The following was delivered at the Deleuze and Political Philosophy Workshop held by the Philosophical Studies Department at Newcastle University on October, 2023.

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Becoming is a difficult concept to define for Deleuze as its meaning can differ depending on the way it is being used. We can best understand the concept of becoming when we understand time. Becoming is most often described as performing a function in a causal framework of representation. In other words, becoming has always been a device to explain how one being becomes another. In this case, being is ontologically primary. That is, being is the primary focus of any study of being, with becoming taking a subordinate role. Deleuze argues that a concept of becoming which contains its own difference (heterogeneity) is required to account for how becoming can produce states of being (Bankston, 2017:7). In this case, becoming is the situation of one who is no longer what one was and is not yet what one will be. This division, pure past and not-yet of the future, is adapted from Bergson’s work on memory (Bankston, 2017:3). The moment between these two times is becoming. Deleuze offers us this definition in response to a philosopher well-known for his own articulation of becoming: Hegel.

Deleuze’s critique of dialectical thinking, such as that of Hegel, provides us with a new concept of becoming. Hegel’s dialectic subordinates becoming to Being by focussing on identity (Bankston, 2017:7). Becoming is defined merely as a mechanistic function. Deleuze is critical of the use of dialectical thinking to develop concepts generally (Deleuze, 2014:54-55; Deleuze & Guattari, 2015:3, 313, 415). The representational frameworks of dialectical thinking ossify the transformative potential of becoming. Deleuze argues that becoming has a far greater significance outside of these frameworks (Deleuze, 2014:179, 181; Deleuze & Guattari, 2015:292-93, 298-99). Deleuze’s critique of representation affirms the chaos beyond representational thought and time. Deleuze’s conception of becoming is as a transformational potential not limited by representational temporal frameworks (Kaufman, 2011:115; Bankston, 2017:7).

Deleuze’s critique of representation due to its interruption of creativity extends to his critique of dominant power relations within the State. The desires of most people under State apparatuses are not free to be explored and experimented with but are subject to the power relations which direct them. The State or polis uses identity to provide fixed definitions for individuals. The definitions or codes are used to identify and corral desires so that it may be readily controlled. In their work Anti-Oedipus, Deleuze and Guattari argue that capitalism is served well by the notion of fixed identity fundamental to Freudian psychoanalysis (Deleuze & Guattari, 2012:282-83, 297).

The widespread acceptance of the mommy-daddy-me triad, as expressed in the work of Freud, has facilitated the understanding of identity as unchanging (Deleuze & Guattari, 2012:380-81). Capitalism benefits from fixed identity as it allows for desires to be readily discoverable, delineated (or coded), then used to extract capital. In this model, desire has a mechanistic function for the production of capital. Desire can be controlled like this due to the frameworks of representational thought which delimit desire and thereby ensnare it. The aim of Deleuze and Guattari’s critique of psychoanalysis is to provide an alternative understanding of identity discoverable through schizoanalysis (Deleuze & Guattari, 2012:34, 266-67). Schizoanalysis is a process by which one causes disruption to dominant power relations by transcending representational frameworks and destabilising the induration or crystallisation of identity.

The disruption caused by schizoanalysis originates in identity without representation which can move across the boundaries ordinarily used to contain it. Settling on an identity leads to our being situated within distinct spheres of definition. We are captured by representation when we allow this to happen. Becoming dissolves these fixed definitions and fixed identity. Therefore, becoming is an indispensable tool for Deleuze’s political project for it is the transformational power required for the dissimulation of identity. Becoming is the key to one’s being imperceptible to dominant power relations and results in opportunities to decode the flows of desire. We are most free when we decode the flows of desire and begin to explore the creative possibilities of becoming. Decoding causes identity to no longer occupy a space and no longer maintain a static position. The freedom that becoming provides and decoded flows utilise is referred to as nomadic (Lundy, 2012:70-71). Deleuze and Guattari use this term because the nomad signifies traversing over boundaries without being situated within any of the territories they pass through (Deleuze & Guattari, 2015:430-31). Settlement is rejected in favour of free movement. The free, pure movement of becoming evades the shackles of representational thought (Deleuze, 2014:181). Becoming is therefore the catalyst for the schizoid disruption of dominant and domineering power relations.

Deleuze encourages us to be more “schizo” so we can become more creative, active and free (Deleuze & Guattari, 2012:358, 386-87, 433). Identity cannot provide routes to this kind of change and alterity. Becoming does not permit stagnation. Rather, it invites infinite possibility. Deleuze wants for our philosophy, art, literature and other theatres of expression to be more creative (Deleuze, 2014:85, 377). To do this requires an escape from the determinations of representational thought. Becoming is the tool within Deleuze’s philosophy which facilitates this break from the hierarchical and striated realm of being and transitions to the planar and smooth realm of becoming. Deleuze refers to becoming as smooth because it is set it in opposition to the striated, rigid, metric determinations of representational thought. Schizoanalysis catalyses this transformation through an openness to becoming and thereby fosters decoded flows of desire. We can therefore say that Deleuze’s political philosophy relies upon becoming as it is a tool for the dissimulation of identity, forcing it to be less situated and fixed and more nomadic and schizoid (Bankston, 2017:3; Lundy, 2012:70). The stagnant and incorrigible identity within representation is the device of a controlling and repressive State. To discover the means of fulfilling desire such that we can explore our creativity and increase our freedom, we must shuffle off the bondage of identity and instead embrace becoming. Hamlet’s becoming is a good illustration of this.

Hamlet is reluctant to strike against his uncle as he is not yet capable of the act. Upon his return from exile, having mused with the idea of death, he has undergone a significant change such that he is now capable of the act. The change is the result of Hamlet’s passing into becoming and the ensuing experimentation with his affects, here symbolised by the journey to England, interest in Fortinbras, and confrontation with his past and indeterminate future. Note the use of Spinoza’s language of affects. Spinoza’s concept of affects refers both to what something undergoes (x is affected by y) and the interaction between things (x is affected by y and x affects y). For Deleuze, the affects are twofold: the image of affections and the feeling of affects. The image of affections is the effect other things have on a given thing. In the case of becoming, Deleuze is primarily focussed on the feeling of affects, which refers to the changing relations between things. Deleuze and Guattari’s discussion of becoming draws on Spinoza to define the process of experimentation that becoming-animal offers us with. Deleuze and Guattari go so far as to say: ‘Affects are becomings.’ (Deleuze & Guattari, 2015:299) They argue that we can only know the capabilities of something by examining its affects. Becoming is therefore the means for experimenting with creativity, and this is can be understood as the experimentation with potential affects.

Deleuze doesn’t seem to provide much in the way of guidance or explanation when it comes to practicing this experimentation of becoming. Instances of becoming are often undergone and seem to have an element of passivity about them. Fitzgerald may well have had some anticipation of what he would undergo, his crack-up, but he did not intend for the dramatic change within himself that occurred as a result (Deleuze, 2015:159-160). Becoming seems to cause a kind of violence to intention. At the moment of becoming, one is no longer an active participant in the change one undergoes. This threshold is what Deleuze refers to when describing Hamlet as “becoming capable of the act” (Deleuze, 2014:116). It is not an accident that the mention of one’s capability to act is closely related to Spinoza’s power to act. If becoming is about increasing our power to act, it seems untenable that becoming also causes us to be passive and take a back seat, as it were. To understand how we can experiment and why it is active, we must talk about death.

Becoming and death both signify a movement beyond the boundary of representational thought. Both becoming and death are an invitation to that beyond. Through an exposure to the non-representational chaos that lies outside of our identity, we have limitless transformational potential. Where becoming is the process by which one can access potential, death is the threshold or cut giving access to becoming itself. Death is the gate to the beyond. Death is the moment becoming is undergone and that through which one is becoming. What do we mean by death?

Death, for Deleuze, refers to the formless chaos beyond identity and representational thought. Deleuze distinguishes between two kinds of death, following his interpretation of Maurice Blanchot’s The Space of Literature. Death can refer to the end of a person. In other words, death occurs when I, the individual, die. Death can also be an impersonal, occurring beyond representation and thus abandoning identity. To further understand this second, impersonal death we can once again turn to Spinoza. In Spinoza’s work, death can be understood as what he calls a ‘change in motion and rest.’ (Spinoza, Ethics, IV P39) The change one undergoes can be significant enough to lead to a change in one’s power to act. However, for Spinoza, death always involves a dramatic decrease in one’s power to act. For this reason, Spinoza argues that we should think of nothing less than death as it can only cause us sadness (Ethics, IV P67). Deleuze understands death to be an ‘impersonal and inhuman perceptual space.’ (Kaufman, 2011:112)

Death is the pure production which lies beyond the limitations brought about by representation. The concept of death is derived from the death drive or Thanatos of Freud’s psychoanalysis. In Freud’s work, Thanatos is set in opposition to the life drive or Eros (Freud, 2003:53,57). Eros follows certain patterns and directives to bind the productive energy of Thanatos. Deleuze views Thanatos and Eros differently. He argues that the productivity of Thanatos is the source of the reproductive powers of Eros, which seeks to homogenise the internal difference of Thanatos, by reproducing an image, a representation. Deleuze frequently refers to the death instinct, Thanatos and death. Each time they are mentioned it is in reference to the instance of the possibility of creative by moving beyond identity and allowing for alteration and change. Death presents us with a source for creativity and novelty not suffocated by representation.

Given that becoming is occurring within the moment of death and is not accessible to identity, can we ever practice becoming? When we are exposed to death, we are not encouraged to actually die. In fact, Deleuze and Guattari simply suggest that we apportion only a part of our identity to be subjected to death (Deleuze & Guattari, 2015:185-86). The death of those aspects of us allows for them to undergo the kind of transformation permitted by becoming that is required if we are to experiment with our affects and our power to act. Impersonal death is involuntary, of course, and yet we are able to initiate that process by relinquishing part of our identity. We know that instances of great transformation involve becoming capable of the act. Becoming capable of the act, increasing one’s power to act, is only possible if we allow small self-destructions, relinquishing parts of ourselves to death, but never allowing ourselves to die. Deleuze and Guattari insist that we must keep some small aspect of ourselves, even if it is just to use it later to combat the structures which create it (Deleuze & Guattari, 2015:186). The figures we read in Deleuze, such as Hamlet, Willard and Fitzgerald, have all unhooked parts of themselves and allowed them to pass through death and into becoming so they could discover some new affect.

Becoming is the tool to unlock potential transformation, while death is the self-destruction opening us up to new connections. Becoming, for Deleuze, refers to that realm beyond representation which gives us limitless opportunities for creativity and novelty. We do not need to maintain a stagnant image of identity. However, it often seems unclear how we actually free ourselves from the shackles of a fixed identity. In the case of identity, it seems that we begin by undergoing a slow and careful process of disassembly, piece by piece, sacrificing aspects of who we are so that they can either be destroyed or developed. I would argue we can do this through self-critique (I have spoken on this elsewhere) by which we determine what about us can be unhooked or disarticulated from such that we can grow in freedom and increase our power to act. Death, then, is an integral part of becoming. Indeed, the practical nature of Deleuze’s philosophy can be enacted, but we must embrace many deaths to take part in that transformation.

Bibliography

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