General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: This message was self-deleted by its author [View all]tishaLA
(14,342 posts)I save that for other places. I'll leave aside where I disagree with some of what you say about Foucault for a moment--especially about questions of assujettissement--just to say this: Foucauldian conceptions of power are, in not small measure, derived from those Deleuze and Guattari explored in Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Foucault wrote the preface to the book, which he called (I think I'm remembering this correctly) a "guide to anti-fascist living." In part, it's because of the kinds of metaphors Foucault uses to describe power in Panopticism: he says it's an "physics" or an "anatomy," meaning that it is, on the one hand, something that responds to each action with its own reaction and, on the other, a mode of particularizing, dividing, etc. I don't believe either of those metaphors is apt--and it's why I have always believed, along with Foucault, that Deleuze is the great philosopher of the 20th century while Foucault is a footnote to the Nietzschean oeuvre.
The important thing about the relationship between Deleuzo-Guatarrian thought and OWS (or, for example, ACT-UP), without resorting to a sclerotic understanding of them, is the way nomadism and the importance of assemblaces are to them. Nomadism is about "becoming" in Deleuze and Guattari--it is dynamic, just as power is in Foucault, but it occurs at the differently. I've had a couple glasses of wine, so I'm not able to go into it with great depth here; I need to think with a clear head to articulate it in any kind of depth. For ideas about assemblages in Deleuze and Guattari, which is perhaps the best reason to believe their thinking about the matter more related to OWS than Foucault's, check [link: http://larvalsubjects.wordpress.com/2009/10/08/deleuze-on-assemblages/|here]. It's the strategy of contingent alliances, etc.