John Duda writes:

"Instincts and Institutions"

Gilles Deleuze

[Originally published in 1955, and collected in "L'Ile Desert".

Translation by John Duda, 2003.]

That which one calls an instinct, and that which one calls an
institution, essentially designate processes of satisfaction.

On the
one hand, the organism, in reacting to external stimuli naturally,
pulls from the exterior world the elements of a satisfaction of its
tendencies and its needs; these elements form, for different animals,
specific worlds. On the other hand, the subject, in instituting an
original world between its tendencies and the exterior
environment [milieu], elaborates artificial means of satisfaction,
which in submitting it to something else liberate the organism from
nature, and which in introducing it into a new environment transform
the tendency itself; it is true that money liberates one from hunger
-- on the condition that one has some, and that marriage spares one
the search for a partner -- through submission to other tasks.

This
is to say that all individual experience supposes, as an a
priori, the preexistence of an environment in which the experience is
conducted [mennée], an environment of specificity [mileu
spécifique] or an institutional environment. Instinct and
institution are the two organized forms of a possible satisfaction.That the tendency may satisfy itself in the institution is not to be
doubted: sexuality in marriage, avidity in property. One raise the
objections of institutions like the State, to which no tendency
corresponds. But it is clear that such institutions are secondary,
that they suppose already institutionalized behaviors, that they
invoke a derived utility which is properly social, which finds in the
last instance the principle from which it derives in the relationship
of the social with tendencies. The institution always presents itself
as an organized system of means. Moreover, it is here one finds the
difference between institution and law: the latter is a limitation of
actions, the former, a positive model of action. Contrary to the
theories of law that place the positive outside of the social (natural
rights), and the social in the negative (contractual limitation), the
theory of the institution places the negative outside of the social
(needs), in order to present society as essentially positive,
inventive (original means of satisfaction). Such a theory will give
us in the end political criteria: tyranny is a regime where there are
many laws and few institutions; democracy, a regime where there are
many institutions and very few laws. Oppression shows itself when the
laws bear directly on men, and not on the institutions which precede
and protect [garantir] men.

Yet if it is true that the tendency satisfies itself within the
institution, the institution is not explicated by the tendency. The
same sexual needs will never explain the multiple possible forms of
marriage. Nor does the negative explain the positive; nor does the
general explain the particular. The "desire to sharpen the
appetite'' does not explain the appertif, because there are a thousand
other ways to sharpen the appetite. Brutality explains nothing of
war; however, it finds in it its best means. And here is the paradox
of society: we speak of institutions, when we find ourselves before
processes of satisfaction which are neither triggered [déclenche] nor determined by the tendency that is satisfying
itself, any more than they are explained by the characteristics of the
species. The tendency is satisfied by means which do not depend on
it. Additionally, it is never satisfied without being at the same
time constrained or subjected to abuse [brimée], and
transformed, sublimated. So much so that neurosis is possible. So
much so, that, indeed, need does not find in the institution anything
but a satisfaction which is entirely indirect, "oblique'', it is not
sufficient to say "the institution is useful," beyond this it is
necessary to ask: to whom is it useful? To all those who are in need?
Or rather to some (a privileged class), or only even to those who make
the institution function (bureaucracy)? The most profound sociological
problem consists therefore in discovering what is this other
solicitation [instance] upon which the social forms of
satisfaction depend directly. Rites of civilization: means of
production? Although it may be so in part, human utility is always
something other than a utility. The institution refers us to a social
activity which is constitutive of [our] models, which we are not
conscious of, and which is explained neither by the tendency nor by
utility, since the latter, as human utility, supposes the contrary.
In this sense, the priest, the man of the ritual, is always the
unconsciousness of the laity.

What is the difference with instinct? There nothing goes beyond
utility, except beauty. The tendency was satisfied indirectly by the
institution, it is directly satisfied by instinct. There are no
instinctive interdictions, no instinctive coercions, there is only for
instinct repugnance. This time, it is the tendency itself, under the
form of an internal physiological factor, which triggers a qualified
behavior. And without doubt, this internal factor will not explain
how, even in its identity to itself, it impels/releases different
behaviors in different species. But this is to say that instinct
finds itself at the intersection of a double causality, that of
physiological factors in the individual and that of the species itself
-- hormones and specificity. Therefore, one will ask oneself only to
what extent can instinct be reduced to the simple interest of the
individual, in which case, at the limit, it is no longer necessary to
speak of instinct, but of reflex, tropism, of habit and of
intelligence. Or rather whether instinct cannot be understood except
in the framework of a species-utility, of a good of the species, of a
first biological finality. "To whom is it useful?'' is a question
that one meets again, but its sense has changed. Under its double
aspect, instinct presents itself as a tendency launched inside an
organism with specific reactions.

The common problem of instinct and institution is always thus: how to
affect the synthesis of tendency and the object which satisfies it?
The water that I drink, in effect, does not resemble the hydrates
which my organism lacks. The more instinct is perfect in its domain,
the more it appertains to the species, the more it seems to constitute
an original, irreducible power of synthesis. But the more it is
perfectible, and therefore imperfect, the more it is submitted to
variation, to indecision, the more it lets itself be reduced to the
single game of internal factors of the individual and exterior
circumstances, the more it makes room for intelligence. Now, at the
limit, how could such a synthesis which gives the tendency an object
which accords with it be intelligent, since it implies in order to be
accomplished a time that the individual does not live, attempts in
which it could not survive?

It is necessary to recover the idea that intelligence is something
more social than individual, and that it finds in the social the
intermediary mileu, the third mileu that makes it possible. What is
the sense of the social in regard to tendencies? To integrate
circumstances in a system of anticipation, and internal factors in a
system which regulates their appearance, replacing the species. This
is indeed the case with the institution. It is night because one goes
to bed, one eats because it is noon. There are not social tendencies,
only social means of satisfying tendencies, means which are original
because they are social. All institutions impose on our bodies, even
on their involuntary functions, a series of models, and give our
intelligence a knowledge, a possibility of expectation as project. We
recognize the following conclusion: man does not have instincts, he
makes institutions. Man is an animal in the process of shedding the
species. Instinct could translate the urgencies of the animal, and
the institution, the exigencies of man: the urgency of hunger becomes
with man the claim to possess bread. Finally, the problem of instinct
and of the institution will be known, at its most acute point, not at
all in the animal "societies," but in the relationships of animal
and man, when the exigencies of man bear on the animal, integrating
it into institutions(totemism and domestication), when the urgencies
of the animal encounter man, in flight or attack, in dependence for
food and protection.