offer very obscure examples, which our colleague Brian assures me is the point. He told me that
if I think that Deleuze and Guattari are trying to create a concrete way of being or even
understanding then it will never make sense because they are actually talking about a process of
“doing.” I think this gets at the concept of “Being” versus “becoming.” If we are something (are
as a conjugate of the word to be) then that is all that we are, if we are in process of becoming
something then we have the potential to change who and what it is we are based on what we are
doing. Confusingdefinitely, but in this abstract way sort of makes sense. If Nomadology and
the War Machine are constantly in flux then we escape the ideas that we are in fact something,
that we have essences. Instead we are always a process of movement, I don’t really like the
word fluid, but maybe as Christina said, it is an idea of water, ocean, of liquid. Maybe we ebb
and flow back and forth sometimes between the War Machine and resistance and the State. In
contrast to Nomadology is the idea of the State, which tries to discipline people and bodies into
certain accepted norms. In the State bodies are policed in ways that they are forced into
understandings of “Being,” making it easier for the State to deal with a discipline.
While Deleuze and Guattari would probably not approve of the next part of my blog for me it is
relevant. I am going to offer a contemporary albeit imperfect example of the ways that
Nomadology and the State work together. This was inspired while driving home on Monday
and feeling emotionally exhausted and having NO clue what I was going to write about.
Luckily my IPod was on shuffle and this song came on
and finally some of this theory of Nomadology made some sense to me. A caveat as I stated
before is that this is not a perfect example, but for me helped me to grapple with the text and
make it applicable to me.I heard the song “Every State Line” by Ani DiFranco. I am going to
post the lyrics and a clip from the song and then talk about how I see it making sense and how I
see it as flawed also.
Every State Line: Ani DiFranco
I got pulled over in west Texas
so they could look inside my car
he said are you an american citizen
I said yes sir so far
they made sure I wasn't smuggling
someone in from Mexico
someone willing to settle for america
cause there's nowhere else to go
(chorus)
and every state line
there's a new set of laws
and every police man
comes equipped with extended claws
there's a thousand shades of white
and a thousand shades of black
but the same rule always applies
smile pretty, and watch your back
I broke down in Louisiana
and I had to thumb a ride
got in the first car that pulled over
you can't be picky in the middle of the night
he said
baby, do you like to fool around
baby, do you like to be touched
I said
maybe some other time
fuck you very much
(chorus)
I'm in the middle of alabama
they stare at me where ever I go
I don't think they like my haircut
I don't think they like my clothes
I can't wait to get back to New York City
where at least when I walk down the street
nobody ever hesitates
to tell me exactly what they think of me
(chorus)
a little town in pennsylvania
there was snow on the ground
a parked in an empty lot
where there was no one else around
but I guess I was taking up too much space
as I was trying to get some sleep
'cause an officer came by anyway
and told me I had to leave
(chorus)
--
--I see this song as a way that someone may negotiate the constraints of the War Machine, and the
State. In this song DiFranco is a trope for “nomad” she is constantly moving from place to place
and in every new state that she enters (as in United state of America) she is faced with different
mechanisms of policing by the State. Deleuze and Guattari use the examples of chess and Go to
explain the ways that the State and the War Machine operate (3-
4).
As in the game of Chess there are only certain moves that certain pieces can make, DiFranco is
not free to be in “perpetual movement”(4) as is characteristic of the game Go. Every time
DiFranco gets “going” in her nonnormative directions she is stopped by the State or the police
and the rules set in place for that specific state do not allow or her freedom of movement. As
Deleuze and Guattari articulate the state is “quite perfect, quite complete”(14). There are only
certain ways to move in these states or the State, not with immigrants, not hitchhiking, not
appearing different. In these State apparatuses there is already a completed structure in place to
discipline behavior. She is not supposed to park in an empty lot, not supposed to speed, she
doesn’t fit in with her haircut and clothes-
the parts of her that may be more in line with the war machine. However, as they also clarify
Nomadology is not solely defined by movement but the ability to hold ground, is territorial over
their space. In some instances I think she does this quite well, as in her response to the man who
wants to pick her up from hitchhiking.
Deleuze and Guattari also use the metaphor of the root and the rhizome, which, I think Richard
articulated very well in class: that the root is something that is grounded in one place. Rhizomes
on the other hand, are plants that have shoots sprouting from them in different directions. The
State is something —
something that only allows for movement in one a specific direction. For DiFranco the State are
the states that she enters and is prevented from engaging her nonnormative somewhat nomadic
behaviors. New York City on the other hand is the rhizome a place that may have some sort of
permanence but also has random shoots where she feels a sense of the ability to move (walk
down the street). Her nomadic performance can permeate the State through the rhizome . She
may have roots in a State or the State, but a rhizome like a potato is able to spread in all different
directions and not into one specific location. Thus DiFranco is able to be different in a place,
which, may still be a State in the sense of maintaining a norm and where she maintains roots but
where she feels she is more accepted and able to move about somewhat freely. Although in
New York City she may still be disciplined, it is a different sort of discipline not hegemonic
implied norms, but norms spoken allowed, named and thus, able to be grappled with.
And this is not a perfect example because as Deleuze and Guattari suggest nomads do indeed
occupy space outside of the State, although I think that the State and War Machine constantly
influence one another. They suggest that nomads occupy smooth spaces and change the spaces
that they occupy but that “smooth space is controlled by these two flanks [the forest and
agriculture] thus, showing the constraints of nomadic smooth space. So the song isn’t perfect
but I think it can be useful.
So what—
you may be asking me? What does it mean to understand this theory in terms of the song or on
its own?In terms of the song I think it is an interesting example of how to conceptualize the
somewhat nomadic identity of a person negotiating the State. And I think it is important because
in this sense it refers to identities and how States attempt to discipline identities into certain
norms and patterns of behavior. The War Machine (while constrained) offers a way to be
resistive to the State regime. While we may not have infinite possibilities for resistance the War
Machine allows us some ability to find liminal spaces outside the State, where resistive
identifications or “disidentifications” may be performed. The War Machine limits DiFranco,
she does not have total freedom, because even in the game Go there is a purpose whether it is
strategy or not. So this theory may not give us a prescriptive way to be and act but offers a
process of negotiation or strategy to deal with the constraints of the State and constraints of theWar Machine so that we may ebb and flow between them in a way that allows us to be engaged in a constant process of doing of becoming
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