S T A T E
The state is first and last an envelope, a permeable mem-
[258]
brane, a skin, within which wells an interiority. This interiority comes to know itself as its representation—as a unified, abstract but limited plane—distinct from what it excludes as outside. But the state’s enclosure and interiority is only made possible by the vector, which provides the material means for producing the internal consistency of its abstract plane. This same vector which makes possible the envelope of the state is also the very thing that threatens to permeate it, opening holes in its enclosure that exceed the capacity of its representation as interiority to close.
The vector comes first, and then the envelope; the state is
[259]
vectoral before it is “disciplinary.” First comes the capacity to subordinate the particulars of space to the abstraction of the vector, producing a homogenous space, bounded only by the limits of the vector. Extensive space is the precondition for intensive space, for the enclosing and monitoring of a world within, which may be classified and ordered.
The overdeveloped world becomes overdeveloped through its precocious capacity to project the vector across space, designating the underdeveloped world as one of objective
[260]