Re: BwO/Socius

Doug,

I'll try my best to answer your questions. The first thing to say is have you read the
BwO plateau in ATP as yet? It sounds like your working through AO. I think you will find
that by the time you get to the end of AO a whole lot of things will click (and some
won't) and then ATP will deterritorialize them all over again. - Just an observation
about my own reading processes/experience I guess!

Doug Henry wrote:

> Chris Help!
>
> Your explanation seems to jump past my question: "What is a socius?" (Thanks for
> taking the time to reply though, I do really appreciate it.) Perhaps I don't have
> enough information yet (or don't properly understand what information I DO have!?!) to
> understand your answer.

o.k. Well I suppose on some level the concept of the socius seems to me obvious, but then
I try to answer you and I'm not too sure anymore. I guess I think of it to begin with as
an abstract term appropriating a description of the social in the broadest sense. And
then and...and...and....

>
>
> I've been noting every occurrence of the term body without organs as I read AO and
> with each occurrence its meaning seems to get broader and more vague. Initially it
> seemed tied specifically to the disjunctive synthesis. It seemed to be the surface
> upon which the partial object connections made by the connective synth were recorded.
> It acted in opposition to production as anti production. It broke existing
> connections and allowed new ones to be made.
>
> D&G "...establish a parallel between desiring production and social production" for
> the purpose of pointing "...out the fact that the forms of social production, like
> those of desiring production, involve an unengendered nonproductive attitude, an
> element of anti production coupled with the process, a full body that functions as a
> socius." (AO pg. 10)

O.K. the way I came to terms with the multiple applications of the terms - in particular
the BwO - is to see that D&G don't, I think, get broader and more vague, so much as they
example for us how what a BwO is is contingent upon the situation in/through which it is
produced. (Does that make sense?) For me, personally, the more I read the clearer I felt
about what we were talking about. That doesn't necessarily mean I find it any easier to
explain, however. I'll just keep trying...
In ATP they talk about making yourself a BwO. In this sense while 'being' is defined in
the molar codes of the organized and full body - this 'being' is (as representative face
etc..) the nonproductive side to the productive and creative impetus that is the making a
BwO - reaching towards an attainment beyond the limits of the organised lines of
functioning.


>
>
> !!Disclaimer!! the following statement/s is/are (a) question/s.
>
> I interpret desiring production as the work of the unconscious of an individual
> and social production as a group activity. The BwO is (an agent of?) anti production
> "... which can prevent any organ-ization from becoming fixed." (Holland, pg. 29) In
> the previous quote, the terms anti production and socius are linked in such a way as
> to lead me to believe the socius works in some way LIKE a BwO. Is this because it has
> one?

I don't really get this bit. As I recall, D&G see the unconscious as nothing but a
factory. I personally don't like the idea of conflating the unconscious with the concept
of desiring production. That doesn't necessitate that desiring production is therefore
always concsious, however. But I just don't think these kinds of dichotomies apply. As
for the BwO as anti-production - this seems to contradict your previous paragraph???
Having said that, I can also see that if you wanted to view the procudion of the soicious
as a full body then the production of the BwO becomes anti-production in the context of
that social production. As I say, It seems to me that the often apparent contradictions
resolve when we find a way to contextualize.
I don't know about the 'like' business - it seems to me that the socius is all and
everything - Bodies and BwO's. Don't D&G say somewhere near the beginning of AO something
along the lines of there is only desire and the social and nothing else?

>
>
> Later in the book : "To code desire -- and fear, the anguish of decoded flows-- is the
> business of the socius." (AO pg 139)
>
> "A society is a dissapative structure with is own determining tension between a
> limitative body without organs and a nonlimitative one. Together, in their
> interaction they are called a "socius" (the abstract machine of society)." (Massumi pg
> 75) Together in their interaction a limitative body without organs and a
> non-limitative one are called a socius?
>

Yes - I think that the concept of the 'abstract-machine' would resolve a lot of the issues
here. You might also like to read some of D's work on the molar and the molecular -
seeing that both individuals and the socius operate like assemblages or more to the point
assemblings. the dominanting forces of society operate via an abstract machine that
overcodes any decoded flows, but both the molar and the molecular/ the overcoding and the
decoded flows are part of the assembling of that society.

I would recommend D's essay "Many Politics" in Dialogues.

I hope this helps - this is, however, only my working through - other's may have more to
add or question or contest???

Rgds,
Chris



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