of the despot.
The mouth no longer speaks, it drinks the letter.
ent dimension that gives rise to a linearity; in place of nonsignifying
signs that compose the networks of a territorial chain, a despotic
signifier from which all the signs unifo rmly flow in a deterritorialized
flow of writing. Men have even been seen drinking this flow. Andras
Zempleni shows how, in certain regions of Senegal, Is lam superimposes
a plane of subordination on the ol d plane of connotation of animist
values: "The divine or prophetic word, written or recited, is the
foundation of this universe; the transpar ence of the animist prayer yields
to the opacity of the rigid Arab verse; speech (fe ver be) rigidities into
formulas whose power is ensured by the truth of the Revelation and not
by a symbolic or incantatory efficacy. . . . The Moslem holy man's
learning refers to a hierarchy of names, verses, numbers, and corre-
sponding beings—and if necessary, the verse will be placed in a bottle
filled with pure water, the verse water will be drunk, one's body will be
rubbed with it, and one's hands will be washed with it."54 Writing—the
first deterritorialized flow, drinkable on this account: it flows from the
despotic signifier. For what is the signifier in the first instance? What is it
in relation to the nonsignifying terri torial signs, when it jumps outside
their chains and impos es—superimposes—a plan e of subordination on
their plane of immanent connotation? The signifier is the sign that has
become a sign of the sign, the despotic sign having replaced the
territorial sign, having crossed the threshold of deterritorialization; the
signifier is merely the dete rritorialized sign it self. The sign made letter.
Desire no longer dares to desire, ha ving become a desire of desire, a
desire of the despot's desire. The mouth no longer speaks, it drinks the
letter. The eye no longer sees, it r eads. The body no longer allows itself
to be engraved like the earth, but prostrates itself before the engravings
of the despot, the region beyond the earth, the new full body.
No water will ever cleanse the signifier of its imperial origin: the
signifying master or "the master signifier." In vain will the signifier be
immersed in the immanent system of language (fa langue), or be used to
clear away problems of meaning and signification, or be resolved into
the coexistence of phonema tic elements, wh ere the signified is no more
2 M A N T I - O E D I P U S
than the summary of the respective differe ntial values of these elements in the
relationships among themselves. In vain will the comparison of language
(langage) to exchange and money be pushed to its furthest point, subjecting
language to the paradigms of an active capitalism, for one will never prevent the
signifier from reintroducing its transcen dence, and from bearing witness for a
vanished despot who still functions in m odern imperialism. Even when it speaks
Swiss or American, linguistics manipulates the shadow of Oriental despotism.
Ferdinand de Saussure does not merely emphasize the following: that the
arbitrariness of language establishes its sovereignty, as a servitude or a
generalized slavery visited upon the "masse s." It has also been shown that two
dimensions exist side by side in Saussu re: the one horizontal, where the signified
is reduced to the value of coexisting minimal terms into which the signifier
decomposes; but the other vertical, where th e signifier is elevated to the concept
corresponding to the acoustic image—that is, to the voice, taken in its maximum
extension, which recomposes the signifier ("value" as the opposite of the
The Despotic Signifier
- The arbitrariness of language establishes a form of sovereignty that imposes a generalized servitude upon the masses.
- Saussurean linguistics reveals a vertical dimension where the signifier is elevated to a concept that overcodes the horizontal chain of signs.
- A linguistic field is defined by a transcendence that organizes, selects, and combines material flux into a system of subordination.
- The phoneticization of writing often arises from the violent contact between two peoples, such as the Sumerians and Akkadians, where one language overcodes another.
- Alphabetical writing is described as a tool not for the illiterate, but created by the illiterate through the detachment of signs from their original meanings.
Alphabetical writing is not for illiterates, but by illiterates.
arbitrariness of language establishes its sovereignty, as a servitude or a
generalized slavery visited upon the "masse s." It has also been shown that two
dimensions exist side by side in Saussu re: the one horizontal, where the signified
is reduced to the value of coexisting minimal terms into which the signifier
decomposes; but the other vertical, where th e signifier is elevated to the concept
corresponding to the acoustic image—that is, to the voice, taken in its maximum
extension, which recomposes the signifier ("value" as the opposite of the
coexisting terms, but also the "concept" as the opposite of the acoustic image). In
short, the signifier appears twice, once in the chain of elements in relation to
which the signified is always a signifier for another signifier, and a second time
in the detached object on which the whole of the chain depends, and that spreads
over the chain the effects of signification. There is no phonological or even
phonetic code operating on the signifier in the first sense, without an overcoding
effected by the signifier itself in the second sense. There is no linguistic field
without biunivocal relations—whether be tween ideographic and phonetic values,
or between articulations of different le vels, monemes and phonemes—that finally
ensure the independence and the linearity of the deterritorialized signs. But such a
field remains defined by a transcendence, even when one considers this
transcendence as an absence or an empty locus, performing the necessary
foldings, levelings (rabattements), and subordinations—a transcendence whence
issues throughout the system the inar ticulate material flux in which this
transcendence operates, opposes, selects, and combines: the signifier. It is
curious, therefore, that one can show so well the servitude of the masses with
respect to the minimal elements of th e sign within the immanence of language,
without showing how the domination is exercised through and in the
transcendence of the signifier.* There, however, as elsewhere, an irreducible
exteriority of
♦Bernard Pautrat tries to establish a rapprochement between Nietzsche and Saussure, starting from
problems of domina tion and servitude: Versions du soleil: figures et systeme de Nietzsche (Paris: Editions
du Seuil, 1971), pp. 207ff. He does well to remark that Nietzsche, in contrast to Hegel, causes the
master-slave relationship to go by way of language and not by way of labor. But when he proceeds
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 207
conquest asserts itself. For if language itself does not presuppose
conquest, the leveling operations (les operations de rabattemen t) that
constitute written language indeed pr esuppose two inscriptions that do
not speak the same language: two languages (langages), one of masters,
the other of slaves. Jean Nougayrol de scribes just such a situation: "For
the Sumerians, [a given sign] is water; the Sumerians read this sign a,
which signifies water in Sumerian. An Akkadian comes along and asks
his Sumerian master: what is this sign? The Sumerian replies: that's a.
The Akkadian takes this sign for a, and on this point there is no longer
any relationship between the sign and water, which in Akkadian is called
mu. ... I believe that the presence of the Akkadians determined the
phoneticization of the writing system . . . and that the contact of two
peoples is almost necessary before the spark of a new writing can spring
forth."55
One cannot better show how an operation of biunivocalization
organizes itself around a despotic signifier, so that a phonetic and
alphabetical chain flows from it. Alphabetical writing is not for illiter-
ates, but by illiterates. It goes by way of illiterates, those unconscious
workers. The signifier implies a la nguage that overcodes another lan-
guage, while the other language is completely coded into phonetic
The Despotic Signifier
- The text argues that alphabetical writing and the signifier function as a despotic machine that overcodes language and desire.
- The signifier is described as a transcendent authority that distributes lack and channels all flows into the locus of castration.
- Lacan is credited with returning the signifier to its source in the despotic age, welding desire to the Law through an 'infernal machine.'
- The signified is presented not as a representation, but as a direct effect of the signifier's overcoding of territorial chains.
- The transition to this system replaces connotation with a system of subordination, converting local alliances into an infinite debt to the despot.
O signifier, terrible archaism of the despot where they still look for the empty tomb, the dead father, and the mystery of the name!
phoneticization of the writing system . . . and that the contact of two
peoples is almost necessary before the spark of a new writing can spring
forth."55
One cannot better show how an operation of biunivocalization
organizes itself around a despotic signifier, so that a phonetic and
alphabetical chain flows from it. Alphabetical writing is not for illiter-
ates, but by illiterates. It goes by way of illiterates, those unconscious
workers. The signifier implies a la nguage that overcodes another lan-
guage, while the other language is completely coded into phonetic
elements. And if the unconscious in fa ct includes the topical order of a
double inscription, it is not struct ured like one language, but like two.
The signifier does not appear to keep its promise, which is to give us
access to a modern and functional understanding of language. The
imperialism of the signifier does not take us beyond the question, "What
does it mean?"; it is content to bar the question in advance, to render all
the answers insufficient by relegating them to the status of a simple
signified. It challenges exegesis in the name of recitation, pure textuality,
and superior "scientificity" (scientificite). Like the young palace dogs
too quick to drink the verse water, and who never tire of crying: The
signifier, you have not reached the signifier, you are still at the level of
the signifieds! The signifier is the onl y thing that gladdens their hearts.
But this master signifier remains what it was in ages past, a transcendent
stock that distributes lack to all the elements of the chain, something in
common for a common absence, the authority that channels all the
breaks-flows into one and the same locus of one and the same cleavage:
the detached object, the phallus-and-castration, the bar that delivers
over all the depressive subjects to the great paranoiac king. O signifier,
terrible archaism of the despot where they still look for the empty tomb,
to the comparison with Saussure, he retains language as a system to which the masses are enslaved, and
consigns to fiction the Nietzschean idea of a language of masters through which this enslavement is
accomplished.
2 0 8 A N T I - O E D I P U S
the dead father, and the mystery of the name! And perhaps that is what
incites the anger of certain lingui sts against Lacan, no less than the
enthusiasm of his followers: the vigor and the serenity with which Lacan
accompanies the signifier back to its source, to its veritable origin, the
despotic age, and erects an infernal machine that welds desire to the
Law, because, everything consider ed—so Lacan thinks—this is indeed
the form in which the signifier is in agreement with the unconscious, and
the form in which it produces effe cts of the signified in the uncon-
scious.* The signifier as the repr essing representation, and the new
displaced represented that it induces, the famous metaphors and
metonymy—all of that constitutes the overcoding and deterritorialized
despotic machine.
The despotic signifier has the effe ct of overcoding the territorial
chain. The signified is precisely the effect of the signifier, and not what it
represents or what it designates. The si gnified is the sister of the borders
and the mother of the interior. Sister and mother are the concepts that
correspond to the great ac oustic image, to the vo ice of the new alliance
and direct filiation. Incest is the very operation of overcoding at the two
ends of the chain in all the territory ruled by the despot, from the
borders to the center: all the debts of alliance are converted into the
infinite debt of the new alliance, and all the extended filiations are
subsumed by direct filiat ion. Incest or the royal trinity is therefore the
whole of the repressing representation insofar as it initiates the
over-coding. The system of subordinatio n or signification has replaced
the system of connotation. To the exte nt that graphism is flattened onto
Despotic Overcoding and Incest
- The signified is redefined as the effect of the signifier rather than a representation of an external object.
- Despotic overcoding converts local kinship debts into an infinite debt to the sovereign through a new system of direct filiation.
- Incest becomes a symbolic operation where the signifier 'makes love' with its signifieds to establish a system of subordination.
- Simulation does not replace reality but instead appropriates and produces it on a new 'full body' that replaces the earth.
- The transition from savage to barbarian systems involves flattening graphism onto a fictitious voice from on high.
In incest it is the signifier that makes love with its signifieds.
chain. The signified is precisely the effect of the signifier, and not what it
represents or what it designates. The si gnified is the sister of the borders
and the mother of the interior. Sister and mother are the concepts that
correspond to the great ac oustic image, to the vo ice of the new alliance
and direct filiation. Incest is the very operation of overcoding at the two
ends of the chain in all the territory ruled by the despot, from the
borders to the center: all the debts of alliance are converted into the
infinite debt of the new alliance, and all the extended filiations are
subsumed by direct filiat ion. Incest or the royal trinity is therefore the
whole of the repressing representation insofar as it initiates the
over-coding. The system of subordinatio n or signification has replaced
the system of connotation. To the exte nt that graphism is flattened onto
the voice—the graphism that, not so long ago, was inscribed flush with
the body—body representation subordinates itself to word representa-
tion: sister and mother are the voice's signifieds. But to the extent that
this flattening induces a fictitious voice from on high that no longer
expresses itself except in the linear flux, the despot himself is the
signifier of the voice that, along with the two signifieds, effects the
overcoding of the whole chain. What made incest impossible—namely,
that at times we had the appellations (mother, sister) but not the persons
or the bodies, while at other times we had the bodies, but the appella-
tions disappeared from view as soon as we broke through the prohibi-
tions they bore—has ceased to exist. Incest has become possible in the
wedding of the kinship bodies and fami ly appellations, in the union of
the signifier with its signifieds.
*See Elisabeth Roudinesco's excellent article on Laca n, where she analyzes the twofold aspect of the
analytic signifying chain and the transcendent signifi er on which the chain depends. She shows that, in this
sense, Lacan's theory should be interpreted less as a linguistic conception of the unconscious than as a
critique of linguistics in the name of the unconscious. (Elisabeth Roudinesco, "L'action d'une
metaphore,"I.a Pensee, February 1972.)
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 209
Hence it is by no means a question of knowing if the despot marries his
"true" sister and his true mother. For in an y case his true sister is the sister of the
wilderness, just as his true mother is the mother of the tribe. Once incest is
possible, it matters little whether it is simulated or not, since in any case
something else again is simulated th rough incest. And in accordance with the
complementarity of simulation and identity that we encountered earlier, if the
identification is that of the object on high, the simulation is indeed the writing
that corresponds to it, the flux that flows from this object, the graphic flux that
flows from the voice. Simulation does not re place reality, it is not an equivalent
that stands for reality, but rather it appropriates reality in the operation of
despotic overcoding, it produces reality on the new full body that replaces the
earth. It expresses the appropriation and production of the real by a quasi cause.
In incest it is the signifier that makes love with its signifieds. System of
simulation is the other name for signifi cation and subordination. And what is
simulated and therefore produced, through th e incest that is itself simulated and
therefore produced—all the more real for being simulated, and vice versa —is
something very much like the extreme st ates of a reconstituted, re-created
Despotic Overcoding and Royal Incest
- Simulation functions not as a replacement for reality but as a despotic overcoding that appropriates and produces the real on a new body.
- Royal incest serves as a mechanism to reconstitute intensive states, attaching all subjects' organs to the full body of the despot.
- The despotic signifier aims to reclaim the repressed intensities of the primitive earth by anchoring them to the deterritorialized body of the sovereign.
- Social and psychic repression are defined by the danger of a single organ breaking away from the despotic body and becoming a site of protest.
- The eventual fall of the despot leads to the privatization of organs, modeled after the disgraced and ejected anus.
Suddenly the despot sees rising up before him, against him, the enemy who brings death—an eye with too steady a look, a mouth with too unfamiliar a smile; each organ is a possible protest.
identification is that of the object on high, the simulation is indeed the writing
that corresponds to it, the flux that flows from this object, the graphic flux that
flows from the voice. Simulation does not re place reality, it is not an equivalent
that stands for reality, but rather it appropriates reality in the operation of
despotic overcoding, it produces reality on the new full body that replaces the
earth. It expresses the appropriation and production of the real by a quasi cause.
In incest it is the signifier that makes love with its signifieds. System of
simulation is the other name for signifi cation and subordination. And what is
simulated and therefore produced, through th e incest that is itself simulated and
therefore produced—all the more real for being simulated, and vice versa —is
something very much like the extreme st ates of a reconstituted, re-created
intensity. With his sister the despot simulates "a zero state from which the phallic
force will arise," like a promise "whose hidden presence in the very interior of
the body must be situated at the extreme limit"; and with his mother the despot
simulates a superforce where the two se xes would be "at the maximum [degree
of externalization] of their specific natures": the B-A Ba of the phallus as voice.56
Hence something else is always at issue in royal incest: bisexuality,
homosexuality, castration, transvestism, as so many gradients and passages in the
cycle of intensities. This is because the despotic signifier aims at the
reconstitution of the full body of the inte nse earth that the primitive machine had
repressed, but on new f oundations or under new conditions present in the
deterritorialized full body of the despot himself. This is the reason that incest
changes its meaning or locus, and beco mes the repressing representation. For
what is at stake in the overcoding effected by incest is the following: that all the
organs of all the subjects, all the eyes, all the mouths, all the penises, all the
vaginas, all the ears, and all the anuses become attached to the full body of the
despot, as though to the peacock's tail of a royal train, and that they have in this
body their own intensive representatives. Royal incest is inseparable from the
intense multiplication of organs and their inscription on the new full body. (Sade
saw clearly this always royal role of incest.) The apparatus of social
repression-psychic repression—i.e., th e repressing representation—now finds
itself defined in terms of a su-
210 ANTI-OEDIPUS
preme danger that expresses the represen tative on which it bears: the danger that
a single organ might flow outside the despotic body, that it might break away or
escape. Suddenly the despot sees rising up before him, against him, the enemy
who brings death—an eye with too stead y a look, a mouth with too unfamiliar a
smile; each organ is a possible protest. It is at one and the same time that a
half-deaf Caesar complains of an ear th at no longer hears, and sees weighing on
him the look of Cassius, "lean and hungry," and the smile of Cassius, who
"smiles in such a sort as if he mock'd himself." A long chronicle that will carry
the assassinated, dismembered, dis-orga n-ized, filed-down body of the despot
into the latrines of the city . Wasn't it already the anus that detached the object on
high and produced the eminent voice? Di dn't the transcendence of the phallus
depend on the anus? But the latter is revealed only at the end, as the last vestige
of the vanished despot, the underside of his voice: the despot is nothing more
than this "dead rat's ass suspended from the ceiling of the sky." The organs begin
by detaching themselves from the despotic body, the organs of the citizen risen
up against the tyrant. Then they will become those of private man, they will
become privatized after the model and memory of the disgraced anus, ejected
from the social field—the obsessive fear of smelling bad. The entire history of
From Despotism to Private Man
- The transition from despotic power to the 'private man' is characterized by the privatization of bodily organs and a shift from public cruelty to internalized social shame.
- Imperial representation replaces the direct inscription of signs on the flesh with administrative tools like stone, parchment, and currency.
- The state apparatus transitions from a system of overt cruelty to a system of terror, where violence is 'bricked into' the structure of the law.
- The law functions not as a guarantee of freedom, but as a paranoiac-schizoid mechanism that partitions individuals and enforces a formal, empty unity.
- Writing is conceptualized as a simulation of bodily flows, moving from the 'flood of sperm' in the tyrant's rise to the 'wave of shit' in his eventual fall.
The despot is nothing more than this 'dead rat's ass suspended from the ceiling of the sky.'
into the latrines of the city . Wasn't it already the anus that detached the object on
high and produced the eminent voice? Di dn't the transcendence of the phallus
depend on the anus? But the latter is revealed only at the end, as the last vestige
of the vanished despot, the underside of his voice: the despot is nothing more
than this "dead rat's ass suspended from the ceiling of the sky." The organs begin
by detaching themselves from the despotic body, the organs of the citizen risen
up against the tyrant. Then they will become those of private man, they will
become privatized after the model and memory of the disgraced anus, ejected
from the social field—the obsessive fear of smelling bad. The entire history of
primitive coding, of despotic overcoding, and of the decoding of private man
turns on these movements of flows: the in tense germinal influx, the surflux of
royal incest, and the reflux of excrement that conducts the dead despot to the
latrines, and conducts us all to today's "p rivate man"—the history sketched out by
Artaud in his masterpiece Heliogabale. The entire history of the graphic flux goes
from the flood of sperm in the tyrant's cr adle, to the wave of shit in his sewer
tomb—"all writing is so much pig shit," all writing is this simulation, sperm and
excrement.
One might think that the system of impe rial representation was, in spite of
everything, milder than that of territori al representation. The signs are no longer
inscribed in the flesh itself but on stone s, parchments, pieces of currency, and
lists. According to Wittfogel's law of "d iminishing administrative returns," wide
sectors are left semiautono-mous insofar as they do not compromise the power of
the State. The eye no longer extracts a surplus value from the spectacle of
suffering, it has ceased to evaluate; it ha s begun rather to "forewarn" and keep
watch, to see that no surplus value escapes the overcoding of the despotic
machine. For all the organs and their functions experience a detachment and
elevation that relates them to, and make s them converge on, the full body of the
despot. In point of fact the regime is not milder; the system of terror has replaced
the system of cruelty. The old cruelty persists,
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 211
especially in the autonomous or quasi -autonomous sectors; but it is now
bricked into the State apparatus, whic h at times organizes it and at other
times tolerates or limits it, in order to make it serve the ends of the State,
and to subsume it under the higher superimposed unity of a Law that is
more terrible. As a matter of fact, the law's opposition or apparent
opposition to despotism comes late—when the State presents itself as an
apparent peacemaker between classes that become distinct from the
State, making it necessary for the la tter to reshape its form of sove-
reignty.*
The law does not begin by being what it will become or seek to
become later: a guarantee against despotism, an immanent principle that
unites the parts into a whole, that makes of this whole the object of a
general knowledge and will whose sanc tions are merely derivative of a
judgment and an application directed at the rebellious parts. The
imperial barbarian law possesses instead two features that are in
opposition to those just mentioned—the two features that Kafka so
forcefully developed: first, the pa ranoiac-schizoid trait of the law
(metonymy) according to which th e law governs nontotalizable and
nontotalized parts, partitioning them off, organizing them as bricks,
measuring their distance and forb idding their communication, hence-
forth acting in the name of a formidable but formal and empty Unity,
eminent, distributive, and not coll ective; and second, the maniacal
depressive trait (metaphor) according to which the law reveals nothing
The Despotic Law
- The law is characterized by a paranoiac-schizoid trait where it partitions and organizes subjects into nontotalized parts under a formal, empty Unity.
- In the despotic system, the penalty precedes the law, meaning the act of punishment itself writes the rule that was supposedly broken.
- The body is transformed into a surface for overcoding, serving as the tablet or currency upon which the new imperial writing marks its figures.
- Law is an invention of the despot designed to formalize an infinite debt, shifting punishment from a festive occasion to a somber vengeance.
- The imperial formation requires the expulsion of freedom, turning the death instinct into a detached object that hovers over every subject.
As in the machine of 'In the Penal Colony,' it is the penalty that writes both the verdict and the rule that has been broken.
opposition to those just mentioned—the two features that Kafka so
forcefully developed: first, the pa ranoiac-schizoid trait of the law
(metonymy) according to which th e law governs nontotalizable and
nontotalized parts, partitioning them off, organizing them as bricks,
measuring their distance and forb idding their communication, hence-
forth acting in the name of a formidable but formal and empty Unity,
eminent, distributive, and not coll ective; and second, the maniacal
depressive trait (metaphor) according to which the law reveals nothing
and has no knowable object, the verdic t having no existence prior to the
penalty, and the statement of the law having no existence prior to the
verdict. The trial by ordeal presents th ese two traits in a raw state. As in
the machine of "In the Penal Colony," it is the penalty that writes both
the verdict and the rule that has been broken. In vain did the body
liberate itself from its characteristic graphism in the system of connota-
tion, for it now becomes the stone and the paper, the tablet and the
currency on which the new writing is able to mark its figures, its
phonetism, and its alphabet. Overcoding is the essence of the law, and
the origin of the new sufferings of the body. Punishment has ceased to
be a festive occasion, from which the eye extracts a surplus value in the
magic triangle of alliance and filiations. Punishment becomes a venge-
ance, the vengeance of the voice, the hand, and the eye now joined
together on the despot—the vengeance of the new alliance, whose public
character does not spoil the secret: "I will bring down upon you the
*Regarding the transition from a royal system of justice based on magico-religious speech to a city-state
system of justice based on a speech-as-dialogue, and re garding the change in "sovereignty" that corresponds
to this transition, see L. Gernet, ."Dr oit et predroit en Grece ancienne," L'annee sociologique 1948-^19; M.
Detienne, Les maitres de verite dans la Gric e archaique (Paris: Maspero, 1967); and Miche! Foucault, "La
volonte de savoir" (see reference note 48).
£ 1 2 A N T I - O E D I P U S
avenging sword of the vengeance of alliance." For once again, before it
becomes a feigned guarantee against despotism, the law is the invention
of the despot himself: it is the juridical form assumed by the infinite debt.
The jurist will be seen in the despot's procession up to the time of the
late Roman emperors, and the juridical form will accompany the
imperial formation, th e legislator alongside th e monster, Gaius and
Commodus, Papinian and Caracalla, Ulpian and Heliogabalus, "the
delirium of the twelve Caesars a nd the Golden Age of Roman Law"—
taking the debtor's side against the creditor when necessary, so as to
consolidate the infinite debt.
As vengeance, and a vengeance exercised in advance, the imperial
barbarian law crushes the whole primitive interplay of action, the
en-acted (Vagi), and reaction. Passivity must now become the virtue of
the subjects attached to the despotic body. As Nietzsche says when he
shows precisely how punishment beco mes a vengeance in the imperial
formations, a "tremendous quantity of freedom" must have "been
expelled from the world, or at least from the visible world, and made as it
were latent under their hammer blows and artists' violence."57 There
occurs a detachment and elevation of the death instinct, which ceases to
be coded in the interplay of savage actions and reactions where fatalism
was still something en-acted, in order to become the somber agent of
overcoding, the detached object that hovers over each subject, as t hough
the social machine had come unstuck from its desiring-machines: death,
The Imperialism of the Signifier
- The transition to imperial formations involves the expulsion of freedom from the visible world, rendering it latent under the violence of the state.
- The death instinct becomes detached and elevated, acting as a somber agent of overcoding that hovers over every subject within the social machine.
- Desire is forcibly wedded to the law through a process of universal castration, replacing primitive systems of designation with barbarian subordination.
- The law functions by signifying without designating anything specific, creating a regime of terror where the signifier produces its own necessary effects.
- Despite the evolution from despotic to democratic forms, the state remains a repressive machinery that consistently moves humanity away from desiring-machines.
Better not a sole survivor than for a single organ to flow outside this apparatus or slip away from the body of the despot.
formations, a "tremendous quantity of freedom" must have "been
expelled from the world, or at least from the visible world, and made as it
were latent under their hammer blows and artists' violence."57 There
occurs a detachment and elevation of the death instinct, which ceases to
be coded in the interplay of savage actions and reactions where fatalism
was still something en-acted, in order to become the somber agent of
overcoding, the detached object that hovers over each subject, as t hough
the social machine had come unstuck from its desiring-machines: death,
the desire of desire, the desire of th e despot's desire, a latency inscribed
in the bowels of the State apparatus. Better not a sole survivor than for a
single organ to flow outside this apparatus or slip away from the body
of the despot. This is because ther e is no other necessity (no other
fatum) than that of the signifier in its relationships with its signifieds:
such is the regime of terror. What the law is supposed to signify will
only be revealed later, when it ha s evolved and assumed the new figure
that appears to place it in opposition to despotism. But from the
beginning it expresses the imperialism of the signifier that produces its
signifieds as effects that are the more effective and necessary as they
escape knowing, and as they owe all to their eminent cause. Occasionally
it still happens that the young dogs will call for a return to the despotic
signifier, without exegesis or interpretation, while the law, however,
wants to explain what it signifies, to assert an independence of its
signified—against the despot, says the law. For the dogs, according to
Kafka's observations, want desire to be firmly wedded to the law in the
pure detachment and elevation of the death instinct, rather than to hear,
it is true, hypocritical doctors explain what it all means. But all that—the
development of the democratic signifi ed or the wrapping of the despotic
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 213
signifier—nevertheless forms part of the same question, sometimes open and
sometimes barred, the same extended abstraction, a repressive machinery that
always moves us away from the desiring-machines. For there has never been but
one State. The question "What is the use of that?" fades more and more, and
disappears in the fog of pessimi sm, of nihilism, Nada, Nada!
The order of law as it appears in the imperial formation, and as it will
evolve later, indeed have something in common: the indifference to designation.
It is in the nature of the law to signify without designati ng anything. The law
does not designate anything or anybody (t he democratic conception of law will
make this into a criterion). The complex relationship of designation, as we have
seen it elaborated in the system of pr imitive connotation with its interplay of
voice, graphism, and eye, here disappear s in the new relationship of barbarian
subordination. How could designation subsis t when the sign has ceased to be a
position of desire, in order to become this imperial sign, a universal castration
that welds desire to the law? It is th e crushing of the old code, it is the new
relationship of signification, it is the necessity of this new relationship
established in the overcoding process, that refers designations to the arbitrary (or
The Law and Ressentiment
- The imperial state detaches the sign from desire, replacing primitive designation with a universal overcoding that signifies without referring to specific objects.
- Law in the despotic age becomes indifferent to designation, creating a system where the signifier functions as a form of universal castration.
- The arbitrariness of the state apparatus eventually consumes the despot himself, leading to a loss of identity and name within the machinery of power.
- Ressentiment arises when active forces are repressed and turned inward, creating a latent state of suffering that defines the relationship between subject and state.
- The transition from enacted inscription to the latent signifier marks the birth of a new depth of internal meaning rooted in the death instinct.
How could designation subsist when the sign has ceased to be a position of desire, in order to become this imperial sign, a universal castration that welds desire to the law?
always moves us away from the desiring-machines. For there has never been but
one State. The question "What is the use of that?" fades more and more, and
disappears in the fog of pessimi sm, of nihilism, Nada, Nada!
The order of law as it appears in the imperial formation, and as it will
evolve later, indeed have something in common: the indifference to designation.
It is in the nature of the law to signify without designati ng anything. The law
does not designate anything or anybody (t he democratic conception of law will
make this into a criterion). The complex relationship of designation, as we have
seen it elaborated in the system of pr imitive connotation with its interplay of
voice, graphism, and eye, here disappear s in the new relationship of barbarian
subordination. How could designation subsis t when the sign has ceased to be a
position of desire, in order to become this imperial sign, a universal castration
that welds desire to the law? It is th e crushing of the old code, it is the new
relationship of signification, it is the necessity of this new relationship
established in the overcoding process, that refers designations to the arbitrary (or
that lets them subsist in the form of br icks held over from the old system). Why
is it that linguists are constantly rediscove ring the truths of the despotic age? And
finally, could it be that this arbitrariness of designations, as the reverse side of a
necessity of signification, does not bear only on the despot's subjects, nor even
on his servants, but on the despot himsel f, his dynasty, and his name ("[The
people] do not know what emperor is re igning, and there exist doubts regarding
even the name of the dynasty"58)? This would mean that th e death instinct is even
more deeply rooted in the State than t hought, and that latenc y not only befalls the
subjects of the State, but is also at work in the highest machinery of the
apparatus. The revenge becomes that of the subjects against the despot. In the
latency system of terror, what is no longe r active, en-acted, or reacted to, "this
instinct for freed om forcibly made latent (...) pushed back and repressed,
incarcerated within and finally able to discharge and vent itself only on
itself,"59—that very thing is now ressenti:* The eternal ressentiment of the
subjects answers to the
*ressenti(e) is the past participle of the French verb, ressentir, and ressentiment is the noun form. Nietzsche
makes use of ressentiment constantly, in his own singular fashion, to describe the phenomenon whereby an
active force is deprived of its normal conditions of existence, where it directs itself inward and turns against
itself. "Pushed back and repressed, incarcerated within and finally able to discharge and vent itself only on
itself" is a perfect definition of what is meant for something to be ressenti according to Nietzsche's concept
of ressentiment. In his Nietzsche et la philosophl e (Paris: Presses Universitair es de France, 1970), Deleuze
defines ressentiment as the becoming-reactive of force in general: "separated from what it is capable of, the
active force does not however cease to exist. Turning against itself, it produces suffering" {p. 147). Hence,
Deleuze concludes, with ressentiment a new meaning and depth is created for suffering, an intimate ,
internal meaning. (Translators'note.)
ai4 ANTI-OEDIPUS
eternal vengeance of the despots. The inscription is "ressentie" when it is no
longer en-acted or reacted to. When the deterritoriaHzed sign becomes a signifier,
a formidable quantity of reaction passes in to a latent state; all the resonance and
all the retention change in volume and time (the "after-the-event"). Vengeance
Ressentiment and Imperial Representation
- Nietzsche defines ressentiment as the internalizing of active forces that, when deprived of external expression, turn inward to produce suffering.
- In the imperial formation, the deterritorialized sign becomes a signifier, shifting vengeance into a latent state of resonance and retention.
- The imperial system maintains itself through a constellation of signifiers and dynasties that prevent true revolution, allowing only for rebellion or secession.
- Oedipus begins its migration within this system, evolving from a displaced representation of desire into the repressing representation itself.
- The despot occupies the previously unoccupied limit of the system, embodying the 'clubfooted' figure who overcodes social relations through incestuous representation.
Turning against itself, it produces suffering.
*ressenti(e) is the past participle of the French verb, ressentir, and ressentiment is the noun form. Nietzsche
makes use of ressentiment constantly, in his own singular fashion, to describe the phenomenon whereby an
active force is deprived of its normal conditions of existence, where it directs itself inward and turns against
itself. "Pushed back and repressed, incarcerated within and finally able to discharge and vent itself only on
itself" is a perfect definition of what is meant for something to be ressenti according to Nietzsche's concept
of ressentiment. In his Nietzsche et la philosophl e (Paris: Presses Universitair es de France, 1970), Deleuze
defines ressentiment as the becoming-reactive of force in general: "separated from what it is capable of, the
active force does not however cease to exist. Turning against itself, it produces suffering" {p. 147). Hence,
Deleuze concludes, with ressentiment a new meaning and depth is created for suffering, an intimate ,
internal meaning. (Translators'note.)
ai4 ANTI-OEDIPUS
eternal vengeance of the despots. The inscription is "ressentie" when it is no
longer en-acted or reacted to. When the deterritoriaHzed sign becomes a signifier,
a formidable quantity of reaction passes in to a latent state; all the resonance and
all the retention change in volume and time (the "after-the-event"). Vengeance
and ressentiment: not the beginning of justice, to be sure, but its becoming and its
destiny in the imperial formation as Nietzsche analyzes it. And according to his
prophecy, wouldn't the State itself be that dog which wants to die? But that is also
reborn from its ashes. For it is this whole constellation of the new alliance—the
imperialism of the signifier, the metaphoric or metonymic necessity of the
signifieds, with the arbitrary of the designations—t hat ensures the maintenance of
the system, and sees to it that the name is succeeded by another name, one
dynasty by another, without changing the signifieds, a nd without a collapse of the
wall of the signifier. This is why the order of latency in the African, Chinese,
Egyptian, and other empires was that of rebellions and constant secessions, and
not that of revolution. Here again, death will have to be felt from within, but it
will have to come from without.
The founders of empires caused everythi ng to pass into a latent state; they
invented vengeance and incited ressentiment, that counter-vengeance. And yet
Nietzsche says about them what he has already said about the primitive system: it
was not in their midst that "bad conscience," this ugly growth—i.e.,
Oedipus—took root and began to grow. It is simply that one more step has been
taken in that direction: Oedipus, bad conscience, interiority, they made it
possible.60 What does Nietzsche mean, this man who dragged Caesar along with
him as a despotic signifier, along with its two signifieds, his si ster and his mother,
and who felt their weight grow heavier as he drew nearer to madness? It is true
that Oedipus begins its cellular, ovular migration in the system of imperial
representation: from being at first the displaced represented of desire, it becomes
the repressing representation itself. The impossible has become possible; the
unoccupied limit now finds itself occupied by the despot. Oedipus has received
its name, the clubfooted despot committing double incest through overcoding,
with his sister and his mother as body representations subjected to verbal
representation. Moreover, Oedipus is in the process of establishing each of the
formal operations that will make it all possible: the extrapolation of a detached
object; the double bind of overcoding or ro yal incest; the biuni-vocalization,
application, and linearization of the chain between masters and slaves; the
The Despotic Oedipal Machine
- The figure of Oedipus emerges not as a family drama but as a despotic function that overcodes territorial machines with state power.
- Desire is redefined as a libidinal investment in the State machine rather than a simple interplay between son, mother, and father.
- The authors argue that psychoanalysis mistakenly projects the modern Oedipus complex onto a historical stage where its components functioned as cogs in a political apparatus.
- Incest in this context serves as a repressing representation that establishes law within desire, preceding the internalized complex found in psychoanalysis.
- The transition to the modern Oedipus complex requires the internalization of debt and the transformation of the state's repressing representation into a representative of desire itself.
Desire is by no means an interplay between a son, a mother, and a father. Desire institutes a libidinal investment of a State machine that overcodes the territorial machine and, with an additional turn of the screw, represses the desiring-machines.
unoccupied limit now finds itself occupied by the despot. Oedipus has received
its name, the clubfooted despot committing double incest through overcoding,
with his sister and his mother as body representations subjected to verbal
representation. Moreover, Oedipus is in the process of establishing each of the
formal operations that will make it all possible: the extrapolation of a detached
object; the double bind of overcoding or ro yal incest; the biuni-vocalization,
application, and linearization of the chain between masters and slaves; the
introduction of the law into desire, and of de sire into the law; the terrible latency
with'its afterward or its after-the-event. A ll the parts of the five paralogisms thus
seem to be ready.
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 219
But we are still very far from th e psychoanalytic Oedipus, and the
Hellenists are right to not grasp clea rly the story that psychoanalysis is
trying at all costs to tell them. It is indeed the story of desire and its
sexual history (there is no other). But he re all the parts figure as cogs and
wheels in the State machine. Desire is by no means an interplay between a
son, a mother, and a father. Desire institutes a libidinal investment of a
State machine that overcodes the territorial machine and, with an
additional turn of the screw, represses the desiring-machines. Incest
derives from this investme nt and not the reverse. At first it brings into
play only the despot, the sister, a nd the mother: it is the overcoding and
repressing representation. The father intervenes only as the representa-
tive of the old territorial machine, but the sister is the representative of
the new alliance, and the mother is the representative of direct filiation.
Father and son are not yet born. AH sexuality functions in terms of the
conjoined operations of machines, their internecine struggle, their
superposition, their interlocking arra ngements. Let us marvel once again
at Freud's account of Oedipus. In Moses and Monotheism he indeed
surmises that latency is a State affair. But then latency must not succeed
the "Oedipus complex," marking the complex's repression or even its
suppression. It must result from the repressing action of the incestuous
representation, which is not yet by any means a complex in the sense of
repressed desire, since on the contrary the representation exercises its
repressive action on desire itself. The Oedipus complex, as it is called by
psychoanalysis, will be born of latency, after latency, and it signifies the
return of the repressed under conditions that disfigure, displace, and
even decode desire. The Oedipus complex appears only after latency;
and when Freud recognizes two phases separated by latency, it is only
the second phase that merits the complex's name, while the first
expresses only its parts and wheel s functioning from a completely
different viewpoint, in a completely different organization. There we see
the mania of psychoanalysis with all its paralogisms: it presents as a
resolution, or an attempted resolution, of the complex what is rather the
latter's definitive establishment or its interior installation, and it presents
as the complex what is still the complex's opposite. What will be
necessary in order for Oedipus to become the Oedipus, the Oedipus
complex? Many things, in fact—those things that Nietzsche partially
grasped in the evolution of the infinite debt.
The Oedipal cell will have to complete its migration; it must no
longer be content to pass from the state of the displaced represented to
that of repressing representation; rather, from being the repressing
representation, it will have to finall y become the representative of desire
itself. And it must become the latter by virtue of being the displaced
216 ANTI-OEDIPUS
represented. The debt must not only become an infinite debt, it will have
to be internalized and spiritualized as an infinite debt (Christianity and
The Internalized Debt and Urstaat
- The Oedipal structure migrates from an external social representation to an internalized representative of desire itself, marking a shift toward spiritualized debt.
- Christianity is identified as a historical turning point where debt becomes infinite and internalized through the masculinization of the imperial triad.
- Desire is forced to turn against itself, resulting in bad conscience, guilt, and a sick interiority that traps the subject within a decoded social field.
- The Urstaat is presented as a primordial, eternal model of the State that appears fully formed rather than through progressive stages.
- Every evolved social form acts as a palimpsest, covering a deeper despotic inscription that remains latent beneath historical progress.
Hence desire, having completed its migration, will have to experience this extreme affliction of being turned against itself: the turning back against itself, bad conscience, the guilt that attaches it to the most decoded of social fields as well as to the sickest interiority, the trap for desire, its ugly growth.
The Oedipal cell will have to complete its migration; it must no
longer be content to pass from the state of the displaced represented to
that of repressing representation; rather, from being the repressing
representation, it will have to finall y become the representative of desire
itself. And it must become the latter by virtue of being the displaced
216 ANTI-OEDIPUS
represented. The debt must not only become an infinite debt, it will have
to be internalized and spiritualized as an infinite debt (Christianity and
what follows). The father and the son will have to take form—that is, the
royal triad must "masculinize" itself—and this must occur as a direct
consequence of the infinite debt that is now internalized.*
Oedipus-the-despot will have to be replaced by Oedi puses-as-subjects,
Oedipuses-as-subjugated individua ls, Oedipuses-as-fathers, and
Oedipuses-as-sons. All the formal ope rations will have to be resumed
within a decoded social field, and must reverberate in the pure and
private element of interiority, of in terior reproduction. The apparatus of
social repression-psychic repression will have to undergo a complete
reorganization. Hence desi re, having completed its migration, will have
to experience this extreme affliction of being turned against itself: the
turning back against itself, bad conscience, the guilt that attaches it to
the most decoded of social fields as we ll as to the sickest interiority, the
trap for desire, its ugly growth. So long as the history of desire does not
experience this outcome, Oedipus haunts all societie s, but as the
nightmare of something that has still not happened to them—its hour has
not come. (And isn't this the strength of Lacan, to have saved psycho-
analysis from the frenzied oedipalization to which it was linking its
fate—to have brought about this sa lvation even at the price of a
regression, and even though it mean t the unconscious would be kept
under the weight of the despotic appara tus, that it would be reinterpret-
ed starting from this apparatus, the Law, and the signifier—phallus and
castration, yes! Oedipus, no!—the despotic age of the unconscious.)
8 T h e U r s t a a t
The city of Ur, the point of departure of Abraham or the
new alliance. The State was not formed in progressive stages; it appears
fully armed, a master stroke executed all at once; the primordial
Urstaat, the eternal model of everything the State wants to be and
desires. "Asiatic" productio n, with the State that expresses or constitutes
its objective movement, is not a distinct formation; it is the basic
formation, on the horizon throughout history. There comes back to us
from all quarters the discovery of imperial machines that preceded the
traditional historical forms, machin es characterized by State ownership
♦Historians of religions and psychoanalysts are very familiar with this problem of the masculinization of the
imperial triad, in terms of the father-son relationship that is brought into it. Nietzsche sees in this problem an
essential moment in the development of the infinite debt: "that stroke of genius on the part of Christianity:
God himself sacrifices himself for the guilt of Mankind, God himself makes payment to himself, God as the
only being who can redeem man from what has beco me unredeemable for man himself—the creditor
sacrifices himself for his debtor, out of love (can one credit that?), out of love for his debtor!" (On t he
Genealogy of Morals, II, 21.)
SAVAGES. BARBARIANS. CIVILIZED MEN 217
of property, with communal possessi on bricked into it, and collective
dependence. Every form that is more "evolved" is lik e a palimpsest: it
covers a despotic inscription, a Mycenaean manuscript. Under every
Black and every Jew there is an Egyptian, and a Mycenaean under the
Greeks, an Etruscan under the Romans. And yet their origin sinks into
oblivion, a latency that lays hold of the State itself, and where the
The Urstaat and Infinite Debt
- The transition to Christianity represents a stroke of genius where the creditor (God) sacrifices himself for the debtor to redeem an unredeemable debt.
- Every evolved social form acts as a palimpsest, concealing a despotic Mycenaean or Egyptian manuscript beneath its modern surface.
- The rise of private property and commodity production causes the State to decline and re-form as a colder, more hypocritical apparatus serving class interests.
- The State must invent specific codes to manage deterritorialized flows of wealth and labor that threaten to break down traditional social codes.
- The primordial despotic state, or Urstaat, is unique because it appears fully formed in the minds of its creators rather than evolving through historical stages.
Under every Black and every Jew there is an Egyptian, and a Mycenaean under the Greeks, an Etruscan under the Romans.
♦Historians of religions and psychoanalysts are very familiar with this problem of the masculinization of the
imperial triad, in terms of the father-son relationship that is brought into it. Nietzsche sees in this problem an
essential moment in the development of the infinite debt: "that stroke of genius on the part of Christianity:
God himself sacrifices himself for the guilt of Mankind, God himself makes payment to himself, God as the
only being who can redeem man from what has beco me unredeemable for man himself—the creditor
sacrifices himself for his debtor, out of love (can one credit that?), out of love for his debtor!" (On t he
Genealogy of Morals, II, 21.)
SAVAGES. BARBARIANS. CIVILIZED MEN 217
of property, with communal possessi on bricked into it, and collective
dependence. Every form that is more "evolved" is lik e a palimpsest: it
covers a despotic inscription, a Mycenaean manuscript. Under every
Black and every Jew there is an Egyptian, and a Mycenaean under the
Greeks, an Etruscan under the Romans. And yet their origin sinks into
oblivion, a latency that lays hold of the State itself, and where the
writing system sometimes disappears. It is beneath the blows of private
property, then of commodity productio n, that the State witnesses its
decline. Land enters into the sphere of private property and into that of
commodities. Classes appear, inasmuch as the dominant classes are no
longer merged with the State apparatu s, but are distinct determinations
that make use of this transformed appa ratus. At first situated adjacent to
communal property, then entering into the latter's composition or
conditioning it, then becoming more and more a determining force,
private property brings about an inte rnalization of the creditor-debtor
relation in the relations of opposed classes.61
But how does one explain both this latency into which the despotic
State enters, and this power with which it re-forms itself on modified
foundations, in order to spring back more "mendacious," "colder," and
more "hypocritical" than ever? This oblivion and this return. On the one
hand, the ancient city-state, the Germanic commune, and feudalism
presuppose the great empires, and cannot be understood except in terms
of the Urstaat that serves as their horizon. On the other hand, the
problem confronting these forms is to reconstitute the Urstaat insofar as
possible, given the requirements of their new distinct determinations.
For what do private property, wealth , commodities, and classes signify?
The breakdown of codes . The appearance, the surging forth of now
decoded flows that pour over the socius, crossing it from one end to the
other. The State can no longer be content to overcode territorial
elements that are already coded, it must invent specific codes for flows
that are increasingly deterritorialized, which means: putting despotism
in the service of the new class relations; integrating the relations of
wealth and poverty, of commodity and labor; reconciling market money
and money from revenues; everywhere stamping the mark of the Urstaat
on the new state of things. And everyw here, the presence of the latent
model that can no longer be equale d, but that one cannot help but
imitate. The Egyptian's melancholy warning to the Greeks echoes
through history: "You Greeks will never be anything but children!"
This special situation of the State as a category—oblivion and
return—has to be explained. To begin with, it should be said that the
primordial despotic state is not a hi storical break like any other. Of all
the institutions, it is perhaps the only one to appear fully armed in the
218 ANTI-OEDIPUS
brain of those who institute it, "the artists with a look of bronze." That is
why Marxism didn't quite know what to make of it: it has no place in the
famous five stages: primitive communism, ancient city-states, feudal-
The Despotic State Machine
- The primordial despotic state is described as a unique category that appears fully formed, rather than as a gradual historical evolution.
- Marxist theory struggles to categorize this state because it does not fit neatly into the traditional five stages of historical development.
- The state acts as a 'cerebral ideality' or a regulating principle of terror that superimposes itself upon the material flows of society.
- Imperial myths serve to internalize the distance between the sovereign power and the actual genesis of the world, establishing a definitive supremacy.
- There is a paradoxical relationship between the territorial machine and the despotic machine, making it unclear which truly precedes the other.
Of all the institutions, it is perhaps the only one to appear fully armed in the brain of those who institute it, 'the artists with a look of bronze.'
This special situation of the State as a category—oblivion and
return—has to be explained. To begin with, it should be said that the
primordial despotic state is not a hi storical break like any other. Of all
the institutions, it is perhaps the only one to appear fully armed in the
218 ANTI-OEDIPUS
brain of those who institute it, "the artists with a look of bronze." That is
why Marxism didn't quite know what to make of it: it has no place in the
famous five stages: primitive communism, ancient city-states, feudal-
ism, capitalism, and socialism.* It is no t one formation among o thers,
nor is it the transition from one formation to another. It appears to be set
back at a remove from what it transects and from what it resects, as
though it were giving evidence of a nother dimension, a cerebral ideality
that is added to, superimposed on the material evolution of societies, a
regulating idea or principle of reflec tion (terror) that organizes the parts
and the flows into a whole. What is transected, superseded, or
over-coded by the despotic State is what comes before—the territorial
machine, which it reduces to the state of bricks, of working parts
henceforth subjected to the cerebral idea. In this sense the despotic State
is indeed the origin, but the origin as an abstraction that must include its
differences with respect to the conc rete beginning. We know that myth
always expresses a passage and a divergence (un ecart). The primitive
territorial myth of the beginning expressed the divergence of a
characteristically intense energy—what Marcel Griaule called "the
metaphysical part of mythology," the vibratory spiral—in relation to the
social system in extension that it conditioned, passing back and forth
between alliance and filiation. But the imperial myth of the origin
expresses something else: the dive rgence of this beginning from the
origin itself, the divergence of the ex tension from the idea, of the genesis
from the order and the power (the new alliance), and also what repasses
from filiation to alliance, what is taken up again by filiation. Jean-Pierre
Vernant shows in this way that the imperial myths are not able to
conceive a law of organization that is immanent in the universe: they
need to posit and internalize this difference between the origin and the
beginnings, between the sovereign power and the genesis of the world;
"the myth constitutes itself within this distance, it makes it into the very
object of its narrative, retracing the avatars of sovereignty down through
the succession of generations to the moment when a supremacy, this time
definitive, puts an end to the dramatic elaboration of the dunesteia."62 So
that in the end one no longer really knows what comes first, and whether
the territorial machine does not in fact presuppose a despotic machine
from which it extracts the bricks or that it segments in its turn.
*Regarding whether it is possible to bring "Asiatic" production into agreement with the five stages, and
regarding the reasons behind Engel's renunciation of this category in Origins of the Family, and the Russian
and Chinese Marxists' resistance to this category, see Godelier, Sur le mode de produ ction asiatique
(reference note 47). One may recall the insults addressed to Wittfogei for having raised this simple question:
wasn't the category of the Oriental despotic State challenged for reasons having to do with its special
paradigmatic status as a horizon for modern socialist States?
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 219
In a certain sense it is necessary to say as much in regard to what
comes after the primal State, in regard to what is resected by this State.
It supersects what comes before, but resects the formations that follow.
There too it is like an abstraction that belongs to another dimension,
The Protean Despotic State
- The despotic State functions as a singular, abstract horizon that persists across different historical eras and political formations.
- Feudalism does not necessarily oppose the State; rather, it can reinforce feudal structures through commodity production and absolute monarchy.
- Modern capitalist and socialist States are viewed as continuations of the primordial despotic State, inheriting its fundamental characteristics.
- Democracy is described as a colder, more calculating version of the despot, shifting from overcoding to the internal counting and coding of flows.
- The State is not merely one concrete formation among others but an abstraction that realizes itself through various historical guises.
As for democracies, how could one fail to recognize in them the despot who has become colder and more hypocritical, more calculating, since he must himself count and code instead of overcoding the accounts?
from which it extracts the bricks or that it segments in its turn.
*Regarding whether it is possible to bring "Asiatic" production into agreement with the five stages, and
regarding the reasons behind Engel's renunciation of this category in Origins of the Family, and the Russian
and Chinese Marxists' resistance to this category, see Godelier, Sur le mode de produ ction asiatique
(reference note 47). One may recall the insults addressed to Wittfogei for having raised this simple question:
wasn't the category of the Oriental despotic State challenged for reasons having to do with its special
paradigmatic status as a horizon for modern socialist States?
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 219
In a certain sense it is necessary to say as much in regard to what
comes after the primal State, in regard to what is resected by this State.
It supersects what comes before, but resects the formations that follow.
There too it is like an abstraction that belongs to another dimension,
always at a remove and struck by latency, but that springs back and
returns stronger than before in the later forms that lend it a concrete
existence. A protean State, yet there has never been but one State.
Whence the variations, all the variants of the new alliance, falling
nevertheless under the sa me category. For exam ple, feudalism not only
presupposes an abstract despotic Stat e that it divides into segments
according to the regime of its private property and the rise of its
commodity production, but the latter induce in return the concrete
existence of a feudal state in the proper sense of the term, where the
despot returns as the absolute monarch. For it is a double error to think
that the development of commodity production is enough to bring about
feudalism's collapse—on the contrary , this development reinforces
feudalism in many respects, offering the latter new conditions of
existence and survival—and that feud alism of itself is in opposition to
the State, which on the contrary, as the feudal State, is capable of
preventing commodities from introducing the decoding of flows that
alone would be ruinous to the system under consideration.* And in more
recent examples, we have to go along with Wittfogel when he shows the
degree to which modern capitalist and socialist States take on the
characteristic features of the primordial despotic State. As for democra-
cies, how could one fail to recognize in them the despot who has become
colder and more hypocritical, more calculating, since he must himself
count and code instead of overcoding the accounts? It is useless to
compose the list of differences after the manner of conscientious
historians: village communes here, industrial societies there, and so on.
The differences could be determining only if the despotic State were one
concrete formati on among others, to be treated comparatively. But the
despotic State is the abstraction that is realized—in imperial formations,
to be sure—only as an abstraction (the overcoding eminent unity). It
assumes its immanent concrete existence only in the subsequent forms
that cause it to return under other guises and conditions. Being the com-
mon horizon for what comes before and what comes after, it conditions
universal history only provided it is not on the outside, but always
*Maurice Dobb has shown how the development of co mmerce, of the market, and of money had very
diverse effects on feudalism, at ti mes reinforcing serfdom and the whole array of feudal structures: Studies
in the De velopment of Capitalism (reference note 70), pp. 33-83. Franco is Hincker has elaborated the
concept of "State feudalism" to show how the French absolute monarchy, in particular, maintained the
productive forces and commodity production in the fram ework of a feudalism that did not end until the
eighteenth century (Sur le feodalisme [Paris: Editions Sociales, 1971], pp. 61-66).
229 ANTI-OEDIPUS
The Concretization of the State
- The State evolves from an abstract unity that overcodes territories into a concrete machine subordinated to a field of decoded flows like money and private property.
- Rather than forming a ruling class, the modern State is formed by independent classes that delegate it to manage their power, contradictions, and compromises.
- The State shifts from being a transcendent law governing fragments to an immanent force that must fashion a whole from the things it signifies.
- This movement toward concretization in the social machine mirrors the evolution of technical machines, which become physical systems rather than intellectual ones.
- The State represents a 'monstrous paradox' where desire passes from the despot's head to the subjects' hearts, making repression an object of desire.
The State is desire that passes from the head of the despot to the hearts of his subjects, and from the intellectual law to the entire physical system that disengages or liberates itself from the law.
*Maurice Dobb has shown how the development of co mmerce, of the market, and of money had very
diverse effects on feudalism, at ti mes reinforcing serfdom and the whole array of feudal structures: Studies
in the De velopment of Capitalism (reference note 70), pp. 33-83. Franco is Hincker has elaborated the
concept of "State feudalism" to show how the French absolute monarchy, in particular, maintained the
productive forces and commodity production in the fram ework of a feudalism that did not end until the
eighteenth century (Sur le feodalisme [Paris: Editions Sociales, 1971], pp. 61-66).
229 ANTI-OEDIPUS
off to the side, the cold monster that repr esents the way in which history is in the
"head," in the "brain"—the Urstaat.
Marx recognized that there was indeed a way in which history proceeded
from the abstract to the concrete: "the simple categories are the expression of
relations within which the less develope d concrete may have already realized
itself before having posited the more ma ny-sided connection or relation which is
mentally expressed in the more concre te category; while the more developed
concrete preserves the same cate gory as a subordinate relation."63 The State was
first this abstract unity that integrated subaggregates functioning separately; it is
now subordinated to a field of forces whose flows it co-ordinates and whose
autonomous relations of domination a nd subordination it expresses. It is no
longer content to overcode maintained and imbricated territorialities; it must
constitute, invent codes for the decoded flows of money, commodities, and
private property. It no longer of itself form s a ruling class or classes; it is itself
formed by these classes, which have become independent and dele gate it to serve
their power and their contradictions, thei r struggles and their compromises with
the dominated classes. It is no longe r the transcendent law that governs
fragments; it must fashion as best it can a whole to which it will render its law
immanent. It is no longer the pure signifier that regulates its signifieds; it now
appears behind them, depending on the thi ngs it signifies. It no longer produces
an overcoding unity; it is itself produced insi de the field of decoded flows. As a
machine it no longer determines a social system; it is itself determined by the
social system into which it is incorporat ed in the exercise of its functions. In
brief, it does not cease being artificial, but it becomes concrete, it "tends to
concretization" while subordinating itself to the dominant forces. The existence
of an analogous evolution has been dem onstrated for the technical machine,
when it ceases to be an abstract unity or intellectual system reigning over
separate subaggregates to become a relation that is subordinated to a field of
forces operating as a concrete physical system.64
But isn't this tendency to concretizati on in the social or technical machine
precisely the movement of desire? Again and again we come upon the
monstrous paradox; the State is desire that passes from the head of the despot to
the hearts of his subjects, and from the intellectual law to the entire physical
system that disengages or liberates itself from the law. A State desire, the most
fantastic machine for repression, is still desire—the subject that desires and the
object of desire. Desire—such is the opera tion that consists in always stamping
the mark of the primordial Urstaat on the new state of things, rendering it
immanent to the new
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 221
system insofar as possible, making it interi or to this system. As for the rest, it
will be a question of starting again from zero: the founding of a spiritual empire
there where forms exist under which the St ate can no longer function as such in
the physical system. When the Christians took possession of the Empire, this
complementary duality reappeared between those who wanted to do
The Becoming of the State
- The State evolves through a dual process of internalization within social forces and spiritualization in a metaphysical field.
- Early Christianity manifested this duality through those seeking to reconstruct the Roman Urstaat and purists seeking a fresh start in the wilderness.
- Asceticism produced 'paranoiac and celibate machines' that expressed a struggle against old alliances through extreme physical and social constraints.
- The transition toward capitalism requires the decoding of flows, which initially strikes the despotic State with latency before transforming the socius.
- As the infinite debt becomes internalized, it gives rise to 'bad conscience' and a repressed cruelty turned inward upon the individual.
What strange machines those were that cropped up on columns and in tree trunks!
object of desire. Desire—such is the opera tion that consists in always stamping
the mark of the primordial Urstaat on the new state of things, rendering it
immanent to the new
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 221
system insofar as possible, making it interi or to this system. As for the rest, it
will be a question of starting again from zero: the founding of a spiritual empire
there where forms exist under which the St ate can no longer function as such in
the physical system. When the Christians took possession of the Empire, this
complementary duality reappeared between those who wanted to do
everything possible to reconstruct the Urstaat from the elements they found
in the immanence of the objective Roman world, and the purists, who wanted a
fresh start in the wilderness, a new beginning for a new alliance, a rediscovery of
the Egyptian and Syriac inspiration th at would provide the impetus for a
transcendent Urstaat. What strange machines those were that cropped up on
columns and in tree trunks! In this sense, Christianity was able to develop a
whole set of paranoiac and celibate machines, a whole string of paranoiacs and
perverts who also form part of our history's horizon and people our calendar.*
These are the two aspects of a becoming of the State: its internalization in a field
of increasingly decoded social for ces forming a physical system; its
spiritualization in a supraterrestrial fi eld that increasingly overcodes, forming a
metaphysical system. The infinite debt mu st become internalized at the same
time as it becomes spiritualized. The hour of bad conscience draws nigh; it will
also be the hour of the greatest cyni cism, "that repressed cruelty of the
animal-man made inward and scared back into himself, the creature imprisoned
in the 'state' so as to be tamed. . . ,"65
The Civilized Capitalist Machine
The first great movement of dete rritorialization appears with the
overcoding performed by the despotic State. But it is nothing compared to the
other great movement, the one that will be brought about by the decoding of
flows. The action of decoded flows is not enough, however, to cause the new
break to traverse and transform the soci us—not enough, that is, to induce the
birth of capitalism. Decoded flows strike the despotic State with latency; they
submerge the tyrant,
*In this regard Jacques Lacarriere has called attention to the figures and the moments of Christian
asceticism Egypt, Palestine, and Syria, starting with the third century: Les hom mes ivres d e Dieu
(Grenoble: Arthaud, 1961). First come gentle paranoiacs who install them selves close to a village, then
withdraw into the desert where they invent astonishing ascetic machines expressing their struggle against
the old alliances and filiations (the Saint Anthony stage); next, communities of disciples are formed,
monasteries where one of the main activities is to write the life of the founding saint: celibate machines
with a military discipline where the monk "reconstructs around him, in the form of ascetic and collective
constraints, the aggressive universe of the old persecutions" (the Saint Pachomius stage); and finally, the
return to the city or the village; armed groups of perverts who assign themselves the task
of struggling against the dying paganism (the Schnoudi stage). More generally, concerning the monastery's
relationship with the city, see Lewis Mumford, who talks about an "elaboration of a new form of urban
structuration" in terms of monasteries (The City in History [New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1961],
pp. 246ff., 258-59).
ANTI-OEDIPUS
but they also cause him to return in unexpected forms; they democratize
him, oligarchize him, segmentalize him, monarchize him, and always
internalize and spiritualize him, while on the horizon there is the latent
Ascetic Machines and Decoded Flows
- Christian asceticism evolved through three stages: solitary paranoiacs in the desert, disciplined monastic communities, and finally armed groups returning to the city to combat paganism.
- The State functions by recoding the products of decoded flows, such as landed property, money, and labor, to prevent the premature emergence of capitalism.
- Historical examples like Rome and feudalism show that decoded flows often lead to a reinforcement of slavery or feudal offices rather than a capitalist economy.
- Unlike the synchronic and sudden appearance of the despotic State, the capitalist machine operates diachronically through a series of creative breaks and successions.
- The bourgeoisie was historically kept 'in the pores' of the social machine, integrated into existing feudal structures rather than immediately dissolving them.
For the founders of the State come like lightning; the despotic machine is synchronic while the capitalist machine's time is diachronic.
*In this regard Jacques Lacarriere has called attention to the figures and the moments of Christian
asceticism Egypt, Palestine, and Syria, starting with the third century: Les hom mes ivres d e Dieu
(Grenoble: Arthaud, 1961). First come gentle paranoiacs who install them selves close to a village, then
withdraw into the desert where they invent astonishing ascetic machines expressing their struggle against
the old alliances and filiations (the Saint Anthony stage); next, communities of disciples are formed,
monasteries where one of the main activities is to write the life of the founding saint: celibate machines
with a military discipline where the monk "reconstructs around him, in the form of ascetic and collective
constraints, the aggressive universe of the old persecutions" (the Saint Pachomius stage); and finally, the
return to the city or the village; armed groups of perverts who assign themselves the task
of struggling against the dying paganism (the Schnoudi stage). More generally, concerning the monastery's
relationship with the city, see Lewis Mumford, who talks about an "elaboration of a new form of urban
structuration" in terms of monasteries (The City in History [New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1961],
pp. 246ff., 258-59).
ANTI-OEDIPUS
but they also cause him to return in unexpected forms; they democratize
him, oligarchize him, segmentalize him, monarchize him, and always
internalize and spiritualize him, while on the horizon there is the latent
Urstaat, for the loss of which there is no consolation. It is now up to the
State to recode as best it can, by means of regular or exceptional
operations, the product of the decoded flows. Let us take the example of
Rome: the decoding of the landed flows (des flux fanciers) through the
privatization of property, the decoding of the monetary flows through
the formation of great fortunes, the decoding of the commercial flows
through the development of commodity production, the decoding of the
producers through expropriation and proletarization—all the precondi-
tions are present, everything is gi ven, without producing a capitalism
properly spreaking, but rather a regime based on slavery.66 Or the
example of feudalism: there again private property, commodity produc-
tion, the monetary afflux, the extens ion of the market, the development
of towns, and the appearance of manorial ground rent in money form, or
of the contractual hiring of labor, do not by any means produce a
capitalist economy, but rather a re inforcing of feudal offices and
relations, at times a return to more primitive stages of feudalism, and
occasionally even the re-establishment of a kind of slavery
(esclavag-isme). And it is well known that the monopolistic action
favoring the guilds and the companies pr omotes, not the rise of capitalist
production, but the insertion of the bourgeoisie into a town and State
feudalism that consists in devising codes for flows that are decoded as
such, and in keeping the merchants, according to Marx's formula, "in the
very pores" of the old full body of the social machine. Hence capitalism
does not lead to the dissolution of feudalism, but rather the contrary, and
that is why so much time was required between the two. There is a great
difference in this respect between th e despotic age and the capitalist age.
For the founders of the State come like lightning; the despotic machine
is synchronic while the capitalist machine's time is diachronic. The
capitalists appear in succession in a series that institutes a kind of
creativity of history, a strange mena gerie: the schizoid time of the new
creative break.
The dissolutions are defined by a simple decoding of flows, and they
are always compensated by residual forces or transformations of the
The Contingency of Capitalism
- Capitalism arises not from the natural evolution of feudalism but through a diachronic series of creative breaks and the decoding of social flows.
- The birth of the capitalist machine requires a contingent encounter of diverse flows, including property, money, production, and deterritorialized labor.
- Universal history is defined by contingency rather than necessity, explaining why capitalism emerged in the West rather than in China or the Islamic world.
- Unlike previous social machines based on territorial connections or despotic disjunctions, the capitalist machine is founded on the conjunction of decoded flows.
- Desire in the capitalist age shifts from being caught in the nets of the despotic State to producing a social and technical machine through generalized decoding.
The only universal history is the history of contingency.
very pores" of the old full body of the social machine. Hence capitalism
does not lead to the dissolution of feudalism, but rather the contrary, and
that is why so much time was required between the two. There is a great
difference in this respect between th e despotic age and the capitalist age.
For the founders of the State come like lightning; the despotic machine
is synchronic while the capitalist machine's time is diachronic. The
capitalists appear in succession in a series that institutes a kind of
creativity of history, a strange mena gerie: the schizoid time of the new
creative break.
The dissolutions are defined by a simple decoding of flows, and they
are always compensated by residual forces or transformations of the
State. Death is felt rising from within and desire itself becomes the death
instinct, latency, but it also passes over into these flows that carry the
seeds of a new life. Decoded flows—but who will give a name to this
new desire? Flows of property that is sold, flows of money that
circulates, flows of production and means of production making ready in
the shadows, flows of workers beco ming deterritorialized: the encounter
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 223
of all these flows will be necessary, their conjunction, and their reaction
on one another—and the contingent nature of this encounter, this
conjunction, and this reaction, which occur one time—in order for
capitalism to be born, and for the old system to die this time from
without, at the same time as the new life begins and desire receives its
name. The only universal history is th e history of contingency. Let us
return to this eminently contingent question that modern historians
know how to ask: why Europe, why not China? Apropos of ocean
navigation, Fernand Braudel asks: wh y not Chinese, Japanese, or even
Moslem ships? Why not Sinbad the Sailor? It is not the technique, the
technical machine, that is lacking. Isn't it rather that desire remains
caught in the nets of the despotic Stat e, entirely invested in the despot's
machine? "Perhaps then the merit of the West, confined as it was on its
narrow 'Cape of Asia,' was to have needed the world, to have needed to
venture outside its own front door."67 The schizophrenic voyage is the
only kind there is. (Later this will be the American meaning of frontiers:
something to go beyond, limits to cr oss over, flows to set in motion,
noncoded spaces to enter.)
Decoded desires and desires for d ecoding have always existed;
history is full of them. But we have just seen that only through their
encounter in a place, and their conjunction in a space that takes time, do
decoded flows constitute a desire—a desire that, instead of just dream-
ing or lacking it, actually produces a desiring-machine that is at the same
time social and technical. That is why capitalism and its break are
defined not solely by decoded flows, but by the generalized decoding of
flows, the new massive deterrito rialization, the conjunction of
deterrit-orialized flows. It is the si ngular nature of this conjunction that
ensured the universality of capitalism. By simplifying a lot, we can say
that the savage territorial machine op erated on the basis of connections
of production, and that the barbarian despotic machine was based on
disjunctions of inscription derive d from the eminent unity. But the
capitalist machine, the civilized machin e, will first establish itself on the
conjunction. When this occurs, the conjunction no longer merely
designates remnants that have escaped coding, or
consummations-consumptions as in th e primitive feasts, or even the
"maximum consumption" in the extravagance of the despot and his
agents. When the conjunction moves to the fore in the social machine, it
seems on the contrary that it ceases to be tied to enjoyment or to the
excess consumption of a class, that it makes luxury itself into a means
The Age of Cynicism
- The capitalist machine establishes itself through a conjunction of decoded flows that shifts the focus from excess consumption to production for production's sake.
- Capitalism requires the historical encounter between the deterritorialized, 'naked' worker and decoded money that has been transformed into capital.
- The emergence of the free worker involves the privatization of soil and the dissolution of traditional family and corporate structures.
- Capitalism is defined by a unique combination of cynicism, representing the physical extraction of labor, and piety, which treats capital as a divine source of productivity.
- The accumulation of capital necessitates a specific temporal sequence where property is acquired cheaply during feudal disintegration and later liquidated for industrial investment.
It is no longer the age of cruelty or the age of terror, but the age of cynicism, accompanied by a strange piety.
capitalist machine, the civilized machin e, will first establish itself on the
conjunction. When this occurs, the conjunction no longer merely
designates remnants that have escaped coding, or
consummations-consumptions as in th e primitive feasts, or even the
"maximum consumption" in the extravagance of the despot and his
agents. When the conjunction moves to the fore in the social machine, it
seems on the contrary that it ceases to be tied to enjoyment or to the
excess consumption of a class, that it makes luxury itself into a means
of investment, and reduces all the decoded flows to production, in a
"production for production's sake" that rediscovers the primitive con-
nections of labor, on condition— on the sole condition—that they be
224 ANTI-OEDIPUS
linked to capital and to the new deterrito rialized full body, the true consumer
from whence they seem to emanate (as in the pact with the devil that Marx
describes—the "industrial eunuch": so it's your fault if . . . )68
At the heart of Capital, Marx points to the encounter of two "principal"
elements: on one side, the deterritorialized worker who has become free and
naked, having to sell his labor capacity; and on the other, decoded money that
has become capital and is capable of buyi ng it. The fact that these two elements
result from the segmentation of the des potic State in feudalism, and from the
decomposition of the feudal system itself and that of its State, still does not give
us the extrinsic conjunction of these two flows: flows of producers and flows of
money. The encounter might not have take n place, with the free workers and the
money-capital existing "virtually" side by side. One of the elements depends on a
transformation of the agrarian structures that constitute the old social body, while
the other depends on a completely different series going by way of the merchant
and the usurer, as they exist marginally in the pores of this old social body.69
What is more, each of these elements brings into play several processes of
decoding and deterritoriali zation having very different origins. For the free
worker: the deterritorialization of the so il through privatization; the decoding of
the instruments of production through a ppropriation; the loss of the means of
consumption through the dissolution of th e family and the corporation; and
finally, the decoding of the worker in favor of the work itself or of the machine.
And for capital: the deterrito rialization of wealth thr ough monetary abstraction;
the decoding of the flows of production through merchant capital; the decoding
of States through financial capital and public debts; the decoding of the means of
production through the formation of industrial capital; and so on.
Let us consider more in detail how the elements come together, with the
conjunction of all their processes. It is no longer the age of cr uelty or the age of
terror, but the age of cynicism, accompan ied by a strange piety. (The two taken
together constitute humanism: cynicism is the physical immanence of the social
field, and piety is the maintenance of a spiritualized Urstaat; cynicism is capital
as the means of extorting surplus labor , but piety is this same capital as
God-capital, whence all the forces of la bor seem to emanate.) This age of
cynicism is that of the accumulation of capital—an age that implies a period of
time, precisely for the conjunction of all the decoded and deterritorialized flows.
As Maurice Dobb has shown, an accumul ation of property title deeds—in land,
for example—will be necessary in a first period of time, in a favorable
conjuncture, at a time when this property costs little (the
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS. CIVILIZED MEN 225
disintegration of the feudal system); and a second period is required
when the property is sold during a rise in prices and under conditions
that make industrial investment especially advantageous (the
The Assembly of Capital
- The age of cynicism is defined by the accumulation of capital through the conjunction of decoded and deterritorialized flows.
- Capitalism only truly begins when capital directly appropriates production, rather than merely existing in the pores of the old socius.
- Industrial capital serves as the primary driver that subordinates merchant and financial capital into specific functional divisions of labor.
- The transition to a capitalist machine requires a two-stage process of property accumulation followed by strategic industrial investment.
- Money introduces a reign of abstract quantity that eventually replaces the overcoded inscriptions of previous social systems.
But capitalism doesn't begin, the capitalist machine is not assembled, until capital directly appropriates production, and until financial capital and merchant capital are no longer anything but specific functions.
field, and piety is the maintenance of a spiritualized Urstaat; cynicism is capital
as the means of extorting surplus labor , but piety is this same capital as
God-capital, whence all the forces of la bor seem to emanate.) This age of
cynicism is that of the accumulation of capital—an age that implies a period of
time, precisely for the conjunction of all the decoded and deterritorialized flows.
As Maurice Dobb has shown, an accumul ation of property title deeds—in land,
for example—will be necessary in a first period of time, in a favorable
conjuncture, at a time when this property costs little (the
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS. CIVILIZED MEN 225
disintegration of the feudal system); and a second period is required
when the property is sold during a rise in prices and under conditions
that make industrial investment especially advantageous (the
"price-revolution," an abundant reserv e supply of labor, the formation of
a proletariat, an easy access to sources of raw materials, favorable
conditions for the production of tools and machinery).70 All sorts of
contingent factors favor these conjunc tions. So many encounters for the
formation of the thing, the unnamable! But the effect of the conjunction
is indeed capital's tighter and tighter control over production: capitalism
or its break, the conjunction of all the decoded and deterritorialized
flows, cannot be defined by commerc ial capital or by financial capital—
these being merely flows among othe r flows and elements among other
elements—but rather by industrial ca pital. Doubtless the merchant was
very early an active factor in production, either by turning into an
industrialist himself in occupations based on commerce, or by making
artisans into his own intermediaries or employees (the struggles against
the guilds and the monopolies). But capitalism doesn't begin, the
capitalist machine is not assembled, until capital dire ctly appropriates
production, and until financial capita l and merchant capital are no longer
anything but specific functions corresponding to a division of labor in
the capitalist mode of production in general. One then re-encounters the
production of productions, the production of recordings, and the
production of consumptions—but prec isely in this conjunction of de-
coded flows that makes of capital the new social full body, whereas
commercial and financial capitalism in its primitive forms merely
installed itself in the pores of the old socius without changing the old
mode of production.
Even before the capitalist production-machine is assembled, com-
modities and money effect a decoding of flows through abstraction. But
this does not occur in the same way for both instances. First, simple
exchange inscribes commercial products as particular quanta of a unit
of abstract labor. It is abstract labor, posited in the exchange relation,
that forms the disjunctive synthesi s of the apparent movement of
commodities, since the abstract labor is divided into qualified pieces of
labor to which a given determinate quantum corresponds. But it is only
when a "general equivalent" appears as money that one enters into the
reign of the quantitas, which can have all sorts of particular values or be
worth all sorts of quanta. This abst ract quantity nonetheless must have
some particular value, so that it still appears only as a relation of
magnitude between quanta. It is in this sense that the exchange relation
formally unites partial objects that are produced and even inscribed
226 ANTI-OEDIPUS
independently of it. The commercial and monetary inscription remains overcoded
and even repressed by the pr evious characteristics and modes of inscription of a
socius considered in its specific mode of production, which knows nothing of and
does not recognize abstract labor. As Marx says, the latter is indeed the simplest
and most ancient relation of productive activ ity, but it does not appear as such
The Birth of Filiative Capital
- Pre-capitalist societies repress abstract labor and overcode monetary inscriptions through existing social territorialities.
- The transition to capitalism occurs when capital shifts from a relationship of alliance with non-capitalist production to a self-begetting filiative form.
- Capital becomes an independent substance that differentiates itself into original value and surplus value, functioning like a father and son who are one.
- The capitalist machine replaces traditional codes with a differential relation of decoded flows, transforming the surplus value of code into a surplus value of flux.
- This new social field operates as a post-mortem despotism where mathematical relations replace the cruelty and terror of previous social systems.
It differentiates itself as original value from itself as surplus-value; as the father differentiates himself qua the son, yet both are one and of one age.
magnitude between quanta. It is in this sense that the exchange relation
formally unites partial objects that are produced and even inscribed
226 ANTI-OEDIPUS
independently of it. The commercial and monetary inscription remains overcoded
and even repressed by the pr evious characteristics and modes of inscription of a
socius considered in its specific mode of production, which knows nothing of and
does not recognize abstract labor. As Marx says, the latter is indeed the simplest
and most ancient relation of productive activ ity, but it does not appear as such
and only becomes a true practical relation in the modern capitalist machine.71
That is why, before, the monetary and commercial inscription does not have a
body of its own at its disposal, and why it is inserted into th e interstices of the
pre-existing social body. The merchant is continually speculating with the
maintained territorialities, so as to buy where prices are low and sell where they
are high. Before the capitalist machine, merc hant or financial capital is merely in
a relationship of alliance with noncapitalist production; it enters into the new
alliance that characterizes precapitalis t States—whence the alliance of the
merchant and banking bourgeoi sie with feudalism. In brief, the capitalist machine
begins when capital ceases to be a capital of alliance to become a filiative capital.
Capital becomes filiative when money begets money, or value a surplus
value—"value in process, money in process, and, as such, capital. . . . Value . . .
suddenly presents itself as an independent substance, endowed with a motion of
its own, in which money and commodities are mere forms which it assumes and
casts off in turn. Nay more: instead of simply representing the relations of
commodities, it enters now, so to say, into relations with itself. It differentiates
itself as original value from itself as su rplus-value; as the father differentiates
himself qua the son, yet both are one and of one age: for only by the
surplus-value of £10 does the £100 or iginally advanced become capital."72
It is solely under these conditions that capital becomes the full body, the
new socius or the quasi cause that appr opriates all the productive forces. We are
no longer in the domain of the quantum or of the quantitas, but in that of the
differential relation as a conjunction that defines the immanent social field
particular to capitalism, and confers on th e abstraction as such its effectively
concrete value, its tendency to concretiza tion. The abstraction has not ceased to
be what it is, but it no longer appears in the simple quantity as a variable relation
between independent terms; it has taken upon itself the indepe ndence, the quality
of the terms and the quantity of the rela tions. The abstract itself posits the more
complex relation within which it will devel op "like" something concrete. This is
the differential relation Dy/Dx, where Dy derives from labor power and
constitutes the fluctuation of variable capital, and
SAVAGES. BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 227
where Dx derives from capital itself and c onstitutes the fluctuation of
constant capital ("the definition of constant capital by no means
excludes the possibility of a change in the value of its constituent
parts"). It is from the fluxion of d ecoded flows, from their conjunction,
that the filiative form of capital, x+dx, results. The differential relation
expresses the fundamental capitalist phenomenon of the transformation
of the surplus value of code into a surpl us value of fl ux. The fact that a
mathematical appearance here replaces the old code simply signifies that
one is witnessing a breakdown of th e subsisting codes and territorialities
for the benefit of a machine of another species, functioning in an entirely
different way. This is no longer the cruelty of life, the terror of one life
brought to bear against another life, but a post-mortem despotism, the
The Vampire of Capital
- Capitalism marks a transition from the surplus value of code to a surplus value of flux, replacing traditional social codes with a mathematical machine.
- The text describes capital as a post-mortem despotism that functions like a vampire, sustaining itself only by sucking living labor.
- A fundamental dualism exists in the capitalist system between money as a means of payment for consumers and money as a sign of the power of capital for financing.
- The falling rate of profit is viewed as a self-reproducing cycle within capitalism's field of immanence, driven by the transformation of abstract quantities.
- Banking serves as the pivotal intersection between the management of exchange money and the structural financing of capitalist accumulation.
This is no longer the cruelty of life, the terror of one life brought to bear against another life, but a post-mortem despotism, the despot become anus and vampire.
expresses the fundamental capitalist phenomenon of the transformation
of the surplus value of code into a surpl us value of fl ux. The fact that a
mathematical appearance here replaces the old code simply signifies that
one is witnessing a breakdown of th e subsisting codes and territorialities
for the benefit of a machine of another species, functioning in an entirely
different way. This is no longer the cruelty of life, the terror of one life
brought to bear against another life, but a post-mortem despotism, the
despot become anus and vampire: "Capital is dead labour, that
vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the
more labour it sucks." Industrial capi tal thus offers a new new filiation
that is a constituent part of the capitalist machine, in relation to which
commercial capital and financial capital will now take the form of a
new alliance by assuming specific functions.
The celebrated problem of the tende ncy to a falling rate of profit,
that is, of surplus value in relation to total capital, can be understood
only from the viewpoint of capitalism' s entire field of immanence, and
by taking into account the conditions under which a surplus value of
code is transformed into a surplus value of flux. First of all, it appears
that—in keeping with Balibar's remarks—this tendency to a falling rate
of profit has no end, but reproduces itself while reproducing the factors
that counteract it. But why does it have no end? Doubtless for the same
reasons that provoke the laughter of the capitalists and their economists
when they ascertain that surplus va lue cannot be determined mathemati-
cally. Yet they have little cause to rejoice. They would be better off
concluding in favor of the very thing they are bent on hiding: that it is
not the same money that goes into the pocket of the wage earner and is
entered on the balance sheet of a commercial enterprise. In the one case,
there are impotent money signs of exchange value, a flow of means of
payment relative to consumer goods and use values, and a one-to-one
relation between money and an imposed range of products ("which I
have a right to, which are my due, so they're mine"); in the other case,
signs of the power of capital, flows of financing, a system of differential
quotients of production that bear witness to a prospective force or to a
long-term evaluation, not realizable hic et nunc, and functioning as an
axiomatic of abstract quantities. In the one case, money represents a
potential break-deduction in a flow of consumption; in the other case, it
22 8 A N T I - O E D I P U S
represents a break-detachment and a rearticulation of economic chains
directed toward the adaptation of flows of production to the disjunctions
of capital. The extreme importance in the capitalist system of the
dualism that exists in banking ha s been demonstrated, the dualism
between the formation of means of payment and the structure of
financing, between the management of money and the financing of
capitalist accumulation, between exchange money and credit money.73
The fact that banks participate in both, that they are situated at the
pivotal point between financing and payment, merely shows the multiple
interactions of these two operations . Thus in credit money, which
comprises all the commercial and bank credits, purely commercial credit
has its roots in simple circulation where money develops as means of
payment (bills of exchange falling due on a fixed date, which constitute a
monetary form of finite debt). In versely, bank credit effects a demoneti-
zation or dematerialization of money, and is based on the circulation of
drafts instead of the circulation of money. This credit money traverses a
particular circuit where it assumes, then loses, its value as an instrument
of exchange, and where the conditions of flux imply conditions of reflux,
The Dualism of Money
- Bank credit effects a dematerialization of money, transforming finite debt into an infinite capitalist form through a circuit of flux and reflux.
- The State acts as a regulator to ensure convertibility, maintaining a unified capital market and a guarantor of credit despite the abstract nature of the system.
- Capitalism functions by mobilizing and breaking flows of desire, utilizing the bank to control the social field and the investment of human interest.
- A profound dualism exists between money as a means of payment for wages and money as a tool for financing enterprises.
- Measuring wages and enterprise capital with the same unit is described as a 'cosmic swindle' due to the vast difference in their economic magnitudes.
Measuring the two orders of magnitude in terms of the same analytical unit is a pure fiction, a cosmic swindle, as if one were to measure intergalactic or intra-atomic distances in meters and centimeters.
has its roots in simple circulation where money develops as means of
payment (bills of exchange falling due on a fixed date, which constitute a
monetary form of finite debt). In versely, bank credit effects a demoneti-
zation or dematerialization of money, and is based on the circulation of
drafts instead of the circulation of money. This credit money traverses a
particular circuit where it assumes, then loses, its value as an instrument
of exchange, and where the conditions of flux imply conditions of reflux,
giving to the infinite debt its capitalist form; but the State as a regulator
ensures a principle of convertibility of this credit money, either directly
by tying it to gold, or indirectly through a mode of centralization that
comprises a guarantor of the credit, a uniform interest rate, a unity of
capital markets, etc.
Hence one is correct in speaking of a profound dissimulation of the
dualism of these two forms of mone y, payment and financing—the two
aspects of banking practice. But this dissimulation does not depend on a
faulty understanding so much as it expresses the capitalist field of
immanence, the apparent objectiv e movement where the lower or
subordinate form is no less necessary than the other (it is necessary for
money to play on both boards), and where no integration of the
dominated classes could occur without the shadow of this unapplied
principle of convertibility—which is e nough, however, to ensure that the
Desire of the most disadvantaged creature will invest with all its
strength, irrespective of any economic understanding or lack of it, the
capitalist social field as a whole. Flows, who doesn't desire flows, and
relationships between flows, and breaks in flows?—all of which capital-
ism was able to mobilize and br eak under these hitherto unknown
conditions of money. While it is true that capitalism is industrial in its
essence or mode of production, it functions only as merchant capitalism.
While it is true that it is filiativ e industrial capital in its essence, it
functions only through its alliance w ith commercial and financial capital.
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 229
In a sense, it is the bank that controls the whole system and the investment of
desire.* One of Keynes's contributions wa s the reintro-duction of desire into the
problem of money; it is this that must be subjected to the requirements of
Marxist analysis. That is why it is unfo rtunate that Marxist economists too often
dwell on considerations concerning the m ode of production, and on the theory of
money as the general equivalent as found in the first section of Capital, without
attaching enough importance to banking prac tice, to financial operations, and to
the specific circulation of credit mone y—which would be the meaning of a
return to Marx, to the Marxist theory of money.
Let us return to the dualism of m oney, to the two boards, the two
inscriptions, the one going into the account of the wage earner, the other into the
balance sheet of the enterprise. Measuring the two orders of magnitude in terms
of the same analytical unit is a pure fiction, a cosmic swindle, as if one were to
measure intergalactic or intra-atomic distances in meters and centimeters. There
The Schiz and the Flow
- The text argues that measuring enterprise value and labor capacity with the same unit is a 'cosmic swindle' because they represent two incommensurable orders of magnitude.
- Capitalism is defined by its lack of an exterior limit, functioning instead through an internal limit that it constantly reproduces and displaces.
- The capitalist process maintains continuity through a 'break of a break,' where crises are not failures but immanent means of production.
- This system of expanded immanence creates a movement of deterritorialization where the present loses its traditional meaning as the quotient of differentials becomes incalculable.
- The homogeneity of money is only achieved through a centralized credit system that masks the objective dissimulation inherent in the dualism of money.
Measuring the two orders of magnitude in terms of the same analytical unit is a pure fiction, a cosmic swindle, as if one were to measure intergalactic or intra-atomic distances in meters and centimeters.
the specific circulation of credit mone y—which would be the meaning of a
return to Marx, to the Marxist theory of money.
Let us return to the dualism of m oney, to the two boards, the two
inscriptions, the one going into the account of the wage earner, the other into the
balance sheet of the enterprise. Measuring the two orders of magnitude in terms
of the same analytical unit is a pure fiction, a cosmic swindle, as if one were to
measure intergalactic or intra-atomic distances in meters and centimeters. There
is no common measure between the value of the enterprises and that of the labor
capacity of wage earners. That is why the falling tendency has no conclusion. A
quotient of differentials is indeed calculable if it is a matter of the limit of
variation of the production flows from the viewpoint of a full output, but it is not
calculable if it is a matter of the produc tion flow and the labor flow on which
surplus value depends. Thus the difference is not canceled in the relationship that
constitutes it as a difference in nature; the "tendency" has no end, it has no
exterior limit that it could reach or ev en approximate. The tendency's only limit is
internal, and it is continually going bey ond it, but by displacing this limit—that
is, by reconstituting it, by rediscovering it as an internal limit to be surpassed
again by means of a displacement; thus the continuity of the capitalist process
engenders itself in this break of a break th at is always displaced, in this unity of
the schiz and the flow. In this respect al ready the field of social immanence,, as
revealed under the withdrawal and th e transformation of the Urstaat, is
continually expanding, and acquires a consistency entirely its own, which shows
the manner in which capitalism for its part was able to interpret the general
principle according to which things work well only providing they break down,
crises being "the means immanent to the capitalist mode of production." If
capitalism is the exterior limit of all soci eties, this is because capitalism for its
part has no exterior limit, but
*Brunhoff, L'offre de monnaie (reference note 73), p. 124: "The very notion of a monetary mass can have a
meaning only relative to the workings of a system of credit where the different kinds of money combine.
Without such a system, one would have only a sum of means of payment that would have no access to the
social nature of the genera! equivalent and that coul d serve only in local private circuits. There would be no
genera! monetary circulation. Only in the centralized system can the different kinds of money become
homogeneous and appear as the components of an ar ticulated whole." And with regard to the objective
dissimulation in the system, see pp. !10, 114.
2 3 0 A N T I - O E D I P U S
only an interior limit that is capital itself and that it does not encounter, but
reproduces by always displacing it.* Jean-Joseph Goux rigorously analyzes the
mathematical phenomenon of the curve wit hout a tangent, and the direction it is
apt to take in economy as well as linguistics: "If the movement does not tend
toward any limit, if the quotient of differentials is not calculable, the present no
longer has any meaning. . . . The quotient of differentials is not resolved, the
differences no longer cancel one another in their relationship. No limit opposes
the break (la brisure), or the breaking of this break. The tendency finds no end,
the thing in motion never quite reaches what the immediate future has in store for
it; it is endlessly delayed by accidents and deviations. . . . Such is the complex
notion of a continuity w ithin the absolute break."74 In the expanded immanence
of the system, the limit tends to reconstitute in its displacement the thing it tended
to diminish in its primitive emplacement.
Now this movement of displacem ent belongs essentially to the
deterritorialization of capitalism. As Sa mir Amin has shown, the process of
Capitalism and Peripheral Deterritorialization
- Capitalism functions through a process of deterritorialization that moves from the developed center to the underdeveloped periphery.
- The center maintains its own internal peripheries, such as ghettos and reservations, which function as enclaves of underdevelopment.
- Primitive accumulation is not a historical event at the dawn of capitalism but a process that continually reproduces itself through modern industry.
- A machinic surplus value emerges as automation increases and human labor becomes adjacent to, rather than a constituent part of, the production process.
- The periphery effectively supplies capital to the center through extreme exploitation and the disarticulation of traditional economic sectors.
So true is it that primitive accumulation is not produced just once at the dawn of capitalism, but is continually reproducing itself.
the break (la brisure), or the breaking of this break. The tendency finds no end,
the thing in motion never quite reaches what the immediate future has in store for
it; it is endlessly delayed by accidents and deviations. . . . Such is the complex
notion of a continuity w ithin the absolute break."74 In the expanded immanence
of the system, the limit tends to reconstitute in its displacement the thing it tended
to diminish in its primitive emplacement.
Now this movement of displacem ent belongs essentially to the
deterritorialization of capitalism. As Sa mir Amin has shown, the process of
deterritorialization here goes from the cen ter to the periphery, that is, from the
developed countries to the undereveloped countries, which do not constitute a
separate world, but rather an essentia l component of the world-wide capitalist
machine. It must be added, however, that the center itself has its organized
enclaves of underdevelopment, its reservations and its ghettos as interior
peripheries. (Pierre Moussa has defined th e United States as a fragment of the
Third World that has succeeded and has preserved its immense zones of
underdevelopment.) And if it is true that the tendency to a falling rate of profit or
to its equalization asserts itself at leas t partially at the center, carrying the
economy toward the most progressive and the most automated sectors, a veritable
"development of underdevelopment" on the pe riphery ensures a rise in the rate of
surplus value, in the form of an increasing exploitation of the peripheral
proletariat in relation to that of the cente r. For it would be a great error to think
that exports from the periphery origin ate primarily in traditional sectors or
archaic territorialities: on the contrary, they come from modern industries and
plantations that generate an immense su rplus value, to a point where it is no
longer the developed countries that s upply the underdeveloped countries with
capital, but quite the opposite. So true is it that primitive accumulation is not
produced just once at the dawn of cap italism, but is continually reproducing
itself. Capitalism exports filiative capital. At the same time
*Marx, Capital (see reference note 72), Vol. 3, p. 250: "Capitalist production seeks con tinually to overcome
these immanent barriers, but overcomes them only by means which again place these barriers in its way and
on a more formidable scale. The real barri er of capitalist production is capital itself."
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 231
as capitalist deterritorialization is deve loping from the center to the periphery,
the decoding of flows on the periphery deve lops by means of a "disarticulation"
that ensures the ruin of traditional sectors, the development of extraverted
economic circuits, a specific hypertrophy of the tertiary sector, and an extreme
inequality in the different areas of productivity and in incomes.75 Each passage
of a flux is a deterritorialization, and each displaced limit, a decoding.
Capitalism schizophrenizes more and more on the periphery. It will be said that,
even so, at the center the falling tendency retains its restricted sense, i.e., the
relative diminution of surplus value in re lation to total capital—a diminution that
is ensured by the development of produc tivity, automation, and constant capital.
This problem was raised again recently by Maurice Clavel in a series of
decisive and willfully incompetent ques tions—that is, questions addressed to
Marxist economists by someone who doe sn't quite understand how one can
maintain human surplus value as the basis for capitalist production, while
recognizing that machines too "work" or produce value, that they have always
worked, and that they work more and more in proportion to man, who thus
ceases to be a constituent part of the production process, in order to become
adjacent to this process.76 Hence there is a machinic surplus value produced by
Machinic Surplus and Code
- The text explores the concept of machinic surplus value, arguing that machines produce value as they move from being tools to becoming the primary agents of production.
- Capitalism is defined by a transition from a surplus value of code, found in precapitalist regimes, to a generalized surplus value of flux.
- While capitalism decodes flows, it also internalizes flows of code within the structure of automatic machines and specialized intellectual labor.
- The author asserts that machines do not create capitalism; rather, capitalism creates and revolutionizes machines to suit its own technical modes of production.
- Despite the revolutionary nature of technical machines, the capitalist system maintains control over scientists and technicians, preventing them from achieving true independence.
In this sense, it is not machines that have created capitalism, but capitalism that creates machines, and that is constantly introducing breaks and cleavages through which it revolutionizes its technical modes of production.
decisive and willfully incompetent ques tions—that is, questions addressed to
Marxist economists by someone who doe sn't quite understand how one can
maintain human surplus value as the basis for capitalist production, while
recognizing that machines too "work" or produce value, that they have always
worked, and that they work more and more in proportion to man, who thus
ceases to be a constituent part of the production process, in order to become
adjacent to this process.76 Hence there is a machinic surplus value produced by
constant capital, which develops along with automation and productivity, and
which cannot be explained by factors that counteract the falling tendency—the
increasing intensity of the exploitation of human labor, the diminution of the
price of the elements of constant cap ital, etc.—since, on the contrary, these
factors depend on it. It seems to us, with the same indispensable incompetence,
that these problems can only be viewed under the conditions of the
transformation of the surplus value of c ode into a surplus value of flux. In
defining precapitalist regimes by a surplus value of code, and capitalism by a
generalized decoding that converted this surplus value of code into a surplus
value of flux, we were presenting things in a summary fashion, we were still
acting as though the matter were settled once and for all, at the dawn of a
capitalism that had lost all code value. This is not the case, however. On the one
hand, codes continue to exist—even as an archaism—but they assume a function
that is perfectly contemporary and adapte d to the situation within personified
capital (the capitalist, the worker, the merchant, the banker). But on the other
hand, and more profoundly, every tec hnical machine presupposes flows of a
particular type: flows of code that are both interior and exterior to the machine,
forming the elements of a technology and even a science. It is these flows of
code that find themselves encasted, coded, or overcoded in the precapitalist
societies
23 2 A N T I - O E D I P U S
in such a way that they never achieve any independence (t he blacksmith, the
astronomer). But the decoding of flows in capitalism has freed, deterritorialized,
and decoded the flows of code just as it has the others—to such a degree that the
automatic machine has always increasingly internalized them in its body or its
structure as a field of forces, while depending on a science and a technology, on
a so-called intellectual labor distinct fr om the manual labor of the worker (the
evolution of the technical object). In this sense, it is not machines that have
created capitalism, but capitalism that creat es machines, and that is constantly
introducing breaks and cleavages through which it revolutionizes its technical
modes of production.
But several correctives must be introdu ced in this regard. These breaks and
cleavages take time, and their extension is very wide-ranging. By no means does
the diachronic capitalist machine allow itself to be revolutionized by one or more
of its synchronous technical machines, and by no means does it confer on its
scientists and its technicians an inde pendence that was unknown in the previous
regimes. Doubtless it can let a certain number of scientists—mathematicians, for
example—"schizophrenize" in their co rner, and it can allow the passage of
socially decoded flows of code that these scientists organize into axiomatics of
The Axiomatic of Capital
- The capitalist machine does not allow itself to be revolutionized by technical progress alone, maintaining control over scientists and technicians.
- Scientific research is permitted a degree of independence only until its findings must be brought into line with the social and economic needs of the system.
- Innovation is strictly regulated by the rate of profit, often leading to the deliberate maintenance of obsolete equipment despite scientific advancements.
- The social axiomatic of the world market is more severe than any scientific logic, subordinating technical flows to the production of machinic surplus value.
- Knowledge and specialized education are integrated into the system as 'knowledge capital,' functioning alongside human labor to sustain the surplus value of flux.
Leave the scientists alone to a certain point, let them create their own axiomatic, but when the time comes for serious things . . .
modes of production.
But several correctives must be introdu ced in this regard. These breaks and
cleavages take time, and their extension is very wide-ranging. By no means does
the diachronic capitalist machine allow itself to be revolutionized by one or more
of its synchronous technical machines, and by no means does it confer on its
scientists and its technicians an inde pendence that was unknown in the previous
regimes. Doubtless it can let a certain number of scientists—mathematicians, for
example—"schizophrenize" in their co rner, and it can allow the passage of
socially decoded flows of code that these scientists organize into axiomatics of
research that is said to be basic. But the true axiomatic is elsewhere. (Leave the
scientists alone to a certain point, let them create their own axiomatic, but when
the time comes for serious things . . . For example, nondeterm inist physics, with
its corpuscular flows, will have to be brought into line with "determinism.") The
true axiomatic is that of the social ma chine itself, which takes the place of the
old codings and organizes all the decoded flows, including the flows of scientific
and technical code, for the benefit of the capitalist system and in the service of
its ends. That is why it has often been remarked that the Industrial Revolution
combined an elevated rate of technical progress with the maintenance of a great
quantity of "obsolescent" equipment, al ong with a great suspicion concerning
machines and science. An innovation is a dopted only from the perspective of the
rate of profit its investment will offe r by the lowering of production costs;
without this prospect, the capitalist will keep the existing equipment, and stand
ready to make a parallel investment in equipment in another area.77
Thus the importance of human surplus value remains decisive, even at the
center and in highly industrialized sect ors. What determines the lowering of
costs and the elevation of the rate of pr ofit through machinic surplus value is not
innovation itself, whose value is no more measurable than that of human surplus
value. It is not even the profitability of the new technique considered in
isolation, but its effect on the over-all
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS. CIVILIZED MEN 233
profitability of the firm in its relationshi ps with the market and with commercial
and financial capital. This implies diach ronic encounters and countersectings
such as one already sees for example in th e early part of the nineteenth century,
between the steam engine and textile machines or techniques for the production
of iron. In general, the introduction of innovations always tends to be
delayed beyond the time scientifically necessary, until the moment when the
market forecasts justify their exploitation on a large scale. Here again, alliance
capital exerts a strong selective pressure on machinic innovations within
industrial capital. In brief, there where the flows are decoded, the specific flows
of code that have taken a technical and scientific form are subjected to a properly
social axiomatic that is much severer than all the scientific axiomatics, much
severer too than all the old codes and overcodes that have disappeared: the
axiomatic of the world capita list market. In brief, the flows of code that are
"liberated" in science and technics by the capitalist regime engender a machinic
surplus value that does not directly de pend on science and technics themselves,
but on capital—a surplus value that is added to human surplus value and that
comes to correct the relative diminution of the latter, both of t hem constituting
the whole of the surplus value of flux that characterize s the system. Knowledge,
information, and specialized educati on are just as much parts of capital
("knowledge capital") as is the most elemen tary labor of the worker. And just as
we found, on the side of human surplus value insofar as it resulted from decoded
Machinic Surplus and Antiproduction
- Capitalism generates surplus value not only from human labor but also from 'machinic' flows of knowledge, information, and technical innovation.
- There is a fundamental incommensurability between the remuneration of scientific labor and the vast profits of capital that result from these decoded flows.
- The system faces a constant crisis of realization where surplus value must be absorbed through non-productive means like advertising, militarism, and imperialism.
- The State functions as a massive engine of 'antiproduction' that is embedded within the heart of the productive process rather than existing outside of it.
- Military expenditures serve as a primary mechanism for widening the limits of the capitalist axiomatic and ensuring full economic output.
The State, its police, and its army form a gigantic enterprise of antiproduction, but at the heart of production itself, and conditioning this production.
surplus value that does not directly de pend on science and technics themselves,
but on capital—a surplus value that is added to human surplus value and that
comes to correct the relative diminution of the latter, both of t hem constituting
the whole of the surplus value of flux that characterize s the system. Knowledge,
information, and specialized educati on are just as much parts of capital
("knowledge capital") as is the most elemen tary labor of the worker. And just as
we found, on the side of human surplus value insofar as it resulted from decoded
flows, an incommensurability or a fundamental asymmetry (no assignable
exterior limit) between manual labor and capital, or between two forms of
money, here too, on the side of the machinic surplus value resulting from
scientific and technical flows of code, we find no commensurability or exterior
limit between scientific or technical labor—even when highly remunerated—and
the profit of capital that inscribes itself with another sort of writing. In this
respect the knowledge flow and the labor flow find themselves in the same
situation, determined by capita list decoding or deterritoriali zation. But if it is true
that innovations are adopted only insofar as they entail a rise in profits through a
lowering of costs of production, and if there exists a sufficiently high volume of
production to justify them, the corollary th at derives from this proposition is that
investment in innovations is never sufficient to realize or absorb the surplus
value of flux that is produced on the one side as on the other.78 Marx has clearly
demonstrated the importance of the problem: the ever widening circle of
capitalism is completed, while reproducing its immanent limits on an ever larger
scale, only if the surplus value is not merely produced or extorted, but absorbed
or realized.79 If the capitalist is not defined in
234 ANTI-OEDIPUS
terms of enjoyment, the reason is not me rely that his aim is the "production for
production's sake" that generates surplus va lue, it also includes the realization of
this surplus value: an unrealized surplus value of flux is as if not produced, and
becomes embodied in unemployment and stagnation. It is easy to list the
principal modes of absorption of surplus value outside the spheres of
consumption and investment: advertising, civil government, militarism, and
imperialism. The role of the State in this regard, within the capitalist axiomatic, is
the more manifest in that what it absorb s is not sliced from the surplus value of
the firms, but added to their surplus value by bringing the capitalist economy
closer to full output within the given limits, and by widening these limits in
turn—especially within an order of military expenditures that are in no way
competitive with private enterprise, quite the contrary (it took a war to
accomplish what the New Deal had failed to accomplish). The role of a
politico-military-economic complex is the more manifest in that it guarantees the
extraction of human surplus value on the periphery and in the appropriated zones
of the center, but also because it engenders for its own part an enormous
machinic surplus value by mobilizing the resources of knowledge and
information capital, and finally because it absorbs the greater part of the surplus
value produced.
The State, its police, and its army form a gigantic enterprise of
antiproduction, but at the heart of pr oduction itself, and conditioning this
production. Here we discover a new determination of th e properly capitalist field
of immanence: not only the interplay of th e relations and differential coefficients
of decoded flows, not only the nature of the limits that capitalism reproduces on
an ever wider scale as interior limits, but the presence of antiproduction within
production itself. The apparatus of antip roduction is no longer a transcendent
instance that opposes production, limits it, or checks it; on the contrary, it
Antiproduction Within the Capitalist Machine
- Capitalism integrates antiproduction directly into the heart of the productive process to regulate productivity and realize surplus value.
- The system deliberately produces lack and scarcity within large aggregates to absorb overabundant resources and maintain economic control.
- A flow of stupidity is engineered to run parallel to the flow of knowledge, ensuring that even scientific workers remain integrated into the system.
- The capitalist state's power of co-option stems from an axiomatic framework that is wider and more englobing than that of socialist states.
- Even the most deterritorialized research, such as the study of dolphin language, eventually feeds back into military and state apparatuses.
Not only lack amid overabundance, but stupidity in the midst of knowledge and science; it will be seen in particular how it is at the level of the State and the military that the most progressive sectors of scientific or technical knowledge combine with those feeble archaisms bearing the greatest burden of current functions.
antiproduction, but at the heart of pr oduction itself, and conditioning this
production. Here we discover a new determination of th e properly capitalist field
of immanence: not only the interplay of th e relations and differential coefficients
of decoded flows, not only the nature of the limits that capitalism reproduces on
an ever wider scale as interior limits, but the presence of antiproduction within
production itself. The apparatus of antip roduction is no longer a transcendent
instance that opposes production, limits it, or checks it; on the contrary, it
insinuates itself everywhere in the productive machine and becomes firmly
wedded to it in order to regulate its productivity and realize surplus value—
which explains, for example, the diffe rence between the despotic bureaucracy
and the capitalist bureaucracy. This effusi on from the apparatus of antiproduction
is characteristic of the entire capitalist system; the capitalist effusion is that of
antiproduction within production at all levels of the process. On the one hand, it
alone is capable of realizing capitalism's supreme goal, which is to produce lack
in the large aggregates, to introduce lack where there is always too much, by
effecting the absorption of overabundant resources. On the other hand, it alone
doubles the capital and the flow of knowle dge with a capital and an equivalent
flow of stupidity that also effects an absorption and a
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 235
realization, and that ensures the in tegration of groups and individuals
into the system. Not only lack amid overabundance, but stupidity in the
midst of knowledge and science; it will be seen in particular how it is at
the level of the State and the military that the most progressive sectors
of scientific or tec hnical knowledge combine wi th those feeble archa-
isms bearing the greatest bur den of current functions.
Here Andre Gorz's double portrait of the "scientific and technical
worker" takes on its full meaning. Although he has mastered a flow of
knowledge, information, and training, he is so absorbed in capital that
the reflux of organized, axiomatized stupidity coincides with him, so
that, when he goes home in the evening, he rediscovers his little
desiring-machines by tinkering with a television set—O despair.80 Of
course the scientist as such has no re volutionary potential; he is the first
integrated agent of integration, a refuge for bad conscience, and the
forced destroyer of his own creativity. Le t us consider the more striking
example of a career a I'america ine, with abrupt mutations, just as we
imagine such a career to be: Gregory Bateson begins by fleeing the
civilized world, by becoming an ethnologist and following the primitive
codes and the savage flows; then he turns in the direction of flows that
are more and more decoded, those of schizophrenia, from which he
extracts an interesting psychoanalytic theory; then, still in search of a
beyond, of another wall to break th rough, he turns to dolphins, to the
language of dolphins, to flows that are even stranger and more
deter-ritorialized. But where does the dolphin flux end, if not with the
basic research projects of the American army, which brings us back to
preparations for war and to the absorption of surplus value.
In comparison to the capitalist State, the socialist States are
children—but children who learned something from their father con-
cerning the axiomatizing role of the State. But the socialist States have
more trouble stopping unexpected flow leakage except by direct vio-
lence. What on the contrary is called the co-opting power of capitalism
can be explained by the fact that its axiomatic is not more flexible, but
wider and more englobing. In such a system no one escapes participation
in the activity of antiproduction that drives the entire productive system.
"But it is not only those who man and supply the military machine who
Capitalism and Antiproduction
- Capitalism maintains power through an expansive axiomatic that co-opts all participants into a system of antiproduction.
- The modern economy is characterized by an interdependence where nearly every worker contributes to anti-human enterprises, from military supply to the creation of artificial needs.
- Surplus value is redefined as the incommensurability between the flow of labor and the machinic flow of scientific and technical codes.
- Money operates in two distinct modes: a deterritorialized flow of infinite debt created ex nihilo by banks, and a reflux of purchasing power distributed as income.
- The capitalist system functions by constantly injecting antiproduction into the producing apparatus to absorb and realize surplus value.
An economist of the caliber of Bernard Schmitt finds strangely lyrical words to characterize this flow of infinite debt: an instantaneous creative flow that the banks create spontaneously as a debt owing to themselves, a creation ex nihilo.
cerning the axiomatizing role of the State. But the socialist States have
more trouble stopping unexpected flow leakage except by direct vio-
lence. What on the contrary is called the co-opting power of capitalism
can be explained by the fact that its axiomatic is not more flexible, but
wider and more englobing. In such a system no one escapes participation
in the activity of antiproduction that drives the entire productive system.
"But it is not only those who man and supply the military machine who
are engaged in an anti-human enterprise. The same can be said in
varying degrees of many millions of other workers who produce, and
create wants for, goods and services which no one needs. And so
interdependent are the various sector s and branches of the economy that
nearly everyone is involved in one way or another in these anti-human
activities: the farmer supplying food to troops fighting in
238 ANTI-OEDIPUS
Vietnam, the tool and die makers turning out the intricate machinery needed for a
new automobile model, the manufacturers of paper and ink and TV sets whose
products are used to control the minds of the people, and so on and so on."81
Thus the three segments of the ever widening capitalist reproduction process are
joined, three segments that also define th e three aspects of its immanence: (1) the
one that extracts human surplus value on the basis of the differential relation
between decoded flows of labor and production, and th at moves from the center
to the periphery while nevertheless mainta ining vast residual zones at the center;
(2) the one that extracts mach inic surplus value, on the basis of an axiomatic of
the flows of scientific and technical code , in the "core" areas of the center; (3)
and the one that absorbs or realizes these two forms of surplus value of flux by
guaranteeing the emission of both, and by constantly injecting antiproduction
into the producing apparatus. Schizophren ization occurs on the/periphery, but it
occurs at the center a nd at the core as well.
The definition of surplus value must be modified in terms of the machinic
surplus value of constant capital, which distinguishes itself from the human
surplus value of variable capital and fr om the nonmeas-urable nature of this
aggregate of surplus value of flux. It ca nnot be defined by th e difference between
the value of labor capacity and the value created by labor capacity, but by the
incommensurability between two flows that are nonetheless immanent to each
other, by the disparity between the two as pects of money that express them, and
by the absence of a limit exterior to their relationship—the one measuring the
true economic force, the other measuring a purchasing power determined as
"income." The first is the immense deterr itorialized flow that constitutes the full
body of capital. An economist of the ca liber of Bernard Schmitt finds strange
lyrical words to characterize this flow of infinite debt: an instantaneous creative
flow that the banks create spontaneously as a debt owing to themselves, a
creation ex nihilo that, instead of transferring a pre-existing currency as means of
payment, hollows out at one extreme of the full body a negative money (a debt
entered as a liability of the banks), and projects at the other extreme a positive
money (a credit granted the productive economy by the banks)—"a flow
possessing a power of mutation" that does n ot enter into income an d is not
assigned to purch ases, a pure availability, nonpossession and nonwealth.82 The
other aspect of money represents the reflux, that is, the relationship that it
assumes with goods as soon as it acquires a purchasing power through its
distribution to workers or production factors, through its allotment in the form of
incomes—a
SAVAGES. BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 237
relationship that it loses as soon as the latter are converted into real
goods (at which point everything r ecommences by means of a new
The Schizo-Economic Flow
- The text describes a dual nature of money: a creative flow of pure availability and a reflux that constitutes purchasing power.
- Capitalism functions through the incommensurability of these flows, allowing profit to bypass the cycle of wages and consumption.
- The system maintains a cynical facade where no one is technically 'robbed' because the creative flow of capital precedes the existence of purchasing power.
- Capitalism demonstrates extreme flexibility by constantly adding new axioms to its system to absorb dissent, unions, or even the 'language of dolphins.'
- Money and the market act as the 'true police' of capitalism, maintaining a fathomless abyss between merchant capital and the impotent purchasing power of the worker.
How much flexibility there is in the axiomatic of capitalism, always ready to widen its own limits so as to add a new axiom to a previously saturated system!
possessing a power of mutation" that does n ot enter into income an d is not
assigned to purch ases, a pure availability, nonpossession and nonwealth.82 The
other aspect of money represents the reflux, that is, the relationship that it
assumes with goods as soon as it acquires a purchasing power through its
distribution to workers or production factors, through its allotment in the form of
incomes—a
SAVAGES. BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 237
relationship that it loses as soon as the latter are converted into real
goods (at which point everything r ecommences by means of a new
production that will first come under th e sway of the first aspect). The
incommensurability of the two asp ects—the flux and the reflux—shows
that nominal wages fail to embrace the totality of the national income,
since the wage earners allow a great quantity of revenues to escape.
These revenues are tapped by the firms and in turn form an afflux by
means of a conjunction; a flow —this time uninterrupted—of raw profit,
constituting "at one go" an undivided quantity flowing over the full
body, however diverse the uses for which it is allocated (interest,
dividends, management salaries, purchase of production goods, etc.).83
The incompetent observer has the impression that this whole economic
schema, this whole story is profoundly schizo. The aim of the theory is
clear—a theory that refrains, however, from employing any moral
reference. "Who is robbed?" is the serious implied question that echoes
Clavel's ironic question, "Who is alienated?" Yet no one is or can be
robbed—just as, according to Ga vel, one no longer knows who is
alienated or who does the alienatin g. Who steals? Certainly not the
finance capitalist as the represen tative of the great instantaneous
creative flow, which is not even a possession and has no purchasing
power. Who is robbed? Certainly not the worker who is not even bought,
since the reflux or salary distribution creates the purchasing power,
instead of presupposing it. Who would be capable of stealing? Certainly
not the industrial capitalist as the representative of the afflux of profit,
since "profits do not flow in the refl ux, but side by side with, deviating
from rather than penalizing the flow that creates incomes." How much
flexibility there is in the axiomatic of capitalism, always ready to widen
its own limits so as to add a new ax iom to a previously saturated system!
You say you want an axiom for wage earners, for the working class and
the unions? Well then, let's see what we can do—and thereafter profit
will flow alongside wages, side by side, reflux and afflux. An axiom will
be found even for the language of dolphins. Marx often alluded to the
Golden Age of the capitalist, when the latter didn't hide his own
cynicism: in the beginning, at least, he could not be unaware of what he
was doing, extorting surplus value. But how this cynicism has grown—to
the point where he is able to declare: no, nobody is being robbed! For
everything is then based on the dispar ity between two kinds of flows, as
in the fathomless abyss where profit and surplus value are engendered:
the flow of merchant capital's ec onomic force and the flow that is
derisively named "purchasing power"—a flow made truly impotent that
represents the absolute impotence of the wage earner as well as the
238 ANTI-OEDIPUS
relative dependence of the industrial capitalist. This is money and the
market, capitalism's true police.
In a certain sense, capitalist economists are not mistaken when they
present the economy as being perpetually "in need of monetarization,"
as if it were always necessary to inject money into the economy from
the outside according to a supply and a demand. In this manner the
system indeed holds together and functions, and perpetually fulfills its
own immanence. In this manner it is indeed the global object of an
investment of desire. Th e wage earner's desire, the capitalist's desire,
The Flows of Capitalist Desire
- Capitalism functions by perpetually injecting money into the economy, creating a system where desire is invested directly into the movement of flows.
- The integration of desire into the social field occurs at the level of monetary and commodity flows rather than through mere ideology.
- The text questions whether the revolutionary path lies in withdrawing from the market or in accelerating the process of deterritorialization.
- Capitalism is described as 'profoundly illiterate,' marking a break from the overcoding and despotic signifiers associated with imperial writing.
- The true productive essence of capitalism can only function through the monetary forms that control it and capture the desire of both wage earners and capitalists.
Not to withdraw from the process, but to go further, to 'accelerate the process,' as Nietzsche put it: in this matter, the truth is that we haven't seen anything yet.
market, capitalism's true police.
In a certain sense, capitalist economists are not mistaken when they
present the economy as being perpetually "in need of monetarization,"
as if it were always necessary to inject money into the economy from
the outside according to a supply and a demand. In this manner the
system indeed holds together and functions, and perpetually fulfills its
own immanence. In this manner it is indeed the global object of an
investment of desire. Th e wage earner's desire, the capitalist's desire,
everything moves to the rhythm of one and the same desire, founded on
the differential relation of flows hav ing no assi gnable ext erior limit, and
where capitalism reproduces its immanent limits on an ever widening and
more compr ehensive s cale. Hence it is at the level of a generalized
theory of flows that one is able to reply to the ques tion: how does one
come to desire strength while also desiring one's own impotence? How
was such a social field able to be invested by desire? And how far does
desire go beyond so-called objective interests, when it is a question of
flows to set in motion and to break ? Doubtless Marxists will remind us
that the formation of money as a specific relation within capitalism
depends on the mode of production th at makes the economy a monetary
economy. The fact remains that the apparent objective movement of
capital—which is by no means a failure to recognize or an illusion of
consciousness—shows that the produc tive essence of capitalism can
itself function only in this necessarily monetary or commodity form that
cor.jols it, and whose flows and re lations between flows contain the
secret of the investment of desire. It is at the level of flows, the
monetary flows included, and not at the level of ideology, that the
integration of desire is achieved.
So what is the solution? Which is the revolutionary path? Psychoa-
nalysis is of little help, entertaining as it does the most intimate of
relations with money, and recordi ng—while refusing to recognize it—an
entire system of economic-monetary dependences at the heart of the
desire of every subject it treats. Psychoanalysis constitutes for its part a
gigantic enterprise of absorption of surplus value. But which is the
revolutionary path? Is there one?—To withdraw from the world market,
as Samir Amin advises Third World c ountries to do, in a curious revival
of the fascist "economic solution"? Or might it be to go in the opposite
direction? To go still further, that is, in the movement of the market, of
decoding and deterritorialization? For perhaps the flows are not yet
deterritorialized enough, not decode d enough, from the viewpoint of a
theory and a practice of a highly schizophrenic character. Not to
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 239
withdraw from the process, but to go fu rther, to "accelerate the process," as
Nietzsche put it: in this matter, the trut h is that we haven't seen anything yet.
10 Capitalist Representation
Writing has never been capitalism's thing. Capitalism is
profoundly illiterate. The death of writing is like the death of God or the death of
the father: the thing was settled a long ti me ago, although the news of the event
is slow to reach us, and there survives in us the memory of extinct signs with
which we still write. The reason for this is simple: writing implies a use of
language in general according to which graphism becomes aligned on the voice,
but also overcodes it and induces a fictiti ous voice from on high that functions as
a signifier. The arbitrary nature of the thing designated, the subordination of the
signified, the transcendence of the despotic signifier, and finally, its consecutive
decomposition into minimal elements within a field of immanence uncovered by
the withdrawal of the despot—all this is evidence that writing belongs to
imperial despotic representation. Once this is said, what exactly is meant when
Despotic Writing and Decoded Flows
- Writing is historically linked to imperial despotic representation, where it overcodes the voice to create a transcendent signifier from on high.
- In capitalism, writing and the Gutenberg press function as archaisms that are adapted to money but are being superseded by a new field of immanence.
- The transition from the 'Gutenberg galaxy' to electric language marks a shift from signifiers that strangle flows to nonsignifying languages of decoded flows.
- Modern technical machines, such as computers and television, operate through 'points-signs' or schizzes that form images without maintaining a fixed identity.
- This new language of information is indifferent to its substance, utilizing indeterminate flows like electricity or gas to achieve instantaneous decoding.
Three million points per second transmitted by television, only a few of which are retained.
language in general according to which graphism becomes aligned on the voice,
but also overcodes it and induces a fictiti ous voice from on high that functions as
a signifier. The arbitrary nature of the thing designated, the subordination of the
signified, the transcendence of the despotic signifier, and finally, its consecutive
decomposition into minimal elements within a field of immanence uncovered by
the withdrawal of the despot—all this is evidence that writing belongs to
imperial despotic representation. Once this is said, what exactly is meant when
someone announces the collapse of the "Gutenberg galaxy"? Of course
capitalism has made and continues to make use of writing; not only is writing
adapted to money as the general equivale nt, but the specific functions of money
in capitalism went by way of writing and pr inting, and in some measure continue
to do so. The fact nonetheless remains that writing typically plays the role of an
archaism in capitalism, the Gutenberg pre ss being the element that confers on the
archaism a current function. But the capitalist use of language is different in
nature; it is realized or becomes concre te within the field of immanence peculiar
to capitalism itself, with the appearance of the technical means of expression that
correspond to the generalized decoding of flows, instead of still referring, in a
direct or indirect form, to despotic overcoding.
This seems to us to be the significance of McLuhan's analyses: to have
shown what a language of decoded flows is, as opposed to a signifier that
strangles and overcodes the flows. In th e first place, for nonsignifying language
anything will do: whether it be phonic, gr aphic, gestural, etc., no flow is
privileged in this language, which remain s indifferent to its substance or its
support, inasmuch as the latter is an amorphous continuum. The electric flow
can be considered as the realization of su ch a flow that is indeterminate as such.
But a substance is said to be formed when a flow enters into a relationship with
another
ANTI-OEDIPUS
flow, such that the first defines a content and the second, an expression.*
The deterritorialized flows of content and expression are in a state of
conjunction or reciprocal precondition that constitutes figures as the
ultimate units of both content and expression. These figures do not
derive from a signifier nor are they even signs as minimal elements of the
signifier; they are nonsigns, or rather nonsignifying signs, points-signs
having several dimensions, flows-break s or schizzes that form images
through their coming together in a w hole, but that do not maintain any
identity when they pass from one whole to another. Hence the figures,
that is, the schizzes or breaks-flows are in no way "figurative"; they
become figurative only in a particul ar constellation that dissolves in
order to be replaced by another one. Three million points per second
transmitted by television, only a few of which are retained. Electric
language does not go by way of the voice or writing; data processing
does without them both, as does th at discipline appropriately named
fluidics, which operates by means of streams of gas; the computer is a
machine for instantaneous and gene ralized decoding. Michel Serres
defines in this sense the correlation of the break and the flow in the signs
of the new technical language mach ines, where production is narrowly
determined by information: "Take for example a cloverleaf highway
interchange. ... It is a quasi point that analyses, through multiple
overlappings, along a dimension that is normal to the network space, the
lines of flow for which it serves as a receiver. On it one can go from any
afferent direction to any efferent direction, and in whatever order,
without ever encountering any of the other directions . ... If I like, I will
never come bac k to the same point, although it will be the same. ... A
Linguistics of Flows
- The text uses the cloverleaf highway interchange as a metaphor for a multi-dimensional point where flows are connected and distributed without confusion.
- Capitalism's productive essence is described as functioning through a language of signs imposed by merchant capital and market axiomatics.
- Saussurian linguistics is critiqued for maintaining the transcendence of the signifier and subordinating the signified to a rigid system of coded gaps.
- Louis Hjelmslev's linguistics is presented as a radical alternative that establishes a pure field of algebraic immanence without a transcendent authority.
- Hjelmslev’s model replaces hierarchical double articulation with convertible deterritorialized planes of content and expression.
- The ultimate goal of this linguistic shift is to reach 'schizzes' or 'flows-breaks' that collapse the wall of the signifier and move beyond it.
A topological knot where everything is connected without confusion, where everything flows together and is distributed.
of the new technical language mach ines, where production is narrowly
determined by information: "Take for example a cloverleaf highway
interchange. ... It is a quasi point that analyses, through multiple
overlappings, along a dimension that is normal to the network space, the
lines of flow for which it serves as a receiver. On it one can go from any
afferent direction to any efferent direction, and in whatever order,
without ever encountering any of the other directions . ... If I like, I will
never come bac k to the same point, although it will be the same. ... A
topological knot where everything is connected without confusion,
where everything flows together and is distributed. . . . Thus a knot may
be seen as a point having seve ral dimensions"—which, far from
cancelling the flows, contains th em and sets them in motion.84 This
cordoning off of production through information shows once again that
the productive essence of capitalism functions or "speaks" only in the
language of signs imposed on it by me rchant capital or the axiomatic of
the market.
There are great differences between such a linguistics of flows and
linguistics of the signifier. Saussurian linguistics, for example, in effect
discovers a field of immanence constituted by "value"—i.e., by the
•Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media (New York: McGraw-Hill, Signet, 1964), p. 23: "The electric
light is pure information. It is a medium without a me ssage, as it were, unless it is used to spell out some
verbal ad or name. This fact, characteristic of all me dia, means that the content of any medium is always
another medium. The content of writing is speech, just as the written word is the content of print, and print
is the content of the telegraph."
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 241
system of relations among ultimate elemen ts of the signifier; but apart from the
fact that this field of immanence s till presupposes the transcendence of the
signifier, which uncovers the field if only through the signifier's own withdrawal,
the elements populating this field have for a criterion a minimal identity that they
owe to their relations of opposition, and that they keep throughout all the types of
variations affecting them. The elements of the signifier as distinguishing units are
regulated by "coded gaps" that the signifier overcodes in its turn. There result
diverse but always convergent conseque nces: the comparison of language to a
game; the signified-signifier relationshi p, where the signified finds itself by
nature subordinated to the signifier; figur es defined as effects of the signifier
itself; the formal elements of the signi fier determined in relation to a phonic
substance on which writing even confers a s ecret privilege. We believe that, from
all points of view and despite certain appearances, Louis Hjelmslev's linguistics
stands in profound opposition to the Saussurian and post-Saussurian undertaking.
Because it abandons all privileged referen ce. Because it describes a pure field of
algebraic immanence that no longer allo ws any surveillance on the part of a
transcendent instance, even one that has withdrawn. Because within this field it
sets in motion its flows of form and subs tance, content and expression. Because it
substitutes the relationship of recipro cal precondition between expression and
content for the relationship of subordin ation between signifier and signified.
Because there no longer occurs a double articulation between two hierarchized
levels of language, but between two convertible deterritorialized planes,
constituted by the relation between the form of content and the form of
expression. Because in this relation one reaches figures that are no longer effects
of a signifier, but schizzes, points-signs, or flows-breaks that collapse the wall of
the signifier, pass through, and continue on beyond. Because these signs have
The Destruction of the Signifier
- Hjelmslev's linguistics is presented as a radical departure from traditional structuralism by replacing the hierarchy of signifier and signified with convertible deterritorialized planes.
- The text argues that Hjelmslev's theory is uniquely modern because it aligns with the decoded flows of both global capitalism and schizophrenia.
- J.-F. Lyotard’s critique further dismantles the signifier by introducing 'the figural,' which short-circuits coded gaps and allows language to serve the order of desire.
- Language is reimagined not as a system of identity, but as a series of 'schizzes' or 'points-signs' that break through the wall of the signifier to set flows in motion.
- The plastic arts, exemplified by Paul Klee, reveal a pure figural dimension that exists in the 'intermundia' visible only to children and madmen.
In short, Hjelmslev's very special position in linguistics, and the reactions he provokes, seem to be explained by the following: that he tends to fashion a purely immanent theory of language that shatters the double game of the voice-graphism domination.
content for the relationship of subordin ation between signifier and signified.
Because there no longer occurs a double articulation between two hierarchized
levels of language, but between two convertible deterritorialized planes,
constituted by the relation between the form of content and the form of
expression. Because in this relation one reaches figures that are no longer effects
of a signifier, but schizzes, points-signs, or flows-breaks that collapse the wall of
the signifier, pass through, and continue on beyond. Because these signs have
crossed a new threshold of deterritoria lization. Because these figures have
definitively lost the minimum conditions of identity that defined the elements of
the signifier itself. Because in Hjelmslev' s linguistics the order of the elements is
secondary in relation to the axiomatic of flows and figures. Because the money
model in the point-sign, or in the figur e-break stripped of its identity, having now
only a floating identity, tends to replace the model of the game. In short,
Hjelmslev's very special position in lingui stics, and the reactions he provokes,
seem to be explained by the following: that he tends to fashion a purely immanent
theory of language that shatters the double game of the voice-graphism
domination; that causes form and substa nce, content and expression to flow
according to the flows of desire; and that breaks these flows according to
points-signs and figures-
242 ANTI-OEDIPUS
schizzes.* Far from being an overde termination of structuralism and of
its fondness for the signifier, Hjelmslev's linguistics implies the concert-
ed destruction of the signifier, and constitutes a decoded theory of
language about which one can also sa y—an ambiguous tribute—that it is
the only linguistics adapted to the nature of both the capitalist and the
schizophrenic flows: until now, the only modern—and not archaic—
theory of language.
The extreme importance of J.-F. Lyot ard's recent book is due to its
position as the first generalized critique of the signifier. In his most
general proposition, in fa ct, he shows that the signifier is overtaken
toward the outside by figurative images , just as it is ovvertaken toward
the inside by the pure figures that compose it—or, more decisively, by
"the figural" that comes to short-circuit the signifier's coded gaps,
inserting itself between them, and working under the conditions of
identity of their elements. In language and in writing itself, sometimes
the letters as breaks, as shattered partial objects—and sometimes the
words as undivided flows, as nondecomposable blocks, or full bodies
having a tonic value—constitute assignifying signs that deliver them-
selves over to the order of desire: rushes of breath and cries. (In
particular, formal investigations concerning manual or printed writing
change their meaning according to whether the characteristics of the
letters and the qualities of the words are in the service of a signifier,
whose effects they express following exegetical rules; or whether, on the
contrary, they break through this wall so as to set flows in motion, and
establish breaks that overflow or rupture the sign's conditions of
identity, and that cause books within "the book" to flow and to
disintegrate, entering into multiple configurations whose possibilities
were already the object of the ty pographical exercises of Mallarme—
always passing underneath the signifier, filing through the wall: which
again shows that the death of writing is infinite, so long as it arises and
arrives from within.)
Similarly, in the plastic arts th ere is the pure figural dimension
formed by the active line and the multidimensional point, and on the
other hand, the multiple configurations formed by the passive line and
the surface it engenders, so as to reveal—as in Paul Klee—those
"intermundia that perhaps are visible only to children, madmen, and
The Figural Dimension of Desire
- The text explores the 'figural dimension' as a force that exists beneath the signifier, manifesting in plastic arts and dreams as a flow of images rather than linguistic structures.
- Lyotard's theory is credited with reversing the traditional hierarchy, suggesting that the signifying chain actually depends on figural effects and 'asignifying signs.'
- The author identifies the 'figure-matrix' with desire itself, a process that leads toward the 'flux-schiz' and the boundaries of schizophrenia.
- Despite this breakthrough, the text critiques Lyotard for reintroducing lack and the law of castration, which risks restoring the weight of the signifier and overcoding desire.
- The passage concludes that major forces like capitalism, revolution, and schizophrenia do not follow the regulated paths of the signifier or the 'archaic despot' of structuralism.
The pure figural element—the 'figure-matrix'—Lyotard correctly names desire, which carries us to the gates of schizophrenia as a process.
always passing underneath the signifier, filing through the wall: which
again shows that the death of writing is infinite, so long as it arises and
arrives from within.)
Similarly, in the plastic arts th ere is the pure figural dimension
formed by the active line and the multidimensional point, and on the
other hand, the multiple configurations formed by the passive line and
the surface it engenders, so as to reveal—as in Paul Klee—those
"intermundia that perhaps are visible only to children, madmen, and
primitives."85 Or in dreams: in some very beautiful pages, Lyotard
shows that what is at work in dreams is not the signifier but a figural
*Nicolas Ruwet, for example, takes Hjelmslev to task for having elaborated a theory whose applications are
on the order of Jabberwocky or Finnegans Wake: Introduction a la gr ammaire gen erative (Paris: Plon,
1967), p. 54. (Regarding Hjelmslev's indifference to the "o rder of the elements," see p. 345.) Andre Martinet
stresses the loss of the conditions of identity in Hjelmslev's theory: An sujet des fondements de l a theorie
linguistique de Louis Hjelmslev, 2nd ed. (Paris: Paulet, 1946).
SAVAGES. BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 243
dimension underneath, which gives rise to configurations of images that make
use of words, making them flow and cu tting them according to flows and points
that are not linguistic and do not depend on the signifier or its regulated
elements. Thus Lyotard everywhere revers es the order of the signifier and the
figure. It is not the figures that depend on the signifier and its effects, but the
signifying chain that depends on the fi gural effects—this chain itself being
composed of asignifying signs— crushing th e signifiers as well as the signifieds,
treating words as things, fabricating new unities, creating from nonfigurative
figures configurations of images that form and then disintegrate. And these
constellations are like flows that imply the breaks effected by points, just as the
points imply the fluxion of the material they cause to flow or leak: the sole unity
without identity is that of the flux-sc hiz or the break-flow. The pure figural
element—the "figure-matrix"—Lyotard correctly names desire, which carries us
to the gates of schizophrenia as a process.86
But what explains the reader's impr ession that Lyotard is continually
arresting the process, and steering the sc hizzes toward shores he has so recently
left behind: toward coded or overcoded territories, spaces, and structures, to
which they bring only "transgressions," disorders, and deformations that are
secondary in spite of everything, instead of forming and transporting further the
desiring-machines that are in opposition to the structures, and the intensities that
are in opposition to the spaces? The explanation is that, despite his attempt at
linking desire to a fundamental yes, Lyotard reintroduces lack and absence into
desire; maintains desire under the law of castration, at the risk of restoring the
entire signifier along with the law; and discovers the matrix of the figure in
fantasy, the simple fantasy that comes to veil desiring-production, the whole of
desire as effective production. But at l east for an instant the mortgage of the
signifier was raised: that enormous archai sm that causes so many of us to groan
and bow under its weight, and that others use to establish a new terrorism,
diverting Lacan's imperial discourse into a university discourse characterized by
a pure scientificity,that "scientifi-city " perfectly suited for resupplying our
neuroses, for strangling the process once again, and for overcoding Oedipus with
castration, while chaining us to the curre nt structural functions of a vanished
archaic despot. For it is certain that, even and especially in their manifestations
of extreme force, neither capitalism nor revolution nor schizophrenia follows the
paths of the signifier.
Capitalism and the Schizophrenic Process
- Capitalism is defined by the universal decoding and deterritorialization of flows, ranging from private property and labor to monetary quantities and scientific codes.
- While capitalism and schizophrenia share an affinity through the decoding of desire, capitalism simultaneously produces and arrests the schizophrenic process.
- The capitalist system views the schizophrenic as a clinical entity or a 'sick person' because the process represents the system's own internal death or limit.
- Society maintains close surveillance over artists and scientists to prevent the release of dangerous, revolutionary flows that might escape market co-option.
- The text argues that psychoanalysis and ethnology function as morbid tools for translating and ultimately destroying archaic codes within modern society.
Our society produces schizos the same way it produces Prell shampoo or Ford cars, the only difference being that the schizos are not salable.
diverting Lacan's imperial discourse into a university discourse characterized by
a pure scientificity,that "scientifi-city " perfectly suited for resupplying our
neuroses, for strangling the process once again, and for overcoding Oedipus with
castration, while chaining us to the curre nt structural functions of a vanished
archaic despot. For it is certain that, even and especially in their manifestations
of extreme force, neither capitalism nor revolution nor schizophrenia follows the
paths of the signifier.
Civilization is defined by the decoding and the deterritorialization of flows
in capitalist production. Any method will do for ensuring this universal
decoding: the privatization brought to b ear on property, goods, and the means of
production, but also on the organs of "private man"
244 ANTI-OEDIPUS
himself; the abstraction of monetary qua ntities, but also the abstraction of the
quantity of labor; the limitless nature of the relationship between capital and
labor capacity, and between the flows of financing and the flows of incomes or
means of payment; the scientific and t echnical form assumed by flows of code
themselves; the formation of floating c onfigurations starting from lines and
points without a discernible identity. The route taken by the decoded flows is
traced by recent monetary history: the role of the dollar, short-term migrating
capital, the floating of currencies, the new means of financing and credit, the
special drawing rights, and the new form of crises and speculations. Our
societies exhibit a marked taste for all codes—codes foreign or exotic—but this
taste is destructive and morbid. Wh ile decoding doubtless means understanding
and translating a code, it also means dest roying the code as su ch, assigning it an
archaic, folkloric, or residual functi on, which makes of psychoanalysis and
ethnology two disciplines highly regarded in our modern societies. Yet it would
be a serious error to consider the capitalist flows a nd the schizophrenic flows as
identical, under the general theme of a decoding of the flows of desire. Their
affinity is great, to be sure: everywhere capitalism sets in motion schizo-flows
that animate "our" arts and "our" scie nces, just as they congeal into the
production of "our own" sick, the schi zophrenics. We have seen that the
relationship of schizophrenia to capita lism went far beyond problems of modes
of living, environment, ideology, etc., and that it should be examined at the
deepest level of one and the same economy, one and the same production
process. Our society produces schizos the same way it produces Prell shampoo
or Ford cars, the only difference being that the schizos are not salable. How then
does one explain the fact that capitalist production is constantly arresting the
schizophrenic process and transforming the subject of the process into a confined
clinical entity, as though it saw in this process the image of its own death coming
from within? Why does it make the schizophrenic into a sick person— not only
nominally but in reality? Why does it confine its madmen and madwomen
instead of seeing in them its own hero s and heroines, its own fulfillment? And
where it can no longer recognize the figure of a simple illness, why does it keep
its artists and even its scientists unde r such close surveillance—as though they
risked unleashing flows that would be dangerous for capitalist production and
charged with a revolutionary potential, so long as these flows are not co-opted or
absorbed by the laws of th e market? Why does it form in turn a gigantic machine
for social repression-psychic repression, aimed at what nevertheless constitutes
its own reality—the decoded flows?
The answer—as we have seen—is th at capitalism is indeed the limit
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 245
of all societies, insofar as it brings about the decoding of the flows that
Capitalism and the Schizophrenic Limit
- Capitalism functions by decoding traditional social flows while simultaneously binding them within a rigorous, repressive axiomatic system.
- Schizophrenia represents the absolute limit of capitalism, where flows of desire travel in a free state on a desocialized body without organs.
- The capitalist system operates by constantly displacing its own limits, axiomatizing with one hand what it decodes with the other to prevent revolutionary potential.
- While the language of bankers and managers is technically schizophrenic, it is rendered functional and safe through a flattening axiomatic of connections.
- The distinction between capitalism and schizophrenia lies in whether decoded flows are captured by statistical aggregates or reach an unbound molecular state.
It axiomatizes with one hand what it decodes with the other.
risked unleashing flows that would be dangerous for capitalist production and
charged with a revolutionary potential, so long as these flows are not co-opted or
absorbed by the laws of th e market? Why does it form in turn a gigantic machine
for social repression-psychic repression, aimed at what nevertheless constitutes
its own reality—the decoded flows?
The answer—as we have seen—is th at capitalism is indeed the limit
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 245
of all societies, insofar as it brings about the decoding of the flows that
the other social formations coded and overcoded. But it is the relative
limit of every society; it effects relative breaks, because it substitutes for
the codes an extremely rigorous axiomatic that maintains the energy of
the flows in a bound state on the body of capital as a socius that is
deterritorialized, but also a socius that is even more pitiless than any
other. Schizophrenia, on the contrary, is indeed the absolute limit that
causes the flows to travel in a free state on a desocialized body without
organs. Hence one can say that schizophrenia is the exterior limit of
capitalism itself or the conclusion of its deepest tendency, but that
capitalism only functions on condition th at it inhibit this tendency, or
that it push back or displace this limit, by substituting for it its own
immanent relative limits, which it conti nually reproduces on a widened
scale. It axiomatizes with one hand what it decodes with the other. Such
is the way one must reinterpret th e Marxist law of the counteracting
tendency. With the result that schizophrenia pervades the entire capital-
ist field from one end to the other. But for capitalism it is a question of
binding the schizophrenic charges and energies into a world axiomatic
that always opposes the revolutionary potential of decoded flows with
new interior limits. And it is impossibl e in such a regime to distinguish,
even in two phases, between decoding and the axiomatization that
comes to replace the vanished codes. The flows are decoded and
axiomatized by capitalism at the same time. Hence schizophrenia is not
the identity of capitalism, but on th e contrary its difference, its diver-
gence, and its death. Monetary flows are perfectly schizophrenic
realities, but they exist and function only within the immanent axiomatic
that exorcises and repels this reality. The language of a banker, a
general, an industrialist, a middle or high-level manager, or a govern-
ment minister is a perfectly schiz ophrenic language, but that functions
only statistically within the flattening axiomatic of connections that puts
it in the service of the capitalist order.87 (At the highest level of
linguistics as a science, Hjelmslev is able to effect a vast decoding of
language only by setting in motion from the start an axiomatic machine
based on the supposed finite number of the figures considered.) Then
what becomes of the "truly" schi zophrenic language and the "truly"
decoded and unbound flows that manage to break through the wall or
absolute limit? The capitalist axiomatic is so rich that one more axiom is
added—for the books of a great writer whose lexical and stylistic
characteristics can always be computed by means of an electronic
machine, or for the discourse of madmen that can always be heard
within the framework of a hospital, administrative, and psychiatric
axiomatic. In brief, the notion of br eak-flow has seemed to us to define
2 4 6 A N T I - O E D I P U S
both capitalism and schizophrenia. But not in the same way; they are not
at all the same thing, depending on whether the decodings are caught up
in an axiomatic or not; on whether one remains at the level of the large
aggregates functioning statistically, or crosses the barrier that separates
them from the unbound molecular positions; on whether the flows of
desire reach this absolute limit or are content to displace a relative
Capitalism and the Unavowable
- The concept of break-flow defines both capitalism and schizophrenia, though they differ based on whether decodings are captured by an axiomatic system.
- Capitalism is unique because it represents the beginning of the 'unavowable,' where economic operations reveal an intrinsic perversion or cynicism when decoded.
- Unlike precapitalist formations, capitalism cannot be coded because codes are qualitative and limited, whereas capitalist quantities presuppose an unlimited equivalence.
- In non-capitalist societies, economic forces are attributed to extraeconomic instances like the earth or political relations which serve as agents of inscription.
- A code exists only where a 'full body' acting as an instance of antiproduction falls back on and appropriates the economy.
It is with the thing, capitalism, that the unavowable begins: there is not a single economic or financial operation that, assuming it is translated in terms of a code, would not lay bare its own unavowable nature, that is, its intrinsic perversion or essential cynicism.
axiomatic. In brief, the notion of br eak-flow has seemed to us to define
2 4 6 A N T I - O E D I P U S
both capitalism and schizophrenia. But not in the same way; they are not
at all the same thing, depending on whether the decodings are caught up
in an axiomatic or not; on whether one remains at the level of the large
aggregates functioning statistically, or crosses the barrier that separates
them from the unbound molecular positions; on whether the flows of
desire reach this absolute limit or are content to displace a relative
immanent limit that will reconstitute itself further along; on whether
controlling reterritorializations are added to the processes of
deterritor-ialization; and on whether money burns or bursts into flames.
Why not merely say that capitalism replaces one code with another,
that it carries into effect a new type of coding? For two reasons, one of
which represents a kind of moral impossibility, the other a logical
impossibility. All the cruelties and terrors meet in the precapitalist
formations; some fragments of the signifying chain are struck by
secrecy—secret societies or initia tion groups— but there is never any-
thing in these societies that is, strictly speaking, unavowable. It is with
the thing, capitalism, that the unavowable begins: there is not a single
economic or financial operation that, assu ming it is translated in terms of
a code, would not lay bare its own unavowable nature, that is, its
intrinsic perversion or essential cynici sm (the age of bad conscience is
also the age of pure cynicism). But in point of fact it is impossible to
code such operations: in the first place, a code determines the respective
qualities of the flows passing through the socius (for example, the three
circuits of consumer goods, prestige goods, and women and children);
the characteristic object of codes is therefore to establish necessarily
indirect relations among these qualif ied and therefore incommensurable
codes. Such relations indeed imp ly a quantitative siphoning off of
portions of the different sorts of flows, but these quantities do not enter
into equivalences that would presuppose an unlimited "something"; they
simply form composites that are themselves qualitative, essentially
mobile and limited, where differences between the elements compensate
the disequilibrium (whence the relati onship of prestige and consumption
in the block of finite debt).
All these code characteristics—indirect, qualitative, and limited—
are sufficient to show that a code is not, and can never be, economic: on
the contrary, it expresses the appare nt objective moveme nt according to
which the economic forces or productiv e connections are attributed to
an extraeconomic instance as though they emanated from it, an instance
that serves as a support and an agen t of inscription. That is what
Althusser and Balibar show so well: how juridical and political relations
are determined as dominant —in the case of feudalism, for example—
because surplus labor as a form of surplus value constitutes a flux that is
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS. CIVILIZED MEN 247
qualitatively and temporally distinct from that of labor, and consequently must
enter into a composite that is itself qu alitative and implies noneconomic factors.*
Or the way the autochthonous relations of alliance and filiation are determined
as dominant in the so-called primitive so cieties, where the economic forces and
flows are inscribed on the full body of the earth and are attributed to it. In short,
there is a code where a full body as an instance of antiproduction falls back on
the economy that it appropriates. That is why the sign of desire, as an economic
sign that consists in producing and breaki ng flows, is accompanied by a sign of
necessarily extraeconomic power, although its causes and effects lie within the
economy (for example, the sign of allia nce in relation to the power of the
Codes and Capitalist Axiomatics
- Primitive societies utilize a social code where economic flows are inscribed on the earth and governed by extraeconomic powers like belief and alliance.
- The surplus value in coded societies is qualitative and limited, relying on a collective investment of organs to ensure social survival.
- Capitalism is defined by a social axiomatic that opposes these codes by introducing money as an abstract, indifferent, and unlimited general equivalent.
- The introduction of money destroys finite blocks of debt and decomposes the qualified flows that previously sustained the social code.
- Unlike coded flows, capitalist flows are decoded and derive their quality only through their direct differential conjunction as capital.
The introduction of money as an equivalent—which makes it possible to begin and end with money, therefore never to end at all—is enough to disturb the circuits of qualified flows, to decompose the finite blocks of debt, and to destroy the very basis of codes.
as dominant in the so-called primitive so cieties, where the economic forces and
flows are inscribed on the full body of the earth and are attributed to it. In short,
there is a code where a full body as an instance of antiproduction falls back on
the economy that it appropriates. That is why the sign of desire, as an economic
sign that consists in producing and breaki ng flows, is accompanied by a sign of
necessarily extraeconomic power, although its causes and effects lie within the
economy (for example, the sign of allia nce in relation to the power of the
creditor). Or—what amounts to the sa me thing—surplus value here is
determined as a surplus value of code . Hence the code relation is not only
indirect, qualitative, and limited; because of these very characteristics, it is also
extraeconomic, and by virtue of this fact engineers the couplings between
qualified flows. Consequently it implies a system of collective appraisal and
evaluation, and a setof organs of percepti on, or more precisely of belief, as a
condition of existence and survival of the society in question—thus the
collective investment of organs that cau ses men to be directly coded, and the
appraising eye as we have analyzed it in the primitive system. It should be noted
that these general traits characterizing a code are rediscovered precisely in what
today is called a genetic code; not because it depends on an effect of a signifier,
but on the contrary because the chain it constitutes is only signifying in a
secondary way, insofar as it calls into play couplings between qualified flows,
interactions that are exclusively i ndirect, qualitative composites that are
essentially limited, and organs of perception and extrachemical factors that
select and appropriate the cellular connections.
So many reasons for defining capitalism by a social axiomatic that stands
opposed to codes in every respect. First of all, money as a general equivalent
represents an abstract quantity that is indifferent to the qua lified nature of the
flows. But the equivalence itself point s to the position of a relation without
limitation: in the formula M-C-M, "the circulation of money as capital has
therefore no limits."88 The studies of Bohannan concerning the Tiv of the Niger
River, or those of Salisbury concerning the Siane of New Guinea, have shown
how the introduction of money as an e quivalent—which makes it possible to
begin and end with money, therefore ne ver to end at all—is enough to disturb
the
*See Marx, Capital, Vol. 3, p. 791:, 'Under such conditions the surplus-labour for the nominal owner of the
land can only be extorted from them by other than ec onomic pressure, whatever the form assumed may be."
248 ANTI-OEDIPUS
circuits of qualified flows, to decompose th e finite blocks of debt, and to destroy
the very basis of codes. Secondly, the fact remains that money as an unlimited
abstract quantity cannot be divorced from a becoming-concrete without which it
would not become capital and would not appropriate production. We have seen
that this becoming-concrete appeared in the differential relation; but it must be
borne in mind that the differential relati on is not an indirect relation between
qualified or coded flows, it is a direct relation between d ecoded flows whose
respective qualities have no existence prior to the differential relation itself. The
quality of the flows results solely from their conjunction as decoded flows;
outside this conjunction they would re main purely virtual; this conjunction is
Capitalism and Decoded Flows
- Capitalism functions through a differential relation between decoded flows of labor and capital, where qualities are determined only through their conjunction.
- The system transforms the surplus value of code into a surplus value of flux, making economic power direct rather than mediated by extraeconomic factors.
- The capitalist socius is characterized as a 'naked' body where the antiproduction apparatus becomes coextensive with production itself.
- Capitalism operates by simultaneously pushing back its exterior limit of schizophrenia and widening its interior limits on an increasingly vast scale.
With the advent of capitalism the full body becomes truly naked, as does the worker himself who is attached to this full body.
would not become capital and would not appropriate production. We have seen
that this becoming-concrete appeared in the differential relation; but it must be
borne in mind that the differential relati on is not an indirect relation between
qualified or coded flows, it is a direct relation between d ecoded flows whose
respective qualities have no existence prior to the differential relation itself. The
quality of the flows results solely from their conjunction as decoded flows;
outside this conjunction they would re main purely virtual; this conjunction is
also the disjunction of the abstract qu antity through which it becomes something
concrete. Dx and dy are nothing independent of thei r relation, which determines
the one as a pure quality of the flow of la bor and the other as a pure quality of the
flow of capital. The progression is theref ore the opposite of th at of a code; it
expresses the capitalist transf ormation of the surplus valu e of code into a surplus
value of flux. Whence the fundamental cha nge in the order of powers. For if one
of the flows finds itself subordinated and enslaved to the other, the reason is
precisely that they are not to the same power (x and y2 for example), and that the
relation is established between a power a nd a given magnitude. This is something
that became evident as we pursued the analysis of capita l and labor at the level of
the differential relation between flows of financing, and flows of means of
payment or income. Such an extension merely signifies that capital has no
industrial essence functioning other than as merchant, financia l, and commercial
capital, where money would take on functions other than those deriving from its
form as the equivalent. But in this way the signs of power completely cease
being what they were from the viewpoint of a code: they become coefficients
that are directly economic, instead of being doubles to the economic signs of
desire and expressing for their part noneconomic factors determined as dominant.
That the flow of financing is raised to an entirely different power from the flow
of means of payment signifies that the power has become directly economic. And
yet, as regards paid labor, it is evident that there is no longer any need for a code
in order to ensure surplus labor, when the latter is merged qualitatively and
temporally with labor itself into one and the same simple magnitude (the
condition characterized by surplus value of flux).
Hence capital differentiates itself fr om any other socius or full body,
inasmuch as capital itself figures as a directly economic instance, and falls back
on production without interpos ing extraeconomic factors th at would be inscribed
in the form of a code. With the advent of
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 249
capitalism the full body becomes truly naked, as does the worker
himself who is attached to this full body. In this sense the antiproduction
apparatus ceases to be transcendent, and pervades all production and
becomes coextensive with it. Thirdly, as a result of these developed
conditions involving the destruction of all codes within a
becoming-concrete, the absence of lim its takes on a new meaning. This
absence no longer simply designates the unlimited abstract quantity, but
the effective absence of any limit or end for the differential relation
where the abstract becomes something concrete. Concerning capitalism,
we maintain that it both does and does not have an exterior limit: it has
an exterior limit that is schizophrenia, that is, the absolute decoding of
flows, but it functions only by push ing back and exorcising this limit.
And it also has, yet does not have, interior limits: it has interior limits
under the specific conditions of capitalist production and circulation,
that is, in capital itself, but it functions only by reproducing and
widening these limits on an always vaster scale. The strength of
The Axiomatic of Capitalism
- Capitalism functions by pushing back its exterior limit of schizophrenia while constantly widening its internal limits through an ever-expanding axiomatic.
- Unlike primitive societies that use codes to mark bodies, capitalism operates through abstract quantities and a field of immanence that requires no belief.
- The system privatizes the public sphere, allowing the entire world to unfold within the home via floating images and screens.
- Individuals are no longer implicated in a social code but are instead applied to the system as abstract labor capacity or capital.
- The strength of the capitalist axiomatic lies in its ability to remain unsaturated by adding new axioms to accommodate any flow or quantity.
Memory has become a bad thing. Above all, there is no longer any need of belief, and the capitalist is merely striking a pose when he bemoans the fact that nowadays no one believes in anything any more.
where the abstract becomes something concrete. Concerning capitalism,
we maintain that it both does and does not have an exterior limit: it has
an exterior limit that is schizophrenia, that is, the absolute decoding of
flows, but it functions only by push ing back and exorcising this limit.
And it also has, yet does not have, interior limits: it has interior limits
under the specific conditions of capitalist production and circulation,
that is, in capital itself, but it functions only by reproducing and
widening these limits on an always vaster scale. The strength of
capitalism indeed resides in the fact that its axiomatic is never saturated,
that it is always capable of addi ng a new axiom to the previous ones.
Capitalism defines a field of immanence and never ceases to fully
occupy this field. But this deterritorialized field finds itself determined
by an axiomatic, in contrast to the territorial field determined by
primitive codes. Differential relations of such a nature as to be filled by
surplus value; an absence of exterior limits that it is "filled" by the
widening of internal limits; and the effusion of antiproduction within
production so as to be filled by the absorption of surplus value—these
constitute the three aspects of capitalism's immanent axiomatic. And
monetarization everywhere comes to fill the abyss of capitalist imma-
nence, introducing there, as Schmitt sa ys, "a deformation, a convulsion,
an explosion—in a word, a move ment of extreme violence."89
There results, finally, a fourth characteristic that places the axio-
matic in opposition to codes. The ax iomatic does not need to write in
bare flesh, to mark bodies and orga ns, nor does it need to fashion a
memory for man. In contrast to codes, the axiomatic finds in its different
aspects its own organs of execution, perception, and memorization.
Memory has become a bad thing. Above all, there is no longer any need
of belief, and the capitalist is merely striking a pose when he bemoans
the fact that nowadays no one believes in anything any more. Language
no longer signifies something that must be believed, it indicates rather
what is going to be done, something that the shrewd or the competent
are able to decode, to half understa nd. Moreover, despite the abundance
of identity cards, files, and other m eans of control, capitalism does not
even need to write in books to make up for the vanished body markings.
250 ANTI-OEDIPUS
Those are only relics, archaisms with a current function. The person has
become "private" in reality, insofa r as he derives from abstract quanti-
ties and becomes concrete in the becoming-concrete of these same
quantities. It is these quantities that are marked, no longer the persons
themselves: your capital or you r labor capacity, the rest is not impor-
tant, we'll always find a place for you within the expanded limits of the
system, even if an axiom has to be created just for you. There is no
longer any need of a collective in vestment of organs, as they are
sufficiently filled with the floati ng images constantly produced by
capitalism. To pursue a remark of Henri Lefebvre's, these images do not
initiate a making public of the private so much as a privatization of the
public: the whole world unfolds right at home, without one's having to
leave the TV screen. This gives private persons a very special role in the
system: a role of application, and no longer of implication, in a code.
The hour of Oedipus draws nigh.
While capitalism thus proceeds by means of an axiomatic and not
by means of a code, one must not think that it replaces the socius, the
social machine, with an aggregate of technical machines. The difference
in nature between the two types of machines persists, although they are
both machines in the strict sens e, without metaphor. Capitalism's
originality resides rather in the fact that the social machine has for its
The Axiomatic Capitalist State
- Capitalism functions through an axiomatic system rather than a traditional social code, shifting the role of individuals from implication to mere application.
- The social machine under capitalism incorporates technical machines as constant capital, rendering human beings adjacent rather than central to the process of inscription.
- Unlike a simple mechanical or cybernetic system, the capitalist axiomatic requires social organs of decision and a bureaucracy to manage its constant expansion and internal frictions.
- The State evolves from a transcendent, overcoding unity into an immanent regulator that manages the conjunction of decoded flows within the field of social forces.
- The capitalist State represents a rupture in history because it no longer attempts to overcode flows but instead facilitates their axiomatization and regulation.
Capitalism's originality resides rather in the fact that the social machine has for its parts technical machines as constant capital attached to the full body of the socius, and no longer men, the latter having become adjacent to the technical machines.
leave the TV screen. This gives private persons a very special role in the
system: a role of application, and no longer of implication, in a code.
The hour of Oedipus draws nigh.
While capitalism thus proceeds by means of an axiomatic and not
by means of a code, one must not think that it replaces the socius, the
social machine, with an aggregate of technical machines. The difference
in nature between the two types of machines persists, although they are
both machines in the strict sens e, without metaphor. Capitalism's
originality resides rather in the fact that the social machine has for its
parts technical machines as constant capital attached to the full body of
the socius, and no longer men, the latter having become adjacent to the
technical machines—whence the fact that inscription no longer bears
directly, or at least in theory has no need of bearing directly, on men.
But an axiomatic of itself is by no means a simple technical machine, not
even an automatic or cybernetic machine. Bourbaki* says as much
concerning scientific axiomatics: they do not form a Taylor system, nor
a mechanical game of isolated formulas, but rather imply "intuitions"
that are linked to resonances and conjunctions of structures, and that are
merely aided by the "powerful levers" of technique. This holds even truer
of the social axiomatic: the way in which this axiomatic fulfills its own
immanence; pushes back or enlarges its limits; adds still more axioms
while preventing the system from b ecoming saturated; and functions
well only by grinding, sputtering, a nd starting up again—all this implies
social organs of decision, ad ministration, reaction, inscrip-
*Nicolas Bourbaki is the pseudonym of a group of French mathematicians who are known for their work in
the theory of sets and for their advocacy of an "axiomatic method" which "allows us, when we are
concerned with complex mathematical objects, to separate their properties and regroup them around a small
number of concepts: that is to say, using a word which will receive a precise definition later, to classify them
according to the structures to which they belong" (Nicoias Bourbaki, Elements of M athematics Vol. 3:
Theory of Sets [Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1968], p. 9). In this way they propose to elaborate a
language of mathematical formalization capable of integrating the different branches of mathematics.
(Translators' note.)
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 251
tion; a technocracy and a bureaucracy that cannot be reduced to the
operation of technical machines. In short, the conjunction of the
decoded flows, their differential relations, and their multiple schizzes or
breaks require a whole apparatus of regulation whose principal organ is
the State. The capitalist State is the regulator of decoded flows as such,
insofar as they are caught up in the ax iomatic of capital. In this sense it
indeed completes the becoming-concrete that seemed to us to preside
over the evolution of the abstract de spotic Urstaat: from being at first
the transcendent unity, it becomes imman ent to the field of social forces,
enters into their service, and serves as a regulator of the decoded and
axiomatized flows. The capitalist State completes the
becoming-concrete so fully that, in another sense, it alone represents a
veritable rupture with this becoming, a break with it, in contrast to the
other forms that were established on the ruins of the Urstaat. For the
Urstaat was defined by overcoding, and its derivatives, from the ancient
City-State to the monarchic State, already found themselves in the
presence of flows that were decoded or in the process of being decoded.
These flows doubtless had the effect of making the State more and
more immanent and subordinate to the actual field of forces; but
precisely because the circumstances were not right for these flows to
enter into a conjunction, the State could be content to save fragments of
The Axiomatic Capitalist State
- The capitalist State represents a rupture from the ancient Urstaat by operating through the conjunction of decoded and deterritorialized flows.
- Unlike previous states that attempted to preserve fragments of overcoding, the capitalist State is defined by a generalized breakdown of codes and the regulation of a new economic axiomatic.
- The State has paradoxically lost its traditional sovereign power only to enter more forcefully into the service of economic signs and capital accumulation.
- Liberal capitalism is a myth, as the State has always intervened to regulate labor, manage monopolies, and expand its axiomatic limits to absorb social pressures.
- Capitalism maintains its stability by constantly adding new axioms to its system, such as those for the working class and unions, to digest revolutionary threats.
Never before has a State lost so much of its power in order to enter with so much force into the service of the signs of economic power.
veritable rupture with this becoming, a break with it, in contrast to the
other forms that were established on the ruins of the Urstaat. For the
Urstaat was defined by overcoding, and its derivatives, from the ancient
City-State to the monarchic State, already found themselves in the
presence of flows that were decoded or in the process of being decoded.
These flows doubtless had the effect of making the State more and
more immanent and subordinate to the actual field of forces; but
precisely because the circumstances were not right for these flows to
enter into a conjunction, the State could be content to save fragments of
overcoding and of codes, to invent others, and by marshaling all its
forces, was even able to prevent the conjunction from taking place (as
for the rest, its project was to re suscitate the Urstaat insofar as
possible).
The capitalist State is in a different situation: it is produced by the
conjunction of the decoded or deterrito rialized flows, and is able to
carry the becoming-immanent to its highest point only to the extent that
it is party to the generalized brea kdown of codes and overcodings, and
evolves entirely within this new ax iomatic that results from a hitherto
unknown conjunction. Once again, this axiomatic is not the invention of
capitalism, since it is identical with capital itself. On the contrary,
capitalism is its offspring, its re sult. Capitalism merely ensures the
regulation of the axiomatic; it regulates or even organizes the failures of
the axiomatic as conditions of the latter's operation; it watches over or
directs progress toward a saturation of the axiomatic and the corre-
sponding widenings of the limits. Never before has a State lost so much
of its power in order to enter with so much force into the service of the
signs of economic power. And capitalism, despite what is said to the
contrary, assumed this role very early, in fact from the start, from its
gestation in forms still semifeudal or monarchic—from th e standpoint of
the flow of "free" workers: the c ontrol of manual labor and of wages;
from the standpoint of the flow of industrial and commercial production:
252 ANTI-OEDIPUS
the granting of monopolies, favorable conditions for accumulation, and
the struggle against overproduction. There has never been a liberal
capitalism: action against monopolies go es back first of all to a time
when commercial and financial capital is still allied with the old system
of production, and when nascent i ndustrial capitalism can secure its
production and its market only by obtaining the abolition of such
privileges. That the struggle agains t monopolistic privileges does not
imply any struggle against the very pr inciple of State control—providing
the State sees fit—can be seen clea rly in mercantilism, inasmuch as it
expresses the new commercial functions of a capital that has secured for
itself direct interests in production. As a general rule, State controls and
regulations tend to disappear or dimi nish only in situations where there
is an abundant labor supply and an unusual expansion of markets.90 That
is, when capitalism functions wit h a very small number of axioms within
relative limits that are suf ficiently wide. This situation ceased to exist
long ago, and one must regard as a de cisive factor in this evolution the
organization of a powerful working cl ass that required a high and stable
level of employment, and forced capitalism to multiply its axioms while
having at the same time to reproduce its limits on an ever expanding
scale (the axiom of displacement from the center to the periphery).
Capitalism was able to digest the Ru ssian Revolution only by continually
adding new axioms to the old ones: an axiom for the working class, for
the unions, and so on. But it is alwa ys prepared to add more axioms, it
adds axioms for many other things besi des, things that are much smaller,
The Capitalist Axiomatic
- Capitalism maintains its stability by constantly adding new axioms to absorb social pressures, such as those from the working class and unions.
- The State functions as a regulator of axiomatized flows, managing production, monetarization, and the absorption of surplus value.
- From the perspective of the capitalist axiomatic, the bourgeoisie is the only true class because it represents the universal decoding of all social flows.
- The rise of the bourgeoisie marks a shift where enjoyment is no longer the end goal, replaced by the pursuit of abstract wealth and capital reproduction.
- Modern subjugation is unique because it lacks traditional masters; instead, everyone becomes a slave to the social machine of capital reproduction.
There are no longer even any masters, but only slaves commanding other slaves; there is no longer any need to burden the animal from the outside, it shoulders its own burden.
long ago, and one must regard as a de cisive factor in this evolution the
organization of a powerful working cl ass that required a high and stable
level of employment, and forced capitalism to multiply its axioms while
having at the same time to reproduce its limits on an ever expanding
scale (the axiom of displacement from the center to the periphery).
Capitalism was able to digest the Ru ssian Revolution only by continually
adding new axioms to the old ones: an axiom for the working class, for
the unions, and so on. But it is alwa ys prepared to add more axioms, it
adds axioms for many other things besi des, things that are much smaller,
tiny even, absurdly insignificant; it has a peculiar passion for such things
that leaves the essential unchanged. The State is thus induced to play an
increasingly important role in the regulation of the axiomatized flows,
with regard to production and its planning, the economy and its
"monetarization," and surplus value and its absorption (by the State
apparatus itself).
The regulative functions of the State do not imply any sort of
arbitration between social classes. That the State is entirely in the
service of the so-called ruling class is an obvious practical fact, but a
fact that does not reveal its theoretical foundation. The latter is simple to
explain: from the viewpoint of the capitalist axiomatic there is only one
class, a class with a universalist vocation, the bourgeosie. Plekhanov
notes that the French School of the nineteenth century, under the
influence of Saint-Simon, should be credited with the discovery of class
struggle and its role in history—preci sely the same men who praise the
struggle of the bourgeois class ag ainst the nobility and feudalism, and
who come to a halt before the proletariat and deny that there can be any
difference in class between the indus trialist or banker and the worker,
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 253
but only a fusion into one and the same flow as with profits and wages.91 This
proposition contains something other than an ideological blindness or denial.
Classes are the negative of castes and statuses; classes are orders, castes, and
statuses that have been decoded. To rer ead history through the class struggle is to
read it in terms of the bourgeoisie as th e decoding and decoded class. It is the
only class as such, inasmuch as it leads the struggle against codes, and merges
with the generalized decoding of flows. In this capacity it is sufficient to fill the
capitalist field of immanence. And in point of fact, something new occurs with
the rise of the bourgeoisie : the disappearance of enjoym ent as an end, the new
conception of the conjunction according to wh ich the sole end is abstract wealth
and its realization in forms other than consumption. The generalized slavery of
the despotic State at least implied the existence of masters, and an apparatus of
antiproduction distinct from the sphere of production. But the bourgeois field of
immanence—as delimited by the conjunction of the de coded flows, the negation
of any transcendence or exterior limit, and the effusion of antiproduction inside
production itself—institutes an unrivaled slavery, an unprecedented subjugation:
there are no longer even any masters, but only slaves commanding other slaves;
there is no longer any need to burden the animal from the outside, it shoulders its
own burden. Not that man is ever the slave of technical machines; he is rather the
slave of the social machine. The bourgeoi s sets the example, he absorbs surplus
value for ends that, taken as a whol e, have nothing to do with his own
enjoyment: more utterly enslaved than the lowest of slaves, he is the first servant
of the ravenous machine, the beast of the reproduction of capital, internalization
of the infinite debt. "I too am a slave"—these are the new words spoken by the
master. "Only as personified capital is the capitalist respectable. As such, he
Slaves of the Social Machine
- The text argues that in capitalism, even the masters are slaves to the social machine, serving the reproduction of capital rather than their own enjoyment.
- The bourgeois class is defined as the 'decoding' class that breaks down traditional castes and statuses to facilitate the flow of capital.
- The fundamental theoretical opposition is not between two classes, but between the class axiomatic of capital and those who exist outside of it.
- A distinction is drawn between the 'servants of the machine' and those who sabotage it, represented by the antagonism between capitalists and 'schizos.'
- The revolutionary task is described as the organization of a bipolarity in the social field to define a proletarian class through praxis.
Not that man is ever the slave of technical machines; he is rather the slave of the social machine.
there are no longer even any masters, but only slaves commanding other slaves;
there is no longer any need to burden the animal from the outside, it shoulders its
own burden. Not that man is ever the slave of technical machines; he is rather the
slave of the social machine. The bourgeoi s sets the example, he absorbs surplus
value for ends that, taken as a whol e, have nothing to do with his own
enjoyment: more utterly enslaved than the lowest of slaves, he is the first servant
of the ravenous machine, the beast of the reproduction of capital, internalization
of the infinite debt. "I too am a slave"—these are the new words spoken by the
master. "Only as personified capital is the capitalist respectable. As such, he
shares with the miser the passion for wealth as wealth. But that which in the
miser is a mere idiosyncrasy, is, in the capitalist, the effect of the social
mechanism, of which he is but one of the wheels."92
It will be said that there is nonetheless a class that rules and a class that is
ruled, both defined by surplus value, the distinction between the flow of
financing and the flow of income in wage s. But this is only partially true, since
capitalism is born of the conjunction of th e two in the differential relations, and
integrates them both in the continually expanded reproduction of its limits. So
that the bourgeois is justified in saying, not in terms of ideology, but in the very
organization of his axiomatic: there is only one machine, that of the great mutant
decoded flow—cut off from goods—and one class of servants, the decoding
bourgeosie, the class that decodes the castes and the statuses, and that
254 ANTI-OEDIPUS
draws from the machine an undivided flow of income convertible into consumer
and production goods, a flow on which profits and wages are based. In short, the
theoretical opposition is not between two classe s, for it is the very notion of class,
insofar as it designates the "negative" of codes, that implies there is only one
class. The theoretical opposition lies elsewhere: it is between, on the one hand,
the decoded flows that enter into a cla ss axiomatic on the full body of capital, and
on the other hand, the decoded flows that fr ee themselves from this axiomatic just
as they free themselves from the despo tic signifler, that break through this wall,
and this wall of a wall, and begin flow ing on the full body without organs. The
opposition is between the class and those who are outside the class.* Between the
servants of the machine, and those who sabotage it or its cogs and wheels.
Between the social machine's regime and that of the desiring-machines. Between
the relative interior limits and the absolu te exterior limit. If you will: between the
capitalists and the schizos in their basic intimacy at the level of decoding, in their
basic antagonism at the level of the axio matic—whence the resemblance, in the
nineteenth-century socialists' portrait of the proletariat, between the latter and a
perfect schizo.
That is why the problem of a proletaria n class belongs first of all to praxis.
The task of the revolutionary socialist movement was to organize a bipolarity of
the social field, a bipolarity of classes. Of course it is possible to conceive a
theoretical determination of the proletar ian class at the level of production (those
from whom surplus value is extorted), or at the level of money (income in
wages). But not only are these determinations sometimes too narrow and
The Problem of Class Praxis
- The socialist movement attempts to organize the social field into a bipolarity of classes to counter the fluid, limit-breaking movement of capitalism.
- Class interest remains purely virtual until it is actualized by a party consciousness capable of conquering the State apparatus.
- A conquered socialist State often results in a new bureaucracy or technocracy that merely stands in for the absent bourgeoisie.
- Capitalism avoids revolutionary breaks by integrating recognized class sections into its axiomatic while pushing uncontrolled elements to the periphery.
- The historical choice has been reduced to a rigid, terroristic socialist axiomatic versus a flexible, cynical capitalist axiomatic.
Thus the only choice left was between the new terroristic and rigid axiomatic—quickly saturated—of the socialist State, and the old cynical axiomatic—all the more dangerous for being flexible and never saturated—of the capitalist State.
nineteenth-century socialists' portrait of the proletariat, between the latter and a
perfect schizo.
That is why the problem of a proletaria n class belongs first of all to praxis.
The task of the revolutionary socialist movement was to organize a bipolarity of
the social field, a bipolarity of classes. Of course it is possible to conceive a
theoretical determination of the proletar ian class at the level of production (those
from whom surplus value is extorted), or at the level of money (income in
wages). But not only are these determinations sometimes too narrow and
sometimes too wide, but the objective being they define as class interest remains
purely virtual so long as it is not embodied in a consciousness that, to be sure,
does not create it, but actualizes it in an organized party suited to the task of
conquering the State apparatus. If the moveme nt of capitalism, in the interplay of
its differential relations, is to dodge any assignable fixed limit, to exceed and
displace its interior limits, and to always effect breaks of breaks, then the socialist
movement seems necessarily led to fix or assign a limit that differentiates the
proletariat from the bourgeoisie—a great cleavage that will animate a struggle
not only economic and financial, but politi cal as well. Now the meaning of just
such a conquest of the State appara tus has always been and remains
problematical. A supposedly socialist State implies a transformation of
production, of the units of production and the economic rationale. But this
transformation can only take pl ace starting from an already
*les hors-classe: This term shares an affinity with hors-caste (outcaste) and hors-la-loi (outlaw).
(Translators' note.)
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 255
conquered State that finds itself c onfronted by the same axiomatic
problems of extraction of a surplus or surplus value, of accumulation
and absorption, of the market and monetary reckoning. Consequently,
either the proletariat prevails and tr ansforms the apparatus in conformity
with its objective interest—but these operations are carried out under the
domination of its consciousness or party vanguard, that is, for the
benefit of a bureaucracy or technocracy that stands in for the bourgeoi-
sie as the "great-absent" class—or the bourgeoisie keeps its control of
the State and is free to secrete its own technobureaucracy, and above all
to add a few more axioms for the recognition of the proletariat as a
second class. It is correct to say that the altern ative is not between the
market and economic planning, since planning is necessarily introduced
in the capitalist State, and the market subsists in the socialist State, if
only as a monopolistic market of the State itself. And in effect, how does
one define the true alternative w ithout assuming all these problems
resolved beforehand?
The immense accomplishment of Le nin and the Russian Revolution
was to have forged a class consci ousness consonant with the objective
being or interest of the class, and as a consequence, to have imposed on
the capitalist countries a recognition of class bipolarity. But this great
Leninist break did not prevent the resurrection of a State capitalism
inside socialism itself, any more than it prevented classical capitalism
from getting round the break by continuing its veritable mole work,
always effecting breaks of breaks that allowed it to integrate into its
axiomatic sections of the newly recognized class, while throwing the
uncontrolled revolutionary elements —no more controlled by official
socialism than by capitalism itself—f urther into the distance, to the
periphery or into enclaves. Thus th e only choice left was between the
new terroristic and rigid axiomatic —quickly saturated—of the socialist
State, and the old cynical axiomati c—all the more dangerous for being
flexible and never saturated—of the cap italist State. But in reality, the
Desire Against Interest
- The text distinguishes between preconscious class interests, which are managed by parties or states, and unconscious group desires that operate on a different scale.
- Sartre's distinction between 'groups-in-fusion' and 'serial' classes is used to argue that class spontaneity does not exist, only group spontaneity does.
- While interests can be deceived or betrayed by leadership, desire is never deceived; it can, however, be invested in reactionary or self-destructive systems.
- Wilhelm Reich's analysis of fascism is cited to explain how the masses can actively desire their own repression rather than being mere victims of deception.
- Modern societies simultaneously decode and deterritorialize flows while creating artificial, archaic 'neoterritorialities' to maintain control.
Whence Reich's cry: no, the masses were not deceived, they desired fascism, and that is what has to be explained.
always effecting breaks of breaks that allowed it to integrate into its
axiomatic sections of the newly recognized class, while throwing the
uncontrolled revolutionary elements —no more controlled by official
socialism than by capitalism itself—f urther into the distance, to the
periphery or into enclaves. Thus th e only choice left was between the
new terroristic and rigid axiomatic —quickly saturated—of the socialist
State, and the old cynical axiomati c—all the more dangerous for being
flexible and never saturated—of the cap italist State. But in reality, the
most direct question is not that of knowing whether an industrial society
can do without a surplus, without the absorption of a surplus, without a
commodity-exchanging and planner Stat e, and even without an equiva-
lent of the bourgeoisie: it is evident both that the answer is no, and that
in these terms the question is poorly put. Nor is it a question of knowing
whether or not class consciousness, embodied in a party or a State,
betrays the objective class interest , to which a kind of potential
spontaneity would be ascribed, suffocated by the agents claiming to
represent that interest. Sartre's analysis in Critique de la r aison
dialec-tique appears to us profoundly correct where he concludes that
there does not exist any class spontaneity, but only a "group"
spontaneity:
256 ANTI-OEDIPUS
whence the necessity for distingui shing "groups-in-fusion" from the
class, which remains "serial," represented by the party or the State.93
And the two do not exist on the same scale. This is because class interest
remains a function of the large mola r aggregates; it merely defines a
collective preconscious that is necessarily represented in a distinct
consciousness that, at this level, doe s not even present any grounds for
asking whether it betrays or not, alie nates or not, deforms or not. The
problem is situated there, be tween unconscious group desires and
preconscious class interests. It is only starting from th is point, as we
shall see, that one is able to pos e the questions issuing indirectly
therefrom, concerning the class pr econscious and the representative
forms of class consciousness, and th e nature of the interests and the
process of their realization. Reich always comes back to us with his
innocent standards, claiming the rights of a prior distinction between
desire and interest: "The leadership has no task more urgent, besides
that of acquiring a precise understanding of the objective historical
process, than to understand : (a) what are the progressive desires, ideas
and thoughts which are latent in pe ople of different social strata,
occupations, age groups and sexes, and (b) what are the desires, fears,
thoughts and ideas ('traditional bonds') which prevent the progressive
desires, ideas, etc., from developing."9'1 (The leadership has a tendency
rather to reply: when I hear th e word "desire," I pull out my gun.)
Desire can never be deceived. In terests can be deceived, unrecog-
nized, or betrayed, but not desire. Whence Reich's cry: no, the masses
were not deceived, they desired fascism, and that is what has to be
explained. It happens that one de sires against one's own interests:
capitalism profits from this, but so do es socialism, the party, and the
party leadership. How does one expl ain that desire devotes itself to
operations that are not failures of recognition, but rather perfectly
reactionary unconscious investments? And what does Reich mean when
he speaks of "traditional bonds"? The la tter also belong to the historical
process and bring us back to the modern functions of the State. Civilized
modern societies are defined by processes of decoding and
deterritoriali-zation. But what they deterritorialii e with one hand, they
reterritorialize w ith t he ot her. These neoterritorialities are often
artificial, residual, archaic; but they are archaisms having a perfectly
Deterritorialization and State Regulation
- Modern societies are defined by a dual process where they decode and deterritorialize flows with one hand while reterritorializing them with the other.
- These 'neoarchaisms' or artificial territorialities range from folkloric groups and gangs to powerful political forces like nationalism and regionalism.
- The State functions as a regulator that prevents decoded flows of capital and desire from breaking loose by anchoring them in archaic or pseudo-codes.
- Fascism and socialism are described as attempts at economic and political reterritorialization in response to the movements of global capitalism.
- The relationship between deterritorialization and reterritorialization is so enmeshed that they often appear as opposite faces of the same process.
One sometimes has the impression that the flows of capital would willingly dispatch themselves to the moon if the capitalist State were not there to bring them back to earth.
operations that are not failures of recognition, but rather perfectly
reactionary unconscious investments? And what does Reich mean when
he speaks of "traditional bonds"? The la tter also belong to the historical
process and bring us back to the modern functions of the State. Civilized
modern societies are defined by processes of decoding and
deterritoriali-zation. But what they deterritorialii e with one hand, they
reterritorialize w ith t he ot her. These neoterritorialities are often
artificial, residual, archaic; but they are archaisms having a perfectly
current function, our modern way of "imbricating," of sectioning off, of
reintroducing code fragments, resuscitating old codes, inventing pseudo
codes or jargons. Neoarchaisms, as Edgar Morin puts it. These modern
archaisms are extremely complex and varied. Some are mainly
folkloric, but they nonetheless represent social and potentially political
forces (from domino players to hom e brewers via the Veterans of
Foreign Wars).
SAVAGES. BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 257
Others are enclaves whose archaism is just as capable of nourishing a modern
fascism as of freeing a revolutionary charge (the ethnic minorities, the Basque
problem, the Irish Catholics, the Indian reservations). Some of these archaisms
take form as if spontaneously, in th e very current of the movement of
deterritoriahzation (neighborhood territorialities, territorialities of the large
aggregates, "gangs"). Others are organized or promoted by the State, even though
they might turn against the State and cause it serious problems (regionalism,
nationalism). The fascist State has been without doubt capitalism's most fantastic
attempt at economic and political reterritorialization. But the socialist State also
has its own minorities, its own territoria lities, which re-form themselves against
the State, or which the State instigates and organizes. (Russian nationalism, the
territoriality of the party: the proletariat was only able to constitute itself as a
class on the basis of artificial neoterr itorialities; in parallel fashion, the
bourgeoisie reterritorializes itself in form s that are at times the most archaic.)
The famous personalization of power is like a territoriality that accompanies
the deterritoriahzation of the machine, as its other side. If it is true that the
function of the modern State is the regul ation of the decoded, deterritorialized
flows, one of the principal aspects of this function consists in reterritorializing, so
as to prevent the decoded flows from break ing loose at all the edges of the social
axiomatic. One sometimes has the impression that the flows of capital would
willingly dispatch themselves to the moon if the capitalist State were not there to
bring them back to earth. For example: deterritoriahzation of the flows of
financing, but reterritorialization of pur chasing power and the means of payment
(the role of the central banks). Or the movement of deterritoriahzation that goes
from the center to the periphery is accompanied by a peripheral
reterritorialization, a kind of economi c and political self-centering of the
periphery, either in the modernistic forms of a State socialism or capitalism, or in
the archaic form of local despots. It may be all but impossible to distinguish
deterritoriahzation from reterritorialization, since they are mutually enmeshed, or
like opposite faces of one and the same process.
This essential aspect of the regulation performed by the State is even more
readily understood if one sees that it is directly based on the social and economic
axiomatic of capitalism as such. It is th e very conjunction of the deterritorialized
flows that delineates archaic or artificial neoterritorialities. Marx has shown what
was the foundation of political economy pr operly speaking: the discovery of an
abstract subjective essence of wealth, in labor or production—and in desire as
The Double Movement of Capitalism
- Capitalism functions through a simultaneous process of decoding flows and creating new artificial territories to contain them.
- The discovery of labor as the abstract subjective essence of wealth represents a massive deterritorialization from previous agricultural or despotic systems.
- Every advance in the universal energy of production is immediately recaptured by the private ownership of the means of production, a process termed reterritorialization.
- The system is defined by a constant surpassing of its own limits, only to reproduce those same barriers on an increasingly wider, planetary scale.
- Marx's law of the falling rate of profit serves as a corollary to this cycle of endless expansion and internal restriction.
One is better able to understand why capitalism is continually reterritorializing with one hand what it was deterritorializing with the other.
like opposite faces of one and the same process.
This essential aspect of the regulation performed by the State is even more
readily understood if one sees that it is directly based on the social and economic
axiomatic of capitalism as such. It is th e very conjunction of the deterritorialized
flows that delineates archaic or artificial neoterritorialities. Marx has shown what
was the foundation of political economy pr operly speaking: the discovery of an
abstract subjective essence of wealth, in labor or production—and in desire as
well, it would seem. ("It was an immense step forward for Adam Smith
258 ANTI-OEDIPUS
to throw out every limiting specification of wealth-creating activity—not only
manufacturing, or commercial, or agricultural labour; but one as well as others,
labour in general . . . the abstract universality of wealth-creating activity."95 Here
we have the great movement of decoding or deterritorialization: the nature of
wealth is no longer to be sought on the side of the object, under exterior
conditions, in the territorial or despotic machine. But Marx is quick to add that
this essentially "cynical" discove ry finds itself rectified by a new
territorialization, in the form of a new fetishism or a new "hypocrisy." Production
as the abstract subjective essence is disc overed only in the forms of property that
objectifies it all over again, that alienates it by reterritorializing it. Although they
had a presentiment of the subjective na ture of wealth, the mercantilists had
determined it as a special activity still tied to a "money-creating" despotic
machine; the physiocrats, pushing this pr esentiment still further, had tied,
subjective activity to a territorial or rete rritorialized machine, in the form of
agriculture and landed property. And ev en Adam Smith discovers the great
essence of wealth, abstract and subjective, industrial and deterritorialized, only
by immediately reterritorializing it in the private ownership of the means of
production. (Nor can one say in this re gard that so-called common ownership
changes the direction of this movement.) Moreover, if it is not a question of
writing the history of political economy, but the real history of the corresponding
society, one is better able to understand why capitalism is continually
reterritorializing with one hand what it was deterritorializing with the other.
In Capital Marx analyzes the true reason for the double movement: on the
one hand, capitalism can proceed only by continually developing the subjective
essence of abstract wealth or producti on for the sake of production, that is,
"production as an end in itself, the absolute developmen t of the social
productivity of labor"; but on the other hand and at the same time, it can do so
only in the framework of its own limited purpose, as a determinate mode of
production, "production of capital," "the self-expansion of existing capital."96
Under the first aspect capitalism is continually surpassing its own limits, always
deterritorializing further, "displayin g a cosmopolitan, universal energy which
overthrows every restriction and bond" ; but under the second, strictly
complementary, aspect, capitalism is continually confronting limits and barriers
that are interior and immanent to itself, and that, precisely because they are
immanent, let themselves be overcome only provided they are reproduced on a
wider scale (always more reterritorializa tion—local, world-wide, planetary). That
is why the law of the falling tendency—that is, limits never reached because they
are
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 259
always surpassed and always reproduced—has seemed to us to have as a
corollary and even as a direct manifestation, the simultaneity of the two
movements of deterritorialization and reterritorialization.
An important consequence emerges from the above considerations.
The social axiomatic of modern so cieties is caught between two poles,
The Oscillating Social Axiomatic
- Modern societies are caught in a constant oscillation between the decoding of flows and the reactionary impulse to reterritorialize.
- The social machine is torn between a paranoiac nostalgia for the despotic Urstaat and a schizophrenic movement toward absolute thresholds.
- Capitalism attempts to reconcile the necessity of fluid capital and populations with the enforcement of world-wide dictatorships and police power.
- The system faces constant panic from 'flow-breaks' such as revolutionary movements, social uprisings, and counter-cultural shifts that escape its axiomatic.
- The authors argue that the modern State is both a genuine advance in immanence and a continuation of the singular, ancient despotic formation.
They are torn in two directions: archaism and futurism, neoarchaism and ex-futurism, paranoia and schizophrenia.
wider scale (always more reterritorializa tion—local, world-wide, planetary). That
is why the law of the falling tendency—that is, limits never reached because they
are
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 259
always surpassed and always reproduced—has seemed to us to have as a
corollary and even as a direct manifestation, the simultaneity of the two
movements of deterritorialization and reterritorialization.
An important consequence emerges from the above considerations.
The social axiomatic of modern so cieties is caught between two poles,
and is constantly oscillating from one pole to the other. Born of
decoding and deterritorializ ation, on the ruins of the despotic machine,
these societies are caught between the Urstaat that they would like to
resuscitate as an overcoding and reterritorializing unity, and the unfet-
tered flows that carry them toward an absolute threshold. They recode
with all their might, with world-wide dictatorship, local dictators, and an
all-powerful police, while decoding—or allowing the decoding of—the
fluent quantities of their capital and their populations. They are torn in
two directions: archaism and futu rism, neoarchaism and ex-futurism,
paranoia and schizophrenia. They vacillate between two poles: the
paranoiac despotic sign, the sign-signifi er of the despot that they try to
revive as a unit of code; and the si gn-figure of the schizo as a unit of
decoded flux, a schiz, a point-sign or flow-break. They try to hold on to
the one, but they pour or flow out through the other. They are
continually behind or ahead of themselves.*
How can the nostalgia for, and the necessity of, the Urstaat be
reconciled with the insistence and the inevitability of the fluxion of the
flows? What can be done so that the decoding and the deterritorializa-
tion constitutive of the system do not make it flee through one end or
another that would escape the axiomatic and throw the machine into a
panic (a Chinese on the horizon, a Cuban missile-launcher, an Arab
highjacker, a consul kidnapper, a Black Panther, a May '68, or even
stoned hippies, angry gays, etc.)? There is an oscillation between the
reactionary paranoiac overcharges an d the subterranean, schizophrenic,
and revolutionary charges. Moreove r, one no longer quite knows how it
goes on one side or the other: the two ambiguous poles of delirium, their
transformations, the way in which an ar chaism or folklore in a given set
of circumstances can suddenly become charged with a dangerous
progressive value. How things turn fascist or revolutionary is the
problem of the universal delirium about which everyone is silent, first of
all and especially the psychiatrist s (they have no ideas on the subject—
why would they?). Capitalism, and so cialism as well, are as though torn
between the despotic signifier that they adore, and the schizophrenic
*Suzanne de Brunhoff, La monnaie chez Marx (reference note 73), p. 147: "That is why in capitalism even
credit, formed into a system, brings together composite elements that are both ante-capitalist (money,
money commerce) and post-capitalist (the credit circuit being a higher circulation . . .). Adapted to the
needs of capitalism, credit is never really contemporary with capital. The system of financing born of the
capitalist mode of producti on remains a bastard."
260 ANTI-OEDIPUS
figure that sweeps them along. We are thus entitled to maintain two
conclusions that we have already put forward and that seemed to stand
mutually opposed. On the one hand, the modern State forms a break that
represents a genuine advance in comp arison with the despotic State, in
terms of its fulfillment of a beco ming-immanent, its generalized decod-
ing of flows, and its axiomatic that comes to replace the codes and
overcodings. But on the other hand ther e has never been but one State,
the Urstaat, the Asiatic despotic formation, which constitutes in its
The Urstaat and Modern Axiomatics
- The modern State represents a genuine advance through the generalized decoding of flows and the implementation of an immanent axiomatic.
- Despite its progress, the modern State is haunted by the 'Urstaat'—the original Asiatic despotic formation—which it resuscitates as a pole of its own function.
- Three social machines are identified: the savage territorial machine (coding), the barbarian imperial machine (overcoding), and the civilized capitalist machine (decoding).
- Capitalism creates a paradox by reterritorializing decoded flows and generating new archaisms to replace the old ones it destroyed.
- The modern axiomatic oscillates between the internalized transcendence of the despot and the volatile forces that threaten to blow the system apart.
Democracy, fascism, or socialism, which of these is not haunted by the Urstaat as a model without equal?
figure that sweeps them along. We are thus entitled to maintain two
conclusions that we have already put forward and that seemed to stand
mutually opposed. On the one hand, the modern State forms a break that
represents a genuine advance in comp arison with the despotic State, in
terms of its fulfillment of a beco ming-immanent, its generalized decod-
ing of flows, and its axiomatic that comes to replace the codes and
overcodings. But on the other hand ther e has never been but one State,
the Urstaat, the Asiatic despotic formation, which constitutes in its
shadow existence history's only break, since even the modern social
axiomatic can function only by resuscitating it as one of the poles
between which it produces its own break. Democracy, fascism, or
socialism, which of these is not haunted by the Urstaat as a model
without equal? The name of the local dictator Duvalier's chief of police
was Desyr.
But the events that restore a thing to life are not the same as those
that gave rise to it in the first place. We have distinguished among three
social machines corresponding to the savage, the barbarian, and the
civilized societies. The first is th e underlying territorial machine, which
consists in coding the flows on the full body of the earth. The second is
the transcendent imperial machine, which consists in overcoding the
flows on the full body of the despot or his apparatus, the Urstaat: it
effects the first great movement of deterritorialization, but does so by
adding its eminent unity to the territorial communes that it conserves by
bringing them together, overcoding th em and appropriating their surplus
labor. The third is the modern immanent machine, which consists in
decoding the flows on the full body of capital-money: it has realized the
immanence, it has rendered concrete the abstract as such and has
naturalized the artificial, replacing the territorial codes and the despotic
overcoding with an axiomatic of d ecoded flows, and a regulation of
these flows; it effects the second great movement of deterritorialization,
but this time because it doesn't allow any part of the codes and
overcodes to subsist. However, what it doesn't allow to subsist it
rediscovers through its own original m eans; it reterrito rializes where it
has lost the territorialities, it creates new archaisms where it has
destroyed the old ones—and the two b ecome as one. The historian says
no, the Modern State, its bureauc racy and its technocracy, do not
resemble the ancient despotic State. Of course not, since it is a matter in
the one case of reterritorializing decoded flows, but in the other case of
overcoding the territorial flows. Th e paradox is that capitalism makes
use of the Urstaat for effecting its reterritorializations. But the imper-
turbable modern axiomatic, from th e depths of its immanence, repro-
duces the transcendence of the Urstaat as its internalized limit, or one of
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 261
the poles between which it is determined to oscillate. And in its
imperturbable and cynical ex istence, it is prey to great forces that form
the other pole of the axiomatic, its accidents, its breakdowns, its
chances of being blown to pieces, of causing what it decodes to pass
beyond the wall of its immanent re gulations and beyond its transcenden-
tal resurrections.
Each type of social machine produces a particular kind of represen-
tation whose elements are organized at the surface of the socius: the
system of connotation-connection in the savage terr itorial machine,
corresponding to the coding of the flows; the system of
subordination-disjunction in the barbarian despotic machine,
corresponding to over-coding; the system of co-ordination-conjunction
in the civilized capitalist machine, corresponding to the decoding of the
flows. Deterritorializa-tion, the axiomatic, and reterritorialization are the
Social Machines and Decoded Flows
- Social machines evolve through three stages: the savage territorial machine, the barbarian despotic machine, and the civilized capitalist machine.
- In pre-capitalist societies, economic reproduction is tied to kinship and family status rather than abstract production.
- Capitalism shifts representation toward productive activity itself, where the socius becomes capital-money and treats labor as an abstract quantity.
- The capitalist system achieves a universal identity between social and desiring-production but simultaneously subjects desire to a powerful, pervasive repression.
- A generalized theory of society must be understood as a theory of flows, analyzing how desire is coded, over-coded, or decoded across different regimes.
Antiproduction has spread throughout all of production, instead of remaining localized in the system, and has freed a fantastic death instinct that now permeates and crushes desire.
Each type of social machine produces a particular kind of represen-
tation whose elements are organized at the surface of the socius: the
system of connotation-connection in the savage terr itorial machine,
corresponding to the coding of the flows; the system of
subordination-disjunction in the barbarian despotic machine,
corresponding to over-coding; the system of co-ordination-conjunction
in the civilized capitalist machine, corresponding to the decoding of the
flows. Deterritorializa-tion, the axiomatic, and reterritorialization are the
three surface elements of the representation of desire in the modern
socius. So we come back to the question: in each case what is the
relationship between social produc tion and desiring-production, once it
is said that they have identical natures and differing regimes? Could it
be that the identity in nature is at its highest point in the order of modern
capitalist representation, because this id entity is "universally" realized in
the immanence of this order and in the fluxion of the decoded flows?
But also that the difference in regime is greatest in the capitalist order of
representation, and that this repr esentation subjects desire to an
operation of social repression-psychic repression that is stronger than
any other, because, by means of the immanence and the decoding,
antiproduction has spread throughout all of production, instead of
remaining localized in the system, and has freed a fantastic death
instinct that now permeates and crushes desire? And what is this death
that always rises from within, but that must arrive from without—and
that, in the case of capitalism, rises with all the more power as one still
fails to see exactly what this outside is that will cause it to arrive? In
short, the general theory of society is a generalized theory of flows; it is
in terms of the latter that one must consider the relationship of social
production to desiring-production, the variations of this relationship in
each case, and the limits of this relationship in the capitalist system.
11 Oedipus at Last
In the territorial or even the despotic machine, social
economic reproduction is never independent of human reproduction, of
the social form of this reproducti on. The family is therefore an open
praxis, a strategy that is coextensive with the social field; the relations of
ANTI-OEDIPUS
filiation and alliance are determinant, or rather "determined as domi-
nant." As a matter of fact, what is marked or inscribed on the
socius—directly—is the producers (or nonproducers) according to the
standing of their family or their standing inside the family. The
reproduction process is not directly economic, but passes by way of the
noneconomic factors of kinship. This is true not only with respect to the
territorial machine, and to local groups that determine the place of each
member in social economic reproductio n, according to one's status from
the standpoint of the alliances and the filiations, but also with respect to
the despotic machine, which adds the relations of the new alliance and
direct filiation to the old alliance and filiations (whence the role of the
sovereign's family in despotic over coding, and that of the "dynasty"—
whatever its mutations, its indecisions—which are inscribed under the
same category of new alliance). The process by no means remains the
same in the capitalist system.97 Representation no longer relates to a
distinct object, but to productive activ ity itself. The socius as full body
has become directly economic as capit al-money; it does not tolerate any
other preconditions. What is inscribed or marked is no longer the
producers or nonproducers, but the forces and means of production as
abstract quantities that become effectively concrete in their becoming
related or their conjunction: labor capa city or capital, constant capital or
variable capital, capital of filiation or capital of alliance. Capital has
Capitalism and Family Privatization
- Capital has absorbed the traditional social relations of alliance and filiation, transforming the socius into a purely economic body of abstract quantities.
- The family has been privatized and disinvested of its social power, becoming a mere container for human material subordinated to economic reproduction.
- Social persons are no longer defined by kinship but are functions derived from the flows of capital and labor capacity, acting as personified images of these flows.
- The restricted family unit serves as a site for second-order images or simulacra, where father, mother, and child represent the primary social functions of the capitalist field.
- The order of classes countersects the family, preforming human material to ensure the reproduction of capitalists and workers where they are needed.
Individual persons are social persons first of all, i.e., functions derived from the abstract quantities; they become concrete in the becoming-related or the axiomatic of these quantities, in their conjunction.
distinct object, but to productive activ ity itself. The socius as full body
has become directly economic as capit al-money; it does not tolerate any
other preconditions. What is inscribed or marked is no longer the
producers or nonproducers, but the forces and means of production as
abstract quantities that become effectively concrete in their becoming
related or their conjunction: labor capa city or capital, constant capital or
variable capital, capital of filiation or capital of alliance. Capital has
taken upon itself the relati ons of alliance and filiation. There ensues a
privatization of the family according to which the family ceases to give
its social form to ec onomic reproduction: it is as though disinvested,
placed outside the field; in the language of Aristotle, the family is now
simply the form of human matter or material that finds itself subordinated
to the autonomous social form of economic reproduction, and that comes
to take the place assigned it by the latter. That is to say that the elements
of production and antiproduction are not reproduced in the same way as
humans themselves, but find in them a simple material that the form of
economic reproduction preorganizes in a mode that is entirely distinct
from the form this material has as human reproduction. Precisely
because it is privatized, placed outside the field, the form of the material
or the form of human reproduction be gets people whom one can readily
assume to be all equal in relation to one another; but inside the field
itself, the form of social economic reproduction has already preformed
the form of the material so as to engender, there where they are needed,
the capitalist as a function derived from capital, and the worker as a
function derived from labor capacity, etc., in such a way that the family
finds itself countersected by the order of classes. (In this sense, indeed,
segregation is the only origin of equality.98)
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 263
This placing of the family outside the social field is also its greatest
social fortune. For it is the condition under which the entire social field
can be applied to the family. Individual pers ons are social persons first
of all, i.e., functions derived from the abstract quantities; they become
concrete in the becoming-related or the axiomatic of these quantities, in
their conjunction. They are nothing more nor less than configurations or
images produced by the points-signs , the breaks-flows, the pure "fig-
ures" of capitalism; the capitalist as personified capital—i.e., as a
function derived from the flow of capita l; and the worker as personified
labor capacity—i.e., a function deri ved from the flow of labor. In this
way capitalism fills its field of immanence with images: even destitution,
despair, revolt—and on the other side, the violence and the oppression
of capital—become images of destitution, despair, revolt, violence, or
oppression. But starting from nonfi gurative figures or from the
breaks-flows that produce them, thes e images will themselves be
capable of figuring and reproducing only by shaping a human material
whose specific form of reproduction fa lls outside the social field that
nonetheless determines this form. Private persons are therefore images
of the second order, images of images—that is, simulacra that are thus
endowed with an aptitude for representing the first-order images of
social persons. These private persons are formally delimited in the locus
of the restricted family as father, mother, child. But instead of being a
strategy that, through the action of alliances and filiations, opens onto
the entire social field, is coextens ive with it, and countersects its
co-ordinates, it would appear that the family is now merely a simple
tactic around which the social field recloses, to which it applies its
autonomous requirements of reproductio n, and that it counteracts with
Oedipus as Internal Colonization
- The family has shifted from a strategic unit of social alliance and production to a tactical microcosm that merely reproduces the requirements of capital.
- Social relations and alliances no longer pass through people directly but are mediated through money, turning family members into simulacra of economic forces.
- The complex social field of bosses, priests, and soldiers is reduced to the 'daddy-mommy-me' triangle, which functions as a distributive subaggregate of the capitalist axiomatic.
- Oedipus is described as an intimate colonial formation where the individual is flattened and divided into a castrated ego through the application of familial images.
- Psychoanalysis acts as an applied axiomatic that pre-forms the analytic dialogue, reducing the collective agent of production to a cornered individual subject.
It is our intimate colonial formation that corresponds to the form of social sovereignty. We are all little colonies and it is Oedipus that colonizes us.
endowed with an aptitude for representing the first-order images of
social persons. These private persons are formally delimited in the locus
of the restricted family as father, mother, child. But instead of being a
strategy that, through the action of alliances and filiations, opens onto
the entire social field, is coextens ive with it, and countersects its
co-ordinates, it would appear that the family is now merely a simple
tactic around which the social field recloses, to which it applies its
autonomous requirements of reproductio n, and that it counteracts with
all its dimensions. The alliances and filiations no longer pass through
people but through money; so the fa mily becomes a microcosm, suited
to expressing what it no longer dominates. In a certain sense the
situation has not changed; for what is invested through the family is still
the economic, political, and cultural social field, its breaks and flows.
Private persons are an illusion, imag es of images or derivatives of
derivatives. But in another sense ev erything has changed, because the
family, instead of constituting and developing the dominant factors of
social reproduction, is content to ap ply and envelop these factors in its
own mode of reproduction. Father, mother, and child thus become the
simulacrum of the images of capital ("Mister Capital, Madame Earth,"
and their child the Worker), with the result that these images are no
longer recognized at all in the desire that is determined to invest only
their simulacrum. The familial determinations become the application of
the social axiomatic.
264 ANTI-OEDIPUS
The family becomes the subaggregate to which the whole of the
social field is applied. Since each person has his own private father and
mother, it is a distributive subaggregate that simulates for each person
the collective whole of social persons and that closes off his domain and
scrambles his images. Ev erything is reduced to the father-mother-child
triangle, which reverberates the answer "daddy-mommy" every time it
is stimulated by the images of capital. In short, Oedipus arrives: it is
born in the capitalist system of the application of first-order social
images to the private familial image s of the second order. It is the
aggregate of destination that corresponds to an aggregate of departure
that is socially determined. It is our intimate colonial formation that
corresponds to the form of social sove reignty. We are all little colonies
and it is Oedipus that colonizes us. When the family ceases to be a unit
of production and of reproduction, when the conjunction again finds in
the family the meaning of a simple unit of consumption, it is
father-mother that we consume. In th e aggregate of departure there is the
boss, the foreman, the priest, the tax collector, the cop, the soldier, the
worker, all the machines and territorialities, all the social images of our
society; but in the aggregate of destination, in the end, there is no longer
anyone but daddy, mommy, and me, the despotic sign inherited by
daddy, the residual territoriality assumed by mommy, and the divided,
split, castrated ego. Isn't this operati on of flattening, folding, or applica-
tion what leads Lacan to say, willingly betraying the secret of psycho-
analysis as an applied axiomatic: what appears to "come most freely
into play in what is called the analytic dialogue, in fact depends on a
subfoundation that is perfectly reducible to a few essential and
formaliz-able articulations."99 Everything is pre-formed, arranged in
advance. The social field, where everyone acts and is acted upon (patit)
as a collective agent of enuncia tion, an agent of production and
antiproduc-tion, is reduced to Oedipus, where everyone now finds
himself cornered and cut along the line that divides him into an
individual subject of the statement and an individual subject of
The Oedipal-Narcissistic Machine
- The text argues that the analytic dialogue is pre-formed and reducible to a few formal articulations that reduce the social field to the Oedipal triangle.
- Capitalism utilizes the 'reign of images' to divert desiring-production, turning the individual into a narcissistic ego that views the universe as a mere setting for itself.
- Schizophrenia represents the absolute exterior limit of society, which capitalism attempts to neutralize by internalizing it through familial reproduction.
- Oedipus serves as a displaced interior limit where desire is caught and reterritorialized into the private 'daddy-mommy-me' microcosm.
- While primitive and despotic formations resisted or symbolically occupied the Oedipal limit, capitalism applies the social aggregate directly to the private subaggregate.
To every man, to every woman, the universe is just a setting to the absolute little picture of himself, herself.
into play in what is called the analytic dialogue, in fact depends on a
subfoundation that is perfectly reducible to a few essential and
formaliz-able articulations."99 Everything is pre-formed, arranged in
advance. The social field, where everyone acts and is acted upon (patit)
as a collective agent of enuncia tion, an agent of production and
antiproduc-tion, is reduced to Oedipus, where everyone now finds
himself cornered and cut along the line that divides him into an
individual subject of the statement and an individual subject of
enunciation. The subject of the statem ent is the social person, and the
subject of enunciation, the private pers on. "So" it's your father, so it's
your mother, so it's you: the familial conjunction results from the
capitalist conjunctions, insofar as th ey are applied to private persons.
Daddy-mommy-me—one is sure to re-encounter them everywhere,
since everything has been applied to them. The reign of images is the
new way in which capitalism utilizes the schizzes and diverts the flows:
composite images, images flattened onto other images, so that when this
operation reaches its outcome the little ego of each person, related to its
father-mother, is truly the center of the world. Much more underhanded
than the subterranean reign of the
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS. CIVILIZED MEN 265
fetishes of the earth, or the celestial reign of the despot's idols, is the advent of
the Oedipal-narcissistic machine: "No more glyphs and hieroglyphs, we'll have
the real objective reality . . . our Koda k-vision. ... To every man, to every
woman, the universe is just a setting to the absolute little picture of himself,
herself. ... A picture! A Kodak snap, in a universal film of snaps."100 Each person
as a little triangulated microcosm—the narcissistic ego is identical with the
Oedipal subject.
Oedipus at last: in the end it is a ve ry simple operation, one that indeed
readily lends itself to formalization, although it involves universal history. We
have seen in what sense schizophrenia was the absolute limit of every society,
inasmuch as it sets in motion decoded and deterritorialized flows that it restores
to desiring-production, "at the bounds" of all social production. And capitalism,
the relative limit of every society, inasmuch as it axiomatizes the decoded flows
and reterritorializes the deterritorialized fl ows. We have also seen that capitalism
finds in schizophrenia its own exterior limit, which it is continually repelling and
exorcising, while capitalism itself produces its immanent limits, which it never
ceases to displace and enlarge. But capitalism still needs a displaced interior limit
in another way: precisely in order to ne utralize or repel the absolute exterior
limit, the schizophrenic limit; it needs to internalize this limit, this time by
restricting it, by causing it to pass no longer between soci al production and the
desiring-production that breaks away from social reproduction, but inside social
production, between the form of social reproduction and the form of a familial
reproduction to which social production is reduced, between the social aggregate
and the private subaggregate to which the social aggregate is applied.
Oedipus is this displaced or internali zed limit where desire lets itself be
caught. The Oedipal triangle is the pers onal and private territoriality that
corresponds to all of capitalism's efforts at social reterritorializa-tion. Oedipus
was always the displaced limit for every so cial formation, since it is the displaced
represented of desire. But in the primitive formations this limit remains vacant,
precisely insofar as the flows are coded and as the interplay of alliances and
filiations keeps families extended according to the scale of the determinations of
the social field, preventing any secondary reduction of the latter to the former. In
the despotic formations the Oedipal limit is occupied, symbolically occupied but
The Evolution of Oedipus
- Oedipus serves as a displaced limit for social formations, evolving from a vacant limit in primitive societies to a lived reality in capitalism.
- In despotic formations, the Oedipal limit is symbolically occupied by imperial incest but remains a representation from above rather than a lived experience.
- Capitalism completes the migration of Oedipus by reducing decoded flows of capital into restricted familial images that desire then invests.
- The psychoanalytic equation of money and excrement is a distortion of the actual conjunction between decoded flows of capital and private persons.
- Oedipus acts as a recapitulation of universal history, gathering territorial fetishes and despotic idols into a single modern simulacrum.
It is not via a flow of shit or a wave of incest that Oedipus arrives, but via the decoded flows of capital-money.
corresponds to all of capitalism's efforts at social reterritorializa-tion. Oedipus
was always the displaced limit for every so cial formation, since it is the displaced
represented of desire. But in the primitive formations this limit remains vacant,
precisely insofar as the flows are coded and as the interplay of alliances and
filiations keeps families extended according to the scale of the determinations of
the social field, preventing any secondary reduction of the latter to the former. In
the despotic formations the Oedipal limit is occupied, symbolically occupied but
not lived or inhabited, inasmuch as the imperial incest effects an overcoding that
in turn surveys the entire social field fr om above (the repressing representation):
the formal operations of flattening, extra polation, and so on, that later belong to
Oedipus, are already sketched out, but w ithin a symbolic space where the object
from on high is formed. It
26 6 A N TI - O E D I P U S
is only in the capitalist formation that the Oedipal limit finds itself not only
occupied, but inhabited and lived, in th e sense in which the social images
produced by the decoded fl ows actually fall back on restricted familial images
invested by desire. It is at this point in the Imaginary that Oedipus is constituted,
at the same time as it completes its migration in the in-depth elements of
representation: the displaced represented has beco me, as such, the representation
of desire. Hence it goes without saying that this becoming or this constitution
does not develop under the cate gories imagined in the earlier social formation,
since the imaginary Oedipus results from su ch a becoming and not the inverse. It
is not via a flow of shit or a wave of incest that Oedipus arrives, but via the
decoded flows of capital-money. The wave s of incest and shit are only secondary
derivates of the latter, insofar as they transport the private persons to which the
flows of capital are reduced or applied. (Which explains the complex origin of
the relation that is completely dist orted in the psychoanalytic equation,
shit=money; in reality, it is a question of encounters or conjunctions, of
derivatives and resultants between decoded flows.)
In Oedipus there is a recapitulation of the three states, or the three machines.
For Oedipus makes ready in the territori al machine, as an empty unoccupied
limit. It takes form in the despotic mach ine as a symbolically occupied limit. But
it is filled and carried to completion onl y by becoming the imaginary Oedipus of
the capitalist machine. The despotic machine preserved the primitive
territorialities, and the capitalist machin e resuscitates the Urstaat as one of the
poles of its axiomatic, it makes the despot into one of its images. That is why
Oedipus gathers up everything, everything is found again in Oedipus, which is
indeed the result of universal history, but in the singular sense in which capital is
already this result. Fetishes, idols, images, and simulacra —here we have the
whole series: territorial fetishes, despotic idols or symbols, then everything is
recapitulated in the images of capitalism, which shapes and reduces them to the
Oedipal simulacrum. The representative of the local group with Laius, the
territoriality with Jocasta, the despot with Oedipus himself: "a motley painting of
everything that has ever been believed." It comes as no surprise that Freud looks
to Sophocles for the central image of Oedipus-the-despot, the myth become
tragedy, in order to make the image radiat e in two contrary directions: the ritual
primitive direction of Totem and Taboo, and the private direction of modern man
the dreamer. (Oedipus can be a myth, a tragedy, or a dream: it always expresses
the displacement of the limit.)
Oedipus would be nothing if the sym bolic position of an object from on
high, in the despotic machine, did not first make possible the folding
The Despotic Signifier and Oedipus
- Freud utilizes the image of Oedipus to bridge the gap between primitive ritual and the private dreams of modern man.
- The transition from the despotic age to capitalism involves the withdrawal of a transcendent signifier in favor of a social field of immanence.
- Psychoanalysis attempts to rescue desire from Oedipus through the concept of castration, yet this often results in reintroducing lack under a new law.
- Modern civilization is characterized by 'bad conscience,' a state where guilt and the death instinct are used as tools of social contagion.
- The evolution of infinite debt moves from the spiritualized despotic State to the internalized capitalist field, producing a cynical and depressive social order.
O ignoble contagion of the depressives, neurosis as the only illness consisting in making others ill; the permissive structure: let me deceive, rob, slaughter, kill!
everything that has ever been believed." It comes as no surprise that Freud looks
to Sophocles for the central image of Oedipus-the-despot, the myth become
tragedy, in order to make the image radiat e in two contrary directions: the ritual
primitive direction of Totem and Taboo, and the private direction of modern man
the dreamer. (Oedipus can be a myth, a tragedy, or a dream: it always expresses
the displacement of the limit.)
Oedipus would be nothing if the sym bolic position of an object from on
high, in the despotic machine, did not first make possible the folding
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS. CIVILIZED MEN 267
and flattening operations that will constitute Oedipus in the modern
social field: the triangulation's cause. Whence the extreme
importance—but also the indeterminate nature, the nondecidability—of
the argument advanced by psychoana lysis's most profound innovator,
which makes the displaced limit pass between the Symbolic and the
Imaginary, between symbolic cast ration and imaginary Oedipus. For
castration in the order of the despotic signifier, as the law of the despot
or the effect of the object from on high, is in reality the formal condition
of the Oedipal images that will be deployed in the field of immanence left
uncovered by the withdrawal of the signifier. I reach desire when I arrive
at castration! What does the desire-castration equation signify, if not in
fact a prodigious operation that cons ists in replacing desire under the
law of the despot, in introducing lack there at the deepest levels, and in
rescuing us from Oedipus by means of a fantastic regression. A fantastic
and brilliant regression: someone had to do it, "no one helped me," as
Lacan says, to shake loose the yoke of Oedipus and carry it to the point
of its autocritique. But it is like the story of the Resistance fighters who,
wanting to destroy a pylon, balanced the plastic charges so well that the
pylon blew up and fell back into its hole. From the Symbolic to the
Imaginary, from castration to Oedipus , and from the despotic age to
capitalism, inversely there is the progress leading to the withdrawal of
the overseeing and overcoding object from on high, which gives way to a
social field of immanence where the decoded flows produce images and
level them down. Whence the two as pects of the signifier: a barred
transcendent signifier taken in a maximum that distributes lack, and an
immanent system of relations between minimal elements that come to
fill the uncovered field (somewhat similar, in traditional terms, to the
way one goes from the Parmenidean Be ing to the atoms of Democritus).
A transcendent object that is more and more spiritualized, for a field of
forces that is more and more immanent, more and more internalized:
this describes the evolution of the infinite debt—through Catholicism,
then the Reformation. The extreme spiritualization of the despotic State,
and the extreme internalization of the capitalist field, define bad
conscience. The latter is not cynicism's contrary; it is, in private
persons, the correlate of the cynicism of social persons. All the cynical
tactics of bad conscience, just as Nietzsche and then Lawrence and
Miller analyzed them to arrive at a definition of civilized European man:
the hypnosis and the reign of images, the torpor they spread; the hatred
of life and of all that is free, of all that passes and flows; the universal
effusion of the death instinct; depression and guilt used as a means of
contagion, the kiss of the Vampire: aren't you ashamed to be happy?
follow my example, I won't let go before you say, "It's my
268 ANTI-OEDIPUS
fault," O ignoble contagion of the de pressives, neurosis as the only
illness consisting in making others ill; the permissive structure: let me
deceive, rob, slaughter, kill! but in th e name of the social order, and so
daddy-mommy will be proud of me; the double direction given to
The Oedipal Filth of Capitalism
- The text argues that psychoanalysis acts as a modern 'ascetic ideal,' utilizing guilt, depression, and the 'death instinct' to control desire.
- Oedipus is presented as a mechanism that redirects social resentment inward against the self or outward toward marginalized groups like Jews and Arabs.
- Capitalism flattens broad social and political investments of desire into a private, familial 'pseudo-organizer' centered on the father and mother.
- The family serves as a locus of retention where social determinations are reduced to the 'dirty little secret' of sexuality and castration.
- The authors compare the internalization of Oedipus to the way Luther internalized religion and Adam Smith internalized the essence of wealth.
The father is dead, it's my fault, who killed him? it's your fault, it's the Jews, the Arabs, the Chinese, all the resources of racism and segregation.
the hypnosis and the reign of images, the torpor they spread; the hatred
of life and of all that is free, of all that passes and flows; the universal
effusion of the death instinct; depression and guilt used as a means of
contagion, the kiss of the Vampire: aren't you ashamed to be happy?
follow my example, I won't let go before you say, "It's my
268 ANTI-OEDIPUS
fault," O ignoble contagion of the de pressives, neurosis as the only
illness consisting in making others ill; the permissive structure: let me
deceive, rob, slaughter, kill! but in th e name of the social order, and so
daddy-mommy will be proud of me; the double direction given to
ressentiment, the turning back against oneself, and the projection against
the Other: the father is dead, it's my fault, who killed him? it's your
fault, it's the Jews, the Arabs, the Chinese, all the resources of racism
and segregation; the abject desire to be loved, the whimpering at not
being loved enough, at not being "understood," concurrent with the
reduction of sexuality to the "dirty little secret," this whole priest's
psychology —there is not a single one of th ese tactics that does not find
in Oedipus its land of milk and honey, its good provider. Nor is there a
single one of these tactics that doe s not serve and develop in psycho-
analysis, with the latter as the new avatar of the "ascetic ideal."
Once again, psychoanalysis does not invent Oedipus; it merely
provides the latter a last territoriality, the couch, and a last Law, the
analyst as despot and money collector. But the mother as the simula-
crum of territoriality, and the father as the simulacrum of the despotic
Law, with the slashed, split, castrate d ego, are the products of capitalism
insofar as it engineers an operation th at has no equivalent in the other
social formations. Everywhere else the familial position is merely a
stimulus to the investment of the social field by desire: the familial
images function only by opening ont o social images to which they
become coupled or which they confront in the course of struggles and
compromises; so that what is invested through the breaks and segments
of families is the economic, political, and cultural breaks of the field into
which they are plunged (cf. Ndembu schizophrenia). This is the case
even in the peripheral zones of capitalism, where the colonizer's efforts
at oedipalizing the indigenous population—African Oedipus—find
themselves contradicted by the breakup of the family along the lines of
social exploitation and oppression. But it is at the soft center of
capitalism, in the temperate zones of the bourgeoisie, that the colony
becomes intimate and private, interior to each person: it is there that the
flow of the investment of desire, which travels from the familial stimulus
to the social organization (or disorganization), is as it were covered over
by a reflux that flattens the social investment onto the familial invest-
ment serving as a pseudo organizer. Th e family has become the locus of
retention and resonance of all the social determinations. It falls to the
reactionary investment of the capita list field to apply all the social
images to the simulcra of the restricted family, with the result that,
wherever one turns, one no longer finds anything but father-mother—
this Oedipal filth that sticks to our skin. Yes, I desired my mother and
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 269
wanted to kill my father; a single subject of enunciation—Oedipus—for
all the capitalist statements, and betw een the two, the leveling cleavage
of castration.
Marx said that Luther's merit was to have determined the essence
of religion, no longer on the side of the object, but as an interior
religiosity; that the merit of Adam Smith and Ricardo was to have
determined the essence or nature of wealth no longer as an objective
nature, but as an abstract and deterritorialized subjective essence, the
The Familialist Reduction of Desire
- The authors compare Freud's discovery of the libido to Marx's analysis of wealth, noting that both identified abstract subjective essences only to re-alienate them.
- Freud is criticized for discovering the 'wide open spaces' of sexuality but immediately confining them within the narrow territoriality of the family unit.
- Psychoanalysis functions by internalizing social repression, transforming the child's desire into a 'dirty little secret' and a source of perpetual guilt.
- By abandoning the seduction theory, Freud exonerates real parental authority and places the burden of pathology entirely on the child's internal fantasies.
- The text argues that psychoanalysis serves as the crowning achievement of nineteenth-century psychiatry by institutionalizing the 'imperative fiction of the family.'
The dirty little secret, in place of the wide open spaces glimpsed for a moment.
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 269
wanted to kill my father; a single subject of enunciation—Oedipus—for
all the capitalist statements, and betw een the two, the leveling cleavage
of castration.
Marx said that Luther's merit was to have determined the essence
of religion, no longer on the side of the object, but as an interior
religiosity; that the merit of Adam Smith and Ricardo was to have
determined the essence or nature of wealth no longer as an objective
nature, but as an abstract and deterritorialized subjective essence, the
activity of production in g eneral. But as this determination develops
under the condition of capitalism, th ey objectify the essence all over
again, they alienate and reterritorialize it, this time in the form of the
private ownership of the means of production. So that capitalism is
without doubt the universal of every so ciety, but only insofar as it is
capable of carrying to a certain point its own critique—that is, the
critique of the processes by which it re-enslaves what within it tends to
free itself or to appear freely.101 The same thing must be said of Freud:
his greatness lies in having determined the essence or nature of desire,
no longer in relation to objects, aims, or even sources (territories), but as
an abstract subjective essence—libido or sexuality. But he still relates
this essence to the family as the last territoriality of private man—
whence the position of Oedipus, marginal at first in the Three Essays,
then centering more and more around desire. It is as though Freud were
asking to be forgiven his profound discovery of sexuality by saying to
us: at least it won't go any further th an the family! The dirty little secret,
in place of the wide open spaces glimpsed for a moment. The familialist
reduction, in place of the drift of de sire. In place of the great decoded
flows, little streams recoded in mommy's bed. Interiority in place of a
new relationship with the outside . Throughout psychoanalysis, the
discourse of bad conscience and guilt always rises up and finds its
nourishment—what is called being cured.
On two points at least, Freud exonerates the real exterior family of
any wrongs, the better to internalize the family and the wrongs in the
person of the family's smallest member, the child. The way in which he
posits an autonomous repression inde pendent of social repression; the
way in which he abandons the theme of the seduction of the child by the
adult, in order to substitute the individual fantasy that makes the real
parents into so many innocents or even victims.* For the family must
appear in two forms: one where doubt less it is guilty, but only in the
manner in which the child lives it intensely, internally, and where it is
*Erich Fromm, apropos of the analysis of Little Hans in particular, has pointed to the increasingly clear
evolution of Freud, who comes to posit the chil d's guilt and exonerate parental authority: The Crisis of
Psychoanalysis (New York: Fawcett, 1970), pp. 55-59, 90-100.
270 ANTI-OEDIPUS
confounded with the child's own guilt; the other where it is a tribunal of
responsibility, before which one stands as a guilty child, and in relation
to which one becomes a responsible adult (Oedipus as sickness and
sanity, the family as an alienating factor and as an agent of dealienation,
if only through the way in which it is reconstituted in the transference).
This is what Foucault has shown in hi s very fine analysis: the familialism
inherent in psychoanalysis doesn't so much destroy classical psychiatry
as shine forth as the latter's crowning achievement. After the madman of
the earth and the madman of the despot comes the madman of the
family; what nineteenth-century psychiatry had wanted to organize in
the asylum—"the imperative fiction of the family," Reason-the-father
and madness-the-child or minor, the parents who are ill only from their
The Theater of Oedipus
- The text argues that psychoanalysis reinforces familialism by internalizing the asylum's power structures within the individual's mind.
- Freud is characterized as a figure who re-enslaves desire by framing it within an intimate theater of myth and tragedy.
- Schizoanalysis is proposed as a method to move beyond private castration and discover the social and machinic investments of the unconscious.
- The author suggests that the Oedipal complex originates in the paranoid mind of the father rather than the natural development of the child.
- Universal history is critiqued as a theology unless it can account for its own contingent existence and perform an autocritique of its structures.
Freud is the Luther and the Adam Smith of psychiatry. He mobilizes all the resources of myth, of tragedy, of dreams, in order to re-enslave desire, this time from within: an intimate theater.
sanity, the family as an alienating factor and as an agent of dealienation,
if only through the way in which it is reconstituted in the transference).
This is what Foucault has shown in hi s very fine analysis: the familialism
inherent in psychoanalysis doesn't so much destroy classical psychiatry
as shine forth as the latter's crowning achievement. After the madman of
the earth and the madman of the despot comes the madman of the
family; what nineteenth-century psychiatry had wanted to organize in
the asylum—"the imperative fiction of the family," Reason-the-father
and madness-the-child or minor, the parents who are ill only from their
own childhood—all this finds its fu lfillment outside the asylum, in
psychoanalysis and in the consulting room of the analyst. Freud is the
Luther and the Adam Smith of psychiatry. He mobilizes all the resources
of myth, of tragedy, of dreams, in order to re-enslave desire, this time
from within: an intimate theater. Yes, Oedipus is nevertheless the
universal of desire, the product of universal history—but on one
condition, which is not met by Freud: that Oedipus be capable, at least to
a certain point, of conducting its autocritique. Universal history is
nothing more than a theology if it does not seize control of the
conditions of its contingent, singular existence, its irony, and its own
critique. And what are these conditions , this point where the autocritique
is possible and necessary? To discover beneath the familial reduction the
nature of the social investments of the unconscious. To discover beneath
the individual fantasy the nature of group fantasies. Or, what amounts to
the same thing, to push the simulacrum to the point where it ceases to be
the image of an image, so as to discover the abstract figures, the
schizzes-flows that it harbors and conceals. To substitute, for the private
subject of castration, split into a subject of e nunciation and a subject of
the statement relating only to the tw o orders of personal images, the
collective agents of enunciation that for their part refer to machinic
arrangements. To overturn the theater of representation into the order of
desiring-production: this is the whole task of schizoanalysis.
SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN 271
4 INTRODUCTION TO
SCHIZOANALYSIS
Translated by Robert Hurley and Mark Seem
1 The Social Field
Which comes first, the chicken or the egg—but also the
father and the mother, or the child? Psychoanalysis acts as if it were the
child (the father is sick only fro m his own childhood), but at the same
time is forced to postulate a parental pre-existence (the child is sick only
in relation to a father and a mother). This is clearly evident in the primal
position of the father of the horde. Oedipus itself would be nothing
without the identifications of the pare nts with the children; and the fact
cannot be hidden that everything begins in the mind of the father: isn't
that what you want, to kill me, to sleep with your mother? It is first of all
a father's idea: thus Laius. It is the father who raises hell, and who
brandishes the law (the mother tends to be obliging: we musn't make this
into a scene, it's only a dream, a territoriality). Levi-Strauss puts it very
well: "The initial theme of the key myth is the incest committed by the
273
hero with the mother. Yet the idea that he is 'guilty' seems to exist mainly in the
mind of the father, who desires his son's death and schemes to bring it about. ...
In the long run it is the father who app ears guilty, through having tried to avenge
himself, and it is he who is killed. . . . This curious indi fference toward incest
appears in other myths".1 Oedipus is first the idea of an adult paran oiac, before
it is the childho od feeling of a neu rotic. So it is that psychoanalysis has much
difficulty extracting itself from an infinite regression: the father must have been
Social Origins of Delirium
- The text argues that the Oedipal complex is often a projection of the father's paranoia rather than the child's neurosis.
- Psychoanalysis is criticized for falling into an infinite regression of fathers and children without addressing the broader social context.
- Delirium is redefined as a primary investment in social, economic, and political fields rather than a purely familial issue.
- The author suggests that familial investments are merely a reduction or application of these larger social investments.
- Using cinema and anthropology, the text illustrates how personal madness is actually an exploration of a global field of coexistence.
What the film shows so well, to the shame of psychiatrists, is that every delirium is first of all the investment of a field that is social, economic, political, cultural, racial and racist, pedagogical, and religious.
hero with the mother. Yet the idea that he is 'guilty' seems to exist mainly in the
mind of the father, who desires his son's death and schemes to bring it about. ...
In the long run it is the father who app ears guilty, through having tried to avenge
himself, and it is he who is killed. . . . This curious indi fference toward incest
appears in other myths".1 Oedipus is first the idea of an adult paran oiac, before
it is the childho od feeling of a neu rotic. So it is that psychoanalysis has much
difficulty extracting itself from an infinite regression: the father must have been
a child, but was able to be a child only in relation to a father, who was himself a
child, in relation to another father.
How does a delirium begin? Perhaps th e cinema is able to capture the
movement of madness, precisely because it is not analytical and regressive, but
explores a global field of coexisten ce. Witness a film by Nicolas Ray,
supposedly representing the formation of a cortisone delirium: an overworked
father, a high-school teacher who works overtime for a radio-taxi service and is
being treated for heart trouble. He begins to rave about the educational system in
general, the need to restore a pure race, the salvation of the social and moral
order, then he passes to religion, the timeliness of a return to the Bible,
Abraham. But what in fact did Abraham do? Well now, he killed or wanted to
kill his son, and perhaps God's only erro r lies in having stayed his hand. But
doesn't this man, the film's protagonist, have a son of his own? Hmm . . . What
the film shows so well, to the shame of psychiatrists, is that every delirium is
first of all the investment of a field th at is social, economic, political, cultural,
racial and racist, pedagogical, and religious: the delirious person applies a
delirium to his family and his son that overreaches them on all sides.
Joseph Gabel, presenting a case of paranoiac delirium with a strong
politico-erotic content replete with suggestions for social reform, believes it
possible to say that such a case is rare , and that, moreover, its origins are not
reconstructible.2 Yet it is evident that there is never a delirium that does not
possess this characteristic to a high degree, and that is not originally economic,
political, and so forth, before being crushe d in the psychiatric and psychoanalytic
treadmill. Judge Schreber would not deny this (nor his father, who invented the
Pangymnastikon and a genera l pedagogical system). Everything changes, then:
the infinite regression forced us to pos tulate a primacy of the father, but an
always relative and hypothetical primacy that carried us to infinity, barring a
shift into the position of an absolutely primary father; but it is clear that the
viewpoint of regression is the result of abstraction. When we say the father is
first in relation to the child, this pr oposition, devoid of meaning in itself,
concretely means the following: the social invest-
274 ANTI-OEDIPUS
ments are first in relation to the familial investments, which result solely from the
application or the reduction (rabattement) of the social investments. To say that
the father is first in relation to the child really amounts to saying that the
investment of desire is in the first inst ance the investment of a social field into
which the father and the child ar e plunged, simultaneously immersed.
Let us again consider the example of the Marquesans, as analyzed by
Kardiner: he distinguishes between an adult alimentary anxiety linked to an
endemic famine, and an infantile alimenta ry anxiety linked to a deficiency of
maternal care.3 Not only is it impossible to derive the first anxiety from the
second, but one cannot even consider, as Kardiner does, that the social
investment corresponding to the first anxiety comes after the infantile familial
Primacy of the Social Field
- The text argues that the investment of desire is primarily a social field into which both father and child are simultaneously immersed.
- Psychoanalysis errs by assuming development begins with the child, leading to an absurd theory where the parents' real actions are treated as the child's fantasies.
- The father is only 'first' in relation to the child because he represents the initial social investment that precedes the familial structure.
- True production is found in the cycle of the unconscious, which uses generation to reproduce itself rather than being in the service of biological reproduction.
- The authors critique 'familialism' for trapping psychoanalysis in a narrow regressive movement that ignores the broader social and historical context.
The paranoiac father Oedipalizes the son. Guilt is an idea projected by the father before it is an inner feeling experienced by the son.
the father is first in relation to the child really amounts to saying that the
investment of desire is in the first inst ance the investment of a social field into
which the father and the child ar e plunged, simultaneously immersed.
Let us again consider the example of the Marquesans, as analyzed by
Kardiner: he distinguishes between an adult alimentary anxiety linked to an
endemic famine, and an infantile alimenta ry anxiety linked to a deficiency of
maternal care.3 Not only is it impossible to derive the first anxiety from the
second, but one cannot even consider, as Kardiner does, that the social
investment corresponding to the first anxiety comes after the infantile familial
investment of the second. For a determin ation of the social field is already
invested in the second type of anxiety, na mely, the rarity of women that explains
how it is that the adults no less than the children "are wary of them." In brief,
what the child invests through the infantile experience, the mother's breast, and
the familial structure is already a state of the breaks and the flows of the social
field in its entirety, flows of women a nd of food, recordings and distributions.
Never is the adult an afterward of the ch ild, but in the family both relate to the
determinations of the field in which bot h the family and they are simultaneously
immersed.
Hence we are confronted by three unavoidable conclusions. (1) From the
point of view of regression, whose meaning is only hypothetical, it is the father
who is first in relation to the child. The paranoiac father Oedipalizes the son.
Guilt is an idea projected by the father befo re it is an inner feeling experienced by
the son. The first error of psychoanalysis is in acting as if things began with the
child. This leads psychoanalysis to develop an absurd theory of fantasy, in terms
of which the father, the mother, and their real actions and passions must first be
understood as "fantasies" of the child (the Freudian abandonment of the theme of
seduction). (2) If regression taken in an absolute sense reveals itself to be
inadequate, it is because this regression encloses us in simple reproduction or
generation. Furthermore, taking organic bodies and or ganized persons as its
object, the theory of regression merely attains the object of reproduction. The
point of view of the cycle alone is categorical an d a bsolute, because it attains
production as the subject of reproduction, whic h is to say it attains the process of
autoproduction of the unconscious (a unity of history and of nature, from Homo
natura to Homo historia). It is certainly not sexuality that is in the service of
generation, but progressive or regressive generation that is in the service of
sexuality as a cyclical
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 275
movement by which the unconsci ous, always remaining "subject,"
reproduces itself. There is, then, no longer any call for wondering which
is first, the father or the child, beca use such a question can be raised only
within the framework of familialism. Th e father is first in relation to the
child, but only because what is first is the social investment in relation to
the familial investment, the investment of the social field in which the
father, the child, and the family as a subaggregate are at one and the
same time immersed. The primacy of the social field as the terminus of
the investment of desire defines the cycle, and the states through which
a subject passes. The second error of psychoanalysis, made just as it
was completing the separation of sexuality from reproduction, lies in
having remained captive to an unre pentant familialism that condemned
it to evolve solely within the move ment of regression or progression.
(Even the psychoanalytic conception of repetition remains captive to
such a movement.4)
(3) Finally, the point of view of the community, which is disjunctive
Social Desires and Delirious Poles
- Psychoanalysis is criticized for its 'familialism,' which limits the understanding of desire to regressive or progressive movements within the family unit.
- The genetic and social fields are defined by the communication of codes and axiomatics rather than the mere transmission of hereditary flows.
- The family is never the primary determinant of the unconscious; it is instead a destination or intermediary for investments that originate in the social field.
- Delirium serves as the matrix for all unconscious social investment, manifesting in either a paranoiac-fascisizing pole or a schizorevolutionary pole.
- The revolutionary path is defined by 'lines of escape' and the refusal of superior social identities in favor of peripheral, nomadic flows.
But the revolutionary knows that escape is revolutionary—withdrawal, freaks, etc.
the investment of desire defines the cycle, and the states through which
a subject passes. The second error of psychoanalysis, made just as it
was completing the separation of sexuality from reproduction, lies in
having remained captive to an unre pentant familialism that condemned
it to evolve solely within the move ment of regression or progression.
(Even the psychoanalytic conception of repetition remains captive to
such a movement.4)
(3) Finally, the point of view of the community, which is disjunctive
or takes account of the disjunctions in the cycle. Not only is generation
second in relation to the cycle, but transmission is second in relation to
an information or a communication. The genetic revolution occurred
when it was discovered that, strictly speaking, there is no transmission
of flows, but a communication of a code or an axiomatic, of a
combinative apparatus (combinatoire) informing the flows. Such is also
the case for the social field: its coding or its axiomatic first determine
within it a communication of unconsciouses. This phenomenon of
communication, which Freud touched on only marginally in his remarks
on occultism, constitutes in fact the norm, and pushes into the back-
ground the problems of hereditary transmission that animated the
Freud-Jung controversy.* It appears that, in the common social field, the
first thing that the son represses, or has to repress, or tries to repress, is
the un conscious of th e fa ther and the moth er. The failure of that
repression is the basis of neuroses. But this communication of uncon-
sciouses does not by any means take th e family as its principle; it takes
as its principle the commonalty of th e social field insofar as it is the
object of the investment of desire. In all respects the family is never
determining, but is always determined, first as a stimulus of departure,
then as an aggregate of destination, and finally as an intermediary or an
interception of communication.
If the familial investment is only a dependence or an application of
*It is also within the perspective of marginal phenom ena that the problem, nevertheless fundamental, of the
communication of unconsciouses was posed, first by Spinoza in letter 17 to Balling, then by Myers, James,
Bergson, etc.
278 ANTI-OEDIPUS
the unconscious investments of the social field—and if this is just as true
of the child as of the adult; if it is true that the child, through the
mommy-territoriality and the daddy-law, already aims for the schizzes
and the encoded or axiomated flows of the social field—then we must
transport the essential difference to the heart of this domain. Delirium is
the general matrix of every unconscious social investment. Every
unconscious investment mobilizes a delirious interplay of disinvest-
ments, of counterinvestme nts, of overinvestments. But we have seen in
this context that there were two major types of social investment,
segregative and nomadic, just as there were two poles of delirium: first,
a paranoiac fascisizing (fascisanf) type or pole that invests the formation
of central sovereignty; overinvests it by making it the final eternal cause
for all the other social forms of hist ory; counterinvests the enclaves or
the periphery; and disinvests every free "figure" of desire—yes, I am
your kind, and I belong to the supe rior race and class. And second, a
schizorevolutionary type or pole that follows the lines of es cape of
desire; breaches the wall and causes flows to move; assembles its
machines and its groups-in-fusion in the enclaves or at the
periphery—proceeding in an inverse fashion from that of the other pole:
I am not your kind, I belong eternally to the inferior race, I am a beast, a
black. Good people say that we must not flee, that to escape is not good,
that it isn't effective, and that one must work for reforms. But the
revolutionary knows that escape is revolutionary—withdrawal,
Schizorevolutionary Flight and Social Poles
- The schizorevolutionary pole is defined by 'lines of escape' that breach social walls and cause desire to flow toward the periphery.
- Revolutionary escape is distinguished from mere withdrawal by its ability to sweep away social covers or disrupt the existing system.
- The unconscious oscillates between two poles: a paranoiac, fascist investment in archaisms and a nomadic, revolutionary breakthrough.
- Schizoanalysis seeks to map these underground passages where literary and social figures often shift from revolutionary flight back into moralizing territorialities.
- The family is viewed not as the origin of desire, but as an 'emulsion' agitated by external economic, social, and cultural forces that the child perceives directly.
I may take flight, but all the while I am fleeing, I will be looking for a weapon!
schizorevolutionary type or pole that follows the lines of es cape of
desire; breaches the wall and causes flows to move; assembles its
machines and its groups-in-fusion in the enclaves or at the
periphery—proceeding in an inverse fashion from that of the other pole:
I am not your kind, I belong eternally to the inferior race, I am a beast, a
black. Good people say that we must not flee, that to escape is not good,
that it isn't effective, and that one must work for reforms. But the
revolutionary knows that escape is revolutionary—withdrawal,
freaks —provided one sweeps away the so cial cover on leaving, or
causes a piece of the system to get lost in the shuffle. What matters is to
break through the wall, even if one has to become black like John
Brown. George Jackson. 'I may take flight, but all the while I am fleeing,
I will be looking for a weapon!'5
Doubtless there are astonishing oscillations of the unconscious,
from one pole of delirium to the other: the way in which an expected
revolutionary force (puissance) breaks free, sometimes even in the
midst of the worst archaisms; invers ely, the way in which everything
turns fascist or envelops itself in fascism, the way in which it falls back
into archaisms. Or, staying on the level of literary examples: the case of
Celine, the great victim of delir ium who evolves while communicating
more and more with the paranoia of his father. The case of Jack
Kerouac, the artist possessing the s oberest of means who took revolu-
tionary "flight," but who later finds himself immersed in dreams of a
Great America, and then in search of his Breton ancestors of the
superior race. Isn't the destiny of American literature that of crossing
limits and frontiers, causing deterritoria lized flows of desire to circulate,
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 277
but also always making these flows trans port fascisizing, moralizing, Puritan,
and familialist territorialities?
These oscillations of the unconscious, these underground passages from one
type of libidinal investment to the othe r—often the coexistence of the two—form
one of the major objects of schizoanalysis. The two poles united by Artaud in the
formula: Heliogabalus-the-anarchist, "the image of all human contradictions, and
of the contradiction in pri nciple." But no passage impairs or suppresses the
difference in nature between the two, noma dism and segregation. If we are able
to define this difference as that which separates paranoia and schizophrenia, it is
because on the one hand we have distingui shed the schizophrenic process ("the
breakthrough") from the accidents and relaps es that hinder or interrupt it ("the
breakdown"), and because on the other hand we have posited paranoia no less
than schizophrenia as indepe ndent of all familial pseudo etiologies, so as to make
them bear directly upon the social field: every name in history, and not the name
of the father. On the contra ry, the nature of the familial investments depends on
the breaks and the flows of the social fiel d as they are invested in one type or
another, at one pole or the other. And the child does not wait until he is an adult
before grasping—underneath fa ther-mother—the economic, financial, social, and
cultural problems that cross through a family: his belonging or his desire to
belong to a superior or an inferior "r ace," the reactionary or the revolutionary
tenor of a familial group with which he is already preparing hi s ruptures and his
conformities.
What a muddle, what an emulsion the family is, agitated by backwashes,
pulled in one direction or another, in su ch a way that the Oedipal bacillus takes
or doesn't take, imposes its mold or doesn't succeed in imposing it, pursuing
directions of an entirely different natu re that traverse the family from the
exterior. What we mean is that Oedipus is born of an application or a reduction to
personalized images, which presupposes a social investment of a paranoiac
Paranoia, Schizophrenia, and Social Investment
- The family is described as a turbulent emulsion where the Oedipal complex is either imposed or rejected based on external social and cultural pressures.
- Oedipus is framed as a dependency of paranoiac territoriality, resulting from the reduction of social investments into personalized, familial images.
- Schizophrenia represents a 'matrical fissure' where the family expands into the social field rather than withdrawing into a private, personalized unit.
- Paranoia is characterized by the organization and manipulation of 'molar aggregates' or large-scale masses, such as armies, crowds, and statistical formations.
- The text contrasts the paranoiac investment in large numbers and organized crowds with a molecular direction that moves toward a historic cosmos or chaos.
What a muddle, what an emulsion the family is, agitated by backwashes, pulled in one direction or another, in such a way that the Oedipal bacillus takes or doesn't take, imposes its mold or doesn't succeed in imposing it.
cultural problems that cross through a family: his belonging or his desire to
belong to a superior or an inferior "r ace," the reactionary or the revolutionary
tenor of a familial group with which he is already preparing hi s ruptures and his
conformities.
What a muddle, what an emulsion the family is, agitated by backwashes,
pulled in one direction or another, in su ch a way that the Oedipal bacillus takes
or doesn't take, imposes its mold or doesn't succeed in imposing it, pursuing
directions of an entirely different natu re that traverse the family from the
exterior. What we mean is that Oedipus is born of an application or a reduction to
personalized images, which presupposes a social investment of a paranoiac
type—which explains why Freud firs t discovers the familial romance and
Oedipus while reflecting on paranoia. Oe dipus is a dependency of the paranoiac
territoriality, whereas the schizophren ic investment commands an entirely
different determination, a family gasp ing for breath and stretched out over the
dimensions of a social field that does not reclose or withdraw: a family-as-matrix
for depersonalized partial objects, whic h plunge again and again into the
torrential or depleted flux of a historic cosmos, a historic chaos. The matrical
fissure of schizophrenia, as opposed to paranoiac castration; and the line of
escape as opposed to the "blue line," the blues.
278 ANTI-OEDIPUS
O mother
farewell
with a long black shoe
farewell
with Communist Party and a broken stocking. . . .
with your sagging belly
with your fear of Hitler
with your mouth of bad short stories. . . .
with your belly of strikes and smokestacks
with your chin of Trotsky and the Spanish War
with your voice singing for the d ecaying overbroken workers. . . .
with your eyes
with your eyes of Russia
with your eyes of no money. . . .
with your eyes of starving India. . . .
with your eyes of Czechoslova kia attacked by robots. . . .
with your eyes being led away by policemen to an ambulance
with your eyes with the pancreas removed
with your eyes of appendix operation
with your eyes of abortion
with your eyes of ovaries removed
with your eyes of shock
with your eyes of lobotomy
with your eyes of divorce. . . . 6
Why these words, paranoia and schizophrenia, which are like talking birds
and girls' first names? Why do social i nvestments follow this dividing line that
gives them a specifically delirious content (recreating history in delirium)? And
what is this line, how can we situate sc hizophrenia and paranoia on either side of
it? Our assumption is that everything happens on the body without organs; but
this body has, as it were, two faces. Elias Canetti has clearly shown how the
paranoiac organizes masses and "packs. " The paranoiac opposes them to one
another, maneuvers them.* The paranoiac engi neers masses, he is the artist of the
large molar aggregates, the statistical formations or gregari-ousnesses, the
phenomena of organized crowds. He inve sts everything that falls within the
province of large numbers. The night of the battle,
*Elias Canetti, Crowds and Power (New York: Viking Press, 1960), p. 434: "His mind was dominated by
four kinds of crowds: his army, his treasure, his corpse s and his court (and, with it, his capital). He juggled
with them ceaselessly, but only succeeded in increasin g one at the expense of another. ... Whatever he did
there was always one, crowd which he managed to preserve. In no circumstances did he ever cease to kill. .. .
The heaps of corpses piled up in every province of his empire."
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 279
Colonel Lawrence lines up the young naked corpses on the full body of the
desert. Judge Schreber attaches little me n by the thousands to his body. It might
be said that, of the two directions in physics —the molar direction that goes
toward the large numbers and the mass phenomena, and the molecular direction
Molar Aggregates and Molecular Multiplicities
- The text distinguishes between the paranoiac's focus on 'macrophysics' and the schizophrenic's focus on 'microphysics.'
- Paranoia is characterized by an investment in large aggregates, molar structures, and the statistical laws of the crowd.
- Schizophrenia operates through molecular multiplicities, partial objects, and flows that escape the perspectives of large aggregates.
- Every investment of desire is fundamentally collective and social, rather than individual, regardless of whether it is molar or molecular.
- The distinction between these two poles defines the difference between subjugated groups and subject-groups in social and psychic life.
He juggled with them ceaselessly, but only succeeded in increasing one at the expense of another.
*Elias Canetti, Crowds and Power (New York: Viking Press, 1960), p. 434: "His mind was dominated by
four kinds of crowds: his army, his treasure, his corpse s and his court (and, with it, his capital). He juggled
with them ceaselessly, but only succeeded in increasin g one at the expense of another. ... Whatever he did
there was always one, crowd which he managed to preserve. In no circumstances did he ever cease to kill. .. .
The heaps of corpses piled up in every province of his empire."
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 279
Colonel Lawrence lines up the young naked corpses on the full body of the
desert. Judge Schreber attaches little me n by the thousands to his body. It might
be said that, of the two directions in physics —the molar direction that goes
toward the large numbers and the mass phenomena, and the molecular direction
that on the contrary penetrates into singularities, their interactions and
connections at a distance or between di fferent orders—the paranoiac has chosen
the first: he practices macrophysics. And it could be said that by contrast the
schizo goes in the other direction, that of microphysics, of molecules insofar as
they no longer obey the statistical laws: waves and corpuscles, flows and partial
objects that are no longer dependent upon th e large numbers; infinitesimal lines
of escape, instead of the persp ectives of the large aggregates.
Doubtless it would be a mistake to cont rast these two dimensions in terms
of the collective and the individual. On the one hand, the rnicrounconscious
presents no fewer arrangements, connec tions, and interactions, although these
arrangements are of an original type; on the other hand, the form of
individualized persons does not belong to it, since it knows only partial objects
and flows, but belongs instead to the laws of statistical distribution of the molar
unconscious or the macroun-conscious. Fr eud was Darwinian, neo-Darwinian,
when he said that in the unconscious everything was a problem of population
(likewise, in the contemplation of multiplicities he saw a sign of psychosis).* It
is therefore more a matter of the difference between two kinds of collections or
populations: the large aggregates and the micromultipli-cities. In both cases the
investment is collective, it is an investment of a collective field; even a lone
particle has an associated wave as a flow that defines the coexisting space of its
presences. Every investment is collective, every fantasy is a group fantasy and in
this sense a position of reality. But the two kinds of invest ments are radically
different, according as the one bears upon the molar structures that subordinate
the molecules, and the other on the contrary bears upon the molecular
multiplicities that subordinate the st ructured crowd phenomena. One is a
subjugated grou p investment, as much in its sovereign form as in its colonial
formations of the gregarious aggregate, which socially and psychically represses
the desire of persons; the other, a subject-group investment in the transverse
multiplicities that convey desire as a mo lecular phenomenon, that is, as partial
objects and flows, as opposed to aggregates and persons.
It is true that social investments are made on the socius itself as a
*In the article of 3913 on "The Unconscious." Freud shows that psychosis cau ses small mu ltiplicities to
intervene, as opposed to neurosis, which requires a glob al object: for example, the multiplicity of holes. But
Freud explains this psychotic phenomenon solely by invoking the power of verbal representation.
280 ANTI-OEDIPUS
full body, and that their respective poles necessarily relate to the
character or the "map" of this socius—earth, despot, or capital-money
(for each social machine the two poles, paranoiac and schizophrenic, are
distributed in varying ways). Wher eas the paranoiac and the schizo-
phrenic, properly speaking, do not operate on the socius, but on the
The Body Without Organs
- Desire is framed as a molecular phenomenon consisting of partial objects and flows rather than unified persons or aggregates.
- The body without organs serves as a pivot or frontier between the molar social structures and submicroscopic molecular elements.
- Paranoia and schizophrenia are described as the two extreme oscillations of a pendulum moving around the socius and the body without organs.
- The body without organs is not the origin of the socius but its ultimate limit and residue of deterritorialization.
- Social investments are categorized as paranoiac or schizophrenic based on how they interact with the mass phenomenon or molecular escape.
The body without organs is like the cosmic egg, the giant molecule swarming with worms, bacilli, Lilliputian figures, animalcules, and homunculi.
multiplicities that convey desire as a mo lecular phenomenon, that is, as partial
objects and flows, as opposed to aggregates and persons.
It is true that social investments are made on the socius itself as a
*In the article of 3913 on "The Unconscious." Freud shows that psychosis cau ses small mu ltiplicities to
intervene, as opposed to neurosis, which requires a glob al object: for example, the multiplicity of holes. But
Freud explains this psychotic phenomenon solely by invoking the power of verbal representation.
280 ANTI-OEDIPUS
full body, and that their respective poles necessarily relate to the
character or the "map" of this socius—earth, despot, or capital-money
(for each social machine the two poles, paranoiac and schizophrenic, are
distributed in varying ways). Wher eas the paranoiac and the schizo-
phrenic, properly speaking, do not operate on the socius, but on the
body without organs in a pure state. It might then be said that the
paranoiac, in the clinical sense of the term, makes us spectators to the
imaginary birth of the mass phenomenon, and does so at a level that is
still microscopic. The body without or gans is like the cosmic egg, the
giant molecule swarming with worms, bacilli, Lilliputian figures, animal-
cules, and homunculi, with their or ganization and their machines, minute
strings, ropes, teeth, fingernails, le vers and pulleys, catapults: thus in
Schreber the millions of spermatazoids in the sunbeams, or the souls
that lead a brief existence as little men on his body. Artaud says: this
world of microbes, which is nothing more than coagulated nothingness.
The two sides of the body without organs are, therefore, the side on
which the mass phenomenon and the paranoiac investment correspond-
ing to it are organized on a micros copic scale, and the other side on
which, on a submicroscopic scale, the molecular phenomena and their
schizophrenic investment are arranged. It is on the body without organs,
as a pivot, as a frontier between the molar and the molecular, that the
paranoia-schizophrenia division is ma de. Are we to believe, then, that
social investments are secondary projections, as if a large two-headed
schizonoiac, father of the primitive horde, were at the base of the socius
in general? We have seen that this is not at all the case. The socius is not
a projection of the body without organs; rather, the body without organs
is the limit of the socius, its tangent of deterritorialization, the ultimate
residue of a deterritorial ized socius. The socius—the earth, the body of
the despot, capital-mone y—are clothed full bodies, just as the body
without organs is a naked full body; bu t the latter exists at the limit, at
the end, not at the origin. And doubtless the body without organs haunts
all forms of socius. But in this very sense, if social investments can be
said to be paranoiac or schizophrenic, it is to the extent that they have
paranoia and schizophrenia as ultimate products under the determinate
conditions of capitalism.
From the standpoint of a universal clinical theory, paranoia and
schizophrenia can be presented as the two extreme oscillaions of a
pendulum oscillating around the position of a socius as a full body and,
at the limit, of a body without organs, one of whose sides is occupied by
the molar aggregates, and the othe r populated by molecular elements.
But one can also present this as a single line along which the different
forms of socius, their planes and their large aggregates, are arranged; on
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 281
282 ANTI-OEDIPUS
each of these planes there is a paranoiac dimension, another that is perverse, a
kind of familial position, and a dotted lin e of escape or schizoid breakthrough.
The major line ends at the body without or gans, and there it either passes through
the wall, opening onto the molecular elem ents where it becomes in actual fact
The Molecular Unconscious
- The schizophrenic process is defined as a line of escape that either breaks through the wall of the socius or rebounds into modern territorialities like the asylum and the Oedipal family.
- The unconscious is not a metaphor but belongs to the realm of physics, composed of matter, intensities, and the body without organs.
- A fundamental distinction is drawn between the molecular level of desiring-machines and the molar level of statistical social aggregates.
- Traditional debates between vitalism and mechanism fail to account for the autoproduction of desire, which functions as a machine that forms and reproduces itself.
- The unconscious is populated by groups and machines rather than individual or collective psychologies, which are often stymied by Oedipal frameworks.
In the unconscious there are only populations, groups, and machines.
pendulum oscillating around the position of a socius as a full body and,
at the limit, of a body without organs, one of whose sides is occupied by
the molar aggregates, and the othe r populated by molecular elements.
But one can also present this as a single line along which the different
forms of socius, their planes and their large aggregates, are arranged; on
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 281
282 ANTI-OEDIPUS
each of these planes there is a paranoiac dimension, another that is perverse, a
kind of familial position, and a dotted lin e of escape or schizoid breakthrough.
The major line ends at the body without or gans, and there it either passes through
the wall, opening onto the molecular elem ents where it becomes in actual fact
what it was from the start: the schizophrenic process, the pure schizophrenic
process of deterritoriali-zation. Or it strikes the wall, rebounds off it, and falls
back into the most miserably arranged territorialities of the modern world as
simulacra of the preceding planes, getting caught up in the asylum aggregate of
paranoia and schizophrenia as clinical en tities, in the artificial aggregates or
societies established by perversion, in th e familial aggregate of Oedipal neuroses.
2 The Molecular Unconscious
What is the meaning of this distinction between two regions: one
molecular and the other molar; one mi cropsychic or micrological, the other
statistical and gregarious? Is this anything more than a metaphor lending the
unconscious a distinction grounded in phy sics, when we speak of an opposition
between intra-atomic phenomena and th e mass phenomena that operate through
statistical accumulation, obeying the laws of aggregates? But in reality the
unconscious belongs to the realm of physics; the body without organs and its
intensities are not metaphors, but matter itself. Nor is it our intention to revive the
question of an individual psychology a nd a collective psychology, and of the
priority of the one or the other; th is distinction, as it appears in Group Psychology
and the A nalysis of the E go, remains completely stymied by Oedipus. In the
unconscious there are only populations, groups, and machines. When we posit in
one case an involuntariness (un involontaire) of the social and technical
machines, in the other case an unconsci ous of the desiring-machines, it is a
question of a necessary relationship between inextricably linked forces. Some of
these are elementary forces by means of which the unconscious is produced; the
others, resultants reacting on the first, statistical aggregates through which the
unconscious is represented and already suffe rs psychic and social repression of its
elementary productive forces.
But how can we speak of machines in this microphysical or micropsychic
region, there where there is desire —that is to say, not only its functioning, but
formation and autoproduction? A machine works according to the previous
intercommunications of its structure and the positioning of its parts, but does not
set itself into place any more than it form s or reproduces itself. This is even the
point around which the usual
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS
polemic between vitalism and m echanism revolves: the machine's
ability to account for the workings of the organism, but its fundamental
inability to account fo r its formations. From machines, mechanism
abstracts a structural unity in terms of which it explains the functioning
of the organism. Vitalism invokes an individual and specific unity of the
living, which every machine presupposes insofar as it is subordinate to
organic continuance, and insofar as it extends the latter's autonomous
formations on the outside. But it shoul d be noted that, in one way or
another, the machine and desire thus remain in an extrinsic relationship,
either because desire appears as an effect determined by a system of
The Machine and Desire
- Traditional views place machines and desire in an extrinsic relationship, seeing machines either as causes of desire or as tools for its fulfillment.
- Samuel Butler challenges the distinction between organisms and machines by suggesting that machines are detached limbs belonging to a social body.
- The text argues that organisms lack a singular personal unity and are instead composed of an abundance of distinct, engineered parts.
- Butler redefines reproduction by suggesting that humans serve as the reproductive system for machines, much like a bee serves a clover.
- The concept of a machine as a single entity is dismissed as an unscientific assumption, viewing it instead as a complex city or society of parts.
The lower animals keep all their limbs at home in their bodies, but many of man's are loose, and lie about detached, now here and now there, in various parts of the world.
abstracts a structural unity in terms of which it explains the functioning
of the organism. Vitalism invokes an individual and specific unity of the
living, which every machine presupposes insofar as it is subordinate to
organic continuance, and insofar as it extends the latter's autonomous
formations on the outside. But it shoul d be noted that, in one way or
another, the machine and desire thus remain in an extrinsic relationship,
either because desire appears as an effect determined by a system of
mechanical causes, or because the machine is itself a system of means in
terms of the aims of desire. The link between the two remains secondary
and indirect, both in the new means appropriated by desire and in the
derived desires produced by the machines.
A profound text by Samuel Butler, "The Book of the Machines,"
nevertheless allows us to go beyond these points of view.7 It is true that
this text seems at first merely to contrast the two common arguments,
the one according to which the organisms are for the moment only more
perfect machines ("Whether those th ings which we deem most purely
spiritual are anything but disturbances of equilibrium in an infinite series
of levers, beginning with those levers that are too small for microscopic
detection"8), the other according to which machines are never more than
extensions of the organism ("The lower animals keep all their limbs at
home in their bodies, but many of man's are loose, and lie about
detached, now here and now there, in various parts of the world"9). But
there is a Butlerian manner for carrying each of the arguments to an
extreme point where it can no longer be opposed to the other, a point of
nondifference or dispersion. For one thing, Butler is not content to say
that machines extend the organism, but asserts that they are really limbs
and organs lying on the body without organs of a society, which men will
appropriate according to their pow er and their wealth, and whose
poverty deprives them as if they we re mutilated organisms. For another,
he is not content to say that organisms are machines, but asserts that
they contain such an abundance of parts that they must be compared to
very different parts of distinct machines, each relating to the others,
engineered in combination with the others.
What is essential is this double movement whereby Butler drives
both arguments beyond their very limits. He shatters th e vitalist
argument by calling in question the specific or personal unity of the
organism, and the mechanis t argument even more decisively, by calling in
question the structural unity of the machin e. It is said that machines do
not reproduce themselves, or that they only reproduce themselves
ANTI-OEDIPUS
through the intermediary of man, but "does any one say that the red
clover has no reproductive system because the bumble bee (and the
bumble bee only) must aid and abet it before it can reproduce? No one.
The bumble bee is a part of the repr oductive system of the clover. Each
one of ourselves has sprung from mi nute animalcules whose entity was
entirely distinct from our own. . . . These creatures are part of our
reproductive system; then why not we pa rt of that of the machines? . . .
We are misled by considering any complicated machine as a single thing;
in truth it is a city or a society, each member of which was bred truly
after its kind. We see a machine as a whole, we call it by a name and
individualize it; we look at our ow n limbs, and know that the combina-
tion forms an individual which spri ngs from a single centre of reproduc-
tive action; we therefore assume that there can be no reproductive action
which does not arise from a single center; but this assumption is
unscientific, and the bare fact th at no vapour-engine was ever made
The Vertebro-Machinate Desire
- The text challenges the view of machines as single entities, proposing instead that they are complex societies where each part is bred by specialized systems.
- The distinction between biological organisms and mechanical structures dissolves into a domain of nondifference where machines and living beings interpenetrate.
- Desire is redefined not as a subjective human experience, but as a machined process that exists at the heart of both the biological and the mechanical.
- A shift is made from viewing molar aggregates—the unified machine or person—to molecular multiplicities where small machines and biological singularities communicate directly.
- The relationship between man and machine is described as a parasitic or symbiotic exchange, rendering man an 'aphidian parasite' or a 'vertebro-machinate mammal.'
Desire is not in the subject, but the machine in desire—with the residual subject off to the side, alongside the machine, around the entire periphery, a parasite of machines, an accessory of vertebro-machinate desire.
We are misled by considering any complicated machine as a single thing;
in truth it is a city or a society, each member of which was bred truly
after its kind. We see a machine as a whole, we call it by a name and
individualize it; we look at our ow n limbs, and know that the combina-
tion forms an individual which spri ngs from a single centre of reproduc-
tive action; we therefore assume that there can be no reproductive action
which does not arise from a single center; but this assumption is
unscientific, and the bare fact th at no vapour-engine was ever made
entirely by another, or two others, of its own kind, is not sufficient to
warrant us in saying that vapour-engi nes have no reproductive system.
The truth is that each part of ev ery vapour-engine is bred by its own
special breeders, whose function is to breed that part, and that only,
while the combination of the parts into a whole forms another depart-
ment of the mechanical reproductive system."10 In passing, Butler
encounters the phenomenon of surplus value of code, when a part of a
machine captures within its own code a code fragment of another
machine, and thus owes its reproducti on to a part of another machine:
the red clover and the bumble bee; or the orchid and the male wasp that
it attracts and intercepts by carrying on its flower the image and the odor
of the female wasp.
At this poin t o f dispersion of the two arguments, it becomes
immaterial whether one says that machines are organs, or organs,
machines. The two definitions are exact equivalents: man as a
"vertebro-machinate mammal," or as an "aphidian parasite of ma-
chines." What is essential is not in the passage to infinity itself—the
infinity composed of machine parts or the temporal infinity of the
animalcules—but rather in what th is passage blossoms into. Once the
structural unity of the machine has been undone, once the personal and
specific unity of the living has been laid to rest, a direct link is perceived
between the machine and desire, the machine passes to the heart of
desire, the machine is desiring and desi re, machined. Desire is not in the
subject, but the machine in desire—with the residual subject off to the
side, alongside the machine, around th e entire periphery, a parasite of
machines, an accessory of vertebro-machinate desire. In a word, the real
difference is not between the livi ng and the machine, vitalism and
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 285
mechanism, but between two states of the machine that are two states of
the living as well. The machine taken in its structural unity, the living
taken in its specific and even personal unity, are mass phenomena or
molar aggregates; for this reason each points to the extrinsic existence
of the other. And even if they are differentiated and mutually opposed, it
is merely as two paths in the same statistical direction. But in the other
more profound or intrinsic direc tion of multiplicities there is
interpene-tration, direct communication between the molecular
phenomena and the singularities of the living, that is to say, between the
small machines scattered in every machine, and the small formations
dispersed in every organism: a dom ain of nondifference between the
microphysicai and the biological, ther e being as many living beings in
the machine as there are machines in the living. Why speak of machines
in this domain, when there would seem to be none, strictly
speaking—no structural unity nor any preformed mechanical
interconnections? "But there is the possibility of formation of such
machines—in indefinitely superimposed relays, in working cycles that
mesh with each other—which, once assembled, will obey the laws of
thermo-dynamics, but which in the process of assembly do not depend
on these laws, since the chain of assembly begins in a domain where by
definition there are as yet no statistical laws. . . . At this level, functioning
Molecular and Molar Machines
- The text distinguishes between molar machines, which are unified social or organic structures, and desiring-machines, which operate on a molecular level.
- Desiring-machines are characterized by a state where functioning and formation are indistinguishable, allowing them to assemble themselves through non-local communications.
- Unlike statistical molar systems, molecular machines operate through fragmented parts and 'schizzes-flows' that produce a whole alongside the parts rather than above them.
- Molar manifestations occur when machines become unified into visible objects or subjects, shifting from inclusive disjunctions to exclusive ones.
- The transition from the micro-physical to the biological suggests that even large organisms remain 'microscopic' in their fundamental individual interactions.
Desiring-machines are the following: formative machines, whose very misfirings are functional, and whose functioning is indiscernible from their formation.
in this domain, when there would seem to be none, strictly
speaking—no structural unity nor any preformed mechanical
interconnections? "But there is the possibility of formation of such
machines—in indefinitely superimposed relays, in working cycles that
mesh with each other—which, once assembled, will obey the laws of
thermo-dynamics, but which in the process of assembly do not depend
on these laws, since the chain of assembly begins in a domain where by
definition there are as yet no statistical laws. . . . At this level, functioning
and formation are still confounded as in the molecule; and, starting from
this level, two diverging paths open up, of which one will lead to the
more or less regular accumulations of individuals, the other to the
perfectings of the individual organi zation whose simplest schema is the
formation of a pipe."*
The real difference is therefore between on the one hand the molar
machines—whether social, technical, or organic—and on the other the
desiring-machines, which are of a molecular order. Desiring-rnachines
are the following: formative machines, whose very misfirings are
functional, and whose functioning is indiscernible from their formation;
chronogeneous machines engaged in their own assembly (montage),
operating by nonlocalizable interc ommunications and dispersed locali-
zations, bringing into play proce sses of temporali zation, fragmented
*Raymond Ruyer, La genese des formes vivantes (Paris: Flamniarion, 1958), pp. 80-81. Taking up certain
arguments of Bohr, Schrodinger, Jord an, and Lillie, Ruyer shows that the living is directly coupled to the
individual phenomena of the atom, beyond the mass effects th at appear in the internal mechanical circuits of
the organism as well as in the external technical activities: "Classical physics only concerns itself with mass
phenomena. !n contrast, micro-physics naturally leads to biology. Starting from the individual phenomena of
the atom, one can in fact go in two directions. Their statistical accumulation leads to the laws of common
physics. But as these individual phenomena become complicated through systema tic interactions—all the
while keeping their individuality at the core of the molecule, then at the core of the macromolecule, then of
the virus, then of the one-celled organism, by subordinating the mass phenomena—one is led all the way to
the organism that, no matter how large, remains in this sense microscopic "fp. 54). These themes are
developed at length by Ruyer in Nea-finalisme (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1952).
286 ANTI-OEDIFUS
formations, and detached parts, with a surplus value of code, and where
the whole is itself produced alongside the parts, as a part apart or, as
Butler would say, "in another departme nt" that fits the whole over the
other parts; machines in the strict sense, because they proceed by breaks
and flows, associated waves and particles, associative flows and partial
objects, inducing—alway s at a distance—transverse connections,
inclusive disjunctions, and polyvo ca! conjunctions, thereby producing
selections, detachme nts, and remainders, with a transference of individ-
uality, in a generalized schizogenesis whose elements are the
schizzes-flows.
Subsequently—rather, we shoul d say on the other hand—when the
machines become unified at the structural level of techniques and
institutions that give them an existe nce as visible as a plate of steel;
when the living, too, become structured by the statistical unities of their
persons and their species, varieties, and locales; when a machine appears
as a single object, and a living orga nism appears as a single subject;
when the connections become glob al and specific, the disjunctions
exclusive, and the conjunctions biunivocal; then desire does not need to
project itself into these forms that have become opaque. These forms are
immediately molar manifestations, statistical determinations of desire
Molar Aggregates and Desiring-Machines
- The text argues that social, technical, and organic machines are identical in nature to desiring-machines, differing only in scale and regime.
- Molar machines are characterized by statistical unities and large-scale aggregates that subordinate individual singularities to the laws of large numbers.
- Desiring-machines exist at a submicroscopic level where production and functioning are inseparable, unlike molar systems where assembly and use are distinct.
- The authors reject the idea that desiring-machines are merely imaginary or symbolic, asserting they are the literal investments of all large-scale social forms.
- Molar functionalism is described as inherently false because it separates the meaning and purpose of a machine from its actual process of production.
The desiring-machines on the contrary represent nothing, signify nothing, mean nothing, and are exactly what one makes of them, what is made with them, what they make in themselves.
institutions that give them an existe nce as visible as a plate of steel;
when the living, too, become structured by the statistical unities of their
persons and their species, varieties, and locales; when a machine appears
as a single object, and a living orga nism appears as a single subject;
when the connections become glob al and specific, the disjunctions
exclusive, and the conjunctions biunivocal; then desire does not need to
project itself into these forms that have become opaque. These forms are
immediately molar manifestations, statistical determinations of desire
and of its own machines. They are the same machines (there is no
difference in nature): here, as organic, technical, or social machines
apprehended in their mass phenomenon, to which they become subordi-
nated; there, as desiring-machines apprehended in their submicroscopic
singularities that subordinate the mass phenomena. That is why from the
start we have rejected the idea that desiring-machines belong to the
domain of dreams or the Imaginary, and that they stand in for the other
machines. There is only desire and e nvironments, fields, forms of herd
instinct. Stated differently, the molecular desiring-machines are in
themselves the investment of the large molar machines or of the
configurations that the desiring-machines form according to the laws of
large numbers* in either or both senses of subordination, in one sense
and the other of subordination. Desi ring-machines in one sense, but
organic, technical, or social machines in the other: these are the same
machines under determinate conditions . By "determinate conditions" we
mean those statistical forms into which the machines enter as so
* Allen Wallis and Harry Roberts, in Statistics, a New Approach (New York: Free Press of Giencoe, 1956),
define the "law of large numbers" as follows: "the larger the samples, the (ess will be the variability in the
sample proportions . . . the basis of the Law of Larg e Numbers is that for an improbable event to occur n
times is improbable to the «th degree" (p. 123); "the larger the groups averaged, the less the variation" (p.
159). And the consecutive sequences will be "swamped" by a large number of subse quent observations (see
L. H, C. Tippett, Statistics [New York: Oxford University Press, 1943), p. 87). (Translators'note.)
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 287
many stable forms, unifying, structuring, and proceeding by means of
large heavy aggregates; the selective pressures that group the parts
retain some of them and exclude others, organizing the crowds. These
are therefore the same machines, but not at ail the same regime, the
same relationships of magnitude, or th e same uses of syntheses. It is
only at the submicroscopic level of de siring-machines that there exists a
functionalism—machinic arrangements, an engineering of desire; for it
is only there that functioning and formation, use and assembly, product
and production merge. AH molar functiona lism is false, since the organic
or social machines are not formed in the same way they function, and
the technical machines are not assembled in the same way they are used,
but imply precisely the specific c onditions that separate their own
production from their distinct product. Only what is not produced in the
same way it functions has a meaning, and also a purpose, an intention.
The desiring-machines on the contra ry represent nothing, signify noth-
ing, mean nothing, and are exactly what one makes of them, what is
made with them, what they make in themselves.
Desiring-machines work according to regimes of syntheses that
have no equivalent in the large aggregates. Jacques Monod has defined
the originality of these syntheses, from the standpoint of a molecular
biology or of a "microscopic cybe rnetics" without regard to the
traditional opposition between mechanis m and vitalism. Here the funda-
Molecular Desiring-Machines
- Desiring-machines are defined by their lack of inherent meaning or representation, functioning purely through what they make and what is made with them.
- Drawing on molecular biology, the text describes allosteric interactions as 'gratuitous' systems that allow for limitless exploration and cybernetic interconnection.
- The transition from molecular chance to molar organization occurs through 'lottery drawings' that create structured configurations in both organic and social machines.
- The genetic and social codes are characterized as 'jargons' rather than languages, where non-signifying elements only gain meaning within large aggregates.
- Schizophrenia is presented as a biological and biocultural phenomenon that examines machinic connections on the 'body without organs' at a molecular level.
At man's most basic stratum, the Id: the schizophrenic cell, the schizo molecules, their chains and their jargons.
The desiring-machines on the contra ry represent nothing, signify noth-
ing, mean nothing, and are exactly what one makes of them, what is
made with them, what they make in themselves.
Desiring-machines work according to regimes of syntheses that
have no equivalent in the large aggregates. Jacques Monod has defined
the originality of these syntheses, from the standpoint of a molecular
biology or of a "microscopic cybe rnetics" without regard to the
traditional opposition between mechanis m and vitalism. Here the funda-
mental traits of synthesis are the indifferent nature of the chemical
signals, the indifference to the substrat e, and the indirect character of the
interactions. Such formulas as these are negative only in appearance, and
in relation to the laws of aggregat es, but must be understood positively
in terms of force (puissance). "Between the substrate of an allosteric
enzyme and the ligands prompting or inhibiting its activity there exists
no chemically necessary relationship of structure or of reactivity. ... An
allosteric protein should be seen as a specialized product of molecular
"engineering," enabling an interaction, positive or negative, to come
about between compounds without ch emical affinity, and thereby
eventually subordinating any reaction to the intervention of compounds
that are chemically foreign and indifferent to this reaction. The way in
which allosteric interactions work hence permits a complete freedom in
the "choice" of controls. And thes e controls, having no chemical
requirements to answer to, will be th e more responsive to physiological
requirements, and will accordingly be selected for the extent to which
they confer heightened coherence and efficiency upon the cell or
organism. In a word, the very gratu itousness of these systems, giving
molecular evolution a practically limitless field for exploration
288 ANTI-OEDIPUS
and experiment, enabled it to elaborate the huge network of cybernetic
inter-connections."*
How, starting from this domain of chance or of real inorganization,
large configurations are organized th at necessarily reproduce a structure
under the action of DNA and its segments, the genes, performing
veritable lottery drawings, creating switching points as lines of selection
or evolution —this, indeed, is what all the stages of the passage from the
molecular to the molar demonstrate, such as this passage appears in the
organic machines, but no less so in the social machines with other laws
and other figures. In this sense it was possible to insist on a common
characteristic of human cultures and of living species, as "Markov
chains": aleatory phenomena that are partially dependent. In the genetic
code as in the social codes, what is termed a signifying chain is more a
jargon than a language (langage), composed of nonsignifying elements
that have a meaning or an effect of signification only in the large
aggregates that they constitute th rough a linked drawing of elements, a
partial dependence, and a superposition of relays.f It is not a matter of
biologizing human history, nor of anthropologizing natural history. It is a
matter of showing the common partic ipation of the social machines and
the organic machines in the desiring-machines. At man's most basic
stratum, the Id: the schizophrenic cell, the schizo molecules, their chains
and their jargons. There is a whole biology of schizophrenia; molecular
biology is itself schizophrenic—a s is microphysics. But inversely
schizophrenia—the theory of schiz ophrenia—is biological, biocultural,
inasmuch as it examines the machinic connections of a molecular order,
their distribution into maps of intensity on the giant molecule of the body
without organs, and the statistical accumulations that form and select the
large aggregates.
Szondi set out on this molecula r path, discovering a genie uncon-
scious that he contrasted with th e Freudian individual unconscious as
Molecular Unconscious and Schizoanalysis
- The text explores the intersection of biology and schizophrenia, viewing the latter as a biological and biocultural phenomenon of molecular connections.
- Lipot Szondi's concept of the 'genie unconscious' is introduced as a genealogical alternative to both Freud's individual and Jung's collective unconscious.
- Szondi's diagnostic method breaks from traditional Oedipal structures by using photographs of assassins and hermaphrodites to map desire against a social-historical field.
- Molecular biology reveals that while DNA reproduces, proteins act as the units of production that constitute the self-producing 'desiring-machines' of the unconscious.
- The independence of sexuality from biological generation is rooted in the cyclical, 'orphan' movement of the unconscious as it produces itself at a molecular level.
A whole alphabet, an entire axiomatic done with photos of mad people; this has to be tried, testing 'the need for paternal feeling' against a series of portraits of assassins.
biology is itself schizophrenic—a s is microphysics. But inversely
schizophrenia—the theory of schiz ophrenia—is biological, biocultural,
inasmuch as it examines the machinic connections of a molecular order,
their distribution into maps of intensity on the giant molecule of the body
without organs, and the statistical accumulations that form and select the
large aggregates.
Szondi set out on this molecula r path, discovering a genie uncon-
scious that he contrasted with th e Freudian individual unconscious as
well as with Jung's colle ctive unconscious.** He of ten calls this genie or
*Jacques Monod, Chance and Nec essity (see reference note 27), pp. 77-78. And pp. 90-98: "With the
globular protein we already have, at the molecular le vel, a veritable machine—a machine in its functional
properties, but not, we now see, in its fundamental structure, where nothing but the play of blind
combinations can be discerned. Random ness caught on the wing, preserved, reproduced by the machinery of
invariance and thus converted into order, rule, necessity."
tOn the Markov chains and their applications to the living species as well as to cultural formations, see
Ruyer, La genese des formes vivantes, Ch. 8. The phenomena of surplus value of code are clearly explained
in this perspective of "semifortuitous sequences." Se veral times Ruyer compares this with the language of
schizophrenia.
**Lipot Szondi, Experimental Diagnostics of D rives (New York: Grune & Stratton, 1952). Szondi's work
was the first to establish a fundamental relationship be tween psychoanalysis and genetics. See also the recent
attempt by Andre Green, in terms of the advances made in molecular biology: "Repetition et instinct de
mort," Revue franc aise de psychanalyse, May 1970.
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 289
genealogical unconscious familial; and Szondi himself went on to study
schizophrenia using familial aggregates as his units of measure. But the
genie unconscious is famili al only to a very small degree, much less so
than Freud's unconscious, since the di agnosis is carried out by compar-
ing desire to the photographs of herm aphrodites, assassins, etc., instead
of reducing it as usual to the ima ges of daddy-mommy. Finally some
relation to the outside! A whole alphabet, an entire axiomatic done with
photos of mad people; this has to be tr ied, testing "the need for paternal
feeling" against a series of portraits of assassins. It is no use saying this
remains within the bounds of Oedipus, the truth is that it throws them
open in a remarkable way. The hereditary genes of drives therefore play
the role of simple stimuli that enter into variable combinations following
vectors that survey an entire social historical field—an analysis of
destiny.
In point of fact, the truly molecular unconscious cannot confine
itself to genes as its units of reproduc tion; these units ar e still expressive,
and lead to molar formations. Molecu lar biology teaches us that it is
only the DNA that is reproduced, and not the proteins. Proteins are both
products and units of production; they are what constitutes the
unconscious as a cycle or as the autoproduction of the unconscious—the
ultimate molecular elements in the arrangement of the
desiring-machines and the syntheses of desire. We have seen that,
through reproduction and its objects (defined familially or genetically),
it is always the unco- scious that produces itself in a cyclical orphan
movement, a cycle of destiny where it always remains a subject. It is
precisely on this point that the statutory indepe ndence of sexuality with
regard to generation rests. Szondi senses this direction—according to
which one must go beyond the molar to the molecular—so acutely that
he takes exception to all statistical interpretations of what is wrongly
called his "test." What is more, he calls for going beyond contents
toward the realm of functions. But he makes this advance, follows this
Libido and Desiring-Machines
- The unconscious is described as a cyclical movement that produces itself as a subject, independent of biological reproduction.
- Szondi is critiqued for moving toward functional categories while failing to grasp the molecular nature of desiring-machines.
- Schizoanalysis seeks to identify the specific functioning and transitions of these machines between molecular and molar states.
- Libido is defined as the specific energy of desiring-machines, resisting the idea that its transformations are merely desexualizations.
- Wilhelm Reich's theory of orgone energy is examined as an attempt to link intra-atomic cosmic energy with sociohistorical investments.
What drives your own desiring-machines? What is their functioning? What are the syntheses into which they enter and operate?
it is always the unco- scious that produces itself in a cyclical orphan
movement, a cycle of destiny where it always remains a subject. It is
precisely on this point that the statutory indepe ndence of sexuality with
regard to generation rests. Szondi senses this direction—according to
which one must go beyond the molar to the molecular—so acutely that
he takes exception to all statistical interpretations of what is wrongly
called his "test." What is more, he calls for going beyond contents
toward the realm of functions. But he makes this advance, follows this
direction, only by going from aggregat es or classes toward "categories,"
of which he establishes a systematically closed list—categories that are
still only expressive forms of existenc e that a subject is meant to choose
and combine freely. For this reason Szondi misses the internal or
molecular elements of desire, the nature of their machinic choices,
arrangements, and combinations. He also misses the real question of
schizoanalysis: What drives your own desiring-machines? What is their
functioning? What are the syntheses into which they enter and operate?
What use do you make of them, in all the transitions that extend from
the molecular to the molar and invers ely, and that constitute the cycle
2 9 0 A N T I - O E D I P U S
whereby the unconscious, remaining a subject, produces and reproduces
itself?
We use the term Libido to designate the specific energy of
desiring-machines; and the transformations of this energy— Numen and
Voluptas —are never desexualizations or sublimations. Th is terminology
indeed seems extremely arbitrary. Considering the two ways in which the
desiring-machines must be viewed, wh at they have to do with a properly
sexual energy is not immediately clear: either they are assigned to the
molecular order that is their own, or they are assigned to the molar order
where they form the organic or social machines, and invest organic or
social surroundings. It is in fact di fficult to present sexual energy as
directly cosmic and intra-atomic, and at the same time as directly
sociohistorical. It would be futile to sa y that love has to do with proteins
and society. This would amount to reviving yet once more the old
attempts at liquidating Freudianism, by substituting for the libido a vague
cosmic energy capable of all of the metamorphoses, or a kind of
socialized energy capable of all the investments. Or would we do better
to review Reich's final attempt, involving a "bioge nesis" that not without
justification is qualified as a schi zoparanoiac mode of reasoning? It will
be remembered that Reich concluded in favor of an intra-atomic cosmic
energy—the orgone—generative of an electrical flux and carrying
submicroscopic particles, the bions. This energy produced differences in
potential or intensities distributed on the body considered from a
molecular viewpoint, and was associated with a mechanics of fluids in
this same body considered from a molar viewpoint. What defined the
libido as sexuality was therefore the association of the two modes of
operation, mechanical and electrical, in a sequence with two poles, molar
and molecular (mechanical tension, electrical charge, electrical
discharge, mechanical re laxation). Reich thought he had. thus overcome
the alternative between mechanism a nd vitalism, since these functions,
mechanical and electrical, existed in matter in general, but were
combined in a particular sequence within the living. And above all he
upheld the basic psychoanalytic truth, the supreme disavowal of which
he was able to denounce in Freud: the independence of sexuality with
regard to reproduction, the subordina tion of progressive or regressive
reproduction to sexuality as a cycle.*
The Cosmic Libido
- Wilhelm Reich attempted to bridge the gap between mechanism and vitalism by identifying sexual functions as universal mechanical and electrical sequences.
- The text argues that sexuality should be understood as independent of reproduction, prioritizing the sexual cycle over the generation of offspring.
- Reich's comparison of sexuality to cosmic phenomena like electrical storms and atmospheric haze is presented as superior to Freud's reduction of desire to family secrets.
- Desire is redefined as a nomadic force that invests in entire surroundings, vibrations, and flows rather than being limited to specific persons or objects.
- The libido is described as having a double pole, operating simultaneously as a submicroscopic molecular formation and as an investment in large-scale social aggregates.
It is not the neurotic stretched out on the couch who speaks to us of love, of its force and its despair, but the mute stroll of the schizo, Lenz's outing in the mountains and under the stars, the immobile voyage in intensities on the body without organs.
discharge, mechanical re laxation). Reich thought he had. thus overcome
the alternative between mechanism a nd vitalism, since these functions,
mechanical and electrical, existed in matter in general, but were
combined in a particular sequence within the living. And above all he
upheld the basic psychoanalytic truth, the supreme disavowal of which
he was able to denounce in Freud: the independence of sexuality with
regard to reproduction, the subordina tion of progressive or regressive
reproduction to sexuality as a cycle.*
*AH of Reich's last studies, bioc osmie and biogenetic, are summarize d at the end of Wilhelm Reich, The
Function of the Orgas m (reference note 22), Ch. 7. The primacy of sexuality over generation and
reproduction comes to be base d on the cycle of sexuality (mechanical tension-electrical charge, etc.), which
leads to a division of the cell: pp. 282-86. But very earl y in his work Reich reproached Freud for having
abandoned the sexual position. It was not only the dissidents from Freud who abandoned this position, it was
Freud himself, in a certain fashion: a first time when he introduces the death instinct,
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 291
If the details of Reich's final theory are taken into consideration, we
admit that its simultaneously schiz ophrenic and paranoiac nature is no
obstacle where we are concerned—on the contrary. We admit that any
comparison of sexuality with cosmic phenomena such as "electrical
storms," "the blue color of the sk y and the blue-gray of atmospheric
haze," the blue of the orgone, "St. Elmo's fire, and the bluish formations
[of] sunspot activity," fluids and flow s, matter and particles, in the end
appear to us more adequate than the reduction of sexuality to the pitiful
little familialist secret. We think that Lawrence and Miller have a more
accurate evaluation of sexuality than Freud, even from the viewpoint of
the famous scientificity. It is not the neurotic stretched out on the couch
who speaks to us of love, of its forc e and its despair, but the mute stroll
of the schizo, Lenz's outing in the mountains and under the stars, the
immobile voyage in intensities on the body without organs. As to the
whole of Reichian theory, it possesses the incomparable advantage of
showing the double pole of the libido, as a molecular formation on the
submicroscopic scale, and as an inve stment of the molar formations on
the scale of social and organic aggregates. All that is missing is the
confirmations of common sense: why, in what sense is this sexuality?
Cynicism has said, or claimed to have said, everything there is to
say about love: that it is a matter of a copulation of social and organic
machines on a large scale (at bottom, love is in the organs; at bottom,
love is a matter of economic dete rminations, money). But what is
properly cynical is to claim a scandal where there is none to be found,
and to pass for bold while lacking boldness. Better the delirium of
common sense than its platitude. For the prime evidence points to the
fact that desire does not take as its object persons or things, but the
entire surroundings that it traverses, the vibrations and flows of every
sort to which it is joined, introducing therein breaks and captures—an
always nomadic and migrant desire, characterized first of all by its
"gigantism": no one has shown this more clearly than Charles Fourier.
In a word, the social as well as biological surroundings are the object of
unconscious investments that are nece ssarily desiring or libidinal, in
contrast with the preconscious invest ments of need or of interest. The
The Ubiquity of Social Desire
- Desire is inherently nomadic and migrant, investing in entire social and biological surroundings rather than being limited to specific persons or objects.
- The authors challenge the psychoanalytic view that libido must be desexualized or sublimated to engage with social structures, arguing instead that sexuality is already present in all social functions.
- Social aggregates like nations, banks, and armies are direct objects of libidinal investment, often producing arousal through their specific flows and coercive power.
- The traditional focus on the family and the couple represents a restrictive blockage or reduction of the libido's natural tendency to invest in larger historical and social fields.
- Revolutionary movements must acquire a libidinal force equal to that of the coercive machines they seek to replace in order to effectively mobilize flows.
The truth is that sexuality is everywhere: the way a bureaucrat fondles his records, a judge administers justice, a businessman causes money to circulate; the way the bourgeoisie fucks the proletariat; and so on.
fact that desire does not take as its object persons or things, but the
entire surroundings that it traverses, the vibrations and flows of every
sort to which it is joined, introducing therein breaks and captures—an
always nomadic and migrant desire, characterized first of all by its
"gigantism": no one has shown this more clearly than Charles Fourier.
In a word, the social as well as biological surroundings are the object of
unconscious investments that are nece ssarily desiring or libidinal, in
contrast with the preconscious invest ments of need or of interest. The
libido as sexual energy is the dir ect investment of masses, of large
and begins to speak of Eros instead of sexuality (R eich, pp. 124-27); next, when he makes anxiety into the
cause of sexual repression, and no longer its result (p. 136); and more generally when he comes back to a
traditional primacy of procreation over sexuality (p. 283: "Thus, procreation is a function of sexuality, and
not vice versa, as was hitherto believed. Freud had maintained the same thing with respect to
psycbosexnality, when he separated the concepts 'sexual' and 'genital.' But for a reason I was not able to
understand, he later stated that 'sexuality in puberty' is 'in the service of procr eation." ") Here Reich is
obviously referring to Freud's Schopenhauerian or We ismannian texts, where sexuality comes under the
sway of the species and the germen; for ex ample, "On Narcissism; An Introduction," in Collected Papers
(London; Hogarth Press), Vol. 4, pp. 36-38.
292 ANTI-OEDIFUS
aggregates, and of social and organic fields. We have difficulty under-
standing what principles psychoanalys is uses to support its conception
of desire, when it maintains that the libido must be desexualized or even
sublimated in order to proceed to the social investments, and inversely
that the libido only resexualizes thes e investments during the course of
pathological regression.* Unless the assumption of such a conception is
still familialism—that is, an assumpti on holding that sexuality operates
only in the family, and must be transformed in order to invest larger
aggregates.
The truth is that sexuality is everywhere: the way a bureaucrat
fondles his records, a judge admini sters justice, a businessman causes
money to circulate; the way the bourgeoisie fucks the proletariat; and so
on. And there is no need to resort to metaphors, any more than for the
libido to go by way of metamorphoses . Hitler got the fascists sexually
aroused. Flags, nations, armies, banks get a lot of people aroused. A
revolutionary machine is nothing if it does not acquire at least as much
force as these coercive machines have for producing breaks and
mobilizing flows. It is not through a desexualizing extension that the
libido invests the large aggregates. On the contrary, it is through a
restriction, a blockage, and a reductio n that the libido is made to repress
its flows in order to contain them in the narrow cells of the type
"couple," "family," "person," "objec ts." And doubtless such a blockage
is necessarily justified: the libido does not come to consciousness except
in relation to a given body, a given person that it takes as object. But our
"object choice" itself refers to a conjunction of flows of life and of
society that this body and this person intercept, receive, and transmit,
always within a biological, social, and historical field where we are
equally immersed or with which we communicate. The persons to whom
our loves are dedicated, including th e parental persons, intervene only as
points of connection, of disjunction, of conjunction of flows whose
libidinal tenor of a properly unconscious investment they translate. Thus
no matter how well grounded the love bl ockage is, it curiously changes
its function, depending on whether it engages desire in the Oedipal
impasses of the couple and the family in the service of the repressive
The Nonhuman Sex
- Love and desire are always immersed in a biological, social, and historical field rather than being confined to the family unit.
- The libidinal investment of a partner serves as a point of connection to larger social aggregates and historical flows.
- Marx's concept of the 'nonhuman' sex refers to the molecular desiring-machines that underpin all social formations.
- Sexuality is defined as the unconscious investment of large molar aggregates, fueled by the interplay of molecular elements.
- The phallus represents sexuality in its entirety as a sign of the large aggregate, rather than a specific biological sex.
But we always make love with worlds.
always within a biological, social, and historical field where we are
equally immersed or with which we communicate. The persons to whom
our loves are dedicated, including th e parental persons, intervene only as
points of connection, of disjunction, of conjunction of flows whose
libidinal tenor of a properly unconscious investment they translate. Thus
no matter how well grounded the love bl ockage is, it curiously changes
its function, depending on whether it engages desire in the Oedipal
impasses of the couple and the family in the service of the repressive
machines, or whether on the contrary it condenses a free energy capable
of fueling a revolutionary machine. (Here again, everything has already
*Freud, Three Case Hi stories (reference note 42), p; 164: "Persons who have not freed themselves
completely from the stage of narcissism, who, that is to say, have at that point a fixation which may operate
as a disposing factor for a later illness, are exposed to the danger that some unusually intense wave of libido,
finding no other outlet, may lead to a sexualization of their social instincts and so undo the work of
sublimation which they had achieved in the course of their development. This result may be produced by
anything that causes the libido to flow backwards (i.e., that causes a 'regression'): . . . paranoiacs endeavour
to protect themselves against any such sexualization of their social instinctual cathexes."
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 293
been said by Fourier, when he show s the two contrary directions of the
"captivation" or the "mechanization" of the passions.) But we always
make love with worlds. And our love addresses itself to this libidinal
property of our lover, to either cl ose himself off or open up to more
spacious worlds, to masses and large aggregates. There is always
something statistical in our loves, and something belonging to the laws
of large numbers. And isn't it in this way that we must understand the
famous formula of Marx?—the rela tionship between man and woman is
"the direct, natural, and necessary re lation of person to person." That is,
the relationship between the two se xes (man and woman) is only the
measure of the relationship of sexuality in general, insofar as it invests
large aggregates (man and man)? Whence what came to be called the
species determination of the sexuality of the two sexes. And must it not
also be said that the phallus is not one sex, but sexuality in its entirety,
which is to say the sign of the large aggregate invested by the libido,
whence the two sexes necessarily derive, both in their separation (the
two homosexual series of man and ma n, woman and woman) and in their
statistical relations w ithin this aggregate?
But Marx says something even more mysterious: that the true
difference is not the difference between the two sexes, but the difference
between the human sex and the "nonhuman" sex.11 It is clearly not a
question of animals, nor of animal sexuality. Something quite different is
involved. If sexuality is the unconsci ous investment of the large molar
aggregates, it is because on its other side sexuality is identical with the
interplay of the molecular elements that constitute these aggregates
under determinate conditions. The dwarfi sm of desire as a correlate to
its gigantism. Sexuality and the desi ring-machines are one and the same
inasmuch as these machines are present and operating in the social
machines, in their field, their formation, their functioning.
Desiring-machines are the nonhuman sex, the molecular machinic
elements, their arrangeme nts and their syntheses, without which there
would be neither a human sex specifically determined in the large
aggregates, nor a human sexuality capable of investing these aggregates.
In a few sentences Marx, who is nonetheless so miserly and reticent
where sexuality is concerned, exploded something that will hold Freud
The Nonhuman Nature of Sex
- Desiring-machines represent a nonhuman, molecular sexuality that exists beneath the large-scale social aggregates of human identity.
- Traditional psychoanalysis is criticized for its anthropomorphic representation of sex, which relies on the ideology of lack and castration.
- The Freudian model of a single masculine sex and the Kleinian model of two distinct sexes both fail by remaining trapped in statistical, molar categories.
- Castration serves as a universal illusion that forces both men and women to submit to a shared 'yoke' of consciousness and bad conscience.
- The molecular unconscious is defined by free multiplicities and partial objects that lack nothing and produce flows rather than repressing them.
Castration is the universal belief that brings together and disperses both men and women under the yoke of one and the same illusion of consciousness, and makes them adore this yoke.
inasmuch as these machines are present and operating in the social
machines, in their field, their formation, their functioning.
Desiring-machines are the nonhuman sex, the molecular machinic
elements, their arrangeme nts and their syntheses, without which there
would be neither a human sex specifically determined in the large
aggregates, nor a human sexuality capable of investing these aggregates.
In a few sentences Marx, who is nonetheless so miserly and reticent
where sexuality is concerned, exploded something that will hold Freud
and all of psychoanalysis forever captive: the anthropom orphic
representation of sex!
What we call anthropomorphic repres entation is just as much the
idea that there are two sexes as the idea that there is only one. We know
how Freudianism is permeated by this bizarre notion that there is finally
only one sex, the masculine, in relation to which the woman, the
feminine, is denned as a lack, an absence. It could be thought at first thai
such a hypothesis founds the omnipotence of a male homosexuality. Yet
294 ANTI-OEDIPUS
this is not at all the case; what is founded here is rather the statistical
aggregate of intersexual loves. For if the woman is defined as a lack in
relation to the man, the man in his turn lacks what is lacking in the
woman, simply in another fashion: the idea of a single sex necessarily
leads to the erection of a phallus as an object on high, which distributes
lack as two nonsuperim posable sides and makes the two sexes commu-
nicate in a common absence— castration. Women, as psychoanalysts or
psychoanalyzed, can then rejoice in showing man the way, and in
recuperating equality in difference. Whence the irresistibly comical nature
of the formulas according to which one gains access to desire through
castration. But the idea that there are tw o sexes, after all, is no better. This
time, like Melanie Klein, one attempts to define the female sex by means
of positive characteristics, even if they be terrifying. At least in this way
one avoids phallocentrism, if not anthropomorphism. Bu t this time, far
from founding the communication between the two sexes, one founds
instead their separation into two homosexual series that remain statistical.
And one does not by any means escape castration. It is simply that
castration, instead of being the principle of sex conceived as the
masculine sex (the great castrated so aring Phallus), becomes the result of
sex conceived as the feminine sex (the little hidden absorbed penis). We
maintain therefore that castration is the basis for the anthropomorphic
and molar representation of sexuality. Castration is the universal belief
that brings together and disperses both men and women under the yoke of
one and the same illusion of consciousness, and makes them adore this
yoke. Every attempt to determine the nonhuman nature of sex—for
example, "the Great Other" in Lacan—while conserving myth and
castration, is defeated from the start. And what does
Jean-Francois Lyotard mean, in his commentary—so profound,
nevertheless—on Marx's text, when he sees the opening of the nonhuman
as having to be "the entry of the subject into desire through castration"?12
Long live castration, so that desire ma y be strong? Only fantasies are truly
desired? What a perverse, human, all-too-human idea! An idea originating
in bad conscience, and not in th e unconscious. Anthropomorphic molar
representation culminates in the very thing that founds it, the ideology of
lack. The molecular unconscious, on the contrary, knows nothing of
castration, because partial objects lack nothing and form free
multiplicities as such; be cause the multiple breaks never cease producing
flows, instead of repressing them, cutting them at a single stroke—the
only break capable of exhausting them; because the syntheses constitute
local and nonspecific c onnections, inclusive disjunctions, nomadic
Schizoanalysis and the Machinic Unconscious
- The authors contrast the molecular unconscious, which is a site of free production, with the molar representation of the 'ideology of lack' found in traditional psychoanalysis.
- Desire is redefined as a machinic arrangement where production is primary, rejecting the notion that the unconscious is merely a theater of representation or belief.
- Schizoanalysis proposes a 'microscopic transsexuality' where individuals contain multiple sexes, moving beyond the binary constraints imposed by social representation.
- Psychoanalysis is criticized for stifling the order of production by trapping it within the familial and tragic frameworks of Oedipus and castration.
- The family serves as the primary agency that distorts social and desiring-production, turning real production into ideological forms like myth and tragedy.
Making love is not just becoming as one, or even two, but becoming as a hundred thousand.
in bad conscience, and not in th e unconscious. Anthropomorphic molar
representation culminates in the very thing that founds it, the ideology of
lack. The molecular unconscious, on the contrary, knows nothing of
castration, because partial objects lack nothing and form free
multiplicities as such; be cause the multiple breaks never cease producing
flows, instead of repressing them, cutting them at a single stroke—the
only break capable of exhausting them; because the syntheses constitute
local and nonspecific c onnections, inclusive disjunctions, nomadic
conjunctions: everywhere a microscopic transsexuality, resulting in the
woman containing as many
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 295
men as the man, and the man as many women, all capable of entering—
men with women, women with me n—into relations of production of
desire that overturn the statistical or der of the sexes. Making love is not
just becoming as one, or even two, but becoming as a hundred thousand.
Desiring-machines or the nonhunian sex: not one or even two sexes, but
n sexes. Schizoanalysis is the variable analysis of the n sexes in a
subject, beyond the anthropomorphic representation that society impos-
es on this subject, and with which it represents its own sexuality. The
schizoanalytic slogan of the desiring-revolution will be first of all: to
each its own sexes.
Psychoanalysis and Capitalism
The schizoanalytic argument is simple: desire is a ma-
chine, a synthesis of machines, a machinic
arrangement—desiring-machines. The or der of desire is the order of
production; all production is at once desiring-production and social
production. We therefore reproach psychoanalysis for having stifled this
order of production, for having shunted it into representation. Far from
showing the boldness of psychoanaly sis, this idea of unconscious
representation marks from the outset its bankruptcy or its abnegation: an
unconscious that no longer produces, but is content to believe. The
unconscious believes in Oedipus, it believes in castration, in the law. It
is doubtless true that the psychoanalys t would be the first to say that,
everything considered, belief is not an act of the unconscious; it is
always the preconscious that believes. S houldn't it even be said that it is
the psychoanalyst who believes—the psychoanalyst in each of us?
Would belief then be an effect on the conscious material that the
unconscious representation exerts from a distance? But inversely, who
or what reduced the unconscious to th is state of representation, if not
first of all a system of beliefs put in the place of productions? In reality,
social production becomes alienated in allegedly autonomous beliefs at
the same time that desiring-productio n becomes enticed into allegedly
unconscious representations. And as we have seen, it is the same
agency—the family—that performs this double operation, distorting and
disfiguring social desiring-production, leading it into an impasse.
Thus the link between representation-belief and the family is not
accidental; it is of the essence of representation to be a familial
representation. But production is not th ereby suppressed, it continues to
rumble, to throb beneath the representative agency (instance representa-
tive) that suffocates it, and that it in return can make resonate to the
breaking point. Thus in order to keep an effective grip on the zones of
ANTI-OEDIPUS
production, representation must inflate itself with all the power of myth
and tragedy, it must give a mythic and tra gic pr esentation of the
family—and a familial presentation of myth and tragedy. Yet aren't myth
and tragedy, too, productions—forms of production? Certainly not; they
are production only when brought in to connection with real social
production, real desiring-production. Otherwise they are ideological
forms, which have taken the place of the units of production. Who
Myth vs Machinic Production
- The text argues that psychoanalysis uses myth and tragedy to inflate familial representation, suffocating real desiring-production.
- Myth and tragedy are viewed as ideological forms that replace actual units of social and libidinal production.
- The Schreber case illustrates how Freud ignored the father's literal 'sadistico-paranoiac machines' in favor of symbolic Oedipal interpretations.
- The authors suggest the father acts not as a mythic figurehead but as an agent within a broader pedagogical and social machine.
- Children populate technical social machines with their own desiring-machines, using parents merely as parts or gears for transmission.
Schreber's father invented and fabricated astonishing little machines, sadistico-paranoiac machines—for example head straps with a metallic shank and leather bands, for restrictive use on children, for making them straighten up and behave.
tive) that suffocates it, and that it in return can make resonate to the
breaking point. Thus in order to keep an effective grip on the zones of
ANTI-OEDIPUS
production, representation must inflate itself with all the power of myth
and tragedy, it must give a mythic and tra gic pr esentation of the
family—and a familial presentation of myth and tragedy. Yet aren't myth
and tragedy, too, productions—forms of production? Certainly not; they
are production only when brought in to connection with real social
production, real desiring-production. Otherwise they are ideological
forms, which have taken the place of the units of production. Who
believes in al l t his —Oedipus, castration, etc.? The Greeks? Then the
Greeks did not produce in the same way they believed? The Hellenists?
Do the Hellenists believe that the Greeks produced according to their
beliefs? This is true at least of the nineteenth-century Hellenists, about
whom Engels said: you'd think they really believed in all that—in myth,
in tragedy. Is it the unconscious th at represents itself through Oedipus
and castration? Or is it the psychoana lyst—the psychoanalyst in us all,
who represents the unconscious in th is way? For never has Engels's
remark regained so much meaning: you'd think the psychoanalysts really
believed in all this—in myth, in tragedy. (They go on believing, whereas
the Hellenists have long since stopped.)
The Schreber case again applies: Schreber's father invented and
fabricated astonishing little mach ines, sadistico-paranoiac machines—
for example head straps with a metallic shank and leather bands, for
restrictive use on children, for maki ng them straighten up and behave.*
These machines play no role whatever in the Freudian analysis. Perhaps
it would have been more difficult to crush the entire sociopolitical
content of Schreber's delirium if these desiring-machines of the father
had been taken into account, as well as their obvious participation in a
pedagogical social machine in general. For the real question is this: of
course the father acts on the child's unconscious—but does he act as a
head of a family in an expressive familial transmission, or rather as the
agent of a machine, in a machinic information or communication?
Schreber's desiring-machines communicate with those of his father; but
it is in this very way that they are from early childhood the libidinal
investment of a social field. In this field the f ather has a role only as an
agent of production and antiproduction, Freud, on the contrary, chooses
the first path: it is not the father who indicates the action of machines,
but just the opposite; thereafter there is no longer even any reason for
considering machines, whether as desiring-machines or as social ma-
chines. In return, the father will be inflated with all the "forces of myth
*W. G. Niederland discovered and reproduced Schreber's father's machines: see especially, "Schreber, Father
and Son," Psychoanalytic Quarterly, Vol. 28 (1959), pp. 151-69. Quite si milar instruments of pedagogical
torture are to be found in the Contesse de Segur: thus "the good behavior belt," "with an iron plate for the
back and an iron rod to hold the chin in place" {Comedies et prorerbes, On ne prend pas ies moitches).
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYS1S 297
and religion" and with phylogenesis, so as to ensure that the little
familial representation has the appearance of being coextensive with the
field of delirium. The production couple—the desiring-machines and the
social field—gives way to a representa tive couple of an entirely different
nature: family-myth. Once again, have you ever seen a child at play:
how he already populates the technical social m achines with his own
desiring-machines, O sexuality—while the father or mother remains in
the background, from whom the child borrows parts and gears according
to his need, and who are there as agents of transmission, reception, and
The Mythic Circus
- The text argues that psychoanalysis replaces the productive social field of desiring-machines with a restrictive 'family-myth' centered on Oedipal representation.
- Henry Miller and D.H. Lawrence are cited to critique the imposition of tragic theater and mythic archetypes onto the living, productive unconscious.
- The author describes the psychoanalyst as a 'P.T. Barnum' who parks a circus of ideational rubbish in the factory of the unconscious.
- Schizoanalysis is proposed as a 'curettage' or scouring of the unconscious to clear away cultural edifices and allow for continuous birth and renewal.
- Desire is framed as an instinctual and holy force that functions against the 'fatal drama of the personality' and the confusion of mask and actor.
The psychoanalyst parks his circus in the dumbfounded unconscious, a real P. T. Barnum in the fields and in the factory.
familial representation has the appearance of being coextensive with the
field of delirium. The production couple—the desiring-machines and the
social field—gives way to a representa tive couple of an entirely different
nature: family-myth. Once again, have you ever seen a child at play:
how he already populates the technical social m achines with his own
desiring-machines, O sexuality—while the father or mother remains in
the background, from whom the child borrows parts and gears according
to his need, and who are there as agents of transmission, reception, and
interception: kindly agents of produc tion or suspicious agents of
anti-production.
Why was mythic and tragic representation accorded such a senseless
privilege? Why were expressive forms and a whole theater installed there
where there were fields, workshops, factories, units of production? 'The
psychoanalyst parks his circus in the dumbfounded unconscious, a real P.
T. Barnum in the fields and in the fact ory. That is what Miller, and already
Lawrence, have to say against psychoanalysis (the living are not
believers, the seers do not believe in myth and tragedy): "By retracing
the paths to the earlier heroic life . . . you defeat the very element and
quality of the heroic, for the hero never looks backward, nor does he
ever doubt his powers. Hamlet was undoubtedly a hero to himself, and
for every Hamlet born the only true course to pursue is the very course
which Shakespeare describes. But the question, it seems to me, is this:
are we born Hamlets? Were you born Hamlet? Or did you no t rather
create th e t ype in yourself? Whether this be so or not, what seems
infinitely more important is— why revert to myth ? . . . This ideational
rubbish out of which our world has erected its cultural edifice is now, by
a critical irony, being given its poetic immolation, its mythos, through a
kind of writing which, because it is of the disease and therefore beyond,
clears the ground for fresh superstruc tures. (In my own mind the thought
of 'fresh superstructures' is abhorrent , but this is merely the awareness of
a process and not the process itself.) Ac tually, in process, I believe with
each line I write that I am scouring the womb, giving it the curette, as it
were. Behind this process lies the idea not of 'edifice' and 'superstructure,'
which is culture and hence false, but of continuous birth, renewal, life,
life, ... In the myth there is no life for us. Only the myth lives in the
myth. . . . This ability to produce the myth is born out o f awareness, out
of ever -increasing cons ciousness. That is why, speaking of the
schizophrenic nature of our age, I said—'until the process is completed
the belly of the world shall be the Third Eye.' Now, Brother Ambrose,
just what did I mean by that? What could I mean except that from this
intellectual world in which we are swimming there must body
298 ANTI-OEDIPUS
forth a new world; but this new world can only be bodied forth in so far
as it is conceived. And to conceive there must first be desire, . . . Desire
is instinctual and holy: it is only th rough desire that we bring about the
immaculate conception."13
Everything is said in these pages from Miller: Oedipus (or Hamlet)
led to the point of autocritique; the expressive forms—myth and
tragedy—denounced as conscious belief s or illusions, nothing more than
ideas; the necessity of a scouring of the unconscious, schizoanalysis as a
curettage of the unconscious; the matric al fissure in opposition to the line
of castration; the splendid a ffirmation of the orphan- and
producer-unconscious; the exaltation of the process as a schizophrenic
process of deterritorialization that must produce a new earth; and even
the functioning of the desiring-machines against tragedy, against "the
fatal drama of the personality," agains t "the inevitable confusion between
mask and actor." It is obvious that Miller's correspondent, Michael
Production Beyond Representation
- The text advocates for schizoanalysis as a 'curettage of the unconscious' that affirms the orphan-producer over the tragic personality.
- A fundamental break occurs when production—whether of labor or desire—erupts and collapses the classical world of representation.
- Freud is credited with discovering the abstract essence of desire (libido), mirroring Ricardo's discovery of the abstract essence of labor.
- This shift reveals a subrepresentative field of 'desiring-machines' that operate through nomadic conjunctions and polyvocal flows.
- The authors critique the reliance on myth and tragedy, such as Oedipus, as outdated nineteenth-century frameworks that fail to grasp the process of deterritorialization.
Production can be that of labor or that of desire, it can be social or desiring, it calls forth forces that no longer permit themselves to be contained in representation.
ideas; the necessity of a scouring of the unconscious, schizoanalysis as a
curettage of the unconscious; the matric al fissure in opposition to the line
of castration; the splendid a ffirmation of the orphan- and
producer-unconscious; the exaltation of the process as a schizophrenic
process of deterritorialization that must produce a new earth; and even
the functioning of the desiring-machines against tragedy, against "the
fatal drama of the personality," agains t "the inevitable confusion between
mask and actor." It is obvious that Miller's correspondent, Michael
Fraenkel, does not understand. He ta lks like a psychoanalyst, or like a
nineteenth-century Hellenist: yes, myth, tragedy, Oedipus, and Hamlet
are good expressions, pregnant forms; they express the true permanent
drama of desire and knowledge. Fr aenkel calls to his aid all the
commonplaces, Schopenhauer, and the Nietzsche of The Birth of
Tragedy. He thinks Miller is unaware of these things, and never wonders
for a second why Nietzsche himself broke with The Birth of Tragedy,
why he stopped believing in tragic representation.
Michel Foucault has convincingly shown what break (coupure)
introduced the irruption of production into the world of representation.
Production can be that of labor or that of desire, it can be social or
desiring, it calls forth forces that no longer permit themselves to be
contained in representation, and it calls forth flows and breaks that break
through representation, traversing it through and through: "an immense
expanse of shade" extended ben eath the level of representation.14 And
this collapse or sinking of the classical world of representation is assigned
a date by Foucault; the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the
nineteenth century. So it seems that the situation is far more complex
than we made it out to be, since psychoanalysis participates to the
highest degree in this discovery of the units of production, which
subjugate all possible representations rather than being subordinated to
them. Just as Ricardo founds political or social economy by discovering
quantitative labor as the principle of every representable value, Freud
founds desiring-economy by discovering the quantitative libido as the
principle of every representation of the objects and aims of desire. Freud
discovers the subjective nature or ab stract essence of desire, just as
Ricardo discovers the subjective nature or abstract
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 299
essence of labor, beyond all repres entations that would bind it to
objects, to aims, or even to particular sources. Freud is thus the first to
disengage desire itself (le desir tout court) , as Ricardo disengages labor
itself (le travail tout court), and thereby the sphere of production that
effectively eclipses representation. And subjective abstract desire, like
subjective abstract labor, is in separable from a movement of
deterritori-alization that discovers the interplay of machines and their
agents underneath all the specific determinations that still linked desire
or labor to a given person, to a given object in the framework of
representation. Desiring-production a nd machines, psychic apparatuses
and machines of desire, desiring-machines and the assembling of an
analytic machine suited to decode them: the domain of free syntheses
where everything is possible; partia l connections, included disjunctions,
nomadic conjunctions, polyvocal flows and chains, transductive*
breaks; the relation of desiring-m achines as formations of the
unconscious with the molar formations that they constitute statistically
in organized crowds; and the apparatus of social and psychic repression
resulting from these formations—such is the composition of the analytic
field. And this subrepresentative fiel d will continue to survive and work,
even through Oedipus, even through myth and tragedy, which
Desire vs Symbolic Representation
- The analytic field is composed of a subrepresentative realm of nomadic conjunctions, polyvocal flows, and desiring-machines.
- A fundamental conflict exists within psychoanalysis between mythic/tragic representation and the actual production of desire.
- Myth and tragedy function as symbolic systems that alienate the essence of desire by tethering it to external codes like the Earth or the Despot.
- Freud's work exhibits a tension where his interest in psychic apparatuses often diminishes his reliance on mythological frameworks.
- Symbolic representation captures desire only by referring it to large 'objectities' that determine its specific aims and sources.
The fact remains that a conflict cuts across the whole of psychoanalysis, the conflict between mythic and tragic familial representation and social and desiring-production.
where everything is possible; partia l connections, included disjunctions,
nomadic conjunctions, polyvocal flows and chains, transductive*
breaks; the relation of desiring-m achines as formations of the
unconscious with the molar formations that they constitute statistically
in organized crowds; and the apparatus of social and psychic repression
resulting from these formations—such is the composition of the analytic
field. And this subrepresentative fiel d will continue to survive and work,
even through Oedipus, even through myth and tragedy, which
nevertheless mark the reconciliation of psychoanalysis with
representation. The fact remains that a conflict cuts across the whole of
psychoanalysis, the conflict between mythic and tragic familial
representation and social and desiring-production. For myth and tragedy
are systems of symbolic representations that still refer desire to
determinate exterior conditions as well as to particular objective
codes—the body of the Earth, the despotic body—and that in this way
confound the discovery of the abstract or subjective essenc e. It has been
remarked in this context that each time Freud brings to the fore the
study of the psychic apparatuses, the social and desiring-machines, the
mechanisms of the drives, and the institutional mechanisms, his interest
in myth and tragedy tends to diminish, while at the same time he
denounces in Jung, then in Rank, the re-establishment of an exterior
representation of the essence of desire as an objective desire, alienated in
myth or tragedy .+
*For a definition of transduction with respect to production and representation, see "Tnterview/Ffi/k
Ouattari" in Diacritics: a re view of c ontemporary c riticism, Fail 1974, p. 39: "Signs work as much as
matter. Matter expresses as much as signs. . .. Transduction is the idea that, in essence, something is
conducted, something happe ns between chains of semiotic expression, and materia! chains." {Translators'
note.)
tDidier Anzifiu distinguishes between two pe riods in particular: 1906-1920, which "constitutes the great
period of mythological works in the history of psychoan alysis"; then a period of relative discredit, as Freud
turns toward the problems of the second topography [Translators' note: the id, ego, and super ego}, and the
relationships between desire and institutions, and takes less and less of an interest in a systematic
exploration of myths ("Freud et la mythologie,"Incidences de la psychanalyse, no. 1 (1970], pp. 126-29).
300 ANTI-OEDIPUS
How can this very complex ambi valence of psychoanalysis be
explained? Several different things must be distinguished. In the first
place, symbolic representation indeed grasps the essence of desire, but
by referring it to large "objectifies" (objectites)* as to the specific
elements that determine its objects, ai ms, and sources. It is in this way
that myth ascribes desire to the elem ent of the earth as a full body, and to
the territorial code that distribut es prescriptions and prohibitions.
Likewise tragedy ascribes desire to the full body of the despot and to the
corresponding imperial code. Conseque ntly, the understanding of sym-
bolic representations may consist in a systematic phenomenology of
these elements and objectities (as in th e old Hellenists or even Jung); or
else these representations may be understood by historical study that
assigns them to their real and objective social conditions (as with recent
Hellenists). Viewed in the latter fashion, representation implies a certain
lag, and expresses less a stable el ement than the conditioned passage
from one element to another: mythic representation does not express the
element of the earth, but rather th e conditions under which this element
fades before the despotic element; and tragic representation does not
express the despotic element properly speaking, but the conditions under
which—in fifth-century Greece, for example—this element diminishes
Psychoanalysis and Abstract Libido
- Traditional social sciences view myth and tragedy as representations of objective social conditions and historical transitions.
- Psychoanalysis rejects these objective codes, seeking instead to undo them to reach the underlying flows of universal libido.
- The psychoanalytic method aims for an absolute decoding to elicit a polymorphic and polyvocal essence that is inherently uncodable.
- There is a profound structural link between capitalism and psychoanalysis, as both replace specific social codes with subjective abstractions.
- Just as political economy discovers abstract labor in capitalism, psychoanalysis discovers abstract libido as the subjective essence of desire.
The psychoanalytic interest in myth is an essentially critical interest, since the specificity of myth must melt under the rays of the subjective libido.
assigns them to their real and objective social conditions (as with recent
Hellenists). Viewed in the latter fashion, representation implies a certain
lag, and expresses less a stable el ement than the conditioned passage
from one element to another: mythic representation does not express the
element of the earth, but rather th e conditions under which this element
fades before the despotic element; and tragic representation does not
express the despotic element properly speaking, but the conditions under
which—in fifth-century Greece, for example—this element diminishes
in favor of the new order of the city-state.15 It is obvious that neither one
of these ways of treating myth or tragedy is suited to the psychoanalytic
approach. The psychoanalytic method is quite different: rather than
referring symbolic representation to determinate objectities and to
objective social conditions, psychoanaly sis refers them to the subjective
and universal essence of desire as libido. Thus the operation of decoding
in psychoanalysis can no longer signify what it signifies in the sciences
of man; the discovery of the secret of such and such a code.
Psychoanalysis must undo the codes so as to attain the quantitative and
qualitative flows of libido that traverse dreams, fantasies, and
pathological formations as well as myth, tragedy, and the social
formations. Psychoanalytic interpretation does not consist in competing
with codes, adding a code to th e codes already recognized, but in
decoding in an absolute way, in eliciting something that is uncodable by
virtue of its polymorphi sm and its polyvocity.f It appears then that the
"objectites: This term corresponds to the German objektitat. The following definition appears in
Vocabulaire technique et critique de iaphi losophie (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1968): "the
form in which the thing-in-itself, the real, appears as an object." (Translators' note.)
fit cannot be said, therefore, that psychoanalysis adds a code—a psyc hological one—to the social codes
through which histories and mythologists explain myths. Freud pointed this out apropos dreams: it is not a
question of a deciphering process according to a code. In this regard see Jacques Derrida's comments in
L'e'criture e l la diffe rence (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1967), pp. 310ff.: "It is doubtless true that (dream
writing] works with a mass of elements codified in the course of an individual or collective history. But in
its operations, its lexicon, and its syntax, a purely idiomatic residue remains
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 301
interest psychoanalysis has in myth (or in tragedy) is an essentially
critical interest, since the specificity of myth, understood objectively,
must melt under the rays of the subjective libido: it is indeed the world
of representation that crum bles, or tends to crumble.
It follows that, in the second place, the link between psychoanalysis
and capitalism is no less profound than that between political economy
and capitalism. This discovery of the decoded and deterritorialized
flows is the same as that which takes place for political economy and in
social production, in the form of subjective abstract labor, and for
psychoanalysis and in desiring-production, in the form of subjective
abstract libido. As Marx says, in capitalism the essence becomes
subjective— the activity of prod uction in g eneral —and abstract labor
becomes something real from which al l the preceding social formations
can be reinterpreted from the point of view of a generalized decoding or
a generalized process of deterritorialization: "The simplest abstraction,
then, which modern economics places at the head of its discussions, and
which expresses an immeasurably ancient relation valid in all forms of
society, nevertheless achieves practical truth as an abstraction only as a
category of the most modern society." This is also the case for desire as
Capitalism and Desiring Production
- Modern capitalism allows for the reinterpretation of all previous social formations through a generalized process of decoding and deterritorialization.
- The discovery of production in general, without distinction, marks a shared breakthrough for both political economy and psychoanalysis.
- While capitalism discovers the common essence of desire and labor, it immediately realienates this essence by dividing it into abstract labor and abstract desire.
- Capitalism functions by constantly repelling its own limits, replacing lost social codes with a rigid axiomatic system and artificial reterritorializations.
- The form of private property serves as the mechanism that chains the subjective abstract essence, turning externalization into a process of internal alienation.
Capitalism is inseparable from the movement of deterritorialization, but this movement is exorcised through factitious and artificial reterritorializations.
becomes something real from which al l the preceding social formations
can be reinterpreted from the point of view of a generalized decoding or
a generalized process of deterritorialization: "The simplest abstraction,
then, which modern economics places at the head of its discussions, and
which expresses an immeasurably ancient relation valid in all forms of
society, nevertheless achieves practical truth as an abstraction only as a
category of the most modern society." This is also the case for desire as
abstract libido and as subjective essence. Not that a simple parallelism
should be drawn between capitalist social production and
desiring-production, or between the flows of money-capital and the
shit-flows of desire. The relationship is much closer: desiring-machines
are in social machines and nowhere else, so that the conjunction of the
decoded flows in the capitalist machine tends to liberate the free figures
of a universal subjective libido. In short, the discovery of an activity of
production in general and without distinction, as it appears in capitalism,
is the identical discovery of both political economy and psychoanalysis,
beyond the determinate systems of representation.
Obviously this does not mean that the capitalist being, or the being
in capitalism, desires to work or that he works according to his desire.
But the identity of desire and labor is not a myth, it is rather the active
Utopia par excellence that designates the capitalist limit to be overcome
through desiring-production. But why, precisely, is desiring-production
situated at the always counteracted limit of capitalism? Why, at the
same time as it discovers the subjec tive essence of desire and labor—a
common essence, inasmuch as it is the activity of production in
genera!—is capitalism continually real ienating this essence, and without
interruption, in a repressive machine that divides the essence in two, and
maintains it divided—abstract labor on the one hand, abstract desire on
irreducible, that must carry the whole weight of the interpretation, in the communication among
unconsciouses. The dreamer invents his own grammar."
302 ANTI-OEDIPUS
the other: political economy and psychoanalysis, political economy and
libidinal economy? Here we are able to appreciate the full extent to
which psychoanalysis belongs to cap italism. For as we have seen,
capitalism indeed has as its limit the decoded flows of
desiring-production, but it never stops repelling th em by binding them in
an axiomatic that takes the place of the codes. Capitalism is inseparable
from the movement of deterritorialization, but this movement is exor-
cised through factitious and artificial reterritorializations . Capitalism is
constructed on the ruins of the territorial and the despotic, the mythic
and the tragic representations, but it re-establishes them in its own
service and in another fo rm, as images of capital.
Marx summarizes the entire matter by saying that the subjective
abstract essence is discovered by capitalism only to be put in chains all
over again, to be subjugated and alie nated—no longer, it is true, in an
exterior and independent element as objectify, but in the element, itself
subjective, of private property: "Wha t was previously being external to
oneself—man's externalization in th e thing—has merely become the act
of externalizing—the process of alienating." It is, in fact, the form of
private property that conditions the conjunction of the decoded flows,
which is to say their axiomatization in a system where the flows of the
means of production, as the property of the capitalists, is directly related
to the flow of so-called free labor, as the "property" of the workers (so
that the State restrictions on the s ubstance or the content of private
property do not at all affect this form ). It is also the form of private
property that constitutes the center of the factitious reterritorializations
Capitalism and Subjective Representation
- Capitalism replaces objective representations with an infinite subjective representation centered on private property.
- The system functions by axiomatizing decoded flows of production and labor into a field of immanence.
- Psychoanalysis serves as the technique of application for this capitalist axiomatic by privatizing desire within the family.
- The movement of capitalism requires a double displacement of limits, shifting social reproduction into restricted familial reproduction.
- Psychoanalysis reinterprets objective myths and tragedies as the private fantasies and dreams of the modern 'Homo familia'.
Oedipus is the fallen despot—banished, deterritorialized—but a reterritorialization is engineered, using the Oedipus complex conceived of as the daddy-mommy-me of today's everyman.
private property that conditions the conjunction of the decoded flows,
which is to say their axiomatization in a system where the flows of the
means of production, as the property of the capitalists, is directly related
to the flow of so-called free labor, as the "property" of the workers (so
that the State restrictions on the s ubstance or the content of private
property do not at all affect this form ). It is also the form of private
property that constitutes the center of the factitious reterritorializations
of capitalism. And finally, it is this form that produces the images filling
the capitalist field of immanence, "the" capitalist, "the" worker, etc. In
other terms, capitalism indeed implies the collapse of the great objective
determinate representations, for the benefit of production as the univer-
sal interior essence, but it does not thereby escape the world of
representation. It merely performs a vast conversion of this world, by
attributing to it the new form of an infinite subjective representation.*
We seem to be straying from the main concern of psychoanalysis,
yet never have we been so close. For here again, as we have seen
previously, it is in the interiority of its movement that capitalism
requires and institutes not only a social axiomatic, but an application of
this axiomatic to the privatized fa mily. Representation would never be
able to ensure its own conversion w ithout this application that furrows
deep into it, cleaves it, and forces it back upon itself. Thus subjective
*MicheI Foucault shows that "the human sciences" f ound their principle in production and were constituted
on the collapse of representation, but that they immedi ately re-establish a new type of representation, as
unconscious representation (The Order of Things [see reference note 14], pp. 352-67).
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 303
abstract Labor as represented in private property has, as its correlate,
subjective abstract Desire as represented in the privatized family.
Psychoanalysis undertakes the analysis of this second term, as political
economy analyzes the first. Psychoanalysis is the technique of applica-
tion, for which political economy is the axiomatic. In a word, psycho-
analysis disengages the second pole in the very movement of capitalism,
which substitutes the infinite subjective representation for the large
determinate objective representations. It is in fact essential that the limit
of the decoded flows of desiring-pr oduction be doubly exorcised, doubly
displaced, once by the position of immanent limits that capitalism does
not cease to reproduce on an ever expanding scale, and again by the
marking out of an interior limit that reduces this social reproduction to
restricted familial reproduction.
Consequently, the ambiguity of psyc hoanalysis in relation to myth
or tragedy has the following explan ation: psychoanalysis undoes them
as objective representations, and disc overs in them the figures of a
subjective universal libido; but it reanimates them, and promotes them
as subjective representations that exte nd the mythic and tragic contents
to infinity. Psychoanalysis does treat myth and tragedy, but it treats
them as the dreams and the fantasies of private man, Homo familia —
and in fact dream and fantasy are to myth and tragedy as private
property is to public property. What acts in myth and tragedy at the level
of objective elements is therefore reappropriated and raised to a higher
level by psychoanalysis, but as an unconscious dimension of subjective
representation (myth as humanity's dream). What acts as an objective
and public element—the Earth, the Despot—is now taken up again, but
as the expression of a subjective and private reterritorialization: Oedipus
is the fallen despot—banished, deterritorialized—but a reterritoriali-
zation is engineered, using the Oedi pus complex conceived of as the
daddy-mommy-me of today's everyman. Psychoanalysis and the Oedi-
The Psychoanalytic Theater
- Psychoanalysis reappropriates objective social elements like the Earth or the Despot and internalizes them as private, subjective representations.
- The Oedipus complex functions as a 'daddy-mommy-me' reterritorialization that reduces the vastness of human belief to a domestic dream.
- The discipline operates through a double movement, undoing objective systems only to replace desiring-production with a system of images and fantasies.
- By substituting a 'theater series' for a 'production series,' psychoanalysis transforms the unconscious into a stage that disfigures actual desire.
- Modern belief is characterized by a form of denial that preserves the structure of piety while claiming 'it's only a dream.'
What is left in the end is an intimate familial theater, the theater of private man, which is no longer either desiring-production or objective representation.
of objective elements is therefore reappropriated and raised to a higher
level by psychoanalysis, but as an unconscious dimension of subjective
representation (myth as humanity's dream). What acts as an objective
and public element—the Earth, the Despot—is now taken up again, but
as the expression of a subjective and private reterritorialization: Oedipus
is the fallen despot—banished, deterritorialized—but a reterritoriali-
zation is engineered, using the Oedi pus complex conceived of as the
daddy-mommy-me of today's everyman. Psychoanalysis and the Oedi-
pus complex gather up all beliefs, all that has ever been believed by
humanity, but only in order to raise it to the condition of a denial that
preserves belief without believing in it (it's only a dream: the strictest
piety today asks for nothing more). Whence this double impression, that
psychoanalysis is opposed to mythology no less than to mythologists,
but at the same time extends myth an d tragedy to the dimensions of the
subjective universal: if Oedipus hims elf "has no complex," the Oedipus
complex has no Oedipus, just as narcissism has no Narcissus.* Such is
*Didier Anzieu, "Freud et la mythologie," pp. 124, 128: "F reud grants myth no specificity. This is one of
the points that have most seriously encumbered th e subsequent relations be tween psychoanalysts and
anthropologists. . . . Freud undertakes a veritable leveling. . . . The article 'On Narcissism: An Introduction,'
which constitutes an important step toward the revision of the theory of the drives, contains no allusion to
the myth of Narcissus."
304 ANTI-OEDIPUS
the ambivalence that traverses psyc hoanalysis, and that extends beyond
the specific problem of myth and tragedy: with one hand psychoanalysis
undoes the system of objective representations (myth, tragedy) for the
benefit of the subjective essence conceived as desiring-production,
while with the other hand it reverses this production in a system of
subjective representations (dream a nd fantasy, with myth and tragedy
posited as their developments or projections). Im ages, nothing but
images. What is left in the end is an intimate familial theater, the theater
of private man, which is no longer either desiring-production or objec-
tive representation. The unconscious as a stage. A whole theater put in
the place of production, a theater that disfigures this production even
more than could tragedy and myth when reduced to their meager ancient
resources.
Myth, tragedy, dream, and fantasy—and myth and tragedy reinter-
preted in terms of dream and fantasy—are the representative series that
psychoanalysis substitutes for the line of production: social and
desiring-production. A theater series, instead of a production series. But
why in fact does repres entation, having become subjective representa-
tion, assume this theatrical form ("There is a mysterious tie between
psychoanalysis and the theater")? We are familiar with the eminently
modern reply of certain recent authors: the theater elicits the finite
structure of the infinite subjective representation. What is meant by
"elicit" is very complex, since the structure can never present more than
its own absence, or represent someth ing not represented in the represen-
tation: but it is claimed that the theater's privilege is that of staging this
metaphoric and metonymic causality th at marks both the presence and
the absence of the structures in its effects. While Andre Green expresses
reservations about the adequacy of the structure, he does so only in the
name of a theater necessary for th e actualization of this structure,
playing the role of revealer, a place by which the structure becomes
visible.* In her fine analysis of the phenomenon of belief, Octave
Mannoni likewise uses the theater model to show how the denial of
belief in fact implies a transformation of belief, under the effect of a
The Theatrical Unconscious
- The text explores how structuralism uses the theater as a model to make the invisible structures of the unconscious visible.
- Symbolic representation is redefined not as a relation to objects, but as a system of pure signifiers that determine the subject's place.
- The author critiques the reduction of 'production' to 'representation,' arguing that this theatrical model preserves old beliefs under new names.
- Oedipus is presented as a universal metaphor within this structural framework, turning the unconscious into a stage for symbolic signifiers.
- Even social production, once discovered as a machine, is often immediately reduced back to a structural and theatrical representation.
Why the theater? How bizarre, this theatrical and pasteboard unconscious: the theater taken as the model of production.
metaphoric and metonymic causality th at marks both the presence and
the absence of the structures in its effects. While Andre Green expresses
reservations about the adequacy of the structure, he does so only in the
name of a theater necessary for th e actualization of this structure,
playing the role of revealer, a place by which the structure becomes
visible.* In her fine analysis of the phenomenon of belief, Octave
Mannoni likewise uses the theater model to show how the denial of
belief in fact implies a transformation of belief, under the effect of a
structure that the theater embodies or places on stage.16 We should
understand that representation, when it ceases to be objective, when it
becomes subjective infinite—that is to say, imaginary—effectively loses
all consistency, unless it is supporte d by a structure that determines the
*Andre Green goes very far in the analysis of the representation-theater-structure-unconscious relations: Un
oeil en trap (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1969), Prologue (especi ally p. 43, concerning "'the representation of
the nonrepresented in representation")- However, the criticism that Green makes of the structure is not
conducted in the name of production, but in the name of repres entation, and invokes the necessity for
extrastructural factors that must do nothing more th an reveal the structure, and reveal it as Oedipai.
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 305
place and the functions of the subject of representation, as well as the objects
represented as images, and the formal relations between them all. "Symbolic"
thus no longer designates the relation of representation to an objectity as an
element; it designates the ultimate elemen ts of subjective representation, pure
signifiers, pure nonrepresented representatives whence the subjects, the objects,
and their relationships all derive. In this way the structure designates the
unconscious of subjective representation. The series of this representation now
presents itself: (imaginary) infinite subjective representation-theatrical
representation-structural representation. And precisely because the theater is
thought to stage the latent structure, as well as to embody its elements and
relations, it is in a position to reveal the uni versality of this structure, even in the
objective representations that it salvages and reinterprets in terms of hidden
representatives, their migrations and vari able relations. All former beliefs are
gathered up and revived in the name of a structure of the unconscious: we are
still pious. Everywhere, the great game of the symbolic signifier that is embodied
in the signifieds of the Imaginary—Oedipus as a universal metaphor.
Why the theater? How bizarre, this th eatrical and pasteboard unconscious:
the theater taken as the model of production. Even in Louis Althusser we are
witness to the following operation: the discovery of social production as
"machine" or "machinery," irreducible to the world of objective representation
(Vorstellung); but immediately the reduction of the machine to structure, the
identification of production with a stru ctural and theatrical representation
(Darstellung).17 Now the same is true of both desiring-production and social
production: every time that production, ra ther than being apprehended in its
The Theater of Lack
- The text critiques the reduction of social and desiring-production to a structural or theatrical representation.
- When production is viewed through the lens of structure, it is inevitably defined by absence and the concept of lack.
- Psychoanalysis uses the 'gate of castration' to fuse desire with the impossible, imposing a molar unity on molecular desiring-machines.
- The theater serves as a model that universalizes familial relations into metaphors, pushing the actual workings of machines into the 'wings' or the background.
- This structural operation displaces the boundary of desire, trapping it between infinite imaginary representation and finite structural representation.
From the structure there arises the most austere song in honor of castration— yes, yes, we enter the order of desire through the gates of castration.
the theater taken as the model of production. Even in Louis Althusser we are
witness to the following operation: the discovery of social production as
"machine" or "machinery," irreducible to the world of objective representation
(Vorstellung); but immediately the reduction of the machine to structure, the
identification of production with a stru ctural and theatrical representation
(Darstellung).17 Now the same is true of both desiring-production and social
production: every time that production, ra ther than being apprehended in its
originality, in its reality, becomes reduced ( rabattue) in this manner to a
representational space, it can no longer ha ve value except by its own absence,
and it appears as a lack within this space. In search of the structure in
psychoanalysis, Moustafa Safouan is able to present it as a "contribution to a
theory of lack." It is in the structure th at the fusion of desire with the impossible
is performed, with lack defined as castra tion. From the structure there arises the
most austere song in honor of castration— yes, yes, we enter the order of desire
through the gates of castration— once de siring-production has spread out in the
space of a representation that allows it to go on living only as an absence and a
lack unto itself. For a structural unity is imposed on the desiring-machines that
joins them together in a molar aggregat e; the partial objects are referred to a
totality that can appear only as that wh ich the partial objects lack, and as that
which is lacking unto itself while being lacking in them (the Great Signifier
"symbolizable by the inherency of a -1 in the ensemble of
306 ANTI-OEDIPUS
signifiers"). Just how far will one go in the development of a lack of lack
traversing the structure? Such is the struct ural operation: it distributes lack in the
molar aggregate. The limit of desiring-production—the border line separating the
molar aggregates and their molecular el ements, the objective representations and
the machines of desire—is now completely displaced. The limit now passes only
within the molar aggregate itself, inasmuch as the latter is furrowed by the line of
castration. The formal operations of the structure are those of extrapolation,
application, and biunivocalization, which reduce the social aggregate of departure
to a familial aggregate of destination, with the familial relation becoming
"metaphorical for all the others" and hi ndering the molecular productive elements
from following their own line of escape.
When Andre Green looks for the reasons that establish the affinity of
psychoanalysis with the theat rical and structural representation it makes visible,
he offers two that are especially striking: the theater raises the familial relation to
the condition of a universal metaphoric st ructural relation, whence the imaginary
place and interplay of persons derives; and inversely, the theater forces the play
and the working of machines into the wings, behind a limit that has become
impassible (exactly as in fantasy the machines are there, but behind the wall). In
short, the displaced limit no longer pa sses between objective representation and
desiring-production, but between the two pol es of subjective representation, as
infinite imaginary representation, and as finite structural representation.
Thereafter it is possible to oppose these tw o aspects to each other, the imaginary
variations that tend toward the night of the indeterminate or the nondifferentiated,
The Theater of Psychoanalysis
- The text argues that psychoanalysis traps human production within a double impasse of subjective representation, alternating between imaginary variations and symbolic invariants.
- Oedipus is preserved and even strengthened through symbolic castration, granting the family a universal metaphoric value even as its literal social power declines.
- Psychoanalysis acts as a 'perverse operation' that replaces lost objective beliefs with a neoidealism centered on the ideology of lack and the cult of castration.
- Modern man is described as being 'reterritorialized' on the couch, using the analytic situation to manufacture a sense of reality in a world where old territorialities have fallen into ruin.
- The author critiques the 'analytic squirrel' who remains caught in the wheel of the Imaginary and the Symbolic, failing to escape the molar impasses of the Oedipal structure.
The earth is dead, the desert is growing: the old father is dead, the territorial father, and the son too, the despot Oedipus. We are alone with our bad conscience and our boredom, our life where nothing happens; nothing left but images that revolve within the infinite subjective representation.
place and interplay of persons derives; and inversely, the theater forces the play
and the working of machines into the wings, behind a limit that has become
impassible (exactly as in fantasy the machines are there, but behind the wall). In
short, the displaced limit no longer pa sses between objective representation and
desiring-production, but between the two pol es of subjective representation, as
infinite imaginary representation, and as finite structural representation.
Thereafter it is possible to oppose these tw o aspects to each other, the imaginary
variations that tend toward the night of the indeterminate or the nondifferentiated,
and the symbolic invariant that traces the path of the differentiations: the same
thing is found all over, following a rule of inverse relation, or double bind. All of
production is conducted into the double impasse of subjective representation.
Oedipus can always be consigned to the Imaginary, but no matter, it will be
encountered again, stronger and more whol e, more lacking and triumphant by the
very fact that it is lacking, it will be en countered again in its entirety in symbolic
castration. And it's a sure thing that structure affords us no means for escaping
familialism; on the contrary, it adds another turn, it attributes a universal
metaphoric value to the family at the very moment it has lost its objective literal
values. Psychoanalysis makes its ambition clear: to relieve the waning family, to
replace the broken-down familial bed with th e psychoanalyst's couch, to make it
so that the "analytic situation" is incestuous in its essence, so that it is its own
proof or voucher, on a par with Reality.18
In the final analysis that is indeed what is at issue, as Octave Mannoni
shows: how can belief continue after repudiation, how can we
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 307
continue to be pious? We have repudiated and lost all our beliefs that proceeded
by way of objective representations. The earth is dead, the desert is growing: the
old father is dead, the territorial father, and the son too, the despot Oedipus. We
are alone with our bad conscience and our boredom, our life where nothing
happens; nothing left but images that revolve within the infinite subjective
representation. We will muster all our strength so as to believe in these images,
from the depths of a structure that gove rns our relationships with them and our
identifications as so many effects of a symbolic signifier. The "good identifica-
tion." We are all Archie Bunker at the theater, shouting out before Oedipus:
there's my kind of guy, there's my kind of guy! Everything, the myth of the earth,
the tragedy of the despot, is taken up ag ain as shadows projected on a stage. The
great territorialities have fallen into ruin , but the structure proceeds with all the
subjective and private reterritorializations. What a perverse operation
psychoanalysis is, where this neoidealism, this rehabilitated cult of castration,
this ideology of lack culminates: the anthropomorphic representation of sex! In
truth, they don't know what they are doi ng, nor what mechanism of repression
they are fostering, for their intentions are often progressive. But no one today can
enter an analyst's consulting room without at least being aware that everything
has been played out in advance: Oedipus and castr ation, the Imaginary and the
Symbolic, the great lesson of the inade quacy of being or of dispossession.
Psychoanalysis as a gadget, Oedipus as a reterritorialization, a retimbering of
modern man on the "rock" of castration.
The path marked out by Lacan led in a completely different direction. He is
not content to turn, like the analytic squi rrel, inside the wheel of the Imaginary
and the Symbolic; he refuses to be ca ught up in the Oedipal Imaginary and the
oedipalizing structure, the imaginary identity of persons and th e structural unity
of machines, everywhere knocking against the impasses of a molar
The Reverse Side of Structure
- The text critiques traditional psychoanalysis for using Oedipus as a tool for reterritorialization and limiting desire to the 'rock' of castration.
- Lacan is credited with moving beyond the 'analytic squirrel' wheel of the Imaginary and Symbolic to find the real production of desire.
- Desiring-machines are described as being abducted by both the symbolic socius and the personal family structure, which impose a false unity of lack.
- The 'reverse side' of the structure consists of a real inorganization of molecular elements and partial objects that function as positive intensities.
- This molecular realm operates like a lottery of random drawings rather than a linguistic game of chess, utilizing the body without organs as its support.
- The ultimate goal is to schizophrenize the analytic field rather than oedipalizing the psychotic field by focusing on nonhuman sex and machine-like desire.
It is this entire reverse side of the structure that Lacan discovers, with the 'o' as machine, and the 'O' as nonhuman sex: schizophrenizing the analytic field, instead of oedipalizing the psychotic field.
Psychoanalysis as a gadget, Oedipus as a reterritorialization, a retimbering of
modern man on the "rock" of castration.
The path marked out by Lacan led in a completely different direction. He is
not content to turn, like the analytic squi rrel, inside the wheel of the Imaginary
and the Symbolic; he refuses to be ca ught up in the Oedipal Imaginary and the
oedipalizing structure, the imaginary identity of persons and th e structural unity
of machines, everywhere knocking against the impasses of a molar
representation that the family closes round itself. What is the use of going from
the imaginary dual order to the symbolic third (or f ourth), if the latter is
biunivocalizing whereas the first is biunivocalized? As partial objects the
desiring-machines undergo two totalizati ons, one when the socius confers on
them a structural unity under a symbolic signifier acting as absence and lack in
an aggregate of departure, the other wh en the family imposes on them a personal
unity with imaginary signifieds that distribute, that "vacuolize" lack in an
aggregate of destination: a double abduction of the orphan machines, inasmuch
as the structure applies its articulation to them, inasmuch as the parents lay their
fingers on them. To trace back from im ages to the structure would have little
significance and would not
308 ANTI-OEDIPUS
rescue us from representation, if the structure did not have a r everse side
that is like the real production of desire.
This reverse side is the "real inorganization" of the molecular
elements: partial objects that enter into indirect syntheses or interac-
tions, since they are not partial (partiels) in the sense of extensive parts,
but rather partial ("partiaux")* like the intensities under which a unit of
matter always fills space in varying degr ees (the eye, the mouth, the anus
as degrees of matter); pure positive multiplicities where everything is
possible, without exclusiveness or negation, syntheses operating without
a plan, where the connections are tr ansverse, the disjunctions included,
the conjunctions polyvocal, indifferen t to their underlying support, since
this matter that serves them precisely as a support receives no specificity
from any structural or personal unity , but appears as the body without
organs that fills the space each time an intensity fills it; signs of desire
that compose a signifying chain but that are not themselves signifying,
and do not answer to the rules of a linguistic game of chess, but instead to
the lottery drawings that sometimes cause a word to be chosen,
sometimes a design, sometimes a thing or a piece of a thing, depending
on one another only by the order of the random drawings, and holding
together only by the absence of a link (nonlocali-zable connections),
having no other statutory condition than that of being dispersed
elements of desiring-machines that are themselves dispersed.! It is this
entire reverse side of the structure that Lacan discovers, with the "o" as
machine, and the "O" as nonhuman sex: schizophrenizing the analytic
field, instead of oedipalizingthe psychotic field.
Everything hinges on the way in which the structure is elicited from
the machines, according to planes of consistency or of structuration, and
*partiel: partial, incomplete; partial (pi. partiaux): partial, biased, as a biased judge. We have chosen to
translate objets partiels throughout as "partial objects" rather than as "part-objects" (as in Melanie KJein), in
anticipation of this point in the book where Deleuze a nd Guattari shift from Klein' s concept of the partial
objects as "part of," hence as an incomplete part of a lost unity or totality (molar), toward a concept of the
partial objects as biased, evaluatin g intensities that know no lack and are capable of selecting organs
(molecular). (Translators' note.)
Partial Objects and Molar Castration
- The authors redefine partial objects not as incomplete parts of a lost whole, but as biased, molecular intensities that function without lack.
- Desire is viewed as a multiplicity of prepersonal singularities where the absence of a link is a positive force of coherence rather than a deficiency.
- The body without organs is compared to divine substance, with partial objects acting as its ultimate, irreducible attributes.
- Molar formations and the Oedipal structure reduce the production of desire to representation by introducing the concept of lack and the signifier of castration.
- Lacan's complexity is noted in his treatment of Oedipus as an imaginary myth produced by a symbolic structure rooted in the element of castration.
The signs of desire, being nonsignifying, become signifying in representation only in terms of a signifier of absence or lack.
*partiel: partial, incomplete; partial (pi. partiaux): partial, biased, as a biased judge. We have chosen to
translate objets partiels throughout as "partial objects" rather than as "part-objects" (as in Melanie KJein), in
anticipation of this point in the book where Deleuze a nd Guattari shift from Klein' s concept of the partial
objects as "part of," hence as an incomplete part of a lost unity or totality (molar), toward a concept of the
partial objects as biased, evaluatin g intensities that know no lack and are capable of selecting organs
(molecular). (Translators' note.)
tLacan, Ecrits (see reference note 19), pp. 657-59. Serge Lecl aire has made a prof ound attempt to define
within this perspective the reverse side of the structure as the "pure being of desire" ("La realite du desir"
[reference note 26],pp. 242-49). In desire he sees a multip licity of prepersonal sing ularities, or indifferent
elements that are defined precisely by the absence of a link. But this absence of a link—and of a
meaning—is positive, "it constitutes the specific force of coherence of this constellation." Of course,
meaning and link can always be re-established, if only by inserting fragments assumed to be forgotten: this
is even the very function of Oedipus. But "if the analysis again discovers the link between two elements, this
is a sign that the y are n ot the ultimate, irreducible terms of the unconscious." It will be noticed here that
Leclaire uses the exact criterion of real distinction in Spinoza and Leibniz: the ultimate elements (the
infinite attributes) are attributable to God, because they do not depend on one another and do not tolerate
any relation of opposition or contradic tion among themselves. The absence of all direct links guarantees
their common participation in the divine substance. Likewise for the partial objects and the body without
organs: the body without organs is substance itself, and the partial objects, the ultimate attributes or
elements of substance.
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 309
lines of selection that correspond to the large sta tistical aggregates or
molar formations, and that determine the links and reduce production to
representation— that is where the disjunctions become exclusive (and
the connections global, and the conj unctions, biunivocal), at the same
time that the support gains a specific ity under a structural unity, and the
signs themselves become signifying under the action of a despotic
symbol that totalizes them in the na me of its own absence or withdrawal.
Yes, in fact, there the production of desire can be represented only in
terms of an extrapolated sign that joins together all the elements of
production in a constellation of which it is not itself a part. There the
absence of a tie necessarily appears as an absence, and no longer as a
positive force. There desire is necessarily referred to a missing term,
whose very essence is to be lack ing. The signs of desire, being
nonsignifying, become signifying in representation only in terms of a
signifier of absence or lack. The structure is formed and appears only in
terms of the symbolic term defined as a lack. The great Other as the
nonhuman sex gives way, in representation, to a signifier of the great
Other as an always missing term, th e all-too-human sex, the phallus of
molar castration.*
Here too Lacan's approach appears in all its complexity; for it is
certain that he does not enclose the unconscious in an Oedipal structure.
He shows on the contrary that Oedipus is imaginary, nothing but an
image, a myth; that this or these images are produced by an oedipalizing
structure; that this structure ac ts only insofar as it reproduces the
element of castration, which itself is not imaginary but symbolic. There
we have the three major planes of structuration, which correspond to the
molar aggregates: Oedipus as the imaginary reterritorialization of
The Destruction of Oedipus
- Lacan's approach treats the Oedipal complex as an imaginary myth produced by a symbolic structure of castration rather than a literal reality.
- The text argues that the structural organization of signifiers in psychoanalysis still relies on a 'despotic Great Signifier' that acts as an archaism.
- Schizoanalysis seeks to move beyond the symbolic and the representative to reach a point of self-critique where desire is defined by production rather than lack.
- The unconscious is described as an orphan, anarchist, and atheist that operates through intensities and machinic production rather than persons or laws.
- The ultimate task of schizoanalysis is a 'complete curettage' of the unconscious to destroy the illusions of the ego, guilt, and the law.
The unconscious of schizoanalysis is unaware of persons, aggregates, and laws, and of images, structures, and symbols. It is an orphan, just as it is an anarchist and an atheist.
Here too Lacan's approach appears in all its complexity; for it is
certain that he does not enclose the unconscious in an Oedipal structure.
He shows on the contrary that Oedipus is imaginary, nothing but an
image, a myth; that this or these images are produced by an oedipalizing
structure; that this structure ac ts only insofar as it reproduces the
element of castration, which itself is not imaginary but symbolic. There
we have the three major planes of structuration, which correspond to the
molar aggregates: Oedipus as the imaginary reterritorialization of
private man, produced under the stru ctural conditions of capitalism,
inasmuch as capitalism reproduces and revives the archaism of the
imperial symbol or the vanished despot. All three are necessary—
precisely in order to lead Oedipus to the point of its self-critique. The
task undertaken by Lacan is to lead Oedipus to such a point. (Likewise,
Elisabeth Roudinesco has clearly seen that, in Lacan, the hypothesis of
an unconscious-as-language does not cl oset the unconscious in a linguis-
tic structure, but leads linguistics to the point of its autocritique, by
showing how the structural organiza tion of signifiers still depends on a
despotic Great Signifier acting as an archaism.)19
* Lacan, £cri(5 (see reference note 19), p. 819: "For want of this signifier,all the others would represent
nothing." Serge Leclaire shows how th e structure is organized around a missi ng term, or rather a signifier of
lack: "It is the elective signifier of the absence of a link, the phallus, that we find again in the unique
privilege of its relation to the essence of lack—an emblem of difference par excellence—the irreducible
difference, the difference between the sexes. ... If man can talk, this is because at one point in the language
system there is a guarantor of the irreducibility of lack: the phallic signifier" ("La realite du desir" [see
reference note 26], p. 251). How strange all this is!
3 1 0 A N T I - O E D I P U S
What is this point of self-criticism? It is the point where the structure,
beyond the images that fill it and the Symbolic that conditions it within
representation, reveals its reverse side as a positive principle of nonconsistency
that dissolves it: where desire is shifted into the order of production, related to its
molecular elements, and where it lacks nothing, because it is defined as the
natural and sensuous objective being, at the same time as the Real is defined as
the objective being of desire. For the unconscious of schizoanalysis is unaware of
persons, aggregates, and laws, and of imag es, structures, and symbols. It is an
orphan, just as it is an anarchist and an atheist. It is not an orphan in the sense that
the father's name would designate an absence, but in the sense that the
unconscious reproduces itself wherever the names of history designate present
intensities ("the sea of proper names"). Th e unconscious is not figurative, since its
figural is abstract, the figure-schiz. It is not structural, nor is it symbolic, for its
reality is that of the Real in its very production, in its very inorganization. It is not
representative, but solely machinic, and productive.
Destroy, destroy. The task of schizo analysis goes by way of destruction—a
whole scouring of the unconscious, a comp lete curettage. Destroy Oedipus, the
illusion of the ego, the puppet of the superego, guilt, the law, castration. It is not a
matter of pious destructions, such as t hose performed by psychoanalysis under the
benevolent neutral eye of the analyst. For these are Hegel-style destructions, ways
of conserving. How is it that the celebra ted neutrality, and what psychoanalysis
calls—dares to call—the disappearance or the dissolution of the Oedipus
The Destruction of Oedipus
- Schizoanalysis requires a complete 'curettage' of the unconscious to destroy the illusions of the ego, superego, and the Oedipal complex.
- Traditional psychoanalysis is criticized for merely conserving Oedipus through symbolic sublimation rather than truly dissolving it.
- The text argues that concepts like castration and latency are fables designed to silence desiring-machines and propagate the Oedipal structure to future generations.
- The 'neutrality' of the analyst is revealed as a facade that collapses the moment a patient stops responding in familial terms or introduces non-Oedipal flows.
- Even appeals to the pre-oedipal or post-oedipal stages are viewed as bureaucratic traps that ultimately bring all desiring-production back to the Oedipal triangle.
What is latency, this pure fable, if not the silence imposed on desiring-machines so that Oedipus can develop, be fortified in us, so that it can accumulate its poisonous sperm and gain the time necessary for propagating itself?
Destroy, destroy. The task of schizo analysis goes by way of destruction—a
whole scouring of the unconscious, a comp lete curettage. Destroy Oedipus, the
illusion of the ego, the puppet of the superego, guilt, the law, castration. It is not a
matter of pious destructions, such as t hose performed by psychoanalysis under the
benevolent neutral eye of the analyst. For these are Hegel-style destructions, ways
of conserving. How is it that the celebra ted neutrality, and what psychoanalysis
calls—dares to call—the disappearance or the dissolution of the Oedipus
complex, do not make us burst into laughter? We are told that Oedipus is
indispensable, that it is the source of ev ery possible differentiation, and that it
saves us from the terrible nondifferentiate d mother. But this terrible mother, the
sphinx, is herself part of Oedipus; her nondi fferenti-ation is merely the reverse of
the exclusive differentiations created by Oedipus, she is herself created by
Oedipus: Oedipus necessarily operates in the form of this double impasse. We are
told that Oedipus in its turn must be ove rcome, and that this is achieved through
castration, latency, desexualization, and s ublimation. But what is castration if not
still Oedipus, to the nth power, now symbolic, and therefore all the more virulent?
And what is latency, this pure fable, if not the silence imposed on
desiring-machines so that Oedipus can de velop, be fortified in us, so that it can
accumulate its poisonous sperm and gain th e time necessary for propagating itself,
and for passing on to our future children? And what is the elimination of
castration anxiety in its turn—desexuali zation and sublimati on—if not divine
acceptance of, and infinite resignation to, bad conscience, which consists for the
woman of "the appeased wish for
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 311
a penis . . . destined to be converted into a wish for a baby and for a
husband," and for the man in assumi ng his passive attitude and in
"[subjecting] himself to a father substitute"?20
We are all the more "extricated" from Oedipus as we become a
living example, an advertisement, a theorem in action, so as to attract
our children to Oedipus: we have e volved in Oedipus, we have been
structured in Oedipus, and under the neutral and benevolent eye of the
substitute, we have learned the song of castration, the
lack-of-being-that-is-life; "yes it is through castration/that we gain
access/to Deeeeesire." What one calls the disappearance of Oedipus is
Oedipus become an idea. Only the idea can inject the venom. Oedipus
has to become an idea so that it sprouts each time a new set of arms and
legs, lips and mustache: "In tracing back the 'memory deaths' your ego
becomes a sort of mineral theorem wh ich constantly pr oves the futility
of living."21 We have been triangulated in Oedipus, and will triangulate
in it in turn. From the family to th e couple, from the couple to the family.
In actuality, the benevolent neutrality of the analyst is very limited: it
ceases the instant one stops responding daddy-mommy. It ceases the
instant one introduces a little desi ring-machine—the tape-recorder—into
the analyst's office; it ceases as soon as a flow is made to circulate that
does not let itself be stopped by Oedipus, the mark of the triangle (they
tell you you have a libido that is too viscous, or too liquid, contraindica-
tions for analysis).
When Fromm denounces the existence of a psychoanalytic bu-
reaucracy, he still doesn't go far enough, because he doesn't see what
the stamp of this bureaucracy is, and that an appeal to the pre-oedipal is
not enough to escape this stamp: the pre-oedipal, like the post-oedipal, is
still a way of bringing all of desiring-production—the anoedipal—back
to Oedipus. When Reich denounces the way in which psychoanalysis
joins forces with social repressi on, he still doesn't go far enough,
because he doesn't see that the tie linking psychoanalysis with capital-
Psychoanalysis and Capitalist Consumption
- The authors argue that psychoanalysis is inextricably linked to the economic mechanisms of capitalism, serving as a tool for the absorption of surplus value.
- Psychoanalysis is critiqued as a 'monstrous autism' that breaks with the reality of desire to create a self-referential system where the 'analytic situation' is the only test of reality.
- The text posits that the Oedipal complex functions as a mechanism to reduce the decoded flows of desire into a familial field suitable for capitalist axiomatic control.
- A distinction is made between the movement of desiring-production that escapes representation and the artificial reterritorialization that traps desire within a false image.
- The law of representation is accused of perverting the productive forces of the unconscious by inducing a structure where castration acts as the displacing agency.
Oedipus as the last word of capitalist consumption—sucking away at daddy-mommy, being blocked and triangulated on the couch; 'So it's . . .'
When Fromm denounces the existence of a psychoanalytic bu-
reaucracy, he still doesn't go far enough, because he doesn't see what
the stamp of this bureaucracy is, and that an appeal to the pre-oedipal is
not enough to escape this stamp: the pre-oedipal, like the post-oedipal, is
still a way of bringing all of desiring-production—the anoedipal—back
to Oedipus. When Reich denounces the way in which psychoanalysis
joins forces with social repressi on, he still doesn't go far enough,
because he doesn't see that the tie linking psychoanalysis with capital-
ism is not merely ideological, that it is infinitely closer, infinitely tighter;
and that psychoanalysis depends directly on an economic mechanism
(whence its relations with money) through which the decoded flows of
desire, as taken up in the axiomatic of capitalism, must necessarily be
reduced to a familial field where the application of this axiomatic is
carried out: Oedipus as the last word of capitalist consumption—sucking
away at daddy-mommy, being bloc ked and triangulated on the couch;
"So it's . . ." Psychoanalysis, no le ss than the bureaucratic or military
apparatus, is a mechanism for the absorption of surplus value, nor is this
true from the outside, extrinsically; rather, its very form and its finality
are marked by this social function. It is not the pervert, nor even the
312 ANTI-OEDIPUS
autistic person, who escap es psychoanalysis; the whole of psychoanaly-
sis is an immense perversion, a drug, a radical break with reality, starting
with the reality of desire; it is a narcissism, a monstrous autism: the
characteristic autism and the intrinsic perversion of the machine of
capital. At its most autistic, psychoanalysis is no longer measured
against any reality, it no longer open s to any outside, but becomes itself
the test of reality and the guarantor of its own test: reality as the lack to
which the inside and the outside, departure and arrival, are reduced.
Psychoanalysis index sui, with no other reference than itself or "the
analytic situation."
Psychoanalysis states clearly th at unconscious representation can
never be apprehended independently of the deformations, disguises, or
displacements it undergoe s. Unconscious representation therefore com-
prises essentially, by virtue of its own law, a represented that is
displaced in relation to an agency in a constant state of displacement.
But from this, two unwarranted conclusi ons are drawn: that this agency
can be discovered by way of the displaced represented; and this,
precisely because this agency itsel f belongs to representation, as a
nonrepresented representative, or as a lack "that juts out into the overfull
(trop-plein) of a representation." This results from the fact that
displacement refers to very differ ent movements: at times, the move-
ment through which desiring-production is continually overcoming the
limit, becoming deterritorialized, causing its flows to escape, going
beyond the threshold of representatio n; at times, on the contrary, the
movement through which the limit itself is displaced, and now passes to
the interior of the representation that performs the artificial
reterritorial-izations of desire. If the displacing agency can be concluded
from the displaced, this is only true in the second sense, where molar
representation is organized around a representative that displaces the
represented. But this is certainly not true in the first sense, where the
molecular elements are continually pa ssing through the links in the chain.
We have seen in this perspective how the law of representation
perverted the productive forces of the unconscious, and induced in its
very structure a false image that caught desire in its trap (the
impossibility of concluding from the prohibition as to what is actually
prohibited). Yes, Oedipus is indeed the displaced represented; yes,
castration is indeed the representative, the displacing agency (le
Schizoanalysis and the Oedipal Trap
- The text argues that Oedipus and castration are not inherent unconscious materials but are instead 'reactional formations' and social captures of desire.
- Psychoanalysis is criticized for acting as a tool of reterritorialization, creating a 'private territory' or 'private capital' out of dreams and myths.
- Schizoanalysis is defined by its destructive mission to explode these theatrical representations and return the subject to the 'factory' of desiring-production.
- The author posits that there is no unconscious material to interpret, only resistances and the mechanical flows of desiring-machines.
- True unconscious elements are characterized by an absence of links, which psychoanalysis falsely attempts to bridge using the signifier of lack.
Causing Oedipus and castration to explode, brutally intervening each time the subject strikes up the song of myth or intones tragic lines, carrying him back to the factory.
represented. But this is certainly not true in the first sense, where the
molecular elements are continually pa ssing through the links in the chain.
We have seen in this perspective how the law of representation
perverted the productive forces of the unconscious, and induced in its
very structure a false image that caught desire in its trap (the
impossibility of concluding from the prohibition as to what is actually
prohibited). Yes, Oedipus is indeed the displaced represented; yes,
castration is indeed the representative, the displacing agency (le
deplacant), the signifier—but none of that constitutes an unconscious
material, nor does any of it concern the productions of the unconscious.
Oedipus, castration, the signifier, etc., exist at the crossroads of two
operations of capture: one where re pressive social production becomes
replaced by beliefs, the other wher e repressed desiring-production finds
itself replaced by representa-
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 313
tions. To be sure, it is not psychoanaly sis that makes us believe: Oedipus and
castration are demanded, then demanded again, and these demands come from
elsewhere and from deeper down. But psychoanalysis did find the following
means, and fills the following function: causing beliefs to survive even after
repudiation; causing those who no longer believe in anything to continue
believing; reconstituting a private territory for them, a private Urstaat, a private
capital (dreams as capital, said Freud).
That is why, inversely, schizoanalysis must devote itself with all its strength
to the necessary destructions. Destroying beliefs and representations, theatrical
scenes. And when engaged in this task no activity will be too malevolent.
Causing Oedipus and castra tion to explode, brutally intervening each time the
subject strikes up the song of myth or intones tragic lines, carrying him back to
the factory. As Charlus says, "A lot we care about your grandmother, you little
shit!" Oedipus and castration are no more than reactional formations, resistances,
blockages, and armorings whose destru ction can't come fast enough. Reich
intuits a fundamental principle of schizoan alysis when he says that the destruc-
tion of resistances must not wait upon the discovery of the material.22 But the
reason for this is even more radical than he thought: there is no unconscious
material, so that schizoanalysis ha s nothing to interpret. There are only
resistances, and then machines desiring-m achines. Oedipus is a resistance; if we
have been able to speak of the intrinsi cally perverted nature of psychoanalysis,
this is due to the fact that perversion in general is the artificial reterritorialization
of the flows of desire, whose machines on the contrary are indices of
deterritorialized production. The psychoanalyst reterritorializes on the couch, in
the representation of Oedipus and castration. Schizoanalysis on the contrary must
disengage the deterritorialized flows of desire, in the molecular elements of
desiring-production. We should again call to mind the practical rule laid down by
Leclaire, following Lacan, the rule of the right to non-sense as well as to the
absence of a link: you will not have reached the ultimate and irreducible terms of
the unconscious so long as you find or re store a link between two elements. (But
how then can one see in this extreme dispersion—machines dispersed in every
machine—nothing more than a pure "ficti on" that must give way to Reality
defined as a lack, with Oedipus and castra tion back at a gallop, at the same time
that one reduces the absence of a link to a "signifier" of absence charged with
representing the absence, with linking this absence itself, and with moving us
back and forth from one pole of displaceme nt to the other? One falls back into
the molar hole while claiming to unmask the real.)
What complicates everything is that there is indeed a necessity for
Desiring-Machines and Reterritorialization
- The text critiques psychoanalysis for reducing the reality of desiring-production to a mere fiction or a signifier of absence.
- Desiring-machines are defined as systems of connections and breaks that operate along a tangent of deterritorialization on the body without organs.
- Even the most radical attempts to escape or 'leave' often result in the creation of new, far-off territorialities or anthropomorphic representations.
- The authors argue that human desire inevitably seeks out circuits and 'little earths,' even when attempting to unplug from social structures.
- A distinction is made between the molecular schizophrenic line of escape and the paranoiac molar investment that seeks to reconstitute territories.
We are all little dogs, we need circuits, and we need to be taken for walks.
machine—nothing more than a pure "ficti on" that must give way to Reality
defined as a lack, with Oedipus and castra tion back at a gallop, at the same time
that one reduces the absence of a link to a "signifier" of absence charged with
representing the absence, with linking this absence itself, and with moving us
back and forth from one pole of displaceme nt to the other? One falls back into
the molar hole while claiming to unmask the real.)
What complicates everything is that there is indeed a necessity for
desiring-production to be induced from representation, to be discovered
314 ANTI-OEDIPUS
through its lines of escape. But this is true in a way altogether different from what
psychoanalysis believes it to be. The decode d flows of desire form the free energy
(libido) of the desiring-machines. The desi ring-machines take form and train their
sights along a tangent of deterritorial-iza tion that traverses the representative
spheres, and that runs along the body w ithout organs. Leaving, escaping, but
while causing more escapes. The desi ring-machines themselves are the
fiows-schizzes or the breaks-flows that br eak and flow at the same time on the
body without organs: not the gaping wound represented in castration, but the
myriad little connections, disjunctions, and conjunctions by which every machine
produces a flow in relation to another that breaks it, and breaks a flow that
another produces. But how would these d ecoded and deterrito-rialized flows of
desiring-production keep from being reduced to some representative territoriality,
how would they keep from forming for themselves yet another such territory,
even if on the body without organs as the indifferent support for a last
representation? Even those who are best at "leaving," those who make leaving
into something as natural as being born or dying, those who set out in search of
nonhuman sex—Lawrence, Miller—stake out a far-off territoriality that still
forms an anthropomorphic and phallic re presentation: the Orient, Mexico, or
Peru. Even the schizo's stroll or voyage doe s not effect great deterritori-alizations
without borrowing from territorial circu its: the tottering walk of Molloy and his
bicycle preserves the mother's room as th e vestige of a goal; the vacillating spirals
of The Unnamabl e keep the familial tower as an uncertain center where it
continues to turn while treading its own underfoot; the infinite series of
juxtaposed and unlocalized parks in Watt still contains a reference to Mr. Knott's
house, the only one capable of "pushing the soul out-of-doors," but also of
summoning it back to its place. We are all little dogs, we need circuits, and we
need to be taken for walks. Even those best able to disconnect, to unplug
themselves, enter into connections of desiring-machines that re-form little earths.
Even Gisela Pankow's great deterritoria lized subjects are led to discover the
image of a family castle under the roots of the uprooted tree that crosses through
their body without organs.23
Previously we distinguished two poles of delirium, one as the molecular
schizophrenic line of escape, and the ot her as the paranoiac molar investment.
But the perverted pole is equally opposed to the schizophrenic pole, just as the
reconstitution of territorialities is opposed to the movement of
deterritorialization. And if perversion in the narrowest sense of the word
performs a certain very specific type of reterritorialization within the artifice,
perversion in the broad sense comprises all the types of reterritorializations, not
merely artificial, but
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 315
also exotic, archaic, residual, private, etc.: thus Oedipus and psycho-
analysis as perversion. Even Raymond Roussel's schizophrenic ma-
chines turn into perverse machines in a theater representing Africa. In
short, there is no deterr itorialization of the flows of schizophrenic desire
Machines and Deterritorialized Desire
- The text argues that every movement of deterritorialization is inevitably accompanied by a reterritorialization that reconstitutes representation.
- Dreams are characterized as perverse reterritorializations of sleep, often trapped in Oedipal structures and the weight of the superego.
- Machines within dreams and fantasies serve as indices of deterritorialization, introducing breaks and flows that escape familial representation.
- Schizoanalysis is defined by its focus on machinic indices of escape, whereas psychoanalysis remains fixed on the sterile reterritorialization of the ego.
- The figure of the 'schizo out for a walk' represents a breakthrough into a deterritorialized circuit, contrasted with the neurotic confined to the couch.
The machine is always infernal in the family dream.
performs a certain very specific type of reterritorialization within the artifice,
perversion in the broad sense comprises all the types of reterritorializations, not
merely artificial, but
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 315
also exotic, archaic, residual, private, etc.: thus Oedipus and psycho-
analysis as perversion. Even Raymond Roussel's schizophrenic ma-
chines turn into perverse machines in a theater representing Africa. In
short, there is no deterr itorialization of the flows of schizophrenic desire
that is not accompanied by globa l or local reterritorializations,
reterri-torializations that always re constitute shores of representation.
What is more, the force and the obstinacy of a deterritorialization can
only be evaluated through the types of reterritorialization that represent
it; the one is the reverse side of the other. Our loves are complexes of
deterritorialization and reterritorialization. What we love is always a
certain mulatto—male or female. The movement of deterritorialization
can never be grasped in itself, one can only grasp its indices in relation to
the territorial representations. Take the example of dreams: yes, dreams
are Oedipal, and this comes as no surprise, since dreams are a perverse
reterritorialization in relation to the deterritorialization of sleep and
nightmares. But why return to dreams, why turn them into the royal road
of desire and the unconscious, when they are in fact the manifestation of
a superego, a superpowerful and superarchaized ego (the Urszene of the
Urstaat)? Yet at the heart of dreams themselves—as with fantasy and
delirium—machines function as indices of deterritorialization. In dreams
there are always machines endowed with the strange property of passing
from hand to hand, of escaping and causing circulations, of carrying and
being carried away. The airplane of parental coitus, the father's car, the
grandmother's sewing machin e, the little brother's bicycle, all objects of
flight and theft, stealing and stealing away—the machine is always
infernal in the family dream. The machine introduces breaks and flows
that prevent the dream from being reconfined in its scene and
systematized within its representation. It makes the most of an
irreducible factor of non-sense, which will develop elsewhere and from
without, in the conjunctions of the real as such. Psychoanalysis, with its
Oedipal stubbornness, has only a dim understanding of this; for one
reterritorializes on persons and surroundings, but one deterritorial-izes
on machines. Is it Schreb er's father who acts through machines, or on
the contrary is it the machines th emselves that function through the
father? Psychoanalysis settles on the imagi nary and structural represen-
tatives of reterritorialization, while schi zoanalysis foll ows the machinic
indices of deterritorialization. The opposition still holds between the
neurotic on the couch—as an ultimate and sterile land, the last exhausted
colony—and the schizo out for a walk in a deterritorialized circuit. The
following excerpt from an article by Michel Cournot on Chaplin helps
us understand what schizophreni c laughter is, as well as the
schizophrenic line of escape or breakthrough, and the process as
316 ANTI-OEDIPUS
deterritorialization, with its machinic indices: "The moment Charlie
Chaplin makes the board fall a second time on his head—a psychotic
gesture—he provokes the spectator's la ughter. Yes, but what laughter is
this? And what spectator? For example, the question no longer applies at
all, at this point in the film, of knowing whether the spectator must see
the accident coming or be surprised by it. It is as though the spectator, at
that very moment, were no longer in his seat, were no longer in a
position to observe things. A kind of perceptive gymnastics has lead
him, progressively, not to identify with the character of Modern Times,
Chaplin and Schizoanalytic Design
- The text argues that Chaplin's Modern Times systematically dismantles the spectator's objective distance, forcing them to experience the resistance of events directly.
- Laughter is redefined not as a simple reaction, but as a series of short-circuits within a disconnected piece of machinery that perverts traditional comedic timing.
- The final image of the film is described as neither optimistic nor pessimistic, but as a finished design of oppressive manifestations where characters advance toward a void.
- Schizoanalysis is presented as a destructive yet patient task that must undo the layers of territoriality and resistance that trap the subject in neurosis or psychosis.
- The ultimate goal of the schizoanalytic process is to extricate the subject from old lands and stases to reach the fulfillment of a new land.
After having suppressed the spectator as such, Chaplin perverts the laughter, which comes to be like so many short-circuits of a disconnected piece of machinery.
gesture—he provokes the spectator's la ughter. Yes, but what laughter is
this? And what spectator? For example, the question no longer applies at
all, at this point in the film, of knowing whether the spectator must see
the accident coming or be surprised by it. It is as though the spectator, at
that very moment, were no longer in his seat, were no longer in a
position to observe things. A kind of perceptive gymnastics has lead
him, progressively, not to identify with the character of Modern Times,
but to experience so directly the resistance of the events that he
accompanies this character, has the same surprises, the same premoni-
tions, the same habits as he. Thus it is that the famous eating machine,
which in a sense, by its excess, is foreign to the film (Chaplin had
invented it twenty-two years before the film), is merely the formal,
absolute exercise that prepares for the conduct—also psychotic—of the
worker trapped in the machine, with only his upside-down head sticking
out, and who has Chaplin feed him his lunch, since it is lunch time. If
laughter is a reaction that takes certa in circuits, it can be said that
Charlie Chaplin, as the film's sequences unfold, progressively displaces
the reactions, causes them to recede, level by level, until the moment
when the spectator is no longer master of his own circuits, and tends to
spontaneously take either a shorter pa th, which is not passable, which is
barred, or else a path that is very explicitly posted as leading nowhere.
After having suppressed the spectator as such, Chaplin perverts the
laughter, which comes to be like so many short-circuits of a disconnected
piece of mach inery. Critics have occasionally spoken of the pessimism
of Modern Ti mes and of the optimism of the final image. Neither term
suits the film. Charles Chaplin in Modern Time s sketches rather, on a
very s mall s cale, with a precise stroke, the finished design of several
oppressive and fundament al manifestations. Th e leading character,
played by Chaplin, has to be neither active nor passive, neither
consenting nor insubordinate, since he is the pencil point that traces the
design, he is the stroke itself. . . . That is why the final image is without
optimism. One does not see what optimism would be doing at the
conclusion of this statement. This man and this woman seen from the
back, all black, whose shadows are not projected by any sun, advance
toward nothing. The wireless telegraph poles that run along the left side
of the road, the barren trees that dot the right side, do not meet at the
horizon. There is no horizon. The ba ld hills facing the spectator only
form a line that merges with the void hanging over them. Anyone can see
that this man and this woman are no longer alive. There is no pessimism
here either. What had to happen happened. They did not kill each other.
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 317
They were not brought down by the poli ce. And it will not be necessary
to go looking for the alibi of an accident. Charles Chaplin did not dwell
on this. He went quickly, as usual. He traced the finished design."24
In its destructive task, schizoanalysis must proceed as quickly as
possible, but it can also proceed only with great patience, great care, by
successively undoing the representative territorialities and
reterritorial-izati ons through which a subject passes in his individual
history. For there are several layers, several planes of resistance that
come from within or are imposed from without. Schizophrenia as a
process, deterritorialization as a process, is inseparable from the stases
that interrupt it, or aggravate it, or make it turn in circles, and
reterritorialize it into neurosis, pe rversion, and psychosis. To a point
where the process cannot extricate itself, continue on, and reach
fulfillment, except insofar as it is capable of creating—what exactly?—a
new land. In each case we must go back by way of old lands, study their
The Schizoanalytic Voyage
- Schizophrenia is described as a process of deterritorialization that is constantly threatened by reterritorialization into neurosis, perversion, or psychosis.
- Proust's 'In Search of Lost Time' is framed as a schizoanalytic enterprise where the narrator traverses various social and psychological planes to reach a molecular breakthrough.
- The narrator-spider functions by undoing established webs of familial and personal connections to reach a 'new land' of nonpersonal, partial connections.
- The ultimate goal of this intensive voyage is a world of transverse communications where desire functions according to molecular flows rather than human categories.
- The text questions whether the schizo's suffering stems from the process of liberation itself or from the interruptions that force them back into clinical or familial lands.
But the narrator-spider never ceases undoing webs and planes, resuming the journey, watching for the signs or the indices that operate like machines and that will cause him to go on further.
history. For there are several layers, several planes of resistance that
come from within or are imposed from without. Schizophrenia as a
process, deterritorialization as a process, is inseparable from the stases
that interrupt it, or aggravate it, or make it turn in circles, and
reterritorialize it into neurosis, pe rversion, and psychosis. To a point
where the process cannot extricate itself, continue on, and reach
fulfillment, except insofar as it is capable of creating—what exactly?—a
new land. In each case we must go back by way of old lands, study their
nature, their density; we must seek to discover how the machinic indices
are grouped on each of these lands that permit going be yond them. How
can we reconquer the process each time, constantly resuming the
journey on these lands— Oedipal fam ilial lands of neurosis, artificial
lands of perversion, clinical lands of psychosis? In Search of Los t Time
as a great enterprise of schizoanalysis: all the planes are traversed until
their molecular line of escape is reached, their schizophrenic
breakthrough; thus in the kiss where Albertine's face jumps from one
plane of consistency to another, in order to finally come undone in a
nebula of molecules. The reader alwa ys risks stopping at a given plane
and saying yes, that is where Proust is explaining himself. But the
narrator-spider never ceases undoing webs and planes, resuming the
journey, watching for the signs or the indices that operate like machines
and that will cause him to go on further. This very movement is humor,
black humor. Oh, the narrator does not homestead in the familial and
neurotic lands of Oedipus, ther e where the global and personal
connections are established; he does not remain there, he crosses these
lands, he desecrates them, he penetrates them, he liquidates even his
grandmother with a machine for tyi ng shoes. The perverse lands of
homosexuality, where the exclusive disjunctions of women with women,
and men with men, are established, likewise break apart in terms of the
machinic indices that undermine them. The psychotic earths, with their
conjunctions in place (Charlus is therefore surely mad, and Albertine
too, perhaps!), are traversed in their turn to a point where the problem is
no longer posed, no longer posed in this way. The narrator continues his
own affair, until he reaches the unknown country, his own, the unknown
land, which alone is created by his own work in progress, the Search of
Lost Time "in progress,"
318 ANTI-OEDIPUS
functioning as a desiring-machine capab le of collecting and dealing with
all the indices. He goes toward these new regions where the connections
are always partial and nonpersonal, the conjunctions nomadic and
polyvocal, the disjunctions incl uded, where homosexuality and
hetero-sexuality cannot be distinguished any longer: the world of
transverse communications, where the finally conquered nonhuman sex
mingles with the flowers, a new ear th where desire functions according
to its molecular elements and flows. Such a voyage does not necessarily
imply great movements in extension; it becomes immobile, in a room
and on a body without organs—an intensive voyage that undoes all the
lands for the benefit of the one it is creating.
The patient resumption of the process, or on the contrary its
interruption—the two are so closely in terrelated that they can only be
evaluated each within the other. How would the schizo's voyage be
possible independent of certain circ uits, how could it exist without a
land? But inversely, how can we be certain that these circuits don't
reconstitute the lands—only too well known—of the asylum, the artifice,
or the family? We always return to the same question: from what does
the schizo suffer, he whose sufferi ngs are unspeakable? Does he suffer
from the process itself, or rather from its interruptions, when he is
The Impasse of Schizoanalysis
- The text questions whether the schizophrenic's suffering stems from the psychic process itself or from the constant interruptions imposed by social institutions.
- Traditional and modern psychiatric structures, including outpatient centers and family care, risk merely recreating the oppressive 'Oedipal' dynamics of the asylum.
- The authors argue that even antipsychiatry often fails by creating 'subject-groups' that eventually devolve into new forms of social perversion or religious-like chapels.
- True liberation requires an effective politicization of psychiatry that addresses the decoding and deterritorialization of flows inherent to capitalism.
- The fundamental conflict lies between the molecular process of the 'voyage' and the molar organizations that attempt to bind and reterritorialize it.
We will witness a new race of sick people implore by reaction that they be given back an asylum, or a little Beckettian land, a garbage can, so they can become catatonic in a corner.
interruption—the two are so closely in terrelated that they can only be
evaluated each within the other. How would the schizo's voyage be
possible independent of certain circ uits, how could it exist without a
land? But inversely, how can we be certain that these circuits don't
reconstitute the lands—only too well known—of the asylum, the artifice,
or the family? We always return to the same question: from what does
the schizo suffer, he whose sufferi ngs are unspeakable? Does he suffer
from the process itself, or rather from its interruptions, when he is
neuroticized in the family, in the land of Oedipus; when the one who
does not allow himself to be Oedipali zed is psychoticized in the land of
the asylum; when the one who escapes the family and the asylum is
perverted in the artificial locales? Perhaps there is only one illness,
neurosis, the Oedipal decay agains t which all the pathogenic interrup-
tions of the process should be measured. Most of the modern
endeavors—outpatient centers, inpatien t hospitals, social clubs for the
sick, family care, institutions, and even antipsychiatry—remain threat-
ened by a common danger, a danger which Jean Oury has been able to
analyze in depth: how does one avoid the institution's re-forming an
asylum structure, or constituting pe rverse and reformist artificial socie-
ties, or residual paternalistic or mothering pseudo families? We do not
have in mind the so-called commun ity psychiatry endeavors, whose
admitted purpose is to triangulate, to Oedipalize everyone—people,
animals, and things—to a point where we will witness a new race of sick
people implore by reaction that they be given back an asylum, or a little
Beckettian land, a garbage can, so they can become catatonic in a corner.
But in a less openly repressive manner, who says that the family is a
good place, a good circuit for the deterritorialized schizo? Such a thing
would be very surprising, to say the least: "the therapeutic potentialities
of the familial surroundings." Th e whole town, then, the whole
neighborhood? What molar unit will constitute a sufficiently
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANAIYSIS 319
nomadic circuit? How does one prevent the unit chosen, even if a
specific institution, from constituting a perverted society of tolerance, a
mutual-aid society that hides the real problems? Will the structure of the
institution save it? But how will the structure break its relationship with
neuroticizing, perverting, psychoticiz ing castration? How will this struc-
ture produce anything but a subjugated group? How will it give free play
to the process, when its entire mo lar organization has the function of
binding the molecular process? Even antipsychiatry—especially sensi-
tive to the schizophrenic breakthrough and the intense voyage—tires out
and proposes the image of a subject-group that would become immedi-
ately reperverted, with former sc hizos guiding the most recent ones,
and, as relays, little chapels, or better yet, a convent in Ceylon.
The only thing that can save us from these impasses is an effective
politicization of psychiatry. And doubtless, with R. D. Laing and David
Cooper antipsychiatry went very far in this direction. But it seems to us
that they still conceive of this politicization in terms of the structure and
the event, rather than the process itself. Furthermore, they localize
social and mental alienation on a single line, and tend to consider them
as identical by showing how the fam ilial agent extends the one into the
other.* Between the two, however, the relationship is rather that of an
included disjunction. This is because the decoding and the
deterritoriali-zation of flows define the very process of capitalism—that
is, its essence, its tendency, and its external limit. But we know that the
process is continually interrupted, or the tendency counteracted, or the
limit displaced, by subjective reterritorializations and representations
Politics of Deterritorialized Madness
- The text explores the complex relationship between social and mental alienation, viewing them as an included disjunction within the capitalist process.
- Capitalism is defined by the deterritorialization of flows, yet it constantly imposes subjective reterritorializations like the family and private property to maintain control.
- Madness is characterized as a flow that has been isolated and forced to represent the universal process of deterritorialization on its own, without social support.
- A true antipsychiatry would aim to undo the reterritorializations that turn madness into 'mental illness,' allowing the schizoid movement to affect all flows of labor and desire.
- The ultimate goal is a state where madness disappears because its exterior limit is overcome by a general escape of all flows from systemic control.
It is merely its unwarranted privilege, a privilege beyond its capacities, that renders it mad.
social and mental alienation on a single line, and tend to consider them
as identical by showing how the fam ilial agent extends the one into the
other.* Between the two, however, the relationship is rather that of an
included disjunction. This is because the decoding and the
deterritoriali-zation of flows define the very process of capitalism—that
is, its essence, its tendency, and its external limit. But we know that the
process is continually interrupted, or the tendency counteracted, or the
limit displaced, by subjective reterritorializations and representations
that operate as much at the level of capital as a subject (the axiomatic),
as at the level of the persons servi ng as capital's agents (application of
the axiomatic). But we seek in vain to assign social alienation and mental
alienation to one side or the other, as long as we establish a relation of
exclusion between the two. The deterri torialization of flows in general
effectively merges with mental alienation, inasmuch as it includes the
reterritorializations that permit it to subsist only as the state of a
particular flow, a flow of madness that is defined thus because it is
charged with representing whatever escapes the axiomatics and the
applications of reterritorialization in other flows. Inversely,one can find
the form of social alienation in action in all the reterritorializations of
capitalism, inasmuch as they keep the flows from escaping the system,
*David Cooper, "Alienation ment ale et alienation sociaie," Reckerckes, December 1968, pp. 48-49: "Social
alienation comes for the most part to overlap the diverse forms of mental alienation. . . . Those admitted into
a psychiatric hospital are admitted not so much because they are sick, as because they are protesting in a
more or less adequate way against the social order. The social system in which they are caught thereby
comes to reinforce tthe damages wrought by the familial system in which they grew up. This autonomy that
they seek to affirm with regard to a microsociety acts as an indicator of a massive alienation performed by
society as a whole."
32 0 A N T I - O E D I P U S
and maintain labor in the axiomatic framework of property, and desire in
the applied framework of the family; but this social alienation includes
in its turn mental alienation, which finds itself represented or
reterritori-alized in neurosis, perversion, and psychosis (the mental
illnesses).
A true politics of psychiatry, or antipsychiatry, would consist
therefore in the following praxis: (1) undoing all the rete rritorializations
that transform madness into mental illness; (2) liberating the schizoid
movement of deterritorialization in all the flows, in such a way that this
characteristic can no longer qualify a particular residue as a flow of
madness, but affects just as well the flows of labor and desire, of
production, knowledge, and creation in their most profound tendency.
Here, madness would no longer exist as madness, not because it would
have been transformed into "mental illness," but on the contrary because
it would receive the support of all the other flows, including science and
art—once it is said that madness is called madness and appears as such
only because it is deprived of this support, and finds itself reduced to
testifying all alone for deterritorialization as a universal process. It is
merely its unwarranted privilege, a privilege beyond its capacities, that
renders it mad. In this perspec tive Foucault announ ced an age when
madness would disappear, not because it would be lodged within the
controlled space of mental illness ("great tepid aquariums"), but on the
contrary because the exterior limit designated by madness would be
overcome by means of other flows es caping control on all sides, and
carrying us along.*
It should therefore be said that one can never go far enough in the
direction of deterritorialization: you haven't seen anything yet—an
The Mechanics of Schizoanalysis
- Foucault's vision suggests that madness will disappear not through clinical control, but by being overcome by flows that escape all social regulation.
- The process of deterritorialization must be pushed to its absolute limit, using artifice to eventually create a 'new earth' beyond familial neurosis.
- Schizoanalysis functions as a mechanical rather than an interpretive practice, focusing on the functional output of a subject's desiring-machines.
- The ultimate goal is the completion of a process where the revolutionary, artistic, and scientific machines become integrated parts of one another.
- The schizoanalyst acts as a mechanic who identifies nonhuman sexes and the specific functioning of machines independent of traditional psychoanalytic interpretation.
The schizoanalyst is a mechanic, and schizoanalysis is solely functional.
merely its unwarranted privilege, a privilege beyond its capacities, that
renders it mad. In this perspec tive Foucault announ ced an age when
madness would disappear, not because it would be lodged within the
controlled space of mental illness ("great tepid aquariums"), but on the
contrary because the exterior limit designated by madness would be
overcome by means of other flows es caping control on all sides, and
carrying us along.*
It should therefore be said that one can never go far enough in the
direction of deterritorialization: you haven't seen anything yet—an
irreversible process. And when we consider what there is of a profound-
ly artificial nature in the perverted reterritorializations, but also in the
psychotic reterritorializations of the hospital, or even the familial
neurotic reterritorializations, we cry out, "More perversion! More
artifice!"—to a point where the earth becomes so artificial that the
movement of deterritorialization creates of necessity and by itself a new
earth. Psychoanalysis is especially satisfying in this regard: its entire
perverted practice of the cure consis ts in transforming familial neurosis
into artificial neurosis (of transferen ce), and in exalting the couch, a little
island with its commander, the ps ychoanalyst, as an autonomous
territoriality of the ultimate artifice. A little additional effort is enough to
overturn everything, and to lead us finally toward other far-off places.
The schizoanalytic flick of the finger, which restarts the movement, links
•Michel Foucauit, "La folie, i'absence d'oeuvre," La Table ronde. May 1964: "Everything that we
experience today in the mode of the limit, or of strangeness, or of the unbearable, will have joined again
with the serenity of the positive."
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 321
up again with the tendency, and pushes the simulacra to a point where
they cease being artificial images to become indices of the new world.
That is what the completion of th e process is: not a promised and a
pre-existing land, but a world created in the process of its tendency, its
coming undone, its deterritorialization. The movement of the theater of
cruelty; for it is the only theater of production, there where the flows
cross the threshold of deterritori alization and produce the new land—
not at all a hope, but a simple "fi nding," a "finished design," where the
person who escapes causes other escapes, and marks out the land while
deterritorializing himself. An active point of escape where the revolu-
tionary machine, the artistic machine, the scientific machine, and the
(schizo) analytic machine become parts and pieces of one another.
The First Positive Task of
Schizoanalysis
The negative or destructive task of schizoanalysis is in no
way separable from its positive tasks—all these tasks are necessarily
undertaken at the same time. The firs t positive task consists of discover-
ing in a subject the nature, the formation, or the functioning of his
desiring-machines, independently of any interpretations. What are your
desiring-machines, what do you put into these machines, what is the
output, how does it work, what are your nonhuman sexes? The
schizoanalyst is a mechanic, and schizoanalysis is solely functional. In
this respect it cannot remain at the level of a still interpretative
examination—interpretative from the point of view of the
unconscious—of the social machines in which the subject is caught as a
cog or as a user; nor of the technical machines that are his prized
possession, or that he perfects or even produces through handiwork; nor
of the subject's use of his machines in his dreams and his fantasies.
These machines are still too representative, and represent units that are
too large—even the perverted machines of the sadist or the masochist,
even the influencing machines of the paranoiac. We have seen in general
Desiring-Machines and Molecular Dispersion
- The text argues that traditional psychoanalysis fails by focusing on large-scale social or technical machines that are too representative and unified.
- Desiring-machines are defined by a state of dispersion where partial objects function independently rather than as parts of a structural whole.
- The phallus is criticized as a totalizing concept that imposes a false unity and leads to the 'ridiculous wound' of castration.
- True analysis should ignore 'human relations' and concepts to focus on machinic arrangements in their molecular state.
- Partial objects in these machines refer to disparate elements across different systems, such as a bicycle horn and a dead rat's ass.
Partial objects define the working machine or the working parts, but in a state of dispersion such that one part is continually referring to a part from an entirely different machine, like the red clover and the bumble bee, the wasp and the orchid, the bicycle horn and the dead rat's ass.
examination—interpretative from the point of view of the
unconscious—of the social machines in which the subject is caught as a
cog or as a user; nor of the technical machines that are his prized
possession, or that he perfects or even produces through handiwork; nor
of the subject's use of his machines in his dreams and his fantasies.
These machines are still too representative, and represent units that are
too large—even the perverted machines of the sadist or the masochist,
even the influencing machines of the paranoiac. We have seen in general
that the pseudo analyses of the "object " were really the lowest level of
analytic activity, even and especially when they claim to double the real
object with an imaginary object; and better a
how-to-interpret-your-dreams book than a psychoanalysis of the market
place.
The consideration of all these machines, however, whether they be
real, symbolic, or imaginary, must indeed intervene in a specific
way—but as functional indices to po int us in the direction of the
desiring-machines, to which these indices are more or less close and
affinal. The desiring-machines in fact are only reached starting from a
certain threshold of dispersion that no longer permits either their
3 2 2 A N T I - O E D I P U S
imaginary identity or their structural unity to subsist. (These instances
stitl belong to the order of interpretation, that is to say the order of the
signified or the signifier.) Partial objects ar e what make up the parts of
the desiring-machines; partial objects define the working machine or the
working parts, but in a state of di spersion such that one part is
continually referring to a part from an entirely different machine, like the
red clover and the bumble bee, the wa sp and the orchid, the bicycle horn
and the dead rat's ass. Let's not rush to introduce a term that would be
like a phallus structuring the whole and personifying the parts, unifying
and totalizing everything. Everywhere there is libido as machine energy,
and neither the horn nor the bumble bee have the privilege of being a
phallus: the phallus intervenes only in the structural organization and the
personal relations deriving from it, where everyone, like the worker
called to war, abandons his machines and sets to fighting for a war
trophy that is nothing but a great absence, with one and the same penalty,
one and the same ridiculous wound for all—castration. This entire
struggle for the phallus, this poorly understood will to power, this
anthropomorphic representation of sex, this whole conception of sexu-
ality that horrifies Lawrence precisely because it is no more than a
conception, because it is an idea that "reason" imposes on the uncon-
scious and introduces into the passional sphere, and is not by any means
a formation of this sphere—here is where desire finds itself trapped,
specifically limited to human sex, unified and identified in the molar
constellation. But the desiring-machines live on the contrary under the
order of dispersion of the molecu lar elements. And one fails to
understand the nature and function of partial objects if one does not see
therein such elements, rather than parts of even a fragmented whole. As
Lawrence said, analysis does not have to do with anything that resembles
a concept or a person, "the so-calle d human relations are not involved."25
Analysis should deal solely (excep t in its negative task) with the
machinic arrangements grasped in the context of their molecular
dispersion.
Let us therefore return to the rule so clearly stated by Serge
Leclaire, even if he sees this only as a fiction instead of the real-desire
(reel-desir): the elements or parts of the desiring-machines are recog-
nized by their mutual independence, such that nothing in the one
depends or should depend on something in the other. They must not be
opposed determinations of a same en tity, nor the differentiations of a
The Molecular Unconscious
- Schizoanalysis focuses on machinic arrangements within their molecular dispersion rather than unified molar structures.
- Partial objects are defined by their mutual independence and lack of organic, psychological, or structural links.
- The erogenous body is viewed as an anarchic multiplicity of preindividual singularities rather than a fragmented organism.
- Unlike Melanie Klein's theories, partial objects do not refer to a lost unity or a future totality, but function as raw working parts.
- The machinic regime of these dispersed elements is maintained through passive syntheses and indirect interactions between flows.
Such is the case in the schizoid sequences of Beckett: stones, pockets, mouth; a shoe, a pipe bowl, a small limp bundle that is undefined, a cover for a bicycle bell, half a crutch.
Analysis should deal solely (excep t in its negative task) with the
machinic arrangements grasped in the context of their molecular
dispersion.
Let us therefore return to the rule so clearly stated by Serge
Leclaire, even if he sees this only as a fiction instead of the real-desire
(reel-desir): the elements or parts of the desiring-machines are recog-
nized by their mutual independence, such that nothing in the one
depends or should depend on something in the other. They must not be
opposed determinations of a same en tity, nor the differentiations of a
single being, such as the masculine and the feminine in the human sex,
but different or really-distinct things (des r eelkment-distincts), distinct
"beings," as found in the dispersion of the nonhuman sex (the clover and
the bee). As long as schizoanalysis has not arrived at these disparate
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOAMALYSIS 323
elements, it has not yet discovered the partial objects as the ultimate
elements of the unconscious. It is in this sense that Leclaire used the
term "erogenous body" not to designate a fragmented organism, but an
emission of preindividual and preper sonal singularities, a pure dispersed
and anarchic multiplicity, without unity or totality, and whose elements
are welded, pasted together by the real distinction or the very absence of
a link. Such is the case in the schizoid sequences of Beckett: stones,
pockets, mouth; a shoe, a pipe bowl, a small limp bundle that is
undefined, a cover for a bicycle bell, ha lf a crutch ("if one indefinitely
runs up against the same set of pure singularities, one can feel confident
that he has drawn near the singularity of the subject's desire").2S To be
sure, one can always establish or re -establish some sort of link between
these elements: organic links between organs or fragments of organs
that eventually form part of the multiplicity; psychological and
axiologi-cal links—the good, the bad—t hat finally refer to the persons
or to the scenes from which these elements are borrowed; structural
links between the ideas or the concepts apt to correspond to them. But it
is not in this respect that the partial objects are elements of the uncon-
scious, and we cannot even go along with the image of the partial objects
that their inventor, Melanie Klein, proposes. This is because, whether
organs or fragments of organs, the partial objects do not refer in the
least to an organism that would function phantasmatically as a lost unity
or a totality to come. Their dispersion has nothing to do with a lack, and
constitutes their mode of presence in the multiplicity they form without
unification or totalization. With ever y structure dislodged, every memory
abolished, every organism set asid e, every link undone, they function as
raw partial objects, dispersed working parts of a machine that is itself
dispersed. In short, partial objects are the molecular functions of the
unconscious. That is why, when we insisted earlier on the difference
between desiring-machines and all the figures of molar machines, we
were fully aware that they were both contained in, and did not exist
without, one another, but we had to stress the difference in regime and in
scale between these two machinic species.
It is true that one might inst ead wonder how these conditions of
dispersion, of rea! distinction, a nd of the absence of a link permit any
machinic regime to exist—how the pa rtial objects thus defined are able
to form machines and arrangements of machines. The answer lies in the
passive nature of the syntheses, or—what amounts to the same thing—in
the indirect nature of the interacti ons under consideration. If it is true
that every partial object emits a flow, it is also the case that this flow is
associated with another partial obje ct and defines the other's potential
field of presence, which is itself multip le (a multiplicity of anuses for the
324 ANTI-OEDIPUS
The Engineering of Desire
- Desiring-machines operate through passive syntheses where partial objects interact indirectly by emitting and breaking flows.
- The concept of the 'break-flow' defines the unconscious activity of causing flows to move while simultaneously interrupting them.
- Overlapping flows can create states of indiscernibility between organs, such as the 'mouth-anus' of the anorexic, leading to paradoxical relationships.
- These machinic permutations of organs form deformable abstract polygons that actively dismantle the traditional figurative Oedipal triangle.
- The body without organs is not the opposite of partial objects but is produced alongside them to neutralize or mobilize their activities.
A permutation involving 2, 3, n organs; deformable abstract polygons that make game of the figurative Oedipal triangle, and never cease to undo it.
machinic regime to exist—how the pa rtial objects thus defined are able
to form machines and arrangements of machines. The answer lies in the
passive nature of the syntheses, or—what amounts to the same thing—in
the indirect nature of the interacti ons under consideration. If it is true
that every partial object emits a flow, it is also the case that this flow is
associated with another partial obje ct and defines the other's potential
field of presence, which is itself multip le (a multiplicity of anuses for the
324 ANTI-OEDIPUS
flows of shit). The synthesis of connection of the partial objects is
indirect, since one of the partial obj ects, in each point of its presence
within the field, always breaks the flow that another object emits or
produces relatively, itself ready to em it a flow that other partial objects
will break. The flows are two-headed, so to speak, and it is by means of
these flows that every productive connection is made, such as we have
tried to account for with the notion of flow-schiz or break-flow. So that
the true activities of the unconscious, causing to flow and breaking
flows, consist of the passive synthesi s itself insofar as it ensures the
relative coexistence and displacement of the two different functions.
Now let us assume that the respective flows associated with two
partial objects at least partially overlap: their production remains distinct
in relation to the objects x and y that emit them, but not the fields of
presence in relation to the objects a and b that inhabit and interrupt
them, such that the partial a and the partial b become in this regard
indiscernible (thus the mouth and the anus, the mouth-anus of the
anorexic). And they are not indiscer nible solely in the mixed region,
since one can always assume that , having exchanged their function
within this region, they cannot be further distinguished by exclusion
there where the two flows no longer overlap: one then finds oneself
before a new passive synthesis where a and b are in a paradoxical
relationship of included disjunction. Finally there remains the possibili-
ty, not of an overlapping of the flows, but of a permutation of the objects
that emit them: one discovers fringes of interference on the edge of each
field of presence, fringes that testify to the remainder of a flow in the
other, and form residual conjunctiv e syntheses guiding the passage or
the heartfelt becoming from the one to the other. A permutation
involving 2, 3, n organs; deformable abstract polygons that make game
of the figurative Oedipal triangle, and never cease to undo it. Through
binarity, overlapping, or permutation, all these indirect passive synthe-
ses are one and the same engineering of desire. But who will be able to
describe the desiring-machines of each subject, what analysis will be
exacting enough for this? Mozart's desiri ng-machine? "Raise your ass to
your mouth, ... ah, my ass burns like fire, but what can be the meaning
of that? Perhaps a turd wants to come out. . . . Yes, yes, turd, I know
you, I see you, I feel you. What is this—is such a thing possible?"*
These syntheses necessarily imply the position of a body without
organs. This is due to the fact that the body without organs is in no way
the contrary of the organs-partial obj ects. It is itself produced in the
*From a letter by Mozart, cited by Marcel More, Le Dim Mozart et le monde des okeaux ("Paris: Galliniard,
1971), p. 124: "Having come of age, he found the means of concealing his divine essence, by indulging in
scatological amusements." More shows convincingl y how the scatological machine works underneath and
against the Oedipal "cage."
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 325
first passive synthesis of connect ion, as that which is going to
neutralize—or on the contrary put into motion—the two activities, the
The Body Without Organs
- The body without organs is not the opposite of partial objects but is produced alongside them as a distinct, non-unifying whole.
- Both the body without organs and partial objects stand in joint opposition to the structured organism and its functional organization.
- The body without organs can act as a fluid of antiproduction that repels organs or as a support that attracts and appropriates them.
- Desire flows through the body and its organs but bypasses the organism, utilizing syntheses of nomadic conjunction and included disjunction.
- Schizoanalysis views partial objects and the body without organs as a single multiplicity rather than fragments of a shattered totality.
Desire indeed passes through the body, and through the organs, but not through the organism.
organs. This is due to the fact that the body without organs is in no way
the contrary of the organs-partial obj ects. It is itself produced in the
*From a letter by Mozart, cited by Marcel More, Le Dim Mozart et le monde des okeaux ("Paris: Galliniard,
1971), p. 124: "Having come of age, he found the means of concealing his divine essence, by indulging in
scatological amusements." More shows convincingl y how the scatological machine works underneath and
against the Oedipal "cage."
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 325
first passive synthesis of connect ion, as that which is going to
neutralize—or on the contrary put into motion—the two activities, the
two heads of desire. For as we ha ve seen, it can be produced as the
amorphous fluid of antiproduction, ju st as it can be produced as the
support that appropriates for itself the flow production. It can as well
repel the organs-objects as attract them, and appropriate them for itself.
But in repulsion as in attraction, the body without organs is not in
opposition to these organs-objects; it merely ensures its own opposition,
and their opposition, with regard to an organism. The body without
organs and the organs-partial objec ts are opposed conjointly to the
organism. The body without organs is in fact produced as a whole, but a
whole alongside the parts—a whole that does not unify or totalize them,
but that is added to them like a new, really distinct part.
When it repels the organs, as in the mounting of the paranoiac
machine, the body without organs marks the external limit of the pure
multiplicity formed by these organs themselves insofar as they consti-
tute a nonorganic and nonorganized multiplicity. And when it attracts
them and fits itself over them, in the process of a miraculating fetishistic
machine, it still does not totalize them, unify them in the manner of an
organism: the organs-partial object s cling to the body without organs,
and enter into the new syntheses of included disjunction and nomadic
conjunction, of overlapping and perm utation, on this body—syntheses
that continue to repudiate the organism and its orga nization. Desire
indeed passes through the body, and through the organs, but not through
the organism. That is why the partia l objects are not the expression of a
fragmented, shattered organism, which would presuppose a destroyed
totality or the freed parts of a whole; nor is the body without organs the
expression of a "de-differentiated" ("de-differencie") organism stuck
back together that would surmount its own parts. The organs-partial
objects and the body without organs are at bottom one and the same
thing, one and the same multiplicity that must be conceived as such by
schizoanalysis. Partial objects are the direct powers of the b ody without
The Schizophrenic Desiring-Machines
- The body without organs and partial objects are not fragments of a destroyed whole, but rather a single multiplicity of immanent substance.
- Partial objects function as the working parts or micromolecules of the desiring-machine, while the body without organs acts as the immobile motor.
- The body without organs represents matter as intensity=0, which partial objects fill to varying degrees to produce the real in space.
- Desire is structured through a molecular chain that facilitates a disjunctive synthesis on the recording surface of the body without organs.
- The fragmentation of the body in this context is viewed as a multiplication of power and life rather than a state of degradation or loss.
The others no longer have to do with a simple person, but with a man to the x+y+z power whose life has been immeasurably increased, dispersed while being united with other natural forces.
the organism. That is why the partia l objects are not the expression of a
fragmented, shattered organism, which would presuppose a destroyed
totality or the freed parts of a whole; nor is the body without organs the
expression of a "de-differentiated" ("de-differencie") organism stuck
back together that would surmount its own parts. The organs-partial
objects and the body without organs are at bottom one and the same
thing, one and the same multiplicity that must be conceived as such by
schizoanalysis. Partial objects are the direct powers of the b ody without
organs, and the body without o rgans, th e raw material of th e partial
objects.* The body without organs is the matter that always fills space to
*In his study on "Objet magique, sorcellerie et fetichisme" in Nourelle revue de psychanalyse, no. 2 (1970).
Pierre Bonnafe clearly demonstrates in this respect the inadequacy of a notion like that of a fragmented
body: ''There is indeed a fragmenting of the body, but not at al! with a feeling of loss or degradation. Quite
to the contrary, as much for the holder as for the others, the body is fragmented by multiplication: the others
no longer have to do with a simple person, but with a man to the x+y+z power whose life has been
immeasurably increased, dispersed while being united with other natural forces . . . . since its existence no
longer rests at the center of its person, but has hidden itself in severa l far-off and impregnable locations"
(pp. 166-67). Bonnafe recognizes in the magic object th e existence of the three desiring syntheses: the
connective synthesis, which combines the fragments of the person with those of animals or plants; the
included disjunctive synthesis, which records the ma n-animal composite: the conjunctive synthesis, which
implies a veritable migration of the remainder or residue.
326 ANTI-OEDIPUS
given degrees of intensity, and the pa rtial objects are these degrees, these
intensive parts that produce the real in space starting from matter as intensity=0.
The body without organs is the immanent substance, in the most Spinozist sense
of the word; and the partial objects are like its ultimate attributes, which belong to
it precisely insofar as they are really distinct and cannot on this account exclude
or oppose one another. The partial object s and the body without organs are the
two material elements of the schizophr enic desiring-machines: the one as the
immobile motor, the others as the worki ng parts; the one as the giant molecule,
the others as the micromolecules—the two t ogether in a relationship of continuity
from one end to the other of the molecular chain of desire.
The chain is like the apparatus of transmission or of reproduction in the
desiring-machine. Insofar as it bri ngs together—without unifying or uniting
them—the body without organs and the pa rtial objects, the desiring-machine is
inseparable both from the distribution of the partial objects on the body without
organs, and from the leveling effect exerted on the partial objects by the body
without organs, which results in appropr iation. The chain also implies another
type of synthesis than the flows: it is no longer the lines of connection that
traverse the productive parts of the machin e, but an entire network of disjunction
on the recording surface of the body without organs. And we have doubtless been
able to present things in a logical order where the disjunctive synthesis of
recording seemed to follow after the c onnective synthesis of production, with a
part of the energy of production (Libido) being converted into a recording energy
The Molecular Chain of Desire
- The body without organs acts as a recording surface where connective production is converted into a network of disjunctive syntheses.
- While molar aggregates rely on codes and territorial supports, the molecular chain functions to deterritorialize and decode flows.
- The signifying chain at the molecular level becomes a 'chain of escape' that undoes the rigid structures of capital, the despot, or the earth.
- These molecular signs are described as abstract machinic figures that play freely on the body without organs without forming a fixed configuration.
- The authors compare this machinic function to biological genetic codes where functional properties emerge from blind combinations rather than rigid structures.
It is a chain of escape, and no longer a code.
without organs, which results in appropr iation. The chain also implies another
type of synthesis than the flows: it is no longer the lines of connection that
traverse the productive parts of the machin e, but an entire network of disjunction
on the recording surface of the body without organs. And we have doubtless been
able to present things in a logical order where the disjunctive synthesis of
recording seemed to follow after the c onnective synthesis of production, with a
part of the energy of production (Libido) being converted into a recording energy
(Numen). But in fact, from the standpoint of the machine itself, there is no
succession that ensures the strict coexisten ce of the chains and the flows, as well
as of the body without organs and the partial objects. The conversion of a portion
of the energy does not occur at a given mo ment, but is a preliminary and constant
condition of the system. The chain is the network of included disjunctions on the
body without organs, inasmuch as these disjunctions resect the productive
connections; the chain causes them to pass over to the body without organs itself,
thereby channeling or "codifying" the flow s. However, the whole question is in
knowing whether one can speak of a code at the level of this molecular chain of
desire. We have seen that a code implied two things—one or the other, or the two
together: on the one hand, the specific determination of the full body as a
territoriality of support; on the other hand, the erection of a despotic signifier on
which the entire chain depends. In this regard, in vain is the axiomatic in
profound opposition to codes; since it wo rks on the decoded flows, it cannot itself
proceed except by effecting reterritorial-
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 327
izations and by reviving the signifyi ng unity. The very notions of code
and axiomatic therefore seem to be valid only for the molar aggregates,
where the signifying chain forms a gi ven determinate configuration on a
support that is itself specifically determined, and in terms of a detached
signifier. These conditions are not fu lfilled without exclusions forming
and appearing in the disjunctive network—at the same time as the
connective lines take on a gl obal and specific meaning.
But it is another case altogether with the properly molecular chain:
insofar as the body without organs is a nonspecific and nonspecified
support that marks the molecular limit of the molar aggregates, the chain
no longer has any other function than that of deterritorializing the flows
and causing them to pass through the signifying wall, thereby undoing
the codes. The function of the chain is no longer that of coding the flows
on a full body of the earth, the despot, or capital, but on the contrary that
of decoding them on the full body without organs. It is a chain of escape,
and no longer a code. The signifying chain has become a chain of
decoding and deterritorialization, which must be apprehended—and can
only be apprehended—as the reverse of the codes and the territorialities.
This molecular chain is still signifying because it is composed of signs of
desire; but these signs are no longer signifying, given the fact that they
are under the order of the included disjunctions where everything is
possible. These signs are points whose nature is a matter of indifference,
abstract machinic figures that play freely on the body without organs
and as yet form no structured configuration—or rather, they form one no
longer. As Jacques Monod says, we mu st conceive of a machine that is
such by its functional properties but not by its structure, "where nothing
but the play of blind combinations can be discerned."27 It is precisely the
ambiguity of what the biologists call a genetic code that enables us to
understand this kind of situation: for if the corresponding chain effec-
tively forms codes, inasmuch as it fo lds into exclusive molar configura-
Decoding the Unconscious Machine
- The genetic code functions as a form of 'genie decoding' where molecular fibers unfold to include all possible figures rather than fixed configurations.
- The unconscious is not a system for deciphering existing codes but a mechanism for producing decoded flows of desire that scramble all territorialities.
- Psychoanalysis risks failing its primary mission when it attempts to recode desire through the familial lens of Oedipus or the axiomatic of the clinical 'cure.'
- The body without organs serves as a model of death and catatonia, representing a state of zero intensity where organs are repelled or laid aside.
- There is no inherent opposition between the body without organs and partial objects; both are united in their struggle against the molar organism.
The signifying chain of the unconscious, Numen, is not used to discover or decipher codes of desire, but to cause absolutely decoded flows of desire, Libido, to circulate.
and as yet form no structured configuration—or rather, they form one no
longer. As Jacques Monod says, we mu st conceive of a machine that is
such by its functional properties but not by its structure, "where nothing
but the play of blind combinations can be discerned."27 It is precisely the
ambiguity of what the biologists call a genetic code that enables us to
understand this kind of situation: for if the corresponding chain effec-
tively forms codes, inasmuch as it fo lds into exclusive molar configura-
tions, it undoes the codes by unfoldi ng along a molecular fiber that
includes all the possible figures. Similarly, in Lacan, the symbolic
organization of the structure, with its exclusions that come from the
function of the signifier, has as its re verse side the real inorganization of
desire.
It would seem that the genetic code points to a genie decoding: one
need only grasp the decoding and dete rritorialization functions in their
own positivity, inasmuch as they impl y a particular chain state that is
metastable and distinct both from any axiomatic and from any code. The
molecular chain is the form in which the genie unconscious, always
remaining subject, reproduces itself. And as we have seen, that is the
primary inspiration of psychoanalysis: it does not add a code to all those
328 ANTI-OEDIPUS
that are already known. The signifying chain of the unconscious, Numen, is not
used to discover or decipher codes of de sire, but to cause absolutely decoded
flows of desire, Libido, to circulate, and to discover in desire that which
scrambles all the codes and undoes all the te rritorialities. It is true that Oedipus
will restore psychoanalysis to the status of a simple code, with the familial
territoriality and the signifier of castration. Worse yet, it will happen that
psychoanalysis itself wants to act as an axiomatic, which is the famous turning
point where it no longer even relates to the familial scene, but solely to the
psychoanalytic scene that supposedly answers for its own truth, and to the
psychoanalytic operation that supposedly answers for its own success—the couch
as an axiomatized earth, the axiomatic of the "cure" as a successful castration!
But by recoding or axiomatizing the flows of desire in this way, psychoanalysis
makes a molar use of the signifying chain that results in a misappreciation of all
the syntheses of the unconscious.
The body without organs is the model of death. As the authors of horror
stories have understood so well, it is not death that serves as the model for
catatonia, it is catatonic schizophrenia that gives its model to death. Zero
intensity. The death model appears when the body without organs repels the
organs and lays them aside: no mouth, no tongue, no teeth—to the point of
self-mutilation, to the point of suicid e. Yet there is no real opposition between
the body without organs and the organs as partial objects; the only real
opposition is to the molar organism that is their common enemy. In the
desiring-machine, one sees the same cat atonic inspired by the immobile motor
that forces him to put aside his organs, to immobilize them, to silence them, but
also, impelled by the working parts that work in an autonomous or stereotyped
fashion, to reactivate the organs, to reanim ate them with local movements. It is a
question of different parts of the machine, different and coexisting, different in
The Desiring-Machine and Death
- The body without organs and the working organs are not opposites but different parts of a single desiring-machine that opposes the molar organism.
- Death is not a separate desire but a part of the machine's dispersion, functioning as an immobile motor that attracts and appropriates organs.
- The machine functions through a cycle of breakdown, where repulsion provides the condition for attraction and movement.
- The experience of death is defined as a common unconscious occurrence found in every intensity, passage, or becoming within life.
- Intensive emotions and feelings are produced by the investment of a zero degree of intensity, which controls the unconscious experience of death.
Death is not desired, there is only death that desires, by virtue of the body without organs or the immobile motor, and there is also life that desires, by virtue of the working organs.
organs and lays them aside: no mouth, no tongue, no teeth—to the point of
self-mutilation, to the point of suicid e. Yet there is no real opposition between
the body without organs and the organs as partial objects; the only real
opposition is to the molar organism that is their common enemy. In the
desiring-machine, one sees the same cat atonic inspired by the immobile motor
that forces him to put aside his organs, to immobilize them, to silence them, but
also, impelled by the working parts that work in an autonomous or stereotyped
fashion, to reactivate the organs, to reanim ate them with local movements. It is a
question of different parts of the machine, different and coexisting, different in
their very coexistence. Hence it is absurd to speak of a death desire that would
presumably be in qualitative opposition to th e life desires. Death is not desired,
there is only death that desires, by virt ue of the body without organs or the
immobile motor, and there is also life that desires, by virtue of the working
organs. There we do not have two desires but two parts, two kinds of
desiring-machine parts, in the dispersi on of the machine itself. And yet the
problem persists: how can all that function together? For it is not yet a
functioning, but solely the (nonstructura l) condition of a molecular functioning.
The functioning appears when the moto r, under the preceding conditions—ie.,
without ceasing to be immobile and wit hout forming an organism—attracts the
organs to the body without organs, a nd appropriates them for itself in the
apparent objective movement. Repulsion is the condition of the
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYS1S 329
machine's functioning, but attraction is the functioning itself. That the
functioning depends on repulsion is clear to us, inasmuch as it all works
only by breaking down. One is then able to say what this running or this
functioning consists of: in the cycle of the desiring-machine it is a matter
of constantly translatin g, constantly converting the death model into
something else altogether, which is the experience of death. Converting
the death that rises from within (in the body without organs) into the
death that comes from without (on the body without organs).
But it seems that things are becoming very obscure, for what is this
distinction between the experience of death and the model of death?
Here again, is it a death desire? A being-for-death? Or rather an
investment of death, even if speculative? None of the above. The
experience of death is the most common of occurrences in the uncon-
scious, precisely because it occurs in life and for life, in every passage or
becoming, in every intensity as passage or becoming. It is in the very
nature of every intensity to invest within itself the zer o intensity starting
from which it is produced, in one moment, as that which grows or
diminishes according to an infinity of degrees (as Klossowski noted, "an
afflux is necessary merely to signify the absenc e of intensity"). We have
attempted to show in this respect how the relations of attraction and
repulsion produced such states, sens ations, and emotions, which imply a
new energetic conversion and form the third kind of synthesis, the
synthesis of conjunction. One might say that the unconscious as a real
subject has scattered an apparent residual and nomadic subject around
the entire compass of its cycle, a subject that passes by way of all the
becomings corresponding to the included disjunctions: the last part of
the desiring-machine, the adjacent part. These intense becomings and
feelings, these intensiv e emotions, feed deliriums and hallucinations.
But in themselves, these intensive emotions are closest to the matter
whose zero degree they invest in its elf. They control the unconscious
experience of death, insofar as death is what is felt in every feeling, what
never cea ses an d never fi nishes happe ning in e very beco ming —in the
The Schizophrenizing of Death
- Intensive emotions and becomings feed delirium while investing in the zero degree of matter on the body without organs.
- Death is conceptualized as a twofold nature: a perpetual process of 'dying' as a 'one' and the final event that fixes the subject as an 'I'.
- The experience of death serves as a cycle within desiring-machines, where the subject returns from the model of death to new experiences.
- Schizophrenizing death involves a constant movement between the model and the experience, ensuring that the desiring-machines themselves never die.
- The process concludes with the Eternal Return, where the collapse of one subject allows for the emergence of new 'horrible workers' on the horizon.
Every intensity controls within its own life the experience of death, and envelops it.
the entire compass of its cycle, a subject that passes by way of all the
becomings corresponding to the included disjunctions: the last part of
the desiring-machine, the adjacent part. These intense becomings and
feelings, these intensiv e emotions, feed deliriums and hallucinations.
But in themselves, these intensive emotions are closest to the matter
whose zero degree they invest in its elf. They control the unconscious
experience of death, insofar as death is what is felt in every feeling, what
never cea ses an d never fi nishes happe ning in e very beco ming —in the
becoming-another-sex, the becoming-god, the becoming-a-race, etc.,
forming zones of intensity on the body without organs. Every intensity
controls within its own life the experi ence of death, and envelops it. And
it is doubtless the case that every in tensity is extinguished at the end,
that every becoming itself becomes a becoming-death! Death, then, does
actually happen. Maurice Blanchot di stinguishes this twofold nature
clearly, these two irreducible aspect s of death; the one, according to
which the apparent subject never ceases to live and travel as a
One—"one never stops and never has done with dying"; and the other,
according to which this same subject, fixed as I, actually dies—which is
330 ANTI-OEDIPUS
to say it finally ceases to die since it ends up dying, in the reality of a last instant
that fixes it in this way as an /, all the while undoing the intensity, carrying it back
to the zero that envelops it.28
From one aspect to the other, there is not at all a personal deepening, but
something quite different: there is a retu rn from the experience of death to the
model of death, in the cycle of the desi ring-machines. The cycle is closed. For a
new departure, since this/ is another? Th e experience of death must have given us
exactly enough broadened experience, in order to live and know that the
desiring-machines do not die. And that the subject as an adjacent part is always a
"one" who conducts the experience, not an /who receives the model. For the
model itself is not the /either, but the body without organs. And / does not rejoin
the model without the model starting out again in the direction of another
experience. Always going from the mode l to the experience, and starting out
again, returning from the model to the experience, is what schizophrenizing death
amounts to, the exercise of the desiring-mach ines (which is their very secret, well
understood by the terrifying authors). The m achines tell us this, and make us live
it, feel it, deeper than delirium and furthe r than hallucination: yes, the return to
repulsion will condition other attractions, other functionings, the setting in motion
of other working parts on the body without organs, the putting to work of other
adjacent parts on the periphery that have as much a right to say One as we
ourselves do. "Let him die in his l eaping through unheard-of and unnamable
things: other horrible workers will come; they will begin on the horizons where
the other collapsed!"29 The Eternal Return as experience, and as the
Psychoanalysis and the Death Instinct
- The text argues that psychoanalysis has shifted from a potential 'song of life' into a 'sad song of death' that limits the vital essence of desire.
- Freud's introduction of the death instinct (Thanatos) is criticized for liquidating the libido and turning sexuality into a source of anxiety rather than a generative force.
- By prioritizing the death instinct, psychoanalysis sanctifies civilization as a necessary restraint, using guilt to turn death against itself in a 'pseudo life.'
- The author contrasts the 'desiring-machines' and their 'unheard-of and unnamable' potential against the ascetic ideal and sublime resignation of traditional analysis.
- Wilhelm Reich is highlighted as a rare figure who maintained that analysis should produce a free, joyous person capable of carrying life flows into the desert.
Psychoanalysis ought to be a song of life, or else be worth nothing at all. It ought, practically, to teach us to sing life. And see how the most defeated, sad song of death emanates from it: eiapopeia.
amounts to, the exercise of the desiring-mach ines (which is their very secret, well
understood by the terrifying authors). The m achines tell us this, and make us live
it, feel it, deeper than delirium and furthe r than hallucination: yes, the return to
repulsion will condition other attractions, other functionings, the setting in motion
of other working parts on the body without organs, the putting to work of other
adjacent parts on the periphery that have as much a right to say One as we
ourselves do. "Let him die in his l eaping through unheard-of and unnamable
things: other horrible workers will come; they will begin on the horizons where
the other collapsed!"29 The Eternal Return as experience, and as the
deterritorialized circuit of all the cycles of desire.
How odd the psychoanalytic venture is . Psychoanalysis ought to be a song
of life, or else be worth nothing at all. It ought, practically, to teach us to sing
life. And see how the most defeated, sad song of death emanates from it:
eiapopeia. From the start, and because of his stubborn dualism of the drives,
Freud never stopped trying to limit the discovery of a subjective or vital essence
of desire as libido. But when the dualism passed into a death instinct against Eros,
this was no longer a simple limitation, it was a liquidation of the libido. Reich did
not go wrong here, and was perhaps the only one to maintain that the product of
analysis should be a free and joyous person, a carrier of the life flows, capable of
carrying them all the way into the desert and decoding them—even if this idea
necessarily took on the appearance of a cr azy idea, given what had become of
analysis. He demonstrated that Freud, no less than Jung and Adler, had
repudiated the sexual position: the fixing of the death instinct in fact deprives
sexuality of its generative role on at least one
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 331
essentia! point, which is the genesi s of anxiety, since this genesis
becomes the autonomous cause, of sexual repression instead of its
result; it follows that sexuality as desire no longer animates a social
critique of civilization, but that civilization on the contrary finds itself
sanctified as the sole agency capable of opposing the death desire. And
how does it do this? By in principl e turning death against death, by
making this turned-back death (la mort retournee) into a force of desire,
by putting it in the service of a pseudo life through an entire culture of
guilt feeling.
There is no need to tell all over how psychoanalysis culminates in a
theory of culture that takes up again the age-old task of the ascetic ideal,
Nirvana, the cultural extract, judging life, belittling life, measuring life
against death, and only retaining from life what the death of death wants
very much to leave us with—a sublim e resignation. As Reich says, when
psj'choanalysis began to speak of Eros, the whole world breathed a sigh
of relief: one knew what this meant, and that everything was going to
unfold within a mortified life, sin ce Thanatos was now the partner of
Eros, for worse but also for b etter.™ Psychoanalysis becomes the
training ground of a new kind of prie st, the director of bad conscience:
bad conscience has made us sick, but th at is what will cure us! Freud did
not hide what was rea lly at issue with the introduction of the death
instinct: it is not a question of any fact whatever, but merely of a
principle, a question of principle. The death instinct is pure silence, pure
transcendence, not givabie and not gi ven in experience. This very point
is remarkable: it is because death, according to Freud, has neither a
model nor an experience, that he makes of it a transcendent principle.31
So that the psychoanalysts who refused the death instinct did so for the
same reasons as those who accepted it: some said that there was no
death instinct since there was no model or experience in the uncon-
Freud and the Death Instinct
- Freud establishes the death instinct as a transcendent principle precisely because it lacks any model or experience in the unconscious.
- The introduction of Thanatos serves to maintain a qualitative dualism that suppresses the functional multiplicity of desiring-machines.
- By recoding the essence of desire onto the territoriality of Oedipus and castration, Freud can only conceive of life in a form turned against itself.
- The death instinct acts as a 'pious ascetic wound' that preserves a depressive libido by making death a conservatory for life.
- The authors argue that death is not an abstract principle but a functioning part of the desiring-machine that must be evaluated through energetic conversions.
It is Oedipus, the marshy earth, that gives off a powerful odor of decay and death; and it is castration, the pious ascetic wound, the signifier, that makes of this death a conservatory.
training ground of a new kind of prie st, the director of bad conscience:
bad conscience has made us sick, but th at is what will cure us! Freud did
not hide what was rea lly at issue with the introduction of the death
instinct: it is not a question of any fact whatever, but merely of a
principle, a question of principle. The death instinct is pure silence, pure
transcendence, not givabie and not gi ven in experience. This very point
is remarkable: it is because death, according to Freud, has neither a
model nor an experience, that he makes of it a transcendent principle.31
So that the psychoanalysts who refused the death instinct did so for the
same reasons as those who accepted it: some said that there was no
death instinct since there was no model or experience in the uncon-
scious; others, that there was a death instinct precisely because there
was no model or experience. We say, to the contrary, that there is no
death instinct because there is both the model and the experience of
death in the unconscious. Death then is a part of the desiring-machine,a
part that must itself be judged, evaluated in the functioning of the
machine and the system of its energetic conversions, and not as an
abstract principle.
If Freud needs death as a principle, this is by virtue of the
requirements of the dualism that maintains a qualitative opposition
between the drives (you will not escape the conflict): once the dualism of
the sexual drives and the ego driv es has only a topological scope, the
qualitative or dynamic dualism passe s between Eros and Thanatos. But
the same enterprise is continued and reinforced—eliminating the
332 ANTI-OEDIPUS
machinic element of desire, the desiring-machines. It is a matter of
eliminating the libido, insofar as it implies the possibility of energetic
conversions in the machine (Libido-Nu men-Voluptas). It is a matter of
imposing the idea of an energeti c duality rendering the machinic
transformations impossible, with everything obliged to pass by way of
an indifferent neutral energy, that energy emanating from Oedipus and
capable of being added to either of the two irreducible forms—
neutralizing, mortifying life.* The purpose of the topological and
dynamic dualities is to thrust aside the point of view of functional
multiplicity that alone is economic. (Szondi situates the problem clearly:
why two kinds of drives qualified as molar, functioning mysteriously,
which is to say oedipally, rather than n genes of drives—eight molecular
genes, for example—functioning machinically?)
If one looks in this direction for the ultimate reason why Freud
erects a transcendent death instinct as a principle, the reason will be
found in Freud's practice itself. For if the principle has nothing to do
with the facts, it has a lot to do with the psychoanalyst's conception of
psychoanalytic practice, a conception the psychoanalyst wishes to
impose. Freud made the most profound discovery of the abstract
subjective essence of desire—Libido. But since he realienated this
essence, reinvesting it in a subjective system of representation of the
ego, and since he recoded this esse nce on the residual territoriality of
Oedipus and under the despotic signifier of castration, he could no
longer conceive the essence of life exce pt in a form turned back against
itself, in the form of death itself. And this neutralization, this turning
against life, is also the last way in which a depressive and exhausted
libido can go on surviving, and dream that it is surviving: "The ascetic
ideal is an artifice for the preservation of life . . . even when he wounds
himself, this master of destruction, of self-destructing—the very wound
itself compels him to live. . . ."32 It is Oedipus, the marshy earth, that
gives off a powerful odor of decay an d death; and it is castration, the
pious ascetic wound, the signifier, that makes of this death a conservatory
Desire and the Ascetic Wound
- The ascetic ideal functions as a paradoxical artifice for preserving life by turning the libido's exhaustion into a self-destructive but surviving force.
- Desire is redefined not as a passive wish to be loved, but as an active, productive force that engineers and gives.
- Psychoanalysis is criticized for creating a 'conservatory' for neurosis, transforming the death drive into a stagnant, familial swamp on the analyst's couch.
- The text contrasts the 'sniveling' desire of the patient with the affirmative, singing voice of a liberated subject who no longer relies on confession.
- Schizoanalysis is presented as a destructive but necessary task to break the cycle of castration and frustration maintained by traditional clinical practices.
A maudlin crying to be loved, which makes your knees go all ricky.
against life, is also the last way in which a depressive and exhausted
libido can go on surviving, and dream that it is surviving: "The ascetic
ideal is an artifice for the preservation of life . . . even when he wounds
himself, this master of destruction, of self-destructing—the very wound
itself compels him to live. . . ."32 It is Oedipus, the marshy earth, that
gives off a powerful odor of decay an d death; and it is castration, the
pious ascetic wound, the signifier, that makes of this death a conservatory
for the Oedipal life. Desire is in itself not a desire to love, but a force to
love, a virtue that gives and produces , that engineers. (For how could
what is in life still desire life? Who would want to call that a desire?) But
desire must turn back against itself in the name of a horrible Ananke, the
Ananke of the weak and the depressed, the contagious neurotic Ananke;
'On the impossibility of immediate qualitative conversions, and the necessity for going by way of neutral
energy, see Sigmund Freud, The Ego and the I d, trans. Joan Riviere (New York: Norton, 1961). This
impossibility, this necessity is no longer understandable, it seems to us, if one agrees with Jean Laplanche
that "the death drive has no energy of its own" (Vie et mort en psychanalyse [Paris: Fiammarion, 1970], p.
211). Therefore the death drive could not enter into a ver itable dualism, or would have to be confused with
the neutral energy itself, which Freud denies.
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 333
desire must produce its shadow or its monkey, and find a strange
artificial force for vegetating in the voi d, at the heart of its own lack. For
better days to come? It must—but who talks in this way? what
abjectness—become a desire to be lo ved, and worse, a sniveling desire
to have been loved, a desire that is reborn of its own frustration: no,
daddy-mommy didn't love me enough. Sick desire stretches out on the
couch, an artificial swam p, a little earth, a li ttle mother. "Look at you,
stumbling and staggering with no use in your legs. . . . And it's nothing
but your wanting to be loved which does it. A maudlin crying to be
loved, which makes your knees go all ricky."33 Just as there are two
stomachs for the ruminant, there must also exist two abortions, two
castrations for sick desire: once in th e family, in the familial scene, with
the knitting mother; another time in an asepticized clinic, in the
psychoanalytic scene, with specialist artists who know how to handle
the death instinct and "bring off" castration, "bring off" frustration.
Is this really the right way to bring on better days? And aren't all the
destructions performed by schizoanalysis worth more than this psycho-
analytic conservatory, aren't they more a part of an affirmative task?
"Lie down, then, on the soft couch which the analyst provides and try to
think up something different ... if you realize that he is not a god but a
human being like yourself, with worri es, defects, ambitions, frailties,
that he is not the repository of an all-encompassing wisdom [=code] but
a wanderer, along the [deterritorialized] path, perhaps you will cease
pouring it out like a sewer, however melodious it may sound to your
ears, and rise up on your own two legs and sing with your own
God-given voice [Numen]. To confess, to whine, to complain, to
commiserate, always demands a toll. To sing it doesn't cost you a penny.
Not only does it cost nothing—you actually enrich others (instead of
Capitalism and the Death Instinct
- The text encourages individuals to abandon the 'sewer' of confession and whining in favor of finding their own creative, independent voice.
- Schizoanalysis is presented as a tool to break free from the 'imaginary and symbolic theater' of traditional psychoanalysis and reconnect with reality.
- Capitalism is described as a system that absorbs death and anti-production into its own immanent reproduction to capture surplus value.
- The modern myth is identified as that of the zombie—a 'mortified schizo' who has been brought back to reason solely for the purpose of labor.
- The death instinct acts as the 'zero in roulette' within the capitalist system, ensuring that the house always wins regardless of individual outcomes.
The only modern myth is the myth of zombies—mortified schizos, good for work, brought back to reason.
human being like yourself, with worri es, defects, ambitions, frailties,
that he is not the repository of an all-encompassing wisdom [=code] but
a wanderer, along the [deterritorialized] path, perhaps you will cease
pouring it out like a sewer, however melodious it may sound to your
ears, and rise up on your own two legs and sing with your own
God-given voice [Numen]. To confess, to whine, to complain, to
commiserate, always demands a toll. To sing it doesn't cost you a penny.
Not only does it cost nothing—you actually enrich others (instead of
infecting them). . . . The phantasmal world is the world which has not
been fully conquered over. It is the world of the past, never of the future.
To move forward clinging to the past is like dragging a ball and chain. . .
. We are all guilty of crime, the great crime of not living life to the full."34
You weren't born Oedipus, you caused it to grow in yourself; and you aim
to get out of it through fantasy, through castration, but this in turn you
have caused to grow in Oedipus—namely, in yourself: the horrible circle.
Shit on your whole mortifying, imaginary, and symbolic theater. What
does schizoanalysis ask? Nothing more than a bit of a relation to th e
outside, a little real reality. And we claim the right to a radical laxity, a
radical incompetence—the right to enter the analyst's office and say it
smells bad there. It reeks of the great death and the little ego.
3 3 4 A N T I - O E D I P U S
Freud himself indeed spoke of the link between his "discovery" of the death
instinct and World War I, which rema ins the model of capitalist war. More
generally, the death instinct celebrates the wedding of psychoanalysis and
capitalism; their engagement had been full of hesitation. What we have tried to
show apropos of capitalism is how it inherited much from a transcendent
death-carrying agency, the despotic signi fier, but also how it brought about this
agency's effusion in the full immanence of its own system: the full body, having
become that of ca pital-money, suppresses the di stinction between production and
anti-production; everywhere it mixes antip roduction with the productive forces in
the immanent reproduction of its own always widened limits (the axiomatic). The
death enterprise is one of the principa l and specific forms of the absorption of
surplus value in capitalism. It is this i tinerary that psychoanalysis rediscovers and
retraces with the death instinct: the deat h instinct is now only pure silence in its
transcendent distinction from life, but it effuses all the more, throughout all the
immanent combinations it forms with this same life. Absorbed, diffuse, immanent
death is the condition formed by the signifier in capitalism, the empty locus that is
everywhere displaced in order to block the schizophrenic escapes and place
restraints on the flights.
The only modern myth is the myth of zombies—mortified schizos, good for
work, brought back to reason. In this sens e the primitive and the barbarian, with
their ways of coding death, are children in comparison to modern man and his
axiomatic (so many unemployed are needed, so many deaths, the Algerian War
doesn't kill more people than weekend automobile accidents, planned death in
Bengal, etc.). Modern man "raves to a far greater extent. His delirium is a
switchboard with thirteen telephones. He give s his orders to the world. He doesn't
care for the ladies. He is brave, too. He is decorated like crazy. In man's game of
chance the death instinct, the silent instinct is decidedly well placed, perhaps next
to egoism. It takes the place of zero in roulette. The house always wins. So too
does death. The law of large numbers works for death."35 It is now or never that
we must take up a problem we had left ha nging. Once it is said that capitalism
works on the basis of decoded flows as such, how is it that it is infinitely further
Capitalism and the Death Instinct
- Modern man operates within a delirium of global control where the death instinct functions like the zero in roulette, ensuring the house always wins.
- The text questions why capitalism, despite decoding and deterritorializing flows, represses desiring-production more severely than primitive or barbarian systems.
- A paradox is proposed where the identity in nature between social and desiring production is at its minimum when their regimes appear most similar.
- In primitive systems, the identity of production is hidden by objective representations like the territorial or despotic body, keeping the difference in regime at a minimum.
- Capitalism's axiomatic and statistical nature performs a vast repression by internalizing the limits that were once exterior to the social body.
In man's game of chance the death instinct, the silent instinct is decidedly well placed, perhaps next to egoism. It takes the place of zero in roulette. The house always wins.
Bengal, etc.). Modern man "raves to a far greater extent. His delirium is a
switchboard with thirteen telephones. He give s his orders to the world. He doesn't
care for the ladies. He is brave, too. He is decorated like crazy. In man's game of
chance the death instinct, the silent instinct is decidedly well placed, perhaps next
to egoism. It takes the place of zero in roulette. The house always wins. So too
does death. The law of large numbers works for death."35 It is now or never that
we must take up a problem we had left ha nging. Once it is said that capitalism
works on the basis of decoded flows as such, how is it that it is infinitely further
removed from desiring-production than were the primitive or even the barbarian
systems, which nonetheless code and overcode the flows? Once it is said that
desiring-production is itself a decoded a nd deterritorialized production, how do
we explain that capitalism, with its axiomatic, its statistics, performs an infinitely
vaster repression of th is production than do the preceding regimes, which
nonetheless did not lack the necessary repres-
INTRDUCTION TO SCH1ZOANALYSIS 335
sive means? We have seen that the molar statistical aggregates of social
production were in a variable relations hip of affinity with the molecular
formations of desiring-production. What mu st be explained is that the capitalist
aggregate is the least affinal, at the ve ry moment it decodes and deterritorializes
with all its might.
The answer is the death instinct, if we call instinct in general the conditions
of life that are historically and socially determined by the relations of production
and antiproduction in a system. We know that molar social production and
molecular desiring-production must be evaluated both from the viewpoint of
their identity in nature and from the view point of their difference in regime. But
it could be that these two aspects, nature and regime, are in a sense potential and
are actualized only in inverse proportion. Which means that where the regimes
are the closest, the identity in nature is on the contrary at its minimum; and
where the identity in nature appears to be at its maximum, the regimes differ to
the highest degree. If we examine the primitive or the barbarian constellations,
we see that the subjective essence of de sire as production is referred to large
objectities, to the territorial or the despo tic body, which act as natural or divine
preconditions that thus ensure the coding or the overcoding of the flows of desire
by introducing them into systems of representation that are themselves objective.
Hence it can be said that the identity in nature between the two productions is
completely hidden there: as much by th e difference between the objective socius
and the subjective full body of desiring-pr oduction, as by the difference between
the qualified codes and overcodings of so cial production and the chains of
decoding or of deterritorialization bel onging to desiring-production, and by the
entire repressive apparatus represented in the savage prohibitions, the barbarian
law, and the rights of antiproduction. And yet the difference in regime, far from
being accentuated and deepened, is on th e contrary reduced to a minimum,
because desiring-production as an absolute limit remains an exterior limit, or else
Desire and the Capitalist Axiomatic
- In primitive and despotic societies, the subjective essence of desire is coded and overcoded by social systems to maintain objective order.
- Capitalism differs by decoding and deterritorializing flows, making the limit of production internal rather than external to the system.
- The identity between social production and desiring-production becomes visible in capitalism, yet this leads to a catastrophic difference in their regimes.
- Capitalism replaces traditional codes with a codeless axiomatic that captures flows within a universe of subjective representation.
- This new system splits the subjective essence into alienated abstract labor and privatized desire within the family unit.
Death comes all the more from without as it is coded from within.
we see that the subjective essence of de sire as production is referred to large
objectities, to the territorial or the despo tic body, which act as natural or divine
preconditions that thus ensure the coding or the overcoding of the flows of desire
by introducing them into systems of representation that are themselves objective.
Hence it can be said that the identity in nature between the two productions is
completely hidden there: as much by th e difference between the objective socius
and the subjective full body of desiring-pr oduction, as by the difference between
the qualified codes and overcodings of so cial production and the chains of
decoding or of deterritorialization bel onging to desiring-production, and by the
entire repressive apparatus represented in the savage prohibitions, the barbarian
law, and the rights of antiproduction. And yet the difference in regime, far from
being accentuated and deepened, is on th e contrary reduced to a minimum,
because desiring-production as an absolute limit remains an exterior limit, or else
stays unoccupied as an internalized and di splaced limit, with the result that the
machines of desire operate on this side of their limit within the framework of the
socius and its codes. That is why th e primitive codes and even the despotic
overcodings testify to a polyvocity that f unctionally draws them nearer to a chain
of decoding of desire: the parts of the desiring-machine function in the very
workings of the social machine; the flows of desire enter and exit through the
codes that continue, however, to inform the model and experience of death that
are elaborated in the unity of the .sociode siring-apparatus. And it is even less a
question of the death instinct to the exte nt that the model and the experience are
better coded in a circuit that never stops grafting the
336 ANTI-OEDIPUS
desiring-machines onto the social machin e and implanting the social machine in
the desiring-machines. Death comes all the more from without as it is coded from
within. This is especially tr ue of the system of cruelty, where death is inscribed in
the primitive mechanism of surplus value as well as in the movement of the finite
blocks of debt. But even in the system of despotic terror, where debt becomes
infinite and where death experiences an elevation that tends to make of it a latent
instinct, there nonetheless subsists a model in the overcoding law, and an
experience for the overcoded subjects, at the same time as antipro-duction
remains separate as the share owing to the overlord.
Things are very different in capitalism. Precisely because the flows of
capital are decoded and deterritorialized flows; precisely because the subjective
essence of production is revealed in capitalism; precisely because the limit
becomes internal to capitalism, which continually reproduces it, and also
continually occupies it as an internalized and displaced limit; precisely for these
reasons, the identity in nature must app ear for itself between social production
and desiring-production. But in its turn, th is identity in nature, far from favoring
an affinity in regime between the two modes of production, increases the
difference in regime in a catastrophic fashion, and assembles an apparatus of
repression the mere idea of which neither savagery nor barbarism could provide
us. This is because, on the basis of a ge neral collapse of the large objectities, the
decoded and deterritorialized flows of capitalism are not recaptured or co-opted,
but directly apprehended in a codeless axiomatic that consigns them to the
universe of subjective representation. Now this universe has as its function the
splitting of the subjective essence (the identity in nature) into two functions, that
of abstract labor alienated in private property that reproduces the ever wider
interior limits, and that of abstract desire alienated in the privatized family that
The Mechanics of Schizoanalysis
- Capitalism operates through a codeless axiomatic that splits the subjective essence into alienated labor and privatized desire.
- The system creates a mortuary axiomatic where desire is directed toward dead images and the death instinct governs the circulation of the libido.
- Schizoanalysis rejects the role of the interpreter or archaeologist, instead positioning the analyst as a micromechanic of desiring-machines.
- The primary task of schizoanalysis is to identify the specific syntheses, flows, and energy bursts that constitute a subject's machinic unconscious.
- Effective analysis requires the destruction of molar aggregates and representations that sabotage the machine's ability to function.
- The unconscious is defined not by internal pressure on consciousness, but by lines of escape that allow for deterritorialized becomings.
The schizoanalyst is not an interpreter, even less a theater director; he is a mechanic, a micromechanic.
us. This is because, on the basis of a ge neral collapse of the large objectities, the
decoded and deterritorialized flows of capitalism are not recaptured or co-opted,
but directly apprehended in a codeless axiomatic that consigns them to the
universe of subjective representation. Now this universe has as its function the
splitting of the subjective essence (the identity in nature) into two functions, that
of abstract labor alienated in private property that reproduces the ever wider
interior limits, and that of abstract desire alienated in the privatized family that
displaces the ever narrower internalized limits. The double
alienation—labor-desire—is constantly increasing and deepening the difference
in regime at the heart of the identity in nature. At the same time that death is
decoded, it loses its relationship with a model and an experience, and becomes an
instinct; that is, it effuses in the immane nt system where each act of production is
inextricably linked to the process of antipro-duction as capital. There where the
codes are undone, the death instinct lays hold of the repressive apparatus and
begins to direct the circulation of the libido. A mortuary axiomatic. One might
then believe in liberated desires, but ones that, like cadavers, feed on images.
Death is not desired, but what is desired is dead, already dead: images.
Everything labors in death, everything wishes for death. In truth, capitalism has
nothing to co-opt; or rather, its powers of co-option coexist more often
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS
than not with what is to be co-opt ed, and even anticipate it. (How many
revolutionary groups as such are already in place for a co-option that will be
carried out only in the future, and form an apparatus for the absorption of a
surplus value not even produced yet—which gives them precisely an apparent
revolutionary position.) In a world such as this, there is no living desire that
could not of itself cause the system to explode, or that would not make the
system dissolve at one end where ever ything would end up following behind and
being swallowed up—a question of regime.
Here are the desiring-machines, with thei r three parts: the working parts, the
immobile motor, the adjacent part; their three forms of energy: Libido, Numen,
and Voluptas; and their three syntheses: the connective syntheses of partial
objects and flows, the disj unctive syntheses of singul arities and chains, and the
conjunctive syntheses of in tensities and becomings. The schizoanalyst is not an
interpreter, even less a theater director; he is a mechanic, a micromechanic. There
are no excavations to be undertaken, no archaeology, no statues in the uncon-
scious: there are only stones to be suck ed, a la Beckett, and other machinic
elements belonging to deterritorialized c onstellations. The task of schizoanalysis
is that of learning what a subject's desiring-machines are, how they work, with
what syntheses, what bursts of energy in the machine, what constituent misfires,
with what flows, what chains, and what becomings in each case. Moreover, this
positive task cannot be separated from indi spensable destructions, the destruction
of the molar aggregates, the structures and representations that prevent the
machine from functioning. It is not easy to rediscover the molecules—even the
giant molecule—their paths, their zones of presence, and their own syntheses,
amid the large accumulations that fill th e preconscious, and that delegate their
representatives in the unconscious itself, thereby immobilizing the machines,
silencing them, trapping th em, sabotaging them, cornering them, holding them
fast. In the unconscious it is not the lines of pressure that matter, but on the
contrary the lines of escape. The unconscious does not apply pressure to
consciousness; rather, consciousness a pplies pressure and strait-jackets the
Schizoanalysis and Machinic Escape
- The unconscious is characterized by lines of escape rather than pressure, while consciousness acts as a strait-jacket to prevent this flight.
- Psychoanalysis is criticized for creating a false image of the unconscious through Oedipal statues and symbolic castration that disfigure its real functioning.
- Repression relies on a coincidence between molar forces and primal repression exerted by the body without organs to crush desiring-production.
- Schizoanalysis aims to undo the Oedipal trap and restart the desiring-machines by following lines of escape and machinic indices.
- The goal of schizoanalytic practice is to transform repulsion into a condition of real functioning, producing intensities and dispersing the perverse transference of psychoanalysis.
In the unconscious it is not the lines of pressure that matter, but on the contrary the lines of escape.
giant molecule—their paths, their zones of presence, and their own syntheses,
amid the large accumulations that fill th e preconscious, and that delegate their
representatives in the unconscious itself, thereby immobilizing the machines,
silencing them, trapping th em, sabotaging them, cornering them, holding them
fast. In the unconscious it is not the lines of pressure that matter, but on the
contrary the lines of escape. The unconscious does not apply pressure to
consciousness; rather, consciousness a pplies pressure and strait-jackets the
unconscious, to prevent its escape. As to the unconscious, it is like the Platonic
opposite whose opposite draws near: it flees or it perishes. What we have tried to
show from the outset is how the uncons cious productions and formations were
not merely repelled by an agency of ps ychic repression that would enter into
compromises with them, but actually covered over by antiformations that
disfigure the unconscious in itself, and impose on it causations, comprehensions,
and expressions that no longer have any-
338 ANTI-OEDIPUS
thing to do with its real functioning: thus all the statues, the Oedipal images, the
phantasmal mises en scene, the Symbolic of castration, the effusion of the death
instinct, the perverse reterritorializations. So that one can never, as in an
interpretation, read the repressed through a nd in the repression, since the latter is
constantly inducing a false image of th e thing it represses: illegitimate and
transcendent uses of the syntheses according to which the unconscious can no
longer operate in accordance with its own constituent machines, but merely
"represent" what a repressive apparatus gives it to represent. It is the very form of
interpretation that shows itself to be incap able of attaining the unconscious, since
it gives rise to the inevitable illusions (i ncluding the structure and the signifier) by
means of which the conscious makes of the unconscious an image consonant with
its wishes: we are still pious, psychoanalysis remains in the precritical age.
Doubtless these illusions would not take hold if they did not benefit from a
coincidence and a support in the unconscious itself that ensures the "hold." We
have seen what this support was: pr imal repression, as exerted by the body
without organs at the moment of re pulsion, at the heart of molecular
desiring-production. Without this primal repressions psychic repression in the
proper sense of the word could not be de legated in the unconscious by the molar
forces and thus crush desiring-producti on. Repression properly speaking profits
from an occasion without which it could not interfere in the machinery of desire.3e
In contrast to psychoanalysis, which itself falls into the trap while causing the
unconscious to fall into its trap, schizoan alysis follows the lines of escape and the
machinic indices all the way to the desiring-machines. If the essential aspect of
the destructive task is to undo the Oedipa l trap of repression properly speaking,
and all its dependencies, each time in a wa y adapted to the "case" in question, the
essential aspect of the first positive task is to ensure the machinic conversion of
primal repression, there too in an adap ted variable manner. Which is to say:
undoing the blockage or the coincidence on which the repression properly
speaking relies; transforming the appa rent opposition of repulsion (the body
without organs/the machines-partial objects) into a condition of real functioning;
ensuring this functioning in the forms of attraction and produc tion of intensities;
thereafter integrating the failures in the attractive functioning, as well as
enveloping the zero degree in the inte nsities produced; and thereby causing the
desiring-machines to start up again. Such is the delicate and focal point that fills
the function of transference in schizoan alysis—dispersing, schizophrenizing the
perverse transference of psychoanalysis.
Poles of Social Investment
- Schizoanalysis aims to transition the body without organs and partial objects into a state of real functioning by producing intensities.
- There is a fundamental identity in nature between molar social formations and molecular desiring-machines, as neither can exist without the other.
- The distinction between the two poles of investment lies within the social field itself rather than in a separation of the individual from society.
- Social investments oscillate between a sedentary, fascist tendency and a nomadic, revolutionary tendency that embraces polyvocal identities.
- The unconscious libidinal investment is equally present in both paranoiac claims of racial superiority and schizophrenic declarations of marginality.
There are no desiring-machines that exist outside the social machines that they form on a large scale; and no social machines without the desiring-machines that inhabit them on a small scale.
without organs/the machines-partial objects) into a condition of real functioning;
ensuring this functioning in the forms of attraction and produc tion of intensities;
thereafter integrating the failures in the attractive functioning, as well as
enveloping the zero degree in the inte nsities produced; and thereby causing the
desiring-machines to start up again. Such is the delicate and focal point that fills
the function of transference in schizoan alysis—dispersing, schizophrenizing the
perverse transference of psychoanalysis.
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 339
5 The Second Positive Task
We cannot however allow the difference in regime to make us
forget the identity in natu re. There are fundamentally two poles; but we would
not be satisfied if we had to present them merely as the duality of the molar
formations and the molecular formati ons, since there is not one molecular
formation that is not by itself an invest ment of a molar formation. There are no
desiring-machines that exist outside the so cial machines that they form on a large
scale; and no social machines without the desiring-machines that inhabit them on
a small scale. Nor is there any molecular chain that does not intercept and
reproduce whole blocks of molar code or axiomatic, nor any such blocks that do
not contain or seal off fragments of mo lecular chain. A sequence of desire is
extended by a social series, or a social machine contains desiring-machine parts
within its workings. The desiring micromultiplic-ities are no less collective than
the large social aggregates; they are st rictly inseparable and constitute one and
the same process of production. From this point of view, the duality of the poles
passes less between the molar and the molecu lar than to the interior of the molar
social investments, since in any case the molecular formations are such
investments. That is why our term inology concerning the two poles has
necessarily varied. At times we contrast ed the molar and the molecular as the
paranoiac, signifying, and structured lines of integration, and the schizophrenic,
machinic, and dispersed lines of escape; or again as the staking out of the
perverse reterritorializations, and as the movement of the schizophrenic
deterritorializations. At other times, on the contrary, we contrasted them as the
two major types of equally social investments: the one sedentary and
biunivocalizing, and of a reactionary or fascist tendency; the other nomadic and
polyvocal, and of a revolutionary tendency. In fact, in the schizoid
declaration—"I am of a race inferior for all eternity," "I am a beast, a black,"
"We are all German Jews"—the historico-so cial field is no less invested than in
the paranoiac formula: "I am one of your kind, from the same place as you, I am
a pure Aryan, of a superior race for all time."
From the viewpoint of the unconscious libidinal investment, all the
oscillations from one formula to the ot her are possible. How can this be? How
can the schizophrenic escape, with its molecular dispersion, form an investment
that is as strong and determined as th e other? And why ate there two types of
social investment that correspond to the two poles? The answer is that
everywhere there exist the molecular and the molar: their disjunction is a
relation of included disjunction, which
340 ANTI-OEDIPUS
Schizophrenic Escape and Revolution
- Social investment oscillates between two poles: the paranoiac-reactionary pole and the schizophrenic-revolutionary pole.
- The paranoiac investment represents an 'escape in advance of the escape,' clinging to molar aggregates like homelands and religions to avoid the movement of the world.
- The schizophrenic process is defined not by mere withdrawal, but by causing the social field itself to take flight through molecular charges that explode existing structures.
- A distinction is made between the individual schizo, who may live on the fringe, and the schizophrenic process, which acts as a potential revolutionary force.
- Schizoanalysis posits that every libidinal investment is inherently social and bears upon a specific sociohistorical field.
The schizo is not revolutionary, but the schizophrenic process—in terms of which the schizo is merely the interruption, or the continuation in the void—is the potential for revolution.
From the viewpoint of the unconscious libidinal investment, all the
oscillations from one formula to the ot her are possible. How can this be? How
can the schizophrenic escape, with its molecular dispersion, form an investment
that is as strong and determined as th e other? And why ate there two types of
social investment that correspond to the two poles? The answer is that
everywhere there exist the molecular and the molar: their disjunction is a
relation of included disjunction, which
340 ANTI-OEDIPUS
varies only according to the two directi ons of subordination, according as the
molecular phenomena are subordinated to th e large aggregates, or on the contrary
subordinate them to themselves. At one of the poles the large aggregates, the
large forms of gregariousness, do not prevent the flight that carries them along,
and they oppose to it the paranoiac investme nt only as an "escape in advance of
the escape." But at the other pole, the sc hizophrenic escape its elf does not merely
consist in withdrawing from the social, in living on the fringe: it causes the social
to take flight through the multiplicity of holes that eat away at it and penetrate it,
always coupled directly to it, everywhere setting the molecula r charges that will
explode what must explode, make fall what must fall, make escape what must
escape, at each point ensuring the conversion of schizophrenia as a process into
an effectively revolutionary force. For what is the schizo, if not first of all the
one who can no longer bear "all that": m oney, the stock market, the death forces,
Nijinsky said—values, morals, homelands, religions, and private certi-tudes?
There is a whole world of difference be tween the schizo anu the revolutionary:
the difference between the one who escapes, and the one who knows how to
make what he is escaping escape, collapsing a filthy drainage pipe, causing a
deluge to break loose, liberating a flow , resecting a schiz. The schizo is not
revolutionary, but the schizophrenic pro cess—in terms of which the schizo is
merely the interruption, or the conti nuation in the void—is the potential for
revolution. To those who say that escaping is not courageous, we answer: what is
not escape and social investment at the same time? The choice is between one of
two poles, the paranoiac counterescape that motivates all the conformist,
reactionary, and fascisizing investme nts, and the schizophrenic escape
convertible into a revolutionary invest ment. Maurice Blanchot speaks admirably
of this revolutionary escape, this fall that must be thought and carried out as the
most positive of events: "What is this escape? The word is poorly chosen to
please. Courage consists, however, in agr eeing to flee rather than live tranquilly
and hypocritically in fals e refuges. Values, morals, homelands, religions, and
these private certitudes that our vanity and our complacency bestow generously
on us, have as many deceptive sojourns as the world arranges for those who think
they are standing straight and at ease, among stable things. They know nothing of
this immense flight that transports them, ignorant of themselves, in the
monotonous buzzing of their ever quickeni ng steps that lead them impersonally
in a great immobile movement. An escape in advance of the escape. [Consider
the example of one of these men] who, having had the revelation of the
mysterious drift, is no longer able to stand living in the false pretences of
residence. First he tries to take this movement as
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 341
his own. He would like to personally wit hdraw. He lives on the fringe. . . . [But]
perhaps that is what the fall is, that it can no longer be a personal destiny, but the
common lot."37 In this regard, the first thesis of schizoanalysis is this; every
investment is social, and in any case bears upon a sociohistorical field.
Let us recall the major traits of a molar formation or of a form of
Molar Formations and Organized Lack
- Schizoanalysis posits that every investment of desire is inherently social and tied to a sociohistorical field rather than just a personal destiny.
- Molar formations or forms of gregariousness totalize molecular forces through statistical accumulation, creating biological or social unities.
- The social organism organizes 'lack' by transforming positive molecular dispersions into global objects that define desire through what is missing.
- Gregariousness is not a natural starting point but the result of a selective pressure that crushes or regularizes individual singularities into large aggregates.
- Different social structures, such as despotic or capitalist societies, arrange and perfect the welding of desire to lack through unique variable means.
There is no society that does not arrange lack in its midst, by variable means peculiar to it.
in a great immobile movement. An escape in advance of the escape. [Consider
the example of one of these men] who, having had the revelation of the
mysterious drift, is no longer able to stand living in the false pretences of
residence. First he tries to take this movement as
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 341
his own. He would like to personally wit hdraw. He lives on the fringe. . . . [But]
perhaps that is what the fall is, that it can no longer be a personal destiny, but the
common lot."37 In this regard, the first thesis of schizoanalysis is this; every
investment is social, and in any case bears upon a sociohistorical field.
Let us recall the major traits of a molar formation or of a form of
gregariousness (herd instinct). They effect a unification, a totalization of the
molecular forces through a statistical accumulation obeying the laws of large
numbers. This unity can be the biological unity of a species or the structural
unity of a socius: an organism, social or living, is composed as a whole, as a
global or complete object. It is in relation to this new order that the partial
objects of a molecular order appear as a lack, at the same time that the whole
itself is said to be lacked by the partial objects. In this way desire will be fused to
lack. The myriad breaks-flows that determine the positive dispersion in a
molecular multiplicity are fitted over vacuoles of lack that perform this fusion in
a statistical constellation of a molar orde r. Freud demonstrated clearly in this
respect how one went from psychotic multiplicities of dispersi on, founded on the
breaks or schizzes, to large vacuoles de termined globally, of the neurosis and
castration type: the neurotic needs a globa l object in relation to which the partial
objects can be determined as a lack, and inversely,38 But on a more general level,
the statistical transformation of molecular multiplicity into a molar constellation
is what organizes lack on a large scale. Such an organization belongs essentially
to the biological or social organism—speci es or socius. There is no society that
does not arrange lack in its midst, by variable means peculiar to it. (These means
are not the same, for example, in a despo tic type of society, or in a capitalist
society where the market economy raises them to a degree of perfection
unknown before capitalism.) This welding of desire to lack is precisely what
gives desire collective and personal ends, goals or intentions—instead of desire
taken in the real order of its produc tion, which behaves as a molecular
phenomenon devoid of any goal or intention.
Nor must it be thought that the statistical accumulation results from chance,
or that it is a random result. This accu mulation is on the contrary the fruit of a
selection exerting its force on the elements of chance. When Nietzsche says that
the selection is most often exerted in favor of Ike large number, he inaugurates a
fundamental intuition that will inspire modern thought. For what he means is that
the large numbers or the large aggregates do not exist prior to a selective pressure
that might elicit singular lines from them, but that, quite on the contrary, these
large numbers and aggregates are born of this selective pressure
343 ANTI-OEDIPUS
that crushes, eliminates, or regularizes the singularities. Selection does not
presuppose a primary gregariousness; gregariousness presupposes the selection
and is born of it. "Culture" as a selective process of marking or inscription invents
the large numbers in whose favor it is ex erted. That is why statistics is not
functional but structural, and concerns ch ains of phenomena that selection has
already placed in a state of partial de pendence (the Markov chains). This can
even be seen in the genetic code. In other terms, forms of gregariousness are
never indifferent: they refer back to the qualified forms that produce them by
creative selection. The order is not: gr egariousness —> selection, but on the
Socius and Schizoanalysis
- Culture acts as a selective process that invents large numbers and gregarious aggregates through structural chains rather than functional ones.
- The 'full body' of the socius—whether the earth, the despot, or capital—functions as a divine precondition that appropriates productive forces.
- Schizoanalysis distinguishes between the unconscious libidinal investment of desire and the preconscious investment of class interest.
- A class is defined by its regime of syntheses and its role in the inscription of production, often requiring a party apparatus to effect a revolutionary break.
- Social production is identified as desiring-production itself operating under the determinate conditions of a specific socius.
The form or quality of the socius is therefore itself produced, but as the unengendered—that is, as the natural or divine precondition of production.
and is born of it. "Culture" as a selective process of marking or inscription invents
the large numbers in whose favor it is ex erted. That is why statistics is not
functional but structural, and concerns ch ains of phenomena that selection has
already placed in a state of partial de pendence (the Markov chains). This can
even be seen in the genetic code. In other terms, forms of gregariousness are
never indifferent: they refer back to the qualified forms that produce them by
creative selection. The order is not: gr egariousness —> selection, but on the
contrary, molecular multiplicity—>fo rms of selection performing the
selection—> molar or gregarious aggreg ates that result from this selection.
What are these qualified forms—"formations of sovereignty," as Nietzsche
said—that play the role of totalizing, unifying, signi fying objectities, that assign
organizations, lacks, and goals? The full bodies determine the different modes of
the socius, veritable heavy aggregates of the earth, the despot, and capital. Full
bodies or clothed substances, which are distinguished from the full body without
organs or the naked matter of molecular desiring-production.39 If we wonder
where these forms of force come from, it is evident that they are not to be
explained in terms of any goal or end, si nce they are what determines goals and
ends. The form or quality of a given so cius—the body of the earth, the body of
the despot, the body of capital-money—de pends on a state or degree of intensive
development of the productive forces, insofa r as these forces define a man-nature
independent of all the social formations, or rather common to them all (what the
Marxists term "the givens of useful labo r"). The form or quality of the socius is
therefore itself produced, but as the une ngendered—that is, as the natural or
divine precondition of production corre sponding to a given degree to which it
affixes a structural unity and apparent goals, to which it falls back, and whose
forces it appropriates, thereby determin ing the selections, the accumulations, and
the attractions without which these forces would not assume a social character. It
is indeed in this sense that soci al production is desiring-production itself under
determinate conditions. These determinate conditions are thus the forms of
gregariousness as a socius or full body, under whose effect the molecular
formations constitute molar aggregates.
Now we can present the second thesis of schizoanalysis: within the social
investments we will distinguish the uncons cious libidinal investment of group or
desire, and the preconscious i nvestment of class or interest. The latter passes by
way of the large social goals, and concerns
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 343
the organism and the collective orga ns, including the arranged vacuoles
of lack. A class is defined by a regi me of syntheses, a state of global
connections, exclusive disjunctions, and residual conjunctions that
characterize the aggregate being considered. Membership in a class
refers to the role in production or antiproduction, to the place in the
inscription, to the portion that is due the subjects. The preconscious
class interest itself thus refers to the selections of flows, to the
detachments of codes, to the subj ective remains or revenues. And from
this viewpoint it is indeed true that an aggregate comprises practically
only a single class, that class which has an interest in a given regime. The
other class can constitute itself only by a counterinvestment that creates
its own interest in terms of new social aims, new organs and means, a
new possible state of so cial syntheses. Whence the necessity for the
other class to be represented by a party apparatus that assigns these
aims and means, and effects a revolutionary break in the preconscious
domain—the Leninist break, for example. In this domain of precon-
Desire and Social Synthesis
- A revolutionary break requires a counterinvestment that creates new social aims and organs, often represented by a party apparatus.
- The concept of ideology is criticized as an 'execrable concept' that masks the real organizational problems of social movements.
- Revolutionaries often fail to recognize that people engage in revolution out of desire rather than a sense of moral duty.
- Libidinal economy is as objective as political economy, existing within the infrastructure rather than as a subjective byproduct.
- Unconscious libidinal investments do not always align with preconscious interests, explaining why individuals may support regimes that oppose their own welfare.
Revolutionaries often forget, or do not like to recognize, that one wants and makes revolution out of desire, not duty.
this viewpoint it is indeed true that an aggregate comprises practically
only a single class, that class which has an interest in a given regime. The
other class can constitute itself only by a counterinvestment that creates
its own interest in terms of new social aims, new organs and means, a
new possible state of so cial syntheses. Whence the necessity for the
other class to be represented by a party apparatus that assigns these
aims and means, and effects a revolutionary break in the preconscious
domain—the Leninist break, for example. In this domain of precon-
scious investments of cla ss or interest it is therefore easy to distinguish
what is reactionary or reformist, or what is revolutionary. But those who
have an interest, in this sense, are always of a smaller number than those
whose interest, in some fashion, "is had" or represented: the class from
the standpoint of praxis is infinitely less numerous or less extensive than
the class taken in its theoretical determination. Whence the subsisting
contradictions within the dominant cl ass, i.e., the class pure and simple.
This is obvious in the capitalist re gime where, for example, primitive
accumulation can take place only for the benefit of a restricted fraction
of the whole of the dominant class.* But it is just as obvious for the
Russian Revolution, with its fo rmation of a party apparatus.
This situation is not at all ad equate, however, for resolving the
following problem: why do many of those who have or should have an
objective revolutionary interest mainta in a preconscious investment of a
reactionary type? And more rarely, how do certain people whose
interest is objectively reactionary come to effect a preconscious revolu-
tionary investment? Must we invoke in the one case a thirst for justice, a
just ideological position, as well as a correct and just view; and in the
other case a blindness, the result of an ideological deception or
mystification? Revolutionaries often forget, or do not like to recognize,
that one wants and makes revolution out of desire, not duty. Here as
elsewhere, the concept of ideology is an execrable concept that hides the
real problems, which are always of an organizational nature. If Reich, at
*Maurice Dobb, Studies in the Development oj Capitalism (see Ch. 3,reference note 70), p. 178: "There are
reasons why the full flowering of i ndustrial capitalism demands, not oniy a transfer of titles to wealth into
the hands of the bourgeois class, but a concentration of the ownership of wealth into much fewer hands."
344 ANTI-OEDIPUS
the very moment he raised the most profound of questions—"Why did
the masses desire fascism?"—was content to answer by invoking the
ideological, the subjective, the irrational, the negative, and the inhibited,
it was because he remained the prisoner of derived concepts that made
him fall short of the materialist psychiatry he dreamed of, that prevented
him from seeing how desire was part of the infrastructure, and that
confined him in the duality of the objective and the subjective. (Conse-
quently, psychoanalysis was consigned to the analys is of the subjective,
as defined by ideology.) But everythi ng is objective or subjective, as one
wishes. That is not the distinction: th e distinction to be made passes into
the economic infrastructure itself and in to its in vestments. Libidinal
economy is no less objective than political economy, and the political no
less subjective than the libidinal, even though the two correspond to two
modes of different investments of the same reality as social reality.
There is an unconscious libidinal inve stment of desire that does not
necessarily coincide with the precons cious investments of interest, and
that explains how the latter can be perturbed and perverted in "the most
somber organization," below all ideology.
Libidinal investment does not bear upon the regime of the social
Libidinal Investments of Power
- Libidinal economy is as objective as political economy, representing an unconscious investment of desire that often diverges from preconscious interests.
- Desire does not invest in social meanings or purposes, but rather in the degree of energy development and the 'full body' of the socius itself.
- Sovereign power is fundamentally absurd and devoid of purpose, yet it masks this void by assigning itself spiritualized aims that even the oppressed may embrace.
- There exists a disinterested love for the social machine that can lead individuals to desire their own repression, independent of their actual class interests.
- The capitalist machine functions as a system of immanence where a great mutant flow of power is converted into the preconscious indicators of wages and enterprise.
The officer of 'In the Penal Colony' demonstrates what an intense libidinal investment of a machine can be, a machine that is not only technical but social, and through which desire desires its own repression.
economy is no less objective than political economy, and the political no
less subjective than the libidinal, even though the two correspond to two
modes of different investments of the same reality as social reality.
There is an unconscious libidinal inve stment of desire that does not
necessarily coincide with the precons cious investments of interest, and
that explains how the latter can be perturbed and perverted in "the most
somber organization," below all ideology.
Libidinal investment does not bear upon the regime of the social
syntheses, but upon the degree of development of the forces or the
energies on which these syntheses depend. It does not bear upon the
selections, detachme nts, and remainders effected by these syntheses, but
upon the nature of the codes and the flows that condition them. It does
not bear upon the social means and ends, but upon the full body as
socius, the formation of sovereignty, or the form of power for itself,
devoid of meaning and purpose, sinc e the meanings and the purposes
derive from it, and not the contrary. It is doubtless true that interests
predispose us to a given libidinal investment, but they are not identical
with this investment. Moreover, the unconscious libidinal investment is
what causes us to look for our interest in one place rather than another,
to fix our aims on a given path, convin ced that this is where our chances
lie—since love drives us on. The manifest syntheses are merely the
preconscious indicators of a degr ee of development; the apparent
interests and aims are merely the pr econscious exponents of a social full
body. As Klossowski says in his profound commentary on Nietzsche, a
form of power is identical with the violence it exerts by its very
absurdity, but it can exert this violence only by assigning itself aims and
meanings in which even the most enslaved elements participate: "The
sovereign formations will have no other purpose than that of masking
the absence of a purpose or a meaning of their sovereignty by means of
the organic purpose of their creation," and the purpose of thereby
converting the absurdity into spiritualit y. That is why it is so futile to
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 345
attempt to distinguish what is rational and what is irrational in a society.
To be sure, the role, the place, and the part one has in a society, and
from which one inherits in terms of the laws of social reproduction,
impel the libido to invest a given socius as a full body—a given absurd
power in which we participate, or ha ve the chance to participate, under
the cover of aims and interests. The fact remains that there exists a
disinterested love of the social machin e, of the form of power, and of the
degree of development in and for themselves. Even in the person who
has an interest—and loves them beside s with a form of love other than
that of his interest. This is also the case for the person who has no
interest, and who substitutes the force of a strange love for this
counterinvestment. Flows that run on the porous full body of a
socius—these are the object of desire , higher than all the aims. It will
never flow too much, it will never break or code enough—and in that
very way! Oh how beautiful the machine is! The officer of "In the Penal
Colony" demonstrates what an intens e libidinal investment of a machine
can be, a machine that is not onl y technical but social, and through
which desire desires its own repression.
We have seen how the capitalist machine constituted a system of
immanence bordered by a great mutant flow, nonpossessive and
non-possessed, flowing over the full body of capital and forming an
absurd power. Everyone in his class and his person receives something
from this power, or is excluded from it, insofar as the great flow is
converted into incomes, incomes of wa ges or of enterprises that define
aims or spheres of interest, selec tions, detachments, and portions. But
Libidinal Investment and Capitalist Desire
- The capitalist machine functions as a social and technical system where desire paradoxically seeks its own repression.
- Individuals, even the most disadvantaged, often passionately invest in the very systems that oppress them because interest is secondary to the unconscious libido.
- Capitalism thrives on a 'disinterested love' for the machine itself, where participants find joy in being a functional wheel within the aggregate.
- A disconnect exists between preconscious revolutionary interests and unconscious libidinal investments, which may still cling to old forms of power.
- The system survives by reviving archaic structures like the 'despotic Urstaat' to serve as residual territorialities within the modern market.
Repressing desire, not only for others but in oneself, being the cop for others and for oneself—that is what arouses, and it is not ideology, it is economy.
can be, a machine that is not onl y technical but social, and through
which desire desires its own repression.
We have seen how the capitalist machine constituted a system of
immanence bordered by a great mutant flow, nonpossessive and
non-possessed, flowing over the full body of capital and forming an
absurd power. Everyone in his class and his person receives something
from this power, or is excluded from it, insofar as the great flow is
converted into incomes, incomes of wa ges or of enterprises that define
aims or spheres of interest, selec tions, detachments, and portions. But
the investment of the flow itself and its axiomatic, which to be sure
requires no precise knowledge of politi cal economy, is the business of
the unconscious libido, inasmuch as it is presupposed by the aims. We
see the most disadvantaged, the most excluded members of society
invest with passion the system that oppresses them, and where they
always find an interest, since it is here that they search for and measure
it. Interest always comes after. Antiproduction effuses in the system:
antiproduction is loved for itself, as is the way in which desire represses
itself in the great capitalist aggregate. Repressing desire, not only for
others but in oneself, being the c op for others and for oneself—that is
what arouses, and it is not ideology, it is economy. Capitalism garners
and possesses the force of the aim and the interest (power), but it feels a
disinterested love for the absurd and nonpossessed force of the machine.
Oh, to be sure, it is not for himself or his children that the capitalist
works, but for the immortality of the system. A violence without
purpose, a joy, a pure joy in feeling oneself a wheel in the machine,
traversed by flows, broken by schizzes. Placing oneself in a
346 .ANTI-OEDIPUS
position where one is thus traversed, broken, fucked by the socius,
looking for the right place where, acco rding to the aims and the interests
assigned to us, one feels something moving that has neither an interest
nor a purpose. A sort of art for art's sake in the libido, a taste for a job
well done, each one in his own place, th e banker, the cop, the soldier, the
technocrat, the bureaucrat, and why not the worker, the trade-unionist.
Desire is agape.
Not only can the libidinal investment of the social field interfere
with the investment of interest, and constrain the most disadvantaged, the
most exploited, to seek their ends in an oppressive machine, but what is
reactionary or revolutionary in the preconscious investme nt of interest
does not necessarily coincide with what is reactionary or revolutionary in
the unconscious libidinal investment . A revolutionary preconscious
investment bears upon new aims, new social syntheses, a new power.
But it could be that a part at least of the unconscious libido continues to
invest the former body, the old form of power, its codes, and its flows. It
is all the easier, and the contradiction is all the better masked, as a state
of forces does not prevail over the former state without preserving or
reviving the old full body as a residua! and subordinated territoriality
(witness how the capitalist machine revives the despotic Urstaat, or how
the socialist machine preserves a State and market monopoly capitalism).
But there is something more serious: even when the libido embraces the
new body—the new force that corresponds to the effectively
revolutionary goals and syntheses from the viewpoint of the
preconscious—it is not certain that th e unconscious libidinal investment
is itself revolutionary. For the same breaks do not pass at the level of the
unconscious desires and the preconsci ous interests. The preconscious
revolutionary break is sufficiently well defined by the promotion of a
socius as a full body carrying new aims, as a form of power or a
formation of sovereignty that subordinates desiring-production under
Libidinal and Preconscious Revolutions
- The text distinguishes between preconscious revolutionary goals, which focus on social production and new forms of sovereignty, and unconscious libidinal investments.
- A preconscious revolution may establish a new socius to manage interests, but it often remains a 'subjugated group' if it continues to crush desiring-production.
- Schizoanalysis posits that desire is an infrastructural force constitutive of the social field, rather than a mere ideological byproduct.
- A group can be politically revolutionary in its class interests while remaining fascist or repressive at the level of its unconscious libidinal structure.
- True unconscious revolution involves the 'body without organs' and allows flows of desire to follow positive lines of escape rather than being re-coded by power.
It is understandable, therefore, that a group can be revolutionary from the standpoint of class interest and its preconscious investments, but not be so—and even remain fascist and police-like—from the standpoint of its libidinal investments.
new body—the new force that corresponds to the effectively
revolutionary goals and syntheses from the viewpoint of the
preconscious—it is not certain that th e unconscious libidinal investment
is itself revolutionary. For the same breaks do not pass at the level of the
unconscious desires and the preconsci ous interests. The preconscious
revolutionary break is sufficiently well defined by the promotion of a
socius as a full body carrying new aims, as a form of power or a
formation of sovereignty that subordinates desiring-production under
new conditions. But even though the un conscious libido is charged with
investing this socius, its investment is not necessarily revolutionary in
the same sense as the preconscious i nvestment. In fact, the unconscious
revolutionary break implies for its part the body without organs as the
limit of the socius that desiring-production subordinates in its turn, under
the condition of an overthrown power, an overthrown subordination.
The preconscious revolution refers to a new regime of social
production that creates, distributes, a nd satisfies new aims and interests.
But the unconscious revolution does not merely refer to the socius that
conditions this change as a form of power; it refers within this socius to
the regime of desiring-production as an overthrown power on the body
INTRODUCTION TO SCH120ANALYSIS 347
without organs. It is not the same state of flows and schizzes: in one case
the break is between two forms of socius, the second of which is
measured according to its capacity to introduce the flows of desire into a
new code or a new axiomatic of interest; in the other case the break is
within the socius itself, in that it has the capacity for causing the flows of
desire to circulate following their positive lines of escape, and for
breaking them again following breaks of productive breaks. The most
genera! principle of schizoanalysis is that desire is always constitutive of
a social field. In any case desire belongs to the infrastructure, not to
ideology, desire is in production as social production, just as production
is in desire as desiring-production. But these forms can be understood in
two ways, depending on whether desire is enslaved to a structured molar
aggregate that it constitutes under a given form of power and
gregarious-ness, or whether it s ubjugates the large aggregate to the
functional multiplicities that it itself forms on the molecular scale (it is
no more a case of persons or individua ls in this instance than in the
other). If the preconscious revolutionary break appears at the first level,
and is defined by the characteristics of a new aggregate, the unconscious
or libidinal break belongs to the second level and is defined by the
driving role of desiring-production and the position of its multiplicities.
It is understandable, therefore, that a group can be revolutionary from
the standpoint of class interest and its preconscious investments, but not
be so—and even remain fascist and police-like—from the standpoint of
its libidinal investments. Truly revol utionary preconscious interests do
not necessarily imply unconscious investments of the same nature; an
apparatus of interest never takes the place of a machine of desire.
A revolutionary group at the preconscious level remains a subjugat-
ed group, even in seizing power, as long as this power itself refers to a
form of force that continues to en slave and crush desiring-production.
The moment it is preconsciously revolutionary, such a group already
presents all the unconscious character istics of a subjugated group: the
subordination to a socius as a fixed s upport that attributes to itself the
productive forces, extracting and absorbing the surplus value therefrom;
the effusion of antiproduction and death-carrying elements within the
system, which feels and pretends to be all the more immortal; the
Subject-Groups and Subjugated Groups
- The text distinguishes between subjugated groups, which replicate hierarchy and repression, and subject-groups, which allow desire to penetrate the social field.
- Subjugated groups are characterized by a 'group superego,' narcissism, and the extraction of surplus value through a fixed support or socius.
- Subject-groups are inherently revolutionary and mortal, constantly inventing new formations to exorcise the death instinct and maintain transversality.
- Groups and individuals often oscillate between these two states, with revolutionary movements frequently regressing into repressive, reformist aggregates.
- The authors critique the psychoanalytic group, positioning Freud as a 'group superego' and Reich as a marginal figure attempting to smash the limits of desire.
And what revolution is not tempted to turn against its subject-groups, stigmatized as anarchistic or irresponsible, and to liquidate them?
ed group, even in seizing power, as long as this power itself refers to a
form of force that continues to en slave and crush desiring-production.
The moment it is preconsciously revolutionary, such a group already
presents all the unconscious character istics of a subjugated group: the
subordination to a socius as a fixed s upport that attributes to itself the
productive forces, extracting and absorbing the surplus value therefrom;
the effusion of antiproduction and death-carrying elements within the
system, which feels and pretends to be all the more immortal; the
phenomena of group "superegoization, " narcissism, and hierarchy—the
mechanisms for the repression of desire. A subject-group, on the
contrary, is a group whose libidinal investments are themselves revolu-
tionary; it causes desire to penetrate into th e social field, and subordi-
nates the socius or the form of power to desiring-production; productive
of desire and a desire that produc es, the subject-group invents always
ANTI-OEDIPUS
mortal formations that exorcise the effusion in it of a death instinct; it
opposes real coefficients of transv ersality to the symbolic determina-
tions of subjugation, coefficients without a hierarchy or a group super-
ego. What complicates everything, it is true, is that the same individuals
can participate in both kinds of gr oups in diverse wa ys (Saint-Juste,
Lenin). Or the same group can present both characteristi cs at the same
time, in diverse situations that ar e nevertheless coexistent. A revolution-
ary group can already have reassumed the form of a subjugated group,
yet be determined under certain conditions to continue to play the role
of a subject-group. One is continua lly passing from one type of group to
the other. Subject-groups are continually deriving from subjugated
groups through a rupture of the latter : they mobilize desire, and always
cut its flows again further on, overco ming the limit, bringing the social
machines back to the elementary forces of desire that form them.*
But inversely, they are also continually closing up again, remodeling
themselves in the image of subjuga ted groups: re-establishing interior
limits, reforming a great break that the flows will not pass through or
overcome, subordinating the desiring-machines to the repressive aggre-
gate that they constitute on a large s cale. There is a speed of subjugation
that is opposed to the coefficients of transversality. And what revolution
is not tempted to turn against its subject-groups, stig matized as anar-
chistic or irresponsible, and to liquidate them? How do we combat the
deadly inclination that makes a group pass from its revolutionary
libidinal investments to revolutionary investments that are simply
preconscious investments or inve stments of interest, then to
precon-scious investments that are simply reformist? And where do we
even situate such and such a group? Did it ever have revolutionary
unconscious investments? The surrea list group, for example, with its
fantastic subjugation, its narcissi sm, and its superego? (It can happen
that one lone man functions as a fl ow-schiz, as a subject-group, through
a break with the subjugated group from which he excludes himself or is
excluded: Artaud-the-schizo). And where do we situate the psychoana-
lytic group within this complexity of social investments? Every time we
wonder when it started going bad, it is always necessary to trace further
back in time. Freud as the group supe rego, an oedipalizing grandfather,
establishing Oedipus as an interior limit, with all kinds of little Narcis-
suses around, and Reich-the-marginal, plotting a tangent of
deterritorial-ization, causing the flow s of desire to circulate, smashing
the limit,
Schizoanalysis and Social Desire
- Schizoanalysis aims to uncover unconscious libidinal investments in the social field that differ from preconscious interests.
- The text critiques the psychoanalytic tradition for imposing an Oedipal limit on desire, effectively 'mortifying' sexuality through familialist codes.
- True liberation is impossible as long as sexuality is treated as a 'dirty little secret' or confined within binary disjunctions like the one between homosexuality and heterosexuality.
- The task of schizoanalysis is to rescue sexuality from its narcissistic origins and allow for decoded, nomadic flows of desire.
- The conflict between generations often masks a deeper muddle of reactionary and revolutionary forms of desire and interest.
It is in vain that the secret is published, that one demands one's right to be heard; it can even be disinfected, treated in a psychoanalytic or scientific manner, yet thereby one stands a greater chance of killing desire, or of inventing forms of liberation for it drearier than the most repressive prison.
excluded: Artaud-the-schizo). And where do we situate the psychoana-
lytic group within this complexity of social investments? Every time we
wonder when it started going bad, it is always necessary to trace further
back in time. Freud as the group supe rego, an oedipalizing grandfather,
establishing Oedipus as an interior limit, with all kinds of little Narcis-
suses around, and Reich-the-marginal, plotting a tangent of
deterritorial-ization, causing the flow s of desire to circulate, smashing
the limit,
*0n the group and its rupture or schiz, see Jean-Pierre Faye, "Eclats," Change, no. 7, p. 217: "What counts,
what is effective in our opinion, is not such and such a group, but rather the dispersion or the Diaspora
produced by their splinterings (eclats)." Also pp. 212-13, on the necessarily polyvocal character of
subject-groups and their writing.
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 349
breaching the wall. But it is not just a matte r of literature or even psychoanalysis.
It is a matter of politics—though not, as we shall see, of a program.
The task of schizoanalysis is ther efore to reach the investments of
unconscious desire of the social field, in sofar as they are differentiated from the
preconscious investments of interest, and insofar as they are not merely capable
of counteracting them, but also of coexis ting with them in opposite modes. In the
generation-gap conflict we hear old people reproach the young, in the most
malicious way, for putting their desires (a car, credit, a loan, girl-boy
relationships) ahead of their interests (work, savings, a good marriage). But what
appears to other people as raw desire still contains complexes of desire and
interest, and a mixture of forms of desire and of interest that are specifically
reactionary and vaguely revolutionary. Th e situation is completely muddled. It
seems that schizoanalysis can make use only of indices—the machinic
indices—in order to discern, at the leve l of groups or individuals, the libidinal
investments of the social field. Now in this respect it is sexuality that constitutes
the indices. Not that the revolutionary cap acity can be evaluate d in terms of the
objects, the aims, or the sources of the se xual drives animating an individual or a
group; assuredly perversions, and even se xual emancipation, give no privilege as
long as sexuality remains confined with in the framework of the "dirty little
secret." It is in vain that the secret is published, that one demands one's right to
be heard; it can even be disinfected, tr eated in a psychoanalytic or scientific
manner, yet thereby one stands a greater chance of killing desire, or of inventing
forms of liberation for it drearier than the most repressive prison—as long as one
has not succeeded in rescuing sexuality from the category of secrets, even if
public, even if disinfected: i.e., as l ong as it has not been rescued from the
Oedipal-narcissistic origin imposed on it as the lie under which it can merely
become cynical, shameful, and mortified. It is a lie to claim to liberate sexuality,
and to demand its rights to objects, aims, and sources, all the while maintaining
the corresponding flows within the limits of an Oedipal code (conflict,
regression, resolution, sublimation of Oe dipus), and while continuing to impose a
familialist and masturbatory form or mo tivation on it that makes any perspective
of liberation futile in advance. For ex ample, no "gay liberation movement" is
possible as long as homosexuality is caught up in a relation of exclusive
disjunction with heterosexuality, a relation that ascribes them both to a common
Oedipal and castrating stock, charged with ensuring only their differentiation in
two noncom-municating series, instead of bringing to light their reciprocal
inclusion and their transverse communi cation in the decoded flows of desire
3S0 ANTI-OEDIPUS
(included disjunctions, local connections, nomadic conjunctions). In short, sexual
Schizoanalysis and the Flows of Desire
- True liberation is impossible as long as sexuality is defined by the exclusive disjunction between homosexuality and heterosexuality within an Oedipal framework.
- Sexual repression persists through the categorization of individuals into fixed figurative roles like mother, wife, or homosexual, which act as tourniquets on the flows of desire.
- D.H. Lawrence is cited as a visionary who viewed sexuality not as a set of identities, but as an infinity of contrary flows and vibrations that transcend the individual personality.
- The primary distinction between psychoanalysis and schizoanalysis is that the latter seeks a nonfigurative, abstract unconscious that exists below the conditions of identity.
- Psychoanalysis is criticized for maintaining sexuality under a 'morbid yoke' by merely making the private Oedipal secret a public, medicalized one.
A woman is a strange soft vibration on the air, going forth unknown and unconscious, and seeking a vibration of response.
familialist and masturbatory form or mo tivation on it that makes any perspective
of liberation futile in advance. For ex ample, no "gay liberation movement" is
possible as long as homosexuality is caught up in a relation of exclusive
disjunction with heterosexuality, a relation that ascribes them both to a common
Oedipal and castrating stock, charged with ensuring only their differentiation in
two noncom-municating series, instead of bringing to light their reciprocal
inclusion and their transverse communi cation in the decoded flows of desire
3S0 ANTI-OEDIPUS
(included disjunctions, local connections, nomadic conjunctions). In short, sexual
repression, more insistent than ever, will survive all the publications,
demonstrations, emancipati ons, and protests concerning the liberty of sexual
objects, sources, and aims, as long as sexuality is kept—consciously or
not—within narcissistic, Oedipal, and castrating co-ordinates that are enough to
ensure the triumph of the most rigorous censors, the gray gentlemen mentioned
by Lawrence.
Lawrence shows in a profound way that sexuality, including chastity, is a
matter of flows, an infinity of different and even contrary flows. Everything
depends on the way in which these flow s—whatever their object, source, and
aim—are coded and broken according to unifo rm figures, or on the contrary taken
up in chains of decoding that resect th em according to mobile and nonfigurative
points (the flows-schizzes). Lawrence attacks the poverty of the immutable
identical images, the figurative roles that are so many tourniquets cutting off the
flows of sexuality: "fiancee, mistress, wife, mother"—one could just as easily add
"homosexuals, heterosexuals," etc.—all these roles are distributed by the Oedipal
triangle, father-mother-me, a representativ e ego thought to be defined in terms of
the father-mother representations, by fixation, regression, assumption,
sublimation—and all of that according to what rule? The law of the great Phallus
that no one possesses, the despotic signifier prompting the most miserable
struggle, a common absence for all the reciprocal exclusions where the flows dry
up, drained by bad conscience and ressentiment. ". . . sticking a woman on a
pedestal, or the reverse, sticking he r beneath notice; or making a 'model'
housewife of her, or a 'model' mother, or a 'model' help-meet. All mere devices
for avoiding any contact with her. A woma n is not a 'model' anything. She is not
even a distinct and definite personality. ... A woman is a strange soft vibration on
the air, going forth unknown and unconsci ous, and seeking a vibration of
response. Or else she is a discordant, ja rring, painful vibration, going forth and
hurting everyone within range. And a man the same. "41 Let's not be too quick to
make light of the pantheism of flows presen t in such texts as this: it is not easy to
de-oedipalize even nature, ev en landscapes, to the exte nt that Lawrence could.
The fundamental difference between psyc hoanalysis and schizoanalysis is the
following: schizoanalysis attains a nonfi gurative and nonsymbolic unconscious, a
pure abstract figural dimension ("abstract " in the sense of abstract painting),
flows-schizzes or real-desire, appreh ended below the minimum conditions of
identity.
What does psychoanalysis do, and first of all what does Freud do, if not
maintain sexuality under the morbid yoke of the little secret, while finding
medical means for rendering it public, for making it into an open
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS SSI
secret, the analytic Oedipus? We are told, "See here, it ś quite normal,
everybody's like that," but one cont inues to embrace the same humiliat-ing
and degrading conception of sexuali ty, the same figurative concep-tion as
the censo rs' . It is certain that psychoanaly sis has not made its pictorial
revolution. There is a hypothesis dear to Freud: the libido does not
Libidinal Investments of Society
- The text critiques psychoanalysis for confining sexuality within the narrow, humiliating framework of the Oedipal family and the ego.
- Freud's hypothesis that the libido must be desexualized to invest in the social field is rejected in favor of a direct sexual investment in history and culture.
- Delirium and sexual choices are presented as indices of how the libido connects to social, political, and economic flows rather than just familial figures.
- Love is described as a 'point-sign' that vibrates with the entire network of history, making every desired being a collective agent of enunciation.
- The authors argue that sexuality does not need sublimation to reach the social field because desire is inherently social and historical in its raw state.
In delirium the libido is continually re-creating History, continents, kingdoms, races, and cultures.
maintain sexuality under the morbid yoke of the little secret, while finding
medical means for rendering it public, for making it into an open
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS SSI
secret, the analytic Oedipus? We are told, "See here, it ś quite normal,
everybody's like that," but one cont inues to embrace the same humiliat-ing
and degrading conception of sexuali ty, the same figurative concep-tion as
the censo rs' . It is certain that psychoanaly sis has not made its pictorial
revolution. There is a hypothesis dear to Freud: the libido does not
invest the social field as such except on condition that it be desexualized
and sublimated. If he holds so closely to this hypothesis, it is because he
wants above all to keep sexuality in the limited framework of Narcissus
and Oedipus, the ego and the fami ly. Consequently, every sexual
libidinal investment having a social dimension seems to him to testify to
a pathogenic state, a "fixation" in narcissism, or a "regression" to
Oedipus and to the pre-oedipal stages , by means of which homosexuality
will be explained as a reinforced dr ive, and paranoia as a means of
defense.42 We have seen on the contrary that what the libido invested,
through its loves and sexuality, was the so cial field itself in its economic,
political, historical, racial, and cultural determinations: in delirium the
libido is continually re-creating Hi story, continents, kingdoms, races,
and cultures. Not that it is advisable to put historical representations in
the place of the familial representations of the Freudian unconscious, or
even the archetypes of a collective unconscious. It is merely a question
of ascertaining that our choices in matters of love are at the crossroads
of "vibrations," which is to say that they express connections, disjunc-
tions, and conjunctions of flows that cross through a society, entering
and leaving it, linking it up with other societies, ancient or contempo-
rary, remote or vanished, dead or yet to be born. Africas and Orients,
always following the underground thread of the libido. Not geohistorical
figures or statues, although our apprenticeship is more readily accom-
plished with these figures, with books , histories, and reproductions, than
with our mommy. But flows and codes of socius that do not portray
anything, that merely designate zones of libidinal intensity on the body
without organs, and that are emitted, captured, intercepted by the being
that we are then determined to love , like a point-sign, a singular point in
the entire network of the intensive body that responds to History, that
vibrates with it. Never was Fre ud more adventurous than in Gradiva. In
short, our libidinal investments of the social field, reactionary or
revolutionary, are so well hidden, so unconscious, so well masked by the
preconscious investments, that they appear only in our sexual choices of
lovers. A love is not reactionary or revolutionary, but it is the index of
the reactionary or revolutionary character of the social investments of
the libido. The desiring sexual relationships of man and woman (or of
man and man, or woman and woman) are the index of social relation-
ships between people. Love and sexuality are the exponents or the
352 ANTI-OEDIPUS
indicators, this time unconscious, of the Mhidinal investments of the social
held. Every loved or desired bei ng serves as a collective agent of
enunciation. And it is certainly not, as Freud believed, the libido that
must be desexualized and sublimated in order to invest society and its
flows; on the contrary, it is love, desire, and their flows that manifest the
directly social character of the nonsublimated libido and its sexual
investments.
For those looking for a thesis topi c on psychoanalysis, one should
not suggest vast considerations on analytic epistemology, but modest
and rigorous topics such as the theory of maids or domestic servants in
Libido and the Social Field
- The authors argue that desire and the libido are directly social in nature rather than being desexualized forces that must be sublimated to invest in society.
- Freud's case studies, including the Rat Man and the Wolf Man, reveal a consistent tension between familial structures and social class dynamics.
- Psychoanalysis often reduces complex social investments—such as a preference for 'poor women' or servants—to mere substitutes for the Oedipal family unit.
- The text suggests that the 'social complex' involves a splitting of the subject's role or sexual object based on rank and class rather than just kinship.
- Freud ultimately chose to prioritize the Oedipal dogma over social interpretations to distinguish his theories from those of Jung and Adler.
The Wolf Man demonstrates a marked taste for the poor woman: the peasant girl on all fours washing some clothes, or the servant scrubbing the floor.
enunciation. And it is certainly not, as Freud believed, the libido that
must be desexualized and sublimated in order to invest society and its
flows; on the contrary, it is love, desire, and their flows that manifest the
directly social character of the nonsublimated libido and its sexual
investments.
For those looking for a thesis topi c on psychoanalysis, one should
not suggest vast considerations on analytic epistemology, but modest
and rigorous topics such as the theory of maids or domestic servants in
Freud's thought. There are some real indices in such areas. On the
subject of maids—who are present everywhere in the cases studied by
Freud—there occurs an exemplary hesitation in Freudian thought, a
hesitation too quickly resolved in favor of what was to become a dogma
of psychoanalysis. Philippe Girard, in unpublished remarks that seem to
us to have a wide application, situates the problem at several levels. In
the first place, Freud discovers "his own" Oedipus in a complex social
context that brings into play the older half brother from the rich side of
the family, and the thievish maid as the poor woman. Secondly, the
familial romance and fantasy activit y in general will be presented by
Freud as a veritable drift of the social field, where one substitutes
persons of a higher or lower rank for the parents (the son of a princess
kidnapped by gypsies, or the son of a poor man taken in by bourgeois);
Oedipus was already doing this when he claimed a low birth of servant
parents. Thirdly, the Rat Man not only installs his neurosis in a social
field determined from one end to the other as military, he not only makes
it revolve around a form of torture originating in the Orient, but also in
this very field he causes his neurosis to oscillate between two poles
constituted by the rich woman and the po or woman, under the effect of a
strange unconscious communication with the unconscious of the father.
Lacan was the first to emphasize th ese themes, which were enough to
challenge the whole of Oedipus; and he shows the existence of a "social
complex" where the subject at times attempts to assume his own
role—but at the price of a splitting of the sexual object into a rich
woman and a poor woman—and at other times ensures the unity of the
object, but this time at the price of a splitting of "his own social
function" at the other extremity of the chain. Fourthly, the Wolf Man
demonstrates a marked taste for the poor woman: the peasant girl on all
fours washing some clothes, or the servant scrubbing the floor.43
The fundamental problem with regard to these texts is the follow-
ing: must we see, in all these sexual-social investments of the libido and
these object choices, mere dependences of a familial Oedipus? Must we
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 353
save Oedipus at all costs by interpreti ng these investments and object choices as
defenses against incest? (Thus the familial romance, or Oedipus's own wish to
have been born of poor parents who would cleanse him of his crime.) Must these
be understood as compromises and substitu tes for incest? (Thus in "The Wolf
Man," the peasant girl as a substitute for the sister, having the same name as she,
or the girl on hands and knees, working, as a substitute for the mother surprised
in the coitus scene; and in The Rat Man, the disguised repetition of the paternal
situation, making it possible to enrich or impregnate Oedipus with a fourth
"symbolic" term charged with accounting for the splittings through which the
libido invests the social field.) Freud makes a firm choice of this last direction; all
the more firm in that, according to his own confession, he wants to set things
straight with Jung and Adler. And after having ascertained in the Wolf Man case
the existence of an "intention of de basing" the woman as love object, he
concludes that it is merely a matter of a "rationalization," and that the "true
The Oedipal Trapdoor
- Freud intentionally narrowed the scope of psychoanalysis to the family unit to counter the theories of Jung and Adler.
- The text argues that Freud incorrectly dismisses social and class distinctions as mere rationalizations of parental erotic motives.
- Desire is actually invested in the 'Social Other' and the nonfamilial, using the family as a site to engage with broader class struggles.
- The libido does not see the mother or father as primary objects, but rather as agents within a larger system of sociodesiring-production.
- Oedipus is presented as a 'drift' or a reduction of the familial romance rather than its foundational origin.
Oedipus: the touchstone of the pure psychoanalyst, on which to sharpen the sacred blade of a successful castration.
situation, making it possible to enrich or impregnate Oedipus with a fourth
"symbolic" term charged with accounting for the splittings through which the
libido invests the social field.) Freud makes a firm choice of this last direction; all
the more firm in that, according to his own confession, he wants to set things
straight with Jung and Adler. And after having ascertained in the Wolf Man case
the existence of an "intention of de basing" the woman as love object, he
concludes that it is merely a matter of a "rationalization," and that the "true
underlying determination" almost always leads us back to the sister, to the
mommy, considered as the only "purely erotic motives"! Taking up the eternal
refrain of Oedipus, the eternal lullaby, he writes: "A child pays no regard to
social distinctions, which have little meaning for it as yet; and it classes people of
inferior rank with its parents if they love it as its parents do."44
We always fall back into the false alternative where Freud was le> by
Oedipus, and then confirmed in this position by his controversy with Adler and
Jung: either, he says, you will abandon th e sexual position of the libido in favor
of an individual and social will to power, or in favor of a prehistoric collective
unconscious—or you will rec ognize Oedipus, making of it the sexual abode of
the libido, and you will ma ke daddy-mommy into "the purely erotic motive."
Oedipus: the touchstone of the pure psychoanalyst, on which to sharpen the
sacred blade of a successful castration. Yet what was the other direction,
glimpsed for a moment by Freud apropos of the familial romance, before the
Oedipal trapdoor slams shut? It is th e direction rediscovered, at least
hypotheti-cally, by Philippe Girard: there is no family where vacuoles are not
arranged, and where extrafamihal breaks are not manifest, by means of which the
libido is engulfed in order to se xually invest the nonfamilial— i.e., the other
class as determined under the empirical rubrics of the "richest and the poorest,"
and sometimes both at once. Wouldn't th e Great Other, indispensable to the
position of desire, be the Social Othe r, social difference apprehended and
invested as the nonfamily within the fami ly itself? The other class is by no means
grasped by the libido as a magnified or impoverished image of the mother, but as
the foreign, the
3S4 ANTI-OEDIPUS
nonmother, the nonfather, the nonfamily, the index of what is nonhuman in sex,
and without which the libido would not assemble its desiring-machines. Class
struggle goes to the heart of the ordeal of desire. The familial romance is not a
derivative of Oedipus; Oedipus is a drift of the familial romance, and thereby of
the social field. It is not a question of denying the importance of parental coitus,
and the position of the mother; but when this position makes the mother resemble
a floor-washer, or an animal, what authori zes Freud to say that the animal or the
maid stand for the mother, independently of the social or generic differences,
instead of concluding that the mother also functions as something other than the
mother, and gives rise in the child's lib ido to an entire differentiated social
investment at the same time as she opens the way to a relation with the nonhuman
sex? For whether the mother works or not, whether the mother is from a richer or
poorer background than the father, etc., has to do with breaks and flows that
traverse the family, but that overreac h it on all sides and are not familial.
From the start we wonder if the libido knows father-mother, or rather if it
makes the parents function as something entirely different, as agents of
production in relation to other agents in sociodesiring-production. From the point
of view of libidinal investment, parent s not only open to the other, they are
themselves countersected and divided by the other who defamilializes them
Libidinal Investments and Social Fields
- The text argues that the libido does not primarily invest in the family unit but rather in a broader social field of production and desire.
- Parents function as indifferent stimuli that trigger the allocation of intensity on the body without organs, rather than acting as autonomous psychological agents.
- The social field acts as the true organizer of desire, determining how individuals are perceived through lenses of class, role, and social status.
- Oedipus is presented as a reduction or blockage where the vast social field is compressed into a finite, familial aggregate of repression.
- Schizoanalysis posits that the relation to the nonfamilial is always primary, preceding and overreaching the domestic family structure.
The mother herself functions as rich woman or poor woman, maid or princess, pretty girl or old lady, animal or Blessed Virgin, and all at once.
instead of concluding that the mother also functions as something other than the
mother, and gives rise in the child's lib ido to an entire differentiated social
investment at the same time as she opens the way to a relation with the nonhuman
sex? For whether the mother works or not, whether the mother is from a richer or
poorer background than the father, etc., has to do with breaks and flows that
traverse the family, but that overreac h it on all sides and are not familial.
From the start we wonder if the libido knows father-mother, or rather if it
makes the parents function as something entirely different, as agents of
production in relation to other agents in sociodesiring-production. From the point
of view of libidinal investment, parent s not only open to the other, they are
themselves countersected and divided by the other who defamilializes them
according to the laws of social production and desiring-production: the mother
herself functions as rich woman or poor woman, maid or princess, pretty girl or
old lady, animal or Blessed Virgin, and all at once. Everything passes into the
machine that causes the properly familial de terminations to disintegrate. What the
orphan libido invests is a field of so cial desire, a fiel d of production and
antiproduction with its breaks and flows, where the parents are apprehended in
nonparental functions and roles confronti ng other roles and other functions. Does
this amount to saying that the parents have no unconscious role as such? Of
course they have an unconscious role, but in two quite specific ways that deprive
them even more of their supposed autonomy. In accordance with the distinction
made by embry-ologists with regard to the egg between the stimulus and the
organizer, parents are stimuli havi ng an indifferent value that trigger the
allocation of gradients or zones of intens ity on the body without organs: it is in
relation to the parents that in each case w ealth or poverty will be situated, the
relative richest or poorest, as empirical forms of social difference—so that within
this difference the parents again appear, allocated to such and such a zone, but
under a different rubric from that of parent s. And the organizer is the social field
of desire, which alone designates the zones of intensity, with all the beings that
populate these
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 355
zones and determine their libidinal invest ment. Secondly, the parents as parents
are terms of application that express the reduction of the social field invested by
the libido to a finite aggregate of destin ation, where the destination finds nothing
but impasses and blockages consonant with the mechanisms of psychic and
social repression active in this field: Oe dipus, such is Oedipus. In each of these
senses, the third thesis of schizoanalysis posits the primacy of the libidinal
investments of the social field over the fa milial investment, both in point of fact
and by statute: an indifferent stimulus at the beginning, an extrinsic result at the
point of arrival. The relation to the nonfam ilial is always primary: in the form of
sexuality of the field in social production, and the nonhuman sex in
desiring-production (gigantism and dwarfism).
One often has the impression that fa milies have understood the lesson of
psychoanalysis only too well, even from far off or by osmosis, in the air of the
times: they play a t Oedipus, a sublime alibi. But behind all this, there is an
economic situation: the mother reduced to housework, or to a difficult and
uninteresting job on the outside; children whose future remains uncertain; the
Psychoanalysis and Economic Dependence
- The text argues that families use the Oedipus complex as a sublime alibi to mask underlying economic pressures and material realities.
- Psychoanalysts are criticized for ignoring the external financial structures that fund their practice, such as a husband paying for a wife's analysis.
- The phallus is described not as the object of desire, but as a castrating apparatus designed to introduce lack and dry up the flows of desire.
- The analytic office functions as a closed scene that attempts to shut out the 'outside' world, turning therapy into a stupefying drug.
- True desire is rooted in social production and economic relations rather than the internal familial dramas promoted by psychoanalysis.
We dream of entering their offices, opening the windows and saying, 'It smells stuffy in here—some relation with the outside, if you please.'
sexuality of the field in social production, and the nonhuman sex in
desiring-production (gigantism and dwarfism).
One often has the impression that fa milies have understood the lesson of
psychoanalysis only too well, even from far off or by osmosis, in the air of the
times: they play a t Oedipus, a sublime alibi. But behind all this, there is an
economic situation: the mother reduced to housework, or to a difficult and
uninteresting job on the outside; children whose future remains uncertain; the
father who has had it with feeding all those mouths—in short, a fundamental
relation to the outside of which the psyc hoanalyst washes his hands, too attentive
to seeing that his clients play nice games. Now the economic situation, the
relation to the outside, is what the li bido invests and count erinvests as sexual
libido. One gets off on flows and the breaks in these flows. Let us consider for a
moment the motivations that lead some one to be psychoanalyzed: it involves a
situation of economic dependence that has become unbearable for desire, or full
of conflicts for the investment of desi re. The psychoanalyst, who says so many
things about the necessity for money in the cure, remains supremely indifferent
to the question of who is footing the bill. For example, the analysis reveals the
unconscious conflicts of a woman with her husband, but the husband is paying
for his wife's analysis. This isn't the only time we encounter the duality of
money, as a structure of external financ ing and as a means of internal payment,
along with the objective "dissimulation" that it comprises, essential to the
capitalist system. But it is interesting to find this essential concealment,
miniaturized, occupying a place of honor in the analyst's office. The analyst talks
about Oedipus, about castration and the phallus, about the necessity of assuming
one's sex, as Freud says, the human se x, and the necessity for the woman to
renounce her desire for the penis and for the man to renounce his male protest.
We maintain that there is not one woman—more particularly, not one
child—who can as such "assume" her or his situation in a capitalist society,
precisely because this situati on has nothing to do with the
356 ANTI-OEDIPUS
phallus and castration, but directly concerns an unbearable economic
dependence. And the woman and the children who succeed in "assum-
ing" do so only by detours and determ inations completely distinct from
their being-woman and their being-child . Nothing to do with the phallus,
but much to do with desire, with sexua lity as desire. For the phallus has
never been either the object or the cause of desire, but is itself the
castrating apparatus, the machine for putting lack into desire, for drying
up all the flows, and for making all the breaks from the outside and from
the Real into one and the same break with the outside, with the Real.
Too much always penetrates from the outside, where the analyst is
concerned, too much penetrates into his office. Even the closed familial
scene appears to him to be an excessive outside. He promotes the pure
analytic scene, an office Oedipus and an office castration, that should be
its own reality, its' own proof, and that, contrary to the movement,
proves itself only by not working, by being interminable. Psychoanalysis
has become quite a stupefying drug, where the strangest personal
dependence allows the clients to forget, during the time spent in sessions
on the couch, the economic dependencie s that drive them there in the
first place (a bit like the way the decoding of flows entails a reinforce-
ment of bondage). Do these psyc hoanalysts who are oedipalizing
women, children, blacks, and animal s know what they are doing? We
dream of entering their offices, opening the windows and saying, "It
smells stuffy in here—some relation w ith the outside, if you please." For
desire does not survive cut off from the outside, cut off from its
Desire and the Social Machine
- The authors critique psychoanalysis for isolating desire from the economic and social investments that define it, effectively 'oedipalizing' diverse groups in a stuffy, closed environment.
- They argue that the 'purely erotic motive' is not found in the phallus or castration, but rather pervades the social field where desiring-machines and social machines intersect.
- The traditional Freudian view that libido must be desexualized to invest in the social field is rejected in favor of a model where libido is always already social and metaphysical.
- Oedipus and narcissism are described as virtual, reactional constructs that arrive 'afterward' rather than being the primary drivers of human development.
- Desiring-production is characterized by a molecular regime of partial objects and intensities that do not recognize familial figures like the mother or father.
We dream of entering their offices, opening the windows and saying, 'It smells stuffy in here—some relation with the outside, if you please.'
dependence allows the clients to forget, during the time spent in sessions
on the couch, the economic dependencie s that drive them there in the
first place (a bit like the way the decoding of flows entails a reinforce-
ment of bondage). Do these psyc hoanalysts who are oedipalizing
women, children, blacks, and animal s know what they are doing? We
dream of entering their offices, opening the windows and saying, "It
smells stuffy in here—some relation w ith the outside, if you please." For
desire does not survive cut off from the outside, cut off from its
economic and social investments and counterinvest ments. And if there
is, to use Freud's terms, a "purely erotic motive," it is certainly not
Oedipus that harbors it, nor the phallu s that actuates it, nor castration
that transmits it. The erotic, the purely erotic motive pervades the social
field, wherever desiring-machines are agglutinated or dispersed in social
machines, and where love-object choices occur at the meeting place of
the two kinds of machine, following lines of escape or integration. Will
Aaron leave with his flute, which is not a phallus, but a desiring-machine
and a process of de territorialization?
Let us suppose that we are grante d everything: it will only be
granted afterward. It is only afterward that the libido would invest the
social field, and that it would "participate" in the social and the
metaphysical. Which permits the preservation of the fundamental
Freudian position, according to which the libido must be desexualized in
order to perform such investments, but begins with Oedipus, me, father
and mother (the pre-oedipal st ages relating structurally or
eschatologi-cally to the Oedipal organization). We have seen that this
conception of the afterward implie d a radical misunderstanding with
regard to the
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 3ST
nature of the actual factor s. For either the libido is caught up in molecular
desiring-production and knows nothing of pe rsons just as it knows nothing of the
ego—even the most undifferentiated ego of narcissism—since its investments
are already differentiated, but differentia ted according to the prepersonal regime
of partial objects, of singular ities, of intensities, of gear s and parts of machines of
desire, where one would have a hard time recognizing mother or father or me
(we have seen how contradictory it was to invoke the partial objects, and to make
of them representatives of parental persons or the supports of familial relations);
or on the other hand the libido invests persons and an ego, but is already caught
up in a social production and social machin es that do not merely differentiate
them as familial beings, but as derivatives of the molar aggregate to which they
belong under this other regime.
It is indeed true that the social and the metaphysical arrive at the same time,
in accordance with the two simultaneous meanings of process, as the historical
process of social production and as the metaphysical process of
desiring-production. But they do not come afterward. Lindner's painting again
asserts its presence, where the tu rgid little boy has already plugged a
desiring-machine into a social machine, short-circuiting the parents, who can
only intervene as agents of production and antiproduction in one case as in the
other. There is only the social and the metaphysical. If something crops up
afterward, it is certainly not the soci al and metaphysical investments of the
libido, the unconscious syntheses; rather , on the contrary, it is Oedipus, narcis-
sism, and the entire series of psychoanaly tic concepts. The factors of production
are always "actual," and are so from the tenderest age; "actual" does not signify
recent as opposed to infantile, but rather in action, as opposed to what is virtual
and will come about under certain conditions. Oedipus is virtual and reactional.
Let us consider the conditions under wh ich Oedipus arrives: an aggregate of
The Oedipal Race for Death
- The authors argue that social and metaphysical investments of the libido are primary, while psychoanalytic concepts like Oedipus are secondary impositions.
- Oedipus functions by reducing the infinite relations of sociodesiring-production into a finite familial aggregate of father, mother, and child.
- The Oedipal-narcissistic machine follows a reductive logic from many terms down to zero, where the ego eventually encounters its own death as Thanatos.
- Modern psychiatry remains a prisoner to the 'familial postulate,' treating the family as both the cause of madness and the judge of its cure.
- Even reformist movements in community psychiatry and structural psychoanalysis tend to externalize and reinforce the Oedipal triangle rather than breaking from it.
4, 3, 2, 1, 0—Oedipus is a race for death.
only intervene as agents of production and antiproduction in one case as in the
other. There is only the social and the metaphysical. If something crops up
afterward, it is certainly not the soci al and metaphysical investments of the
libido, the unconscious syntheses; rather , on the contrary, it is Oedipus, narcis-
sism, and the entire series of psychoanaly tic concepts. The factors of production
are always "actual," and are so from the tenderest age; "actual" does not signify
recent as opposed to infantile, but rather in action, as opposed to what is virtual
and will come about under certain conditions. Oedipus is virtual and reactional.
Let us consider the conditions under wh ich Oedipus arrives: an aggregate of
departure— transfmite, constituted by a ll the objects, agents, and relations of
sociodesiring-production—is reduced to a finite familial aggregate as an
aggregate of arrival (a minimum of three terms, which one can and even must
augment, but not to infinity). Such an application in fact presupposes a fourth,
extrapolated, mobile term, the symbo lic abstract phallus, charged with
performing the folding or the corresponden ce; but this application effectively
operates on the three persons who constitute the minimum familial constellation,
or on their substitutes—father, mother, ch ild. One does not stop there, since these
three terms tend to be reduced to two, e ither in the scene of castration where the
father kills the child, or in the scene of the terrible mo ther where th e mother kills
358 ANTI-OEDIPUS
the child or the father. Then from two we pass to one in narcissism, which in no
way precedes Oedipus but is its product. That is why we speak of an
Oedipal-narcissistic machine, at the end of which the ego encounters its own
death, as the zero term of a pure abolition that has haunted oedipalized desire
from the start, and that is identified now, at the end, as Thanatos. 4, 3, 2, 1,
0—Oedipus is a race for death.
Since the nineteenth century, the study of mental illnesses and madness has
remained the prisoner of the familia l postulate and its correlates, the
personological correlate and the egoic postulate (le postulat moiique). We have
seen, following Foucault, how nineteenth-cen tury psychiatry had conceived of the
family as both cause and judge of the illness, and the closed asylum as an
artificial family charged with internalizing guilt and with instituting
responsibility, enveloping madness no less than its cure in a father-child
relationship everywhere present. In this respect, far from breaking with
psychiatry, psychoanalysis transported its requirements outside the asylum walls,
and first imposed a certain "free," intensive, phantasmal use of the family that
seemed particularly suited to what was is olated as the neuroses. But the resistance
of the psychoses on the one hand, and the necessity for taking into account a
social etiology on the other hand, has led psychiatrists and psychoanalysts to
redeploy under open conditions the order of an extended family, which is still
believed to possess the secret of the illne ss as well as its cure. After the family has
been internalized in Oedipus, Oedipus is ex ternalized in the symbolic order, in the
institutional order, in the community or der, the sectorial order, etc. This
progression contains a constant of all m odern attempts at reform. And if this
tendency appears in its most naive form in community psychiatry aimed at
adjustment—"the therapeutic re turn to the family," to the identity of persons and
the integrity of the ego, the whole works being blessed by succ essful castration in
a sacred triangular form—the same tendenc y in more disguised forms is at work
in other trends. It is not by chance that Lacan's symbolic order has been diverted,
utilized for grounding a structural Oedi pus applicable to psychosis, and for
The Failure of Antipsychiatry
- Modern psychiatric reform often fails by reverting to 'community psychiatry' which prioritizes ego adjustment and the traditional family structure.
- The authors argue that Lacan's symbolic order has been misused to ground a structural Oedipus that extends familial coordinates into the realm of psychosis.
- Antipsychiatry, despite its revolutionary potential, often mistakenly seeks the cause of schizophrenia within ordinary, 'neuroticizing' family dynamics.
- Concepts like the 'double bind' are criticized as being universal to the Oedipal experience rather than specific to the schizophrenic process.
- The failure of figures like R.D. Laing is attributed to a retreat into personological and egoic postulates that ultimately reinforce adaptational psychotherapy.
In so-called schizophrenic familial monographs everyone easily recognizes his own daddy, his own mommy.
progression contains a constant of all m odern attempts at reform. And if this
tendency appears in its most naive form in community psychiatry aimed at
adjustment—"the therapeutic re turn to the family," to the identity of persons and
the integrity of the ego, the whole works being blessed by succ essful castration in
a sacred triangular form—the same tendenc y in more disguised forms is at work
in other trends. It is not by chance that Lacan's symbolic order has been diverted,
utilized for grounding a structural Oedi pus applicable to psychosis, and for
extending the familial co-ordinates beyond their real and even imaginary domain.
It is not by chance that institutional an alysis has difficulty in maintaining a
position against the reconstitution of artific ial families where the symbolic order,
embodied in the institution, re-forms group Oedipuses, with all the lethal
characteristics of the subjugated groups.
What is more, antipsychiatry has sought the secret of a causality at once
social and schizophrenic in the redeploy ed families. This is perhaps where the
mystification appears most clearly, becau se antipsychiatry, by certain of its
aspects, was the most suited to break with the traditional
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 3S9
familial reference. What does one see, in fact, in the American familial-ist
studies pursued by antipsychiatrists? Comp letely ordinary families are baptized
as schizophrenogenic, as well as comple tely ordinary familial mechanisms, and
an ordinary familial logic, i.e., neurotic izing at worst. In so-called schizophrenic
familial monographs everyone easily recognizes his own daddy, his own
mommy. For example, Bateson's "double impasse" or "double bind": where is
there a father who doesn't simultane ously transmit the two contradictory
injunctions—"Let's be friends, son, I'm the best friend you've got," and "Watch
out, son, don't treat me like one of your buddies"? There is nothing there with
which to make a schizophrenic. We have seen in this sense that the double
impasse in no way defined a specific schizophrenogenic mechanism, but merely
characterized Oedipus in the whole of its extension. If there is a veritable
impasse, a veritable contradiction, it is th e one into which the researcher himself
is led, when he claims to assign schiz ophrenogenic social mechanisms, and at the
same time to discover them within the order of the family, which both social
production and the schizophrenic process es cape. This contradiction is perhaps
especially perceptible in Laing, because he is the most revolutionary of the
antipsychiatrists. At the very moment he breaks with psychiatric practice,
undertakes assigning a veritable social genesis to psychosis, and calls for a
continuation of the "voyage" as a pro cess and for a dissolution of the "normal
ego," he falls back into the worst familialist, personological, and egoic
postulates, so that the remedies invoked are no more than a "sincere
corroboration among parents," a "recognition of the real persons," a discovery of
the true ego or self as in Martin Buber.45 Even more than the hostility of
traditional authorities, perhaps this is the source of the actual failure of the
antipsychiatric undertakings, of their co -option for the benefit of adaptational
forms of familial psychotherapy and of community psychiatry, and of Laing's
own retreat to the Orient. And is it not a contradiction on another level, but
analogous, when some, attempting to hasten the teaching of Lacan, place it back
on a familial and personological axis—whereas Lacan assigns the cause of desire
in a nonhuman "object," heterogeneous to the person, below the minimum
conditions of identity, escaping the intersubjective co-ordinates as well as the
Schizophrenizing Social Production
- The authors critique the co-option of antipsychiatry into familial psychotherapy, arguing that it fails to address the nonhuman and social origins of desire.
- They assert that the family is not a microcosm of society but a mechanism that translates social contradictions into a restrictive familial code.
- True libidinal investment occurs directly at the level of the social infrastructure and capitalist economic circuits rather than through the family unit.
- The family's primary function is to produce neurotics through oedipalization, ensuring social repression finds docile subjects by choking off lines of escape.
- Psychoanalysis is criticized for merely maintaining neurosis and attempting to transform the schizophrenic process into a more manageable, 'cured' neurotic state.
One has therefore glossed over what is essential: that society is schizophrenizing at the level of its infrastructure, its mode of production, its most precise capitalist economic circuits.
antipsychiatric undertakings, of their co -option for the benefit of adaptational
forms of familial psychotherapy and of community psychiatry, and of Laing's
own retreat to the Orient. And is it not a contradiction on another level, but
analogous, when some, attempting to hasten the teaching of Lacan, place it back
on a familial and personological axis—whereas Lacan assigns the cause of desire
in a nonhuman "object," heterogeneous to the person, below the minimum
conditions of identity, escaping the intersubjective co-ordinates as well as the
world of meanings?
Long live the Ndembu, for if we follow the detailed account by the
ethnologist Turner, the Ndembu doctor alone has been able to treat Oedipus as
an appearance, a decor, and to go back to the unconscious libidinal investments
of the social field. Oedipal familialism, even and especially in its most modern
forms, makes impossible the discovery of what one claims nevertheless to be
searching for today: schizophreno-
360 ANTI-OEDIPUS
genie social production. In the first place, it is futile to affirm that the
family expresses more profound soci al contradictions, for one confers
on it a value as microcosm, gives it the role of a necessary relay for the
transformation of social into mental alienation; what is more, one acts as
if the libido did not directly invest th e social contradictions as such, and
in order to awaken, needed these contradictions translated according to
the family code. By that very fact, one has already substituted a familial
causation or expression for social production, and finds oneself back
within the categories of idealist psychiatry. Whatever one's stake in all
of this, society is thereby justified: a ll that remains to contest it with are
vague considerations on the sick nature of the family, or more generally
still, considerations on the modern way of life. One has therefore
glossed over what is esse ntial: that society is schizophrenizing at the
level of its infrastructure, its m ode of production, its most precise
capitalist economic circuits; and that the libido invests this social field,
not in a form where it would be expr essed and translated by means of a
family-microcosm, but in the form where it causes its nonfamilial breaks
and flows, invested as such, to enter into the family; hence, that the
familial investments are always a result of the sociodesiring libidinal
investments, which alone are primar y; finally, that mental alienation
refers directly to thes e investments and is no less social than social
alienation, which refers for its part to the preconscious investments of
interest.
Not only does one thereby fail to correctly evaluate social produc-
tion in its pathogenic nature, but secondly, one also fails to understand
the schizophrenic process in its rela tionship with the schizophrenic as a
sick person. For one attempts to neuroticize everything. And doubtless
one thus conforms to the family's mission, which is to produce neurotics
by means of its oedipalization, its system of impasses, its delegated
psychic repression, without which so cial repression would never find
docile and resigned subjects, and would not succeed in choking off the
flows' lines of escape. We don't feel any need to attach the slightest
importance to psychoanalysis's claim to cure neurosis, since, for it,
curing consists of an infinite mainte nance, an infinite resignation, an
accession to desire by way of cast ration—and of the establishment of
conditions where the subject is able to spread, to pass the sickness to his
offspring, rather than dying celibate, impotent, and masturbatory. Again,
perhaps it will be discovered that the only incu rable is the neu rotic —
whence interminable psychoanalysis. It is a cause for self-congratulation
when one succeeds in transforming a schizo into a paranoiac or a
neurotic. Such a transformation perhaps entails many
Schizoanalysis vs. Psychoanalysis
- Traditional psychoanalysis is criticized for merely transforming schizophrenia into neurosis through 'infinite maintenance' and familial constraints.
- The schizophrenic process is redefined not as a mental illness or breakdown, but as a 'breakthrough' that bypasses the ego and Oedipal references.
- Schizoanalysis aims to disintegrate the normal ego to liberate prepersonal singularities and mobilize flows of desire.
- The text argues that individuals are not defined personalities but rather vibrations, flows, and 'knots' within a larger social and libidinal field.
- Capitalism is identified as the force that transforms the schizophrenic breakthrough into a breakdown by imposing internal limits and repressive axioms.
For the schizo is the one who escapes all Oedipal, familial, and personological references—I'll no longer say me, I'll no longer say daddy-mommy—and he keeps his word.
curing consists of an infinite mainte nance, an infinite resignation, an
accession to desire by way of cast ration—and of the establishment of
conditions where the subject is able to spread, to pass the sickness to his
offspring, rather than dying celibate, impotent, and masturbatory. Again,
perhaps it will be discovered that the only incu rable is the neu rotic —
whence interminable psychoanalysis. It is a cause for self-congratulation
when one succeeds in transforming a schizo into a paranoiac or a
neurotic. Such a transformation perhaps entails many
misunderstandings. For the schizo is the one who escap es all Oedipal,
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 361
familial, and personological references —I'll no longer say me, I'll no longer say
daddy-mommy—and he keeps his word. Now the question is, first, if that is what
makes him ill, or if on the contrary that is the schizophrenic process, which is not
an illness, not a "breakdown" but a "breakthrough," however distressing and
adventurous: breaking through the wall or the limit separating us from
desiring-production, causing the flows of de sire to circulate. Laing's importance
lies in the fact that, starting from certai n intuitions that remained ambiguous in
Jaspers, he was able to indicate the incr edible scope of this voyage. With the
result that schizoanalysis would come to nothing if it did not add to its positive
tasks the constant destructive task of disintegrating the normal ego. Lawrence,
Miller, and then Laing were able to de monstrate this in a profound way: it is
certain that neither men nor women are clearly defined personalities, but rather
vibrations, flows, schizzes, and "knots." The ego refers to personological
co-ordinates from which it results, pers ons in their turn refer to familial
co-ordinates, and we shall see what the fa milial constellation refers to in order to
produce individuals in its turn. The task of schizoanalysis is that of tirelessly
taking apart egos and their presuppo sitions; liberating the prepersonal
singularities they enclose and repress; mobilizing the flows they would be
capable of transmitting, receiving, or in tercepting; establishing always further
and more sharply the schizzes and the breaks well below conditions of identity;
and assembling the desiring-machines that coun-tersect everyone and group
everyone with others. For everyone is a little group (un groupuscule) and must
live as such—or rather, like the Zen tea box broken in a hundred places, whose
every crack is repaired with cement made of gold, or like the church tile whose
every fissure is accentuated by the layers of paint or lime covering it (the
contrary of castration, which is unified, molarized, hidden, scarred,
unproductive). Schizoanalysis is so name d because throughout its entire process
of treatment it schizophrenizes, instead of neuroticizing like psychoanalysis.
What makes the schizophrenic ill, since the cause of the illness is not
schizophrenia as a process? What transforms the breakthrough into a breakdown?
It is the constrained arrest of the proce ss, or its continuation in the void, or the
way in which it is forced to take itself as a goal. We have seen in this sense how
social production produced the sick schi zo: constructed on decoded flows that
constitute its profound tendency or its abso lute limit, capitalism is constantly
counteracting this tendency, exorcizing this limit by substituting internal relative
limits for it that it can reproduce on an ever expanding scale, or an axiomatic of
flows that subjects this tendency to the harshest forms of despotism and
3S2 ANTI-OEDIPUS
repression. It is in this sense that contra diction installs itself not only at the level
of the flows that traverse the social field, but at the level of their libidinal
investments, which form the flows' constituent parts—between the paranoiac
Capitalism and Schizophrenic Processes
- Capitalism functions by constantly displacing its internal limits through an axiomatic of flows that subjects desire to harsh repression.
- The schizophrenic process faces three potential outcomes when confronted by social repression: neuroticization into the Oedipal aggregate, psychotic withdrawal into catatonia, or perverse deterritorialization in a void.
- Neurosis is presented not as a primary state but as the result of a failed schizophrenic process that has been arrested and travestied by the family structure.
- Paranoia is defined as a molar investment of the social field that subordinates individual desiring-production to heavy apparatuses of regimentation.
- The text argues that schizophrenia serves as the ultimate measure against which all other psychic states—neurosis, psychosis, and perversion—are defined.
Catatonia rather than neurosis, catatonia rather than Oedipus and castration—but it is still an effect of neuroticization, a countereffect of one and the same illness.
constitute its profound tendency or its abso lute limit, capitalism is constantly
counteracting this tendency, exorcizing this limit by substituting internal relative
limits for it that it can reproduce on an ever expanding scale, or an axiomatic of
flows that subjects this tendency to the harshest forms of despotism and
3S2 ANTI-OEDIPUS
repression. It is in this sense that contra diction installs itself not only at the level
of the flows that traverse the social field, but at the level of their libidinal
investments, which form the flows' constituent parts—between the paranoiac
reconstruction of the Urstaat and the positive schizophrenic lines of escape.
Thereafter three possibilities emerge. First, the process is ar rested, the limit of
desiring-production is displaced, travestied, and now passes over into the Oedipal
subaggregate. So the schizo is effectively neuroticized, and it is this
neuroticization that constitutes his illness, for in any case neuroticization precedes
neurosis, the latter being the result of the former. Or, second, the schizo resists
neuroticization and oedipalization. Even the use of modern resources, the pure
analytic scene, the symbolic phallus, stru ctural foreclosure, and the name of the
father do not succeed in "taking" on him. (Here again, in these modern resources,
what a strange use is made of Lacan's discoveries—Lacan, who was the first on
the contrary to schizophrenize the analytic field!) In this second case the process,
confronted with a neuroticization that it re sists, but that suffices to block it on all
sides, is led to take itself as an end: a psychotic is produced who escapes the
delegated repression properly speaking only to take refuge in primal repression,
closing the body without organs around its elf and silencing his desiring-machines.
Catatonia rather than neurosis, catatonia rather than Oedipus and castration—but
it is still an effect of neuroticization, a countereffect of one and the same illness.
Or—the third case—the process sets to turning round in the void. Since it is now a
process of deterritorialization,itcan no l onger search for and create its new land.
Confronted with Oedipal reterritorialization—an archaic, residual, ludicrously
restricted sphere—it will form still more artificial lands that, barring an accident,
accommodate themselves in one way or another to the established order: the
pervert. After all, Oedipus was already an artificial sphere, O family! And the
resistance to Oedipus, the re turn to the body without organs was still an artificial
sphere, O asylum! So that everything is perversion. But everything is psychosis
and paranoia as well, since everything is set in motion by the counterinvestment
of the social field that produces the psyc hotic. Again, everything is neurosis, since
it is an outcome of the neuroticization that runs counter to the process. Finally,
everything is process, schizophrenia as pr ocess, since it is against schizophrenia
that everything is measured; its peculiar trajectory, its neurotic arrests, its perverse
continuations in the void, its psychotic finalizations.
Inasmuch as Oedipus arises out of an application of the entire social field to
the finite familial figure, it does not imply just any investment of this field by the
libido, but a very particular investment that renders this
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 363
application possible and necessary. That is why Oedipus seemed to us a
paranoiac's idea before being a neurotic 's feeling. In fact, the paranoiac
investment consists in subordina ting molecular desiring-production to
the molar aggregate it forms on one surface of the full body without
organs, enslaving it by that very fact to a form of socius that exercises
the function of a full body under determinate conditions. The paranoiac
engineers masses, and is continually forming large aggregates, inventing
heavy apparatuses for the regiment ation and the repression of the
The Paranoiac Molar Machine
- Paranoia functions by subordinating molecular desiring-production to large-scale molar aggregates and heavy apparatuses of repression.
- The paranoiac investment often masks itself as reasonable discourse, appealing to collective interests or reforms while harboring a demented underlying language.
- Libidinal investment in the social machine is often independent of rational goals, manifesting as a disinterested love for the molar machine and hatred for those who do not submit.
- Delirium exists at the deepest level of society because it represents the unconscious investment of the socius as a form of power and gregariousness.
- Oedipus is not a private invention of psychoanalysis but a neurotic feeling that presupposes a broader paranoiac social investment.
Listen to the great paranoiac din beneath the discourse of reason that speaks for others, in the name of the silent majority.
application possible and necessary. That is why Oedipus seemed to us a
paranoiac's idea before being a neurotic 's feeling. In fact, the paranoiac
investment consists in subordina ting molecular desiring-production to
the molar aggregate it forms on one surface of the full body without
organs, enslaving it by that very fact to a form of socius that exercises
the function of a full body under determinate conditions. The paranoiac
engineers masses, and is continually forming large aggregates, inventing
heavy apparatuses for the regiment ation and the repression of the
desiring-machines. Doubtless it is not hard for him to appear reasonable,
by appealing to collective interest s and goals, reforms to be brought
about, sometimes even revolutions to be made. But madness breaks
through, beneath the reformist inve stments, or the reactionary and
fascist investments, which assume a reasonable appearance only in the
light of the preconscious, and which an imate the strange discourse of an
organization of society. Even its language is demented. Listen to a
Secretary of State, a general, the boss of a firm, a technician. Listen to
the great paranoiac din beneath the di scourse of reason that speaks for
others, in the name of the silent majority. The explanation is that,
beneath preconscious goals and in terests, a uniquely unconscious
investment rises up that embraces a full body for itself, independently of
all aims, and a degree of developmen t for itself, independently of all
reason: that very degree and no other, don't take another step; that very
socius and no other, hands off. A disinterested love of the molar
machine, a veritable enjoyment, with all the hatred it contains for those
who do not submit to the molar machine: the entire libido is at stake.
From the point of view of libidinal i nvestment, it is clear that there are
few differences between a reformist, a fascist, and sometimes even
certain revolutionaries, who are distinguished from one another only in a
preconscious fashion, but whose un conscious investments are of the
same type, even when they do not adopt the same body. We can't go
along with Maud Mannoni when she sees the first historical act of
antipsychiatry in the 1902 decision granting Judge Schreber his liberty
and responsibility, despite the rec ognized continuation of his delirious
ideas.48 There is room for doubting that the decision would have been
the same if Schreber had been schiz ophrenic rather than paranoiac, if he
had taken himself for a black or a Jew rather than a pure Aryan, if he had
not proved himself so competent in the management of his wealth, and if
in his delirium he had not displayed a taste for the socius of an already
fascisizing libidinal inve stment. As machines of subjugation, the social
machines give rise to incomparable loves, which are not explained by
their interests, since interests derive from them instead. At the deepest
level of society there is delirium, because delirium is the investment of a
364 ANTI-OEDIPUS
socius as such, beyond goals. And it is not merely the despot's body to which the
paranoiac lovingly aspires, but the body of capital-money as well, or a new
revolutionary body, the moment it become s a form of power and gregariousness.
To be possessed by this body as well as possessing it; to engineer subjugated
groups for which one becomes so many cogs and parts; to insert oneself into the
machine to find there at last the enj oyment of the mechanisms that pulverize
desire—such is the paranoiac experience.
Now Oedipus appears to be a relatively innocent thing, a private kind of
thing to be treated in the analyst's offi ce. But we ask precisely what type of
unconscious social investment Oedipus presupposes, since psychoanalysis does
not invent Oedipus; psychoanalysis is content to live off Oedipus, to develop and
promote it, and to give it a marketable medical form. Inasmuch as the paranoiac
Schizoanalysis and the Social Field
- The paranoiac experience involves a desire to be possessed by and to engineer the mechanisms of power that pulverize desire.
- Psychoanalysis does not invent Oedipus but rather markets it as a medical form that traps desire within a familial psychic repression.
- Oedipus represents a reactionary investment of the social field, displacing the limits of production into a private, familial subaggregate.
- Schizoanalysis aims to trace familial feelings back to their origins in social and political units of libidinal investment.
- Love and desire are not defined by their objects but by the sociohistorical fields and social axiomatics that the libido unconsciously invests.
Only one way to spend time on the couch: schizoanalyze the psychoanalyst.
socius as such, beyond goals. And it is not merely the despot's body to which the
paranoiac lovingly aspires, but the body of capital-money as well, or a new
revolutionary body, the moment it become s a form of power and gregariousness.
To be possessed by this body as well as possessing it; to engineer subjugated
groups for which one becomes so many cogs and parts; to insert oneself into the
machine to find there at last the enj oyment of the mechanisms that pulverize
desire—such is the paranoiac experience.
Now Oedipus appears to be a relatively innocent thing, a private kind of
thing to be treated in the analyst's offi ce. But we ask precisely what type of
unconscious social investment Oedipus presupposes, since psychoanalysis does
not invent Oedipus; psychoanalysis is content to live off Oedipus, to develop and
promote it, and to give it a marketable medical form. Inasmuch as the paranoiac
investment enslaves desiring-production, it is very important for it that the limit
of this production be displaced, and that it pass to the interior of the socius, as a
limit between two molar aggregates, the social aggregate of departure and the
familial subaggregate of arrival that s upposedly corresponds to it, in such a way
that desire is caught in the trap of a familial psychic repression that comes to
double the weight of social repression. The paranoiac applies his delirium to the
family—and to his own family—but it is first of all a delirium of races, ranks,
classes, and universal history. In short, Oedipus implies within the unconscious
itself an entire reactionary and paranoiac investment of the social field that acts
as an oedipalizing factor, and that can fu el as well as counteract the preconscious
investments. From the standpoint of sc hizoanalysis, the analysis of Oedipus
therefore consists in tracing back from the son's confused feelings to the delirious
ideas or the lines of investment of the pa rents, of their internalized representa-
tives and their substitutes: not in order to attain the whole of a family, which is
never more than a locus of application a nd reproduction, but in order to attain the
social and political units of libidinal investment. With the result that all
familialist psychoanalysis—with the ps ychoanalyst at the fore—warrants a
schizoanalysis. Only one way to spend time on the couch: schizoanalyze the
psychoanalyst.
We have maintained throughout that, by dint of their difference in nature
with regard to the preconscious inve stments of interest, the unconscious
investments of desire had sexuality as an index in their social scope itself. Which
does not mean, of course, that one need only invest the poor woman, the maid, or
the whore to have revoluti onary loves. There are no re volutionary or reactionary
loves, which is to say that loves are not defined by their objects, any more than
by the sources and aims of the de sires and the drives. But there are forms of love
that
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 365
are the indices of the reactionary or the revolutionary character of the investment
made by the libido of a sociohistorical or geographic field, from which the loved
and desired beings receive their definition. Oedipus is one of these forms, the
index of a reactionary investment. And the well-defined figures, the
well-identified roles, the cl early distinct persons, in short the image-models of
which Lawrence spoke—mother, fiancee, mist ress, wife, saint or whore, princess
and maid, rich woman and poor woman—ar e dependents of Oedipus, even in
their reversals and their substitutions. Th e very form of these images, their
configurations, and the whole of their po ssible relations are the product of a code,
or of a social axiomatic to which the libido addresses itself through them.
Persons are simulacra derived from a social aggregate whose code is
unconsciously invested for itself. That is why love and desire exhibit reactionary,
Schizoanalysis and Social Investment
- The text argues that traditional social roles and identities are simulacra derived from a social code that the libido unconsciously invests in.
- Desire is categorized into two distinct poles: a paranoiac, reactionary pole and a schizoid, revolutionary pole.
- The paranoiac pole is characterized by the enslavement of desiring-machines to large-scale aggregates and the crushing of individual singularities.
- The revolutionary pole involves 'anoedipal' lines of escape that follow decoded flows, breaking through the territorialized limits of the social system.
- A distinction is made between subjugated groups, which integrate into existing power structures, and subject-groups, which create new flows of production.
Nonfigurative loves, indices of a revolutionary investment of the social field, and which are neither Oedipal nor pre-oedipa! since it all amounts to the same thing, but innocently anoedipal, and which give the revolutionary the right to say, 'Oedipus? Never heard of it.'
which Lawrence spoke—mother, fiancee, mist ress, wife, saint or whore, princess
and maid, rich woman and poor woman—ar e dependents of Oedipus, even in
their reversals and their substitutions. Th e very form of these images, their
configurations, and the whole of their po ssible relations are the product of a code,
or of a social axiomatic to which the libido addresses itself through them.
Persons are simulacra derived from a social aggregate whose code is
unconsciously invested for itself. That is why love and desire exhibit reactionary,
or else revolutionary, indices; the latter emerge on the contrary as nonfigurative
indices, where persons give way to decoded flows of desire, to lines of vibration,
and where the cross-sections of images give way to schizzes that constitute
singular points, points-signs with severa l dimensions causing flows to circulate
rather than canceling them. Nonfigura tive loves, indices of a revolutionary
investment of the social field, and which are neither Oedipal nor pre-oedipa!
since it all amounts to the same thing, but innocently anoedipal, and which give
the revolutionary the right to say, "O edipus? Never heard of it." Undoing the
form of persons and the ego, not in beha lf of a pre-oedipal undifferentiated, but
in behalf of anoedipal lines of singularities, the desi ring-machines. For there is
indeed a sexual revolution, which does not concern objects, aims, or sources, but
only machinic forms or indices.
The fourth and final thesis of schizo analysis is theref ore the distinction
between two poles of social libidinal i nvestment: the paranoiac, reactionary, and
fascisizing pole, and the schizoid revol utionary pole. Once again, we see no
objection to the use of terms inherited fr om psychiatry for characterizing social
investments of the unconscious, insofar as these terms cease to have a familial
connotation that would make them into simple projections, and from the moment
delirium is recognized as having a primar y social content that is immediately
adequate. The two poles are defined, the one by the enslavement of production
and the desiring-machines to the gregari ous aggregates that they constitute on a
large scale under a given form of power or selective sovereignty; the other by the
inverse subordination and the overthrow of power. Tlie one by these molar
structured aggregates that crush singularities, select them, and regularize those
that they retain in codes or axiomatics; the other by the molecular multiplicities
of singularities
3 6 6 A N T I - O E D I P U S
that on the contrary treat the large aggregat es as so many useful materials for their
own elaborations. The one by the lines of integration and territorialization that
arrest the flows, constrict them, turn them back, break them again according to
the limits interior to the sy stem, in such a way as to pr oduce the images that come
to fill the field of immanence peculiar to this system or this aggregate, the other
by lines of escape that follow the decode d and deterritorialized flows, inventing
their own nonfigurative breaks or schizzes that produce new flows, always
breaching the coded wall or the territoria lized limit that separates them from
desiring-production. And to summarize all the preceding determinations: the one
is defined by subjugated groups, the other by subject-groups. It is true that we
still run up against all kinds of problems concerning these distinctions. In what
sense does the schizoid investment constitute , to the same extent as the other one,
a real investment of the sociohistorical field, and not a simple Utopia? In what
sense are the lines of es cape collective, positive, a nd creative? What is the
relationship between the two unconscious poles, and what is their relationship
with the preconscious investments of interest?
We have seen that the unconscious paranoiac investment was grounded in
Poles of Libidinal Investment
- The text distinguishes between paranoiac investments that support subjugated groups and schizoid investments that define subject-groups.
- Reactionary social formations must hide their inherent violence and absurdity behind a facade of law, order, and economic rationality.
- Desire is unique in that it lives without a specific aim, whereas social sovereignty always obeys laws of conservation and continued existence.
- The realization of the unconscious reactionary investment would theoretically overthrow power by returning production to the realm of desire.
- Science and art represent potential ruptures in social fixity, yet they are often recaptured by the gregarious impulse of the social grouping.
Even the most overt fascism speaks the language of goals, of law, order, and reason.
is defined by subjugated groups, the other by subject-groups. It is true that we
still run up against all kinds of problems concerning these distinctions. In what
sense does the schizoid investment constitute , to the same extent as the other one,
a real investment of the sociohistorical field, and not a simple Utopia? In what
sense are the lines of es cape collective, positive, a nd creative? What is the
relationship between the two unconscious poles, and what is their relationship
with the preconscious investments of interest?
We have seen that the unconscious paranoiac investment was grounded in
the socius itself as a full body without organs, beyond the preconscious aims and
interests that it assigns and distributes. Th e fact remains that such an investment
does not endure the light of day: it must always hide under assignable aims or
interests presented as the general aims a nd interests, even though in reality the
latter represent only the members of the domi nant class or a fraction of this class.
How could a formation of sovereignty, a fixed and determinate gregarious
aggregate, endure being invested for thei r brute force, their violence, and their
absurdity? They would not survive such an investment. Even the most overt
fascism speaks the language of goals, of la w, order, and reason. Even the most
insane capitalism speaks in the name of economic rationality. And this is
necessarily the case, since it is in the irrationality of the full body that the order of
reasons is inextricably fixed, under a code , under an axiomatic that determines it.
What is more, the bringing to light of the unconscious reactionary investment as if
devoid of an aim, would be enough to tran sform it completely, to make it pass to
the other pole of the libido, i.e., to the schizorevolutionary pole, since this action
could not be accomplished without ove rthrowing power, without reversing
subordination, without returning production itself to desire: for it is only desire
that lives from having no aim. Molecu lar desiring-production would regain its
liberty to master in its turn the mola r aggregate under an overturned form of
power or Sovereignty. That is why Klo ssowski, who has taken the theory of the
two poles of investment the furthest, but still
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 367
within the category of an active Utopia, is able to write: "Every sovereign
formation would thus have to foresee the destined moment of its disintegration. .
. . No formation of sovereignty, in orde r to crystal-ize, will ever endure this prise
de conscience: for as soon as this formation b ecomes conscious of its immanent
disintegration in the individuals who compose it, these same individuals
decompose it. . . . By way of the circuitous route of science and art, human
beings have many times revolted ag ainst this fixity; this capacity
notwithstanding, the gregarious impulse in and by science caused this rupture to
fail. The day humans are able to behave as intentionless phenomena —for every
intention at the level of the human being always obeys the laws of its
conservation, its continued existence—on that day a new creature will declare
the integrity of existence. . . . Science demonstrates by its very method that the
means that it constantly elaborates do no more than reproduce, on the outside, an
interplay of forces by themselves without aim or end whose combinations obtain
such and such a result. . . . Howeve r, no science can develop outside a
constituted social grouping. In order to prevent science from calling social
Sovereign Art and Science
- The text argues that industrial society integrates science into its own schemes to prevent it from questioning established social structures.
- A conspiracy between art and science would require a total upheaval of the means of production and the ruin of existing institutions.
- Art achieves grandeur by creating chains of decoding and deterritorialization that allow desiring-machines to function independently of social codes.
- The Venetian School of painting serves as an example where lines and colors broke free from Byzantine hierarchies to form a horizontal organization.
- In this liberated art, religious figures like Christ are reimagined as a 'body without organs,' becoming a locus for the connection of all desiring machines.
Christ's body is engineered on all sides and in all fashions, pulled in all directions, playing the role of a full body without organs, a locus of connection for all the machines of desire.
fail. The day humans are able to behave as intentionless phenomena —for every
intention at the level of the human being always obeys the laws of its
conservation, its continued existence—on that day a new creature will declare
the integrity of existence. . . . Science demonstrates by its very method that the
means that it constantly elaborates do no more than reproduce, on the outside, an
interplay of forces by themselves without aim or end whose combinations obtain
such and such a result. . . . Howeve r, no science can develop outside a
constituted social grouping. In order to prevent science from calling social
groups back in question, these groups take science back in hand . . . [integrate it]
into the diverse industrial schemes; its au tonomy appears strictly inconceivable.
A conspiracy joining together art and science presupposes a rupture of all our
institutions and a total upheaval of the means of production. ... If some
conspiracy, according to Nietzsche's wish, were to use science and art in a plot
v/hose ends were no less suspect, industrial society would seem to foil this
conspiracy in advance by the kind of mise en scene it offers for it, under pain of
effectively suffering what this conspiracy reserves for this society: i.e., the
breakup of the institutional structures that mask the society into a plurality of
experimental spheres finally revealing the true face of modernity—an ultimate
phase that Nietzsche saw as the end result of the evolution of societies. In this
perspective, art and science would then emerge as sovereign formations that
Nietzsche said constituted the object of his countersociology—art and science
establishing themselves as dominant powers, on the ruins of institutions."47
Why this appeal to art and science, in a world where scientists and
technicians and even artists, and scien ce and art themselves, work so closely
with the established sovereignties—if only because of the structures of
financing? Because art, as soon as it attains its own grandeur, its own genius,
creates chains of decoding and deterritorializa-tion that serve as the foundation
for desiring-machines, and make them function. Take the example of the
Venetian School in painting: at the same time that Venice develops the most
powerful commodity capital-
368 ANTI-OEDIPUS
ism, bordering an Urstaat, that grants it a large degree of autonomy, its painting
apparently molds itself to a Byzantine code where even the co lors and the lines
are subordinated to a signifier that determines their hierarchy as a vertical order.
But toward the middle of the fifteen th century, when Venetian capitalism
confronts the first signs of its decline, so mething breaks out in this painting: what
would appear to be another world opens up, an other art, where the lines are
deterritorialized, the colors are decoded, and now only refer to the relations they
entertain among themselves, and with one another. A horizontal or transverse
organization of the canvas is born, with lines of escape or breakthrough. Christ's
body is engineered on all sides and in all fashions, pulled in all directions,
playing the role of a full body without organs, a locus of connection for all the
machines of desire, a locus of sadomaso chistic exercises where the artist's joy
breaks free. Even homosexual Christs. Organs become direct powers of the body
without organs, and emit flows on it that the myriad wounds, such as Saint
Sebastian's arrows, come to cut and cut again in such a way as to produce other
flows. Persons and organs cease to be coded according to hierarchized collective
investments; each person, each organ has a merit all its own, and tends to its own
affairs: the infant Jesus looks from one side while the Virgin Mary listens from
the other, Jesus stands for all the desiri ng children, the Virgin stands for all the
desiring women, a joyous activity of prof anation extends beneath this generalized
Art as a Breakthrough
- True artistic genius is defined as a breakthrough that fractures social codes and undoes established signifiers to set flows of desire in motion.
- The decoding of painting creates 'schizoid lines of escape' where figures and organs are freed from hierarchical investments and traditional perspective.
- Aesthetic formations are often recaptured by a 'molar' organization that enslaves art to social aggregates and a 'castrating machine of sovereignty.'
- Modern painting is criticized when it becomes a 'poisonous flower' that merely pours out 'flows of corrugated iron' instead of achieving a productive process.
But at least something arose whose force fractured the codes, undid the signifiers, passed under the structures, set the flows in motion, and effected breaks at the limits of desire: a breakthrough.
without organs, and emit flows on it that the myriad wounds, such as Saint
Sebastian's arrows, come to cut and cut again in such a way as to produce other
flows. Persons and organs cease to be coded according to hierarchized collective
investments; each person, each organ has a merit all its own, and tends to its own
affairs: the infant Jesus looks from one side while the Virgin Mary listens from
the other, Jesus stands for all the desiri ng children, the Virgin stands for all the
desiring women, a joyous activity of prof anation extends beneath this generalized
privatization. A painter such as Tintoretto paints the creation of the world like a
race represented in its whole length with God Himself on the sidelines, giving the
starting signal across the track as the figures speed away in a transversal
direction. Suddenly a painting by Lotto surg es forth that could just as easily be
from the nineteenth century. And of course this decoding of the flows of painting,
these schizoid lines of escape that form desiring-machines on the horizon, are
taken up again in scraps from the old c ode, or else introduced into new codes,
and first of all into a properly pictoria l axiomatic that chokes off the escapes,
closes the whole constellation to the transversal relations between lines and
colors, and reduces it to archaic or new territorialities (perspective, for example).
So true is it that the movement of deterritorialization can only be grasped as the
reverse side of territorialities, even the re sidual, artificial, or factitious ones. But
at least something arose whose force fractured the codes, undid the signifiers,
passed under the structures, set the flows in motion, and effected breaks at the
limits of desire: a breakthrough. It does not suffice to say that the nineteenth
century is already there in the middle of the fifteenth, since the same would have
to be said of the Byzantine code underneath which strange liberated flows were
already circulating. We
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 369
have seen this in the case of the painter Turner, and his most accom-
plished paintings that are sometimes termed "incomplete": from the
moment there is genius, there is something that belongs to no school, no
period, something that achieves a breakthrough—art as a process
without goal, but that attains completion as such.
The codes and their signifiers, the axiomatics and their structures,
the imaginary figures that come to occupy them as well as the purely
symbolic relationships that gauge them, constitute properly aesthetic
molar formations that are characte rized by goals, schools, and periods.
They relate these aesthetic formations to greater social aggregates,
finding in them a field of application, and everywhere enslave art to a
great castrating machine of sovereignt y. There is a pole of reactionary
investment for art as well, a somb er paranoiac-Oedipal-narcissistic
organization. A foul use of painting, centering around the dirty little
secret, even in abstract painti ng where the axiomatic does without
figures: a style of painting whose se cret essence is scatological, an
oedipalizing painting, even when it ha s broken with the Holy Trinity as
the Oedipal image, a neurotic or neuroticizing painting that makes the
process into a goal or an arrest, an interruption, or a continuation in the
void. This style of painting flourishes today, under the usurped name of
modern painting—a poisonous flower —and brought one of Lawrence's
heroes to speak much like Henry Miller of the need to have done with
pouring out one's merciful and pitiful guts, these "flows of corrugated
iron."48 The productive breaks projected onto the enormous unproductive
cleavage of castration, the flows that have become flows of "corrugated
iron," the openings blocked on all side s. And perhaps this, as we have
seen, is where we find the commodity value of art and literature: a
Art and Science as Experimentation
- Modern painting and literature often fall into a paranoiac-Oedipal trap where reactionary libidinal investments function as the signifier.
- Authentic modernity in art is defined as a schizorevolutionary process that liberates decoded and deterritorialized flows from hidden aims and objects.
- Science exists in a state of bipolar hesitation between a social axiomatic that subjugates knowledge to market needs and a schizoid pole of pure experimentation.
- The conflict within science creates a libidinal drama for the scientist that can lead to madness, as the pursuit of deterritorialized signs calls the Oedipal structure into question.
- True experimentation in both art and science is characterized as a pure process that fulfills itself without the need for external meanings or aims.
This style of painting flourishes today, under the usurped name of modern painting—a poisonous flower.
void. This style of painting flourishes today, under the usurped name of
modern painting—a poisonous flower —and brought one of Lawrence's
heroes to speak much like Henry Miller of the need to have done with
pouring out one's merciful and pitiful guts, these "flows of corrugated
iron."48 The productive breaks projected onto the enormous unproductive
cleavage of castration, the flows that have become flows of "corrugated
iron," the openings blocked on all side s. And perhaps this, as we have
seen, is where we find the commodity value of art and literature: a
paranoiac form of expression that no longer even needs to "signify" its
reactionary libidinal investments, since these investments function on
the contrary as its signifier; an Oedipal form of content that no longer
even needs to represent Oedipus, since the "structure" suffices. But on
the other, the schizorevolutionary, pole, the value of art is no longer
measured except in terms of the decoded and deterritorial-ized flows
that it causes to circulate beneath a signifier reduced to silence, beneath
the conditions of identity of the para meters, across a structure reduced to
impotence; a writing with pneumatic, el ectronic, or gaseous indifferent
supports, and that appears all the mo re difficult and intellectual to
intellectuals as it is accessible to the infirm, the illiterate, and the
schizos, embracing all that flows and counterfiows, the gushings of
mercy and pity knowing nothing of meanings and aims (the Artaud
experiment, the Burroughs e xperiment). It is here that art accedes to its
370 ANTI-OEDIPUS
authentic modernity, which simply consists in liberating what was present in art
from its beginnings, but was hidden unde rneath aims and objects, even if
aesthetic, and underneath recodings or axiomatics: the pure process that fulfills
itself, and that never ceases to reach fulfillment as it proceeds—art as
"experimentation."*
And the same will be said of scien ce: the decoded flows of knowledge are
first bound in the properly scientific axiomatics, but these axiomatics express a
bipolar hesitation. One of the poles is the great social axiomatic that retains from
science what must be retained in terms of market needs and zones of technical
innovation: the great social aggregate that makes the scientific subaggregates into
so many applications that are characteris tic of and that correspond to it—in short,
the set of methods that is not content to bring scientists back to "reason" but
anticipates any deviance on their part, imposes a goal on them, and makes
scientists and science into an agency pe rfectly subjugated to the formation of
sovereignty (for example, the way in which nondeterminism was only tolerated to
a point, then ordered to make its peace with determinism). But the other pole is
the schizoid pole, in whose proximity fl ows of knowledge schi zophrenize, and not
only flee across the social axiomatic, but pass beyond their own axiomatics,
generating increasingly deterritorialized si gns, figures-schizzes that are no longer
either figurative or structured, and reproduce or produce an interplay of
phenomena without aim or end: science as experimentation, as previously
defined. In this domain as in the othe rs, isn't there a properly libidinal conflict
between a paranoiac-Oedipalizing element of science, and a schizorevolutionary
element? That very conflict that leads Lacan to say there exists a drama for the
scientist. ("J. R. Mayer, Cantor, I will not draw up an honor roll of these dramas
that sometimes lead to madness . . . , a list that could not include itself in Oedipus,
unless it were to call Oedipus in question."49 Since, in point of fact, Oedipus does
not intervene in these dramas as a familial figure or even as a mental structure; its
intervention is determined by an axio matic acting as an oedipalizing factor,
resulting in a specifically scientific Oedi pus.) And in contrast to Lautreamont's
The Capitalist Social Axiomatic
- The text contrasts 'paranoiac-Oedipal' mathematics with a 'schizophrenic' mathematics of mad desiring-machines.
- Capitalism replaces traditional territorial codes with a social axiomatic that reproduces itself on an ever-increasing scale.
- Social repression in this system no longer targets bodies directly but operates through the regulation of decoded and deterritorialized flows.
- Surplus value is generated through differential relations between heterogeneous magnitudes, such as the flow of capital versus the flow of labor.
- The ruling class acts as a servant to the capitalist machine, managing a non-appropriated flow that marks the system's interior limits.
O schizophrenic mathematics, uncontrollable and mad desiring-machines!
element? That very conflict that leads Lacan to say there exists a drama for the
scientist. ("J. R. Mayer, Cantor, I will not draw up an honor roll of these dramas
that sometimes lead to madness . . . , a list that could not include itself in Oedipus,
unless it were to call Oedipus in question."49 Since, in point of fact, Oedipus does
not intervene in these dramas as a familial figure or even as a mental structure; its
intervention is determined by an axio matic acting as an oedipalizing factor,
resulting in a specifically scientific Oedi pus.) And in contrast to Lautreamont's
song that rises up around the paranoi ac-Oedipal-narcissistic pole—"O rigorous
mathematics. . . . Arithmetic! algebra! geometry! imposing trinity'.luminous
*See ail of John Cage's work, and his book Silence (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1961):
"The word experimental is apt, providing it is understood not as descriptive of an act to be later judged in
terms of success and failure, but simply as of an act the outcome of which is unknown" (p. 13). And
regarding the active or practical notions of decoding, of deconstruction, and of the work as a process, the
reader is referred to the excellent commentaries of Daniel Charles on Cage, "Musique et anarchie," in
Bulletin de la Societefr ancaise de philosophie, Jul)' 1971, where there is violent anger on the part of some
participants in the discussion, reacting to the idea that there is no longer any code.
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 3T1
triangle!'''— there is another song: 0 schi zophrenic mathematics, uncon-
trollable and mad desiring-machines!
In the capitalist formation of sovereignty—the full body of
capital-money as the socius—the great social axiomatic has replaced the
territorial codes and the despotic overcodings that characterized the
preceding formations; and a molar, gregarious aggregate has formed,
whose mode of subjugation has no equal. We have seen on what
foundations this aggregate operated: a whole field of immanence that is
reproduced on an always larger scale, that is continually multiplying its
axioms to suit its needs, that is filled with images and with images of
images, through which desire is determ ined to desire its own repression
(imperialism); an unprecedented decoding a nd deterritorialization,
which institutes a combination as a system of differential relations
between the decoded and deterritorial ized flows, in such a way that
social inscription and repression no longer even need to bear directly
upon bodies and persons, but on the contrary precede them (axiomatic:
regulation and application); a surplus value determined as a surplus
value of flux, whose extortion is not brought about by a simple
arithmetical difference between tw o quantities that are homogeneous
and belong to the same code, but pr ecisely by differential relations
between heterogeneous magnitudes th at are not raised to the same
power: a flow of capital and a flow of labor as human surplus value in the
industrial essence of ca pitalism, a flow of financing and a flow of
payment or incomes in the monetary inscription of capitalism, a market
flow and a flow of innovation as mach inic surplus value in the operation
of capitalism (surplus value as the first aspect of its immanence), a ruling
class that is all the more ruthless as it does not place the machine in its
service,but is the servant of the capita list machine: in this sense, a single
class, content for its part with drawing incomes that, however enor-
mous, differ only arithmetically from the workers' wages-income,
whereas this class functions on a more profound level as creator,
regulator, and guardian of the great nonappropriated, nonpossessed
flow, incommensurable with wages an d profits, which marks at every
step along the way the interior limits of capitalism, their perpetual
displacement, and their reproduc tion on an always larger scale (the
The Madness of Capitalist Immanence
- Capitalism functions as a machinic system where the ruling class acts not as masters, but as servants and guardians of a nonappropriated flow of financing.
- The system integrates antiproduction—military, police, and bureaucratic apparatuses—directly into the economy to repress desire and absorb surplus value.
- The rationality of the capitalist machine is fundamentally pathological, operating through a relentless process of decoding and deterritorialization.
- Apparent improvements like wage increases or the New Deal are merely supplementary axioms used to enlarge the system's limits while exploitation grows harsher.
- The machine's expansion reproduces its internal limits on a global scale, organizing the Third World and scientific lack as integral components of its survival.
The capitalist machine does not run the risk of becoming mad, it is mad from one end to the other and from the beginning, and this is the source of its rationality.
flow and a flow of innovation as mach inic surplus value in the operation
of capitalism (surplus value as the first aspect of its immanence), a ruling
class that is all the more ruthless as it does not place the machine in its
service,but is the servant of the capita list machine: in this sense, a single
class, content for its part with drawing incomes that, however enor-
mous, differ only arithmetically from the workers' wages-income,
whereas this class functions on a more profound level as creator,
regulator, and guardian of the great nonappropriated, nonpossessed
flow, incommensurable with wages an d profits, which marks at every
step along the way the interior limits of capitalism, their perpetual
displacement, and their reproduc tion on an always larger scale (the
movement of interior limits as the second aspect of the capitalist field of
immanence, defined by the circular relationship "great flux of
financing-reflux of incomes in wages-afflux of raw profit"); the effusion
of antiproduction within production, as the realization or the absorption
of surplus value, in such a way that the military, bureaucratic, and police
apparatus finds itself grounded in the economy itself, which directly
37 2 A N T I - O E D I P U S
produces libidinal investments for the repression of desire
(antiproduc-tion as the third aspect of capitalist immanence, expressing
the twofold nature of capitalism: production for production's sake, but
under the conditions of capital).
There is not one of these aspects —not the least operation, the least
industrial or financial mechanism—that does not reveal the insanity of
the capitalist machine and the pathological character of its rationality:
not at all a false rationality, but a true rationality of this pathological
state, this insanity, "the machine works too, believe me". The capitalist
machine does not run the risk of becoming mad, it is mad from one end
to the other and from the beginning, and this is the source of its
rationality. Marx's black humor, the source of Capital, is his fascination
with such a machine: how it came to be assembled, on what foundation
of decoding and deterritorialization; how it works, always more decod-
ed, always more deterri torialized; how its operation grows more relent-
less with the development of the axiomatic, the combination of the
flows; how it produces the terrible si ngle class of gray gentlemen who
keep up the machine; how it does not run the risk of dying all alone, but
rather of making us die, by pro voking to the very end investments of
desire that do not even go by way of a deceptive and subjective
ideology, and that lead us to cry out to the very end, Long live capital in
all its reality, in alt its objective dissimulation! Except in ideology, there
has never been a humane, liberal, paternal, etc., capitalism. Capitalism is
defined by a cruelty having no parallel in the primitive system of cruelty,
and by a terror having no parallel in the despotic regime of terror. Wage
increases and improvements in the sta ndard of living are realities, but
realities that derive from a given supplementary axiom that capitalism is
always capable of adding to its axio matic in terms of an enlargement of
its limits: let's create the New Deal; let's cultivate and recognize strong
unions; let's promote participation, the single class; let's take a step
toward Russia, which is taking so many toward us; etc. But within the
enlarged reality that conditions th ese islands, exploitation grows con-
stantly harsher, lack is arranged in the most scientific of ways, final
solutions of the "Jewish problem" vari ety are prepared down to the last
detail, and the Third World is organized as an integral part of capitalism.
The reproduction of the interior limits of capitalism on an always wider
scale has several consequences: it permits increases and improvements
The Delirious Capitalist Machine
- Capitalism expands by displacing the harshest forms of exploitation from the center to the periphery while organizing the Third World as an integral part of its system.
- The system functions through a cycle of decoding and deterritorializing flows, only to re-capture them within an axiomatic apparatus of artificial reterritorializations.
- Capitalism is defined not merely by the extraction of profit, but by a deep-seated unconscious libidinal investment that transcends simple economic interest.
- Even those whose class interests should oppose capitalism often maintain a libidinal investment in the system, focusing on localized improvements like wage increases.
- The economic system is described as fundamentally insane or delirious, operating as a fantastic machine that captures human desire regardless of rational benefit.
There is no metaphor here: the factories are prisons, they do not resemble prisons, they are prisons.
toward Russia, which is taking so many toward us; etc. But within the
enlarged reality that conditions th ese islands, exploitation grows con-
stantly harsher, lack is arranged in the most scientific of ways, final
solutions of the "Jewish problem" vari ety are prepared down to the last
detail, and the Third World is organized as an integral part of capitalism.
The reproduction of the interior limits of capitalism on an always wider
scale has several consequences: it permits increases and improvements
of standards at the center, it displa ces the harshest fo rms of exploitation
from the center to the periphery, but also multiplies enclaves of
overpopulation in the center itself, and easily tolerates the so-called
socialist formations. (It is not kibbutz-style socialism that troubles the
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 373
Zionist state, just as it is not Ru ssian socialism that troubles world
capitalism.) There is no metaphor here: the factories are prisons, they do
not resemble prisons, they are prisons.
Everything in the system is insane: this is because the capitalist
machine thrives on decoded and deterr itorialized flows; it decodes and
deterritorializes them still more, but while causing them to pass into an
axiomatic apparatus that combines them, and at the points of combina-
tion produces pseudo codes and artificial re territorializations. It is in this
sense that the capitalist axiomatic cannot but give rise to new territorial-
ities and revive a new despotic Urstaat. The great mutant flow of capital
is pure deterritoriali zation, but it perfor ms an equivalent
reterritorializa-tion when converted into a reflux of means of payment.
The Third World is deterritorialized in relation to the center of
capitalism but belongs to capit alism, being a pure peripheral
territoriality of capitalism. The system teems with preconscious
investments of class and of interest. And capitalists first have an interest
in capitalism. A statement as commonplace as this is made for another
purpose: capitalists have an interest in capitalism only through the
tapping of profits that they extract from it. But no matter how large the
extraction of profits, it does not de fine capitalism. A nd for what does
define capitalism, for what conditions profit, theirs is an investment of
desire whose nature— unconscious-Ubi dinal—is altogether different,
and is not simply explained by the conditioned profits, but on the
contrary itself explains that a small-time capitalist, with no great profits
or hopes, fully maintains the entirety of his libidina! investments: the
libido investing the great flow that is not convertible as such, not
appropriated as such—"nonpossession and nonwealth," in the words of
Bernard Schmitt, who among modern economists has for us the
incomparable advantage of offering a delirious interpretation of an
unequivocally delirious economic system (at least he goes all the way).
In short, a truly unconscious libido, a disinterested love: this machine is
fantastic.
If one keeps in mind the tautologi cal statement made above, one
can then understand that people w hose preconscious investments of
interest do not, or should not, go in the direction of capitalism, can
maintain an unconscious Sibidinal investment consonant with capitalism,
or that scarcely threatens it. In the first case, they confine and localize
their preconscious interest in wage increases and the improvement of
the standard of living; powerful orga nizations represent them, which get
nasty as soon as the nature of their aims is questioned ("It's clear that
you're not workers, you have no idea whatsoever of real struggles, let's
attack profits for a better manageme nt of the system, vote for a clean
Paris—Welcome. Mister Brezhnev"). And how, indeed, could one fail to
374 ANTI-OEDIPUS
Libidinal Breaks and Capitalist Axioms
- The text distinguishes between preconscious interests, like wage increases, and deeper unconscious libidinal investments in the social body.
- Revolutionary breaks often fail because they remain wedged within the capitalist market, merely adding new axioms to the existing system.
- Subjugated groups frequently emerge from revolutionary subject-groups, regressing from radical change to a desire for new authority figures.
- Capitalism functions like a religion that thrives on a lack of belief, absorbing all previous ideologies into a motley, cynical framework.
- Despite its control, capitalism constantly produces decoded flows of art and science that escape its axiomatic mesh and create new ruptures.
Everything begins with Marx, continues on with Lenin, and ends with the refrain, 'Welcome, Mister Brezhnev.'
or that scarcely threatens it. In the first case, they confine and localize
their preconscious interest in wage increases and the improvement of
the standard of living; powerful orga nizations represent them, which get
nasty as soon as the nature of their aims is questioned ("It's clear that
you're not workers, you have no idea whatsoever of real struggles, let's
attack profits for a better manageme nt of the system, vote for a clean
Paris—Welcome. Mister Brezhnev"). And how, indeed, could one fail to
374 ANTI-OEDIPUS
find one's interest in the hole where one has sunk it, at the heart of the
capitalist system? Or else, in the second case, there is truly a new
investment of interest, new aims th at presuppose another body than that
of capital-money; those explo ited become conscious of their
precon-scious interest, and this interest is truly revolutionary—a major
break from the standpoint of the preconscious.
But it is not enough for the libido to invest a new social body
corresponding to these new aims, in order for it to perform a revolution-
ary break at the unconscious level w ith the same mode as the precon-
scious break. In fact, the two levels do not function in the same mode.
The new socius invested by the libido as a full body can very well
function as an autonomous territoria lity, but one that is caught and
wedged in the capitalist machine, and is localizable in the field of its
market. For the great flow of mutant capital repels its limits, adds new
axioms, and maintains desire within the mobile framework of its
expanded limits. There can be a preconscious revolutionary break, with
no real libidinal and unconscious revolutionary break. Or rather the order
of things is as follows: there is firs t a real libidinal revolutionary break,
which then shifts into the position of a simple revolutionary break with
regard to aims and interests, and fi nally re-forms a merely specific re
territoriality, a specific body on the full body of capital. Subjugated
groups are continually deriving from revolutionary subject-groups. One
more axiom. This is no more complicated than in the case of abstract
painting. Everything begins with Marx, continues on with Lenin, and
ends with the refrain, "Welcome, Mister Brezhnev." Is this still a case of
revolutionaries speaking to another revolutionary, or rather a village
clamoring for a new prefect? And if one were to ask when it all started to
go bad, how far back must we go for an answer, back to Lenin, back to
Marx? So true is it that the various investments, even when opposed, can
coexist with one another in complexes that are not the province of
Oedipus, but that do concern the soci ohistorical field, its preconscious
and unconscious conflicts and contradi ctions, about which it can only be
said that they fall back on Oedipus, Marx-the-father, Lenin-the-father,
Brezhnev-the-father. Fewer and fewer people believe in all this but it
makes no difference, since capitalism is like the Christian religion, it
lives precisely from a lack of belief, it does not need it—a motley
painting of all that has been believed.
But the reverse is also true: capita lism is constantly escaping on all
sides. Its productions, its art, and its science form decoded and
deterritorialized flows that do not merely submit to the corresponding
axiomatic, but cause some of their currents to pass through the mesh of
the axiomatic, underneath the recodings and the reterritorializations.
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 375
Subject-groups in their turn derive from subjugated groups by way of
ruptures in the latter. Capitalism is continually cutting off the circulation
of flows, breaking them and deferri ng the break, but these same flows
are continually overflowing, and inte rsecting one another according to
schizzes that turn against capitalism and slash into it. Capitalism, which
Poles of Libidinal Investment
- Capitalism functions by expanding its interior limits while simultaneously being threatened by exterior flows that cleave it from within.
- Unconscious libidinal investment oscillates between two poles: the paranoiac reactionary pole and the schizoid revolutionary pole.
- The paranoiac pole subordinates desiring-production to sovereignty and gregarious aggregates, while the schizoid pole subjects the aggregate to molecular multiplicities.
- Social delirium is coextensive with the social field, meaning fragments of revolutionary and reactionary investments coexist in every case.
- A truly revolutionary break requires passing beyond the social 'full body' to reach the molecular formations of desire that master the molar aggregate.
Capitalism, which is always ready to expand its interior limits, remains threatened by an exterior limit that stands a greater chance of coming to it and cleaving it from within, in proportion as the interior limits expand.
axiomatic, but cause some of their currents to pass through the mesh of
the axiomatic, underneath the recodings and the reterritorializations.
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 375
Subject-groups in their turn derive from subjugated groups by way of
ruptures in the latter. Capitalism is continually cutting off the circulation
of flows, breaking them and deferri ng the break, but these same flows
are continually overflowing, and inte rsecting one another according to
schizzes that turn against capitalism and slash into it. Capitalism, which
is always ready to expand its interi or limits, remains threatened by an
exterior limit that stands a greater ch ance of coming to it and cleaving it
from within, in proportion as the interi or limits expand. That is why the
lines of escape are singularly creative and positive: they constitute an
investment of the social field that is no less complete, no less total than
the contrary investment. The paranoi ac and the schizoid investments are
like two opposite poles of unconscious libidinal investment, one of
which subordinates desiring-production to the formation of sovereignty
and to the gregarious aggregate that results from it, while the other
brings about the inverse subordina tion, overthrows the established
power, and subjects the gregarious ag gregate to the molecular multiplici-
ties of the productions of desire. And if it is true that delirium is
coextensive with the soci al field, these two poles are found to coexist in
every case of delirium, and fragments of schizoid revolutionary invest-
ment are found to coincide with blocks of para noiac reactionary
investment. The oscillation between th e two poles is a constituent aspect
of the delirium.
It appears, however, that the oscillation is not equal, and that as a
rule the schizoid pole is potential in relation to the actual paranoiac pole
(how can we count on art and scien ce except as potentialities, since their
actuality is easily controlled by the formations of sovereignty?). This
results from the fact that the tw o poles of unconscious libidinal
investment do not maintain the same relationship, nor the same form of
relationship, with the preconscious investments of interest. On the one
hand, in fact, the investment of interest fundamentally conceals the
paranoiac investment of desire, and rein forces it as much as it conceals
it: it covers over the irrational character of the paranoiac investment
under an existing order of interests, of causes and means, of aims and
reasons; or else the investment of inte rest itself gives rise to and creates
those interests that rationalize the paranoiac investment; or yet again, an
effectively revolutionary preconsci ous investment fully maintains a
paranoiac investment at the level of the libido, to the extent that the new
socius continues to subordinate the entire production of desire in the
name of the higher interests of the revolution and the inevitable
sequences of causality. In the other case, the preconscious interest must
on the contrary discover the necessity for a different sort of investment,
376 ANTI-OEDIPUS
and must perform a kind of rupture w ith causality as well as a calling in
question of aims and interests.
In each case the problem is differen t: it is not enough to construct a
new socius as full body; one must also pass to the other side of this
social full body, where the molecular formations of desire that must
master the new molar aggregate operate and are inscribed. Only by
making this passage do we reach the revolutionary break and investment
Desire and Revolutionary Rupture
- True revolutionary change requires a rupture with causality and a questioning of established social aims and interests.
- Desire is conceptualized as a collective exile or desert that traverses the body without organs to reach a revolutionary break.
- The text distinguishes between subjugated groups defined by macroscopic relations and subject-groups that follow a revolutionary line of escape.
- Revolutionary potential is realized not through anticipated causal orders, but through an unexpected irruption of desire that overturns the socius.
- Different types of investments—preconscious, molar, and unconscious—can coexist and intermix within the same group or individual during a historical break.
Desire is an exile, desire is a desert that traverses the body without organs and makes us pass from one of its faces to the other.
on the contrary discover the necessity for a different sort of investment,
376 ANTI-OEDIPUS
and must perform a kind of rupture w ith causality as well as a calling in
question of aims and interests.
In each case the problem is differen t: it is not enough to construct a
new socius as full body; one must also pass to the other side of this
social full body, where the molecular formations of desire that must
master the new molar aggregate operate and are inscribed. Only by
making this passage do we reach the revolutionary break and investment
of the libido. This cannot be achieved except at the cost of, and by
means of a rupture with, causality. Desire is an exile, desire is a desert
that traverses the body without organs and makes us pass from one of its
faces to the other. Never an individual exile, never a personal desert, but
a collective exile and a collective desert. It is only too obvious that the
destiny of the revolution is linked solely to the interest of the dominated
and exploited masses. But it is the nature of this link that poses the real
problem, as either a determined ca usal link or a different sort of
connection. It is a question of know ing how a revolutionary potential is
realized, in its very relationship with the exploited masses or the
"weakest links" of a given system. Do these masses or these links act in
their own place, within the order of causes and aims that promote a new
socius, or are they on the contrary the place and the agent of a sudden
and unexpected irruption, an irruption of desire that breaks with causes
and aims and overturns the socius, revealing its other side? In the
subjugated groups, desire is still defi ned by an order of causes and aims,
and itself weaves a whole system of macroscopic relations that deter-
mine the large aggregates under a formation of sovereignty.
Subject-groups on the other hand have as their sole cause a rupture with
causality, a revolutionary line of escape; and even though one can and
must assign the objective factors, such as the weakest links, within
causal series that made such a ruptur e possible, only what is of the order
of desire and its irruption accounts for the reality this rupture assumes at
a given moment, in a given place.50
It is clear how everything can coexist and intermix: in the "Leninist
break," for example, when the Bolshevi k group, or at least a part of this
group, becomes aware of the immediate possibility of a proletarian
revolution that would not follow the anticipated causal order of the
relations of forces, but that woul d singularly precipitate things by
plunging into a breach (the escape, or "revolutionary defeatism"). In
reality, everything coexists: still he sitant preconscious investments in
the case of some people who do not believe in this possibility;
revolutionary preconscious investments in those who "see" the possibil-
ity of a new socius but maintain it in an order of molar causality that
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 377
already makes of the party a new form of sovereignty; and finally unconscious
revolutionary investments that perform a real rupture with causality in the order
of desire. And in the same people the most varied kinds of investments can
coexist at such and such a moment, the two kinds of groups can interpenetrate.
This is because the two groups are like determinism and freedom in Kant's
philosophy: they indeed have the same "object"—and social production is never
anything other than desiring-production, and vice versa—but they don't share the
same law or the same regime.
The actualization of a revolutionary potentiality is explained less by the
The Irruption of Desire
- Revolutionary investments represent a rupture with causality, where social production and desiring-production share the same object but follow different laws.
- The actualization of revolutionary potential is driven by a libidinal break or 'schiz' that forces a rewriting of history on the level of the real.
- Capitalism is constantly undermined by decoded and deterritorialized flows that escape its axiomatic control, appearing in unpredictable forms and locations.
- Art and science possess revolutionary potential not through their meaning, but by circulating flows that saturate and complicate the social axiomatic.
- The authors defend their identification of the revolutionary with the schizo, arguing that desire functions as a non-causal force that charts new realities.
It will be a decoded flow, a deterritorialized flow that runs too far and cuts too sharply, thereby escaping from the axiomatic of capitalism.
revolutionary investments that perform a real rupture with causality in the order
of desire. And in the same people the most varied kinds of investments can
coexist at such and such a moment, the two kinds of groups can interpenetrate.
This is because the two groups are like determinism and freedom in Kant's
philosophy: they indeed have the same "object"—and social production is never
anything other than desiring-production, and vice versa—but they don't share the
same law or the same regime.
The actualization of a revolutionary potentiality is explained less by the
preconscious state of causality in which it is nonetheless included, than by the
efficacy of a libidinal break at a precise moment, a schiz whose sole cause is
desire—which is to say the rupture with causality that forces a rewriting of
history on a level with the real, and pr oduces this strangely polyvocal moment
when everything is possible. Of course the schiz has been prepared by a
subterranean labor of causes, aims, and interests working together; of course this
order of causes runs the risk of closing and cementing the breach in the name of
the new socius and its interests. Of course one can always say after the fact that
history has never ceased being governed by the same laws of aggregates and
large numbers. The fact remains that the schiz came into existence only by means
of a desire without aim or cause that ch arted it and sided with it. While the schiz
is possible without the order of causes, it becomes real only by means of
something of another order: Desire, the desert-desire, the revolutionary
investment of desire. And that is ind eed what undermines capitalism: where will
the revolution come from, and in what form within the exploited masses? It is
like death—where, when? It will be a decoded flow, a deterritorialized flow that
runs too far and cuts too sharply, th ereby escaping from the axiomatic of
capitalism. Will it come in the person of a Castro, an Arab, a Black Panther, or a
Chinaman on the horizon? A May '68, a home-grown Maoist planted like an
anchorite on a factory smokestack? Always th e addition of an axiom to seal off a
breach that has been discovered; fascist co lonels start reading Mao, we won't be
fooled again; Castro has become impossible, even in relation to himself; vacuoles
are isolated, ghettos created; unions are appealed to for help; the most sinister
forms of "dissuasion" are invented; the re pression of interest is reinforced—but
where will the new irruption of desire come from?51
Those who have read us this far will perhaps find many reasons for
reproaching us: for believing too much in the pure potentialities of art and even
of science; for denying or minimizing the role of classes and class struggle; for
militating in favor of an irrationalism of desire; for
378 ANTI-OEDIPUS
identifying the revolutionary with th e schizo; for falling into familiar,
all-too-familiar traps. This would be a bad reading, and we don't know which is
better, a bad reading or no r eading at all. And in all probability there are far more
serious reproaches to be made, which we haven't even thought of. As for those we
have named, we hold in the first place that art and science have a revolutionary
potential, and nothing more, and that this potential appears all the more as one is
less and less concerned with what art and science mean, from the standpoint of a
signifier or signifieds that are necessarily reserved for specialists; but that art and
science cause increasingly decoded and dete rritorialized flows to circulate in the
socius, flows that are perceptible to ever yone, which force the social axiomatic to
grow ever more complicated, to become more saturated, to the point where the
scientist and the artist may be determined to rejoin an objective revolutionary
situation in reaction against authoritarian designs of a State that is incompetent
Desire and Revolutionary Flows
- Art and science possess revolutionary potential by circulating decoded and deterritorialized flows that challenge the State's authoritarian and castrating designs.
- Capitalist society is uniquely vulnerable to manifestations of desire, which can explode fundamental social structures in ways that mere class interest cannot.
- Desire is defined not as a lack or aspiration, but as a productive force that constitutes the real in itself and serves as the irrational core of all rationality.
- The authors distinguish the schizophrenic process from the clinical entity, identifying the former as a revolutionary 'schizoid pole' opposed to the reactionary paranoiac method.
- Schizoanalysis refuses to propose a political program or speak for the masses, as doing so would be both grotesque and disquieting.
We believe in desire as in the irrational of every form of rationality, and not because it is a lack, a thirst, or an aspiration, but because it is the production of desire: desire that produces—real-desire, or the real in itself.
all-too-familiar traps. This would be a bad reading, and we don't know which is
better, a bad reading or no r eading at all. And in all probability there are far more
serious reproaches to be made, which we haven't even thought of. As for those we
have named, we hold in the first place that art and science have a revolutionary
potential, and nothing more, and that this potential appears all the more as one is
less and less concerned with what art and science mean, from the standpoint of a
signifier or signifieds that are necessarily reserved for specialists; but that art and
science cause increasingly decoded and dete rritorialized flows to circulate in the
socius, flows that are perceptible to ever yone, which force the social axiomatic to
grow ever more complicated, to become more saturated, to the point where the
scientist and the artist may be determined to rejoin an objective revolutionary
situation in reaction against authoritarian designs of a State that is incompetent
and above all castrating by nature. (For the State imposes a specifically artistic
Oedipus, a specifically scientific Oedipus.)
Secondly, we have not at all minimi zed the importance of precon-scious
investments of class or inte rest, which are based in the infrastructure itself. But
we attach all the more importance to them as they are the index in the
infrastructure of a libidinal investment of another nature, and that can coincide as
well as clash with them. Which is merely a way to pose the question, "How can
the revolution be betrayed?"—once it has b een said that betrayals don't wait their
turn, but are there from the very start (the maintenance of paranoiac unconscious
investments in revolutionary groups). And if we put forward desire as a
revolutionary agency, it is because we be lieve that capitalist society can endure
many manifestations of interest, but not one manifestation of desire, which would
be enough to make its fundamental structures explode, even at the kindergarten
level. We believe in desire as in the ir rational of every form of rationality, and not
because it is a lack, a thirst, or an aspi ration, but because it is the production of
desire: desire that produces—real-desire, or the real in itself. Finally, we do not at
all think that the revolutionary is schizophr enic or vice versa. On the contrary, we
have consistently distinguished the schiz ophrenic as an entity from schizophrenia
as a process; now the schizophrenic as en tity can only be defined in relation to the
arrests, the continuations in the void, or the finalist illusions that repression
imposes on the process itself. This expl ains why we have only spoken of a
schizoid pole in the libidinal investment of the social field, so as to avoid as much
as possible the confusion of the schiz ophrenic process with the production of a
schizophrenic. The schizophrenic process (the schizoid pole) is revolu-
1NTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 379
tionary, in the very sense that the pa ranoiac method is reactionary and fascist;
and it is not these psychiatric categories, freed of all familialism, that will allow
us to understand the politico-economic determinations, but exactly the opposite.
And then, above all, we are not looki ng for a way out when we say that
schizoanaiysis as such has strictly no political program to propose. If it did have
one, it would be grotesque a nd disquieting at the same time. It does not take
itself for a party or even a group, and does not claim to be speaking for the
masses. Mo political program will be elaborated within the framework of
schizoanaiysis. Finally, schizoanaiysis is something that does not claim to be
speaking for anything or anyone, not even—in fact especially not—for
psychoanalysis: nothing more than impressi ons, the impression that things aren't
The Politics of Schizoanalysis
- Schizoanalysis refuses to offer a formal political program or speak on behalf of the masses, as doing so would be both grotesque and disquieting.
- The method seeks to operate from a position of absolute incompetence rather than professional authority, challenging the established norms of psychoanalysis.
- The core of the inquiry focuses on how a society organizes desiring-production and whether it can endure a reversal where desire subjugates social production.
- Contrary to critics, the authors argue that desiring-production creates the real rather than mere fantasies, dreams, or a right to laziness.
- Schizoanalysis posits that there is no distinction in nature between political economy and libidinal economy, viewing both as part of the same machinic process.
We are still too competent; we would like to speak in the name of an absolute incompetence.
tionary, in the very sense that the pa ranoiac method is reactionary and fascist;
and it is not these psychiatric categories, freed of all familialism, that will allow
us to understand the politico-economic determinations, but exactly the opposite.
And then, above all, we are not looki ng for a way out when we say that
schizoanaiysis as such has strictly no political program to propose. If it did have
one, it would be grotesque a nd disquieting at the same time. It does not take
itself for a party or even a group, and does not claim to be speaking for the
masses. Mo political program will be elaborated within the framework of
schizoanaiysis. Finally, schizoanaiysis is something that does not claim to be
speaking for anything or anyone, not even—in fact especially not—for
psychoanalysis: nothing more than impressi ons, the impression that things aren't
going well in psychoanalysis, and that they haven't been since the start. We are
still too competent; we would like to speak in the name of an absolute incompe-
tence. Someone asked us if we had ever seen a schizophrenic—no, no, we have
never seen one. If someone reading this book feels that things are fine in
psychoanalysis, we're not speaking for him, and for him we take back everything
we have said. So what is the relations hip between schizoanaiysis and politics on
the one hand, and between schizoanaiys is and psychoanalysis on the other?
Everything revolves around desiring-mach ines and the production of desire.
Schizoanaiysis as such does not raise the problem of the nature of the socius to
come out of the revolution; it does not cl aim to be identical with the revolution
itself. Given a socius, schizoanaiysis only asks what place it reserves for
desiring-production; what generative role de sire enjoys therein; in what forms
the conciliation between the regime of de siring-production an d the regime of
social production is brought about, since in any case it is the same production,
but under two different regimes; if, on this socius as a full body, there is thus the
possibility for going from one side to another, i.e., from the side where the molar
aggregates of social production are or ganized, to this other side, no less
collective, where the molecular multip licities of desiring-pr oduction are formed;
whether and to what extent such a socius can endure the reversal of power such
that desiring-production subjugates social production and yet does not destroy it,
since it is the same production working un der the difference in regime; if there
is, and how there comes to be, a formation of subject-groups; etc.
If someone retorts that we are claiming the famous rights to laziness, to
nonproductivity, to dream and fantasy production, once again we are quite
pleased, since we haven't stoppe d saying the opposite, and that
desiring-production produces the real, and that desire
380 ANTI-OEDIPUS
has little to do with fantasy and dream. As opposed to Reich, schizoanal-ysis
makes no distinction in nature betwee n political economy and libidinal economy.
Schizoanalysis merely asks what are th e machinic, social, and technical indices
on a socius that open to desiring-machines, that enter into the parts, wheels, and
motors of these machines, as much as th ey cause them to en ter into their own
parts, wheels, and motors. Everyone knows that a schizo is a machine; all schizos
say this, and not just little Joey. The question to be asked is whether
schizophrenics are the living machines of a dead labor, which are then contrasted
to the dead machines of living labor as organized in capitalism. Or whether
instead desiring, technical, and social m achines join together in a process of
schizophrenic production that thereafter has no more schizophrenics to produce.
In her Lettre aux ministres, Maud Mannoni writes: "One of these adolescents,
The Machinic Unconscious
- The text posits that the schizophrenic is essentially a machine, functioning through the integration of social, technical, and desiring-machines.
- Schizoanalysis is contrasted with psychoanalysis as a productive, material, and molecular approach rather than an expressive or structural one.
- The negative task of schizoanalysis involves a 'brutal' process of de-oedipalization and deterritorialization to liberate desiring-production.
- The ultimate goal of schizoanalysis is to map libidinal investments within the social field and complete the process of desire without arresting it.
- A 'new earth' is envisioned not through reterritorialization, but through the continuous and complete movement of the desiring-production process.
We have seen how the negative task of schizoanalysis must be violent, brutal: defamiliarizing, de-oedipalizing, decastrating; undoing theater, dream, and fantasy; decoding, deterritorializing—a terrible curettage, a malevolent activity.
on a socius that open to desiring-machines, that enter into the parts, wheels, and
motors of these machines, as much as th ey cause them to en ter into their own
parts, wheels, and motors. Everyone knows that a schizo is a machine; all schizos
say this, and not just little Joey. The question to be asked is whether
schizophrenics are the living machines of a dead labor, which are then contrasted
to the dead machines of living labor as organized in capitalism. Or whether
instead desiring, technical, and social m achines join together in a process of
schizophrenic production that thereafter has no more schizophrenics to produce.
In her Lettre aux ministres, Maud Mannoni writes: "One of these adolescents,
declared unfit for studies, does admirably we ll in a third-level class, provided he
works some in mechanics. He has a passi on for mechanics. The man in the garage
has been his best therapist. If we take mechanics away from him he will become
schizophrenic again."52 Her intention is not to praise ergotherapy or the virtues of
social adaptation. She marks the point wh ere the social machine, the technical
machine, and the desiring-machine join cl osely together and bring their regimes
into communication. She asks if our soci ety can handle that, and what it is worth
if it can't. And this is indeed the direc tion the social, technical, scientific, and
artistic machines take when they are- re volutionary: they form desiring-machines
for which they are already the index in their own regime, at the same time that the
desiring-machines form them in the regime that is theirs, and as a position of
desire.
What, finally, is the opposition between schizoanalysis and psychoanalysis,
when the negative and positive tasks of schi zoanalysis are taken as a whole? We
constantly contrasted two sorts of unc onscious or two interpretations of the
unconscious: the one schizoanalytic , the other psychoanalytic; the one
schizophrenic, the other neurotic-Oedipal; the one abstract and nonfigurative, the
other imaginary; but also the one really concrete, the other symbolic; the one
machinic, the other structural; the one molecular, microphysical, and
micrological, and the other molar or st atistical; the one material, the other
ideological; the one productive, the othe r expressive. We have seen how the
negative task of schizoanalysis must be violent, brutal: defamiliarizing,
de-oedipalizing, decastrating; undoing th eater, dream, and fantasy; decoding,
deterritorializing—a terrible curettage, a malevolent activity. But everything
happens at the same time. For at the same time the process is liberated—the
process of desiring-production, following its molecular
INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS 381
lines of escape that already define the mechanic's task of the
schizoana-lyst. And the lines of escape are still full molar or social
investments at grips with the whole so cial field: so that the task of
schizoanalysis is ultimately that of discovering for every case the nature
of the libidinal investments of the social field, their possible internal
conflicts, their relationships with the preconscious investments of the
same field, their possible conflicts with these—in short, the entire
interplay of the desiring-machine s and the repression of desire.
Completing the process and not arrestin g it, not making it turn about in
the void, not assigning it a goal. We'll never go too far with the
deterritorialization, the decoding of flows. For the new earth ("In truth,
the earth will one day become a place of healing") is not to be found in
the neurotic or perverse reterritorial izations that arrest the process or
assign it goals; it is no more behind than ahead, it coincides with the
completion of the process of desiring-production, this process that is
always and already complete as it proceeds, and as long as it proceeds.
It therefore remains for us to see how, effectively, simultaneously, these
The Process of Desiring-Production
- The text describes the 'new earth' as a place of healing that emerges from the decoding of flows and deterritorialization.
- True liberation is contrasted with neurotic or perverse reterritorializations that attempt to arrest the process or impose fixed goals.
- Desiring-production is defined as a process that is simultaneously ongoing and complete at every stage of its progression.
- The passage concludes by transitioning into the practical tasks of schizoanalysis and providing extensive bibliographic references.
- The references highlight the diverse influences on the work, ranging from literary figures like Henry Miller and Samuel Beckett to philosophers like Nietzsche and Marx.
For the new earth ("In truth, the earth will one day become a place of healing") is not to be found in the neurotic or perverse reterritorializations that arrest the process or assign it goals.
deterritorialization, the decoding of flows. For the new earth ("In truth,
the earth will one day become a place of healing") is not to be found in
the neurotic or perverse reterritorial izations that arrest the process or
assign it goals; it is no more behind than ahead, it coincides with the
completion of the process of desiring-production, this process that is
always and already complete as it proceeds, and as long as it proceeds.
It therefore remains for us to see how, effectively, simultaneously, these
various tasks of schizoanalysis proceed.
382 ANTI-OEDIPUS
Reference Notes
INTRODUCTION
1. Henry Miller, Sexus (New York: Grove Press, 1965), pp. 429-30.
2. Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, trans, by Walter
Kauf-mann (New York: Random House, 1969), I, 17, p. 38.
3. Ibid., p. 46.
4. Gilles Deleuze, "Trois problemes de groupe" in Felix Guattari,
Psychana-lyse et transversalite (Paris: Maspero, 1972, preface).
5. H. Miller, Sexus, pp. 425-26.
6. Ivan Illich, Tools for Conviviality (New York: Harper & Row, 1973).
7. Ibid., pp. 12-13.
8. CI. in this respect Ivan Illich, Medical Nemesis: The Expropriation of Health,
(New York: Pantheon, 1976).
9. R. D. Laing, The Politics of Experience (New York: Ballantine Books, 1971),
p. 126.
10. Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, II, 24, p. 96.
11. Miller, Sexus, p. 427.
383
I THE DESIRING-MACHINES
1. See Georg Buchner, Lenz, in Complete Plays and Prose, trans. Carl Richard
Mueller (New York: Hill & Wang, 1963), p. 141.
la. Ibid.
2. Samuel Beckett, Molloy, in Three Novels by Samuel Becket t (New York:
Grove Press, 1959), p. 16. Molloy was translated from the French by Patrick
Bowles in collaboration with the author. (Translators'note.)
3. Antonin Artaud, Van Gogh, the Man Suicided by Society, trans. Mary Beach
and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, in Artaud Anthology (San Francisco: City Lights
Books, 1965), p. 158.
4. On the identity of nature and produc tion, and species life in general,
according to Marx, see the commentari es of Gerard Granel, "L'ontologie
marxiste de 1844 et la que stion de la coupure," in L'endurance de la pens e'e
(Paris: Plon, 1968), pp. 301-310.
5. D.H. Lawrence, Aaron's Rod (New York: Penguin, 1976), ppl 200-201.
6. Henri Michaux, The Major Ordeals of the Mind, trans. Richard Howard
(New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974), pp. 125-27.
7. Sigmund Freud, "Psycho-Analytic Note s upon an Autobiographical Case of
Paranoia (Dementia Paranoides)," Collected Papers: Authorized Translation
under the Supervision of Joan Riviere (New York: Basic Books, 1959), Vol.
3, p. 396.
8. Victor Tausk, "On the Origin of the Influencing Machine in Schizophrenia,"
Psychoanalytic Quarterly, no. 2 (1933), pp. 519-56.
9. Karl Marx, Capital, trans. Ernest Untermann (New York: International
Publishers, 1967), Vol. 3, p. 827. See in Louis Althusser, Lire le c apital
(Paris: Maspero, 1965), the commentaries of Etienne Balibar, Vol. 2, pp.
213ff.,and of Pierre Macherey, Vol. 1, pp. 2011T. (Translators'note: For the
English text of Balibar's commentari es, see Louis Althusser and Etienne
Balibar, Reading Capital, trans. Ben Brewster [N ew York: Pantheon, 1970],
Part III, pp. 199-308. For contributions by Pierre Macherey, see footnotes in
this edition on pp. 7, 30, and 251.)
0. Samuel Beckett, "Enough," in First Love and Other Shorts (New York:
Grove Press, 1974).
1. Freud, "Psycho-Analytic Notes," p. 432 (emphasis added).
2. Beckett, Molloy, p. 29.
2a. Antonin Artaud, "Here Lies," trans. F. Teri Wehn and Jack Hirschman, in
Artaud A nthology (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1965), pp. 247 and
238 respectively.
3. W. Morgenthaler, "Adolf Worm '." French translation in L'Art brut, no. 2.
4. Cited in Sigmund Freud, "Psycho-Analytic Notes," p. 415.
5. L'Art brut, no. 3, p. 63.
6. Freud, "Psycho-Analytic Notes," pp. 400-401.
7. Michel Carrouges, Les machines celibataires (Paris: Arcanes, 1954).
Scholarly Citations and References
- This section provides a comprehensive list of bibliographic references spanning psychoanalysis, literature, and philosophy.
- Key psychoanalytic figures such as Sigmund Freud, Melanie Klein, and Jacques Lacan are cited to ground the theoretical framework.
- Literary works by Samuel Beckett, Antonin Artaud, and Henry Miller are referenced to illustrate complex psychological states.
- Philosophical and sociological texts by Nietzsche, Foucault, and Kant indicate the interdisciplinary nature of the primary work.
- Translators' notes clarify the specific editions and linguistic choices used for seminal texts like Proust's In Search of Lost Time.
This title stresses the notion of search and voyage.
1. Freud, "Psycho-Analytic Notes," p. 432 (emphasis added).
2. Beckett, Molloy, p. 29.
2a. Antonin Artaud, "Here Lies," trans. F. Teri Wehn and Jack Hirschman, in
Artaud A nthology (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1965), pp. 247 and
238 respectively.
3. W. Morgenthaler, "Adolf Worm '." French translation in L'Art brut, no. 2.
4. Cited in Sigmund Freud, "Psycho-Analytic Notes," p. 415.
5. L'Art brut, no. 3, p. 63.
6. Freud, "Psycho-Analytic Notes," pp. 400-401.
7. Michel Carrouges, Les machines celibataires (Paris: Arcanes, 1954).
8. Antonin Artaud, Le pese-nerfs, in Oeuvres complete s (Paris: Gallimard),
Vol. l,p. 112.
9. Samuel Beckett, The Utlnamable, in Three Novels by Samuel Beckett, p.
452. The Unnamable was translated from the French by the author.
(Translators' note.)
M REFERENCE NOTES
20. Pierre Klossowski, Nietzsche et l e cercle vicieux (Paris: Mercure de France,
1969).
21. Ibid.
22. Friedrich Nietzsche, letter to Jakob Burckhardt, January 5,1889, in Selected
Letters of F riedrich Nietzsche, trans. Christopher Middleton (Chicago;
University of Chicago Press, 1969), p. 347. (Translators' note.)
23. Klossowski, op. cit.
24. Klossowski, op. cit.
25. G. de Clerambault, Oeuvre psychiatrique (Paris: Presses Universitaires de
France).
26. Beckett, The Unnamable.
27. D.H. Lawrence, Aaron's Rod, p. 162.
28. Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Judgment, Introduction, §3.
29. Clement Rosset, Logique du pire (Paris: Presses Universitaries de France,
1970), p. 37.
30. Henry Miller, Sexus (New York: Grove Press, 1965), pp. 262, 430.
31. Wilhelm Reich, The Mass P sychology of F ascism, trans. Vincent R.
Carfagno (London: Souvenir Press, 1970).
32. Vladimir Jankelevitch, Ravel, trans. Margaret Crosland (New York: Grove
Press, 1959), pp. 73-80.
33. See J. Laplanche and J.B. Por.talis, The Language of Psycho-Analysis, trans.
Donald Micholson-Smith (New York: Norton, 1974). (Translators' note.)
34. Robert Jaulin, La mort sara (Paris: Plon, 1967), p. 122.
35. C. von Monakow and Mourgue, Introduction biologique a V etude de la
neurologic et de la psycho-pathologie (Paris: Alcan, 1928).
36. Jacques Lacan, "Position de l'inconscient," in Ecrits (Paris: Editions du
Seuil),p. 843.,
37. Maurice Blanchot, L'entretien infini (Paris: Gallimard, 1969), pp. 451-52.
38. All quotes from Proust are translated by Richard Howard. We also retain the
title In Search of Lost Time, used by Richard Howard in his translation of
Gilles Deleuze, Proust and Sig ns (New York: Braziller, 1972), p. 1. This
title stresses the notion of search and voyage. (Translators'note.)
39. J.H. Rush, TheDawn of Life (Garden City, N.Y.: Hanover House, 1957),p.
148.
40. Melanie Klein, Contributions to P sycho-Anal ysis, with an I ntroduction by
Ernest Jones (London: Hogarth Press, 1930), pp. 242-43 (emphasis added).
41. Ray Bradbury, The Illustrated Man (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubieday, 1951).
42. Antonin Artaud, "Je n'ai jamais rien etudie . . . ," 84, December 1950.
43. Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization: A Histor y of Insanity in the Age
of Reason, trans. Richard Howard (New York: Random House, 1971). The
English version is an edition, abridged by the author himself, of his French
text: Michel Foucault, Histoire de la folic a I 'age classique (Paris: Plon,
1961).
2 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FAMILIALISM
1. J. Laplanche and J. B. Pontalis, "Fan tasme originaire, fantasmes des origines
et origine du fantasme," Les T emps Modemes, no. 215 (April 1964), pp.
1844-46.
REFERENCE NOTES 385
la. On the existence of a littl e machine in the "primal fantasy, " an existence nevertheless
always in the wings, see Sigmund Freud, "A Case of Paranoia Running Counter to the
Psychoanalytic Theory of the Disease" (1915).
2. Sigmund Freud, Three Case Studies (New York: Collier, Macmillan, 1970).
3. Ibid., pp. 150-51.
4. Ibid., p. 154.
5. Ibid., pp. 152, 184-86.
Scholarly Foundations of Desire
- The text provides a comprehensive list of reference notes citing foundational works in psychoanalysis, philosophy, and literature.
- Key intellectual figures such as Freud, Marx, Kant, and Nietzsche are linked to discussions on drives, institutions, and economic infrastructures.
- The references highlight a synthesis of clinical psychology and social theory, specifically addressing concepts like the 'primal fantasy' and the 'feminine mystique.'
- Contemporary French thinkers like Deleuze, Guattari, and Klossowski are cited to bridge the gap between traditional psychoanalysis and radical social critique.
- The notes explore the intersection of mental states and existential questions, such as the hysterical inquiry into gender and the obsessional inquiry into mortality.
On the existence of a little machine in the 'primal fantasy,' an existence nevertheless always in the wings, see Sigmund Freud.
1. J. Laplanche and J. B. Pontalis, "Fan tasme originaire, fantasmes des origines
et origine du fantasme," Les T emps Modemes, no. 215 (April 1964), pp.
1844-46.
REFERENCE NOTES 385
la. On the existence of a littl e machine in the "primal fantasy, " an existence nevertheless
always in the wings, see Sigmund Freud, "A Case of Paranoia Running Counter to the
Psychoanalytic Theory of the Disease" (1915).
2. Sigmund Freud, Three Case Studies (New York: Collier, Macmillan, 1970).
3. Ibid., pp. 150-51.
4. Ibid., p. 154.
5. Ibid., pp. 152, 184-86.
6. Karl Marx, Economic a nd Ph ilosophic Ma nuscripts o f 1844, trans. Martin Milligan
(New York: International Publishers, 1964), p. 145. See also the excellent commentary
by Frangois Chatelet on this point: "La question de l'atheisme de Marx," Etudes
philosophiques, July 1966.
7. Sigmund Freud, " 'A Child Is Being Beaten': A Contribution to the Study of the Origin
of Sexual Perversions (1919)," in Collected Papers, Vol. 2, Hogarth Press, London, pp.
172-202. (Translators' note.)
8. Ibid., p. 180.
9. On the importance of this controversy, see Andre Green, "Sur la mere phallique,"
Revue francaise de psychanalyse, January 1968, pp. 8-9.
10. See for example the (moderate) protest of Betty Friedan against the Freudian and
psychoanalytic conception of "feminine problems," sexual as well as social: The
Feminine Mystique (New York: Norton, 1963).
11. Pierre Klossowski, Nietzsche et le cercle vicieux (Paris: Mercure de France, 1969), p.
122. Klossowski's meditation on the relationship between drives and institutions, and on
the presence of the drives in the economic infrastructure itself, is developed in his article
"Sade et Fourier," Topique, no. 4-5, and especially in La mo nnaie vi vante (Paris:
Losfeld, 1970).
12. In Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, ed. James
Strachey (New York: Macmillan; Lond on: Hogarth Press, 1974), Vol. 23. (Translators'
note: Hereafter this source will be cited as Standard Edition.)
13. Andre Green, L'affect (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1970), pp. 154-68.
14. See Gilles Deleuze, Proust an d Signs, trans. Richard Howard (New York: Braziller,
1972), pp. 120-22 ff. for a discussion in depth of the two Proustian series.
(Translators'note.)
15. Translated by Richard Howard, an d first appearing in Deleuze, Proust and Signs, pp.
121-22. Translation of Marcel Proust, A la recherche du temps perdu, Bibliothque de la
Pleiade (Paris: Gallimard, 1954), Vol. 2, 622 (emphasis added). (Translators'revised
note.)
16. Luc de Heusch, Essai sur le symbolisme de I'inceste royal en Afrique (Bruxelles: 1959),
pp. 13-16.
17. Immanuel Kant, Tlie Metaphysics of Morals, Part I.
18. Green, L'affect, p. 167.
19. On the hysterical "question" (Am I man or woman?) and the obsessional "question"
(Am I dead or alive?), see Serge Leclaire, "La mort dans la vie de l'obsede," La
Psychanalyse, no. 2, pp. 129-30.
20. L'Art brut, no. 3, p. 139. In his presentation, Jean Oury calls Jayet "the nondelimited,"
"in permanent flight."
21. Felix Guattari first develops this concept at length in "D'un signeal'autre," in
Psychanalyse et transversalite (Paris: Maspero, 1973). (Translators'note.)
38 6 R E F E R E N C E N O T E S "
22. Samuel Beckett, Molloy, in Three Novels by Samuel Bec kett (New York:
Grove Press, 1959).
23. Vaslav Nijinsky, Diary (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1936), pp. 20, 156.
24. A. Besancon, "Vers une hi stoire psychanalytique," Annales, May 1969.
25. Gregory Bateson et al., "Toward a Theory of Schizophrenia," Behavioral
Science, Vol. 1 (1956). See the commentaries of Pierre Fedida in "Psychose
et parente," Critique, October 1968.
26. Sigmund Freud, Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, Ch. 12, B.
27. Alexander Mitscherlich, Society without the F ather, trans. Eric Mosbacher
(New York: Schocken Books, 1970), pp. 296ff.
Schizoanalysis and Psychoanalytic References
- The text consists of a dense bibliography linking psychoanalytic theory with literature, philosophy, and radical psychiatry.
- Key figures cited include Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, and Wilhelm Reich, representing the foundational and dissident wings of psychoanalysis.
- Literary and artistic references such as Artaud, Rimbaud, and Nietzsche are used to explore the 'theater of cruelty' and the intensities of delirium.
- The citations highlight a specific interest in the intersection of social structures, the family unit, and the 'schizo's stroll' through the city.
- Works by Frantz Fanon and David Cooper suggest a focus on anti-psychiatry and the political dimensions of mental health.
The whole first part of this book describes the schizo's stroll in the city; the second part, 'Legendes folles,' progresses to the hallucinations or deliriums of historical episodes.
23. Vaslav Nijinsky, Diary (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1936), pp. 20, 156.
24. A. Besancon, "Vers une hi stoire psychanalytique," Annales, May 1969.
25. Gregory Bateson et al., "Toward a Theory of Schizophrenia," Behavioral
Science, Vol. 1 (1956). See the commentaries of Pierre Fedida in "Psychose
et parente," Critique, October 1968.
26. Sigmund Freud, Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, Ch. 12, B.
27. Alexander Mitscherlich, Society without the F ather, trans. Eric Mosbacher
(New York: Schocken Books, 1970), pp. 296ff.
28. Marie-Claire Boons, "Le meurtre dupere chez Freud," L'Inconscient, no. 5
(January 1968), p. 129.
29. Edmond Ortigues, Le discours et le symbole (Paris: Aubier, 1962), p. 197.
30. Jacques Lacan, Ecrits (Paris: Editions du Seuil), p. 813.
31. R. D. Laing, The Politi cs of Exper ience (New York: Ballantine, 1967), pp.
154-55.
32. On the interplay of races and intensities in the theater of cruelty, see Antonin
Artaud, Oeuvres completes, (Paris: Gallimard), Vols. 4 and 5: for example,
the project of "La conquete du Mexique," Vol. 4, p. 151; and the role of
intensive vibrations and rotations in "Les Cenci," Vol. 5, pp. 46ff.
(Translators' note: For the English text of the latter, see Antonin Artaud, The
Cenci, trans. Simon Watson Taylor [New York: Grove Press, 1970], pp.
viiff.)
33. Arthur Rimbaud, Une Saison en Enfer.
34. Nietzsche, letter to Jakob Burckhardt, January 5, 1889, in Selected Letters of
Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. Christopher Middleton (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1969), p. 347.
35. Jacques Besse, "Le danseur," in La grande pdque (Paris: Editions Belfond,
1969). The whole first part of this book describes the schizo's stroll in the
city; the second part, "Legendes folles, " progresses to the hallucinations or
deliriums of historical episodes.
36. Wilhelm Reich, The F unction of the Orgasm, trans. Vincent R. Carfagno
(New York: Simon & Schuster,1973), p. 70. For a critique of autism, see
Roger Gentis, Les murs de t'asile (Paris: Maspero, 1970), pp. 41ff.
37. Maurice Garcon, Louis XVII ou la fausse enigme (Paris: Hachette, 1968), p.
177.
38. Maud Mannoni, Le psychiatre, son fou et la psychanalyse (Paris: Editions du
Seuil, 1970).
39. Ibid.
40. Jacques Hochman, Pour une psychiatrie communautair e (Paris: Editions du
Seuil, 1971), Ch. 4. Also his article "Le postulat fusionnel," Information
psychiatrique, September 1969.
41. David Cooper, Psychiatry and A nti-Psychiatry (New York: Ballantine
Books, 1971), p. 44 (emphasis added).
42. Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the E arth, trans. Constance Farrington (New
York: Grove Press, 1968), p. 262.
43. Witold Grombrowicz, L'Herne, no. 14, p. 230.
44. Lacan, Ecrits, p. 870. With regard to the specific role of the rich woman and
the poor woman in the Rat Man case, the reader may refer to the analyses of
REFERENCE NOTES 38?
Lacan in "Le mythe individuel du nevrose," C.D.U., not included in the
Ecrits.
45. Rimbaud, Une Saison en Enfer.
46. Gerard Mendel, La revolte contre le pere (Paris: Payot, 1968), p. 422.
47. Friedrich Engels, The Origin of the Family (New York: International
Publishers, 1942), preface, p. 10.
48. Friedrich Nietzsche, Joyful Wisdom, V, § 346. See also Marx, Economic and
Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, pp. 144-46.
49. Hochmann, Pour une psychiatric cotnmunautaire, p. 38.
50. Selected Letters of Malcolm Lowry, ed. Harvey Breit and Margerie Bonner
Lowry (Philadelphia and New York: J. B. Lippincott, 1965), p. 66.
51. "Letter to Michael Fraenkel by Henr y Miller, May 7, 1936," in Henry
Miller, Hamlet (Puerto Rico: Carrefour, 1939), Vol. 1, pp. 124-26.
52. Sigmund Freud, "The Dissolution of the Oedipus Complex" (1924), Stan-
dard Edition, Vol. 19, pp. 176-78.
53. Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo , trans. James Strachey (New York:
Norton, 1950), p. 123.
54. D. H. Lawrence, "Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious," in Psychoanalysis
Scholarly Citations and Anthropological References
- The text provides a dense bibliography of psychoanalytic works, including foundational texts by Sigmund Freud on the Oedipus complex and fetishism.
- It references critical responses to Freudian theory from figures like Wilhelm Reich, Herbert Marcuse, and Jacques Lacan.
- The section transitions into anthropological and sociological studies, citing Lewis Mumford and Friedrich Nietzsche regarding the development of civilization.
- A specific critique is leveled against authors who insist on the existence of an Oedipal complex even when it is not clinically accessible.
- The references highlight a multidisciplinary approach linking psychoanalysis, literature, and the structural analysis of kinship systems.
But these authors indulge in a strange gymnastics to maintain the existence of an Oedipal problem or complex, despite all the reasons they advance to the contrary, and although they say this complex is not 'clinically accessible.'
50. Selected Letters of Malcolm Lowry, ed. Harvey Breit and Margerie Bonner
Lowry (Philadelphia and New York: J. B. Lippincott, 1965), p. 66.
51. "Letter to Michael Fraenkel by Henr y Miller, May 7, 1936," in Henry
Miller, Hamlet (Puerto Rico: Carrefour, 1939), Vol. 1, pp. 124-26.
52. Sigmund Freud, "The Dissolution of the Oedipus Complex" (1924), Stan-
dard Edition, Vol. 19, pp. 176-78.
53. Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo , trans. James Strachey (New York:
Norton, 1950), p. 123.
54. D. H. Lawrence, "Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious," in Psychoanalysis
and the Unconscious and Fantasia of the Unconscious (New York: Viking
Press, 1969), pp. 11-30.
55. See the two classic acc ounts: Wilhelm Reich, The Function of the Org asm,
Ch. 6; Herbert Marcuse, Eros and Civilization (Boston: Beacon Press,
1955), the chapter "Neo-Freudian Revisionism." The question has been
taken up more recently in some excellent articles in Partisans, no. 46
(February 1969): Francois Gantheret, "Freud et la question socio-politique"
(pp. 85ff.); Jean-Marie Brohm, "Psychanalyse et revolution" (pp. 97ff.).
56. The two 1924 articles are "Neurosis and Psychosis" and "The Loss of
Reality in Neurosis and Psychosis." See also J. Capgras and J. Carrette,
"Illusion des sosies et complexe d'Oedipe," Annates medico-psychologiques,
May 1924. Freud's article "Fetishism" (1927) does not go back on the
distinction, despite what is sometimes said, but confirms it: Collected
Papers, Vol. 5, pp. 198-204 ("I can thereby maintain my proposition . . .").
57. Jacques Lacan, "La famille," Encyclopedic francaise, Vol. 8 (1938).
58. Jacques Besse, La grande paque, pp. 27, 61.
59. Gerard de Nerval, "Sylvie," in Sjflected W ritings, trans. Geoffrey Wagner
(New York: Grove Press, N.Y., 1957). (Translators'note.)
60. "El Desdichado," in Selected Writings, p. 213. (Translators'note.)
61. Jean Laplanche, "La realite dans la ne vrose et la psychose," a lecture given
at the Societ2 Francaise de Psychanaly se in 1961. See also J. Laplanche and
J. B. Pontalis, The Langua ge of P sycho-Analysis, trans. Donald
Micholson-Smith (New York: Norton, 1974), the articles "Frustration" and
"Actual Neurosis."
62. C. G. Jung, Contributions to Analytical Psychology (London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1948), Ch. 1-4 and p. 345.
63. Gisela Pankow, L'homme et sa psychose (Paris: Aubier, 1969), pp. 24-26.
The reader is referred to the very fine theory of the sign developed by
Pankow in Structuration dynamique dans la schizophrenic (Paris: Huber,
1956). For Bettelheim's critique of regression, see Bruno Bettelheim, The
Empty Fortress (New York: The Free Press, 1967), pp. 294-96.
388 REFERENCE NOTES
64. Vincent Van Gogh, "Letter of September 8, 1888," cited in Artauc
Anthology, trans. Mary Beach and Lawren ce Ferlinghetti (San Francisco
City Lights Books, 1965), p. 150.
3 SAVAGES, BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED MEN
1. Lewis Mumford, "La premiere megamachine", Diogene, July 1966.
2. Meyer Fortes, Recherches volta'iques, 1967, pp. 135-37.
3. F. Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals (New York: Random House
1969), II, 2-7. But these authors indulge in a strange gymnastics to maintaii
the existence of an Oedipal problem or complex, despite all the reasons the;
advance to the contrary, and although they say this complex is no
"clinically accessible."
4. Ibid. Section 4.
5. Ibid. Section 3.
6. E. R. Leach, Rethinking Anthropology (London: Athlone Press, 1966), pp
122-23.
7. L. G. Loftier, "L'alliance asymetrique chez les Mru," L 'Homme, July 1966
pp. 78-79. Leach, in Rethinking A nthropology, analyzes the different
between ideology and practice apropos of the Kachin marriage (pp. 81-82)
he greatly advances the critique of conceptions of kinship as a closec
system (pp. 89-90).
8. Pierre Clastres, "L'arc et le panier," L 'Homme, April 1966, p. 20.
9. Jeanne Favret, "La segmentarite au Maghreb," L'Homme, April 1966 Pierre
Anthropological and Psychoanalytic References
- The text provides a comprehensive list of scholarly citations focusing on kinship systems, political structures, and ritual practices in various cultures.
- Key anthropological figures such as Claude Levi-Strauss and E. R. Leach are cited regarding the distinction between ideology and practice in marriage systems.
- The references bridge the gap between social anthropology and psychoanalysis, citing works by Geza Roheim, Herbert Marcuse, and Wilhelm Reich.
- Specific ethnographic studies are highlighted, including research on the Nuer of Sudan, the Tiv of Nigeria, and the Guayaki Indians.
- The section concludes with multiple references to Friedrich Nietzsche's 'On the Genealogy of Morals,' suggesting a philosophical grounding for the preceding social theories.
Leach, in Rethinking Anthropology, analyzes the different between ideology and practice apropos of the Kachin marriage (pp. 81-82) he greatly advances the critique of conceptions of kinship as a closed system (pp. 89-90).
6. E. R. Leach, Rethinking Anthropology (London: Athlone Press, 1966), pp
122-23.
7. L. G. Loftier, "L'alliance asymetrique chez les Mru," L 'Homme, July 1966
pp. 78-79. Leach, in Rethinking A nthropology, analyzes the different
between ideology and practice apropos of the Kachin marriage (pp. 81-82)
he greatly advances the critique of conceptions of kinship as a closec
system (pp. 89-90).
8. Pierre Clastres, "L'arc et le panier," L 'Homme, April 1966, p. 20.
9. Jeanne Favret, "La segmentarite au Maghreb," L'Homme, April 1966 Pierre
Clastres, "Echange et pouvoir," L'Homme, January 1962.
10. Edward E. Evans-Pritchard, "The Nuer of the Southern Sudan," in Africar.
Political Systems, ed. Meyer Fortes and Ed ward E. Evans-Pritchan
(London: Oxford University Press, 1958), p. 287.
11. Marcel Griaule, Dieu d'eau (Paris: Fayard, 1948), especially pp. 46-52.
12. Claude Levi-Strauss, The E lementary Structures of Ki nship, trans. Jamei
Harle Bell and John Richard von Stur mer, ed. Rodney Needham (Boston
Beacon Press, 1969), pp. 130-31.
13. Marcel Griaule, "Remarques su r l'oncle uterin au Soudan," Cahiers
inter-nationaux de sociologie, January 1954. Alfred Adler and Michel
Cartry, "L; transgression et sa derision," L'Homme, July 1971.
14. Griaule, "Remarques sur l'oncle uterin au Soudan."
15. T. D. Lysenko, La situatio n da ns l a science biologi que, French editior
(Moscow, 1949), p. 16.
16. The Elementary Structures of Kinship, pp. 485-88.
17. Robert Jaulin, La mort sara (Paris: Plon, 1967), p. 284.
18. Levi-Strauss, The Elementary Structures of Kinship, p. 309. Levi-Straus;
analyzes cases, abnormal or paradoxical on the surface, of beneficiaries oi
matrimonial prestations.
19. Loftier, "L'alliance asymetrique chez les Mru," p. 80.
20. Georges Devereux, "Considerations et hnopsychanalytiques sur la notion ds
parente," L'Homme, July 1965.
21. Victor W. Turner, "Magic, Faith, and Healing," in An Ndembu Doctor h
Practice (New York: Collier, Macmillan, 1964).
22. M. C. and Edmond Ortigues, Oedipe africain (Paris: Plon, 1966), p. 305.
REFERENCE NOTES 339
23. Geza Roheim, Psychoanalysis and Anthropology (New York: International Universities
Press, 1950), pp. 490-91.
24. E. R. Leach, "Magical Hair," in Myth an d Cosmos (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday,
1967), p. 92.
25. Wilhelm Reich, Der Einbruch der Sexualmoral (Verlag fur Sexualpolitik, 1932), p. 6.
(The Inv asion of Compulsory Sex-Morality [New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux,
1971).)
26. Herbert Marcuse, Eros and Civilization (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955), p. 220.
27. Laura and Paul Bohannan, The Tiv of Central Nigeria (London: International African
Institute, 1953).
28. Abram Kardiner, The Ind ividual and His So ciety (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1939), p. 248.
29. Victor Turner, "Themes in the Symbolism of Ndembu Hunting Ritual," in Myth and
Cosmos (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1967), pp. 249-69.
30. Michel Cartry, "Clans, lignages et groupements familiaux chez les Gourmantche,"
L'Homme, April 1966, p. 74.
31. Levi-Strauss, The Elementary Structures of Kinship, p. 267; also, regarding his way of
presenting Leach's argument, pp. 221ff. But with respect to this argument itself, see
Leach, Rethinking Anthropology, pp. 60-64, 81-95.
32. Levi-Strauss, The Elemen tary St ructures o f Kins hip, pp. 193-95. See the statistical
comparison with the "cyclists."
33. Emmanuel Terray, Le Marxisme devant les societes primitives (Paris: Maspero, 1969),
p. 164.
34. Andre Leroi-Gourhan, Le geste et la parole, technique et langage (Paris: Albin Michel,
1964), pp. 270ff., 290ff.
35. Michel Cartry, "La calebasse de I'excision en pays gourmantche," Journal de la Societe
des africanistes, no. 2 (1968), pp. 223-25.
36. Pierre Clastres, Chroniques des indiens Guayaki (Paris: Plon, 1972).
37. On the Genealogy of Morals, II, 6.
38. Ibid., II, 17.
39. Ibid.
40. Ibid., II, 16.
41. Ibid., II, 21.
Scholarly Reference Notes
- This section consists of detailed bibliographic citations supporting a theoretical analysis of state formations and social structures.
- The references highlight a significant reliance on Nietzsche's 'On the Genealogy of Morals' to explore themes of debt, morality, and social organization.
- Works by Karl Marx and Karl Wittfogel are cited to examine pre-capitalist economic forms, the 'Asiatic mode of production,' and the nature of oriental despotism.
- The text draws on diverse anthropological and historical sources, including studies on African royal incest, Chinese bureaucracy, and Greek thought.
- Literary references from Franz Kafka and Lewis Carroll are integrated to provide metaphorical depth to the discussion of state power and social walls.
Regarding imperial formations founded on the control of commerce rather than control over public works—in black Africa, for example—see the comments of Maurice Godelier and J. Suret-Canale.
33. Emmanuel Terray, Le Marxisme devant les societes primitives (Paris: Maspero, 1969),
p. 164.
34. Andre Leroi-Gourhan, Le geste et la parole, technique et langage (Paris: Albin Michel,
1964), pp. 270ff., 290ff.
35. Michel Cartry, "La calebasse de I'excision en pays gourmantche," Journal de la Societe
des africanistes, no. 2 (1968), pp. 223-25.
36. Pierre Clastres, Chroniques des indiens Guayaki (Paris: Plon, 1972).
37. On the Genealogy of Morals, II, 6.
38. Ibid., II, 17.
39. Ibid.
40. Ibid., II, 16.
41. Ibid., II, 21.
42. Jean Steinmann, Saint Jean -Baptiste et la sp iritualite du deser t (Paris: Editions du
Seuil, 1959), p. 69.
43. Karl Marx, Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations (1857), trans. Jack Cohen (New York:
International Publishers, 1965), pp. 69-70.
44. Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, II, 17.
45. Franz Kafka, "The Great Wall of China," The Great Wall of China, trans. Willa and
Edwin Muir (New York : Schocken, 1948).
46. On the Genealogy of Morals, II, 12.
47. Etienne Balazs, La bureaucratie celeste (Paris: Gallimard, 1968), Ch. 13: "La naissance
du capitalisme en Chine" (especially the State and money, and the merchants'
impossibility of gaining an autonomy, pp. 229-300). Regarding imperial formations
founded on the control of commerce rather than control over public works—in black
Africa, for example—see the comments of Ma urice Godelier and J. Suret-Canale, in
Maurice Godelier,
390 REFERENCE NOTES
Sur le mode de pr oduction asiatique (Paris: Editions Sociales, 1969), pp 87-88,
120-22.
48. Michel Foucault, "La volonte de savoir", a course given at the College dt France in
1971.
49. Lewis Carroll, "Peter and Paul," in Sylvie and Bruno.
50. Franz Kafka, "The Great Wall of China," pp. 163-64, 167-68.
51. On the Genealogy of Morals, II, 17.
52. Luc de Heusch, Essais sur le symbolistne de I'inceste royal en Afriqui (Brussels, 1958),
pp. 72-74.
53. Jacques Derrida, De la grammatologie (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1967), anc "Freud et
la scene de l'ecriture," in L'ecriture et la difference (Paris Editions du Seuil, 1967).
54. Andras Zempleni, L 'interpretation et la therapie traditionelles du desordn mental chez
les Wolof et les Lebou (Paris: Universite de Paris, 1968), Vol. 2, pp.380, 506.
55. Jean Nougayrol, m L'ecri ture et la psychologic des peuples, (Paris: Armano Colin,
1963), p. 90.
56. Guy Rosalato, Essais sur le symbolique (Paris: Gallimard, 1969), pp. 25-28.
57: Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, II, 17.
58. Kafka, "The Great Wall of China," p. 167.
59. Neitzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, II, 17.
60. Ibid.
61. Concerning the regime of private property al ready present in the despotic State itself,
see Karl Wittfogel, Oriental Desp otism (New Haven, Conn. Yale University Press,
1957), pp. 78-85,228-300. On private property in the Chinese state, see Balazs, La
bureaucratic celeste, Ch. 7-9. Regarding tfi£ two paths of transition from the despotic
State to feudalism, according tc whether or not commodity production is joined with
private property, set Godelier, Sur le mode de production asiatique, pp. 90-92.
62. Jean-Pierre Vernant, Les origines de la pensee grecque (Paris: Presses Universitaires
de France, 1962), pp. 112-13.
63. Karl Marx, Grundrisse, trans. Martin Nicolaus (New York: Random House 1973), p.
102.
64. Gilbert Simondon, Du mode d'existence des objets techniques (Paris; Aubier, 1969),
pp. 25-49.
65. Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, II, 22.
66. Karl Marx, "Reply to Milkhailovski" (Nov., 1877), in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels,
Basic W ritings on Po litics and Phil osophy (Garden City N.Y.: Doubleday, 1959), p.
441.
67. Fernand Braudel, Capitalism an d M aterial Lif e, 140 0-1800, trans. Miriam Kochan
(New York: Harper and Row, 1973), p. 308.
68. Karl Marx, Economic a nd Phi losophic Ma nuscripts of 184 4, (trans. Martin Milligan
(New York: International Publishers, 1964), p. 148.
Foundations of Capitalist Theory
- The text provides a dense bibliography of Marxist and post-structuralist thought, focusing on the historical development of capitalism.
- Balibar's commentary highlights that the unity of the capitalist structure is not found in its past but in a rigorous conjunction of disparate historical elements.
- The references trace the genealogy of economic concepts from Marx's Grundrisse to modern critiques of automation and monopoly capital.
- The citations explore the transition between modes of production, noting that elements of a new system often exist marginally within the old one.
- The list includes influential thinkers like Althusser, Braudel, and Marcuse to contextualize the administrative and functional language of modern society.
In this historical field (constituted by the previous mode of production), the elements whose genealogy is being traced have precisely only a marginal situation, i.e., a non-determinate one.
pp. 25-49.
65. Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, II, 22.
66. Karl Marx, "Reply to Milkhailovski" (Nov., 1877), in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels,
Basic W ritings on Po litics and Phil osophy (Garden City N.Y.: Doubleday, 1959), p.
441.
67. Fernand Braudel, Capitalism an d M aterial Lif e, 140 0-1800, trans. Miriam Kochan
(New York: Harper and Row, 1973), p. 308.
68. Karl Marx, Economic a nd Phi losophic Ma nuscripts of 184 4, (trans. Martin Milligan
(New York: International Publishers, 1964), p. 148.
69. See Balibar's commentary,in Louis Althusser and Etienne Balibar, Reading Cap ital,
trans. Ben Brewster (New York: Pantheon, 1970), p. 281: "Ths unity possessed by the
capitalist structure once it has been constituted is no found in its rear. [It requires] that
the meeting should have been producec and rigorously thought, between those
elements, which are identified on thf
REFERENCE NOTES 391
basis of the result of their conjunction, and the historical field within which
their peculiar histories are to be thought . In their concepts, the latter have
nothing to do with that result, since they are defined by the structure of a
different mode of producti on. In this historical field (constituted by the
previous mode of production), the elemen ts whose genealogy is being traced
have precisely only a marginal situ ation, i.e., a non-determinate one."
70. Maurice Dobb, Studies in the Development of Capitalism (London:
Rout-ledge and Kegan Paul, 1959), pp. 177-86.
71. Marx, Grundrisse, pp. 104-106.
72. Karl Marx, Capital, trans. Ernest Unterrnann (New York: International
Publishers, 1967), Vol. 1, p. 154.
73. Suzanne de Brunhoff, L'offre de monnaie, critique d'un concept (Paris:
Maspero, 1971); and La monnaie ch ez Marx (Paris: Editions Sociales, 1967)
(see the critique of Hilferding's arguments, pp. 16fT.).
74. Jean-Joseph Goux, "Derivable et inderivable," Critique, January 1970, pp.
48-49.
75. Samir Amin, L'accumulation a Vechelle mondiale (Paris: Anthropos, 1970),
pp. 373ff.
76. Maurice Clavel, Qui est aliene? (Paris: Flammarion, 1970), pp. 110-24,
320-27. See Marx's great chapter on automation (1857-58) in the Grun-
drisse, pp. 692ff.
77. Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy, Monopoly C apital (New York: Monthly
Review Press, 1966), pp. 93-97.
78. Regarding the concept of depreciation im plied by this proposition, ibid., pp.
99-102.
79. Capital, Vol. 3, p. 244.
80. Andre Gorz, Strategy for Labor trans. Martin Nicolaus and Victoria Ortiz
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1967), p. 106.
81. Baran and Sweezy, Monopoly Capital, p. 344.
82. Bernard Schmitt, Monnaie, salaires et profits (Paris: Presses Universitaires
de France, 1966), pp. 234-36.
83. Ibid., p. 292.
84. Michel Serres, "Le messager," Bulletin de la Societfranc aise de philosophie,
November 1967.
85. Jean-Francois Lyotard, Discours, figure (Paris: Klincksieck, 1971).
86. Ibid.
87. See Herbert Marcuse's analysis of the functional language of "total
administration"—especially in abbreviati ons (e.g., S.E.A.T.O.), the floating
configurations formed by letters-figures: One Dimensional Man (Boston:
Beacon Press, 1964), Ch. 4.
88. Marx, Capital, Vol. 1, p. 150.
89. Schmitt, Monnaie, salaires et profits.
90. For a discussion of all these points, see Dobb, Studies in the Development of
Capitalism, pp. 23-25, 161-67, 193-210.
91. G. Plekhanov, "Augustin Thierry et la c onception materialiste de l'histoire"
(1895), in Les q uestions fond amentales du marxisme (Paris: Editions
sociales.).
92. Marx, Capital,Vo]. 1, p. 592.
93. Jean-Paul Sartre, Critique de la raison dialectique(Paris: Gallimard, 1960).
392 REFERENCE NOTES
94. Wilhelm Reich, "What Is Class Consciousness?" (1934), trans. Anna
Bostock, Liberation, Vol. 16, no. 5 (October 1971), p. 22.
95. Marx, Grundrisse, p. 104, and Economic and P hilosophic Manuscri pts oj
1844, pp. 128-31.
96. Marx, Capita/, Vol. 3, pp. 249-50.
Schizoanalysis and Theoretical References
- The text provides a dense bibliography linking Marxist economic theory with psychoanalytic and philosophical frameworks.
- Key citations from Marx's Capital and Grundrisse are used to explore the production of social and physical structures.
- The transition into the 'Introduction to Schizoanalysis' section highlights the intersection of desire, representation, and social production.
- References to Foucault and Lyotard emphasize the tension between desiring-production and the constraints of representation.
- The notes explore the evolution of power from despotic mythic organizations to the structures of the modern city-state.
On the 'reality' of modern man as a composite and motley image, see Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra, II, 'Of the Land of Culture.'
91. G. Plekhanov, "Augustin Thierry et la c onception materialiste de l'histoire"
(1895), in Les q uestions fond amentales du marxisme (Paris: Editions
sociales.).
92. Marx, Capital,Vo]. 1, p. 592.
93. Jean-Paul Sartre, Critique de la raison dialectique(Paris: Gallimard, 1960).
392 REFERENCE NOTES
94. Wilhelm Reich, "What Is Class Consciousness?" (1934), trans. Anna
Bostock, Liberation, Vol. 16, no. 5 (October 1971), p. 22.
95. Marx, Grundrisse, p. 104, and Economic and P hilosophic Manuscri pts oj
1844, pp. 128-31.
96. Marx, Capita/, Vol. 3, pp. 249-50.
97. See Emmanuel Terray's differential analysis of production modes, Lt
Marxisms devant les societes primit ives, pp. 140-55 (why, in precapitalist
societies, "the reproduction of the econo mic and social structure depends in
large measure on the conditions under which the physical reproduction of
the group is maintained").
98. Regarding the production of the capitalist, etc., see Marx, Pre-Capitalisi
Economic Formations, pp. 118-19, and Capital, Vol. 1, pp. 591-92.
99. Jacques Lacan, Lettres de I'ecole freudienne, March 7, 1970, p. 42.
100. D. H. Lawrence, "Art and Morality," in Phoenix (New York: Viking Press,
1936), pp. 522-26. On the "reality" of modern man as a composite and motley
image, see Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra, II, "Of the Land ol Culture."
101. Marx, Grundrisse, pp. 104-108.
4 INTRODUCTION TO SCHIZOANALYSIS
1. Claude Levi-Strauss, The R aw and the Cooked, trans. John and Doreen
Weightman (New York: Harper and Row, 1969), p. 48.
2. Joseph Gabel, "Delire politi que chez un paranoide," L'Evolution psychi a
trique, no. 2(1952).
3. Abram Kardiner, The Individual an d His Society (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1939), pp. 223ff. And concerning the two possible paths
from the child to the adult or from the adult to the child, see Mike
Dufrenne's commentaries in La p ersonnalite de b ase, (Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 1953), pp. 287-320.
4. For a rigorous philosophical discussion of the notion of repetition, both the
radical repetition of the Same and of Difference (the Eternal Return), anc
the normative repetition of Habit and Representation, see Gilles Deleuze
Difference et repe tition (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1972), pp
128-67. (Translators' note}
5.
6. Allen Ginsberg, "Kaddish," IV, in Kaddish an d Ot her P oems, , (Sar
Francisco: City Lights Books, 1961), pp. 34-35.
7. Samuel Butler, Erewhon, E veryman's Libra ry (New York: E.P.Dutton
London: J. M.Dent, 1965), pp. 146-60.
8. Ibid., p. 148.
9. Ibid., p. 156.
10. Ibid., p. 159.
11. Karl Marx, Critique of H egel's ''Philosophy of Right" , trans. Annette Jolii
and Joseph O'Malley (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1970), pp
88-90. And on this text of Marx, see the fine commentary by Lyotard (se
reference note 12), pp. 138^41.
12. Jean-Francois Lyotard, Discours, figure (Paris: Klincksieck, 1971).
13. Henry Miller, Hamlet (Puerto Rico: Carrefour, 1939), Vol. 1, pp. 124-29.
REFERENCE NOTES 3»
14. Michel Foucault, The Order of Things (New York: Random House, 1970), pp. 208-11
(on the opposition between desire or desiring-production and representation); pp. 253-56
(on the opposition between social production and representation, in Adam Smith and
especially Ricardo).
15. On myth as the expression of the organization of a despotic power that represses the
Earth, see Jean-Pierre Vernant, Les or igines de la pe nse'e grecque (Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 1962), pp. 109-16; and on tragedy as the expression of an
organization of the city-state that represse s in its turn the fallen despot, Vernant,
"Oedipe sans complexe," Raison presente, August 1967.
16. Octave Mannoni, Clefs pou r Ti maginaire ou I'au tre scene (Paris: Editions du Seuil,
1969), Ch. 1 and 7.
17. Louis Althusser and Etienne Balibar, Reading Capital, trans. Ben Brewster (New York:
Pantheon, 1970).
Scholarly References and Theoretical Intersections
- The text provides a dense bibliography of psychoanalytic, philosophical, and literary sources including Freud, Lacan, and Reich.
- It highlights the tension between the erogenous body and the biological organism as explored in the Vincennes seminars.
- The references connect the concept of the 'double death' in Blanchot to Nietzschean ideas of sovereignty and energy development.
- A distinction is drawn between psychotic and neurotic perceptions of objects, using a sock as a metaphor for molecular versus global views.
- The citations emphasize the role of repetition, difference, and the Eternal Return in the formulation of clothed and naked matter.
the psychotic use that treats it as a molecular multiplicity of stitches, and the neurotic use that treats it as a global object and molar lack.
Earth, see Jean-Pierre Vernant, Les or igines de la pe nse'e grecque (Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 1962), pp. 109-16; and on tragedy as the expression of an
organization of the city-state that represse s in its turn the fallen despot, Vernant,
"Oedipe sans complexe," Raison presente, August 1967.
16. Octave Mannoni, Clefs pou r Ti maginaire ou I'au tre scene (Paris: Editions du Seuil,
1969), Ch. 1 and 7.
17. Louis Althusser and Etienne Balibar, Reading Capital, trans. Ben Brewster (New York:
Pantheon, 1970).
18. Serge Leclaire, Demasquer le reel (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1971), pp. 28-31.
19. Elisabeth Roudinesco, "L'action d'une metaphore," La Pe nsee, February 1972. See in
Jacques Lacan, Ecrits (Paris: Editions du Seuil), p. 821, the way in which Lacan raises
the idea of a "signifier of the lack of this symbol" above the "zero symbol," taken in its
linguistic sense.
20. Sigmund Freud, "Analysis Terminable and Interminable," Standard Edit ion, Vol. 23,
pp. 251-52.
21. Miller, Hamlet, pp. 124-25.
22. Wilhelm Reich, The Function of the Orgasm, trans. Vincent R. Carfagno (New York:
Simon & Schuster, 1973), pp. 167-68. See also Wilhelm Reich, Character Anal ysis
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1974).
23. Gisela Pankow, L'homme et sa psychose (Paris: Aubier, 1969), pp. 68-72. And on the
role of the house: "La dynamique de I'espace et le temps vecu," Critique, February
1972.
24. Michel Cournot, Le Nouvel Observateur, Nov. 1, 1971.
25. D. H. Lawrence, "Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious," in Ps ychoanalysis and t he
Unconscious and Fantasia of the Unconscious (New York: Viking Press, 1969), p. 30.
26. Serge Leclaire, "La realite du desir," in Sexualite humaine (Paris: Aubier, 1970), p. 245.
And Seminaire V incennes, 1969, pp. 31-34 (the opposition between the "erogenous
body" and the organism).
27. Jacques Mondd, Chance and Necessity, trans. Austryn Wainhouse (New York: Knopf,
1971), p. 98.
28. On "the double death," see Maurice Blanchot, L'espace li tteraire (Paris: Gallimard,
1955), pp. 104, 160.
29. Arthur Rimbaud, letter to Paul Demeny, May 15, 1871.
30. Reich, The Fun ction o f th e Org asm. A correct interpretation—marked throughout by
idealism—of Freud's theory of culture and its catastrophic evolution concerning guilt
feeling, can be found in Paul Ricoeur: on death, and "the death of death," see De
['interpretation (Paris: Edition's du Seuil) pp. 299-303.
31. Sigmund Freud, The Pr oblem o f An xiety, trans. Henry Alden Bunker (New York:
Psychoanalytic Quarterly Press, Norton, 1936); or Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety,
trans. Alix Strachey (London: Hogarth Press, 1936).
32. Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, II, 13.
394 REFERENCE NOTES
33. D. H. Lawrence, Aaron's Rod (New York: Penguin, 1976), p. 101.
34. Henry Miller, Sexus (New York: Grove Press, 1965), pp. 429-30 (words i
brackets added). One would do well to consult the exercises of com
psychoanalysis in Sexus.
35. L.-F. Celine, in L'Herne, no. 3, p. 171.
36. Ibid.
37. Maurice Blanchot, L'amitie (Paris: Gallimard, 1971), pp. 232-33.
38. See Sigmund Freud, "The Unconscious" (1915), in Collected Papers, Vol.'
pp. 131-34: the two uses made of the so ck—the psychotic use that treats as
a molecular multiplicity of stitches, and the neurotic use that treats it as
global object and molar lack.
39. For a first formulation of this notion of clothed and naked matter in terms c
the repetition of difference and the Et ernal Return, see the conclusion <
Gilles Deleuze, Difference et repetition (Paris: Presses Universitaires c
France, 1972). (Translators'note.)
40. Pierre Klossowski, Nietzsche et le cercle vicieux (Paris: Mercure de Franc
1969), pp. 174-75. Klossowski's commentary on the formations of sove eignty
according to Nietzsche (Herrschaftsgebilde), their absurd powi without
purpose, and the ends or meanings they invent for themselves terms of a degree
of development of energy, is essential in every respec:
Scholarly Apparatus and References
- The text provides a dense collection of reference notes citing foundational works in philosophy, psychoanalysis, and literature.
- Key intellectual figures such as Gilles Deleuze, Sigmund Freud, and Pierre Klossowski are cited to support arguments regarding sovereignty and the eternal return.
- The notes highlight a critical tension between gregarious social aggregates and multiplicities of singularities.
- An extensive index lists a diverse range of thinkers, from Samuel Beckett and Antonin Artaud to Fidel Castro and Louis Althusser.
The opposition between aggregates of gregariousness and multiplicities of singularities is developed throughout this book.
the repetition of difference and the Et ernal Return, see the conclusion <
Gilles Deleuze, Difference et repetition (Paris: Presses Universitaires c
France, 1972). (Translators'note.)
40. Pierre Klossowski, Nietzsche et le cercle vicieux (Paris: Mercure de Franc
1969), pp. 174-75. Klossowski's commentary on the formations of sove eignty
according to Nietzsche (Herrschaftsgebilde), their absurd powi without
purpose, and the ends or meanings they invent for themselves terms of a degree
of development of energy, is essential in every respec:
41. D. H. Lawrence, "We Need One Another," in Phoenix: The P osthumoi
Papers of D. H. Lawrence (New York: The Viking Press, 1936), p. 191.
42. Sigmund Freud, Three Case Histories (New York: Collier, Macmilla:
1970), p. 162.
43. On the first point, Ernest Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud (Ne
York: Basic Books, 1953), Vol. 1, Ch. 1. For the second point, Freud, "Tl
Familial Romance of the Neuroses" (1909). For the third point, The R,
Man, passim, and Jacques Lacan, "Le mythe individuel du nevrose C.D.U.,
pp. 7-18 (and p. 25 on the necessity of a "critique of the enti system of
Oedipus"). For the fourth point, see Freud, "The Wolf Man Three Cas e
Histories, pp. 205, 285, 286.
44. Freud, Three Case Histories, p. 291. See also pp. 205, 286.
45. R. D. Laing, Self and Others (New York: Pantheon, 1970), pp. 113-14, 12.
46. Maud Mannoni, Le psychiatre, son fou et la psychanalyse (Paris: Editio du
Seuil, 1970), Ch. 7.
47. Klossowski, Nietzsche et le cercle vicieux, pp. 175, 202-203, 213-14. T]
opposition between aggregates of gregariousness and multiplicities
singularities is developed throughout this book, and then in Pierre Klosso'
ski,La monnaie vivante (Paris: Losfeld, 1970).
48. The authors are referring here to D. H. Lawrence's "We Need Oi Another"
(see reference note 41) and to the co mical psychoanalytical see in Henry
Miller's Sexus, pp. 429-31. (Translators' revised note.)
49. Lacan, Ecrits, p. 870.
50. On the analysis of subject-groups and their relations with desire and wi
causality, see Jean-Paul Sartre, Critique de la raison dialeciique (Par
Gallimard, 1960).
51. Andre Glucksmann has analyzed the nature of this special counterrevol
tionary axiomatic in "Le discours de la guerre," L'Herne (1967).
52. Maud Mannoni, Lettre aux ministres.
REFERENCE NOTES 3!
INDEX
Abrahams, Jean-Jac ques, 56n Adler,
Alfred, 128, 157, 160, 161 M,
182n, 331,354 Althusser, Louis, 247,
306 Amin, Samir, 231, 239, 392 Anzieu,
Didier, 300rc, 304n Aristotle, 84, 263
Arman, 31 Artaud, Antonin, 8, 9«, 15,
122«,
125, 134-35, 143,211,370
Bachofen, 107 Balazs, Etienne, 197
Balibar, Etienne, 228, 247 Balzac, Honore
de, 42, 133 Bastide, Roger, 179n Bataille,
Georges, 4rc, 190 Bateson, Gregory, 79,
236, 360 Beckett, Samuel, 2, 12, 14, 20, 76,
84, 324, 338 Bergson, Henri, 95-96,
276« Berthe, Louis, 147 Besse, Jacques, 87
Bettelheim, Bruno, 37, 130 Binswanger,
Ludwig, 22 Bion, W. R., 19n Blanchot,
Maurice, 42, 330, 341 Bleuler, Paul Eugen,
22 Bohannan, Laura, 176 Bohannan, Paul, 176, 248 Bonnafe,
Pierre, 181, 182n, 326n Bourbaki,
Nicolas, 25 In Bradbury, Ray, 47
Braudel, Fernand, 224 Brunhoff,
Suzanne de, 230«, 260n Buber, Martin,
360 Biicbner, Georg, 2 Butler, Samuel,
284-85
Cage, John, 371 n Canetti, Elias, 279
Cantor, Georg, 100 Capgras, J., 122
Carrette, J., 122 Carroll, Lewis, 135,
198 Carrouges, Michel, 18 Cartry,
Michel, 157, 160, 161n Castro, Fidel,
378 Celine, L-F„ 99, 114, 277 Cesar,
31
Chaplin, Charlie, 316-18 Charles,
Daniel, 371« Clastres, Pierre, 148, 190
Clavel, Maurice, 28n, 232, 238
Clerambault, G. de, 22 Columbus,
Christopher, 87 Cooper, David, 95, 320
Cournot, Michel, 316
Dali, Salvador, 31
Darien, Georges, 99
Deleuze, Gilles, 30rc, 21 An, 309n
Derrida, Jacques, 161;?, 202, 301n
Detienne, M., 21 2n
Devereux, Georges, 33n, 165, 167
Dieterlen, Germaine, 154
Dobb, Maurice, 220n, 225, 344
Donzelot, Jacques, 30/i
Index of Intellectual Influences
- This text serves as a comprehensive index of names for a major theoretical work, likely Anti-Oedipus by Deleuze and Guattari.
- The list highlights a heavy reliance on psychoanalytic figures, with Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan receiving the most extensive citations.
- Political and philosophical heavyweights such as Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Michel Foucault are prominently featured, indicating a cross-disciplinary approach.
- The inclusion of literary and artistic figures like D.H. Lawrence, Franz Kafka, and Salvador Dali suggests the text explores the intersection of creativity and madness.
- Anthropological references to Levi-Strauss and Malinowski point toward a structuralist critique of kinship and social organization.
Freud, Sigmund, In, 13, 14, 17, 23, 28, 46, 51, 53-68, 72, 74, 76, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 89, 92, 93n, 96, 100, 106, 113, 114, 115, 117, 118, 119, 121, 122, 123, 128, 128n, 172, 216, 270, 271, 275, 276, 278, 280, 289, 290, 291, 291n, 292, 293n, 294, 297, 299-300, 301n, 304n, 314, 331, 332-33, 335, 349, 351-57
198 Carrouges, Michel, 18 Cartry,
Michel, 157, 160, 161n Castro, Fidel,
378 Celine, L-F„ 99, 114, 277 Cesar,
31
Chaplin, Charlie, 316-18 Charles,
Daniel, 371« Clastres, Pierre, 148, 190
Clavel, Maurice, 28n, 232, 238
Clerambault, G. de, 22 Columbus,
Christopher, 87 Cooper, David, 95, 320
Cournot, Michel, 316
Dali, Salvador, 31
Darien, Georges, 99
Deleuze, Gilles, 30rc, 21 An, 309n
Derrida, Jacques, 161;?, 202, 301n
Detienne, M., 21 2n
Devereux, Georges, 33n, 165, 167
Dieterlen, Germaine, 154
Dobb, Maurice, 220n, 225, 344
Donzelot, Jacques, 30/i
Dubuffet, Jean, 6«
Duchamp, Marcel, 18
Dufrenne, Mikel, 174n
Engels, Friedrich, 107, 133, 145,
219,297,388
Ey, Henry, 149
Fanon, Frantz, 96
Favret, Jeanne, 152
Faye, Jean-Pierre, 349n
Feuerbach, Ludwig, 22
Fortes, Meyer, 142, 146, 170
Foucault, Michel, 50, 92, 93n, 132«, 197,
212n, 271,299, 303«, 321, 359
Fourier, Charles, 292, 294
Fraenkel, Michael, 299
Frazer, Sir J.G., 114
Freud, Sigmund, In, 13, 14, 17, 23, 28,46,
51, 53-68,72,74, 76, 80, 81,,82 JJ,
83,84,85, 89,92, 93n, 96, 100, 106,
113, 114, 115, 117, 118, 119, 121,
122, 123, 128, 128«, 172, 216,270,
271, 275, 276, 278, 280, 289, 290,
291, 291«, 292, 293«, 294, 297,
299-300, 301«, 304n, 314, 331,
332-33,335,349,351-57
Fromm, Erich, 171, 21Qn, 312
Gabel, Joseph, 274
Gernet, L., 212n
Gie, Robert, 17
Ginsberg, Allen, 132
Girard, Philippe, 353, 354
Gobard, Henri, 110
Godelier, Maurice, 140n, 2l9n
Gordon, Pierre, 200
Gorz, Andre, 236
Goux, Jean-Joseph, 231
Green, Andre, 66, 289n, 305, 307
Griaule, Marcel, 154, 155, 157, 158,
160, 163, 219
Groddeck, G., 54 Grombrowicz, Witold, 97
Grunow, Oskar, 34
Guattari, Felix, 30n, 300», 309«
Hardy, Thomas, 132 Hegel, Georg,
207n, 311 Heusch, Luc de, 147
Hincker, Frangois, 220n Hitler,
Adolf, 102, 104, 293 Hjelmslev,
Louis, 242-43, 246 Hochman,
Jacques, 93, 94 Holderlin, Friedrich,
21
Jacobs, Claire, 15In
James, William, 276rc
Jarry, Alfred, 18
Jaspers, Karl, 24-25, 33«, 131, 136
Jauiin, Robert, 36, 160, 169, 169«,
178n Jones, Ernest, 118, 171
Joyce, James, 43, 186 Jung, Carl, 46,
57, 58, 114, 128,
162,276,289, 300,301, 331,
354
Kafka, Franz, 18, 198, 212, 213 Kant,
Immanuel, 13, 19, 25, 71, 75,
76, 378 Kardiner, Abram, 30«, 171,
173n,
174, 177, 178, 275 Kerouac, Jack,
132, 277 Keynes, John Maynard, 230 Klee,
Paul, 243 Klein, Melanie, 37, 43, 44-45,
60,
72, 295, 309«, 324 Klossowski, Pierre,
20, 63, 77, 87,
186, 330,345,367
Kraepelin, Emil, 22, 24
Lacan, Jacques, 21n, 30«, 38, 39«, 41, 52,
52n, 53, 53n, 73, 81, 82-83,92, 100,
104, 123, 171, 175, 209, 217, 244,
268, 295, 308, 309,309n,310, 31 On,
314, 328, 353,359,360,363, 371
Lacarriere, Ja cques, 222«
Laing, R. D., 84, 95, 124, 131, 132n,
135, 320, 360, 362
Laplanche, I. J., 53, 333
Laurent, Eric, 182n
Lautremont, 371
Lawrence, D.H., 5, 49, 115, 132,
177,268,292,298,315,323, 351,
362, 366, 370
398 INDEX
Leach, E. R., 146, 147, 15 0n, 164,
172, 179n, 182, 187 Leclaire, Serge,
27n, 309n, 31 On,
314, 323-24 Lefebvre, Henri,
251 Leibnitz, G. W., 156,309*
Lenin, Vladimir, 256, 344, 349,
375, 377 Leroi-Gourhan, Andre,
188-89, 202 Levi-Strauss, Claude, 7,
147«, 150«,
151, 156, 157, 159, 167, 182,
185, 187,273 Lindner, Richard,
7, 47, 358 Loffler, L. G., 164 Lotto,
369
Lowry, Malcolm, 109, 132 Luther, Martin,
102, 270 Lyotard, Jean-Francois, 204,
243-
244, 295, 392
Lysenko, T. D., 158
Malinowski, Bronislaw, 53, 159, 171,
172
Mallarme, Stephane, 243
Mannoni, Maud, 89-90, 95, 364, 381
Mannoni, Octave, 305, 307
Mao Tse-tung, 378
Marcuse, Herbert, 30n, 112, 118, 173
Martinet, Andre, 243n
Marx, Karl, 4, 10, 11, 16, 22, 24, 27, 28,
28n, 31,34, 56, 58, 63, 81, 107, 140,
153, 175, 194, 221, 223, 225, 227,
230, 23In, 234, 238, 248«, 258-59,
270, 294, 295, 302-303, 373, 375
Mauss, Marcel, 150, 185, 190
Mayer, J. R., 371
McLuhan, Marshall, 240, 241 fn.
Mendel, Gerard, 81, 108
Michaux, Henri, 6
Index of Intellectual Influences
- This section serves as a comprehensive index of names, documenting the diverse range of thinkers cited throughout the work.
- Prominent figures from political philosophy, such as Karl Marx and Mao Tse-tung, highlight the text's engagement with revolutionary theory.
- The inclusion of psychoanalysts like Wilhelm Reich and Jacques Lacan suggests a deep focus on the intersection of desire and social structures.
- Literary and artistic figures, including Marcel Proust and Henry Miller, indicate that the work draws heavily on creative narratives to illustrate its concepts.
- The frequent references to Friedrich Nietzsche and Daniel Paul Schreber point toward a central exploration of madness, power, and the will.
Nietzsche, Friedrich W., 20-21, 63, 86, 106-107, 111, 121, 144, 166, 185, 190, 191, 192, 196, 199, 207rc, 213, 214«, 215, 216, 217n, 268, 299, 342, 343, 345, 368
Lysenko, T. D., 158
Malinowski, Bronislaw, 53, 159, 171,
172
Mallarme, Stephane, 243
Mannoni, Maud, 89-90, 95, 364, 381
Mannoni, Octave, 305, 307
Mao Tse-tung, 378
Marcuse, Herbert, 30n, 112, 118, 173
Martinet, Andre, 243n
Marx, Karl, 4, 10, 11, 16, 22, 24, 27, 28,
28n, 31,34, 56, 58, 63, 81, 107, 140,
153, 175, 194, 221, 223, 225, 227,
230, 23In, 234, 238, 248«, 258-59,
270, 294, 295, 302-303, 373, 375
Mauss, Marcel, 150, 185, 190
Mayer, J. R., 371
McLuhan, Marshall, 240, 241 fn.
Mendel, Gerard, 81, 108
Michaux, Henri, 6
Miller, Henry, 5n, 132, 268, 292, 298-99,
315, 362, 370
Mitscherlich, Alexander, 80
Monakow, C. von, 40
Monod, Jacques, 288, 289«, 328
More, Marcel, 325/j
Morin, Edgar, 257
Mourgue, 40
Moussa, Pierre, 231
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 325
Murnford, Lewis, 141, 222n Nerval, Gerard de, 126
Nicolaus, Martin, 140rc
Niederland, W. G., 297n
Nietzsche, Friedrich W., 20-21, 63, 86,
106-107, 111, 121, 144, 166, 185,
190, 191, 192, 196, 199, 207rc, 213,
214«, 215, 216, 217n, 268, 299, 342,
343, 345, 368
Nijinsky, Vaslav, 77, 84, 341
Nougayrol, Jean, 208
Ortigues, Edmond, 73n, 144n, 170
Ortigues, M. C, 73n, 144n, 170 Oury,
Jean, 30n, 62,94, 319
Pankow, Gisela, 130, 315 Parin, Paul,
144n, 170, 178, 178n Pautrat, Bernard,
207n Pinel, Phiiipe, 92, 93« Plekhanov,
G., 253 Poe, Edgar Allan, 18 Pohier, J.
M., Sin, 108 Pontalis, J. B., 53 Proust,
Marcel, 42-43, 68-70, 98, 318
Rank, Otto, 128n, 300
Ravel, Maurice, 31
Ray, Nicolas, 274
Reich, Wilhelm, 29-30, 30«, 87, 112,
113, 117, 118-19, 127,
172,257,291-92,312,314,
331,332, 344, 349, 380
Reuleaux, Franz, 141
Ricardo, David, 270, 299-300
Roberts, Harry, 287n
Roheim, Geza, 171—72
Rolland, Romain, 80
Rosset, Clement, 26
Roudinesco, Elisabeth, 209n, 310
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 112, 161n
Roussel, Raymond, 18, 316
Russell, 79-80
Ruwet, Nicolas, 243n
Ruyer, Raymond, 286n, 289n
Sade, Marquis de, 210 Safouan,
Moustafa, 306 Saint-Juste, 349
Saint-Simon, 253 Salisbury, R.,
248 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 28rc,
256
INDEX 3!
Saussure, Ferdinand de, 207 Schmitt,
Bernard, 237, 250, 374 Schoepf, Brooke
Grundfest, 151« Schopenhauer, Arthur,
299 Schreber, Daniel Paul, 2, 8, 11, 13,
14, 15, 16, 17, 19,56,57,77, 89, 105, 274,
280, 297, 316, 364 Segur, Contesse de,
297 Serres, Michel, 241 Smith, Adam,
258, 259, 270 Spinoza, B., 29, 276n 309«,
327 Stephane, Drs., 81, 108 Stravinsky,
Igor, 121 Szondi, Lipot, 85, 289-90, 333
Tausk, Victor, 9
Tintoretto, 369 Tippett, L. H. C, 287« Tuke, William,
92, 93 M Turner, J. M, 132, 370
Turner, Victor W., 167, 181, 360
Valles, Jules, 99 Vernant,
Jean-Pierre, 219 Villiers,
Jean-Marie, 18
Wallis, Allen, 287n Weismann,
August, 158-59 Wilden,
Anthony, 32n Will, Edouard,
197 Wittfogel, Karl, 211,220
Wolfli, Adolf, 15
Zempleni, Andras, 206
400 INDEX