51 second step involves actualizing the singularities into their determinate nature, it is the first step which is virtual – the existence and distribution of singularities that are not yet individuated. Time is the progressive actualization of these virtual singularities into identifiable socio-political systems. It is obvious from the empirical world, however, that singularities do not remain the same. History is filled with examples of seemingly unassailable political systems that nevertheless succumbed in the end to some sort of disruption, setting off a process whereby the singularities structuring the actual world were reconfigured. In this regard, unlike typical structuralism, Deleuze’s virtual structure is dynamic and subject to change through a special type of singularity called a ‘bifurcation point’ or a ‘threshold’ or, in Deleuzian terms, a ‘line of flight’ (with the process of changing being called a ‘deterritorialization’).128 Here again, as with the attractors, we must distinguish between an intensive and a purely virtual line of flight. On the one hand, there are the intensive and ‘relative’ lines of flight which model the thresholds at which a system transitions into a different, already established behaviour pattern. The transition from being a liberal to being a conservative, the shift from a democratic to an authoritarian state, or the migration of refugees from a war-torn nation to a neighbouring country, all exemplify such a transition. In either case, the individual undergoes both a deterritorialization from a stable state and a reterritorialization onto a new (relatively) stable pattern of being – the two being ultimately inseparable. On the other hand, we have the ‘absolute’ line of flight, which entails a return to the virtual and “the creation of new attractors and bifurcators.”129
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Therefore, for Deleuze, there is ultimately no contradiction between structure and process, since the virtual structure is subject to change, nor between structure and genesis, since the virtual multiplicity provides the real differential conditions for the actualization of individuals. 129 Protevi, John, and Mark Bonta. Deleuze and Geophilosophy, 106.