A New Philosophy of Society

Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity

Manuel DeLanda

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781350096745
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophie
• Subtopic: Philosophie politique

In A New Philosophy of Society Manuel DeLanda offers a fascinating look at how the contemporary world is characterized by an extraordinary social complexity. Since most social entities, from small communities to large nation-states would disappear altogether if our cognitive abilities ceased to exist, DeLanda proposes a novel approach to social ontology that asserts the autonomy of social entities from the conceptions we have of them. He argues that Gilles Deleuze's theory of assemblages provides a framework in which sociologists and geographers studying social networks and regions can properly locate their work and fully elucidate the connections between them. Indeed, assemblage theory, as DeLanda argues, can be used to model any community, from interpersonal networks and institutional organizations, to central governments, cities and nation states.

Chapter 1

ASSEMBLAGES AGAINST TOTALITIES

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the theory of assemblages. But this introduction is not meant as an end in itself, but as a means to elucidate the proper ontological status of the entities that are invoked by sociologists and other social scientists. Is there, for example, such a thing as society as a whole? Is the commitment to assert the existence of such an entity legitimate? And, is denying the reality of such an entity equivalent to a commitment to the existence of only individual persons and their families? The answer to all these questions is a definitive no, but several obstacles must be removed before justifying this negative response. Of all the obstacles standing in the way of an adequate social ontology none is as entrenched as the organismic metaphor. In its least sophisticated form this stumbling-block involves making a superficial analogy between society and the human body, and to postulate that just as bodily organs work together for the organism as a whole, so the function of social institutions is to work in harmony for the benefit of society. As historians of social thought Howard Becker and Harry Barnes have noted, there are many variants of this centuries-old metaphor, some more sophisticated than others:

The theory of the resemblance between classes, groups, and institutions in society and the organs of the individual is as old as social theory itself. We have already noted its presence in Hindu social thought, and have also called attention to the fact that Aristotle, in book IV of his Politics, sets forth this organismic analogy with precision and clarity. The same conception appears clearly in the writings of Cicero, Livy, Seneca, and Paul. In the Middle Ages elaborate anthropomorphic analogies were drawn by John of Salisbury and Nicholas of Cues. In the early modern period, Hobbes and Rousseau contrasted the organism and the state, holding that the organism was the product of nature while the state was an artificial creation. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century fanciful notions of the social and political organism appeared with such writers as Hegel, Schelling, Krause, Ahrens, Schmitthenner, and Waitz.¹

In the late nineteenth century the organismic metaphor achieved its first systematic development in the work of Herbert Spencer and reached its pinnacle of influence a few decades later in the work of Talcott Parsons, the most important figure of the functionalist school of sociology. After this, the use of the organism as a metaphor declined as sociologists rejected functionalism, some because of its emphasis on social integration and its disregard for conflict, others because of its focus on social structure at the expense of phenomenological experience. But a more sophisticated form of the basic metaphor still exerts considerable influence in most schools of sociology, and in this form it is much more difficult to eliminate. This version involves not an analogy but a general theory about the relations between parts and wholes, wholes that constitute a seamless totality or that display an organic unity. The basic concept in this theory is what we may call relations of interiority: the component parts are constituted by the very relations they have to other parts in the whole. A part detached from such a whole ceases to be what it is, since being this particular part is one of its constitutive properties. A whole in which the component parts are self-subsistent and their relations are external to each other does not possess an organic unity. As Hegel wrote: ‘This is what constitutes the character of mechanism, namely, that whatever relation obtains between the things combined, this relation is extraneous to them that does not concern their nature at all, and even if it is accompanied by a semblance of unity it remains nothing more than composition, mixture, aggregation, and the like.’²

Thus, in this conception wholes possess an inextricable unity in which there is a strict reciprocal determination between parts. This version of organismic theory is much harder to eliminate because it is not just a matter of rejecting an old worn-out image and because its impact on sociology goes beyond functionalism. A good contemporary example is the work of the influential sociologist Anthony Giddens, who attempts to transcend the duality of agency and structure by arguing for their mutual constitution: agency is constituted by its involvement in practice which, in turn, reproduces structure. Structure is conceived as consisting of behavioural procedures and routines, and of material and symbolic resources, neither one of which possesses a separate existence outside of their instantiation in actual practice.³ In turn, the practices which instantiate rules and mobilize resources are conceived by Giddens as a continuous flow of action ‘not composed of an aggregate or series of separate intentions, reasons, and motives’.⁴ The end result of this is a seamless whole in which agency and structure mutually constitute one another dialectically.⁵

Following Hegel, other defenders of this approach argue that without relations of interiority a whole cannot have emergent properties, becoming a mere aggregation of the properties of its components. It may be argued, however, that a whole may be both analysable into separate parts and at the same time have irreducible properties, properties that emerge from the interactions between parts. As the philosopher of science Mario Bunge remarks, the ‘possibility of analysis does not entail reduction, and explanation of the mechanisms of emergence does not explain emergence away’.⁶ Allowing the possibility of complex interactions between component parts is crucial to define mechanisms of emergence, but this possibility disappears if the parts are fused together into a seamless web. Thus, what needs to be challenged is the very idea of relations of interiority. We can distinguish, for example, the properties defining a given entity from its capacities to interact with other entities. While its properties are given and may be denumerable as a closed list, its capacities are not given – they may go unexercised if no entity suitable for interaction is around – and form a potentially open list, since there is no way to tell in advance in what way a given entity may affect or be affected by innumerable other entities. In this other view, being part of a whole involves the exercise of a part’s capacities but it is not a constitutive property of it. And given that an unexercised capacity does not affect what a component is, a part may be detached from the whole while preserving its identity.

Today, the main theoretical alternative to organic totalities is what the philosopher Gilles Deleuze calls assemblages, wholes characterized by relations of exteriority. These relations imply, first of all, that a component part of an assemblage may be detached from it and plugged into a different assemblage in which its interactions are different. In other words, the exteriority of relations implies a certain autonomy for the terms they relate, or as Deleuze puts it, it implies that ‘a relation may change without the terms changing’.⁷ Relations of exteriority also imply that the properties of the component parts can never explain the relations which constitute a whole, that is, ‘relations do not have as their causes the properties of the [component parts] between which they are established . . .’⁸ although they may be caused by the exercise of a component’s capacities. In fact, the reason why the properties of a whole cannot be reduced to those of its parts is that they are the result not of an aggregation of the components’ own properties but of the actual exercise of their capacities. These capacities do depend on a component’s properties but cannot be reduced to them since they involve reference to the properties of other interacting entities. Relations of exteriority guarantee that assemblages may be taken apart while at the same time allowing that the interactions between parts may result in a true synthesis.

While those favouring the interiority of relations tend to use organisms as their prime example, Deleuze gravitates towards other kinds of biological illustrations, such as the symbiosis of plants and pollinating insects. In this case we have relations of exteriority between self-subsistent components – such as the wasp and the orchid – relations which may become obligatory in the course of coevolution. This illustrates another difference between assemblages and totalities. A seamless whole is inconceivable except as a synthesis of these very parts, that is, the linkages between its components form logically necessary relations which make the whole what it is. But in an assemblage these relations may be only contingently obligatory. While logically necessary relations may be investigated by thought alone, contingently obligatory ones involve a consideration of empirical questions, such as the coevolutionary history of two species. In addition to this Deleuze considers heterogeneity of components an important characteristic of assemblages. Thus, he would consider ecosystems as assemblages of thousands of different plant and animal species, but not the species themselves, since natural selection tends to homogenize their gene pools. In what follows I will not take heterogeneity as a constant property of assemblages but as a variable that may take different values. This will allow me to consider not only species but also biological organisms as assemblages, instead of having to introduce another category for them as does Deleuze.⁹ Conceiving an organism as an assemblage implies that despite the tight integration between its component organs, the relations between them are not logically necessary but only contingently obligatory: a historical result of their close coevolution. In this way assemblage theory deprives organismic theories of their most cherished exemplar.

In addition to the exteriority of relations, the concept of assemblage is defined along two dimensions. One dimension or axis defines the variable roles which an assemblage’s components may play, from a purely material role at one extreme of the axis, to a purely expressive role at the other extreme. These roles are variable and may occur in mixtures, that is, a given component may play a mixture of material and expressive roles by exercising different sets of capacities. The other dimension defines variable processes in which these components become involved and that either stabilize the identity of an assemblage, by increasing its degree of internal homogeneity or the degree of sharpness of its boundaries, or destabilize it. The former are referred to as processes of territorialization and the latter as processes of deterritorialization. ¹⁰ One and the same assemblage can have components working to stabilize its identity as well as components forcing it to change or even transforming it into a different assemblage. In fact, one and the same component may participate in both processes by exercising different sets of capacities. Let me give some simple social examples of these four variables.

The components of social assemblages playing a material role vary widely, but at the very least involve a set of human bodies properly oriented (physically or psychologically) towards each other. The classic example of these assemblages of bodies is face-to-face conversations, but the interpersonal networks that structure communities, as well as the hierarchical organizations that govern cities or nation-states, can also serve as illustrations. Community networks and institutional organizations are assemblages of bodies, but they also possess a variety of other material components, from food and physical labour, to simple tools and complex machines, to the buildings and neighbourhoods serving as their physical locales. Illustrating the components playing an expressive role needs some elaboration because in assemblage theory expressivity cannot be reduced to language and symbols. A main component of conversations is, of course, the content of the talk, but there are also many forms of bodily expression (posture, dress, facial gestures) that are not linguistic. In addition, there is what participants express about themselves not by what they say but by the way they say it, or even by their very choice of topic. These are nonlinguistic social expressions which matter from the point of view of a person’s reputation (or the image he or she tries to project in conversations) as much as what the person expresses linguistically. Similarly, an important component of an interpersonal network is the expressions of solidarity of its members, but these can be either linguistic (promises, vows) or behavioural, the solidarity expressed by shared sacrifice or mutual help even in the absence of words. Hierarchical organizations, in turn, depend on expressions of legitimacy, which may be embodied linguistically (in the form of beliefs about the sources of authority) or in the behaviour of their members, in the sense that the very act of obeying commands in public, in the absence of physical coercion, expresses acceptance of legitimate authority.¹¹

The concept of territorialization must be first of all understood literally. Face-to-face conversations always occur in a particular place (a street-corner, a pub, a church), and once the participants have ratified one another a conversation acquires well-defined spatial boundaries. Similarly, many interpersonal networks define communities inhabiting spatial territories, whether ethnic neighbourhoods or small towns, with well-defined borders. Organizations, in turn, usually operate in particular buildings, and the jurisdiction of their legitimate authority usually coincides with the physical boundaries of those buildings. The exceptions are governmental organizations, but in this case too their jurisdictional boundaries tend to be geographical: the borders of a town, a province or a whole country. So, in the first place, processes of territori alization are processes that define or sharpen the spatial boundaries of actual territories. Territorialization, on the other hand, also refers to non-spatial processes which increase the internal homogeneity of an assemblage, such as the sorting processes which exclude a certain category of people from membership of an organization, or the segregation processes which increase the ethnic or racial homogeneity of a neighbourhood. Any process which either destabilizes spatial boundaries or increases internal heterogeneity is considered deterritorializing. A good example is communication technology, ranging from writing and a reliable postal service, to telegraphs, telephones and computers, all of which blur the spatial boundaries of social entities by eliminating the need for co-presence: they enable conversations to take place at a distance, allow interpersonal networks to form via regular correspondence, phone calls or computer communications, and give organizations the means to operate in different countries at the same time.

While the decomposition of an assemblage into its different parts, and the assignment of a material or expressive role to each component, exemplifies the analytic side of the approach, the concept of territorialization plays a synthetic role, since it is in part through the more or less permanent articulations produced by this process that a whole emerges from its parts and maintains its identity once it has emerged. But there is another synthetic process in assemblage theory that complements territorialization: the role played in the production and maintenance of identity by specialized expressive entities such as genes and words. Although Deleuze considers all entities, even nonbiological and nonsocial ones, as being capable of expression, he argues that the historical appearance of these specialized entities allowed a great complexification of the kinds of wholes that could be assembled in this planet. Let me elaborate this point starting with the idea that physical or chemical entities are capable of expression. When atoms interact with radiation their internal structure creates patterns in this radiation through the selective absorption of some of its wavelengths. In manmade photographs this pattern appears as a spatial arrangement of light and dark bands (a spectrograph) which is correlated in a unique way with the identity of the chemical species to which the atom belongs. In other words, the absorption pattern expresses the identity of the chemical species in the form of physical information which can be used by astrophysicists, for example, to identify the chemical elements present in a given celestial process.¹²

On the other hand, this expressivity is clearly not functional in any sense. That is, while the information patterns do have an objective existence, in the absence of astrophysicists (or other users of spectrographs) the patterns do not perform any function. These patterns may be compared to the fingerprints that are expressive of human organic identity, but that in the absence of a law-enforcement organization that collects them, stores them and retrieves them as part of a process of identification, perform no real biological function at all. But, Deleuze argues, there have been critical thresholds in the history of the planet when physical expressivity has become functional. The first threshold is the emergence of the genetic code, marking the point at which information patterns ceased to depend on the full three-dimensional structure of an entity (such as that of an atom) and became a separate one-dimensional structure, a long chain of nuc...