Comments and Questions to: John Protevi
LSU French Studies
Protevi Home Page

Classroom use only. Do not cite w/o permission.
March 23, 1999
 

I. Segmentarity: inherent to all strata 208-9
    A. three types: binary, circular, linear
    B. bound up w/ each other, cross over into each other

II. primitive, supple, segmentarity 209
    A. ethnologists create "segmentarity" for societies w/ no central State
    B. characteristics:
        1. leeway;
        2. communicability btw heterogenous elements;
        3. local construction
        4. extrinsic and situational properties
        5. continuous activity
    C. elements:
        1. polyvocal code (clan lineages)
        2. itinerant territory (tribal land)
        3. this distinction prevents resonance 212

III. modern State: rigid segmentarity (global whole/constellation of subsystems) 209-10

IV. Distinction of supple and rigid in binary, circular, and linear segmentarity 210-12
    A. binary
        1. primitve supple: result of machines that are not binary
        2. modern rigid: binary machines
    B. circular
        1. primitive supple: non-resonating circles: inhibit resonance
        2. modern rigid: concentric, resonating: center of signifiance: macroface
    C. linear
        1. primitve supple: proto-geometry
        2. modern rigid: equivalence of units; homogenous space; overcoding; gridding

V. Summary: 2 different processes: tree vs. rhizome: 212-3

VI. de jure distinction; de facto entanglement of molar [rigid] and molecular [supple] 213
    A. "everything is political, but every politics is simultaneously a macropolitics and a
    micropolitics."
        1. perception: molar = feeling; micro = affect
        2. binary: molar = class; molecular = mass. reciprocal presupposition
        3. bureaucracy
    B. fascism: molecular; totalitarianism: molar: total and central
        1. microfascisms: molecular focuses in interaction, before resonating in State
        2. micro-black hole that stands on its own and communicates w/ the others
        3. war machine installed in each hole, in every niche
        4. persistence of microfascisms after Nazi State
            a. act upon the masses
            b. "a molecular and supple segmentarity, flows capable of suffusing every cell"
        5. capitalism came to prefer Stalinist totalitarianism
        6. danger of fascism: molecular or micropolitical power [puissance] 215
            a. mass movement
            b. "cancerous body rather than a totalitarian organism"
        7. "only microfascism provides an answer to the global question: why does desire desire
        its own repression?"
            a. desire: never instinctual energy, but is engineered from complex assemblages
            b. desire: "supple segmentarity that processes molecular energies and potentially gives
            desire a fascist determination"
            c. "the fascist inside you"

VII. Four errors to be avoided 215-6
    A. axiological: don't believe a little suppleness is enough to make things "better"
    B. pyschological: molecular is not just imagination and individuals and inter-individual
    C. size: molecular works in detail & in small groups, but is coextensive w/ social field
    D. separation: always interaction of molar and molecular
        1. strong molar organization induces molecularization
        2. molecular movements thrwart and break through global molar organization 216
            a. line of flight escapes centralized, molar organization
            b. movements are molecular, but "represented" molarly [interest groups]
            c. society defined by its lines of flight
            d. May 68 in France
        3. NB: molecular must return to reshuffle the molar 216-7

VIII. new terminology for molecular composition: 217
    A. segmented line/quantum flow; power center at border to convert
    B. example of money flow
    C. correlations:
        1. linearization and segmentation: where flows run dry; spot of new creation
        2. power centers defined by impotence: "something always escapes"
    D. consequence: microlevel defined by its "mass": quantum flow vs. segmented line
    E. other examples: Church; criminality; military 218
    F. ontology: pure flow: abstract yet real; etc.
        1. flow and quanta grasped only by indexes on segmented line
        2. but line and indexes exist only by virtue of flow suffusing them
        3. macropolitics immersed in and prolonged by micropolitics reshuffling segments
        4. diagram on p. 218

IX. homage to Gabriel Tarde: microsociology (vs. Durkheim) 2188-9

X. flow and line in terms of coding, decoding, overcoding 219
    A. definitions:
        1. mutant flow: escaping the codes
        2. quanta: signs or degrees of deterritorialization in decoded flow
        3. rigid line: overcoding
        4. segments: reterritorializations on overcoding line
    B. example of original sin 219-20
    C. social field analysis in terms of "mass": example of Europe 10th-14th C 220
    D. distinction between connection and conjugation of flows 220-21
        1. connection: decoded and deterr. flows boost each other
        2. conjugation: accumulation, reterritorialization, single power for overcoding
        3. most deterritorialized flow brings about conjunction and reterr: e.g., bourgeoisie
    E. "task of historian" 221 mass (molecular) vs class (molar)
        1. operations
            a. mass: mutation, molecular, decoding, connection
            b. class: overcoding, molar, segmentation, conjugation
        2. coexistence: "flow continues beneath line, forever mutant, while line totalizes"
        3. amorality: "just as much relations of force, and just as much violence"
        4. interdependence: molar politics decided by the molecular 222

XI. a new map 222
    A. elements: 3 lines: supple/primitive, rigid/State, line of flight/war machine
    B. coexistence of tribes, empires, war machines: e.g.: migrants, Rome, Huns
    C. transformation: e.g., Vandals: only mass to cross Med, but forms own empire
    D simultaneous states of the Abstract Machine 223
        1. abstract machine of overcoding:
            a. produces rigid segmentarity:
            b. effectuated by State apparatus, which is a reterritorializing assemblage
                i can be either geometrical (empire) or axiomatic (capitalism)
                ii. totalitarian State:
                    aa. identifies w/ overcoding machine
                    bb. creates conditions for "autarky"
                    cc. reterritorialization by "closed vessel"
                    dd. artifice of the void: never ideological, but econ-political
        2. abstract machine of mutation:
            a. operates by decoding and deterritorialization
            b. creates lines of flight
            c. itself in a state of flight: erects war machines on its lines
        3. realm of molecular negotiation between molar lines and lines of flight 223-4
            a. lines of flight connect and continue intensities (full BwO)
            b. or retreat into swirl of micro-black holes (microfascism; cancerous BwO)
            c. or enter overcoded, resonance around central black hole (totalitarian State)

XII. power center 224-6 illustrates entanglement of lines
    A. rigid segments; "centralization is always hierarchical; hierarchy always segmentary"
    B. micrological fabric: disciplines; zone of indiscernability: molar and molecular 225
    C. limit: quantum flow: power centers translate flow into segments; impotence 225-6
        1. power centers only translate; they do not govern the flow
        2. power centers govern assemblage that effectuates abstract machine overcoding
    D. example of money:
        1. power: segments: central banks:
            a. conversion of credit flow into payment money;
            b. State apparatus = assenblage effecutating a.m. of molar overcoding;
        2. indiscernability: texture:
            a. series of private relations btw banks and borrowers
            b. molecular fabric immersing the State assemblage
        3. impotence: flow:
            a. desiring flow of money:
            b. a.m. of mutation, flows and quanta

XIII. pragmatics/schizoanalysis: 227-31: the four dangers re: Zarathustra and Don Juan
    A. Fear: cling to molar, rigid segments; flee from flight
    B. Clarity: supple molecularity; marginal reterr; microfascisms; static; black holes 227-8
    C. Power (pouvoir) 228-29; stop lines of flight; totalitarian State
    D. great Disgust; Passion for abolition 229-31 danger of the lines of flight themselves
        1. a strange despair; a state of war from which one returns broken (instead of episode of
        BwO which creates a new desiring body)
        2. line of flight become line of death [misses self-organizing zone and hits chaos]
        3. not a death drive: desire is always assembled;
        4. war machine produces mutation; war is failure of mutation 230
        5. war machine constructs destructive State apparatus
        6. paradox of fascism 230-1
            a. total.: State assemblage of a.m. overcoding, molar, resonance; conservative
            b. fascism: war m. taking over State; intense line of flight become destructive