Summary with citations:
It is one thing to study post-modernism, it is another to experience it. Deleuze & Guattari's book is non-linear; one picks up a chapter, chews on it for a while, then can jump somewhere else in the book. The authors introduce multiple ideas and concepts throughout the book - some theory, some rhetoric, and some pseudo-scientific. They present their social, economic, and political (shall we call it) commentary with the intent to shock the mind out of its current beliefs and approaches. If one can stomach the perverse, blasphemous, profane, and psychedelic rabbit holes the book travels through then mining a few usable concepts/themes was possible:
Rhizome - The idea of cause and effect or other connections like trees and roots were rejected by the authors in favor of rhizomes. Connections coming from every direction. A rhizome has 6 principles or characteristics: 1) connection; 2) hetrogeni; 3) multiplicity; 4) signify structure; 5) cartography (mappable); 6) decalcomania (transferable i.e. decal). It is anti-genealogical in nature. I also like wikipedia's explaination:
"Deleuze and Guattari use the terms "rhizome" and "rhizomatic" to describe theory and research that allows for multiple, non-hierarchical entry and exit points in data representation and interpretation. In A Thousand Plateaus, they oppose it to an arborescent conception of knowledge, which works with dualist categories and binary choices. A rhizome works with planar and trans-species connections, while an arborescent model works with vertical and linear connections. Their use of the "orchid and the wasp" is taken from the biological concept of mutualism, in which two different species interact together to form a multiplicity (i.e. a unity that is multiple in itself). Hybridation or Horizontal gene transfer would also be good illustrations.
"As a model for culture, the rhizome resists the organizational structure of the root-tree system which charts causality along chronological lines and looks for the original source of 'things' and looks towards the pinnacle or conclusion of those 'things.' A rhizome, on the other hand, is characterized by 'ceaselessly established connections between semiotic chains, organizations of power, and circumstances relative to the arts, sciences, and social struggles.' Rather than narrativize history and culture, the rhizome presents history and culture as a map or wide array of attractions and influences with no specific origin or genesis, for a 'rhizome has no beginning or end; it is always in the middle, between things, interbeing, intermezzo.' The planar movement of the rhizome resists chronology and organization, instead favoring a nomadic system of growth and propagation.
"In this model, culture spreads like the surface of a body of water, spreading towards available spaces or trickling downwards towards new spaces through fissures and gaps, eroding what is in its way. The surface can be interrupted and moved, but these disturbances leave no trace, as the water is charged with pressure and potential to always seek its equilibrium, and thereby establish smooth space."Assemblage -Socially constructed spaces. Some forces attempt to make all socially constructed space into one, while other forces seek to break it down and separate it.
Territory / deterritorialize / reterritorialize - The attempts individuals and organizations make to structuralize systems, deconstruct established systems, and the establish new systems. There is a feeling of inevitability to the process.
"'Connection' indicates the way in which decoded and deterritorialized flows boost one another, accelerate their shared escape, and augment or stroke the quanta; the 'conjugation' of these same flows, on the other hand, indicates their relatie stoppage, like a point of accumulation that plugs or seals the lines of flight, performs a general reterritorialization, and brings the flows under the dominance of a single flow capable of overcoding them. But it is precisely the most deterritorialized flow, under the first aspect, that always brings about the accumulation or conjunction of the processes, determines the overcoding, and serves as the basis for reterritorialization" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1988, p. 220).Smoothe space / Striated space - D & G's terms for something not reliant on rational methods (smooth), or something codefied: furrowed, streaked, stripped, controlled (striated). Smooth space is defined by striated space, and the whole system is constantly fluctuating. Smooth space can never be a rigid structure. Striated space attempts to remove user agency.
"Theorums of deterritorialization, or machinic propositions. First theorem: One never deterritorializes alone; ... Second theorem: The fastest of two element or movements of deterritorialization is not necessarily the most intense or most deterritorialized. ... Third theorem: ... the least deterritorialized reterritorializes on the most deterritorialized. ...Fourth theorem: The abstract machine is therefore effectuated not only in the faces that produce it but also to varying degrees in ... objects that ti facializes following an order of reasons (rather than an organization of resemblances. ... Theorem five: deterritorialization is always double, becuase it implies the coexistence of a mjor variable and a minor variable in simultaneous becoming (the two terms of a becoming do not exchange places, there is no identification between the, they are instead drawn into an asymmetrical block in which both change to the same extent, and which constitutes their zone of proximity). Theorem six: in non-symmetrical double deterritorialization it is possible to assign a deterritorializing force and deterritorializied force, even if the same forece switches from one value to the other depending on the 'moment' or aspect considered" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1988, pp. 174, 175, 306, 307).
The abstract machine - is like a blueprint or computer program, something meant to intrepret and help something else become a machine, but it is never inteded to become a machine itself.
The war machine - does not necessarily indicate a military force or movement; it is a means of preserving a way of life, appropriateing or maintaining power.
"The war machine is the invention of the nomads (insofar as it is exterior to the State apparatus and distinct from the military institution)" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1988, p. 380).
"For a true abstract machine pertains to an assemblage in its entirety: it is defined as the diagram of that assemblage" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1988 p. 91).Face / faciality - The idea of a projected image.
"Nomads are wanderers, independent entities who are unconfined by government, rules, or social norms, and seek only to be free" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1988, p. 380).
