Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 23:04:37 +0100
From: "Steve.Devos" <steve.devos-AT-dial.pipex.com>
Subject: Re: Did Oedipus wear a hair-shirt?


jbram-AT-pnc.com.au wrote:
>
> So we finally manage to free ourselves a bit from daddy-mummy, only to
> re-focus the rage onto daddy's boss i.e. the State? Isn't this just a
> BIGGER Oedipal-triangle, not a break from it? No specific targets here, but
> perhaps we shouldn't rush to break up State-ties; there would be many
> university-haters for instance that we would consider unsavoury bedfellows
> (i.e. let's not be hoist by our own petard).

Nick,

The point about the state within the work of D&G, Dumezil and Mumford is not that we
should be interpreting their work - in terms of replacing daddy-mummy with the state
but rather recognising how implicit the state is within our intellectual activity,
and indeed how implicit it is in our construction as human subjects. (Including of
course those of us, such as myself who work as technologists partially external to
the state-educational apparatuses within multinational corporations).

I believe that for any marxist or neo-marxist, which D&G would both claim to be, the
definition of the state probably starts from the `synthesis of civil society' the
definition of which is core to the Grundisse. I think this could be said to be the
starting point of D&G's version of the state, as of so many others. (you can run the
concept of the state further back if you wish but i personally quite like the
grundisse.)

There is no point to defending the state-form, any more than their is to defending
nomadism, for my purposes here they are tools for understanding how things are and
not values in themselves. D once defined philosophy as a toolbox which at times has
been an extremely abused phrase/concept but it marks much of Deleuze's work and has
been used at times to transform Deleuzes into containing an instrumental utility
which can only serve to surpress the unforeseen. It exists to enable people to invent
new tasks and new problems. You can't within this framework seperate use from desire.

For intellectuals working within the university institutions, within the state
apparatuses the question now is how to stop yourselves being increasingly
proletarianised as school teachers are being in the UK.

> OK, so intellectuals are
> deeply implicated in State-functions, but let's face it - there wouldn't BE
> any "intellectuals" without the big S!
>
> Of course intellectuals should look for new alliances outside of their
> State-run worlds, 

Nick really - Surely this depends on how university orientated your definition of
intellectual happens to be.....

> but it was damned hard getting those worlds in the first
> place - maybe we shouldn't desire their abolition? Too often "nomadic"
> seems to mean "hate thy molar bugbear", but surely being anti-Oedipus
> doesn't mean dismissing parents altogether?


It's late here in the UK Nick. Time for espresso in the summer night.

good night
steve.devos-AT-dial.pipex.com


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