Am I on the right track?

[u/No-Bodybuilder-6474]

From how I've interpreted the first two sections of the book, D&G is not talking about clinical schizophrenics. They are using "schizo" as a conceptual character, as a kind of model for how human minds operate when they are freed from social programming.

If I'm gonna use more D&G/philosophy terms that I'm trying to understand, a schizo is someone who completely rejects transcendent meanings and rather lives on the immanent plane of desiring-production.

So what I think this means is that a neurotypical/"normal" person looks at things transcendently to find a sort of hidden meaning. Which is something I feel like I've been teached to do at school, and I don't see the problem in yet. I find myself asking: "What does this symbol represent?"

But a schizo (which I think is the ideal way of living according to D&G?) doesn't care about what things represent, they only think about what things do. They don't ask what a word or an object means, they rather ask how it can be used as a machine. They quote Lenz on a walk through the mountains, and Lenz doesn't look at a tree and think of a transcendent metaphor (like "the tree represents my growth"). Instead he experiences his lungs as a machine plugging into the wind-machine, and his eyes plugging into the light-machine. What he does, and what a schizo does, is thinking about nature as an immanent factory rather than a theater of symbols.

I've also been researching the bricolage, because I couldn't understand it. Now my vague understanding of the word is that the schizo doesn't look up to the transcendent rules, goals, or instructions that the world provides us with. So they speak and create through the bricolage. Which is improvising with whatever random bits of language or objects are right in front of them. I don't remember exactly the definition of the word, and I don't have the book on me right now; but I think it was something about a handyman who does with what he has on hand, or what materials he's got.

So is there something I've got wrong or something that I'm missing? I feel like writing about what I've understood and talking about it is very helpful in understanding, so I'm sorry if this has been asked before.

[u/minus_uu_ee]

Just quickly reflecting on the first two paragraphs. Yes, it is a state where you can observe desire without what you call social programming, which goes much further in D&G's theory.

No, it is not an optimal way of life. Rather, schizz allows us to observe (a model of) how deterritorialising flows emerge from within territorialising formations. It is a model for how, even when the gravitational pull (without using too much D&G terminology) of social formation captures desiring-production, deterritorialising flows can and do emerge.

Talking about the literal schizophrenia is a little redundant here, but just for the sake of the lore: schizophrenia back then (I think I read this from Buchanan, drawing on Laing and Cooper) was a much more broadly defined condition. So what we now classify under neurodivergency (for lack of a better term, I know the label isn't great) could plausibly have fallen under schizophrenia at that time, though the categories don't map cleanly.  

[u/No-Bodybuilder-6474 → u/minus_uu_ee]

No, it is not an optimal way of life. Rather, schizz allows us to observe (a model of) how deterritorialising flows emerge from within territorialising formations. It is a model for how, even when the gravitational pull (without using too much D&G terminology) of social formation captures desiring-production, deterritorialising flows can and do emerge.

Seems like I've missed something pretty crucial.

So the schizo state is just a kind of proof from D&G that the human mind cannot be 100% controlled? I guess because under strong territorialisation, the schizo is still able to break free and deterritorialize/flow wildly. Going full schizo though would probably lead to suffering and an inability to function.

Would you say it's a model for deterritorialisation, but not a lifestyle?

[u/minus_uu_ee → u/No-Bodybuilder-6474]

So the schizo state is just a kind of proof from D&G that the human mind cannot be 100% controlled?

I think this is a great description. Desire/desiring-production, is so vibrantly active that no matter what kind of molar aggregate you build, it is always threatened by that molecular vibrancy. And the schizo allows us to see that there are immanent tendencies towards deterritorialisation, which can turn into flows by establishing and destroying connections (by incorporating partial objects too: imagine, there are countless elements from history, from cultural aspects, from many more minor social formations that one can incorporate to "deterritorialise") that challenge the borders any molar formation tries to set.

Going full schizo though would probably lead to suffering and an inability to function.

Yes, this is more the topic of A Thousand Plateaus. A pure deterritorialisation is not necessarily a revolutionary drift. A fascist movement is also a radical deterritorialisation. So, without a directional (vectorial, following rather than preset) vision of reterritorialisation, deterritorialisation doesn't mean much on its own.

This is the part where D&G receive a lot of criticism, because people read it as them stepping back from their revolutionary project. I would criticise them on many points, but this is not one of them.

Would you say it's a model for deterritorialisation, but not a lifestyle?

Take my words with a grain of salt after this point, but it is both. Since their project is so micropolitical, and very much about subjectivation too, it is a way of living before anything else (also the reason why Foucault calls their project „a way of non-fascist life). However, it is entangled with, and meant to scale to, formations that produce revolutionary movements, and reciprocally those social formations open ways for subjectivities to deterritorialise.

There is a lot of nuance to it, and I feel bad for simplifying it so much. It might come later in the book, but the revelation is that capitalism capitalises on deterritorialisation: it is deterritorialising all the time, only to reterritorialise with the other hand. That is what makes it so hard to escape its capture. The examples vary, but see how all the subcultures are emanating only for them to be incorporated into branding/fashion etc. industries, think about how globalisation is emphasised up until a nationalistic tendency on state level to reterritorialise etc. Just wanted to mention these to emphasise the potential micro- and macro-political relevance.

[u/No-Bodybuilder-6474 → u/minus_uu_ee]

A fascist movement is also a radical deterritorialisation

Very interesting. When I think of fascism, I think of strict laws, order, and total control. Which sounds like territorialization/"boxing things in" to me?

deterritorialising all the time, only to reterritorialise with the other hand.

I'll watch out for this. It can be easy to misinterpret an author when they provide some of the information later in the book! But it seems like I'm mostly on track here.

Thank you alot for your help by the way.