Language is not made to be believed but to be obeyed, and to compel obedience newspapers, news, proceed by redundancy, in that they tell us what we ‘must’ think, retain, expect, etc. language is neither informational nor communicational. It is not the communication of information but something quite different: the transmission of order-words, either from one statement to another or within each statement, insofar as each statement accomplishes an act and the act is accomplished in the statement
Instead of gambling on the eternal impossibility of the revolution and on the fascist return of a war-machine in general, why not think that a new type of revolution is in the course of becoming possible, and that all kinds of mutating, living machines conduct wars, are combined and trace out a plane of consistance which undermines the plane of organization of the World and the States?
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that rather than relying on traditional forms of revolution or warfare, we should consider the emergence of new types of revolutionary dynamics shaped by evolving technologies and systems.
Gilles Deleuze’s quote encourages us to shift our perspective from rigid ideologies of revolution and war to a more fluid understanding of change. He implies that the future may lie in innovative, adaptive forms of resistance and transformation that challenge established organizations and state structures, suggesting a more dynamic and interconnected approach to revolution.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech about technological advancements and their impact on social movements.
More from Gilles Deleuze
All quotes →Something in the world forces us to think. This something is an object not of recognition but of a fundamental encounter.
Intuition is neither a feeling, an inspiration nor a disorderly sympathy but a fully developed method.
Let us create extraordinary words, on condition that they be put to the most ordinary use and that the entity they designate be made to exist in the same way as the most common object.
Forming grammatically correct sentences is for the normal individual the prerequisite for any submission to social laws. No one is supposed to be ignorant of grammaticality; those who are belong in special institutions. The unity of language is fundamentally political.
Art is not communicative, art is not reflexive. Art, science, philosophy are neither contemplative, neither reflexive, nor communicative. They are creative, that's all.
Similar quotes
The Catholics have a Pope. Protestants laugh at them, and yet the Pope is capable of intellectual advancement. In addition to this, the Pope is mortal, and the church cannot be afflicted with the same idiot forever. The Protestants have a book for their Pope. The book cannot advance. Year after year, and century after century, the book remains as ignorant as ever.
The enduring lesson is war is a disaster. Whoever wins, tremendous loss of life, property - a set back for civilisation.
I do not agree with this century's fashion of running down the human species as a failed try, a doomed sport. At our worst, we may be going through the early stages of adolescence, and everyone remembers what that is like.
There is a common perception that compassion is, if not actually an impediment, at least irrelevant to professional life. Personally, I would argue that not only is it relevant, but that when compassion is lacking, our activities are in danger of becoming destructive. This is because when we ignore the question of the impact our actions have on others' well-being, inevitably we end up hurting them.
The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying, 'Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses.' She's got a baseball bat and yelling, 'You want a piece of me?'
There is no room for God in him who is full of himself.