Apparatus of Capture: “Rhizomatic Contributions to Integral Ecology” and its Consequences (DRAFT) more

Anderson 1 Apparatus of Capture: “Rhizomatic Contributions to Integral Ecology” and its Consequences (DRAFT) Daniel Gustav Anderson An axiomatic and frequently contemptuous dismissal of philosophical positions variously labeled as poststructuralism and materialism is a defining feature of Ken Wilber's project, deployed in the big books and reproduced by bloggers and in academic work. This Not-Poststructuralism position gives Wilberism its rationale. Without “mean green” cultural studies and descent-oriented “postmodern poststructuralists” as foils against which Wilber can define his own system in teleological terms, Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality and subsequent volumes would just not hold together. The figure of the “Descender” is the villain of Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality: the producer of the toxic and contagious worldview that is somehow responsible for the woes of the contemporary world (Wilber does not explain just how this or any worldview produces material conditions); the integral paradigm as the “Descent of the all-pervading World-Soul” is presented as significant in world-historical terms as an antidote to the same, and presented heroically (551). In Biblical terms, one might say that Wilber's intervention is presented as apocalyptic in the sense of bringing about a millenarian Integral Age, and that Wilber's doctrine plays the role of the “attractor” that will inevitably and forcefully bring this New World to us mortals. To invoke a Wilberism, “it is more than a little ironic” to find the work of materialist and poststructuralist philosophers summoned to strengthen and reinforce the Wilberian worldview in its attempts to gain academic credibility, especially when the inevitability of “evolution beyond rationality” is such that “there is not a single scientific argument in the world that can disagree with that, and every argument in favor of it” (Wilber 550-551). Why would evolution so confidently posited Anderson 2 need help from the enemy? It would seem that recruiting from the nomadic “war machine” of poststructuralist arguments, those paragons of the wrong kind of rationality for Wilber, in order to supplement the bureaucratic scientific discourses in integral studies such as “integral ecology” must represent an admission of defeat from within Wilber's camp. But contrary to Wilber's insistence, evolution has stopped for avowed materialist and suspected poststructuralists Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari in Sam Mickey's contribution to the 2010 collection Integral Theory in Action, called “Rhizomatic Contributions to Integral Ecology.” How is this possible? Under what circumstances could it have seemed like a good idea to introduce such a contradiction into integral discourse, undermining Wilberism's raison d'etre in an attempt to strengthen its premises? According to one plausible explanation, Mickey, and by extension the editorial team behind the Integral Theory in Action volume (Sean Esbjorn-Hargens put his name on it), evoke Deleuze and Guattari in the way they do in an attempt to defend Wilber from a certain kind of critique that was already in circulation by the 2007 Integral Theory in Action conference, and deepening during the window of time that the contributions to the book would have been revised and prepared for publication. To show how this works requires some technical language and textual analysis. I thank the reader in advance for his or her forbearance if this is unfamiliar territory. “I consider how the approaches to Integral Ecology based on the AQAL framework of Ken Wilber's Integral Theory,” Mickey writes, “can be enhanced through interaction with the works of the French thinkers Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995) and Felix Guattari (1930-1992)” (325-326). This seems to summarize the intervention Mickey makes in this essay: to strengthen integral theory as Wilber presents it by reference to the collaborative work of Deleuze and Guattari. Mickey then specifies this relation he seeks to establish, later on the same page: “I argue that, rather than being mutually exclusive alternatives, these different approaches can become mutually enhancing, offering one another Anderson 3 important correctives, criticisms, and possibilities for hybrid concepts” (326). Remarkably, Mickey is pushing against the notion that Deleuze and Guattari on one side and Wilberism on the other are mutually opposed, and instead seeks to promote the opposite view. Why do this? Or, rather, with whom is Mickey arguing and on what basis does he make this assumption of the antagonistic relation between Deleuze-Guattarian “rhizomatics” and “arborescent” integral theory, even when refracted through the concept of ecology? Regrettably, I must claim responsibility for that particular juncture. I did it. I have been concerned with the intersection of integral theory and ecology on my blog, For The Turnstiles, beginning in December of 2006. In my 2006 essay “Of Syntheses and Surprises,” I claim that integral theory of the kind Mickey advocates (based on the work of Ken Wilber) and the work of Deleuze and Guattari are, in fact and in consequence, mutually exclusive alternatives in important ways —and that Deleuze-Guattarian theory does the work integral theorists set for themselves with fewer conceptual problems and contradictions than the Wilberian version. Mickey is arguing a very specific point that would be very unlikely for him to have reached in the absence of my “Syntheses” paper, suggesting that it is plausible for him to have been familiar with its contents. This is not an isolated instance of what one might call “resonance” between Mickey's essay and my own work, which looks like an agonistic relation (Mickey appears to be debating me without naming me). That is, Mickey presents arguments that are not explicitly directed against anyone in particular, but do bear a strong relation of resemblance to certain articles already in circulation in integral circles, articles that have my name attached to them. The redirection of these arguments follows a particular pattern, moving away from antagonism against the Wilberian model of integral theory, and toward harmony with it. A defensive position. As far as I can tell, this kind of redirection is the overall rhetorical purpose of the essay, because Mickey persists in it even at the expense of his own arguments. This shows in his use of evidence and his Anderson 4 reading of Deleuze, Guattari, and Wilber. For instance, Mickey claims that the “usefulness in applying the AQAL Matrix to ecology is indicated by the fact that the very title of Wilber's magnum opus SES refers to ecology” (329). This is a circular argument. Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality, where the AQAL matrix is introduced, claims ecology is an important consideration for AQAL; AQAL must be important to ecology because SES said so. I point this one out to show that Mickey's first priority is not to present a reasoned argument, but to present a polemic in favor of Wilber and Wilberian “ecology.” Ecology is an extraordinarily flexible concept in Mickey's essay, sometimes referring to the stuff of subjectivity, sometimes to a body of knowledge, sometimes to the conventional meaning of the study of systems of life. Which is to say, ecology means discourse here, usually theoretic discourse. Mickey's concern for containing and redirecting a particular Deleuze-Guattarian intervention into integral theory emerges in his discussion of subjectivity, particularly as it relates to political action and aspiration: Subjectivity for Guattari is not a quality of a reified or alienated subject. In other words, it is not merely egoic or Cartesian subjectivity. Rather, subjectivity emerges through the creative process of “subjectification,” which integrates multiple components, vectors, and assemblages of existential engagements (36). To liberate subjectivity from the infantilizing and destructive forces of global capitalism, consumerism, media, and technological progress, Guattari proposes that mental ecology focus on “the promotion of innovatory practices, the expansion of alternative experiences centered around a respect for singularity,” and the creation of a “subjectivity that can articulate itself appropriately in relation to the rest of society” (Mickey 331). When Mickey celebrates a Deleuze-Guattarian view of subjectivity as not determined, not alienated or reified, he assumes such a view of subjectivity as an agon. Why is he bringing it up in this way? Who is he arguing against? In “Such a Body,” I deploy these very concepts in describing the dynamic of Anderson 5 subjectivity under capitalist relations, the forces that I think intentional practice has to push against. While I endorse Mickey's concern to identify subjective problems under capitalist social relations, and even though the trajectory of his claim is clear, he seems to confuse his argument along the way he takes to advance his overall position. For context, in the quotation above Mickey is summarizing a passage from Guattari's book The Three Ecologies, where Guattari argues determinative structuralist accounts of the self (such as Althusser or Lacan). Subjectification is an ambivalent concept in the work of Deleuze and Guattari together, and Guattari separately. It simply means the process by which subjects are made, the processes of interiority that can be worked with creatively or can be made a means of top-down control (as in the case of “oedipalization” in Anti-Oedipus). The authors give it a determinative meaning (and hence a negative value) in some contexts, and a stochastic or liberatory meaning (hence a positive value) in other contexts. Mickey's discussion of subjectification, attributed to Guattari (The Three Ecologies), ignores the determinative meaning given to it by Althusser and Foucault, which Deleuze-Guattari freely cite in A Thousand Plateaus: the process by which subjects are produced or determined (by capitalist social relations in Althusser, by power relations and discourse in Foucault). As it happens, Guattari describes subjectification's ambivalence—it can go wrong—on page two of Chaosmosis, in a discussion of the Iranian Revolution, and in a passage also cited in the backmatter to the book Mickey is summarizing in this passage, The Three Ecologies. This is the meaning I use when I describe it in “Crying” (a mediocre essay) and “Syntheses” (74, note 27), the more conventional meaning. When Guattari alone or with Deleuze intend a stochastic meaning, this meaning is made clear from the context or explicitly specified with an adjective, as in “creative subjectification,” or discussed in the context of the Body without Organs (an essential DeleuzeGuattarian treatment of nonduality which Mickey completely ignores). Mickey is claiming against evidence he has at hand that subjectification has only a “creative” or stochastic meaning in Guattari, which is not so. What does this add up to? In “Crying,” I identify subjectification with the idealism Anderson 6 Wilber promotes, with a determinative meaning, and advocate instead for “disintegral” or stochastic and liberatory practices. Here, Mickey is claiming a positive value for subjectification as identified or equated to Wilberian practice, which is an incoherent position to take. Mickey takes it anyway because, rhetorically at least, it helps refuse a Deleuze-Guattarian critique of Wilber. Half of Mickey's claim reproduces an aspect of my argument, while the other half of Mickey's claim is an attempt to contradict my indictment of Wilber's idealism. From this matrix of thought on subjectivity emerges an interventionary description of political work that extends beyond the Wilberian imperative to transform consciousness, a position I myself took in “Such a Body,” where I describe a dynamic of two interventions. Mickey describes this as follows: “This means that mental and social ecologies must criticize and transform those systems, processes, and institutions that have exploited and oppressed the uniqueness of subjectivity, systems such as globalization, industrialization, colonial and postcolonial regimes, consumerism, capitalism, and patriarchy” (331). I applaud Mickey's willingness to turn the attention of integral theorists toward the problematic of late capitalism and concomitant problems, including the fragmentation of consciousness that prevails under its regime. My own intervention in integral theory has also been oriented precisely toward liberating the exploited and oppressed from capitalist social relations and expressed in terms of of globalization and consumerism. Mickey's invocation of “the uniqueness of subjectivity” is a way of expressing the distinction I make between qualitative (mechanical) and quantitative (creative) distinctions in subjectivity in work that would have been available to him prior to publication of Critical Theory in Action (“Such a Body” 39), among other concepts I introduced to the conversation in integral theory. To cite another example, Mickey's claim that “Deleuze's ontological practices of mapping extensive, intensive, and virtual structures facilitate efforts to wander outside of current political structures and institutions and to facilitate the emergence of new sociocultural wholes” (333-334) Anderson 7 evokes my call for “radical democracy” in “Syntheses,” down to the emphasis on maps and mapping (64, 75). To cite another example, Mickey claims that Deleuze-Guattarian practice “can help individuals and communities overcome the fragmented and binary thinking of reductionism and foster the enactment of more integral forms of ecology” (338). Again, I think Mickey is on the right track here. “Fragmented consciousness” is a problem I have also proposed for integral theorists to address in “Such a Body” (see for instance 14, 26, 42, 44-45), and elsewhere as a consequence of capitalist social relations. I suggest Deleuze and Guattari as thinkers whose concepts can make a real contribution toward addressing these problems for integral theory in “Of Syntheses” (74-78). And to cite yet another example, when Mickey claims that the “geophilosophy of D&G would function as a corrective to help Integral Theory become more applicable to the irreducible uniqueness and specificity of existential territories” (339), I think he is describing an important contribution to integral theory as a criticism of Wilberism. How so? The core argument in “Of Syntheses” is against the reduction through synthesis of the particular, the specific, and the local into abstractions and transcendences so characteristic of Aurobindian and Wilberian discourses, and in favor of a DeleuzeGuattarian celebration of the bottom-up as opposed to the top-down: my 2006 paper was intended to be such a corrective to integral theory. I am happy to find out Mickey has come around to my way of thinking on this. The same pattern of reproduction and deflection also prevails in Mickey's comments on methodological concerns. Positions are taken that do offer useful contributions to contemporary integral discourse, but they raised in such a way as to contain the critical consequences those contributions have to the premises of Wilber and his followers. For instance, in contrast to the Wilberian practice of applying a pregiven set of concepts to a problem, as in “applying AQAL to leadership” or “bringing an integral view to bear on political economy,” Mickey instead proposes that Anderson 8 the Deleuze-Guattarian practice of philosophy as “'creating concepts'” is useful to integral theory (335). I agree completely. In fact, this imperative in Deleuze and Guattari becomes a fundamental premise throughout “Such a Body” (2008) where I claim that theoretical work as such, especially for integral theorists, should be about making new concepts (5). This is where the distinction between “rhizomic” and “arborescent” practices is of significance. The imperative to create new concepts in the multiple should be characterized as rhizomatic, as they function as the weeds and vines that grow in the spaces around and between the singular structures that claim to account for the All but cannot account for the weeds in between an outside. The arborescent suggests a preposterous and total unity or singularity, the one voice and one model for all purposes. Mickey describes this adequately: “The nonlinear and nondualistic system of the rhizome stands in contrast to the linear hierarchies of more tree-like (“arborescent”) structures” (335). However, Mickey seems not to grasp the significance of embracing the rhizome, which undermines his argument on the value of Wilber's theory. Holarchy, evolution, AQAL: these are quintessentially arborescent structures. I describe this dynamic most explicitly in “Crying” (6, 17), which is directly pointed at the pop-Hegelian idealism of integral discourse: “'integral' denotes the arborescent tendencies in integral theory, which I have argued elsewhere arise in the same historical and cultural matrix as Bradley’s theories of poetry and culture (Anderson 2006)” (note 4). This is part of the pattern where my arguments against Wilber and his claimed antecedents (Schelling, Hegel, Aurobindo) are redirected. Inevitable evolution against which no arguments can be made is the inevitable target of these criticisms, and it is inevitable that this idealistic and in my view ideological presentation of history come in conflict with the “rhizomatic” methodology of Deleuze and Guattari if the two are brought in dialogic relation with each other, as Mickey has proposed to do. To see these concepts arranged here in a manner that closely resembles my own description of them indicates to me there is a real interest among integral thinkers in the issues I have raised, and an earnest commitment to much of the theoretical program I have espoused in this and other essays in Anderson 9 Integral Theory in Action (the essays by Michael Schwartz and Michael Zimmerman both suggest a willingness to take a critical view of capitalist social relations and ideologies). Integral studies as a whole will benefit when these are brought to their logical conclusion, which Mickey's essay refuses: to direct the criticism of capitalism and its discursive pretentions toward having all the answers toward Wilberian integral theory precisely as an expression of capitalist ideologies and social relations, to recognize the real conceptual problems with “evolution” as Wilber presents it in terms of “ecology” or not. I have attempted to do this, unevenly, in “Such a Body” and “Sweet Science.” But following Mickey's lead, a good place to begin might be found in A Thousand Plateaus, specifically the chapter titled “Apparatus of Capture.” How so? If evolution gives a rationale for Wilber's intervention, presenting the next stage of human consciousness after that of the “postmodern poststructuralists,” then integral theory after Wilber might take actual material conditions, the uneven regimes of development that prevail in this world, and parasitic-symbiotic relations as a point of departure. Works Cited Anderson, Daniel Gustav. “Integral Theory After Wilber.” Integral World. Web. 22 Sept. 2011. ---. Nonviolence of Nonmetaphysics, an Interview with Daniel Gustav Anderson. Integral World. 2009. ---. “Of Syntheses and Surprises: Toward a Critical Integral Theory.” Integral Review 3 (2006): 62-81. ---. “‘Such a Body We Must Create’: New Theses on Integral Micropolitics.” The Integral Review 4.2 (2008): 4-70. ---. “‘Sweet Science’: A Proposal for Integral Macropolitics.” The Integral Review 6.1 (2010): 10-62. ---. “The Crying of Humanity: Tragedy, Subjectivity, and Disintegral Praxis.” Quarterly Journal of Ideology 30.3&4 (2007): 1-47. Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987. Print. Anderson 10 ---. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, & Helen R. Lane. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983. Print. Guattari, Felix. Chaosmosis: An Ethico-Aesthetic Paradigm. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1995. Print. Guattari, Félix. The Three Ecologies. Trans. Ian Pindar & Paul Sutton. London: Athlone Press, 2000. Print. Mickey, Sam. “Rhizomatic Contributions to Integral Ecology.” Integral Theory in Action. Ed. Sean Esbjorn-Hargens. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2010. 325-344. Print. Wilber, Ken. Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution. Revised Edition. Boston: Shambhala, 2000. Print.