Against Conceptualist Readings
There's a tendency among readers of Deleuze and Guattari to approach the work in terms of concepts. These readers are typically those who would often use "Deleuze" and "D&G" interchangeably. Rather than a definition I shall instead describe these "Conceptualists" in terms of the traits by which we can recognize them in the wild.
- The obsession with connecting concepts between different Deleuze/Deleuze and Guattari works to one another.
They would often ask the question: "What is the equivalent of X concept in Anti Oedipus in Difference and Repetition?" Or "What is this concept in A Thousand Plateaus to that concept in Anti Oedipus? " They enjoy drawing Biunivocal relations between conceptual structures in one book to structures in other books.
Example:
Assemblage in ATP is Desiring Machine in AO
Third Synthesis of Time in D&R is Abstract Machine in ATP
Faciality in ATP is Oedipus in AO
Or in other situations they would say things like: The Body without Organs is to the desiring machines in AO is what the Virtual is to the Actual in Difference and Repetition. The individual concepts don't map onto each other but the structures themselves are of the same kind.
The second trait often seen in Conceptualists, and it's related to the first listed, is that they are always concerned more with the Book than with the World. The Conceptualist are mainly interested in explainining a reality of a book. They will rarely ask the question of "Do D&G accurately describe the State in the world?" Or "Do D&G accurately describe nomadic cultures and societies in the world" rather they are much more interested with the question: "What role does the concept of nomadism play in ATP? What role does the concept of State apparatus play?"
They will often expand the reality of "the Book" to include both A Thousand Plateaus and Anti Oedipus, or they'll extend it to include all of Deleuze's ouvre. But it will always remain a restricted reality firmly separated from the world, a Book reality, a reality of "The Text "
Thus you can see how the first trait of drawing mappings and analogies between different concepts in different D&G/Deleuze works, and the second trait of being purely interested in a restricted Book reality or Reality of "The Text" are serving each other, in order to construct an expanded playground for interpretation and discussion, which only occasionally plugs into the world.
Never will the concept of The State exit the confines of the text to apply directly to the State as we experience it in our world, rather it will only plug into the world as part of the book. The question is not "What does this sentence say about The State" but rather "What does the book, or the Deleuzian ouvre, or sometimes expanded even to different authors that they can structurally arrange in relation to Deleuzian works, say about the world?"
In simple terms: the work of the Conceptualists is to construct a "Book Reality " or "Text Reality" which firmly separates words from that which they refer to in the world, making them instead refer to other words in other books. This structure can be strictly limited to a text, while also relating to other texts from the same author or other authors. It can absorb a wide variety of texts in its structure or "Text Reality". The only thing that it has to ensure is that these texts never plug into the world directly, instead the only thing that must plug into the world is the completed Text Reality itself, which has different words of texts as its parts.
I call these readers Conceptualists since they often preface discussion of topics in D&G with "concept of" instead of directly talking about the thing itself. Not the State or the nomads, but the concept of the State and the concept of the nomads, implying that we are not really talking about the State we are not talking about Faces we are not talking about Intensities, this is something else and completely different and to understand you gotta read some history of philosophy.
Question: Why are Conceptualists like this?
Reason 1: Defensiveness.
Deleuze and also Deleuze and Guattari in particular, are oft seen talking about concepts outside their expertise or making sweeping claims about things in everyday reality.
When Deleuze and Guattari for example comment on anthropology, and anthropologists call them out for inaccuracies, it's tempting to say "you're missing the point, they're not really talking about the State apparatus, but instead they are just using a word that has a purely conceptual use, in relation to other concepts in Deleuze's ouvre, and it is useful in that sense." (Often these responses will pop up in response to objections of the "Sokal variety")
This is somewhat of an understandable response, even Deleuze and Guattari can be said to entertain such ideas when they say things like"No We have never seen a Schizophrenic " but it is not much of an excuse. It's okay to say that Deleuze and Guattari were wrong about certain things. Or isolate the bits they were wrong about from the bits they were right about. Even better, one can deterritorialize from the world without an abysmally mind numbing reterritorialization onto the Book.
Reason 2: Interpretosis Interpretosis Interpretosis
There is a libidinal appeal to languishing in Hermeneutics, interpreting and reinterpreting the meaning of texts while turning your face away from the world. This is seen from academic hermeneuticists to nerds arguing about the inner machinations of Star Wars movies and their internal logic. If philosophy is a hobby for you, something firmly separate from the mundane reality, this kind of blockage is quite appealing to keep the world's separate and non interacting, much like Star Wars is for some nerds Deleuze is for some Conceptualists.
Reason 3: Power
This reason relates directly to the previous two and develops from them, if one reads enough there is often a temptation towards a Priestly Authority, of a Sage or a teacher. It's often difficult to distinguish between a good hearted attempt to help communicate and explain Deleuze to readers from a pernicious sense of Power as the holder of secrets and truth. When experts deny Deleuze his usage of physics or anthropology, one is tempted to crown themselves an Expert in Deleuze. Like Socrates who says I know nothing, they often say that they have only glimpsed the surface of the Deleuze Iceberg, but they will make sure that they have glimpsed more of the iceberg than you.
With this there is not much more I can think to say so I conclude my criticism of the Conceptualists.