Freud: Discovery of the Unconscious

For the study of civilizations, ethno-sociology, and particularly for constructing a correct model of Westernology, one can turn to psychoanalysis and its topologies. One of the definitions of civilization is psychoanalytic. Such an approach might be instrumentally and hermeneutically productive for other approaches as well – as a model for comparison and clarification of some difficult points and not fully clear correspondences.

Here, attention must naturally be paid to Freud.

Firstly, to his general picture of the subconscious, where he identifies the instance of the Id (Es) and elevates the subconscious to the main area of study, significantly expanding the conventional concepts of the subject in Western philosophy and psychology of the Modern period. Civilizations have an unconscious, and with the plurality of civilizations, one can assume that each has its own unconscious.

Secondly, in his later work "Totem and Taboo," Freud proposes his Oedipal version of the genesis of cultures. It is based on the narrative that in the primordial epoch of the horde (historical conventionality, model) all women belonged to the eldest in the lineage – the Father. The sons were forced to make do with what was left by the Father. Then, a conspiracy among the brothers arises, who decide to castrate and kill the Father. This is the origin of civilization. The brothers kill the Father and distribute his wives among themselves, securing one strictly for each. Thus, the modern monogamous (with variations) family emerges, a kind of fraternal order, and the original drama becomes the main plot of culture and the map of the unconscious. This is no longer patriarchy but a kind of brotherhood. The pangs of conscience for the crime committed in illo tempore permeate contemporary civilization, making it Oedipal. Unity becomes negative, and the main principle is the distribution of erotic resources and the capital of desire among individual secondary members of the family – which can be applied to the breakup of an Empire into principalities, national states, or regicide (England, France, Russia) and the establishment of democracy. The shame for what was done will accompany the political self-awareness of such an Oedipal brotherhood, setting the framework for moral and dream life.

Applying this to civilizations, we can consider multipolarity as a new form of brotherhood, overthrowing the claim to global domination of the American Father-hegemon. Anti-colonial struggle and resistance to Western neo-imperialism acquire an Oedipal character – to castrate and kill the globalist elite and then manage their resources at their own discretion.

The Multiplicity of Collective Unconsciouses in Jung

Carl Gustav Jung's model complements Freud's topic with the notion of the collective unconscious, which contains immutable archetypes, figures, structures, and relations that structure unconscious processes and predetermine the process of individuation and rationalization of the subject. This is a more complex model than Freud's, but it is based on the same presumption of the determining influence of the subconscious (Id, Es) in the overall structure of the subject.

Jung himself oscillated between considering the collective unconscious as culturally determined or universal, preferring at times the school of "cultural circles" (W. Schmidt, F. Graebner) and at other times the theory of the unity of innate ideas (A. Bastian). Eventually, Jung settled on Bastian's approach, discovering stable archetypes and symbols in the unconscious analysis of an American Negro, considered peculiar to Indo-European peoples. Today, such an argument appears rather lightweight, as symbols and signs do not correlate with ethnic masses at all, but this does not negate differences in the structure of the unconscious.

In the theory of multipolarity, the aspects of Jung's teaching where he speaks of differences between civilizations at the unconscious level are most relevant, and this stance, developed by the Romanian philosopher Lucian Blaga regarding the "inner landscape," would be quite constructive for researching the deep identities of each civilization.

Félix Guattari's Map

However, the most interest is presented by the prospect of applying the model of the French psychoanalyst and co-author of philosopher Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, to civilization analysis. Partly, Guattari and Deleuze follow Freudian topology with Lacanian corrections, and partly, they strive to relate it as closely as possible to the empirical experience of the subject in its various states – including early childhood, altered states of consciousness, and a wide range of psychological deviations and disorders. Moreover, Guattari aims to maximally decentralize psychoanalytic discourse, to abandon the male perspective on sexuality (present in Freud), and to trace the formation of desires and complexes down to the primary psychophysical layers. Thus, a notion of the rhizomatic subject emerges, devoid of strict hierarchy. And the entire psychoanalytic topology takes on an extravagant and eccentric appearance.

This maximally broad conception of the subject, encompassing all ages, states, pathologies, and deviations, forms the basis of an original map, through which detailed mapping of consciousness, the unconscious, and the system of relations that appears at first glance as the "external world" but is actually the result of intensive psychic construction of its shell, habitus, is carried out.

In Guattari's late book "Chaosmosis," the following scheme of 4 functors is proposed:

The sheet is divided into 4 sectors –

• T (Territories),
• U (Universes),
• Ph (Phylum, species series of machines),
• F (Flus, Flows).

The top area is of the possible (Ph and U). The bottom – of the real (F and T). The upper half corresponds to deterritorialization, the lower – to reterritorialization.

Territory as the Totality of the Empirical Subject

Territory (T) – this is the area of final existential subjectivations or the emergent self, i.e., manifestations of subjectivity and proto-subjectivity (one could say, quasi-subjectivity). Guattari admits the presence of a territory (in his definition) in animals and birds, manifested through sounds, signs, gestures, and signal language.

This is not yet the existing but already existing in some sense 'I' of a newborn child, as well as any other 'I' in any phase and configuration. This is its territory. Always concrete. This subjectivity is not yet structured and can be structured in various ways. Moreover, according to Guattari, individuation is not a linear process. It can branch out, disperse, return to go down a different path at a fork, or to find something important and missed (externally, this might seem like regression or deviation), gather into a fist (paranoia), or break apart into several 'I's (some forms of schizophrenia), and these 'I's can, in turn, link with external things and phenomena – people, objects, phantoms.

According to Guattari, in the T zone, all subjectivity is placed - initial, developed, imagined, scattered, strictly constructed, human or not quite. Moreover, all at once, without linearity, hierarchy, or taxonomy. All possible variations of the self in all states - from pre-self to post-self or would-be self.

That it's about territorialization (and even reterritorialization) underscores that the empirical subject is always placed somewhere. This refers to Heidegger's Dasein, where being, presence, always unfolds in a quite concrete 'da' – here, there, right here/there. One could consider the zone of territories (T) as the subject (in a broad sense), placed in 'da,' which is an inseparable feature of it. It becomes this 'da,' as Heidegger himself emphasized, suggesting to translate Dasein into French not as être-lá but as être le lá.

Guattari's Territory aims to express this.

It's important to consider Guattari's expanded interpretation of the emergent self from the first minutes of infancy to old age, including regressions and all possible malfunctions, deviations, and pathologies, as well as a set of near-human subjectivities. Applied to civilizations, in foundational myths, we invariably encounter references to non-human or not quite human subjects, actively participating in the foundation of a people's culture – dragons, talking trees and grasses, magical fish, descending celestial bodies, animated mountains, rivers, giants, angels, "gods," etc. The territory of a civilization's subject should be considered comprehensively – not only in relation to other zones of Guattari's scheme but also within itself. It is not unitary or linear, can fragment into many components endowed with significant autonomy, go beyond the human, or, conversely, consolidate and strengthen.

In the theory of a multipolar world, the T zone can be taken as the root of civilization identity, as the ἀρχή of civilization. The mobility and dynamism of the root identity (T), as the pole of reterritorialization, will affect its relationship with the Universe (U) and explain the content of history.

Zone of Flows, Partial Objects, Empirical Matter

To the left of T is the zone F, Flows. This is what borders subjectivity - partial or transitive objects, escaping fixation in the form of continuously changing parts without a whole. Transitive or partial objects – a psychoanalytic term meaning items, most often dream or delusion images, which are suspended between two or more specific and recognizable (territorializable) things.

The zone F, Flows – this is matter, or rather, matters, multiple, not quite formless, but not quite formed semi-objects. If T is the proto-subject, subject, and near-subject, then F is the proto-object, semi-object, and near-object. Flows (F) – this is everything that the Territory did not include, did not deal with, did not immanently master. It's a kind of basic materiality, on which the landscape rests. And this is different for each civilization. Similar or not.

For Guattari, emergent subjectivity applies more to the individual, but it can quite be extended to cultures and civilizations. Clearly, each civilization is placed in its "nature." In the most general terms, the root identity of a civilization (its Territory) is enclosed in an area where, at the border, the movement of not quite understandable masses begins.

Thus, for the Greeks, the ecumene is encircled by Oceanus. This is F, Flows. If an object is mastered by the subject, it is included in the Territory (T). In the case of Greek mythology, these are freshwater rivers. They provide harvest, drinking water, life. They enter the Territory. Gods and goddesses, spirits, and the mythological population of rivers are close to the subject, placed almost on the Territory itself.

But if an object is discarded, it is endowed with opposite qualities, and in our case, it becomes the salty sea – salty water cannot be drunk, travel by sea is fraught with storms and disasters, and monsters lurk in the depths. The sea is an area of alienation. It is outside the Territory. It actually represents the most distant horizon of the Flow (F).

The Flow itself in an intermediate state is a transitive object – Oceanus is neither fresh nor salty.

In other mythologies, this role is played by the Serpent coiled around the earth (Jörmungandr of the Germans, Vritra of the Hindus). F can also signify monetary flows, the space of a dump, the boundary between field and forest, a telegraph pole tilted at 45 degrees, etc. In myths, the Flow zone (F) is what lies immediately beneath the world. Between the Territory and Flows lies a membrane. T and F can transition into each other, narrowing or expanding at each other's expense. Here, as at all other four borders of the sectors of the functors, the principle of osmosis operates – the membranes are semi-permeable, some elements they allow through, others they hold back.

For Guattari, Territory and Flows are the most root forms of the subject-object relationship in all variations and stages. However, strictly speaking, the empirical subject never deals with matter in its pure form (as a quality-less substrate of things) nor even with purely external (external) things. The external is always located at the border with the internal, precisely at the border, and beyond lies something intermediate between being and non-being. At the same time, the ominous mass, somewhat reminiscent of something familiar and known, yet partly unlike anything else, always lurks in close proximity to the Territory (T) – this is indeed the experience of the Flow (F). This can be the force of the otherworld, lurking in the forest, in the depths of waters, in distant wild places, in the night and dark moments. It is never perceived directly but always indirectly, obliquely, tangentially. In early philosophy, Flows were most often associated with elements, which are typical transitive (partial) objects. After all, water or earth as elements are not the water and earth we deal with in life – they are rather liquidity and solidity in themselves, not given in experience. In the experience that begins beyond the external boundary of things.

Such transitive objects are also Titans, giants, and monsters. Friedrich Georg Jünger wrote:

"If there were no Titanic beginnings, the dominion of the gods would be established upon emptiness, it would be unstable and would have no opposition against which it could contrast and in relation to which it could acquire its own form. This dominion is quite substantial and requires bearing pillars, requires shoulders and necks like those of Atlas, on which this entire burden rests."

Eidetically formed things rest upon the Flow. For a newborn baby, the Flow is immediately adjacent to the point of its attention. There is not yet the mother's body, not the self, not windows, doors, and walls, nor the nurses' hands and cold surgical instruments. All this will come later – as the child's subject territory expands. But for now, there is only the Flow that closely surrounds it.

In archaic cultures, Territory and Flow are the predominant zones. This is nature and nurture, the raw and the cooked, etc. The dialectic between them is easily traceable. C. Lévi-Strauss and other anthropologists have studied this in detail and even presented it in mathematical models.

However, anthropologists have never applied this method to the study of civilizations, limiting themselves to the investigation of small archaic collectives – tribes and clans. Yet, the same relationships between Territory and Flow operate on the scale of civilizations, provided we approach their identities in the spirit of Guattari's emergent subject, encompassing diverse and nonlinear routes, returns, deviations, and zigzags along which civilization's "I"s can move and change.

At the level of T – F, the primary relationships between the basic root civilizational identity and its "containing landscape" (L. Gumilev) are established. As well as with what lies directly beneath it – with the dragon, the serpent, the turtle, the elephant, hell, outer twilight, Sheol, Tartarus, and other names for matters, sub-corporeal zones, that is, the Flow.

The Romanian philosopher Lucian Blaga believed that each people carries in its unconscious a set of typical landscapes that define and map its perception of reality. The relationship between Territory and Flow is fixed at a deep level, openly manifesting in mythology but acting constantly in dreams, states, aesthetic criteria, psychological settings, subtly and implicitly.

Therefore, each civilizational Territory corresponds to its Flow, its materiality, its special materials. Here, one can refer to Gaston Bachelard's 5 volumes dedicated to the imagination of material elements. Each civilization has its own water and its own earth, its own fire and its own air.

This is well illustrated in geopolitics. Its psychoanalytic underpinning is transparent: the civilization of Land (T) relates its Flow (F) to the soft, dead element, while the civilization of Sea (T) – to the hard, living element (F). For the Behemoth, the Flow is the Leviathan, but for the Leviathan, the Flow is the Behemoth. Between Russian and British civilizations, there exist inverse proportions at the tectonic-tactile level of internal landscapes.

Universes: The Logos of Civilization

Let's move to the next functor – the Universe or Universes (U). According to Guattari, here is concentrated the ideal model of what ought to be and what is normative. Intelligence achieves the free fullness of its unfolding – like the world of ideas in Plato. Universe (universum) should be understood here directly – "reduction to One."

One could say that the Universe (U) is the area where the Logos resides. In essence, this is the zone of the ideal, to which values, principles, attitudes, and meanings belong. From classical hierarchies, Guattari's model differs in this case only by denying the autonomy and self-existence of this functor, considering it just a moment in the overall system of his map. In other words, the emergent "I" ascends to the sphere of the ideal in a non-contradictory and unitary manner only as one of its possibilities. In some sense, according to Guattari's strictly immanent topology, the Territory, with certain inclinations, constitutes (osmotically – as in other cases) the Universe. At the same time, different configurations of subjectivity can generate different Universes – both co-possible (i.e., reducible to one non-contradictory ideal mega-universe) and non-co-possible, conflicting with each other. Thus, in the case of certain schizophrenic disorders, the same subject can live simultaneously in two or more Universes.

With some approximation, one can relate the Universe to Freud's Superego or Jung's Individual, but Guattari's scheme immediately cuts off any hint of hierarchy and verticality by pointing to the interconnection of all four functors. The Logos also depends on the emergent "I", whatever it may be!, just as this "I" (Territory) depends on it (U).

In the zone U, the root identity, essentially Dasein (T), transitions into metaphysics, and ontology into ontology.

Applying this to civilization, we get the civilizational Logos (U), which can represent various aspects of the existential horizon, Territory (T), that is, identity in its different cuts. Hence why the Universes of the same civilization change, and why each civilization has its own Logos.

Everything depends on the Territory (T), and on the phases and routes of the emergent "I", but also on their relationship with Flow (F). Hegel showed that subject-object is always constituted by a pair. Freud complements this at the level of dream language, expanding dimensionality. The civilizational approach also considers in describing each civilization's Universe that what lies at the foundation is not just the root identity, the people's Dasein, but also its relationship with the containing landscape, although the Flow functor (F) does not have a common osmotic boundary with the Universe (U), and the sphere of the ideal (in Guattari's possible) is completely free from any resistance from matter.

It should be noted that the existence of non-co-possible universes is explained by the singularity of intersections of the osmotic membrane between the zones of reterritorialization and deterritorialization by various configurations of the emergent "I" (T). This point by Guattari can be applied to civilization analysis. The process of transformations of the proto-I is not linear, and when applied to civilization identities, it explains the multiplicity of Logoi among different cultures.

Phylum of Abstract Machines

The last remaining functor Guattari names thus – Phylum of abstract machines and describes with the Greek letter Φ. This is the discursive set through which civilization expresses itself, turns into an algorithm, constructs. Guattari (like Deleuze) understands a machine not necessarily as something mechanical. The main property of a machine is the obsessive repetition of the same thing, recursiveness. The main property of a machine is that it rattles at a certain period, that it is a monotonous, insistent, redundant, and essentially identical sequence. A mechanism, however, is an alienated machine, its skeleton or device. This is not the same thing.

According to Spengler, Universe (U) should rightly be called "culture", while Φ (Phylum of abstract machines) should be called "civilization", as a purely technical expression, a cast of living culture, in some sense – a dummy. If we refer to the classification of Spengler's friend Leo Frobenius, then Universe can be called "paideuma" or the second phase of the unfolding of the original subjective impulse – Manifestation, Ausdruck (the first being, according to Frobenius, Ergriffenheit, obsession, which corresponds to Territory, especially in its contact with the Flow, which most often instills horror), and the Phylum of abstract machines will be the third and final stage – Application, Anwendung.

In the functor of the Phylum (Φ), the civilization's Logos records itself onto a carrier – any, but separate from the pure Logos itself, which is not just thought but the source of thought, thought in its essence. Thus – again osmotically – the Logos transitions into code, into rationality, into algorithmic tables. These include language, rituals, technologies, signs, markers, figures, and the machines themselves. This can be related to Kant's pure reason, that is, the communal form of discursive thinking.

Φ resembles Heidegger's das Man. It can function entirely without Dasein, with which (in our topology, this is Territory) it has no osmotic boundary. Φ is based on U, but the difference between them is like that between a word, a way of expression, and the mind itself.

Language is a typical machine in this sense; it constantly repeats the same sounds, words, expressions, phrases, addresses, and tropes. But each time, language narrates not about itself but about what is embedded in it, that is, about the Logos. An author records thoughts onto a medium, but anyone encountering what is recorded in the zone of the Phylum of abstract machines is called to perform the reverse operation – understanding, unpacking, extracting meaning, that is, crossing the membrane to the Universe (U). The spirit of culture expresses itself precisely through these abstract machines, through texts or prayers that are read and recited again and again, through typical gestures and ritual actions, through codes of emotions and reactions, through attitudes and endless repetitions (always with some errors, deviations) of the same cultural content. This structure also applies to discursive rationality and the system of laws and rules, instructions, and schemes. Here, the machine-like nature does not carry strictly pejorative connotations. It can be likened to a dance where figures are repeated or any other activity – from factory work to intimate relationships. Everywhere, the key is ritualistic recursiveness, the binary code – 1/0.

Now, all that remains is to outline the system of relations between Phylum and Flow, and we will conclude our examination of the scheme. Abstract machines, projecting themselves onto the Flow (F), create techno-materiality, breaking down transitive objects, but not according to the logic of their inclusion into the subject's Territory, but abstractly, mechanically. They are completely indifferent to the transitionality of a monster; they record a mermaid either as a woman or as a fish, cutting off any ambiguity or even denying the existence of anything that contradicts rationality.

Phylum, descending into the Flow (F), begins to embody itself in matter, transforming metaphor into material. Abstract machines create a technosphere, a kind of landscape design which, however, reaches the emergent "I" (T) directly through the Flow sector. This is precisely what the Marxist philosopher A. Lefebvre meant when he said that society first creates cities and architectural structures, and later, these are perceived by generations as something that has always existed and that encodes (re-encodes) their perception of the world. Thus, techno-flows emerge – electric current, movement of capital, networks, and elements of transport.

In mythology, the work of abstract machines is still naive and therefore easy to observe. Thus, the border twilight zones between Φ and F are described by many myths by analogy with known daytime culture. In the underworld or under water, there are kings and queens, courtiers, guards, and a kind of useful (or useless) labor of the dead. Machines process the depths of material ore, and the root subject (T) has to deal with this in turn. Thus, apparatuses penetrate into dreams and projects.

In Plato's "Republic," where the introduction to the famous allegory of the cave is discussed, two movements of discursive reason (διάνοια) are mentioned, which is the Phylum of abstract machines. In one case, reason relates itself to a thing (i.e., to the materiality of the Flow), and Plato calls this "hypothesis" (ὑπόθεσις – literally, "placed under"), and he contrasts it with another movement of reason, when it relates itself to the Idea. Plato uses a symmetrical concept – the verb άνοτίθημι (to place above, over), opposite to ὑπόθεσις, from ῠ̔ποτῐ́θημι). This is clearly visible on Guattari's scheme: the transition from Phylum to Universe is an anothesis, the transition from Φ to F is a hypothesis.

If elements (earth, water, air, fire, or their elements in Indian and Chinese philosophy) are more of an existential perception of the Flow from the Territory's side, then atoms or particles are products of machine intervention into the Flow, where transitive flow objects are brought to machine precision and binary code – atom and void. Here, even the transitionality itself is elevated to a super-material degree – an atom or particle is a part without a whole, a part of something unknown. The transitionality of their oneiric continuum transitions into the lifeless sterility of machine code.

In our civilizational approach, Phylum is a fixed cultural algorithm, the dominant rationality in civilization, an instruction for civilization, its decryption and usage, but not the civilization itself, which pertains to the Universe and belongs to another zone.

Relevance of Guattari's Method

Guattari's mapping is quite suitable for describing the psychoanalytic identity and structure of civilizations. Here, there is room for the existential horizon, Dasein – this is T (Territory). And for the Logos of civilization – U (Universe). And for alienated code, including agencies, practices, technical devices, legal canons, and financial systems – this is Φ (Phylum of abstract machines). And for the direct (through T) and mediated (through U and Φ) experience of materiality (F). We have obtained a comprehensive tool for the systemic description of a civilization, in which none of the criteria or parameters freezes all the diversity of processes occurring within it, constituting it and being constituted by it, since Guattari's map can be read in any direction and starting from any functor.

Guattari's Scheme and Heidegger's Theory

Continuing the theme of the psychoanalysis of civilizations, we will apply Guattari's map of 4 functors to other epistemological systems.

To illustrate the relevance of Guattari's model, we can provide a scheme that correlates it with the basic moments of Heidegger's philosophy.

A more detailed examination of Heidegger's philosophy is given in a separate work – "Martin Heidegger. The Last God". Relating Heidegger's ideas to Guattari's basic scheme is not something artificial or forced. After all, Guattari explicitly, and even more so implicitly, relies on Heidegger, just like all postmodern philosophers, borrowing from him phenomenology and the method of constructing completely immanent structures.

One can also distinguish a four-part system in Heidegger (although it does not coincide with his own model of the Fourfold – Geviert), which would correspond to Guattari's scheme with a certain degree of approximation.

Here is the scheme of Heidegger's Fourfold:

Here, Heidegger emphasizes that the human status at a deep level is determined through its relation to three other concepts – primarily with gods, that is, higher entities, in which all aspects of humanity achieve eternity, immortality, immutability, and perfection (the main axis), as well as with the density of Earth and the rarefaction of Sky. Like Aristotle, Heidegger equates the world (κόσμος) with the sky (ὀυρ ανός), understanding it as a structured, hierarchical ideal model.

Now, let's try to outline the correspondences with Guattari's scheme. We get roughly the following picture:

In Heidegger, Dasein is the main and starting point for the construction of philosophy. I wrote about this quite extensively in the book "Martin Heidegger. Philosophy of the Second Beginning," which is included in the volume "Martin Heidegger. The Last God". Relating Heidegger's Dasein to Guattari's Territory (T) is quite justified, and we indirectly touched upon this when discussing the very category of Territory, which Guattari probably related to the 'da' (here, there, there) of Dasein. Territory, as the area of the emergent "I" in Guattari's own terms, is called the "existential territory of subjectivation," confirming the legitimacy of such a relationship.

In Heidegger, Dasein and its immediate existentials serve as the basis for constructing both metaphysical generalizations (which can be correlated with the Universe, U) and for forming external experience. The area of metaphysics in Heidegger's scheme of the Fourfold is described as Sky or World, which quite corresponds to the Universe.

Regarding Earth, which corresponds to the Flow, Heidegger offers no clarity in this regard. This concept, mentioned in his middle and late works, is entirely absent from his early analysis of Dasein and phenomenology, remaining something mysterious. The only hint Heidegger provides about Earth is its conflict with the Sky. It is also mentioned again in the essay "The Origin of the Work of Art," where the interpretation of the image of the earth clinging to the peasant's boots on the table in Van Gogh's painting is discussed. Heidegger gives no indication of Freudian transitive objects; moreover, he does not rush to associate Earth with elements or matter, avoiding this concept altogether. Therefore, here, we cannot confirm or deny the adequacy of associating Heidegger's Earth with Guattari's Flow (F).

As for the Phylum of abstract machines, they fully resemble Heidegger's concept of das Man, which we referenced to explain this functor in Guattari's scheme. Essentially, das Man is rationality completely detached from Dasein, from subjectivity, placed in an entirely independent zone where existentiality is reduced to zero. Yet, das Man directly depends on metaphysics (U), which determines and structures its algorithms. Heidegger sometimes equates metaphysics with technology, linking them into a single knot of alienated thinking. However, Guattari's scheme restores more balanced proportions and relationships. The Logos (Sky) is not directly responsible for the Phylum, which represents its mechanical imprint, its alienated and relatively autonomous simulacrum.

In the sphere of the Phylum of abstract machines lies what Heidegger understands by technology and his specific concept of Gestell.

When discussing how Dasein relates to something external (the Flow?) through existentiales, if we speak of direct contact, through the Phylum of smart machines, Dasein also directly perceives something already processed, rationalized, passed through the strict rational apparatus of an alienated culture. Heidegger hints at this when he says that the simplicity of a simple (or foolish) person is far from simple. To form the image of his foolishness, powerful mechanisms are involved, multi-level machines, about whose workings the simpleton has no distant understanding. Heidegger attributes to the Phylum values, ideologies, and any other forms of rationally formatted reality that come to Dasein through the cycle of metaphysical mediation.

Compared to the Fourfold, we have lost the pole of gods, so important (especially for late Heidegger). But this is not accidental, as Guattari strives to exclude any hint of transcendence and hierarchy, working hard at it, while Heidegger merely insists that this dimension should not turn into an abstraction but maintain a direct and living existential contact with Dasein. Heidegger laments that the coarseness of people and their rationality repels the gods, causing them to withdraw from the persistent and annoying human. Perhaps, in this case, it is Guattari's scheme itself that repels them.

The relationship between T and U, when superimposing Heidegger's concepts onto Guattari's scheme, forms an existential theory of society, a sketch of which we find in some of Heidegger's works, particularly in the posthumously published "Black Notebooks". It speaks of society being thought of existentially, that is, as an organic elevation of Dasein (in our case, Territory, T) to a higher level – into the zone of the U functor, rather than the rigid imposition of a Universe formed entirely detached from Dasein. Society (culture, civilization, state, philosophy, order, Logos) should never lose connection with the emergent "I". Otherwise, alienation and profound conflict will occur. Therefore, the elite should be народная (of the people) and formed in an indissoluble connection with the people-Dasein, whose elevation into the realm of the ideal it is meant to be. Here, the osmotic nature of the membrane between the functors in Guattari's scheme comes in handy, helping to decipher and complete some aspects of Heidegger's "folk monarchy".

Gilbert Durand: Map of Imagination

Now, let's try to overlay Gilbert Durand's model of the three modes of imagination onto Guattari's functor scheme. Here's a brief reminder of Durand's main propositions:

Let's imagine the result of projecting Durand's ideas onto a scheme we'll try to explain below:

The central concept in his theory is the imaginaire (l’imaginaire), the root instance of imagination responsible for all forms with which human consciousness deals – from conceptual and mediated to immediate and sensory. When defining the imaginaire, Durand avoids identifying it with the subject or "I", preferring to talk about the trajectory, that is, what lies between the subject and object, defining both simultaneously. This instance can well be identified with Heidegger's Dasein and Guattari's Territory (T). In meaning, the imaginaire corresponds to the emergent "I".

Durand divides the content of imagination (the products of the imaginaire's activity) into three major groups (myths, archetypes, symbols, narratives) and two modes.

The two modes are diurne, the "day mode," and nocturne, the "night mode." The three groups (schemes) are heroic narratives, dramatic narratives, and mystical narratives. Diurne, the "day mode," includes only one group – heroic narratives. Nocturne, the "night mode," consists of two groups – dramatic and mystical. Both are "nightly," sharing certain common characteristics (of the mode) but differing in internal properties.

For Durand, it is crucial to distinguish precisely three groups of myths because their differentiation is based on their structural incommensurability with each other.

Durand correlates the three modes of the imaginaire with three dominant reflexes, inherent (according to physiologists) in a newborn. Dominant (according to A.A. Ukhtomsky) is characterized by the complete subordination of all other responses of the organism, which lead or could lead to the satisfaction (or alleviation) of the dominant need.

Gilbert Durand draws a very clever analogy between these three groups of symbols, dreams, and archetypes and three dominant reflexes. By the first year of life, a baby has a complete structure of the imaginaire, which will largely predetermine everything that happens to him in the future. All his future dreams, reactions, and the semantics of life events are laid down in the first year. This is quite a Freudian model, which Durand readily acknowledges.

The first reflex is postural (the standing-up reflex and later walking), meaning the baby's impulse to stand (initially to sit). At six months, the child begins to sit up. His spine straightens, and he faces the world. He essentially becomes involved in the diurnal mode. Around him, adults walk, he starts to evaluate their height, fears falling because one who stands can fall, unlike one who still lies down. The figures of adults are images of the diurnal mode, their observation generates images of giants and titans. It was this highly developed diurnality that led medieval architects to build Gothic cathedrals and modern Americans to construct skyscrapers.

The diurnal functioning of the imaginaire is responsible for constructing idealistic systems. In essence, high culture, the Logos itself, is the product of this mode. In Guattari's scheme, this is obviously associated with the Universe (U). If there is a priority development of such a diurnal mode, we are dealing with a strictly idealistic type of personality, or in the extreme case, with paranoia. The empirical subject no longer distinguishes between itself and the sphere of ideas, shifting the center of gravity to the Universe, to the detriment of other functors.

The other reflex associated with the mode of mystical nocturne is the nutritive (nutritional) or digestive reflex. A newborn human being becomes acquainted with this reflex even earlier. As soon as it is born, it begins to eat and does not stop doing so until the end of its life. To eat means to fully incorporate something else into oneself, and what you eat then becomes part of you. The act of eating is an assimilation process. The little human drinks mother's milk, and thus, the external world enters into him and becomes his internal world, him. He sees no division in this; he sees a mystical moment of union and experiences immense pleasure from it. Because the act of eating food is a specific constitutive shock for the human being. Essentially, it is a reconciliation with time and with death, an overcoming of them (albeit illusory).

The relationship with food is a paradigm for relationships with the matters of the external world. It's no coincidence that in Lévi-Strauss's system, the metaphor of stages and methods of food preparation is taken as the basic algorithm of culture.

This mode of the imaginaire would logically be associated with Guattari's Flow functor (F). Indeed, it's through food that the emergent "I" makes contact with what lies at the boundary of and just beyond the Territory. Food is primarily a transitive object. It's no longer parts of the external world – animals, plants, berries, etc., but not yet aspects of the internal, digestive, assimilating experience of the inner "I".

The mystical nocturne mode is responsible for the imaginaire's formation of matter images. Here, the materiality of the Flow is particularly accentuated, becoming a strong attractor of the imaginaire, generating series of material fantasies, desires, and intense bodily appetites.

This mode is opposite to the diurnal mode and the postural reflex. Therefore, in many cultures – particularly among the Greeks and Romans – food was consumed while lying down. Also, until a certain time, a baby lies in the arms of their mother (nurse).

In the extreme case, the mystical nocturne leads to the atrophy of the higher idealistic layers of consciousness. This type of pathology corresponds to a wide spectrum of schizophrenia. It should be noted that Guattari himself and his co-author Gilles Deleuze had a great sympathy for this orientation, from which comes their prescriptive concept of schizo-masses. In politics, this dispersion of the imaginaire across the Flow and the fusion of consciousness with attractive materials corresponds to democracy and an egalitarian society. In the extreme case, consciousness no longer understands that it deals with transitive objects, perceiving them as the norm and avoiding any ideational intrusions from the Universe. The monstrous becomes commonplace.

The third mode, according to Durand, is the dramatic nocturne. It is associated with the copulative reflex, i.e., the reflex of copulation. It is believed to be present even in infants (an axiom for Freud) and manifests through their constantly repeated rhythmic gestures, for example, tapping or shaking a rattle. Any child's movement that is repeated multiple times relates to the copulative reflex one way or another. The repetition of the same thing signifies the reproduction of a binary code – yes-no, touch-not touch, here-there. This is not an absolute fusion, as in digestive monism, nor a one-time, unique, irreversible act – like breaking a toy (which is the classical model of a man, the masculine diurnal archetype, wanting to know what's inside a machine). The mystical nocturne glues all things together, while the diurnal mode dissects, breaks things apart, trying to reveal their eidos, and the copulative reflex shakes things.

Copulation is carried out through repeated rhythmic movements, which, according to Durand, are primary. The idea of copulativeness as rhythm, dance, and repetition lies at the foundation of the copulative reflex, fully manifesting in the mode of dramatic nocturne.

In our scheme, the dramatic nocturne falls into the functor of the Phylum of smart machines (Φ). Here, it becomes clear where the concept of the "desire machine" comes from. A machine is continuous repetition, which in turn is the code algorithm of copulation (according to Durand). The machine is desire as recursive reproduction. Therefore, the work of discursive reason, the construction of narratives, and the very cyclicity of language (where the same sounds, syllables, words, expressions, combinations are repeated endlessly) is the domain of machine erotics.

In "Noomachy," we associate the three modes of Durand's imaginaire with three Logoi – Apollo, Dionysus, and Cybele – which allows us to place them on Guattari's map as well. Further reflection on these correspondences (always approximate, metaphorical, and rhetorical) could be extremely productive. In particular, one could quote Proclus:

"The mind in us is Dionysian and truly is the image of Dionysus. Therefore, anyone who dissects it and, like the Titans, fractures its wholeness with deceptive division, evidently sins against Dionysus himself."

Here, the Titans correspond to the Flow (F), while the Dionysian mind is located between the Universe (U), where it converges with Apollonian unity, and actual materiality. This is an extremely interesting approach to the erotic and even ecstatic nature of reason, which is often overlooked. The process of discursive thinking is a story, a narrative, a procession of Dionysus. If we proceed from the Φ functor on our scheme to the right, we come to the unifying nature of the Universe (anothesis in the divided line of Plato's "Republic"). If we go down (hypothesis in the divided line of Plato's "Republic"), we head towards the zone of the Flow, that is, to Tartarus, to the Titans. The desire machine is the sensual fragmentation of matters, meaning the psychoanalytic engine of the scientific worldview of the Modern Age – with its obsession with materialism, atomization, and the search for the smallest particles.

9 Schemes of Westernology

Now, let's apply Guattari's map to the Westernological scheme of the relationship between Western European and Russian civilizations.

The scheme shows those points that should be correlated with the distribution of the 4 functors.

Accordingly, we get a set of 9 schemes, whose places are marked on the Westernology graph.

The first scheme describes the Greek paradigm.

Scheme 1)

Everything here is evident and requires no explanation.

On the second scheme, Christianity and the Roman Empire are added to the Universe, Latins are included in the Territory zone, and the Phylum of abstract machines is supplemented with the translation of Greek meanings into Latin.

Scheme 2)

On scheme 3, nothing fundamentally changes except that the Territory of the emergent "I" now changes its ethnic content, and Latin dominates in the Phylum of abstract machines (but the meanings are still Greek).

 

Scheme 3)

On the fourth scheme, the emergent "I" is already predominantly represented by Germans and Celts, the Universe and Flow remain the same, but a new position is added to Latin in the debate about universals, bringing a completely new vector of rational discourse, not yet dominant.

Scheme 4)

However, on the fifth scheme, there's a significant transformation of the entire model.

Scheme 5)

Here, the crucial aspect is that an entire sector disappears – the Universe. The idealistic functor is essentially abolished since we transition to the Age of Modernity, where the immanent topic is built on the complete negation of the transcendent, which is denied existence. Reason (i.e., the Phylum of abstract machines), which in the overall map has no direct contact with the emergent "I" (with T), now, with the omission of the Universe, is osmotically connected to it, thus erasing the boundary between rationality (διάνοια) and the world of ideas (νοῦς). This is clearly visible in Francis Bacon, and even more transparent in Lo now means a product of individual human thought.

The content of the Territory also changes, as the focus shifts from the collective identity of a people to the individual. Moreover, the Phylum of abstract machines acquires a new structure where nominalism and the digitality of binary code become dominant and the norm. This affects the structure of the Flow, which is now perceived through the prism of atomism, i.e., as a rational abstraction pressing on the Territory from the outside. The immanence of the Flow becomes fundamentally justified, and the area of direct control of the emergent consciousness sharply decreases, as it no longer has support in the Universe. Here, the Phylum of abstract machines first becomes a genuine das Man of Heidegger, as it does not resolve back into the Universe, into which one could ascend anothetically. Plato's cave is tightly sealed from above, and now no one can leave under any circumstances. Philosophy is suspended in reason, while the testimony of truth and reality is transferred to the Flow, scientifically described and studied. The machine of discursive thought converges with the rationalized flow, generating mechanics. The emergent "I" of the individual is flattened from both sides by the abstraction of reason and the matter imbued with the metaphysical property of being an abstract yet omnipresent reality.

This is how the map of the functors of Western Modernity looks.

On the next scheme, we have the final stage of the transformation of Western civilization into the Postmodern era.

Scheme 6)

Here, the emergent "I" is effectively abolished, being replaced by a rhizomatic hybrid through transgressive experience. The Flow zone expands maximally, the machine-like nature of reason (thought placed on a carrier) in turn becomes mechanical and hardware (computer). Technologies definitively displace ontologies. The development of Western civilization reaches a phase where it no longer shares anything in common with the initial scheme 1) and the subsequent schemes 2) and 3).

Now, let's trace the filiation of Russian civilization. Schemes 1) and 2) correspond to the common roots with the West. Then, the Western line moves to scheme 3), while the line of Orthodox civilization moves to scheme 7).

Scheme 7)

Here, the emergent "I" changes to the community of the Russian people. The Universe remains largely Byzantine, and although the Phylum of abstract machines is Russified, like Latin in earlier stages, it serves to express predominantly Greek meanings. The Flows look somewhat archaic here but generally correspond to the elements. This scheme is normative for describing the Russian code, which is fully established during the period of the Muscovite Tsardom.

In the period of active modernization and Westernization of Russia, this fundamental Russian scheme 7) changes somewhat.

Scheme 8)

The Territory remains the same. The Universe zone is largely preserved (with the exception of the Soviet period, when it was replaced by Soviet ideology of an atheistic-materialistic nature, but even then, Russian idealism and the values of the Empire shone through communist dogmas). However, the functor of the Phylum of abstract machines undergoes a qualitative change under the influence of Western culture. There is a colonization of the sphere of reason, which is most evident in science, education, and to some extent in culture and art. The Russian spontaneous-fairy-tale perception of the Flow changes into mechanical atomistic views, which pressures the Russian emergent "I", putting it in a difficult position. But unlike Western civilization, the preservation of the Universe area provides an escape from the growing pressure of materials.

Moreover, upon closer examination, the Flow functor shows the overlay of Western European atomism (dictated by the Phylum of abstract machines) onto the archaic perception of material where elements are combined with fairy-tale motifs, revealing the nature of transitive objects. This can serve as an explanation for a phenomenon like Russian cosmism (N. Fedorov, K. Tsiolkovsky, etc.), where we encounter a curious fusion of Western European mechanism with the deep psychological forms of purely Slavic perception of the Flow. Hence arise narratives about collecting the dust of ancestors scattered across the atoms of the Universe, the scientific resurrection of the dead in flesh using new technologies, etc. Thus, one can speak of "magical matter" which, in the Flow functor, is interwoven with the mechanical materialism of European Modernity.

Scheme 8) generally describes the model of Russian archaemodernity and clearly explains the nature of those socio-cultural pathologies that constitute its core.

Scheme 9)

The last scheme Scheme 9) is the horizon of Russia's recovery from archaemodernity and a return to its true civilizational identity, faithful to its entire historical trajectory.

The difference between schemes 7) and 9) lies only in their relation to archaemodernity – scheme 7) precedes it, while scheme 9) follows it, thus being the horizon of the Conservative Revolution.

Functions of West-European peoples

To this analysis, we can add two more schemes that consider the distribution of ethnic poles within Western civilization. For the epoch of the beginning of Western civilization, when it had recently diverged from the Orthodox vector, this distribution of functors is characteristic.

Here, the emergent "I" is the Western European identity itself, while the other functors are mostly represented by various Western European ethnic groups. Thus, the Universe functor corresponds most closely to the German spirit, manifested in the creation by Germans of grandiose philosophical idealistic systems from Dietrich von Freiberg and the Rhineland mystics (Meister Eckhart, Heinrich Seuse, Johannes Tauler) to Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and Heidegger. The Flow functor corresponds to the particular inclination of Celtic peoples and cultures towards water elements and otherworldly realms. The element of the Sea lies at the heart of Celtic culture. It can be assumed that Celtic imagination significantly influenced the perception of matter within the broader context of European culture. At the same time, Latin, as a language, legal system, and encoding of ancient Greco-Roman rationality, served up to a certain point the function of the Phylum of abstract machines.

These hypotheses on the distribution of Western European ethnic groups across the functors of Guattari's map help to understand the gradual rise in importance of England and the key role of the Anglo-Saxons in Modernity and Postmodernity.

In England, the German and Celtic beginnings merged, in such a proportion that from the Germans, the English inherited not the idealistic Universe but an acute will. From the Celts, who also played a significant role in shaping English identity and inhabited the British Isles before the arrival of Germanic tribes, the English inherited materialism (devoid of the charm of Celtic magic) and a penchant for the Sea element. While on the European continent, Celts (France) and Germans (Germany) existed separately, occupying the West and East of Western Europe respectively, in England, they mixed, giving rise to a dual culture. In this context, the Phylum of abstract machines, initially Latin as in the rest of Europe, gradually changed to a unique positivist and utilitarian style of purely English thinking. The logical expression of this British Phylum became the philosophy of individualism, capitalism, political liberalism, as well as a drive to transfer rational systems onto a technical carrier, leading to digital civilization, digitization, and Artificial Intelligence. The global spread of the English language and its dominance in the computer field is not merely a consequence of the expanse of the historical British Empire. Essentially English is the modern empirical materialistic positivist science. English is the ideology of liberalism, aspiring to universality. The overwhelming majority of mass musical culture also pertains to the English-speaking world.

English is the Western European Modernity and, to a large extent, Postmodernity.

Thus, Guattari's scheme of four functors has helped to systematize a whole series of phenomena related to civilizations, which is an important element in further developing the theory of a multipolar world and the accompanying Westernology.

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