Minority (french: minorité) is a philosophical concept developed by

Gilles Deleuze Gilles Louis René Deleuze ( , ; 18 January 1925 – 4 November 1995) was a French philosopher who, from the early 1950s until his death in 1995, wrote on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volu ...

and

Félix Guattari Pierre-Félix Guattari ( , ; 30 April 1930 – 29 August 1992) was a French psychoanalyst, political philosopher, semiotician, social activist, and screenwriter. He co-founded schizoanalysis with Gilles Deleuze, and ecosophy with Arne Næs ...

in their books ''Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature'' (1975), ''

A Thousand Plateaus ''A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia'' (french: link=no, Mille plateaux) is a 1980 book by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze and the French psychoanalyst Félix Guattari. It is the second and final volume of their collaborativ ...

'' (1980), and elsewhere. In these texts, they criticize the concept of "

majority A majority, also called a simple majority or absolute majority to distinguish it from related terms, is more than half of the total.Dictionary definitions of ''majority'' aMerriam-Websterbecoming-minor(itarian)" is primarily an

ethic Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns ma ...

al action, one of the becomings one is affected by when avoiding "becoming-fascist". They argued further that the concept of a "

people A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...

", when invoked by subordinate groups or those aligned with them, always refers to a minority, whatever its numerical power might be. For Deleuze and Guattari the "minor" and "becoming-minority" does not refer to minority groups as described in ordinary language. Minority groups are defined by identities and are thus molar configurations belonging to the majoritarian State machine. (Molar configurations are composed of infinite lines of particles, i.e. lines of becoming.) Deleuze and Guattari's central example here is

Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It typ ...

. Kafka finds himself at home among neither the

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

Jews nor the dominant German and Austria-Hungarian power structure. For him a "people is missing" and his literature sets out to summon that people. Nonetheless, there is a connection between what are ordinarily referred to as "minorities" and Deleuze and Guattari's conception of the minor and becoming-minor. If becoming-minor often occurs in the context of what are ordinarily called

minority group The term 'minority group' has different usages depending on the context. According to its common usage, a minority group can simply be understood in terms of demographic sizes within a population: i.e. a group in society with the least number o ...

s, then this is because, Deleuze and Guattari argue, becoming-minor is catalyzed by existence in cramped social spaces. The key point not to be missed is that becoming-minor is not related to molar identities, nor is it a politics that seeks representation or recognition of such identities (though Deleuze and Guattari stress that these are worthwhile political ambitions). The example of

patriarchy Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of dominance and privilege are primarily held by men. It is used, both as a technical anthropological term for families or clans controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males ...

provides an illustration of how the concept of "minority" is used: while there may be more women than men numerically, in Deleuze and Guattari's terms, which are sensitive to relations of power, men still constitute the majority whereas women form a minority. Thus the concept of "becoming-minor" converges with that of "becoming-woman" (as they say, "everyone has to 'become-woman', even women..."), "becoming-animal", "becoming-molecular", "becoming-imperceptible" and ultimately, "becoming-revolutionary". Each type of affective becoming marks a new phase of a larger process that Deleuze and Guattari call

deterritorialization In critical theory, deterritorialization is the process by which a social relation, called a ''territory'', has its current organization and context altered, mutated or destroyed. The components then constitute a new territory, which is the proce ...

. François Laruelle further develops this concept in the nascent years of his non-philosophical oeuvre. His concept is distinguished from that of Deleuze and Guattari in that minorities are treated from the point of view (so to speak) of minorities and not via an ensemble of (ultimately) reversible becomings that ends up subordinating the minorities to the Authorities in general (the State, History, Sexuality, ...)François Laruelle
''Who Are Minorities, and How Are We To Think Them?
trans. Taylor Adkins. Ultimately, in Laruelle's work, the minorities determine the Authorities unilaterally without being determined by them in turn and, as such, escapes from the philosophical and socio-logical significations of the term. In ''Le Principe de minorité'' (1981), he develops the Minority Principle as Unilaterality and then deepens this work in ''A Biography of Ordinary Man: On Authorities and Minorities'' (1985; trans. 2018 by Jessie Hock & Alex Dubilet).

References

Sources

* Deleuze, Gilles. 1979. "One Manifesto Less." Trans. Alan Orenstein. ''The Deleuze Reader''. Ed. Constantin V. Boundas. New York: Columbia UP, 1993. 204-222. . Also appears in ''Mimesis, Masochism, and Mime: The Politics of Theatricality in Contemporary French Thought''. Ed. Timothy Murray. Trans. Eliane dal Molin and Timothy Murray. Theater: Theory/Text/Performance Ser. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1997. 239-258. . Trans. from ''Superpositions''. By Gilles Deleuze and

Carmelo Bene Carmelo Pompilio Realino Antonio Bene, known as Carmelo Bene (1 September 1937 – 16 March 2002), was an Italian actor, poet, film director and screenwriter. He was an important exponent of the Italian avant-garde theatre and cinema. He die ...

. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit. * Deleuze, Gilles and

. 1972. '' Anti-Œdipus''. Trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem and Helen R. Lane. London and New York: Continuum, 2004. Vol. 1 of ''

Capitalism and Schizophrenia ''Capitalism and Schizophrenia'' (french: Capitalisme et Schizophrénie) is a two-volume theoretical work by the French authors Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, respectively a philosopher and a psychoanalyst. Its volumes are ''Anti-Oedipus'' ...

''. 2 vols. 1972-1980. Trans. of ''L'Anti-Oedipe''. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit. . * ---. 1975. '' Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature''. Trans. Dana Polan. Theory and History of Literature 30. Minneapolis and London: U of Minnesota P, 1986. Trans. of ''Kafka: Pour une littérature mineure''. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit. . * ---. 1980. ''

''. Trans.

Brian Massumi Brian Massumi (; born 1956) is a Canadian philosopher and social theorist. Massumi's research spans the fields of art, architecture, cultural studies, political theory and philosophy. His work explores the intersection between power, perception, a ...

. London and New York: Continuum, 2004. Vol. 2 of ''

''. 2 vols. 1972-1980. Trans. of ''Mille Plateaux''. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit. . * Guattari, Félix. 1984. ''Molecular Revolution: Psychiatry and Politics''. Trans. Rosemary Sheed. Harmondsworth: Penguin. . * ---. 1995. ''Chaosophy''. Ed. Sylvère Lotringer. Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents Ser. New York: Semiotext(e). . * ---. 1996. ''Soft Subversions''. Ed. Sylvère Lotringer. Trans. David L. Sweet and Chet Wiener. Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents Ser. New York: Semiotext(e). . *Laurie, Timothy & Khan, Rimi 2017, 'The Concept of Minority for the Study of Culture', ''Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies'', vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 1–12. * Massumi, Brian. 1992. ''A User's Guide to Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Deviations from Deleuze and Guattari''. Swerve editions. Cambridge, USA and London: MIT. . *Paul Patton, "Deleuze and Democracy", ''Contemporary Political Theory'' (2000) 4:4 {{DEFAULTSORT:Minority (Philosophy) Concepts in political philosophy Félix Guattari Gilles Deleuze

See also

References

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