in response to Karen:
as you might be aware, i am the one who has been pushing that D&G reject
communication (common sense kind of came on its coattails i guess, i don't
know, it popped in their, but i don't know who popped it in). Although
D&G do not ever come right out and say that language is not communicational,
they do emphasize that the function of language is not to communicate, but
rather to move bodies. ON pp. 78-9 of ATP, D&G wriet that information
and communication are basically misnomers because laguahge operates
by means of the order-word and pass-word. the order-word is effectuated
by a redundancy and the pass-word names the flight. order-words and
pass-words are the contractions and dialations of llanguage.
common sense is also heavily critiqued by Deleuze in DIFFERENCE & REPETITION
and THE LOGIC OF SENSE, and i'm sure he does so elsewhere as well.
D&G's pragmatics, built around content and expression, relates sign
systems and language to force. communication may not be expressly
rejected (although ideology is) but it is nonetheless made into a
non-factor with regard to the functioning of regimes of signs. Brian
Massumi (the translator of ATP) has written a book, A USER'S GUIDE TO
CAPITALISM AND SCHIZOPHRENIA in which he singles out the communication
question as an important one. He writes that D&G 'reject' communication
and that their semiotic concepts (along with Foucault's) are quite
different from other 'poststructuralist' thnkers, who massumi
writes 'stand in the shadow of Saussure', or something like that.
Doesn't Massumi teach at McGill?
D&G do not afford communication any place whatsoever when dealing with
sign systems. in fact, they see it as form of negative deterritoralization.
positive deterritorialization is postsignigying (without communication).
chris
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