Here are my notes on Gilles Deleuze's essay "Rhizome vs. Tree" from The Deleuze Reader:
The first figure of the book: The Root Book (the classical book) – The book describes the world, it is not thought to be of the world. This is based on the law of reflection where one becomes two, a binary (either/or) logic - a vertical, hierarchical, dualistic, dichotomous way of looking at the world.
Biunivocal relationships (the pivotal taproot) ascribe one-to-one relationships between sets, i.e. words can only have one meaning and there can be no synonyms. Like binary logics, this way of thinking cannot provide an understanding of multiplicities.
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The second figure of the book: The Fascicular Root – A fascicle is literally a bundle, and the fascicular book is more complex, cut-up, or folded than the root book.
It may break down linearity in the meaning of a word, but insist on unity of knowledge (Joyce). It may break down linearity of knowledge, but still construct a circular totality (Nietzsche).
The world has become chaos, but the book remains an image of the world.
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The third figure of the book: The Rhizome – A rhizome is a network, it is different than the tree and the fascicule because it has no beginning and no end. Any point in the rhizome can be connected to any other. It is an open system. It cannot be ‘finished.’
Rather than attempting to add another transcendent dimension, it seeks to operate in the dimensions one already has available (n-1).
The aim of the rhizome book is not to explicate a Truth, but to produce a knowledge effect in the reader. It does not ask “Is it true?” but “Does it work?”
A model of this book is Deleuze and Guattari’s 1000 Plateaus. While a book of chapters is structured of beginning and end, a plateau is a multiplicity connected to other multiplicities.
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Principles of connection and heterogeneity: A rhizome is different from a tree because it does not seek to fix an order like Chomsky’s linguistic theory.
Rather than fix a specific type of order, a rhizome offers a way of thinking about how connections might catalyze principles of order.
It is very different to say there is one order valued above all other than to understand the potential of “machinic assemblages” to produce multiple orders. “There is no mother tongue, only a power takeover by a dominant language within a political multiplicity.” (p. 30)
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Principles of multiplicity: A multiplicity is an organization belonging to the many. “A multiplicity has neither subject nor object, only determinations, magnitudes, and dimensions that cannot increase without the multiplicity changing in nature.” (p.30)
Multiplicities are flat; they are not overcoded. In other words, they do not require a semiotic or value-producing overlay and thus reside in a plane of consistency. The point releases into a line; into multiplicity.
Multiplicities are defined by their outside, according to how they change in nature and connect to other multiplicities. They are defined by relationship.
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Principle of asignifying rupture: “A rhizome may be broken, shattered at a given spot, but it will start up again on one of its old lines, or on new lines.” (p. 32)
A rhizome has organization built into it, but it also has also has the potential to come apart and then be reorganized. Therefore, one cannot posit a dualism or value judgment (even in the form of good and bad).
“Good and bad are only the products of an active and temporary selection, which must be renewed.” (p.32)
The orchid and wasp form a rhizome; they are heterogeneous elements that operate in a single system. The becoming-wasp of the orchid and the becoming-orchid of the wasp brings about a deterritorialization of one term and a reterritorialization of the other.
This interaction between heterogeneous elements implies that evolutionary models would need to abandon the tree model and adopt a more rhizomatic model that deals with complex inter-species interactions.
“The same applies to the book and the world: contrary to deeply rooted belief, the book is not an image of the world. It forms a rhizome with the world.” (p. 33) Plants do this too; they always have a way of interacting with heterogeneous elements (animals, wind, etc.)
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Principle of cartography and decalcomania: Tree logic is tracing logic is reproduction is a way of exploring way is already there.
A rhizome maps rather than traces.
Maps describe relationships and organizations. They privilege specific types of information (space, time, value, emotion, connectivity, etc.). They differentiate types and degrees of information through notation. A map is a mode of analysis; it constructs the unconscious, what is not yet understood.
A map has multiple entryways. “A map has to do with performance whereas the tracing has to do with alleged ‘competence…’” (p.35)
A map connects across regimes.
“In contrast to centered (even polycentric) systems with hierarchical modes of communication and preestablished paths, the rhizome is an acentered, nonhierarchical, nonsignifying system without a General and without an organizing memory or central automation…” (p. 36)
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