forces that he was trying to bring together through his efforts toward
reaching a ‘historical compromise’ between what had been the two
strongest political actors in postwar Italy. It might not be inappropriate
to start describing the improbable encounter between Franco Berardi
‘Bifo’ and Félix Guattari as a ‘parallel convergence’. For, while there are
perfectly solid historical circumstances that made that encounter poss-
ible, it is nonetheless in the infinite virtuality of creation that those cir-
cumstances became determinant and conceptually productive. And it
is at infinity that parallels meet.
Félix Guattari was born in Villeneuve-les-Sablons in 1930, Bifo in
Bologna in 1949. This generational and geographical distance was to
be mediated in multiple ways. Some of these mediations may have
been more imaginary than real, but nonetheless effective in drawing
the two men together. For instance, when asked why he felt comfort-
able in writing a book on Félix Guattari, while he would not have done
the same thing for Deleuze, Bifo said: ‘Basically, I do not consider
myself to be sufficiently a philosopher in order to address Deleuze in a
direct way. While I seem to be just dirty enough from the disciplinary
point of view ... to be able to approach [Guattari]’ (Interview with ‘Bifo’,
page 155 below). From a purely documentary point of view, that is
simply not true, since Franco Berardi actually obtained a Laurea in
Philosophy, specializing in aesthetics under the guidance of Italian
phenomenologist Luciano Anceschi. Moreover, the characterization of
Guattari as something ‘other’ than a philosopher might be more myth
than reality, since if having a degree in philosophy doesn’t make one a
philosopher, then not having it should not necessarily prevent you
from being a philosopher either.
In fact, we should state once and for all that the field of philosophy
as production of concepts was and still is as much a common ground
for Bifo and Guattari as is the messier, more controversial scene of pol-
itical engagement. If some critics fail to recognize this commonality, it
is due, in part at least, to the failure of memory associated with Félix
Guattari and especially to the role that he played in Bifo’s life. This role
was such that the philosophical ‘seriousness’ both of Bifo and of
Guattari tends to take second place in the usual characterizations of
them.
Similarily, the vicissitudes of Bifo’s political and personal trajectory are
so compelling that they risk diverting our attention from the impressive
coherence of his life’s work. Fortunately, in the last few years, his writings
have been attracting ever increasing interest in the Anglophone world,
while in Italy, they remain somehow marginal and seem unable to attractviii Preface9780230_221192_01_prexvi.pdf 10/3/08 11:31 AM Page viii