pellejero, politics of involution, 6ª versão

7/23/2019 Pellejero, Politics of Involution, 6 Verso

1/14

Eduardo Pellejero

The strategy of involutionBecoming-minor in political philosophy

We gave up utopias. Perhaps we will never come of age, as

Kant wished. Philosophy has relinquished, in this sense, the

possession of power (by right and the (factual property of

!nowledge.

"ut, even if we no longer have any faith in the advent of a new

happy world, we cannot renounce the e#ercise of a thought of

resistance, in the di$icult, unpredictable, dangerous intersection ofour powerlessness and our ignorance. Without it, the di$erent

dystopias that may be glimpsed on the hori%on would see the space

that separates them from their total or totalitarian ful&lment

surmounted.'

What is to be done )he old *eninist question still hangs over

us, with an irresistible weight, even if we are convinced that the

question only admits of a creative answer. +reate-, though, is not asatisfactory answer to that question.

)he question lies, today as much as it ever did, before and

beyond any program of action how to embrace such a politics, a

politics that proposes struggle, not as revolution, but just as

resistance /ow, or why, to embrace it when we are fully aware of

the local, strategic, non0totali%able value of the changes we can

aspire to

11 thin! that the generic threat of totali%ation is, nowadays, much more worrysomethan totalitarian threats. apitalistic totali%ation 2 under the forms of controlsocieties (3eleu%e, integrated world capitalism (4uattari, or empire (5egri0/ardt 2 implies a vast number of forms that go much further than dictatorial(military or party based totalitarianisms. urrent capitalism, indeed, establishes inour societies a !ind of symbolic totalitarianism, a totali%ation thatoverdeterminates reality by representation, and reaches %ones which havetraditionally been far away from power. lumsy forms of totalitarianism are, fromthis point of view, just a violent and voluntaristic reaction of 6tates confronted with

the failure of operational totali%ations by globally legitimated dispositifs of!nowledge and power. 1n this sense, they represent a !ind of step bac!wards in thedirection of archaic dispositifs discipline, sovereignty, etc.

'


2/14

7aybe we could &nd, 1 won-t say an answer, but a starting

point in the wor! of 4illes 3eleu%e. )he 3eleu%e 1 mean is the one

who passes fromREVOLUTIONas the end of history, to revolutionas

a line of transformation. 3i$erently put, the one who passes to the

a$irmation of resistance and leaves behind revolution, understood as

the radical and irreversible advent of a society &nally totali%ed, not

divided, but reconciled. )his 3eleu%e that, the advocate of a minor

dialectics, substitutes the global, determinist and teleological logics

of adventby a logics of unpredictable, neutral, ephemeral events.

1n an interview with laire Parnet, 3eleu%e proposes a minor

political philosophy, one that has as it conceptual core the idea of

+becoming0revolutionary-, an idea that is di$erent from thin!ing

+about a 8future of the revolution9-.:)his is the rede&nition of the

!ey political event, not as an historical hori%on, but as +a bifurcation,

a deviation with respect to laws, an unstable condition that opens a

new &eld of the possible-, and which +can be turned around,

repressed, co0opted, betrayed, but there is still something there

which cannot be outdated-.;

1t is a question life, one that ta!es place inside individuals as in

the e#teriority of society, creating new relations with the body, time,

se#uality, culture, wor!. 1t is just a matter of the changes that ta!e

place, changes +that do not wait for the revolution, and that do not

pre&gure it, although they are revolutionary on their own account

they have in them a power of resistance which is proper to the poetic

life-.


3/14

fact that, by the time they ta!e place, they escape from constituted

!nowledge and dominant powers, even if they are subsequently

inscribed into new dispositifsof !nowledge and power.B

"ecoming0revolutionary ta!es the place of what in historicist

political philosophy had been the revolutionC more precisely, it

e#tracts, from revolution, the event, leaving aside (for a moment

part of the project, the part of its e$ectuation on history. "ecoming0

revolutionary appears, in this sense, as the power of variation and re0

arrangement of the objects and subjects, of the signs and meanings

of a state of a$airs, the structure of a language or the e#perience of

a conscience. 1n this very measure, it is li!e the function of the

labour of dreaming, even if it is far from being an +Dedipal fantasy-C it

resembles +the moments of selective rearrangement that mar!

historical discontinuities (... that is, the power to select and reorder

the objects and meanings that belong to a previous world-.?

ertainly, such a shift in the theory, such a change in the

conceptual framewor!, has immediate consequences at the level of

pra#is. 6uddenly, the object of struggle is no longer the defence of a

state of a$airs, nor is it the ful&lment of a possible but essential

divergence. 1t is, we hope, with 7arcos, a multiplication of

perspectives, a vision of the world that can accommodate many

worlds.>

7inor political pra#is is delineated, in the &rst place, as a wor!

of de0totali%ation of life. "ecoming0revolutionary is a process that

5 4illes 3eleu%e, Negotiations# %&'+-%&&,, trans. 7artin oughin (5ew For!olumbia GP, 'HHB '>?.6Gregg Lambert, The Non-hilosophy of .illes eleu/e(*ondon ontinuum, :==:';>0';@.71t also will be an ongoing, perennial tas!, since power learns from its mista!esand !nows how to ta!e advantage of its defeats. IranJois ourabichvili,incidentally, reminds us that, in the .erman Ideology, 7ar# and Engels de&necommunism (in opposition to utopian socialism e#actly this way +ommunism isfor us not a state of a0airswhich is to be established, an idealto which reality

LwillM have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishesthe present state of things. )he conditions of this movement result from thepremises now in e#istence- (.erman IdeologyB>.

;


4/14

puts in question, or wea!ens, any historicist dialectics pretending to

sanction a de iurewhat rarely if ever imposes a de facto, whether by

the use or abuse of violence.

* * *

1n the wor! of 3eleu%e and 4uattari, becoming0revolutionary is

a variation on the concept of becoming0minor. 1t is a process of de0

subjectivation, of in0determination, of in0volution, one in which the

terms involved, passing through a series of transformations, go

beyond what determines them at the level of representation, even if

they do not properly overcome any previous stage in the direction of

a higher &gure.

"ecoming0minor, in this sense, is a short0circuit of the linear,

chronological, historicist order, a movement of unpredictable

variations, where we brea! with the representations that, from a

major point of view, de&ne us. 1t is a brea! with the functions

assigned to us as subjects of the historical dispositifsof power and

!nowledge we are engaged with what our society or family e#pects

from us, what we e#pect from ourselves, etc.. And, undermining

those hori%ons of e#pectation, those structures of control or

discipline, becoming0minor opens us up to une#pected &elds of

possibility.

)he brea! with the historicist order is also a brea! with any

major politics. 7ajor politics, in e$ect, con&scates powers of

movement and creation, of change and thought, in e#change for a

representation and a place within the status 1uo. "ecoming0minor, in

turn, frees the singularities underneath the patterns of historical or

political representations, deviating them from the line of progress or

evolution of a majority, and a$irming each single element as

di$erentials of individuations, subjectivations and assemblages to

come.


5/14

Irom another point of view, for these openings of the possible

to be something other than a vision, for this new sensibility to be

asserted, it is necessary to create the proper assemblages.

Gltimately, that creation is the tas! that gives consistency to this

singular political philosophy. 3eleu%e says +When a social mutation

appears, it is not enough to draw the consequences or e$ects

according to lines of economic or political causality. 6ociety must be

capable of creating collective agencies of enunciation that match the

new subjectivity, in such a way that it desires the mutation-. And

3eleu%e concludes +)here can only be a creative solution. )hese are

the creative redeployments that would contribute to the current

crisis.-@

Without the transformations of theforce relationsunchained by

the processes of becoming0minor, traditional politics has no other

sense, no other tas!, than the reproduction of the given dispositifsof

!nowledge and power. "ut, without the invention and promotion of

new &gures of subjectivation, there is no political way out. )he

search for assemblages in order to e#tend the movements triggered

by the events is the proper, constructive alternative to the historical

cleavagesand social segregations of the major patterns.H

1n 4uattarian terms, we could say that becoming0minor is just

one side of this minor political philosophy. )he other side is the

production of +e#istential territories- (assemblages from the non0

represented part that +insists-, to use 3eleu%e-s word, inside and

outside us, and that are revealed in the trance of becoming0minor.

(We may, perhaps, understand this along the lines of NanciOre-s

concept of +the part of no part-.

8

3eleu%e, +7ay -?@ 3id 5ot )a!e Place-, in T!o Regimes of "adness, :;< :;?,respectively.9f. 4illes 3eleu%e, 2uperpositions(Paris Qditions de 7inuit, 'H>H ':


6/14

"rieRy becoming0minor is always a relation with the non0

historic, with the non0representative, with the in0human, the outsideC

in short, with everything that it is beyond the empirical and

transcendental determinations of the subjects at sta!e. "ut it is not a

leap into the void or an idle pursuit, nor is it a plain scream of

protest, a mere negativity. 1t is a radical form of change that, placing

us in a %one of indetermination, transforms us without negating our

singularitiesC a radical change that overRows the representative

ground of major politics with a non0historic surplus value, vi%. the

articulation of une#pected (impossible relations between us and the

others, between us and wor!, between us and se#, between us and

thought, relations that, of course, have to be consolidated in proper

assemblages.

What 1 mean is that becoming0minor it is not the !eyword for a

new form of negative dialectics. 3eleu%e and 4uattari do more than

pursue the banishment of any constitutedSalienatedSsubjectivity,

even if that banishment is also at sta!e. "ecoming0minor necessarily

implies a constructive material counterpart the invention of sui

generispolitical spaces, the assemblage of e#istential territories.

1n other words, if you-ll allow the use of a polemical formula,

becoming0minor implies a minor dialectics, one that proposes to

undermine historical patterns of subjectivation. 7ajor modern

dialectics, conversely, believes itself capable of overcoming political

contradictions by virtue of the enlightenment of the subjects

involved, who are supposed to be able to e#ceed the given dispositifs

of !nowledge and power, and thus lead history beyond its factual

state. )he brea!through or the openness inherent to any process of

becoming0minor, conversely, is not an elevation to the ne#t step of

the system, nor an evolution of the subject, but a rarefaction of the

given conditions and an involution of the subject.

?


7/14

3eleu%e-s programmatic statements point precisely in this

direction becoming0minor implies discovering that everybody has a

+third- world, that everybody is constituted by points of non0culture

and un0development, that is, that everybody is crossed by lines

where our representation crac!s up, our language lea!s, our

majority fades out.'=

ertainly, to a$irm all this as a political power seems to be, at

&rst sight, a sort of regression. 1 reali%e that it is not possible to

ignore the regression that becoming0minor implies vi%. T vi%. major

representation. /owever, as we have seen, becoming0minor is a

process of creation before it is a regression to any previous state, be

it animal, human or mythical. 1t is the creation of new forms of

individuation from the dissolution of major representative &gures

and the liberation of material and e#pressive singularities covered by

them.

)he e#ample of minor literature shows us that the

revolutionary roll of Kaf!a-s writing, with all its animal, mechanical,

and inorganic variations, goes hand in hand with the impoverishment

of the language and the renunciation of its inscription on the history

of 4erman literature. Kaf!a, according to 3eleu%e and 4uattari,

abdicates his place in the line that, from 4oethe onwards, develops

the spirit of the 4erman identity. As they see it, Kaf!a introduces a

way out of writing through points of un0development, of in0humanity,

of involution, of non0culture, points where, for e#ample, an animal

connects with writing. And that is the !ey for Kaf!a-s creation of

lines of Right confronted with the material +dead ends- where he, and

the missing people of Prague, were loc!ed up. At the same time,

those are the processes that put them outside of (literary or

European history, that is, outside any line of progress. We should not

forget, however, that the place of a %ech ew author in the line of

progress of that historical moment was no place at all.

10f. 4ille% 3eleu%e and Ieli% 4uattari,3af4a# To!ards a "inor Literature, trans.3ana Polan (7inneapolis Gniversity of 7innesota Press, 'H@? :?.

>


8/14

At the level of minor politics, 1 would suggest that the guerrilla

warfare model which 3eleu%e touches on brieRy in his essay on ). E.

*awrence is, from the perspective of social labour, an illustrative

e#ample of the immanent power of becoming0minor. 1n conditions

that ma!e it impossible to &ght on, or for, major &elds, guerrilla

warfare abandons the space of recognition (major projects of

freedom, equality or consensus, and wanders into the desert, the

jungle or the slums, where it articulates de facto, in conditions that

are unacceptable for the majority, what they demanded de iure as

their right.

As an e#ample, we can mention that the struggle for

recognition of the 7e#ico-s indigenous populations and the

revolutionary aspirations of some 7ar#ist groups in 7e#ico

underwent a +minor-, becoming0revolutionary in 'HH


9/14

class, this becoming0minor is unthin!able, not a possibility, an

unreasonable fantasy it is seen as an involution. And we agree it

was unthin!able, it was an impossibility, but it was not a fantasy,

because, as a creative involution, it bro!e through a political dead

end (a series of impossibilities and led all those people beyond total

marginali%ation, acculturation, and even systematic annihilation.

4oing bac! to our theoretical &eld, we should remember that

4uattari suggests a less radical e#ample of minor political0becoming,

the case of the free radio in the eighties. /ere we have an

assemblage where a technological evolution, the miniaturi%ation of

transmitters and the fact that they could be +assembled- by amateurs

being !ey factors, +concurred- with the collective aspiration for new

media of e#pression, on a micro0political process that, creatively

involutioningSthat is, leading the radio out of the major hori%ons of

communication, the communication of the majorities for the

majoritiesSopened new &elds of possibility for e#pression and

subjectivation.

Perhaps classic critical thought could argue that ethnic

minorities, as well as women, the young, the unemployed, etc., are in

no condition to renounce their speci&c struggles for recognition, for

an adequate representation at the level of rights. And that is a major

problem, in the sense that it is a problem about the articulation

between minor and major politics. "ut if becoming0minor is proposed

as an alternative politics, it is precisely to the e#tent that those

struggles for rights, at the level of major representation, seem to be

predestined to failure, either condemned to being systematically

ignored or to betraying themselves in the name of a given,

established representation.''

1t is a question of priority. )o support the idea of becoming0

minor does not mean relinquishing our political struggles for

11f. indy Kat%, +)owards 7inor )heory-, inEnviroment and lanning # 2ocietyand 2pace'


10/14

ac!nowledgmentC it means strategically to delay that struggle, which

embroils us in a non0representative movement of individuation, to

loo! to build in factwhat we demand 6y right, even if that is only

possible in minor spaces or in minor conditions, conditions that are

undesirable, unacceptable, and intolerable for majorities.

With incommensurable political signs and in completely diverse

circumstances, 1 thin! that it was a path (pathos of this !ind that led

the few minoritarian groups which have shown any political vitality

in the last &fty years to articulate a territory, to assemble a people, or

simply to discipline a body to be powerful enough to force some !ind

of negotiation at the level of major politics.

* * *

Dbviously, becoming0minor processes, as lines of Right, are not

necessarily revolutionaryC a line of migration (sub06aharan or uban

can end in death (at sea or in much harder realities (slavery, for

e#ample than those it left behind.

And, obviously, those processes of becoming0minor do not lead

automatically to a social revolution, to a new society, an economy or

a culture liberated from capitalism. 1n fact, to the e#tent that they do

not change everything, the new assemblages 2 developed from the

transformations released by the processes of becoming0minor 2

border on the major political projects, generally in non0peaceful

ways.

Iinally, there is no way to compare, according to a progressive

set of values, which regimes are harsher or more bearable. 1 mean, it

is possible to do it retrospectively, but not at the moment when one is

adopting a line of action. )he power of resistance or, on the contrary,

the submission to a control, is decided in the course of each attempt.

What matters is that, suddenly, we do not feel condemned in the

same old way anymoreC and a problem which nobody could see a way

out of, a problem in which everybody was trapped, suddenly ceases

'=


11/14

to e#ist, and we as! ourselves what we it is that were tal!ing about.

6uddenly, we are in another world, as PQguy says, and the same

problems do not arise anymore 2 though there will be many other

problems, of course.

We do not possess, whether de facto or de 5ure, any reliable

means, a fortiori, to free or preserve the becomings that undermine

the dispositifsof !nowledge and power we are involved in +how any

group will turn out, how it will fall bac! into history, presents a

constant 8concern9-.':

1n fact, becoming0minor, understood as a line of Right or as a

war machine, does not establish the basis for a revolutionary political

program.';Actually, it is developed in the very opposite direction,

that of the organi%ation logics of traditional political movements. 1n

this sense, 4uattari reminds us that +the search of a big uni&cation of

resistance forces would just ma!e the wor! of semioti%ation of

capital easier-,';.13Even if7nti-Oedipusends with a program for desiring machines, squi%oanalysis+has strictly no political program to propose-. Dn the contrary, it raises a series ofconceptual contrasts that allow us to analy%e social &elds or processes, evaluatingthe assemblages at sta!e. 6ee also Paul Patton,eleu/e and the olitical(*ondonNoutledge, :=== >'.14 f. 4uattari06tivale, iscussion !ith 8eli$ .uattari ('H 7arch 'H@B, Wayne6tate Gniversity httpUUwebpages.ursinus.eduUrrichterUstivale.html. +Well, 1 donVtthin! so because, once again, the molecular revolution is not something that willconstitute a program. 1tVs something that develops precisely in the direction ofdiversity, of a multiplicity of perspectives, of creating the conditions for thema#imum impetus of processes of singulari%ation. 1tVs not a question of creatingagreementC on the contrary, the less we agree, the more we create an area, a &eld

of vitality in di$erent branches of this phylum of molecular revolution, and themore we reinforce this area. 1tVs a completely di$erent logic from theorgani%ational, arborescent logic that we !now in political or union movements-.

''


12/14

opposition 2 the vocation of resistance.'B )his is a tragic political

thought, and with it an a-historicalsense of struggle.

"e that as it may, this uncertainty does not imply any

imperative of demobili%ation. "ecoming0minor is more than an

ethical concept, and minor politics does not abandon the political

&eld, +closing itself on an unassailable but just ethical position-, as

Philippe 7engue suggests.

Passing from major (historicist politics to minor (un0

totali%able, in&nite politics certainly brings to the forefront a

question about the ethics of struggleC as 5egri puts it +why go on

&ghting if revolution is, by de&nition, predestined to failure- "ut

that question about ethics has a thoroughly political development it

is indiscernible from politics as a generali%ed strategy of struggle.

)he adoption of a militant ethos cannot be thought disconnected

from a related political pra$is, that is, a political pra$isdisconnected

from the collective assemblages that give consistence and e$iciency

to any ethics of resistance. )he question, then, would be how does

becoming, how do those lines of Right, those processes of subversion

and those forms of resistance function And what are they worth, not

absolutely, but in each case, in relation to the material conditions of

impossibility that precedes them

"ecoming0minor is neither ethics nor politics. 1t is,

simultaneously, a question that passes through ethics and politics in

their major meanings, inquiring into their historical distinctions, as

private and public, individual and collectiveC banishing them for a

moment, ma!ing place for new distributions of the sensible, for new

&elds of the possible.

15 )oms 6egovia says +1 beg you not to mi# up Nesistance with politicalopposition. )he opposition does oppose power but a government, and its achievedand complete form is that of a party of opposition while resistance, by de&nition(now useful cannot be a party it is not made to govern at its time, but to ... resist-.

)he passage is cited by 6ubcomandante 7arcos in +6even *oose Pieces of the4lobal igsaw Pu%%le- ('HH>. Please see httpUURag.blac!ened.netUrevoltUme#icoUe%lnU'HH>Ujigsaw.html

':


13/14

Probably, more than probably, we will never come of age. "ut

minority could be a valuable political &eld if we could ma!e our

changes consequent, if we could truly carry out the transvaluation of

our ideals of political philosophy.

As we saw, for 3eleu%e it is not matter of becoming0major, of

reaching majority, but of becoming0minor, as tribe becomes0nomad in

the desert, or as a peasant becomes0guerrilla in the jungle.

onsequently, dialectics changes its sign, and political thought

&nds a singular role every time it is confronted with misery,

oppression or injustice. 3eleu%e writes +Artaud said to write forthe

illiterate 2 to spea! for the aphasic, to thin! for the acephalous. "ut

what does 8for9 mean (X 1t is a question of becoming. )he thin!er

is not acephalic, aphasic, or illiterate, but becomes so. /e becomes

an 1ndian, and never stops becoming so 2 perhaps 8so that9 the

1ndian who is himself an 1ndian becomes something else and tears

himself away from his own agony-.'?

reative involution could open us up to lines of Right in

situations of political su$ocation where, before being inscribed or

progressing in a major project, it is necessary to articulate a new

territory or a new sensibility for acting and thin!ing. 1n the idea that

it is possible, it is desirable, it is necessary to articulate a speci&c

force or a singular power before demanding an adequate

representation. 1n the idea that, from a political point of view, it is

imperative to capture de facto what we demand de iure, even in

limited spaces or in conditions that are unacceptable for the majority.

)o reach 3amascus before the "ritish, as *awrence wished.

)here it is no politics for the end of the world. "ecoming0minor

is not a utopia, but a possibility of reaching a line of transformation

within historical conditions that seem to render any hypothesis for

changing things impossible. "ecoming0minor it is not a universal

164illes 3eleu%e and IQli# 4uattari, 9hat is hilosophy:, trans. /ugh )omlinsonand 4ragam "urchell (5ew For! olumbia GP, 'HH


14/14

political truthC it is simply a singular, non0totali%able strategy. 1t does

not respond to the moral imperative to integrate all cultures, all

forms of subjectivity, and all languages, in a common line of

progressC it just responds to the vital need for allowing asubjectivity

to Rourish, for saving a culture from alienation, for freeing a

language from silence.

1t is not a solution for everything, or for everyone there lies its

wea!ness. "ut it could be the only thing for some people, and there

lies its power. 1t is not the art or technique of the possible, but the

art, the transformation, of the impossible.

)he collapse of the very movement itself it is much more

frightening that the failure or the relapse of historical political

movements. Ior thin!ing, as for action, it is imperative to go on

&ghting, winning the streets, getting into the jungle. And prolonging

the movement in order to throw politics and philosophy beyond their

historical or institutional determinations. 1t is important, as Ioucault

!new, to !eep patient labour that gives form to our impatience for

freedom from degenerating.

Gnli!e *enin-s recursive question, the critical interrogation

raised by 3eleu%e and 4uattari is still alive for us. +What becomings

pass through us today-'>is a question that goes on giving an actual

meaning to political thought, above and beyond the particular

answers that material conditions, historical circumstances and

individual wills ma!e possible.

173eleu%e and 4uattari, 9hat is hilosophy:, '';.'

pellejero, politics of involution, 6ª versão

Documents