A Thousand Plateaus V, The State Apparatus and the War Machine, Lecture 6, 22 January 1980

<p><em>The Deleuze Seminars</em> is a collection of audio recordings, transcriptions, and English translations of, and supplemental materials from, the lectures French philosopher Gilles Deleuze gave during his career at the University of Paris 8.</p>

<p>Following publication of <em>Anti-Oedipus</em> in 1972, Deleuze continues to develop the proliferation of concepts that his collaboration with Guattari had yielded. As part of this process of expanding concepts in order to produce the sequel of <em>Capitalism & Schizophrenia</em>, <em>A Thousand Plateaus</em>, this series of 13 lectures on “The State Apparatus and War Machines” constitutes the major seminar of 1979-80 and Deleuze’s penultimate consideration of these concepts. Deleuze first considers material begun during the previous year’s seminar, material corresponding to plateaus 12 (1227: Treatise on Nomadology – The War Machine), 13 (7000 B.C.: Apparatus of Capture), and 14 (1440: The Smooth and the Striated). [The final consideration of these concepts will take place in the May-June 1980 two-session seminar on “Anti-Oedipus and Other Reflections”.</p>

<p>In session 6, 22 January 1980, Deleuze continues discussion of assemblages in relation to the State apparatus, comparing the territory-code combination to the land-overcoding combination, but also reviews the initial combination in terms of concrete instances, e.g. nomadism as distinct from itinerance, the tendency to make a fixed limit, evaluation of a final object, when one marks a limit to a territory. Deleuze outlines a two-tiered model of the imperial apparatus, vertical (comparative space; monopolistic appropriation) and horizontal (segments of land, labor and money), and then recalls terms proposed previously, machinic enslavement and the mega-machine, as well as the personal function of the face in different forms, with its elements of black hole and white wall. Deleuze refers to Eric Alliez’s work on mercantilism in support of an analysis of taxation, and an extended exchange between Deleuze and Georges Comtesse opens the session to a sequence of student questions, and another student (possibly Hidenobu Suzuki) introduces a Japanese writer, Takaaki Yoshimoto, who wrote on origins of the State in Japan, relying on Japanese myths and ethnological tales. Successive questions lead Deleuze in different directions, notably toward concrete, mixed assemblages in Kafka’s works, and Deleuze introduces the topic of passage from one bureaucracy to another. Continuing with the importance between private versus public determination under the State apparatus, Deleuze returns to a reference from the previous session, Ferenc Tökei’s work on the Chinese Empire, how property becomes privatized, ironically, through the very overcoding of the State apparatus, hypothetically, through the historical character of the freed slave, the outcast, without social status, who initiates the lament, the Chinese elegy. The freed slave becomes a master in the dual fields of commerce and crafts, hence of currency and business, and Deleuze relates this to the Roman plebs’ role in the demise of Etruscan royalty. Yet, in exchange, they receive by right an unexploited parcel of public land as private owners, and gradually become small entrepreneurs, merchants, outside the web of imperial overcoding, the archaic Empire assemblage thus producing some decoding of flows in private property, private commerce.</p>

<p>This dataset includes four files: an aggregate version of the audio recordings into a single mp3, the complete French transcription and English translation of the recorded lecture in odt format, and the original Web Deleuze French transcription. [WebDeleuze was founded by Richard Pinhas -- a student in Deleuze's seminars -- who, with the Deleuze family's support, developed transcripts and translations of many of the seminars.]</p>

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<p><em>Les Séminaires de Deleuze</em> sont une collection d'enregistrements audio, de transcriptions et de traductions en anglais et de documents complémentaires des conférences que le philosophe français Gilles Deleuze a donné lors de sa carrière à l'Université de Paris 8.</p>

<p>A la suite de la publication de <em>L’Anti-Œdipe</em> en 1972, Deleuze continue de développer la prolifération de concepts que sa collaboration avec Guattari avait fait naître. Dans le cadre de ce processus d’élargissement des concepts en vue de produire la suite de <em>Capitalisme et schizophrénie</em>, <em>Mille plateaux</em>, ce séminaire de 13 séance sur « L’appareil d’État et les machines de guerre » constitue le séminaire majeur de 1979-80 et l’avant-dernière réflexion de Deleuze sur ces concepts. La dernière réflexion aura lieu en mai-juin 1980, un mini-séminaire de deux séances sur « L’Anti-Œdipe et d’autres réflexions ».</p>

<p>Deleuze poursuit la discussion des agencements en relation avec l’appareil d’État, notamment avec la tendance à faire d’une limite fixe, un objet final, lorsqu’on marque une limite à un territoire. Deleuze esquisse un modèle à deux niveaux de l'appareil impérial, vertical (espace comparé ; appropriation monopolistique) et horizontal (segments de terre, de travail et d'argent), puis rappelle les termes proposés précédemment, l'esclavage machinique et la mégamachine, ainsi que la fonction personnelle du visage sous différentes formes, avec ses éléments de trou noir et de mur blanc. Poursuivant l’importance de la distinction entre la détermination privée et la détermination publique dans l’appareil d’État, Deleuze revient à une référence de la séance précédente, l’ouvrage de Ferenc Tökei sur l’Empire chinois, et à la manière dont la propriété devient privatisée, ironiquement, à travers le surcodage même de l’appareil d’État, hypothétiquement, à travers le personnage historique de l’esclave affranchi, le paria, sans statut social, qui initie la plainte, l’élégie chinoise. L’esclave affranchi devient un maître dans les deux domaines du commerce et de l’artisanat, donc de la monnaie et des affaires, et Deleuze relie cela au rôle de la plèbe romaine dans la disparition de la royauté étrusque.</p>