Human Community as a Rhizome

I’ve recently discovered the rhizome metaphor which is the notion of:

an acentered, nonhierarchical, nonsignifying system without a General and without an organizing memory or central automation, defined solely by a circulation of states.

A rhizome is characterized by six properties which all play together:

1. Connectivity: the capacity to aggregate by making connections at will.
2. Heterogeneity: the capacity to link anything with anything, the linking of unlike elements.
3. Multiplicity: the capacity to form a system in the absence of unity.
4. Asignifying rupture: the capacity of a system to function and even thrive despite local breakdowns.
5. Cartography: the capacity to navigate a system regardless of one’s point of entry.
6. Decalcomania: the capacity to continuously adapt through experimentation, to build an unpredictable always-on resistance to rigidity and restrictions.

I see strong connections between community as practiced by the human species and the rhizome. All six properties can be linked to more familiar human concepts:

These analogies are not perfect. Disruption is not so much connectivity as the chance to connect, or the realization of the chance to connect. Creativity is more than heterogeneity, it is making unique connections that have value. Multiplicity is more than emergence, it is the totality of what has emerged, all that is emergent.

Redundancy is a way to realize asignifying rupture in networks, together with routing. Routing is a way to navigate a network rather than having the option to navigate. Consistent innovation without permission leads to decalcomania.

These imperfect analogies mean that human community is rhizomorphic rather than rhizomatic. This means human community has rhizomatic tendencies yet has a tree-like structure at the same time.

A typical tree-like structure is the cluster which would not occur in a pure rhizomatic structure. Clusters are typically present in social networks which hints to the rhizomorphic nature of human community. A cluster is a node with connections to more than three other nodes. This means that in order to navigate between two random nodes that are not proximate to each other in a social network one has to navigate through cluster nodes.

What does the absence of a pure rhizomatic nature mean for human community? Here a list could follow, but it can’t. Reflecting on the rhizomorphic nature of human community swiftly leads to the conclusion that we don’t know enough. It’s one thing to reason about the consequences of the rhizomorphic nature of the Internet – which’s history we’re familiar with. It’s another thing altogether to reason about the consequence of the rhizomorphic nature of human community.

I mean, until we can demystify sights like Gobekli Tepe there is no chance we can ever understand why human communities are rhizomorphic and not rhizomatic. The only other avenue is to compare human community to the community capabilities of other social species but that won’t lead to much. It would be a stretch to claim primates are creative beings, let alone considering any of the other concepts.

We’ll just have to accept for now that our community is rhizomorphic, not rhizomatic without being able to explain why.