| I think Hypertext 2.0 interestingly proposes to look at Gilles Deleuze's and Felix Guattari's concept of the rhizome and the notion of nomadic thought as having a possible connection to theories of hypertext. However, the analogy or transposition made in Hypertext between the rhizome and the world wide web, or more specifically hypertext, is far too simplistic and reminds us of the critique Richard Barbrook gives on cyberenthusiasm. Not only is the world wide web actually using a highly hierarchical set of protocols, far more important is that Deleuze and Guattari in for instance their book Anti-Oedipus do not talk about any material form but about the intrinsically political concept of rhizome that exists on the level of ideology. They pose a major critique on traditional notions of subjectivity and the psychoanalytic starting point of human desire as lack and its entanglement with late-capitalism (see Capitalism and Schizophrenia), arguing for a positive, life-giving account of desire. Hypertext may seem non-hierarchical on the level of format, but this says virtually nothing about the ideologies it is embedded in, and this is of crucial importance of the understanding of the media, as also Bolter and Grusin argue. |