| This collection of essays
and interviews edited by Sylvère Lotringer and published
in 1995, focuses on the French anti-psychiatrist and theorist's
work as director of the experimental La Borde clinic ("A
Clinic Unlike Any Other") and longtime collaborator with
the philosopher Gilles Deleuze.
Chaosophy is a groundbreaking
introduction to Guattari's theories on "schizo-analysis":
a process meant to replace Freudian interpretation
with a more pragmatic, experimental, and collective
approach rooted in reality. "When I was a child," he
confides, "I was, so to speak, in pieces; really a
little schizo around the edges. I spent years trying
to put myself back together again. Only my thing was,
I would pull along different pieces of realities in
doing it." Unlike Freud, Guattari believes that schizophrenia
is an extreme mental state induced by the capitalist
system itself, which keeps enforcing neurosis as a
way of maintaining normality. Guattari's post-Marxist
vision of capitalism provides a new definition not
only of mental illness, but also of the micropolitical
means of its subversion.
This collection contains key essays, such as the seminal "Balance-Sheet
Program for Desiring-Machines" (originally in the French
edition of Anti-Oedipus ) and "Capitalism and
Schizophrenia," co-signed by Deleuze (with whom he co-authored Anti-Oedipus and A
Thousand Plateaus ), as well as the perennially
provocative "Everybody Wants To Be a Fascist". |
