Re:Back to Deleuze/Guattari on fascism

["Bryan A. Alexander" <bnalexan@xxxxxxxxx>]

There are a few good questions here.  I'm rereading C+S, so should be
able to say more in a bit.  But for now:

Bryan Alexander                                 Department of English
email: bnalexan@xxxxxxxxx                       University of Michigan
phone: (313) 764-0418                           Ann Arbor, MI  USA    48103
fax: (313) 763-3128                             http://www.umich.edu/~bnalexan

On Wed, 24 Jan 1996 g.maclennan@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:

>
> I have just finished working through Jon's piece on D&G.  It' the kind of
> post that makes this list such a treasure.  So much knowledge packed
> in.  Goodies everywhere.

True!

>...
> I think that the first and most banally obvious thing to say is that D&G
> are at best non-marxist.

This seems unproductive (see below) and too strong. "At best
non-Marxist"?  D+G are clearly working with MArx's texts in great detail
(especially in A-OEDIPUS); they follow his lead in mercilessly attacking
industrial capitalist society, and exploring its insurgencies
sympathetically and with that classic synthesis of historical
inevitability and strategy.  I think they depart from classic Marx in
several keys ways, which deserve discussion, but do not merit such strong
condemnation:
        1. Deleuze despises Hegel.  This comes from an odd angle,
however, and one that does not set him (and Felix) always at odds with
Marx.  To begin with, his/their approach is materialist above all.
        2. D+G abhor the state.  Again, this is a conflicted issue in
MArx's own texts.  I think D+G are emerging productively from the
anarchist tradition (as was Foucault) (this obvious point is *so* rarely
made...), but again, as I've estabished many times on this list, a
tradition with many many sympathies and commanalities with Marx.
        3. D and especially G are immersed in psychoanalysis (esp in the
first book, A-O).  Their attack on freud is fairly immediate and very
knowledgeable; therefore they spend chapters without referring to Marx.
This might be seen as a dangerous abstraction - it's well worth talking
about.

>...
> The first point I wish to deal with is methodological.  When we reading
> classic Marxist accounts of fascism or struggling to understand what D&G
> are saying it's vital to grasp that in both cases we are dealing with
> models not raw reality. D&G provide us with an alternative to the Marxist
> model.  How then can we compare the models and make a judgement about
> which is the more useful?  the classic test is that we investigate which
> cases the D&G model can deal with and compare them with the cases that
> the Marxist model can cover.  If D&G can deal with more and more
> interesting cases as well as all the cases that the Marxists deal with
> then D&G win.  Simple.  But of course it would require the kind of
> acquaintance with D&G's work  that I do not have!  Nevertheless...

Nevertheless such a simple binary isn't very useful.  It's not like we're
settling down to a prize fight of dead thinking subersives, with Karl
bearded and massive in one corner and D+G looking giggly and skinny in
the other.  We take what works well through a variety of tes/xts.
 >
> The most crucial point is I believe the unit of analysis.  for Marxists
> such as Trotsky and Poulantzas the unit of analysis is class.  By
> contrast D&G deal with "a fascism which is quotidian, local and
> 'molecular'", with "micro fascism" or "everyday fascism".  there is no
> need for comrades to panic here when they read this kind of
> postmodernising.  this is code.  It simply means that D&G are not
> advancing a class based model.

"It simply means"?  Clearly you are not very familiar with D+G's work.
The concepts of molecular vs molar and the micro-macro shift are quite
original and thoroughly developed, as nearly every critic is at pains to
point out.  These terms need discussion, not dismissal.

>
> The unit in the instance of D&G would appear to be the family or the
> individual.  there is some talk of "masses" especially in relation to
> problems touched upon in Reich's work.  But a slippage appears to occur
> and we move quickly away from any collective concepts. Jon's account does
> not spell all this out.

Because it's not quite true.D+G always move towards the collective.  See,
for example, the audacious semiotic chapter/plateau in THOUSAND PLATEAU,
which tries to sketch our four or five different collective organizing
systems.  Follow the Spinoza thread for discussions of insurgent
collectivity.  Above all, look to the nomadic, which *can* be individual,
but which often isn't.  And read over D+G's favorite form, the rhizome.  Are
these collectivities
useful or even interesting?  Let's threash 'em out and see.

 If the unit of analysis is the family then
> ideally we should be given a definition of waht a family is.  Likewise we
> should be given an explanation as to how the relationship between the
> indivual and society is mediated by the family.  "Oedipus" would appear
> to be the mechanism which performs this task.

As I pointed out, the first collaborative book is a sustained critique of
Freud.  Of necessity the family must be a major trope.

 >
> Now what is the Achilles heel of the Marxist model?  What significant
> case can it not deal with?  Well Jon cites Reich's conern with need to
> explain why workers are fascists.  If class is the prime motivation how
> can workers join a movement which will pulverise them as Trotsky put
> it?  Here Louis' comments on Michael Mann are absolutley central.  Louis
> has said, I think, that if Mann is correct and there were more workers than
> middle class elements among the fascists then the Marxist model is in
> trouble.  But as Louis pointed out Mann's own data supports the argument
> that the core of the working class-organised labour- did not form part of
> the Nazi legions.  So I would maintain that the key element in the
> Marxist analysis of fascism namely class can still deal adequately with
> theactuality of fascism.  As for other workers Poulantsas has much that
> is pertiinent to say about the influence of petty bourgeois ideology on
> the working class.

I think P has much to say of interest - I'm not that familiar with him,
but I've been intrigued by every shred I've glimpsed.
        i reserve my comments about D+G and fascism until the seminar
reaches the late 1970s: I need to know within what Marxist tradition of
fascism analysis they are working.  (And I want to finish my reread, as I
said)

> ...
> D&G's model does not employ the concept of ideology.  The quesiton we must
> ask here is whether their abandonment of the concpet of ideology yields
> significantly better results than say in Poulantzas's account where
> ideology is central.  this is a difficult question to answer given the
> amount or rather lack of reading that I have done, but I am prepared to
> hazard a guess that D&G are most successful when they are dealing with
> individuals and desire but that when we move to classes and interests
> then the notion of ideology produces better results.

I'm not sure about this.  The way D+G treat capital and consciousness
suggests to me now - as I retread A-O - that they have an implicit model
of ideology.  Why implicit?  Perhaps this is a result of posturing in the
French intellectual demimonde.  Whatever - I'll following this thread now.

>
> What other cases can Marxism not handle?  well Marxism is of course
> intrinsically rational and cannot deal well with cases like say Hitler's
> reaction to the execution of the would-be assassins of July 19944.  Adolf
> it seems had them hoisted up with piano wire.  the belts of their
> trousers had been previously removed.  All this was filmed and when it
> was put on at a showing for the nazi leaders Goebbels almost fainted.
> Adolf was seen to lean forward in his eagerness to catch all the detail.

Ever read Delillo's RUNNING DOG?  I highly recommend it.
>
> A more serious instance in terms of theoretical difficulty is that of the
> Holocaust.  This has been touched upon in a previous thread and I will
> merely say that if anything wouold convince me of the "evil within"
> hypothesis this is surely it.

Yes, and some folks have drawn attention to D+G trying to answer the
post-Asuschwitz poetry question.  Bosnia sends me back to D+G, not always
rewardingly.  Please return to this trope!

 >
> But let me pass on with all due respect to what I believe are cases that
> "micro fascism" models canot deal with at all.  Consider the following:
>
> "Yet, though revenue increased, outgoings were correspondingly abundant,
> and it was not until January, 1932, when Hitler met the leading
> manufacturers of the Rhineland at the Park Hotel, Dusseldorf, under the
> chairmanship of the great steelmaster, Fritz Thyssen, that a substantial
> source of supply was found.  six hundrred critical business-men assembled
> at 7 o'clock.  Hitler was to speak for an hour, and had asked that there
> should be no smoking.  His speech lasted two hours and thirty-five
> minutes, at the end of which his cigarless and foodless hearers cheered
> him to the echo, while Thyssen, springing to his feet, hailed Hitler as
> the saviour of Germany and announced his own intention of joining the
> Nazi Party."
>
> (Ward, G.W., I know these Dictators, London: Harrap, 1937:90-91)
>
> Here we have a class acting without illusions in its own interests.
> Moreover it was this act which was crucial in bringing the Nazis to power
> and as such it is a very important case for any model of fascism to deal
> with.  Now I would argue that this seminar todate has amply illustrated
> that marxist models are quite good at explaining actions such as those of
> Thyssen and his colleagues.  But I must say frankly that I amk not clear
> how the above could be handled with a micro-fascism model with its
> depndence of nothions such as "desire production" and "Oedipus".

Here's the silent rub: it depends on how much Marx we can assume is at
work behind D+G's project.  They both called themselves MArxists in
public on different occasions, and their explicit references to MArx are
always laudatory (but the opposite is usually true for their reactions to
nonMArxists).  D was rumored to be working on a book on Marx at his
death.  (That's my personal dream tome)  If we assume a serious
engagement with Marxist interpretations of fascism, then we can basically
see how well such a paragraph as above fits within the rest of the
schizoanalysis/nomadism scheme.  If we don't, well...

>
> So finally what then is my verdict on the efficacy of the D&G model
> judged simply on the basis of Jon's brilliant post?  Well to be honest I
> feel it is interesting but seriously flawed when it comews toexplaining
> the ebbs and flows of fascism or dealing with Fascism when it is at its
> most dangerous when it is setting about the process of winning
> government.  I remained convinced that the latter process cannot be
> accounted for without a class based model.

In my wrath at Massumi I'm trying to see how class operates within D+G.
There's my approach, then: class, ideology, fascism, genocide - we'll see
how they play out. > > regards
>
> Gary
>
>
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