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13 THINGS YOU DIDNT

KNOW ABOUT DELEUZE AND
GUATTARI PART I
JUNE 18, 2013 | EUGENE WOLTERS | 2 COMMENTS

Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari were a philosophical odd couple.

Deleuze was a rising philosopher who was concerned with his philo-
sophical predecessors: Friedrich Nietzsche, Baruch Spinoza and
Henri Bergson. Guattari was a psychotherapist never had a formal
education in the eld. He learned the trade by working at an experi-
mental psychiatric clinic and religiously attending the seminars of
psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan.

In the late 60s, Deleuze and Guattari met and decided to write a
book together. The work was mostly coordinated through letters
the two exchanged. Guattari would send notes and scribbles to
Deleuze, who would compile the thoughts into what nally became
Anti-Oedipus. The book was an instant hit in France. However, it
tooks years for Deleuze and Guattaris work to achieve its current
infamy in American cultural studies and critical theory classrooms.

The two theorists would go on to write other texts together, includ-

ing A Thousand Plateaus, but each had their own highly successful
academic careers. Deleuze continued writing about philosophy,
taught at Paris VIII University, and was heavily involved with ac-
tivism, art, and lm. Guattari worked heavily with anti-psychiatry
movements and other radical political organizations. He was inces-
santly creating political groups and organizations, traveled abroad
to promote clinical schizoanalysis, and even advised the French cul-
tural minister.

The book, Intersecting Lives by Francois Dosse details the life and
work of both authors. Clocking in at 672 pages, the tome meticu-
lously details their work as well as their personal lives. Here are a
few highlights.

#1 Guattari Helped Run a Psych Clinic That

Doubled as a Communist Utopia and Insane
Circus
In 1955, Guattari started working at La Borde, a psychiatric clinic in
France.

La Borde wasnt your average psych clinic. The clinics constitution

imagined the organization as a communist utopia. This utopia re-
quired the disposal of formalized bureaucracy. Staff members were
required to rotate in and out of manual labor to destabilize the hier-
archies that existed between the intellectual staff and the labor-
ing staff. Salaries were debated and decided in democratic commit-
tee meetings which, as you can imagine, often devolved into a shit-
show.

Patient and staff co-mingling was highly encouraged. Communal

spaces were set up for patients and doctors alike to plays cards or
read magazines. Nurses were often indistinguishable from patients.
Patients were even given responsibility over administrative tasks
and could serve on the board of the clinic. One patient even served
as treasurer and handled La Bordes bank account.
When Guattari showed up, he quickly took on a leadership role. He
described his demeanor towards staff as rigidly militant. This cer-
tainly wasnt Guattaris rst rodeo. As the head of a pro-Tito
workers brigade in 1949, he conscated the meal tickets of any re-
calcitrant workers who complained or dragged their feet when it
came to carrying stones or digging trenches. At La Borde, Guattari
was known to order patients who refused to get out of bed to par-
take in some of the scheduled activities. That might sound kind of
shitty, until the book goes on to describe the scene at La Borde:

Daily life was busy at the clinic: prior to the use of narcoleptic
and drug therapy, conicts between patients often erupted into
ghts, and it was not unusual for people to get beaned by coffee
pots of tools.

Guattari eventually loosened up on his authoritarian tendencies af-

ter landing in a hospital as part of a draft-dodging scheme (Guattari
was avoiding being sent to Algeria). As a patient, Guattari realized
that life under the rule of tyrannical nurses was not so great. The re-
alization followed him back to La Borde.

Guattari would often invite his friends and fellow academics to hang
out in La Borde where they took up arts and crafts, worked, and
even started careers at La Borde. As a result, La Borde turned into a
hot-spot for intellectuals, draft-dodgers and, of course, the mentally
ill.

One of those friends, Jean-Baptiste Thierree was a Maoist who per-

formed magic. Thierree received treatment from Guattari while per-
forming magic shows for other patients . One day, Thierree had an
idea: he was going to write to Charlie Chaplins daughter and start a
circus with her.

Victoria Chaplin not only responded, she married Jean-Baptiste.

And the circus? Well, the two started it at La Borde. Because if crip-
pling mental illness calls for one thing, its more clowns and loud
noises.

The Thierree-Chaplin couple created particularly intense

activities at La Borde with their circus tents, horses, wild
animals, and snakes; the patients were invited to participate.
That was followed by integrating catatonic patients into the circus.
Grossly irressponsible? Maybe, but it kind of worked in treating the
patient.

I [Jean-Baptise] had this idea of masking him [the catonic

patient] from head to toe and when he was like that he did
whatever I wanted him to do. I always asked him, Why do you
move when you are masked? He never answered me, and one
day he said. because its not serious.

When May 68 erupted Guattari encouraged his patients to attend.

This was the last straw for the director of the clinic, who soon kicked
out Guattari because of his rampant shenanigans

It was at La Borde that Guattari acquired the experiences and

knowledge necessary to theorize the gure of the schizophrenic and
schizoanalysis.

#2 Deleuze Hated Crazy People

Many have accused Deleuze and Guattari of trivializing the plight of
the deranged and being detached from their material realities. For
Guattari, nothing is further from the truth. For Deleuze, this is sort
of true. Deleuzes friend Jean-Pierre Muyard was a medical student
who introduced Deleuze to many ideas on psychosis and madness.
Muyard recounts:

He [Deleuze] said I discuss psychosis and madness, but I dont

know anything about it from the inside. But he was also phobic
about deranged people and couldnt have spent even an hour at
La Borde.

When Deleuze would visit Guattari, he avoided the unbearable

madness at La Borde. One dinner in particular with Felix was inter-
rupted by a some chaos as La Borde. Deleuzes response was less
commendable:

We got a call from La Borde saying that a guy had set re to the
chateau chapel and run off into the woods. Gilles blanched, I
froze, and Felix called for help to nd this guy. At that point,
Gilles said to me, how can you stand those schizos?
#3 Guattari Was Almost Lacans Anointed
Successor
One might nd it slightly ironic that the author who philosophically
destroyed the project of psychoanalysis and Lacan was kind of infat-
uated with the man. Guattari religiously attended Lacans seminar
and became a patient of Lacan for a hefty fee. Guattari eventually
ordered all of La Bordes staff to attend Lacans seminar and start
analysis with Lacan if they wanted to keep working at the clinic.

During the 1950s, Guattari was a strict Lacanian. Even his friends
would call him Lacan as a joke. In 1964, Lacan chose Guattari as a
lieutenant at the newly created Freudian School of Paris. Guattari
was sure that Lacan anoint him as a preferred partner

Lacan met with his patients for sessions often lasting as little as four
minutes. Guattari, opting for the premium-package, paid for the
pleasure of driving Lacan home. The in-ride discussion was, accord-
ing to Lacan, part of the analysis.

During one such couch-session with Lacan, Guattari mentioned to

Lacan that Roland Barthes was interested in publishing one of Guat-
taris papers in Communications.

Guattari talked to Lacan about it while he was on the couch, but

the master was indignant: What? Why not publish it in his
journal, Scilicet? Lacan ordered his patient to choose his camp.
Guattari was forced to comply and asked Barthes to remove his
text from the issue.

Well thats not so bad, Lacan had taken a special interest in Guattari
and wanted to take him under his wing. Publishing Guattaris work
under his own journal instead of Barthes isnt too bad. But Lacan
never published Guattaris paper.
Scumbag Lacan

#4 Lacan Freaked Out About Anti-Oedipus

and Banned His Students From Discussing It
After Lacan had got wind that Guattari was writing Anti-Oedipus,
Lacan curiously inquired about its contents. Guattari, not being an
idiot, realized that he could not reveal to Lacan a book which at-
tacked his entire academic career. That was clearly not an option,
Guattari said in an interview, Deleuze mistrusted Lacan like the
plague.

Guattari tried to assuage Lacan by lying, saying that it was Deleuzes

fault for only wanting to share a nished project. Lacan tried to in-
vestigate the matter by asking to meet Deleuze in person, who in-
stead offered to talk to Lacan on the phone. At this point, Lacan de-
cided the best course of action was to liquor up Guattari at a fancy
restaurant so he could spill the beans on the new book.

At the dinner, Guattari did in fact explain the thematic elements of

Anti-Oedipus. Lacan was, on the surface, receptive to the new
ideas. Guattari tried to lie his ass off to Lacan to make his new ideas
seem more Lacanian then they really were. Lacan eventually discov-
ered the true content of the book, and that dinner was the last time
the two ever meet.

When Lacan discovered how aggressive the book was with

respect to his ideas, all the bridges were denitively burned. Not
only would the two never see each other gain, but Lacan and his
friends also started circulating a series of rumors about
Guattaris practice to discredit him in the psychoanalytic circles.

When Anti-Oedipus was nally published, Lacan censored any dis-

cussion of the book among his students. He forbade any debate
about the book, and never mentioned it in his seminar. One student
of Lacan noted that Lacan took Anti-Oedipus as a personal attack
that was all the more hurtful because he had made some gestures
towards Deleuze, whom he respected.

#5 Deleuze Considered Anti-Oedipus a Fail-

ure and Guattari was Severely Depressed
In Intersecting Lives, the author notes that Deleuze was disap-
pointed by his work:

Eight years after Anti-Oedipus was published, Deleuze

considered it a failure. May 68 and its dreams were long gone,
leaving a bitter taste for those who had high hopes but were
caught by the stale odors of conservatism.

But for Guattari it was much worse:

His hyperactivity and the immense effort he had put into the
book led to something of a collapse, a feeling of emptiness.
Completing a work is never as satisfying as the many imagined
possibilities and ongoing pleasures of a work in progress. I feel
like curling up into a tiny ball and being rid of all these politics of
presence and prestigeThe feeling is so strong that I resent Gilles
for having dragged me into this mess

#6 Deleuze Failed His University Admission

Exam and Couldnt Type
Deleuze failed his entrance exam into the prestigious cole Normale
Suprieure (ENS).

Despite his exceptional abilities, Deleuze failed the entrance

examination for the ENS, even though his lectures drew large
audiences and were considered must-see events

But it wasnt all gloom and doom for Deleuze. He received a scholar-
ship to study for the agregation exam and began attending Sor-
bonne.

When Deleuze was ready to write his thesis, he was shit-outta-luck,

however, because he didnt know how to use a typewriter. Luckily,
Deleuzes friend Michael Tournier typed up Deleuzes work for him.

Michel Tourniers friendly gesture was met with deep suspicion from
Deleuze. After reading the typed manuscript, Deleuze did not rec-
ognize what he had written and suspected that something had been
deleted. He gave a copy of his completed work to Tournier which
read:

For Michel, the book that he typed and criticized, roundly

protested, and may have even shortened since Im sure that it
was longer, but which also belongs to him somewhat as I owe
him a lot (not for Hume) in philosophy

Read Part Two>>>

BIOGRAPHY DELEUZE GUATTARI LACAN THEORY AND THEORISTS

2 Comments Critical-Theory
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Dogma

4 years ago
Neurotic. Narcissistic. Self-promoting. Freeloading... It sounds like Lacan was
about as dysfunctional a therapist as ever there could be one.

(It certainly doesn't inspire a lot of condence in his theories.)

8 Reply

Johnson

2 months ago
Guattari was a sociopath and it's good to start acknowledging how destructive
this whole bunch really was.
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