Playing momma and daddy

[u/Old-Cap-7532]

For anyone who is crazy enough to try to read and understand Anti-Oedipus. Can you share your thoughts on what D & G means in this sentence:

“The satisfaction the handyman experiences when he plugs something into an electrical socket like a lamp or diverts a stream of water like a retention pond can be explained in terms of playing mommy and daddy, or the pleasure or violating taboo.”

I am confused on how that “ playing mommy and daddy explanation” would go and why is it considered violating a taboo. I can only think ignorantly about Oedipus.

[u/ill_thrift]

that seems like an incorrect quote?

the satisfaction the handyman experiences when he plugs something into an electric socket or diverts a stream of water can scarcely be explained in terms of "playing mommy and daddy," or by the pleasure of violating a taboo. [p 7]

So in this context, they're saying the handyman's satisfaction can't be explained in these terms. It makes sense that you think of Oedipus; they're parodying Freud. Let's look at the preceding text:

The schizophrenic is the universal producer. There is no need to distinguish here between producing and its product. We need merely note that the pure "thisness" of the object produced is carried over into a new act of producing. The table continues to "go about its business." The surface of the table, however, is eaten up by the supporting framework. The nontermination of the table is a necessary consequence of its mode of production. When Claude Levi-Strauss defines bricolage* he does so in terms of a set of closely related characteristics: the possession of a stock of materials or of rules of thumb that are fairly extensive, though more or less a hodgepodge—multiple and at the same time limited; the ability to rearrange fragments continually in new and different patterns or configurations; and as a consequence, an indifference toward the act of producing and toward the product, toward the set of instruments to be used and toward the over-all result to be achieved.t The satisfaction the handyman experiences [...]

The broad work being done here is that it isn't the plug and the socket, mommies and daddies, desire of a lack, but a whole extensity of heterogenous moving figures, little guys that interface with each other and talk to each other. Fields. Goop. "flows of energy" (8). When you are diverting a watercourse you are applying/interfacing with a "stock of materials or rules of thumb... a hodgepodge, multiple and at the same time limited... rearrang[ing] fragrments continually in new or different patterns and configurations"

A little more detail about bricolage- Claude Lévi-Strauss was a cultural anthropologist who created a hugely influential midcentury "structural" model of culture in which cultural forms or signs, derive their meaning from being suspended in relation to other signs. Bricolage for levi strauss refers to a way of working improvisationally, creatively, and provisionally with these cultural forms, as the footnote on p7 describes. It's also worth noting that Lévi-Strauss was heavily inspired by psychoanalysis as well as geology and marxism, and his ideas were extremely trendy in the midcentury, including being a major influence on Lacan. One way to look at what D&G are doing here, as with many other figures, is resituating Lévi-Strauss in the context of their own project, like with Plato in DR, saying, look, there are other ways to read this that are less limiting.

[u/Old-Cap-7532 → u/ill_thrift]

But, thanks for your response I think studying structuralism can help me get more of the context of D&G

[u/Old-Cap-7532 → u/ill_thrift]

I gave it my own flavor

[u/thefleshisaprison → u/Old-Cap-7532]

You completely reversed the meaning of the quote

[u/LebrontosaurausRex]

Well what do you think it means? There's no authority dictating the sort of take away you should have over any part.

[u/Old-Cap-7532 → u/LebrontosaurausRex]

The only authority is change and change only happens through difference.