Deleuze for the Desperate #13c:
Content, expression and the strata
Dave Harris
I have left this plateau to the end of the
sequence on language, even though it actually
appears before the other two, as Plateau 3. It
must have put off so many people from reading
further! For one thing, Deleuze and Guattari hide
behind a puppet spokesperson developing the
narrative in this plateau. They call him Prof
Challenger, a Conan Doyle character. The Wikipedia
entry describes Challenger as ‘a pretentious
and self-righteous scientific jack-of-all-trades'.
Deleuze and Guattari obviously feel defensive,
perhaps having been criticized for discussing
topics where they have no actual expertise. Much
of the discussion includes examples of
debates in geology and biology, for example. The
references are almost entirely in French. I found
it difficult to do any more than read through
hoping to get the basics of the argument. I have
more detailed notes on my website -- here. I must say I
much prefer the discussion in DeLanda's
book on science and deleuzian philosophy
(DeLanda 2002), especially the first parts of
Chapter 2, which is considerably clearer and
less interwoven with high-powered academic
asides. That discussion mostly references
Deleuze's earlier work Difference and
Repetition.
While I am here, it is always worth mentioning
Guattari’s book The
Machinic Unconscious, which has a
useful chapter on language, especially chapter 2.
The rest of the discussion is formidably elaborate
though. Guattari’s book emphasizes
Hjelmslev’s distinction between content and
expression, as before, with a bit more detail.
Generally, the argument is that human language is
not the only kind of language. Like animal
languages it is an actualization of the same
abstract machines linking contents and
expressions. Human worlds participate in the same
machinic phyla and planes of consistency as other
forms. It follows that there is nothing unique
about human subjectivity.
Plateau 3 of A
Thousand Plateaus (ATP) also
illustrates examples of nonhuman forms of
communication, tries to restore the role of
content and its own forms, and denies human
linguistic forms of expression as the only ones.
Deleuze and Guattari are also going to cite the
work of Hjemslev to argue content has an
independent role, that it is not just exhausted by
conventional human semiotic forms of expression,
that it has substances and forms of its own. For
that matter, content and expression are often
found connected together in complex ways in
communication. As examples, expressions themselves
become forms of content for subsequent
expressions, but there is also an argument that
content actually generates expressions so that
expressions are better understood as forms of
content.
The key concept here is the stratum. Strata are
found throughout nature and they are important in
communication. Channeling Spinoza, D&G say
that 'To express is always to sing the Glory
of god. Every stratum is a judgment of god; not
only do plants and animals, orchids and wasps,
sing or express themselves, but so do rocks and
even Rivers, every stratified thing on earth' (ATP
p. 49). If,like DeLanda, we think of
Deleuze and Guattari as offering a version of
complexity theory, rather than theology, that
might make more sense. We can get to the
underlying mechanisms of complexity theory,
virtual forces, attractors, phase spaces and the
rest by looking equally at sedimentary rocks or at
biochemistry, or anywhere else. Incidentally this
raises the issue of Deleuze's 'univocity', the
claim that Being always speaks with a single
voice, central to Badiou's
critique of Deleuze (Badiou 2000).
So stratification is a form of communication,
first in a general sense, that all communication
takes the raw materials of matter and forms them —
human communication does this when it constructs
things and words in deleuzian terminology .
Secondly human communication itself depends on
these prior processes where content has already
formed itself into actual substances. There is a
lot of discussion of these points and work in
geology and then biochemistry to illustrate
them. The patient read-through suggested
above eventually gets to three major types of
stratum, outlined on pages 65–68. They are:
First type A stratum composed of
molecular and molar components, with molecular
content and molar expression. The two levels can
be linked by a term they use a lot elsewhere, but
which I must say I find still a bit elusive —
'resonance' (p. 64). They also talk of ‘reciprocal
presupposition’ (p.75). The molecular level
still shows a difference between substance and
form, since molecules can interact among
themselves to become formed substances. The molar
level shows both statistical aggregates and a more
definite 'state of equilibrium'. Expression
carries the properties of the molecular or micro
level to the molar or macro level. There are
different possibilities since intermediate strata,
'epistrata' can have an effect and so can
exterior forces, applying especially to
expression. There might be cases at the extremes,
where, for example the molar level reflects
exterior forces as a mould, or it actively
modulates these exterior forces, and lots of other
possibilities.
The best examples would be the geological stratum
that the Plateau begins with. If we think of
this as a stratum of sedimentary rock in a
geological formation, we can notice that it has
two processes at work. First of all, sand, pebbles
and other bits and pieces are laid down on a
seabed, and they eventually get compacted together
to form a more solid layer. Over time, that layer
is subjected to another process of organization.
It might be further compressed, folded, perhaps
even baked as the sedimentary rocks around
Plymouth UK have been folded and baked by the
volcanic intrusion that formed Dartmoor. This is a
double process, one example of what they are going
to call a double articulation, one articulation
arises from loose collections of material , and
one arises from tighter and more extensive forms
of compression and aggregation. In ordinary
language, the point is that if you look at the
stratum of sedimentary rock, it contains
information. You can sometimes see sand and bits
of material still visible in the rock and get
information from them and then work out what has
happened in the different stages. You can
eventually read actual visible shapes in the
landscape like hills and valleys as products of
the underlying geology.
Other examples include the way crystals grow from
‘seeds’ or the way chemicals interact in physical
systems to from molecules of increasing complexity
and length.
M Harris
The same could be said of the development of
social strata. These are patterns of collective
action, including those that are particularly
powerful in the formation of social classes or
elites. Social strata are not specifically
discussed in this plateau, but the sociologist
Gabriel Tarde receives a 'homage' in Plateau 9 on
micropolitics (pp. 240 – 241). There we are told
that in his great debate with Durkheim, Tarde
insisted that the 'great collective
representations' presuppose 'exactly what needs
explaining, namely, "the similarity of millions of
people"'. There are other references to Tarde's
work in some of the books written by Deleuze.
Latour (2002) has a useful essay illustrating
Tarde's influence. Latour quotes Tarde in
describing social strata as composed of individual
components, where: '"the attributes each element
owes to its incorporation… Do not form its entire
nature… The collective power, of which it is a
part… Is only an artificial being, made only of
sides and facades of beings"'. There seems to be
support for the important role of pragmatics,
argued earlier. Referring to the apparent
structures in language, Latour argues that for
Tarde 'the structure is only one of the simplified
routinized repetitive elements of one of the
locutors who has managed to include his or her
local tradition into the general idiom' (page 8).
Deleuze and Guattari argue that Tarde is not
talking about human individuals in the usual
sense, but rather about flows which connect
individuals, such as 'flows of imitation'
(p.241). Actual individuals are heavily
influenced by social strata, as we saw in
discussion of the paradox of the subject.
End M Harris
Second type those strata linking organic
and inorganic matters. The organic layer still
preserves or even amplifies the inorganic matter
at the molecular level, as in cellular chemistry,
but there is one difference. The boundaries
between the layers become thresholds, and elements
can align so that 'expression becomes independent
in its own right'(p. 66). Different forms
combine to produce real effects. Expression can
take a linear form (apparently the nucleic
sequence in biology joins together nucleic acids
and proteins and this is a crucial stage for the
development of organisms). This independent
expression means that the organism is capable of
greater levels of deterritorialization, including
the ability to reproduce.
There are lengthy debates in biology, both
embryology and evolution, covered in this plateau.
Again I have to depend on DeLanda. I was struck by
the argument in his book that modern embryology
describes the development of the internal organs
of the embryo in terms of initial collections of
general cells, possibly stem cells, which are then
exposed to a local environment of chemical flows,
including hormones, and as a result cross
thresholds and go on to develop specific forms
like bones or organs. Those in turn affect the
environment of the embryo which triggers other
flows and other developments, like clustering and
folding of cells, once other thresholds of
formation have been reached. This is in contrast
to the old view, current when I last did
elementary biology as a schoolboy, that there was
some sort of blueprint which guided the
development of the embryo. More generally,
discussing the early formation of life we are told
that a ‘prebiotic soup’ (p.55) is a stratum
composed of inorganic materials. A crucial
intermediate layer, an epistratum, the membrane,
further articulates these materials, producing a
living aggregate, a ‘structuration’ (p.68) , a
kind of dynamic structuring process, connecting a
living creature and its milieu.
There is also an implication for conventional
views of the evolution of species. Again to be
very brief about this, and no doubt indicate my
own highly limited understanding, it is not that
individual members of species or types encounter
environments which directly produce modifications.
Instead, the species itself is the unit of
evolution, and it contains within it all sorts of
potentials for development. Darwin was really
developing a ‘science of multiplicities’
(p.54). This is another example of an
abstract machine at work (p. 56), possibly partly
revealed in a general embryonic form shared by all
animal species. As with all abstract machines,
some potentials are actualized or realized, while
others remain latent. The plane of consistency
will regulate the development of potential to some
extent, although here we have a tweak saying that
the plane of consistency itself can be 'reworked'
by particular developments like 'rogue particles'
(62). The discussion then goes on to
consider a number of concrete complexities
and developments.
The formation of inorganic substances has been
going on long before human beings occupied the
earth. Atoms have been forming into molecules,
molecules into chains of molecules, chains of
molecules into organisms and so on. Minerals have
developed in the same way from atoms and
molecules, and actual development depends on the
atomic structure of elements, such as the flexible
molecular combinations of carbon, or the catalytic
properties of metals. Again I'm depending on
DeLanda here, including a short article
he wrote about the importance of metals in forming
up the substances that we see around us. This is a
literal example of what Deleuze and Guattari mean
when they say that ‘The first articulation
concerns content, the second expression’ (p.49).
Third type: strata that can modify
the external world. This happens once expression
becomes a matter of symbols or language. It is
possible that this happened originally or only
with human beings, especially as human hands
developed for tool use, and human faces and
larynxes for speech and gesture. Beneath
those is 'the cerebral – nervous milieu'
(71). It has developed from the organic stratum as
a kind of 'pre-human soup immersing us'
(p.71), and it has led both to hands that
can use tools and faces that can vocalize. It is
this double development that underpins the
subsequent important distinction between
'apparently irreducible categories: things and
words' (p. 71). Both hands and faces
together provide for a new level of
deterritorialization, especially in particular
milieux. Human forms of expression rapidly turned
into diverse languages, but there are still limits
imposed by the organic elements of larynx, mouth,
lips and face, as a kind of substance limiting
expression.
There are interactions between organic,
ecological and technological factors and we could
map them, in principle. For example, different
milieux produce different sorts of speech, and
there is a marvelous and typical example here on
page 69 where operating in a forested milieu
apparently permits softer speech than the shouts
or grunts required on the savannah: the conclusive
evidence for this is that 'Everyone knows
that lumberjacks rarely talk’! This is referenced
to a French study written in 1933. With human
language we also have new contents and expressions
— 'technological content, semiotic or symbolic
expression'.
The ability to vocalize introduces superlinearity,
endless linearity of expression developing relays
between speakers and listeners over time. It also
permits translations, not only of other languages
but of nonhuman forms of expression: this leads to
'the scientific conception of the world' (p. 69),
where all the characteristics of the other strata
get translated into human signs. It is not
surprising that human language develops
'imperialist pretensions' (p. 70) and people that
think that human language is essential to any form
of understanding or communication — and these
might include Lacan. I must say I think he
has a good case.
But we still have to remember that the biological
raw materials that underpin human language are
themselves only aspects of an underlying
'technical social machine' with 'states of force
or formations of power', while human expression is
also the product of 'the semiotic collective
machine' (p. 70) that produces signs on all
strata. Both machines preexist human
variants. Concrete machines on human
strata can be understood as intermediate
states of the abstract machine. There is a
tendency for human beings to want to render this
abstract machine as something exclusively human,
an 'illusion' arising from the tremendous
deterritorializing power of human language. The
particular social and technical machines also do
develop a degree of autonomy, but still as strata.
However, only with human signs can the
abstract machine fully develop and actively
begin to write. I must say I think that is a
crucial difference.
In further clarifications (!), signs can be
understood as having three components — indexes of
territory, symbols which deterritorialize, icons
which reterritorialize. Since all strata,
including non-human ones, also show
deterritorialization and reterritorialization,
perhaps we can we say that they all exhibit signs.
However, there is no common system of signs [nor a
presymbolic semiotic chora, which alludes to
Kristreva? p.72] . We have to make sure that we
are not seeing human signs as the only type
against which others are inferior. Human signs
develop only when forms of expression become quite
distinct from forms of content, with their own
categories. Human signs can be organized into
regimes as we saw. There is still a prior
form of 'so-called natural codings' (p.72), which
may include 'animal signs 'indicating
territoriality. This argument underpins the
lengthy Plateau on the refrain, as we saw.
Implications
In this Plateau, there is further criticism of the
old enemy, structural linguistics. That approach
has thought of the relation between signifier and
signified in various ways, but none of them give
any independent existence to the signified. This
gives the signifier a high degree of redundancy,
which means here an ability to be endlessly
applied to an overlapping range of signifieds
'hence its incredible despotism, and its success'
(73). For Deleuze and Guattari by contrast there
are separate forms of content and expression,
'real independence and a real distinction'. A form
of content is not just a signified. Nor does
expression entirely dominate content — there is
'reciprocal presupposition'. It follows that
expression is not just a matter of the play
between signifiers. There are indeed even forms of
expression that do not have signs — the genetic
code here.
What usually happens with linguistic imperialism
is that both signifier and signified are extracted
from words. It is the construction of these
words that provides the link. But we can see
that words like names are never simply linked to
things. We know this from what has been argued
elsewhere about empirical things having
nonempirical virtual dimensions, and, when we
looked at the haecceity, we saw that apparently
isolated things have just been individuated from
flows and are connected to other apparently
isolated things. Here we have an argument from
Foucault saying that an apparent thing like a
prison is better understood as a form of content
related to other forms of content like schools or
factories. Expressions like delinquency emerge
reciprocally from this expanded content. It is not
single words that we should study but rather
statements arising in a specific social field, a
stratum, in this case a regime of signs. There
will be a specific history and politics to the
statements
Both expression and content should be seen as
located in multiplicities. They can be seen as
sharing an abstract machine, a diagram. In
Foucault's case this abstract machine
produces prisons, schools, hospitals and
factories [this is argued more fully in Deleuze's book on Foucault].
Specific signifiers and signifieds are
'formalizations' (75). These formalizations can
conceal important concrete variation, and things
like the actual semi-covert life of prisoners can
be cited in support of prison reform (see Deleuze 2006,
ch.38). Specific assemblages act to connect
content and expression, not some universal
characteristic of language. These assemblages need
to offer double articulation as described above,
organizing content and expression. This operates
with regimes of signs and therefore with
formations of power — disciplinary power for
Foucault.
There is criticism of another unspecified model of
language too, those involving bases and
superstructures. It is not at all clear why this
topic appears at this point. However,
neither content nor expression should be seen as
'the determining factor'. To argue this would be
to risk reimposing some hierarchy, lending support
to a state apparatus. Language does not fit into
the concept of ideology. Again they do not specify
who might hold this rather dogmatic view – I doubt
if many contemporary marxists did. Both economic
base and cultural superstructure have the same
combinations of content and expression. This is
not improved by sticking in a bit of Lacanian
psychoanalysis to get some kind of freudian
marxism, possibly a dig at Althusser
(p.77), although Althusser is admired in
another Plateau as we saw in the discussion of
sign regimes.
Finally, there is a denial of any kind of
evolution at work with the strata, although the
earlier remarks on content being articulated first
look awfully like it. The strata themselves do not
occupy a fixed order and can act as substratum for
each other. For example technical phenomena can
provide 'a good soup for the development of
insects, bacteria, germs, or even particles' (p.
77). On the plane of consistency, at the virtual
level so to speak, everything mixes: elements are
only firmly connected in strata. Again there is
not even a dualism between strata and plane of
consistency, because we find abstract machines at
work in both, located on planes of consistency or
on strata.
The Plateau ends by reasserting what might be seen
as the virtual elements, like abstract machines
and planes of consistency. The strata by contrast
do what might be seen as the concrete work to link
expression and content, regulate flows of
particles and signs, and manage
deterritorialization and reterritorialization. All
these are examples of double articulation. The
strata differ from each other in the way in which
content and expression are linked, and these are
real distinctions between them (page 81). Strata
constantly subdivide. The machinic assemblages
operate between them as well as within, and they
also link to the plane of consistency which enable
them to effectuate the abstract machine.
As a final aside, there is a fashionable development
at the moment called post-humanism or
nonhumanist ontology, which wants to fully
embrace the idea that things communicate among
themselves and with us. This has somehow been
encouraged by work on quantum physics and the
strange communications that seem to go on
between subatomic particles. Barad's work has
been influential here, and she finds some
implications for feminism. Latour’s
article mentioned before has his own take
supporting Actor-Network Theory. Others seem to
think that plants or crossroads literally speak
to them, that they have not only have their own
language but can translate them into human
languages too. I am not at all sure the work in
Plateau 3 leads to this sort of development. I
think the point is to suggest that the same
patterns of forces, the same abstract machine,
produces both human and other kinds of language.
I don't think the argument is that all languages
can be seen as like human language, with
pragmatics and subjectification processes. That
would be the kind of linguistic imperialism they
warn about – but see what you think.
References
Althusser L (1977) 'Lenin
and Philosophy' and Other Essays, London,
New Left Books.
Badiou, A. (2000) Deleuze. The
Clamor of Being. Minnesota:
University of Minnesota Press (my notes here)
Delanda, M. (2002) Intensive
Science and Virtual Philosophy, London:
Continuum (my notes here)
DeLanda, M. (1999) Deleuze and the Open-Ended Becoming
of the World, Manuel
DeLanda Annotated Bibliography, [online] http://www.cddc.vt.edu/host/delanda/pages/becoming.htm
(my notes
here)
Deleuze, G.
(2006) Two Regimes of Madness: texts and
interviews 1975--95. Ed D. Lapoujade.
Trans. Ames Hodges & Mike Taormina. New
York: Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents Series (my
notes here)
Deleuze, G
(2004) [1968] Difference
and Repetition, Trans Paul Patton, London:
Continuum Publishing Group (notes here)
Deleuze, G. (1999)
Foucault,
S. Hand (trans).
London: Continuum (notes here)
Latour,
B. (2002) Gabriel Tarde and the end of the social.
In P. Joyce (Ed). The Social in Question. New
Bearings in History and the Social Sciences,
pp. 117–32. London: Routledge. Online:
http://www.bruno-latour.fr/sites/default/files/82-TARDE-JOYCE-SOCIAL-GB.pdf
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