I had the same thought, that the key challenge is to be careful about installing the rhizome as a technique, rather than celebrating it as a force, of which we’re a part. Re-reading d&g, however, the thought about this metaphor is that in proposing a way of unthinking power, it does risk avoiding acknowledging asymmetry. The fact that a firing squad can operate without a general (another way they look at the rhizomatic) doesn’t stop it being a firing squad.

And I’m not sure, as I’ve been writing on MfD, that the orchid and the wasp are playing the same game, or with the same consequences for each other, whereas the rhizome model suggests that they are, and that they become the same in doing so.

So the joyful model is the rhizome; the risk is the Borg.

Is there a way of sustaining a practice of watchful celebration within the rhizomatic, I wonder, and is this in fact where our responsibility lies?

Thanks so much for inviting comment on this post.