Because at a certain point, it seemed that immaterial work was exempt from
exploitation.Bifo:Yes, but on this point work has been done for twenty years now,
and so in some ways, the concept of ‘immaterial’ has been left behind
to make room for a post-industrial direction of the reflection about
work. We have moved on, even if it is true that Lazzarato continues to
use this experession.GM:Another thing that interests me is when at the start of your book, in
reality you are talking about Guattari’s commitment to the ecological move-
ment of the 1980s, and it seemed to you to be an act that masked his depres-
sion, a nearly desperate act that arose from what you call a certain end of
political will. Why? What was missing in the Greens’ commitment then to
be recognized as fully political?Bifo:But I have nothing against the Greens!GM:But you do say there was a way ... that basically Guattari did not
believe in it himself, and that you yourself did not want to commit to
this.Bifo:Surely in this, there was also a bit of my own idleness, my own
laziness. But I sensed and was convinced that in the final decade of his
life, Guattari had at several points undertaken a political commitment
in which he did not deeply believe, that is, seeming to him to be his
duty to ‘hold on’, that he needed to get past this rather difficult, regres-
sive period, etc. And I perceived a kind of exhaustion in his will to
maintain a position. So in this phase of the Guattarian itinerary, what
seemed to me to be missing – as it seems missing in much of Toni
Negri’s thought – is a reflection about depression. While one would
need to enter more fully into this concept, depression basically is a
disinvestment of libidinal energies in facing the future, in facing
the world. Naturally it’s a question of a pathology, but not only
that. Or rather, in short, the pathology is not something to be
undervalued.GM:Or repressed.Bifo:In depression, there is a cognitive, philosophical and political
content that, I feel, was not fully developed by Guattari.158 Thought, Friendship and Visionary Cartography9780230_221192_14_inte.pdf 10/3/08 11:37 AM Page 158