Deleuze’s and Guattari’s Body Without Organs and Lacan’s Other Jouissance: Bodies Under Capitalism

Abstract

Much has been written about the disagreement and even radical opposition between Gilles Deleuze’s and Félix Guattari’s conceptualizations and those of Jacques Lacan: for example, about desire, psychotherapy, the subject and the radically opposed political consequences that result from their approaches. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate from a Lacanian perspective that in the case of a central concept such as the body, there are rather more similarities than differences. Its main thesis is that Deleuze’s and Guattari’s body without organs is very close to Lacan’s notion of the Other jouissance and that with slightly different strategies they both provide arguments to fight the same enemy: that is, the control and repression of singularity under capitalism.