NTU Studies in Language and Literature 79

Number 12 (June 2003), 79-97

Deleuze’’s Concept of Subjectivity and Multiculturalism

Hsing-hao Chao ᎓ਣ࿉

National Chengchi University

ABSTRACT
The following paper aims to apply Gilles Deleuze’’s concept of subjectivity
to multiculturalism. Following Ian Buchanan, who puts the question of the
formation of the subject at the center of Deleuzian cultural studies, the author
foregrounds ““transcendental empiricism”” in a Deleuzian cultural studies and
adopts Deleuze’’s inhuman model to consider the question of subjectivity in
multiculturalism. By combining the hodgepodge model of multiculturalism
and the trichotomous citizenship, the author shows that the Deleuzian model of
subjectivity works well both in theory and in practice. Deleuze’’s idea of
repetition-in-difference, which appropriates Nietzsche’’s eternal return and
doctrine of becoming, can be employed to explain Hans-Georg Gadamer’’s
““fusion of horizons”” and ““the hermeneutic circle,”” which are the cornerstones of
Charles Taylor’’s ““politics of recognition”” –– a well-known model of subjectivity
in multiculturalism. This is where Deleuze meets multiculturalism.

© 2003 by the NTU Press and the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, NTU
80ʳ NTU Studies in Language and Literature

This paper aims to apply Gilles Deleuze’’s concept of subjectivity to

multiculturalism. Booming in the last decade, multiculturalism is rapidly
becoming one of the most heated debates in cultural studies at the turn of the
century. On the other hand, the system of Deleuzian philosophy has
increasingly gained importance in recent years: ““Perhaps one day this century
will be known as Deleuzian,”” says Michel Foucault (165). At first glance,
Deleuze and multiculturalism share some common grounds: multiplicity,
plurality, difference, and postmodernity. But when we take a closer look at
them, we will be surprised that Deleuze is almost missing in multiculturalism.
In the index of Mapping Multiculturalism, which maps ““the terrain of
multiculturalism in its varied dimensions and effects”” (2), the entry of ““Deleuze””
is not found. In Multicultural Questions, concerning ““the epistemological,
normative, and sociological aspects of multiculturalism”” (19), Deleuze is absent
again. Luckily or not, in Theorizing Multiculturalism, a collection of essays
which borrows ““tools of critique or analysis from postmodernist philosophies”” (2),
Deleuze is mentioned only once in conjunction with Foucault, Guattari, and de
Certeau (123), without special significance. Then a question: where is Deleuze
in multiculturalism? or what is a Deleuzian multiculturalism?
But before we go to multiculturalism, an offshoot of cultural studies, it
seems appropriate for us to consider another question, related, or prior, to the
previous one –– what is a Deleuzian cultural studies? ““The problem of the
formation of the subject Deleuze finds in Hume,”” Ian Buchanan argues, ““should
be at the center of any attempt to produce a Deleuzian cultural studies”” (104).
Instead of asking what is a subject?, which has been too frequently raised in
cultural studies, we, Buchanan asserts, should ask how does one become a
subject? (114) The question may be phrased as, in Deleuze’’s terms, ““How can
the subject transcending the given be constituted in the given?”” (Empiricism and
Subjectivity 86)1 In this paper, I will build on Buchanan’’s arguments, regard
““transcendental empiricism”” as the center of the discussion of subjectivity in a
Deleuzian cultural studies, and adopt Deleuze’’s inhuman model2 to consider the
question of subjectivity in multiculturalism.

1
Hereafter cited as ES.
2
More specifically it should be ““Deleuzoguattarian”” because some of the ideas are the products of the
collaboration of Deleuze and Guattari.
 Deleuze and Multiculturalismʳ 81

Deleuze’’s Philosophy

I. Transcendental Empiricism

““I have always felt that I am an empiricist,”” admits Deleuze in the very first
sentence of the preface to the English edition of Dialogues. Deleuze’’s
empiricism takes its root in David Hume’’s philosophy, which is in principle
anti-Cartesian rationalism. In the search of clear and distinct ideas, Descartes
doubts everything except that he is thinking. Thus, to validate human
knowledge and to overcome doubt and uncertainty, one has to begin with a
proposition –– cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am). The sheer reflexive
consciousness grounds the Cartesian project, hence rationalism. The
assumption that the indubitability of knowledge is built on the pre-existing good
human consciousness dominates rationalism, in which reason can solve all
problems.
Empiricism, by contrast, argues that human knowledge only derives from
human experience. Knowledge should begin with human experience and be
confined within its limits. According to Hume, ““all ideas derive from a
corresponding impression and, consequently, every given impression is
reproduced in an idea which perfectly represents it”” (ES 29). Impressions are
our sensual perceptions of the world, our lived experience, from which ideas
originate. In other words, the starting point of Hume’’s empiricism can be
termed –– no impression, no idea.
Hume categorizes human knowledge into two kinds: relations of ideas and
matters of fact (Scruton 118). The first kind includes ““every affirmation which is
either intuitively or demonstratively certain,”” such as geometry, algebra, and
arithmetic. These are the only reliable, irrefutable knowledge upheld by the
rationalists, who try to reduce all human knowledge to mathematics. This kind
of knowledge is analytic, in which the predicate has already been contained in
the subject, and therefore it is necessarily true. For example, the proposition ““a
black swan is not white”” is necessarily true because the predicate is already
affirmed by the subject. Furthermore, the analytic knowledge can be known a
priori –– independent of observation, experiment, and experience. Mathematics
is grounded on axioms, statements, or propositions that need no proof because
they are ascertained a priori.
Matters of facts, on the other hand, derive from impressions, and are
82ʳ NTU Studies in Language and Literature

conditioned by probabilities. We can only gather them from our lived

experiences, and therefore they are a posteriori. This kind of knowledge is
contingent, not necessarily true. For example, the statement ““panda bears can
only be found in China”” is a matter of fact, but it just happens to be so.
Moreover, the contingent knowledge is synthetic because the predicate is not
implied in the subject and thus introduces a new idea (e. g. China). To sum
up, matters of facts differ from relations of ideas in that the latter being
necessary, a priori, and analytic; while the former contingent, a posteriori, and
synthetic.
Furthermore, matters of fact are distinct, independent, and atomistic. This
is Hume’’s ““atomism.”” Human knowledge results from the understanding and
association of disparate ideas, which is Hume’’s ““associationism.”” But how do
we associate ideas? ““The collection of ideas is called ‘‘imagination,’’ insofar as
the collection designates not a faculty but rather an assemblage of things, in the
most vague sense of the term: things are as they appear –– a collection without an
album, a play without a stage, a flux of perceptions”” (ES 22-23). In other
words, imagination is bricolage. Imagination is not governed by pure necessity,
as the rationalists claim, but by probability. Therefore, the empiricists regard
human reason as impressions, affections, and feelings: ““we have found [reason]
to be nothing but a general calm determination of the passions, founded on some
distant view or reflexion,”” argues Hume (qtd. in ES 30). Deleuze goes on to
say, ““the mind is not reason; reason is an affection of the mind. In this sense,
reason will be called instinct, habit, or nature”” (ES 30).
According to associationism, the relations are not inherent in but external to
the terms. In fact, it is the externality of relations rather than the predominance
of experience that Deleuze defines empiricism: ““In short, it seems impossible to
define empiricism as a theory according to which knowledge derives from
experience”” (ES 108). Deleuze refuses the classical definition of empiricism
proposed by the Kantian tradition because the definition overrates knowledge
but undervalues relations (Buchanan 104). For Deleuze, the essence of
empiricism lies in the specific problem of subjectivity (ES 85), and the key
question is: ““how can a subject transcending the given be constituted in the
given?”” (ES 86) Deleuze, taking Hume’’s doctrine of the externality of all
relations as his point of departure, develops his ““transcendental empiricism””:
““According to Deleuze, the determination that relations are external to their
terms is the condition of possibility for a solution to the empiricist problem of
 Deleuze and Multiculturalismʳ 83

how a subject transcending the given can be constituted in the given”” (Buchanan
105).
In order to answer the question we should first consider what the given is.
The given is ““the flux of the sensible, a collection of impressions and images, or
a set of perceptions”” (ES 87). As George Berkeley deconstructs the object by
asserting that the object is nothing but a bundle of sensations, Hume
deconstructs the subject by proposing that the subject is nothing but a bundle of
sensations. Therefore, a subject, according to empiricism, is constituted in the
given. But how can the subject –– constituted in the given –– also transcend the
given? A distinction between association and imagination should be drawn to
explicate the question.
As mentioned above, imagination is ““the collection of ideas.”” However, the
imagination is not a faculty but simply an assemblage. It has passions and does
not function in a rational way. ““Certainly, the imagination has its own activity;
but even this activity, being whimsical and delirious, is without constancy and
without uniformity”” (ES 23). Association, on the other hand, follows three
principles –– contiguity, resemblance, and causality (ES 24). With the three
principles, association unifies ideas and generates constancy and uniformity.
Association is what makes the subject transcend the given. We can believe
in what we have not seen. For example, when we say ““the sun will rise
tomorrow,”” we are acting actually on our belief rather than reason, simply
because we cannot prove it. Our beliefs are based upon our previous
experience, which is synthesized by association. ““Before there can be a belief,
all three principles of association must organize the given into a system,
imposing constancy on the imagination”” (ES 24). Therefore, association ““is a
rule of the imagination and a manifestation of its free exercise. It guides the
imagination, gives it uniformity, and also constrains it”” (ES 24). In other words,
association is a faculty, which synthesizes what is given and affects imagination.
Association affects and transcends the imagination, and thus the subject
transcends the given.
So far we have seen what the given is and how it can be transcended. But
we still have not probed into the subject. ““The subject is defined by the
movement through which it is developed. The subject is that which develops
itself”” (ES 85). It is in the ““self-movement and becoming-other”” (ES 85) that
we define subjectivity. Far from being a Newtonian movement moved by the
first cause, the subject is always ““in the middle,”” already given, simply because
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the first a priori cause is unknown. Though given, the subject can move itself,
produce something new, and become others, so it transcends the given.
Now we approach the most vital part of Deleuze’’s ““transcendental
empiricism,”” which is built on the externality of relations to their terms, rather
than the supreme importance of impression. Deleuze’’s first principle is the
““principle of difference,”” that ““every separable is distinguishable and everything
distinguishable is different”” (ES 87). We can vary the relations without
changing the terms, which differ from one another. Therefore, the principle of
empiricism is a principle of differentiation and of difference: on the one hand,
ideas are different because they are external to, and separable from one another;
on the other hand, ideas are separable, and external to one another, because they
are different. The externality principle provides Deleuze with a new
perspective: ““In Hume, there is something very strange which completely
displaces empiricism, giving it a new power, a theory and practice of relations,
of the AND”” (Dialogues 15).3
It is by the conjunction AND that Deleuze tries to free Western philosophy
from its yoke: ““philosophy, the history of philosophy, is encumbered with the
problem of being, IS”” (D 56). ““Substitute the AND for IS……Thinking with
AND, instead of thinking IS, instead of thinking for IS: empiricism has never
had another secret”” (D 57). The triumph of the conjunction AND over the
predicative IS shakes the foundation of Western ontology, whose primary
concern is the ultimate substance, reality, and the nature of being. Deleuze
refuses to think in that way. He refuses to think the question what is the
subject; instead, he asks how does one become a subject. He refuses being and
identity; he embraces becoming and difference.
In addition to the principle of difference, empiricism has another principle ––
the principle of repetition. Deleuze’’s repetition is not repetition of sameness,
which does not engender any new experience: it does not constitute progression,
nor does it move us forward (ES 67). Repetition becomes a progression or even
a production only when it is repetition-in-difference (ES 68). Henceforth, by
Hume’’s atomism and associationism does Deleuze establish his transcendental
empiricism, in which difference and repetition are two cornerstones.

II. Difference and Repetition

3
Hereafter cited as D.
 Deleuze and Multiculturalismʳ 85

Empiricism and Subjectivity, published in 1953, launched Deleuze’’s career

as a philosopher.4 But not until 1968, when Difference and Repetition was
published, did Deleuze start to ““do philosophy”” (Difference and Repetition xv),5
the most important job of a philosopher (What Is Philosophy? 1).6 In this book,
Deleuze returns to the two main principles of transcendental empiricism ––
difference and repetition –– and further employs Nietzsche’’s philosophy to
undertake the task of ““the search for new means of philosophical expression”” (DR
xxi).
Deleuze’’s philosophical stance is, by and large, anti-Hegelian. ““What I
most detested was Hegelianism and dialectics”” (Negotiations 6).7 For Deleuze,
the Hegelian dialectics, in which synthesis is achieved by eliminating the
contradiction between thesis and antithesis, produces nothing but ““false
movement”” (DR 8). From the blind alley of Hegel is Deleuze delivered by
Nietzsche (N 6), whose philosophy is primarily concerned with force (Nietzsche
and Philosophy x).8 Forces generate movements, and the world is constantly
dynamic, a world of becoming, ““of flux and change in which no entities
preserve a stable identity”” (Bogue 20). Nietzsche further differentiates force as
either active or reactive, depending on being dominant (master) or dominated
(slave). Since forces are to generate movements and to engender differences,
there are, according to Nietzsche, two ways of making differences: mastery and
slavery.
The slavery way of making difference is by negation. The slave says, ““you
are evil, therefore I am good.”” ““The slave must have premises of reaction and
negation, of resentiment and nihilism, in order to obtain an apparently positive
conclusion”” (NP 121). Nietzsche blames Hegel for this negation of negation ––
you are not good, and therefore I am not not-good.
The mastery way, on the contrary, is by affirmation. The master says, ““I
am good, therefore, you are evil.”” ““‘‘The good’’ themselves, that is to say, the
noble, powerful, high-stationed and high-minded, who felt and established
themselves and their actions as good, that is, of the first rank, in contradiction to
all the low, low-minded, common and plebeian”” (NP 120). Unlike the slave,

4
Though Deleuze worked with André Cresson and published David Hume, sa vie, son oeuvre in 1952,
Empiricism and Subjectivity is Deleuze’’s first book done by himself.
5
Hereafter cited as DR.
6
Hereafter cited as WP.
7
Hereafter cited as N.
8
Hereafter cited as NP.
86ʳ NTU Studies in Language and Literature

who is negative, reactive, and resentiment, the master is affirmative, active, and
overman.
Nietzsche’’s philosophy is organized along two axes: ““the will to power”” and
““the eternal return.”” Like the force that is either active or reactive, the will to
power is either affirmative or negative (NP 53). But the will to power, though
pertinent to, is different from the force. Action and reaction are more like
means, through which the will to power affirms and denies. Most importantly,
affirmation or negation is a power of becoming active or becoming reactive; they
are ““both immanent and transcendent in relation to action and reaction; out of
the web of forces they make up the chain of becoming”” (NP 54). In summary,
the will to power is an inner center of force, a power of becoming, a synthesis of
forces.
Another aspect of Nietzsche’’s philosophy of becoming is the eternal return.
““Return is the being of becoming itself, the being which is affirmed in
becoming”” (NP 24). The eternal return is the highest affirmation, but by no
means the ancient thought of cyclical theory of history. It is not a return of the
Same, nor a return to the Same (self-identity, essence, being); rather, it is an
affirmation of becoming, an affirmation of difference, a return of becoming and
difference.
On the one hand, ““the eternal return is the synthesis which has its principle
the will to power”” (NP 50); while on the other, the will to power is the principle
of synthesis of forces, which forms the eternal return (NP 51). The key to the
mystery is ““synthesis,”” which relates to time. ““The passing moment could
never pass if it were not already past and yet to come –– at the same time as being
present”” (NP 48). In other words, ““[t]he present must coexist with itself as past
and yet to come”” (NP 48). Therefore, the eternal return is a synthesis of past,
present, and future, in which the second moment’’s return is embedded within the
first.
It is Nietzsche’’s will to power and eternal return that back up Deleuze’’s
difference and repetition. The forces that the will to power synthesizes cannot
be reduced to mathematical equivalences; they are singular, with specific
differences among them. ““If eternal return is a circle, then Difference is at the
center and the Same is only on the periphery: it is a constantly decentred,
continually tortuous circle which revolves only around the unequal”” (DR 55).
Repetition is the repetition-in-difference, the identity-in-difference, the being of
becoming.
 Deleuze and Multiculturalismʳ 87

With this philosophy of becoming does Deleuze develop his nomadic

philosophy. In the realm of philosophy, hierarchy is secured by a type of
distribution that ““proceeds by fixed and prepositional determinations which may
be assimilated to ‘‘properties’’ or limited territories within representation”” (DR
36). Deleuze’’s project, by contrast, is to re-territorialize the distribution, to
produce ““a space which is unlimited, or at least without precise limits”” (DR 36).
This distribution that Deleuze calls ““nomadic”” is ““an errant and even ‘‘delirious’’
distribution, in which things are deployed across the entire extensity of a
univocal and undistributed Being”” (DR 36-37). In a word, the second model, a
““rhizome-thought,”” is in opposition to the first one, an ““arborescent’’ thought
(DR xvii). Deleuze’’s philosophical system is a rhizome. ““[U]nlike trees or
their roots, the rhizome connects any point to any other point, and its traits are
not necessarily linked to traits of the same nature; it brings into play very
different regimes of signs, and even nonsign states”” (A Thousand Plateaus 21).
Transcendental empiricism, materialism, pluralism, associationism,
becoming, difference, repetition, singularity, dynamics, affirmation, production,
nomad, delirium, re-territorialization, and rhizome –– these are Deleuze’’s key
ideas that resonate throughout his corpus. In the Deleuzian philosophy, the
subject is dynamic, without a constant, stable identity. It is nomadic, delirious,
always becoming-other. It is a non-human model, in which everything is a
machine.

III. Machine Thinking

““Everything is a machine,”” says Deleuze in the opening section of

Anti-Oedipus, a collaboration with Fèlix Guattari, published in 1972. The
machines are real, not figurative; they can produce effects, not mere metaphors.
The unconscious is like a factory that produces desire (Anti-Oedipus 24).9 The
desire should not be defined as a lack, but a process of production, of
““industrial”” production (AO 26). It is the desiring machine, whose fantastic
repression is presupposed by Oedipus (AO 3). The desiring-production is not
Freudian familial production but paralleled with social production (AO 10).
Thus, we have an alliance of Marx and Freud, of politics and desire, but Deleuze
and Guattari’’s position is neither Marxist nor Freudian, but Nietzschean rather.
Desire is the will to power (D 91).

9
Hereafter cited as AO.
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In the machine thinking, the human becomes nonhuman: ““we make no

distinction between man and nature: the human essence of nature and the natural
essence of man become one within nature in the form of production or industry,
just as they do within the life of man as a species”” (AO 4). Human beings are
becoming-machines. In the process of producing, ““[e]verything stops dead for
a moment, everything freezes in place –– and then the whole process will begin
all over again”” (AO 7). It is the dead moment that gives birth to body without
organs: ““The genesis of the machine lies precisely here: in the opposition of the
process of production of the desiring-machines and the nonproductive stasis of
the body without organs”” (AO 9). It is in the breaking down of the
desiring-machines, the body without organs, that de-territorialization occurs. It
is the body without organs that the subject wanders over: ““The subject itself is
not at the center, which is occupied by the machine, but on the periphery, with
no fixed identity, forever decentered, defined by the states through which it
passes”” (AO 20).
Owing to the non-human model of subjectivity, Deleuze and Guattari are
labeled as ““anti-humanists”” together with Foucault. However, the accusation
results from the misunderstanding of the ““non-human becomings”” and the
““death of man”” (Marks 27). Generally speaking, Deleuze and Guattari adopt
the non-human model for two reasons –– theoretical and strategic. Theoretically,
the non-human model is employed because it accurately accounts for the real
situation. For Guattari, ““it is not a question of anti-humanism, but a question
of whether subjectivity is produced solely by internal faculties of the soul,
inter-personal relations, and intra-familial complexes, or whether non-human
machines such as social, cultural, environmental, or technological assemblages
enter into the very production of subjectivity itself”” (Goodchild 151). The
non-human model is adopted because the subjectivity is de facto ““non-human.””
Another consideration of the use of the non-human model is strategic.
Deleuze and Guattari’’s non-human model is to rescue human rights from abuse
in the global market of capitalism: ““There’’s no democratic state that’’s not
compromised to the very core by its part in generating human misery”” (N 173).
In other words, those who claim ““human rights”” are actually exploiting human
rights, taking advantage of them (Marks 28). Originating from Frantz Fanon,
““anti-humanism”” criticizes the highly politicized humanism, which is ““deeply
complicit with the violent negativity of colonialism”” (Young 121):
 Deleuze and Multiculturalismʳ 89

Leave this Europe where they are never done talking of Man, yet murder
men everywhere they find them, at the corner of every one of their own
streets, in all the corners of the globe. For centuries they have stifled
almost the whole of humanity in the name of a so-called spiritual
experience. (251)

Deleuze also perceives ““a certain shame at being human”” felt by Primo Levi
when he describes Nazi camps (N 172). ““This feeling of shame is one of
philosophy’’s most powerful motifs. We are not responsible for the victims but
responsible before them. And there is no way to escape the ignoble but to play
the part of the animal (to growl, burrow, snigger, distort ourselves): thought
itself is sometimes closer to an animal that dies than to a living, even democratic,
human being”” (WP 108). In other words, the non-human model is actually a
criticism of the misuse of humanism. Therefore, the model is adopted not only
because it is theoretically accurate but also out of strategic consideration.
Anti-humanism works successfully both in theory and practice.

Multiculturalism and Deleuze-Guattari

I. ““Hodgepodge”” and the Trichotomous Model

Multiculturalism first appeared in Canada and Australia in the early 1970s

(Joppke and Lukes 3), and flourished in America in the late 1980s (Gordon and
Newfield 2). It began as anti-racism, a reaction against the white supremacy.
Generally, there are two models of multiculturalism: ““mosaic”” and
““hodgepodge.”” The ““mosaic”” model is about ““the coexistence of distinct
cultures held by separate groups,”” while the ““hodgepodge”” is about ““the
intermingling and fusion of cultures, even within the same individual”” (Joppke
and Lukes 8). Though more suitable to account for the ever increasing
globalization, in which identity is constantly hybrid and fluid, the hodgepodge
model is too powerless to stimulate political claims (Joppke and Lukes 11).
Since multiculturalism is a ““position-taking stance”” (Glazer 10), the mosaic
model is still employed to defend the encroachment of the dominant cultures,
though it fails to picture the mixed-up world.
Due to the position stance consideration, multiculturalism is condemned as a
service for certain political strategy. Under the banners of multiculturalism,
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assimilation is often employed by the dominant cultures to deny the history of

their maltreatments of the discriminated cultures, to eliminate the differences
among cultural groups, and to subordinate minority groups to the dominant. In
other words, though claiming anti-racism, multiculturalism exerts another form
of racism. It is the complicity with the dominant that multiculturalism is
understood to be similar to humanism.
Now we stand at the intersection of Deleuze and multiculturalism –– where
Deleuze meets multiculturalism. Deleuze’’s is apparently the hodgepodge
model –– we are living in a mixed-up world, and have a mixed-up self. But
adopting the hodgepodge model means forfeiting the political stance: that is to
say, it is theoretically suitable but strategically untenable. Then, how can
Deleuzian philosophy work in multiculturalism?
The answer lies in the understanding of a trichotomous model of
multicultural citizenship. Neither the traditional citizenship model that consists
of individuals and the state, nor a dichotomous multicultural model whose
components are identity groups and the state, is adequate enough to perceive the
complexity of multicultural citizenship. With a new multicultural citizenship
model, a trichotomy –– individuals, identity groups, and the state (Shachar 89) ––
can we fully grasp the tensions and interactions among the three components.
This model points out the blind spots of the mosaic model of multiculturalism,
which emphatically underscores the conflicts among identity groups and those
between identity group and the state, but totally ignores the tensions between
individuals and their identity groups. In this sense, the individuals are likely
victimized by the political stance that their identity group takes. While fighting
against being assimilated into the dominant culture, the identity group may
probably force the individuals to ““identify”” themselves with the group. In
other words, it commits the sin of which it accuses others.
It is with the trichotomous model of multicultural citizenship that the
hodgepodge model of multiculturalism gains the vitality to work. In fact, the
fault of the mosaic model is exactly what Buchanan criticizes the common
assumption of cultural studies ––““that its object is ready-made and that theory is
something one simply applies”” (103). According to Deleuze and Guattari, the
subject is nomadic, and the identity groups are not ready-made. Therefore, we
should not ask what is an identity group? Instead, we should ask how does one
become a subject? and how does a group form its subjectivity? with which a
Deleuzian cultural studies would begin.
 Deleuze and Multiculturalismʳ 91

It is Guattari, a psychoanalyst, that mainly contributes to the idea of ““group

subjectivity.”” He distinguishes ““the group-subject”” from ““the subjected group””;
the latter ““receives its determinations from other groups,”” while the former
““proposes to rediscover its internal law, its project, its action in relation to other
groups”” (qtd. in Bogue 86). The subjected group may enforce strict laws ––
legal, or moral –– to ensure its integrity. The most common picture of the
identity group is the subjected group, and we can find a good example in Jews.
The ancient people have a history of diaspora for more than two thousand years.
In order to keep their racial and cultural integrity and to ensure the survival of
the scattered Jews in the world, they need a strong cohesion, and religious
unanimity becomes the sole means of preserving Jews from disintegration.
The group-subject, on the contrary, ““reinforces neither vertical hierarchies of
command nor conventional horizontal distributions of roles, but establishes
unorthodox, transverse relations between various levels of a group or
institution”” (Bogue 86). In other words, the group-subject de- and
re-territorializes the distribution of the subjected group, shatters the ready-given
hierarchy, and reconfigures the group subjectivity. Unlike a subjected group,
which ““continues to enslave and crush desiring-production,”” a subject-group
““causes desire to penetrate into the social field, and subordinates the socius or the
forms of power to desiring-production”” (AO xxi). In a word, the group
subjectivity is about ““the libidinal nature of groups”” (Bogue 87).
Not only the libidinal nature of groups but also ““the social nature of the
unconscious”” does Guattari insist on. It is termed ““collective subjectivity.””
““The term ‘‘collective’’ should be understood in the sense of a multiplicity that
deploys itself as much beyond the individual, on the side of the socius, as before
the person, on the side of preverbal intensities, indicating a logic of affects rather
than a logic of delimited set”” (Chaosmosis 9). Guattari’’s collective subjectivity
has actually already been envisioned by Deleuze in Hume. For Hume, the
mind has a social affection, and thus it is more a complex ““society”” than an
organizing consciousness (ES 21-22).
We have seen that the mosaic model in multiculturalism not only fails to
account for the mixed-up world, but also is held culpable for the subjugated
identity group. The Deleuzoguattarian model of subjectivity, then, is not only
theoretically tenable but also with practical value because it convicts the
subjected group of inflicting the individuals perhaps more severely than the state
it blames.
92ʳ NTU Studies in Language and Literature

II. Taylor’’s ““Politics of Recognition”” and

Gadamer’’s ““Fusion of Horizons””

The most common model of subjectivity in multiculturalism, however, is not

Deleuzoguattarian but Charles Taylor’’s ““politics of recognition,”” of which the
most vital argument is that we form our identities through a dialogical process
(Shachar 88). Taylor begins his essay ““The Politics of Recognition”” with the
demand for recognition:

The thesis is that our identity is partly shaped by recognition or its absence,
often by misrecognition of others, and so a person or group of people can
suffer real damage, real distortion, if the people or society around them
mirror back to them a confining or demeaning or contemptible picture of
themselves. (25)

In other words, the society is like a mirror, in which other people/groups may
reflect their perceptions, opinions, and paradigms about a person/group through
words and behavior, so that one/the group can see themselves in it. In short,
they perceive themselves from the social mirror, upon which one’’s identity is
constructed.
However, the ““vital human need”” (26) to be recognized diverges into two
different forms of recognition: recognition of sameness and recognition of
difference. The first kind originates in the belief that all human beings are
created equal, and all the political efforts should be made to eliminate the
inequalities. ““With the politics of equal dignity, what is established is meant to
be universally the same”” (38). But the first form of recognition is not what
Taylor has in mind in ““The Politics of Recognition.”” The recognition of
difference, on the other hand, is in the spotlight. Instead of assimilating the
other to the ““dominant or majority identity”” (38), ““the politics of difference””
acknowledges the distinctness of every person, his/her unique identity.
Apparently, Taylor rejects the false humanism provided by the dominant class
(most often the whites) which prioritizes the ““sameness”” in a society and
suppresses differences. Therefore, he praises Fanon for arguing that ““the major
weapon of the colonizers was the imposition of their image of the colonized on
the subjugated people”” (65). The recognition of difference is the urgent need
 Deleuze and Multiculturalismʳ 93

in the politics of recognition.

Taylor particularly argues that the process of recognition is ““dialogical””
rather than ““monological”” (32). One develops one’’s identity through the
constant negotiation of the self and the other, and the spirit of the dialogical
relations lies not in the assimilation of the other into the self but in the
coexistence of the self and the other. In fact, the dialogical process is
Hans-Georg Gadamer’’s hermeneutic experience that results in ““the fusion of
horizons,”” upon which Taylor’’s philosophy is based (Taylor 67). I will argue
that Gadamer’’s hermeneutic circle and fusion of horizons can be explained in
terms of Deleuze’’s transcendental empiricism and the ideas of difference and
repetition, and it is where Deleuze meets multiculturalism.
The basic idea of Gadamer’’s ““fusion of horizons”” is the hermeneutic circle.
The hermeneutic circle consists of the to-and-fro, the back-and-forth movements
between the part and the whole, between the self and the other, between I and
Thou. In the to-and-fro movement we release self-consciousness for the moment,
and find however temporarily a sense of a new self in the movement. The
movement is forever on-going, and the circle constantly keeps widening.
The idea of the hermeneutic circle is nothing new; it follows the
philosophical tradition starting with Schleiermacher Nevertheless, Gadamer’’s
hermeneutic circle is distinct from Schleiermacher’’s in that the latter has a
problem of the ““obscurity of the Thou”” (Gadamer 191), while the former insists
on treating ““the Thou truly as a Thou”” (361). Put simply, Schleiermacher’’s
dialogue is to achieve a kind of ““assimilation,”” while Gadamer’’s fusion of
horizons is to find a common ground for ““I”” and ““Thou”” to coexist. Or, in
Taylor’’s terms, Schleiermacher’’s is the recognition of sameness, whereas
Gadamer’’s is the recognition of difference.
Gadamer’’s hermeneutic circle can be conceived as Deleuze’’s
repetition-in-difference, Nietzsche’’s eternal return, the doctrine of becoming.
In other words, every circle is a repetition Ё a repetition with difference. It
constantly returns, but it returns to itself from becoming otherwise. Thus, it
should not be surprising that Deleuze and Gadamer share an unbelievably
identical view in their discussions of festivals. For Deleuze, ““[t]o repeat is to
behave in a certain manner, but in relation to something unique or singular
which has no equal or equivalent……This is the apparent paradox of festivals:
they repeat an ‘‘unrepeatable.’’ They do not add a second and a third time to the
first, but carry the first time to the ‘‘nth’’ power”” (DR 1). Nietzsche’’s synthesis
94ʳ NTU Studies in Language and Literature

of past, present, and future signifies the second moment’’s return within the first,
and accordingly, every festival has already embedded in the first.
For Gadamer, ““[t]he festival changes from one time to the
next……Nevertheless from this historical perspective it would still remain one and
the same festival that undergoes this change. It was originally of such and such
a nature and was celebrated in such and such a way, then differently, and then
differently again”” (123). Every repetition of the to-and-fro movement is as
original as it can be, and ““[w]e call that the return of the festival”” (122). ““It has
its being only in becoming and return”” (123). The fusion of the present and the
past is Gadamer’’s project of hermeneutic circle, just like the Nietzschean
synthesis of time.
Every to-and-fro movement brings the ““self”” to interact with the other and
then engenders a new ““self.”” Gadamer compares the hermeneutic experience to
conversation (377), in which the self encounters the other, the difference.
Likewise, we form our identities in a dialogical form of interaction between the
self and the other. In the hermeneutic experience, the self and the other coexist
in the newly-formed subjectivity. Every dialogue introduces the difference of
the other to self; every time the identity is effaced and reconstructed, and
accordingly the subjectivity is constantly changing. The irreducible interplay
of sameness and difference lies in the complex dialogue, and ““the
identity-in-difference”” brings forth recognition. Taylor’’s identity, which is
constructed by the dialogical relations of the self and the other and out of the
recognition of difference, is far from static, and can be called ““collective”” in that
multiple forces are at work in the making of the subjectivity as Guattari and
Deleuze envision. The fusion of horizons, therefore, is the fusion of the past
and the present, of the self and the other, of the sameness and the difference, of
the strangeness and the acquaintance, and of ““I”” and ““Thou,”” in which we can
finally live together –– the ultimate concern of multiculturalism.

Conclusion
I have followed Buchanan, who puts the question of the formation of the
subject at the center of the Deleuzian cultural studies, and proposed that the
Deleuzoguattarian non-human model of subjectivity serve to fill the remarkable
absence of Deleuze from the map of multiculturalism. With the combination of
the hodgepodge model of multiculturalism and the trichotomous citizenship
does the Deleuzoguattarian model of subjectivity work well both in theory and
 Deleuze and Multiculturalismʳ 95

in practice. Taylor’’s ““politics of recognition,”” which provides a model of

dialogical subjectivity, contributes to multiculturalism a philosophical
underpinning for the importance of the ““recognition of difference.”” We have
seen that Deleuze’’s idea of repetition-in-difference, which appropriates
Nietzsche’’s eternal return and doctrine of becoming, can be employed to explain
Gadamer’’s ““fusion of horizons”” and ““the hermeneutic circle”” –– the cornerstones
of Taylor’’s philosophy. This is the intersection of Deleuze and
multiculturalism.
We started wita Deleuze’’s philosophy of transcendental empiricism, the
principles of difference and repetition, and the non-human model of subjectivity,
then we came to multiculturalism, a territory never visited by Deleuzian
philosophy, but finally we brought ourselves home with a Deleuzian
multiculturalism. The experience, in a sense, is a hermeneutic one, in which
the home-coming is a repetition with difference. At the end, we came to
realize that Deleuze had been already there. ““I have always felt that I am an
empiricist, that is,”” Deleuze claims, ““a pluralist”” (D vii).

About the Author

Hsing-hao Chao, a Ph.D. student in Department of English at National
Chengchi University.
E-mail:hsh.chao@msa.hinet.net
96ʳ NTU Studies in Language and Literature

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