1. "While those favouring the interiority of relations tend to use organisms as their prime example, Deleuze gravitates towards other kinds of biological illustrations, such as the symbiosis of plants and pollinating insects. In this case we have relations of exteriority between self-subsistent components such as the wasp and the orchid relations which may become obligatory in the course of coevolution. This illustrates another difference between assemblages and totalities. A seamless whole is inconceivable except as a synthesis of these very parts, that is, the linkages between its components form logically necessary relations which make the whole what it is. But in an assemblage these relations may be only contingently obligatory. While logically necessary relations may be investigated by thought alone, contingently obligatory ones involve a consideration of empirical questions, such as the coevolutionary history of two species. In addition to this Deleuze considers heterogeneity of components an important characteristic of assemblages. Thus, he would consider ecosystems as assemblages of thousands of different plant and animal species, but not the species themselves, since natural selection tends to homogenize their gene pools. In what follows I will not take heterogeneity as a constant property of assemblages but as a variable that may take different values. This will allow me to consider not only species but also biological organisms as assemblages, instead of having to introduce another category for them as does Deleuze. Conceiving an organism as an assemblage implies that despite the tight integration between its component organs, the relations between them are not logically necessary but only contingently obligatory: a historical result of their close coevolution. In this way assemblage theory deprives organismic theories of their most cherished exemplar."

    DeLanda, A New Philosophy of Society

    Looking into assemblages lately. Also reading more and more autonomist stuff. Moving toward that now—digging the Italians and their tradition. Still think immaterial labour is dumb, though. Adjust expectations accordingly.   

    (via 20yardsoflinen)

    This is amazing. but does ask a lot more questions than it answers for me….. 

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Towards an Apocalyptic Marxism ☭

"Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established , an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence."---- The German Ideology, 1845