Human computers on a picnic look much like regular humans on a picnicThe disfiguring of what was normally understood as unconscious material in classical psychoanalysis, and which we hopefully clarified to some degree in past posts has been done for the sake of a movement towards what D&G in Anti-Oedipus call "Schizoanalysis." They will devote the entire final chapter of the book to this "practice." We are not there yet but the hints are starting to pop up in their chapter before on the nature of colonization as it pertains to an always and already social investment into a territoriality that slowly becomes coded by the axis of desire and the socius. This theory is heavy and deserves it's own time. Ultimately it deserves to be read on its own in the primary source. As we are in this theory though, we can see obvious hints at what schizoanalysis will be; as an absolute distinction from psychoanalysis. We will see how important it was for D&G to distinguish between the Ethnologist and the Psychoanalyst, between the person who asks about the use of a certain civilizations practices and the person who asks about the meaning of those practices respectively. The psychoanalyst who asks about the meaning of a ritual for example adds a code to something that's happening in a "present," meaning that something is happening in which they observe and are then able to understand. This function of the psychoanalyst at first glance isn't different from the Ethnologist. The styles are different though. The Ethnologist isn't looking to record a supplement to the event, rather it sees how something is functioning. This difference is crucial; the difference between seeing how something functions and giving meaning to an event. It's on these grounds that Schizoanalysis will find much in common with the Ethnologist in distinction from the Psychoanalyst. The unconscious will gain it's ostensible disfigured flow back from the structure of meaning placed upon it by the phenomena of Oedipus, and advanced further by the psychoanalyst (Oedipus believed in by the analyst). We will introduce this "method" now. "Method" is put into quotations because Schizoanalysis is obviously not a method, if by method we understand a structure in which we are consciously trying to make something of something; more specifically, practicing a psychoanalytical method at the benefit of the patient. It's somewhat accurate to refer to the picture above and see it as providing a program. It's like the insertion of a new chip into something that was previously called "consciousness." It's not dialectical. It's not metaphysical. It's not psychoanalytical. It's an abrupt change as quick as tectonic plates shift during earthquakes. It's not necessarily hospitable. It's volcanic without knowing it's a volcanic action. It's a disjunctive unconsciousness that nonetheless all happens in a space, as a body without organs.
"Shizoanalysis foregoes all interpretation because it forgoes discovering an unconscious material: the unconscious does not mean anything. On the other hand the unconscious constructs machines, which are machines of desire, whose use and function 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 desiring-machine, a desiring-machine that functions within the social machine, an investment of the social machine by desire." Not only does Schizoanalysis differentiate itself from psychoanalysis in the content of the unconscious, but doesn't find any content in the unconscious at all. For the Schizoanalyst, there is no meaning behind anything. We don't pear behind a human to find the paternal repressions that manifest themselves in mental sicknesses. We don't pear behind a human to find archetypes of a primordial civilization that give universal significance to us, a universal significance that's fat (weights a lot). We don't search behind the human for something that's called it's meaning. On the other hand, the unconscious does have a function for D&G; A function, not a meaning. The function of the unconscious creates other functions purely understood. These are processes that simply happen regardless of their appearance and representation to others (A reading of a Speculative Realist text will help immensely when trying to understand this. By the same token, Husserl's Cartesian Meditations would put one in this state of pure nothingness. For my own thinking, it will be important to see how Brassier offers this differently in his Nihil Unbound from Husserl. This text will be next). The unconscious functions to create other functions. It's an infinite multiplicity of functions never absorbed into the Parmendiean "one" where we would have something called a general "functionality." The function machine that has been laid out by D&G is the desiring-machine; the machine that looks to move it's way outwards (to be sure, a start for Oedipus). Desire though can't be seen in itself. Desire is seen as we learned from prior posts in it's connection to the socius. We see desire in the person apologizing to another person in order to be in good faith with the other person. We see desire in wanting to publish a book because one thinks that what one is saying is worth someones else's time. These are very modern examples, but we see how desire can't be seen in itself, but only with it's attachment towards "social machines," meaning, the function of communication, of people encountering other people. Schizoanalysis finds desire operating here in the socius. It discovers the relationship between desire and the socius and doesn't feign to see desire in itself, not attached to anything in something called "pure reason." This unconscious that attaches itself to social machines doesn't speak but engineers. In a strong sense, it's despotic in it's own right. It doesn't create dialogue with another in order to come to a resolution of a problem it never had. It operates independent of the voice, of the voice of the other, of the voice of you. It moves in it's own way and supplants its existence independent of the voice that may comment on it's movement. If it had a voice, it would be Heraclitean. It would be submissive to the disjunctive flow of the non-vocal space of Being. This unconscious does not need to express the fact of it's own existence, it doesn't even know it exists or that something like existence is actually happening. There is no need to represent the phenomena in the voice or the pictograph, even if we come to see that there has been a function within the desire of the unconscious to represent itself. This desire to represent itself understood most perfectly by Hegel is being as representation. The function that happens inside this and outside of our understanding functions on its own. The functional unconscious produces. It may even produce representation but it doesn't speak about representation. We speak about representation. If we see something that happens whereby in real time something is being carved out into space, this vision is ours of an unconscious doing what's doing without vision. We see the carving, the unconscious carves. Again, we, as the socius, see desire. The unconscious as desire does not happen to nothing, it happens to the socius whereby the socius sees something in it, and adds a meaning to it (coding). If one can be in a place where they are always producing without knowing they're producing, or reflecting back to their production, this would be the unconscious in itself. In other words, it would be nothing. When desire attaches itself to the social machine, a symbol gets put out. This is representation. Representation is manifested from pure desire where it expresses desire (not in order to express desire, but where it expresses desire). This spatial creation is a function without meaning. The Symbol is in the socius already. The Symbol is being understood and exchanged amongst being. Desire has moved into the socius where desire becomes the supplementation of representation. Desire is in fact representation for a time, the time that only we see. Unconscious desire is always attached to this time that we see (the socius). "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." The key to this statement lies in the specific words. "The large molar machine," for example, social formation, happen already at a micro-unconscious level. These micro-connections don't explain themselves. The explanation of their functioning is a result of the very fact of their functioning. Here we posit a correlation between the unconscious and consciousness for consciousness, not for micro-level functioning. The molar machine feels the desire to explain the function of it's manifestation. The unconscious desire creates improvised connections which function in ways we see. We apply the category of "functionality" to the unconscious. The "function" though happens on its own. The desiring-machine produces, it doesn't explain. Schizoanalysis doesn't ask about what the production means. It sees coding happening, it even sees meaning happening, but sees all this as a production. "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." What does this machine do? This is the question to the person that was once a patient in psychoanalysis. What do you do, not what's the matter with you? Representations are certainly assembled, but what kind of machine makes this happen? How's it possible for you to have representations? Not why is it possible for you to have representations, but "how did this happen?" What kind of machine functions? How does it produce representations? How does it produce Oedipus? How does Oedipus function? Where did the connection happen where you desired your mother in another affiliate branch? How did something become a mother (How was something represented)? How does this all function. Schizoanalysis is the exploration of functionality, not the meaning of you.
Why this is an introduction to Schizoanalysis is first and foremost because the actual chapter on Schizoanalysis has not been read yet. A second reason why is because it still functioned at the expense of psychoanalysis that one suspects it may do for awhile. A third reason is because this introduction didn't go into specific microcosmic "flows and breaks in the flows, in relation to other breaks and other flows." These specific break-flows is where Schizoanalysis operates, meaning it operates in different places all the time depending on where a current flow is going. And whenever a break occurs, the flow changes course. The flow doesn't continue on in one direction. The flow isn't Oedipal (until it becomes Oedipus by repressing unconscious breaks in flows). An analysis of break-flows isn't one where there is a paternal analyst who's satisfied in curing a patient from a sickness. It's not a duality between two people under the omnipotence of master-slave morality. It's any numbered and differently placed. In the observation of production, what happens is an observation. When I see a river pass by me in it's flow, I see the fact that I see myself seeing the river as a flow (the Husserlian noema). I'm a production of seeing and judging. In Schizoanalysis I desire to see how what's outside of me responds to me and how I respond to it. Desire attaches itself to the socius. Social-machines see the desire that produces them, and desire sees the social-machines that it attaches itself to. In Schizoanalysis, things are seen. Things are seen as happening at one time, and at another time as not happening. Time loses it's time-consciousness in the sense of it's being-in-fear-towards-death (historicity). Instead, it finds it's internal-time-consciousness in the melody where one note just passed by that happens to be connected to another note, that breaks into a different mode, but somehow still felt connected to what happened priorly. As descriptive experience of how a production functions, it's not very far from Husserlian phenomenology. But we will get a closer look when we enter the actual chapter.
"Shizoanalysis foregoes all interpretation because it forgoes discovering an unconscious material: the unconscious does not mean anything. On the other hand the unconscious constructs machines, which are machines of desire, whose use and function 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 desiring-machine, a desiring-machine that functions within the social machine, an investment of the social machine by desire." Not only does Schizoanalysis differentiate itself from psychoanalysis in the content of the unconscious, but doesn't find any content in the unconscious at all. For the Schizoanalyst, there is no meaning behind anything. We don't pear behind a human to find the paternal repressions that manifest themselves in mental sicknesses. We don't pear behind a human to find archetypes of a primordial civilization that give universal significance to us, a universal significance that's fat (weights a lot). We don't search behind the human for something that's called it's meaning. On the other hand, the unconscious does have a function for D&G; A function, not a meaning. The function of the unconscious creates other functions purely understood. These are processes that simply happen regardless of their appearance and representation to others (A reading of a Speculative Realist text will help immensely when trying to understand this. By the same token, Husserl's Cartesian Meditations would put one in this state of pure nothingness. For my own thinking, it will be important to see how Brassier offers this differently in his Nihil Unbound from Husserl. This text will be next). The unconscious functions to create other functions. It's an infinite multiplicity of functions never absorbed into the Parmendiean "one" where we would have something called a general "functionality." The function machine that has been laid out by D&G is the desiring-machine; the machine that looks to move it's way outwards (to be sure, a start for Oedipus). Desire though can't be seen in itself. Desire is seen as we learned from prior posts in it's connection to the socius. We see desire in the person apologizing to another person in order to be in good faith with the other person. We see desire in wanting to publish a book because one thinks that what one is saying is worth someones else's time. These are very modern examples, but we see how desire can't be seen in itself, but only with it's attachment towards "social machines," meaning, the function of communication, of people encountering other people. Schizoanalysis finds desire operating here in the socius. It discovers the relationship between desire and the socius and doesn't feign to see desire in itself, not attached to anything in something called "pure reason." This unconscious that attaches itself to social machines doesn't speak but engineers. In a strong sense, it's despotic in it's own right. It doesn't create dialogue with another in order to come to a resolution of a problem it never had. It operates independent of the voice, of the voice of the other, of the voice of you. It moves in it's own way and supplants its existence independent of the voice that may comment on it's movement. If it had a voice, it would be Heraclitean. It would be submissive to the disjunctive flow of the non-vocal space of Being. This unconscious does not need to express the fact of it's own existence, it doesn't even know it exists or that something like existence is actually happening. There is no need to represent the phenomena in the voice or the pictograph, even if we come to see that there has been a function within the desire of the unconscious to represent itself. This desire to represent itself understood most perfectly by Hegel is being as representation. The function that happens inside this and outside of our understanding functions on its own. The functional unconscious produces. It may even produce representation but it doesn't speak about representation. We speak about representation. If we see something that happens whereby in real time something is being carved out into space, this vision is ours of an unconscious doing what's doing without vision. We see the carving, the unconscious carves. Again, we, as the socius, see desire. The unconscious as desire does not happen to nothing, it happens to the socius whereby the socius sees something in it, and adds a meaning to it (coding). If one can be in a place where they are always producing without knowing they're producing, or reflecting back to their production, this would be the unconscious in itself. In other words, it would be nothing. When desire attaches itself to the social machine, a symbol gets put out. This is representation. Representation is manifested from pure desire where it expresses desire (not in order to express desire, but where it expresses desire). This spatial creation is a function without meaning. The Symbol is in the socius already. The Symbol is being understood and exchanged amongst being. Desire has moved into the socius where desire becomes the supplementation of representation. Desire is in fact representation for a time, the time that only we see. Unconscious desire is always attached to this time that we see (the socius). "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." The key to this statement lies in the specific words. "The large molar machine," for example, social formation, happen already at a micro-unconscious level. These micro-connections don't explain themselves. The explanation of their functioning is a result of the very fact of their functioning. Here we posit a correlation between the unconscious and consciousness for consciousness, not for micro-level functioning. The molar machine feels the desire to explain the function of it's manifestation. The unconscious desire creates improvised connections which function in ways we see. We apply the category of "functionality" to the unconscious. The "function" though happens on its own. The desiring-machine produces, it doesn't explain. Schizoanalysis doesn't ask about what the production means. It sees coding happening, it even sees meaning happening, but sees all this as a production. "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." What does this machine do? This is the question to the person that was once a patient in psychoanalysis. What do you do, not what's the matter with you? Representations are certainly assembled, but what kind of machine makes this happen? How's it possible for you to have representations? Not why is it possible for you to have representations, but "how did this happen?" What kind of machine functions? How does it produce representations? How does it produce Oedipus? How does Oedipus function? Where did the connection happen where you desired your mother in another affiliate branch? How did something become a mother (How was something represented)? How does this all function. Schizoanalysis is the exploration of functionality, not the meaning of you.
Why this is an introduction to Schizoanalysis is first and foremost because the actual chapter on Schizoanalysis has not been read yet. A second reason why is because it still functioned at the expense of psychoanalysis that one suspects it may do for awhile. A third reason is because this introduction didn't go into specific microcosmic "flows and breaks in the flows, in relation to other breaks and other flows." These specific break-flows is where Schizoanalysis operates, meaning it operates in different places all the time depending on where a current flow is going. And whenever a break occurs, the flow changes course. The flow doesn't continue on in one direction. The flow isn't Oedipal (until it becomes Oedipus by repressing unconscious breaks in flows). An analysis of break-flows isn't one where there is a paternal analyst who's satisfied in curing a patient from a sickness. It's not a duality between two people under the omnipotence of master-slave morality. It's any numbered and differently placed. In the observation of production, what happens is an observation. When I see a river pass by me in it's flow, I see the fact that I see myself seeing the river as a flow (the Husserlian noema). I'm a production of seeing and judging. In Schizoanalysis I desire to see how what's outside of me responds to me and how I respond to it. Desire attaches itself to the socius. Social-machines see the desire that produces them, and desire sees the social-machines that it attaches itself to. In Schizoanalysis, things are seen. Things are seen as happening at one time, and at another time as not happening. Time loses it's time-consciousness in the sense of it's being-in-fear-towards-death (historicity). Instead, it finds it's internal-time-consciousness in the melody where one note just passed by that happens to be connected to another note, that breaks into a different mode, but somehow still felt connected to what happened priorly. As descriptive experience of how a production functions, it's not very far from Husserlian phenomenology. But we will get a closer look when we enter the actual chapter.
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