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Conductivity,
Connection
Massumi describes
Deleuze and Guattari's "nomad thought":
""Nomad thought" does not lodge itself in the edifice of
an ordered interiority; it moves freely in an element of exteriority.
It does not repose on identity; it rides difference It does not respect
the artificial division between the three domains of representation, subject,
concept and being; it replaces restrictive analogy with a conductivity
that knows no bounds. . A concept is a brick. It can be used to build
the courthouse of reason. Or it can be thrown through the window. What
is the subject of the brick? The arm that throws it? The body connected
to the arm? The brain encased in the body? The situation that brought
brain and body to such a juncture? All and none of the above. What is
its object? The window? The edifice? The laws the edifice shelters? The
class and other power relations encrusted in the laws? All and none of
the above: "What interests us are the circumstances." Because
the concept in its unrestrained usage is a set of circumstances, at a
volatile juncture. It is a vector; the point of application of a force
moving through a space at a given velocity in a given direction. The concept
has no subject or object other than itself. It is an act. Nomad thought
replaces the closed equation of representation, x=x-not y (I=I not you)
with an open equation:. . . +y+Z+A...(...+arm+brick+window+...). Rather
than analyzing the world into discrete components, reducing their manyness
to the One (=Two) of self-reflection, and ordering them by rank, it sums
up a set of disparate circumstances in a shattering blow. It
synthesizes a multiplicity of elements without effacing their heterogeneity
or hindering their potential for future rearranging. The modus operandi
of nomad thought is affirmation, even when its apparent object is negative.
Force is not to be confused with power. Power is the domestication of
force. Force in its wild state arrives from outside to break constraints
and open new vistas. Power builds walls."
Brian Massumi, A User's Guide to Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Deviations
from Deleuze and Guattari. 6,7,
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