Chaosophy: Texts and Interviews 1972–1977

by Félix Guattari, Sylvère Lotringer (Editor)

Everything is rational in capitalism, except capital or capitalism itself. The stock market is certainly rational; one can understand it, study it, capitalists know how to use it, and yet it is completely delirious, it is mad. That's why we the rational always is the rationality of an irrational. Marx is fascinated by capitalist mechanisms precisely because the system is demented, yet works very well at the same time. Down below, there are investments of desire that cannot be confused with the investments of all kinds of libidinous-unconscious flows that make up the delirium of this society. The true history is the history of desire.

This collection of essays and interviews edited by Sylvere Lotringer and published in 1995, focuses on the French anti-psychiatrist and theorist's work as director of the experimental La Borde clinic ("A Clinic Unlike Any Other") and longtime collaborator with the philosopher Gilles Deleuze.

Chaosophy is a groundbreaking introduction to Guattari's theories on "schizo-analysis": a process meant to replace Freudian interpretation with a more pragmatic, experimental, and collective approach rooted in reality. Unlike Freud, Guattari believes that schizophrenia is an extreme mental state induced by the capitalist system itself, which keeps enforcing neurosis as a way of maintaining normality. Guattari's post-Marxist vision of capitalism provides a new definition not only of mental illness, but also of the micropolitical means of its subversion.

This collection contains key essays, such as, "Balance-Sheet Program for Desiring-Machines" and "Capitalism and Schizophrenia," co-signed by Deleuze (with whom he co-authored Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus ), and the perennially provocative "Everybody Wants To Be a Fascist."

Genres: Philosophy, Theory, Nonfiction, Politics, Psychoanalysis, Psychology, France

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Pierre-Félix Guattari was a French militant, an institutional psychotherapist, philosopher, and semiotician; he founded both schizoanalysis and ecosophy. Guattari is best known for his intellectual collaborations with Gilles Deleuze, most notably Anti-Oedipus (1972) and A Thousand Plateaus (1980), the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia.

Reviews

[NosNos · Rating 4 out of 5]

"We want to open our bodies to the bodies of other people, to other people in general. We want to let vibrations pass among us, let energies circulate, allow desires to merge, so that we can all give free reign to our fantasies, to our ecstasies, so that at last we can live without guilt, so that we can practice without guilt all pleasures, whether individual or shared by two or more people. All of this pleasure we desperately need if we are not to experience our daily reality as a kind of slow agony which capitalist, bureaucratic civilization imposes as a model of existence on its subjects. And we want to excise from our being the malignant tumor of guilt, which is the age-old root of all oppression."

[Fede · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're already familiar with Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia and A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, you're certainly going to enjoy reading this collection of essays and interviews. I'm not sure whether it could actually work as an introduction to Guattari's (and Deleuze's) thought, since the first part presupposes the reader's knowledge of the subject matter. However, the chapters on antipsychiatry, 'micropolitics' , 'schizoculture' and cinema are definitely more accessible.

All in all, I found this book to be an interesting addition to the oeuvre of F. Guattari, even though I'd recommend the 'uninitiated' to start from the major works I mentioned above.

[Durakov · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this is where Guattari strikes the best balance between his concerns and interests in critical psychoanalysis, social movements, militancy, and economics. Not a filler in here, and his essays critiquing psychiatric experiments in the 60s-70s are on point, even if some of his predictions were proven wrong.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this with Desiree- have a feeling this is going to stay on the current reading list for a long time!

[0 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Clarifying for Anti-Oedipus. Unlike eros, desire is pre-oedipal, anarchic, and creative. Psychoanalysis works upon desire to fashion it into an oedipal structure because an oedipal structure is conducive to a capitalist society, and psychoanalysis is a repressive ideological apparatus of capitalism. The family structure is taken for granted as the necessary, universal, and foundational normative structure from which all other relationships to the world derive and can be reduced to in psychoanalytic interpretation. One is deemed healthy (or neurotic) to the extent to which one adapts themselves to this capitalist familial structure. Those who do not adapt themselves are mad (or psychotic).

Guattari proposes that the intolerable double binds of capitalism are schizophrenogenic--they drive people to madness. This claim may be supported by the increased rates of psychotic patients in contemporary clinics. From his work at the La Borde clinic, Guattari learned a deep respect for madness; he stops just short of fetishizing it for its revolutionary potential, but insists that he takes schizophrenics as a poetic metaphor for political revolutionaries to be inspired by, and not as a literal model to aspire to.

I appreciated the critique that Laing's "antipsychiatry" simply substitutes a kinder, gentler, and loving father figure for the repressive authoritarian one.

He's more of an anarchist polemicist than he is a philosopher. He doesn't provide arguments so much as write manifestos. His hatred of oedipal psychoanalytic machines is matched with his hatred of leftist political party machines. For him, queer and trans people exhibit the potential to become revolutionaries so long as they do not crystallize themselves into stable identity categories (a stable identity is the effect of a repression of desire's creative force).

What Guattari affirms is still unclear to me. On the one hand, it appears that the only way to remain true to desire is to seek, at any moment, to become something other than what one presently is (hence the emphasis on "lines of flight" from the nascent fascism of habit, structure, organization, and identity; hence, becoming-schizo, becoming-woman, becoming-plant, becoming-animal). On the other hand, collective revolutionary forces should actively struggle against the repressive forces which seek to colonize desire and produce relationships of mastery and subjugation. But by what means can revolutionary collectives motivated by desire assert themselves if they are seeking to become no one, except by continual escape? On the one hand, this looks like a continual retreat from power rather than an advance. But such a conclusion fails to remember the power of entropy--a power which either remains grows or remains the same (at least in a closed system), but never shrinks. So, the abandonment of grand political projects for "lifestyle anarchism"? This conclusion risks eliding Guattari's emphasis on building a revolutionary collective oppositional force. At the same time, and on his own terms, his grand revolutionary project of freeing collective desire might fall prey to "fascism." A bit of a pickle to commit oneself to a long-term project that aims to align oneself and others entirely in accordance with chaos, with the slippery and anarchic immediatism of desire. Does this not constitute for itself a habit of its own? And if it does, then must it be said that all habits lead to fascism? I don't entirely understand. I would imagine this is where the concept of "chaosmos" might be clarifying, but it's not in this book and appears to have been developed after these interviews.

More generally, one can doubt that following desire will lead people towards a greater liberation than repressing desire does.

[Micah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Guattari tried to show that the production of subjectivity through flows of desire, semiotic flows, "collective assemblages of enunciation," mass media, computers and machines of all types, was at the heart of society's "infrastructure." It's hard to say he was on the wrong track, especially considering the connection between consumerist desires and the overheating of the planet that is our central political problem if we care to exit denial. His critique of the State and bureaucracy and preference for micro-politics and groups of all kinds, also hold value. Here I was most interested in his article on the La Borde clinic where he worked at "institutional psychotherapy," and his semi-sympathetic critique of anti-psychiatry. For Guattari these kinds of micro-political experiments involving those whose flows have overrun the dominant order, are key.

[Owen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t know if I’ve just read more of Deleuze and Guattari’s work now, which makes it easier for me to understand what they’re going on about, but this felt like a much clearer elucidation of many of their ideas than in the other books I’ve read of theirs (mainly Anti-Oedipus). Not all the important concepts appear here, like the body without organs is mentioned a single time, but desiring machines, the distinction between the psycho- and schizoanalytic unconsciouses, the conception of semiotics, and many other things made much more sense to me here. In one of the later interviews, Guattari also makes his position on Lacan explicit, which helps me with my attempts to reconcile my love for Zizek with my love of Deleuze-Guattari.

[Wan Feng An · Rating 3 out of 5]

In contrast to Baudrillard, D&G here seem cautiously optimistic of the possibility of revolution at the molecular level, of multiple minor groups erupting and connecting to form new structures and connections. Pretty interesting interviews and lectures here, especially the analysis of the antipsychiatric Kingsley Hall and the interpretation of Badlands as a schizo love story. Not gonna lie, I got pretty bored in the middle of reading this and read like 4 romance novels in between chapters.

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little all over the place, but really great to read Guattari from the Anti-Oedipus days. Soft Subversions seemed to have slightly stronger pieces, though.

[Chant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Certainly "clears" up some points in Capitalism and Schizophrenia.

[Akın · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great intro to Guattari's thought and some of his concept (also ones he developed in Anti Oedipus alongside Deleuze)

[javor · Rating 5 out of 5]

great collection of essays and best intro to guattari imo. grown much further over time from his analyses of power/politics but his stuff on psychiatry is still very important to me. good critiques of freud/lacan esp. in lead-up to AO. you can see how his thought has evolved from the classical lacanian training esp. w/ his time at la borde. ironically im still completely torn on whether i actually agree with his critique of freud/lacan (for instance, he doesn't fall into the non-critical 'critique' of freud that says all his stuff was normative and can't be read critically). 'everyone wants to be a fascist' is such a good piece esp. viz. complexifying, not simplifying, analyses of fascism. good queer analysis too, felt foundational for modern intersectionality. also had a positive vision of intersectional organization rather than just negative/nihilistic criticism of identity-based organizing. he was openly undecided on party politics and i would love to see a more sustained argument for either side of that. i.e. a decentralized, differential, intersectional party-based politics.

[Emily]

Includes essay "Everybody Wants To Be A Fascist"

[Dejan Stojkovski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mind blowing !

[Jed · Rating 4 out of 5]

there's an essay called "Why Everybody Wants to be A Facist"