Rhizomatic Reality

I happened upon Verso Books'* summer sale and picked up five books for a buck each. I bought five (General Intellects, Beneath the Streets, and The Spectacle of Disintegration, all by Mckenzie Wark, Beyond the Pale by Vron Ware, and In Defense of Lost Causes by Slavoj Zizek), but I wanted to go a little meta, a little rhizomatic, and talk about one piece, taken out of context, from the beginning of Zizek's book.

I've mentioned Zizek before, and he's a fascinating thinker, albeit hard to understand (as much his speech patterns, his lisp, his accent, his thoughts, his writing as anything else about him). Nevertheless, there's a lot about him that I can't help but be attracted to, and when I started off, he hit me with this particular phrase: "the rhizomatic texture of reality" (loc. 93). The broader context is that he's going off on the idea that, because there are no more "big ideas", some think that "we need 'weak thought,' opposed to all foundationalism" (loc. 83). He then rejects that at the end of the paragraph to say that "big ideas" are just as needed now as ever.

I can agree with that, though I certainly think there's something in looking very closely at one thing. In this case, it's the rhizome.

I mentioned how Deleuze and Guattari infuse the idea of a rhizome in their Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature back when I was breaking down Harry Potter, and the rhizome as a symbol for critical theory still strikes me as apt. Seeing Zizek invoke that image again, but paring it up with the "texture of reality" is startling to me.

Or, or, or

I recently returned from a trip to California, where a good friend of mine patiently let me vent and talk as we sat around the propane fire pit in his backyard. We hit on a lot of topics, though at one point we discussed why we dropped the atomic bomb, how that compared to the fire bombing of Tokyo, and the terrors of the World War. Because of my own strong feelings about the mistake of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, I don't normally get an opportunity to talk about the potential motivations behind Truman's fateful decision. Instead, I let the students grapple with it, form their own opinions, and grow as people.

But when it comes to the A-bomb, there are different options to discuss. Military, both Japanese and American; civilian involvement, primarily Japanese; political ramifications, most notably with regard to Soviet intimidation; Allied response and ability to prosecute the war in Japan once Europe was finished up--in short, there are lots of reasons for dropping the bomb. "It could have been this or that or, or, or..."

That is, the decision to drop the bomb is rhizomatic.

This is actually how Deleuze and Guattari view the Internet, so that seems fitting. (Source)

Becoming an Adult

One of the lessons that I'm learning again (and again) as an adult is that of the complexity of choices. There comes a time when one has to make personal choices, but those choices are already predicated on those things which are beyond a person's choice or control. Even setting aside the idea of choosing to be born (as a Mormon, I'm down with that, but doctrinally, we don't have any sense of whether or not we choose particular parents, particular challenges, or anything like it), what about choices that I made out of ignorance of other options?

For example, I assumed I had two options for going to school: Brigham Young University or Utah Valley University (back then, it was called Utah Valley State College). Where did I get that assumption? I don't know. The idea of going to a different state or country was preposterous. I didn't think of it. I chose UVU (because they offered me a scholarship) because it was available and it was there and it fit well enough.** The depth of that choice is shallow, yet even that choice is a rhizome: I lived in Utah Valley because my parents chose to be there, but I remained in Utah Valley because I had a girlfriend (who would eventually become my wife and though we "broke up" during that first year of college, it was a relationship that meant a lot to me). I also chose to remain a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which meant that I felt obligated to choose to go on a mission, which meant that leaving home for a year just to then go preach abroad for two years didn't make a lot of financial sense.

And there are more presuppositions that fed into my choices.

A rhizome.

Beginning at the Ending

Seeing those few words from Zizek really touched a nerve for me. Yes, he dismisses the microscopic approach to "Causes" and ideas, but there's something to be said for the rhizomes that make up the "texture of reality." When viewing the world as rhizomatic, then we stop seeing it as a straight line of cause/effect and, like any good postmodern reading, that challenging of the binary is where the parallax gap--or, perhaps, the differance with an a--comes in. We no longer take the simple assumptions at face value, despite their efficacy, and we grow a little bit.

Seems worth throwing down a few bucks for an insight like that.

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* If you're not familiar with Verso Books, you should check it out, see if there's anything that strikes your fancy. It has some heavy hitters on the intellectual scene, as well as some radical thinking, so be warned. They have a great policy that, if you buy their books from them, they'll throw in a DRM-free ebook of the same title, which allows transfer of ownership, reading on any device, and a slew of other things that is the way it ought to be when it comes to buying books in the twenty-first century. Also, the sale is over; sorry you missed out.
** I'm grateful for it, by the way: I really enjoyed my college days and classes. I miss being in that atmosphere.