“tired of trees”

In A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze and Guattari, 20th century French post-structuralists, are interested in explorations and subversions instead of analytic logic and unified Truth, of which the concept of the rhizome is only part. They contend that the tree – the arboreal structure- is the dominant image of the world; in the image of the tree, the world is categorized by stratification and the illusion of unity. Basically, the complex of roots at the bottom is exploited to support the fruit at the top, which serves only to reproduce additional tree-like complexes, additional hierarchical structures. “Arborescent systems are hierarchical systems with centers of significance and subjectification, central automata like organized memories.” In opposition to the arboreal is the rhizomatic, which is characterized by the rhizome or fascicular (bundle) root. The rhizome root, like that of grass, is one that moves outward, not upward, in a decentralized fashion to multiply in the places that suit its growth – and some places that don’t.

… the authors say, “We’re tired of trees. We should stop believing in trees, roots, and radicles. They’ve made us suffer too much. . . . Nothing is beautiful or loving or political aside from underground stems and aerial roots, adventitious growths and rhizomes.”

Social Spirituality, by Phil Campanile in
The Best We’re Doing, a Journal of the Good Life Center