war of molarity

Some quotes from a book by Brain Massumi who takes his cues from Deleuze and Guattari.

“The life cycle of a plane of transcendence: 1) production of a coded image, 2) application of the code to bodies / infolding into habit, 3) unfolding into life’s paths, 4) reproduction of the code in new images (most likely with selective modifications).” p.114

“It is imperialist by nature. A system of interiority, the plane of transcendence has no mechanisms by which to interact with the outside as outside, no terms with which to understand it in its own right. It can only deal with an unidentified body by putting it to the test, either assigning it an acceptable category and taking into the fold, or assigning it a bad category and attacking it. Incorporate or annihilate. Anything perceptible to the forces of molarity, but resistant to selective evaluation, is reacted to as a potential threat to the purity of the plane of transcendence and the stasis it polices. Molarity cannot tolerate anything remaining outside its purview, it must constantly expand its domain in an outward drive of conquest of the “Other,” identified as Enemy. That becomes the catch-all category, the operative category. If bodies can be duplicitous, passing as one identity while continuing to incarnate another, every body is a potential enemy. Any body might prove to be an intruder threatening the beloved identity with masked subversion and contamination by foreign matter. Molarization is as paranoid as it is imperialist. Any suspicious movement, even on the part of a duly identified body – particularly one assigned a devalued identity – lands it in the enemy camp, an internal enemy answering to the enemy from without: a potential defector from habit, a subversive and degenerate. A new front of domestic conquest widens the war for molarity. Institutional regularization becomes ever-more severe (discipline), and selective evaluation increasingly vigilant (surveillance). Discipline requires rigid segregation of bodies according to category, in order to prevent unseemly mixing of the identity blurring it may lead to. Surveillance requires a carefully maintained hierarchy, a pyramid of supervisory and command positions.” p.115

From
Massumi, Brian
A User’s Guide to Capitalism and Schizophrenia- Deviations from Deleuze and Guattari
Cambridge, MIT Press, 1992.