Deleuze and Guattari’s “Introduction: Rhizome” presents interesting implications for traditional notions of intellectual property, particularly in web-based environments. The authors argue that all things are connected in a rhizomatic structure, with each book or person branching out from and interdependent upon on all the others. They posit the tree as a model for most Western cognitive structures, as it stands alone and vertical, an entity unto itself. In contrast, the rhizome represents an interconnected community of minds, capable of much more than any individual. Such a structure “acts on desire by external, productive outgrowths” (14). By nature of these outgrowths, a rhizomatic structure approaches an immortality of sorts, allowing knowledge to build on knowledge. It allows innovation in places that before saw stagnation:

“To be rhizomorphous is to produce stems and filaments that seem to be roots, or better yet connect with them by penetrating the trunk, but put them to strange new uses. We’re tired of trees. We should stop believing in trees, roots, and radicles. They’ve made us suffer too much” (Deleuze and Guattari 15).

Their imagery has been widely adopted as a metaphor for the web, which consists of millions of users connected by common code. Individuals who most likely would never have met in the “real” world are able to link together. From my study in Little Rock, Arkansas, I talk to bloggers all over the world. I’ve met none of them in real life, and most likely never will. Yet we’re on a first name basis, and I know that Scott in Oklahoma is finishing up a dissertation on the archetype of the Fallen Woman in Victorian Literature and he sleeps four hours a night. Cynthia in Barbados is trying to isolate environmental factors contributing to typos in her office staff’s writing. Steve in Boston is active in the anti-war movement and shares my interest in the politics of gender-specific pronouns.

At first glance, the concept of individuality problematizes the rhizome metaphor. Rhizomes are homogeneous rather than heterogeneous. Every blade of crabgrass, every iris, every strawberry plant is the same. Interconnected, just like the web, but also all the same. But the metaphor of rhizome does extend to include the individual: a rhizome, once isolated, can stand on its own. More than that, it will flourish and propagate yet again. One slender leaf of grass in time begets an entire field of blades, nearly but not quite identical. There are differences caused by environment, by slight genetic alterations. People are human-shaped, and then altered by our culture and environments.

Individuals create communities, and individuals on the web are no different. Web users – particularly those who weblog – have come to think of themselves as members of loosely defined communities. Like-minded individuals create like-minded spaces. Knowledge is socially created and built upon within these groups. Web environments have indeed produced innovation on a scale rarely seen before. For instance, the University of Blogaria consists of approximately 35 bloggers, most of whom are either working academics, grad students or independent scholars. In their ongoing conversation, they’ve debated whether the web is an actual place or just an idea; the constraints and ethics of ‘girlism’; intrinsic flaws in the academic system; and which brand of dish scrubber works best. They’ve helped construct a book: David Weinberger’s Small Pieces Loosely Joined was written, argued over and workshopped in this community. The social construction of knowledge is a constant in such circles. It’s almost taken for granted – so much so that “Best Meme” is a featured category at the annual Bloggie Awards.

Insert things to do with Bruffee’s “Collaborative Learning and the ‘Conversation of Mankind’” here.

If we accept the rhizomatic model, then all participants in the conversation fall along a lateral hierarchy – a non-hierarchy. The author is no more privileged than the reader, since both are merely part of a larger integrated structure.