Hot on the heels of my post about SciFi Author predictions of the internet , here’s a text written in 1972 by two French postmodern philosophers – Deleuze and Guattari. The excerpts are from their book “Capitalism and Schizophrenia”. The rhetoric is pretty obscure (as is the case with all pomo philosophy) but the gist of what is now the internet is definitely there. Indeed, one could almost describe the www as the postmodern version of technology.
Excerpts:
“A system of this kind could be called a rhizome. A rhizome as subterranean stem is absolutely different from roots and radicals…any point on a rhizome can be connected to anything other and must be. This is very different from the tree or root, which plots a point, fixes an order.”
“A rhizome ceaselessly establishes connections between semiotic chains, organisations of power, and circumstances relative to the arts, sciences, and social struggles.”
” The rhizome is altogether different, a map and not a tracing. The map is open and connectable on all of its dimensions; it is detachable, reversible, susceptible to constant modification…Perhaps one of the most important characteristics of the rhizome is that it always has multiple entryways…”
“…in which communication runs from any neighbour to any other, the stems or channels do not preexist, and all individuals are interchangeable…without a central agency.”
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