Dominant minority
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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 and William Connolly, to elaborate on the concept of "becoming-minoritarian" in order to apply it to modern democratic thought.
