Deleuze and the Political

by Paul Patton

With clarity, precision and economy, Paul Patton synthesizes the full range of Deleuze's work. He interweaves with great dexterity motifs that extend from his early works, such as Nietzsche and Philosophy , to the more recent What is Philosophy? and his key works such as Anti-Oedipus and Difference and Repetition . Throughout, Deleuze and the Political demonstrates Deleuze's relevance to theoretical and practical concerns in a number of disciplines including philosophy, political theory, sociology, history, and cultural studies.
Paul Patton also presents an outstandingly clear treatment of fundamental concepts in Deleuze's work, such as difference, power, desire, multiplicities, nomadism and the war machine and sets out the importance of Deleuze to poststructuralist political thought.
It will be essential reading for anyone studying Deleuze and students of philosophy, politics, sociology, literature and cultural studies.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics

Paperback

First published May 25, 2000

Reviews

[Alexander]

The place of ‘the political’ in the work of Gilles Deleuze has always been an open question. While woven through with the classical themes of political reflection - power, society, and capitalism, to name a few - exactly how to figure these into a ‘political philosophy’ proper has never been entirely clear. Yet for Paul Patton, the question isn’t to find the political ‘in’ Deleuze - as if the political were to be a ready-made sphere of inquiry to begin with - but to recognize an entirely revamped understanding of what it would mean to speak of the political at all. In place then, of an established vocabulary of social contracts, individual liberty, and human rights, is here found an alien glossary filled with ‘becomings’, ‘deterritorializations’, ‘assemblages’ and ‘nomadisms’, concepts advanced herein as eminently political ones, to be put to the use of better charting the political waters in which we find ourselves.

Penned largely in an expository vein, there's a sense in which the book doubles as a general - albeit selective - introduction to Deleuze's general philosophy too, one with an accent placed heavily over certain, more 'politically productive' terms than others. Indeed, the chapters themselves compose a kind of 'selected Deleuzian concepts' list - multiplicity, desire, power, becoming, social machines, nomads - all of which are fruitfully mined for their efficacy at theorising the political. That said, this isn't so much a book for the Deleuze-beginner so much as a reader looking to deepen an already acquired grasp of the Deleuzian approach; not just because of the relative pace of Patton's writing - more a cantor than a trot - but also because of his firm entrenchment in the Deleuzian universe, one happy sticking to its terms rather than - as I had a hope for - drawing clear bridges to more mainstream currents of political theory.

None of which is meant to discount the originality of Patton's reading here. Daniel Smith for instance - the Deleuze scholar whose review sent me after this particular work (see Economy and Society 32, 2) - has already remarked on Patton's subtle - almost subterranean - reworking of liberal notions like normativity, freedom, and judgement undertaken within. Yet for my money it was Patton's closing case studies involving aboriginal land law in both Australia and New Zealand that really set this book off from those among its field. It was a delight to see notions of de/territorialization employed in a context of jurisprudence, and the discussion of the 'double becoming' of both indigenous and common law is as a beautifully clear and ingenious take on Deleuzian 'becoming' that I know. One does wish for this work having more of this kind of thing, but settling for the already-excellent scholarship on display ain't bad either.

[Greg Florez]

An incredibly helpful review of Deleuze’s (and Guattari’s) Political philosophy; the application of this philosophy to the case of aboriginal rights in the settler colonial legal system of New Zealand really put the ideas found in ATP and AO into practice in a really clear way.

[Nada Decat]

Clear and accessible. Highly recommended for those trying to understand Deleuze in context.

[Yusef Asabiyah]

Philosophy isn't practical, but neither is politics. Yet both are important. We take an important cutting edge of philosophy and apply it to the practical, and hope it works out. It should carve philosophy, into neither the practical nor the political.

We do it primarily because we don't care about either practicality, philosophy, or politics.


I waded into this book primarily because I loved the series-- XXXYYYZZZ and the Political. ( But never "ZZZZZZ, snore" or "ZZZZZZZZZsneeze". I had by going down the Algonquin of this series, come to Deleuze in the first place. I had arrested, from the hands of "the Algonquin" their hatchets at the very beginning, but then, having gone down this Algonquin-- which, it turned out had nothing to do with Algonquins-- and having wretched that first hatchet from Paul Patton, I stopped.

Okay. I see too much Derrida here. What's going on? Do I really want to have my Deleuze filtered through Derrida? (It is possible I do because I am a "Nietzschean".) I won't read further because I want my Deleuze immediately and spontaneously, and that means not filtered through anything. A filter through Paul Patton, who has translation skills I will never have, notwithstanding.

I go on and on, then to the end. This is the fatal part where the writer/translator "gets active" and shows us where, and how, we can "apply" "pragmatically" perfection. There is a woman professor of English (I myself always loved BlueStockings, or Red, as the case may be, Black Stockings) who has confronted a young man who wants to know why his writing was bad writing. The professor of English sits him down, not to scold or humiliate, but to instruct, on good writing. She experiences a kind of orgasm. It shivers through her body, for this is her power, earned and deserved through long hours of silent, solitary search.

The young bwa understands his writing was far from perfect, and submits, to the rule of reason, and womanhood.

"Jane Gallop's account of a pedagogic encounter which gave rise to an experience of erotic intensity may be understood in these terms )Gallop 1992. She recounts an episode in which a graduate student confronts her after receiving a bad grade on a paper he has written and challenges her to go through the paper with him. Reluctantly, she agrees to do so an deventually, afer a long and intense session working through the te togehter, the student is left bowed and vulnerable wile the teacher finds indistinguishable from sexual desire. This was not the familimar secanro of unclear wether this is really eaching or really sex. (Gallop 1992:212.) The episode involved an exercise of intellectual or pedagogic power over the student, apparently to good effect. Moever, this was an exercise of power over another which conforms o the open agonistic srudcure rahter ta the strucure of dominatoion. In e course of what began as a diedoagogic

[Pejman]

Deleuze and Guattari always use differnrt words in unfamiliar position and Pall Patton help us to understand theses words in their conceptual position. although, the name of this work is Deleuze and the Political but trying to throw light on some unknown parts of their deep philosophy. Do not forget that next century is Deleze's century.

[Gabriel]

Uses deleuzian words, vocabularies and concepts without explaining what they mean at first and in such convoluted ways it makes the read tedious and, in terms of clarity, extremely difficult to grasp. Would not recommend it to anyone.

[Noelle]

Super helpful.