The Becoming of Organization and the Organization of Becoming

It is said that ‘philosophy is the logic of multiplicities’. ¹ It is the memory of this future that is examined in this chapter, with the intention not of being able to say a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to multiplicity, but of being able to work through and beyond its limits. Multiplicity goes by many names, including becoming and difference, and is deployed as a philosophical concept and a basis for social and political contestation. This chapter is concerned with a philosophy and politics of becoming, multiplicity and difference set out in the works of Nietzsche and Bergson, and Deleuze’s writings on Nietzsche and Bergson. In examining their approaches to the ‘being of becoming’, or what can be termed ‘becoming human’ and ‘becoming organization’, this chapter suggests that there are both resonances and common targets of criticism in these philosophers’ projects. In order to grasp the kind of philosophical and political contribution Nietzsche, Bergson and Deleuze are concerned with, it is critical to understand that their abiding motivation is to disinter concepts of becoming, multiplicity and difference: ² Nietzsche depicts active and reactive forces, Bergson sets out qualitative and quantitative differences, and Deleuze refigures Nietzsche and Bergson into virtual and actual multiplicities. ³ It is this privileging of becoming as active force, qualitative difference and virtual multiplicity in conjunction with an alleged dismissive opposition to sociocultural phenomena as expressions of negativity and delimitation that constitutes the basis for the denigration of these philosophers’ ideas.