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nighthawk
18:02 / 04.11.06
I've been meaning to start this thread for a while as a compliment to Stupid theory (or politics) questions. Lots of people here seem pretty well-versed in contemporary theory - in fact, I think at least a few regular posters are working in academia?

Anyway, I know some people are discouraged from posting here because they feel they lack this background knowledge. I also know that some people are trying to familiarise themselves with this sort of material without being formally enrolled in any sort of college (me!). Without guidance and discussion this can be incredibly frustrating, and I've always found its a good place to come if I'm looking for theory-related help and advice (see the thread I started on Psycho-analysis recently, or the old ones on Deleuze and Guattari, and Alain Badiou).

Rather than starting a new thread every time I have a query, I thought this could be a place to ask for suggested reading and general pointers for those of us working without the guidance of reading lists, classes, or supervisors!
 
 
Phex: Dorset Doom
18:29 / 04.11.06
Okay, I'll start: Rhizome. WTF?

The concept came up in a PoMo Fiction class a while back, and although I've read the wikipedia entry and tried to wrap my head around the concept I've had no luck. Can anybody either: a) explain the concept in REALLY EASY TO UNDERSTAND LANGUAGE, with examples of what is and isn't a Rhizome and why, b) provide me with linkage to somewhere that will do the above or c) tell me about a book that'll help me understand the concept.
 
 
Disco is My Class War
03:46 / 05.11.06
Okay, rhizome. It's actually pretty simple, and I'd guess you know what it means, even if you think it's difficult.

In botany, 'rhizome' is the word for plants that spread by sending out nodes in all directions and sprouting from the nodes, rather than growing like a tree or a seedling, where one seed grows upwards and downwards, and has a central structure that controls the structure of the rest of the plant. Ginger, cardamom and galangal are currently some of my favourite rhizomes (I'm trying to grow and Asian herb patch!) The important thing about rhizomes, botanically, is that once more nodes are created, they can reproduce without needing to be attached to the original. That's why you can break up a ginger plant, for example, and the sections will keep growing when you replant them.

Compare this to a tree, for example. A tree's growth is centralised: it need a seed to sprout from. Its root system and trunk/branch/leaf system are all in balance, and if you destroyed the trunk, or the central roots, the tree would die.

Theoretically, Deleuze and Guattari are the people who appropriated 'rhizome' from botany and started using it to describe social movements, or social/political/technological thought generally. They did this in Milles Plateaux (A Thousand Plateaus), which, despite its length, I'd suggest reading parts of. The chapter on rhizomes is actually the Introduction to Milles Plateaux: their explanation of rhizomes starts with a suggestion of how to read the book itself. Basically, they argue that you can read the book however you like, preferably not from start to finish, because it's structured rhizomatically: the different sections connect to each other in a dencentralised way. The chapters don't build on each other, in other words, and the book itself doesn't comprise a 'totality': by which they mean that theoretically, it doesn't offer a kind of total philosophy or theory of anything. Using the Latin term for trees, 'arborus' (I think), Deleuze and Guattari call things structured along an original unity or tree structure 'arborial', and things structured in a decentralised and multiplicitous way 'rhizomatic'.

Does this help? If the 'Rhizome' chapter of 1000 Plateaus confuses the hell out of you, I'd suggest reading it as fiction or poetry without trying to understand the theory, in the way you might read William Burroughs or Hunter S. Thompson. Skip anything that bores you; move onto the next bit that catches your eye. (They intended it to be read that way, in fact.) A really good (but pretty sloganistic) explanation of Deleuze and Guattari is Brian Massumi's A User's Guide to Capitalism and Schizophrenia, but I just looked at it, and actually, there's no explanation of rhizomes at all.
 
 
Disco is My Class War
04:04 / 05.11.06
And some examples of what's a rhizome and what isn't:

Take two armies. (The Israeli Defence Force makes its strategists read Deleuze and Guattari these days, so talking about the military is quite on-topic.) The first army is structured hierarchically, like a tree: you have the generals, the colonels, the majors, the lieutenants, the grunts. Strategically, the army behaves in synch: its operations are planned by the people at the top, and ideally, every different battalion is contributing to a larger goal which only the top people know the point of. Its operational success depends on the chain of command. So if a battalion's communications were cut off, or the central command were destroyed, the rest of the army wouldn't be able to take orders, and wouldn't be able to keep functioning -- or not 'legitimately'.

The second army trains all of its fighters to form small cells that don't take orders from a central command structure and act independently. They might communicate with each other to co-ordinate strikes, but they have no chain of command. They decide on their tactics themselves, based on what is appropriate to the situation. They can't be destroyed by taking out the central hub, because there is no central unity. They might have no idea what the other cells are doing. So if one cell gets taken out, they will regroup somewhere else, or another cell will take its place.

It should be fairly obvious here that I'm talking about representations of the US Army as the arborescent, or tree-like structure, and and Al Qaeda as the rhizomatic one. I say 'representations' beucase I think the media and the US government has used that image of Al Qaeda as rhizomatic to make it seem more scary: it's headless, it springs up everywhere, it spreads underground, etc. In fact, it's likely that a lot of US/Israeli/Australian/UK forces are being trained to behave in rhizomatic ways for particular operations within the command structure, because in certain circumstances this may be more effective.
 
 
nighthawk
21:02 / 16.01.07
I'm just reaching the end of Contingency, Hegemony, Universality: Contemporary Dialogues on the Left, and I've found it incredibly illuminating - I was particularly impressed by Judith Butler's pieces (and underwhelmed by Laclau), but the format of the book was the best thing... Anyway I was wondering if anyone could point me towards similar projects (i.e. books where various theorist directly address one another) - I know the 'X and hir Critics' series, but that's more focused on the analytic tradition. Also, was the debate in this book continued elsewhere? And where should I start with Butler? I've read Subjects of Desire, and I've been thinking about buying her book on Antigone (it sounds interesting and I expect it to explicitly address sections of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, although I could be wrong about that?). Thanks in advance.
 
 
Slate
07:45 / 17.01.07
So does William H. Burroughs "Naked Lunch" = a Rhizome book?
 
 
Disco is My Class War
09:33 / 17.01.07
Anyway I was wondering if anyone could point me towards similar projects (i.e. books where various theorist directly address one another) - I know the 'X and hir Critics' series, but that's more focused on the analytic tradition. Also, was the debate in this book continued elsewhere? And where should I start with Butler?

Kill two birds with one stone -- Butler and the book-as-debate format -- and check out Feminist Contentions.

And with Butler, it depends what you're looking for. If you want to start with gender performativity, specifically, read Gender Trouble, then Bodies That Matter (the latter is more interesting and complex, I think, but the former contextualises the argument. And GT is quite a quick read. Relatively.) If you want to skip performativity, read The Psychic Life of Power. I havent actually read Subjects of Desire but I do believe it deals largely with Hegel. (I think that's the reason I've avoided reading it all these years. Maybe a good reason to try now, too.)
 
 
Disco is My Class War
09:34 / 17.01.07
So does William H. Burroughs "Naked Lunch" = a Rhizome book?

Maybe you could go read Deleuze and Burroughs together and tell us?
 
 
nighthawk
12:08 / 17.01.07
Thanks (again!) Mr Disco... With Butler I was wondering whether I'd be jumping in at the deep end by leaving out Gender Trouble and starting with Psychic Life of Power or Antigone's Claim and working backwards... Subjects of Desire is all about Hegel - its a great introduction to post-Hegelian French thought actually, and I'd thoroughly reccommend it to anyone who needs that.


johnleespider: For what its worth, D&G use Burroughs as an example of a book which is not rhizomatic. Basically, despite the apparent multiplicity, unity persists at a different level:

The radicle-system, or fasicular root, is the second figure of the book to which our modernity pays willing allegiance...Take William Burroughs's cut-up method: the folding of one text into another, which constitutes multiple and even adventitious roots (like a cutting), implies a supplementary dimension to that of the texts under consideration. In this supplementary dimension of folding, unity continues its spiritual labour. That is why the most resolutely fragmented work can also be presented as the Total Work or Magnum Opus. Most modern methods for making series proliferate or a multiplicity grow are perfectly valid in one direction, for example, a linear direction, whereas totalization asserts itself even more firmly in another, circular or cyclic, dimension...

But as Disco says, it makes so much more sense to read both and decide for yourself - if nothing else, you'll get a much better feel for what they're talking about with the whole 'rhizome' thing. Its not just a type of book.
 
 
Slate
12:29 / 18.01.07
So does William H. Burroughs "Naked Lunch" = a Rhizome book?

Maybe you could go read Deleuze and Burroughs together and tell us?

Hmmm, maybe I will, I'll cut both books up, each page into a quater, then throw them into the air, tape the first bits I grab into pages again and then read random pages. I must just bloody do it! MUST!
 
  
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