# 26
The force of the conjunction “And”
The tree imposes the verb “to be” but the fabric of the rhizome is the conjunction, “and … and … and …” This conjunction carries enough force to shake and uproot the verb “to be”.
Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, A thousand plateaus. capitalism and schizophrenia, 1987The line of flight out of the dichotomous logic, of the Either / Or opens the possibility to think the AND : The AND between the struggle against racism and the struggle against Islamism, the AND between the struggle against Antisemitism and against racism, and against capitalism, and against sexism, and against ableism, and against pollution, and against heteronormativity, and, and, and … The rhizome finds its cohesion in the conjunction ‘and…and…and’ a logic of the AND.”
Niki Kubazcek, Transversale Insistenz. Oder Solidaritä als Vermögen, Verbindungen unter nicht Identem herzustellen 2021Invitations to contemplate these words and play with your thoughts
What if everything is entangled
Collections that include this source
Keep exploring
Gregory Bateson’s Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972) [notes] “We live in a world that is only made of relationships” and these relationships are more important and fundamental than species as singular units. Bateson and systems theory develop our understanding of relations in order to get us outsi …
What if everything is entangled
A paradigm shift may be taking place almost unnoticed in everyday life. Across the life sciences, we are increasingly moving from looking at organisms, species, or ecosystems as separate entities towards understanding life through relations, interdependence and entanglement. From microbiomes and symbiosis to ecological networks, what appears to be an autonomous “being” is increasingly revealed as a “being-with”.
Could this shift also invite us to rethink the social? Instead of starting from identities and oppositions—either/or—we might begin with the relations that connect us: and…and…and. Not sameness, but mutual dependence across difference. The conjunction and thus becomes more than a grammatical link: it can name a political capacity to perceive interdependence, potentially opening spaces for empathy, solidarity and collective responsibility:
Not to choose between I and you, but to learn to think—and act—in the space of the AND as political power.
