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Book Description
Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995) was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris VIII. He is a key figure in poststructuralism, and one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century.
Félix Guattari (1930-1992) was a psychoanalyst at the la Borde Clinic, as well as being a major social theorist and radical activist.
Anti-Oedipus is part of Deleuze and Guattari’s landmark philosophical project, Capitalism and Schizophrenia – a project that still sets the terms of contemporary philosophical debate.
Anti-Oedipus is a radical philosophical analysis of desire that shows how we can combat the compulsion to dominate ourselves and others. As Michel Foucault says in his Preface it is an ‘Introduction to Non-Fascist Living’.
Preface by Michel Foucault
Translated by Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane
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A couple of words of warning are in order, however. Firstly, this is not the book where Deleuze and Guattari develop most of the concepts for which they are famous. Ideas such as smooth and striated space, rhizomes, molar and molecular assemblages, etc., appear in this work but only intermittently. Also, most of the book is about psychoanalysis rather than politics; its central focus is a critique of the Oedipal family and of psychoanalytic practice as an institutional sypport for this particular system of repressive overcoding. In the course of this critique, they also develop a genealogy of capitalism, a theory of coding and a lot more besides, but readers looking to understand their theory would do better reading A Thousand Plateaus.
Secondly, this is a very difficult book - fine for specialists in poststructuralist theory, but a real problem for anyone else. There's a lot of undefined concepts borrowed from other authors and a lot of references to traditions, themes and ideas with which some readers may be unfamiliar. I would advise anyone unfamiliar with poststructuralism to read an introductory text on Deleuze (such as Paul Patton's Deleuze and the Political) and something on poststructuralism (for instance, Structuralism and Poststructuralism for Beginners) before embarking on the original texts themselves. You have been warned!
Crudely put, the message of the book is that the mindset which creates the structure of capitalist society is that which creates the structure of the conventional family and 'conventional' thinking on sexuality, mental illness and normal conduct. The capitalist mindset, if I can call it that, passes much deeper than purely economic concerns. I found the first few chapters the most difficult because they introduce the structure of the approach in a very indirect way. You will need to remember Nietzsche to understand why this approach is being taken.
You may have guessed from this that if you are a fan of Focault, then you are going to love this. I would recommend giving it a go . The worst that can happen is that you will leave it on the shelf.
In stating the obvious the concepts which do arise pose distinct challenges to taken for granted thinking, its just they should be made clearer. Take one example which I use in my everyday therapeutic practice, historical events and their after effects have as much impact on families and individual psychologies as traditional concentration on the unfolding of instincts. If one wants to look at how psychologies are constructed look to history, the after effects of WW2, the Spanish Civil War, the Vietnam War, Yugoslavia etc. All of these conflicts have caused psychic tremors in those directly affected as well as the long terms effects of colonisation, the internalisation of feeling less than, the grinding poverty of the inter war years and austerity. The loss of a job and status has a psychological impact caused by the economic meltdown. The Oedipus complex is a fiction compared to the effect of "real" events.
They also trace how the Oedipus Complex arose and is maintained. Although largely discredited, children's voices and psychologies have only recently been recognised as existing. It was this institutional silence which provided the cover for adults to take revenge on children because their outcries were deemed as nothing more than the cry of instinctual hormones wanting to exert their presence. The resonance of the Oedipus Complex was the appliance of power without restraint. The children are only acting out a complex if they complained. Its resonance however is still with us with the Diagnostic Procedures in the new labels ADHD and autism. The debate has merely shifted than been resolved.
This book is therefore 5 stars for ideas and 1 point for clarity.
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