Minority (philosophy)

The concept of Minority and "becoming-minor" was developed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in A Thousand Plateaus (1980) and Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature (1986). In these texts, they critique the concept of "majority" as based on a form of domination that works by naturalizing a purely numerical conception. They argue therefore, that the concept of a "dominant minority" is an oxymoron, because the term "majority" always refers to those who are in a position of dominance. To be "minor" then, is to be subjected to social and political domination, or to be a member of a subordinated group, as in Arthur Rimbaud's poem, "Bad Blood", in Une Saison en Enfer. For Deleuze and Guattari, "becoming-minoritarian" is primarily an ethical action, one of the becomings one is affected by when avoiding "becoming-fascist". They argued further that the concept of a "people", when invoked by subordinate groups or those aligned with them, always refers to a minority, whatever its numerical power might be. This has inspired some political philosophers, such as Paul Patton to elaborate on the concept of "becoming-minoritarian" in order to apply it to modern democratic thought.

The example of patriarchy provides an illustration of how the concept of "minority" is used: while there may be more women than men numerically, in Deleuze and Guattari's terms, which are sensitive to relations of power, men still constitute the majority whereas women form a minority. Thus the concept of "becoming-minor" converges with that of "becoming-woman" (as they say, "everyone has to 'become-woman', even women..."),"becoming-animal", "becoming-molecular", "becoming-imperceptible" and ultimately, "becoming-revolutionary". Each type of affective becoming marks a new phase of a larger process that Deleuze and Guattari call deterritorialization.