Assemblage or Totality? The Paradoxes of Political Organization in Hegel and Deleuze/Guattari

Abstract

In this article I focus on two conceptual understandings of political organization and disorganization: Totality and Assemblage—central to the philosophies of Hegel and Deleuze/Guattari (subsequently referred to as “D/G”), respectively. Although these concepts possess a primarily ontological meaning in the works of the three philosophers, I will examine them in relation to Hegel’s and D/G’s understanding of political practice. I aim to show that when these two concepts are taken as principal categories of political organization, paradoxes emerge. These paradoxes represent problems in Hegel’s and D/G’s political thought that cannot be resolved through politics itself because they reveal its limits.