Schizoanalysis as Prefigurative PraxisIn this light, we can see to what extent schizoanalysis is a political praxis, and particularly a prefigurative praxis. Prefiguartive praxis refers to any form of political organization in which the goals of that organization are identical with the form of the organization itself. Rather than using a political organization as a means to achieve a new form of society, this organization is already in-itself an expression of this new form. In other words, the organization becomes its own end realized, ‘in the flesh’.

Schizoanalysis as organizational method explicitly aims to transform social organizations of all types into ends in this very manner. Rather than subordinating social production to familial investment, such sites of social production obtain their own libidinal specificity. The primary problem at stake here is that for the majority of people, the only end is the family, or selfish pleasures, or at best some more or less vague political goal. What schizoanalysis aims to do is to provoke the production of new ends, the investment of new figures, and moreover, to situate these ends immanently within given sites of social production.

Prefigurative praxes are generally opposed to two dominant forms of organization: instrumental organizations and withdrawn organizations. An instrumental organization is one that places its end entirely outside of itself, thereby wholly divorcing itself from the realization of this end. Such organizations include what we have been referring to as sites of social production subordinated to familial investment, as well as political groups that do not include their own organization as a figure of their end or goal. Such groups instrumentalize themselves and their members, such that the attaining of the goal would include the dissolution of the group as such. We can think here of the adult finally coming home from work at the end of the day, as much as the Bolshevik State finally dissolving into post-state perfect communism.

Withdrawn organizations, on the contrary, are groups that do figure as ends for their own activities, but that do so in such a way as to isolate themselves from the network of social production. The family is, in this case, a typical figure of such an organization, but this can include others, such as various cases of communes and utopian experiments that are more concerned with their own consistency and satisfaction than with social production at large.

Schizoanalysis, on the contrary, refuses to subordinate group organization to an external end as much as it refuses to isolate itself from social production. The analytic unit aims to become an end in itself, a site of libidinal investment for its members, that is not subordinated to any other purpose. Yet at the same time, as adjacent to and prosthetically dependent upon an already existing site of social production, this unit is inseparable from such external instances of social production.

The analytic unit, as analyzer of itself, thereby also analyzes external instances of social production insofar as they become implicated in the composition of the unit, and has definite concerns and interests in such instances. Any member of an analytic unit, as bound up with social production processes other than the original site of analytic extraction, will thereby always be looking for new sites for analytic intervention. The analytic unit is therefore an end in itself, but only as a local instance of analytic intervention in general as an end in itself.

What does schizoanalysis owe to the union model? Labor unions were truly innovative in their ability to latch onto already constituted groups (workplaces, industries), organize an adjacent group for the purpose of analyzing and rearticulating the goals of its members, and redeploying the resources at its disposal for the purpose of pursuing these goals. Of course, there were all sorts of problems with the union model: it restricts such intervention to workplaces, even certain workplaces over others; it became dependent on large national organizations and their hierarchical structures (AFL, NLRB, etc); it was for too long uncritical of racist, sexist, and other detrimental habits.

Yet the biggest problem was perhaps the articulation of ends external to the union group itself, ends like better pay and working conditions, ends ultimately directed toward the improvement of family life. At a certain point, when capital began meeting most or all of these demands, the union group itself became unnecessary, and hence revealed itself to be instrumental. This is in contrast to European variants of the model, in which the ultimate goal is for the union to appropriate the means of production. Nonetheless, there is no denying that unions, for quite a long time, proved to be remarkably potent sites of libidinal investment for their members, hinting at new modes of social organization distinct from those complicit with capitalism.

The immediate thing that comes to mind for me (as usual) is Islam, since it functions as a deen: a way or code of life AND as a moral commitment AND as a signal of solidarity and collectivity. Not to say that "Islam is the solution", but that I can grasp at an understanding of what a schizoanalytical solution to capitalism might look like through the lens of Islam.

A schizoanalytical organization must be embedded within Capital and yet resistant to it (see: John Robb's resilient communities). It is not representative of demands to some externally linked outside party, but it represents its constitute body directly in some collective kind of way. I don't think this necessarily rejects the traditional sorts of representative politics, even the most hierarchical. The point here is to avoid precisely this trap of converting schizoanalysis as analysis into this assumed critique. Planomenology remarks up this astutely:

Critique of FamilialismA remark must be made here about the critique of familialism, Oedipus, and (really existing) psychoanalysis that makes up the majority of Anti-Oedipus. Deleuze and Guattari do not see the family structure as a bad thing or evil in itself, despite what their polemical vitriol might indicate. It is my conviction that the polemical character of that text had an intended performative value, meant to demonstrate the tangible character of libidinal investment. A dry, detached treatment of the same problems would certainly not have spawned the same kind of enthusiasm and devotion, for better or for worse.

Nonetheless, the goal of that text was not to get its readers to shit-talk Lacan and Freud. Rather, it was, after demonstrating the dynamics of libidinal investment, to introduce a method of analyzing and intervening in such investments. In this light, it becomes easy to see that for the vast majority of the public, from the most destitute to the most wealthy, the end, the goal, the point or meaning of life and all of the toil and labor it involves is one’s family, one’s loved ones, and one’s legacy in the flesh (children and grandchildren).

Now of course not everyone has a family or treats their family as an end in this way, but those who deviate from this pattern tend to either be totally self-concerned hedonists, or devoted to some religious or political cause that completely dominates their social production. The actual statistics here are not that important, because however prevalent, familialism serves as a model for all forms of unreflected or unanalyzed libidinal production and social production. It stands for all modes of such production whose goal is taken for granted without question. And it stands, moreover, for analytic praxes (really existing psychoanalysis, anti-psychiatry) that seek to minimize deviations in libidinal investment and reintegrate ‘deviants’ back into pre-constituted structures like the family or the clinic.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the family as destination of libidinal investment in itself, nor is the goal of schizoanalysis to dissolve families and establish new reproductive units or some horror like that. Rather, the goal is to shake libidinal production out of the monopolistic propriety of the family form, and thereby to open it up to other destinations. The family is never excluded as a possible destination, but must become one of many such possible destinations to be considered.

If you think about why most people are involved with the social production systems they are, be they workplaces, companies, schools, etc, it is to make money, to make a living, and preferably to make a lot of money. Yet there are likely very few people who sincerely consider such accumulation as an end in itself. There are also likely very few who have excessive, hedonistic consumption as their end. The majority partake of this type of social investment precisely to sustain their families, to provide for them and improve their standard of living, and to leave their children a legacy, giving them ‘what I never had when I was a kid’.

Schizoanalysis seeks to undermine the family as the exclusive destination of such libidinal investment by way of constructing social units themselves capable of becoming such destinations. These units can be to varying degrees political, economic, artistic, amorous, religious… in principle the basis of their cohesion is indifferent, so long as it is organized within the unit itself, rather than extrinsically by the dyad of familial investment and capitalist organization.

So schizoanalysis criticizes familialism insofar as the family becomes the exclusive end-in-itself of libidinal production, the only legitimate and recognized reason or meaning for continuing to live. There can be others, other reasons, and these can find support in all sorts of social arrangements in which we are already invested. The point is to discover one’s investments in the social field and transform them, as far as possible, into ends, rather than exclusive means to familial reproduction.

To go back to my own example of Islam, the libidinal production circulates from and to God. The oft-mentioned verse among Muslims of 2:156: (إِنَّا لِلّهِ وَإِنَّـا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعونَ) Surely we belong to God and to Him shall we return'. By means of a certain behavioral program, Islam functions to situate the destination of libidinal production in a procedural form, rather than in a specific site, like the family, resolving the problem of familialism to ensnare and accumulate libidinal production. It suggests that the schizoanalytical organization model constitutes the immanent deen of a resilient community, the problem of familialism is the double-duty of deen and libidinal destination. So, I'd like to try to universalize schizoanalytical Islam (and probably first will have to properly explain myself since this is a pretty quickly sketched run through a strange combination of concepts). What would an anti-capitalist deen look like that would disentangle libidinal production and destination? Historical examples I can think of that point to something similar include the Soviet Union's moral incentives for workers, we have nationalist examples, illustrated by such slogans as "patria o muerte", Gandhi's satyagraha. What would it look like in 2011 USA?

babyfinland posted:
What would an anti-capitalist deen look like that would disentangle libidinal production and destination? Historical examples I can think of that point to something similar include the Soviet Union's moral incentives for workers, we have nationalist examples, illustrated by such slogans as "patria o muerte", Gandhi's satyagraha. What would it look like in 2011 USA?

i reckon time bank + fablab can form an effective core for a non capitalist community economy, with other elements (eg worker coops, local currencies) developing from that organically.

as to where the 'libidinal investment' goes, i guess thru the interlinked, intersectional tribes that people (in cities at least) seem to self-organise into

babyfinland posted:
Most importantly, how can we Post schizoanalytically?

who says we don't already