A discussion on Deleuze and politics with topics covered including: Deleuze’s relationship to Marxism and capitalism; the political valency of the concept of deterritorialisation; the implications of Deleuzian thought for theorisations of collectivity and identity; its implications for thinking about revolution, universality and the party form; the problems of desire and the decision; issues of ecology and the implications of vitalism for them; problems of political strategy and organisation; the legacy of the invasion of Iraq.
Nick and Jeremy circulated some general questions to think about before the discussion, which particularly focused on the surprising fact that many casual commentators, and indeed, some self-styled ‘Deleuzians’, seemed to regard Deleuzian philosophy as wholly compatible with an embrace of market capitalism and its tendency to celebrate the ephemeral, the individual, the hyper-mobile, the infantile; while others seemed to think of Deleuze as a wholly apolitical or even anti-political thinker, mired in Nietzschean aristocratic elitism, ineffectual mysticism, or old-fashioned individualism. As such, the first question touched on the relationship of Deleuze and Guattari to Marx.
Learning Philosophy 