“A concept is a brick. It can be used to build a courthouse of reason. Or it can be thrown through the window.”
– Gilles Deleuze, A Thousand Plateaus
Deleuze was a French philosopher whose work came to influence literary theory and postmodernism.
A Thousand Plateaus was co-authored with psychoanalyst Félix Guattari.
There are two points to be extrapolated out of the given quote.
The first point is that we have a choice with what to do with a concept: utilize it in building an argument or simply discard it.
The second point touches on the question of style. In choosing to build with a brick or “throw through the window,” our handling of a concept either lends it effectiveness or makes it merely destructive.
