Comments on: militant preciousness

By: What in the hell … :: … do intellectuals do, and what ought they do? :: October :: 2009

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 05:52:19 +0000

[...] you) might want to read. First, Duncan’s typology of the role of left intellectuals. Second, these three posts about, in a sense, the degree to which it makes to sense to call some recent academic [...]

By: pollywog

pollywog — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 20:23:11 +0000

we have no choice but to accelerate. voluntary reductionism won’t work, humans are reluctant to take a back step to anything even aliens should they even bother with us. we burn our bridges cos we usually have no intention of going back that way.

technology and the rise towards the singularity it is. onwards and upwards.

surely the dysphoria is the melancholic reluctance to let the past go and embrace an unknown euphoric future as promised by the profits of doom.

By: Ben

Ben — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 09:27:28 +0000

Well the comment was based on a rapid and choppy re-read of Dominic’s book but I sensed an aporia between a nihilist militancy (of a quasi-suicidal sort) and a nihilist aesthetics. Hence the lack of a conclusion seemed to me to speak to the absence of agency, in terms disengaged from these previous failures. I guess it’s a ‘one more effort to beome militantly dysphoric’ idea, but, from memory, I think this space if left open / hanging – rightly.
The ‘reality’ of the aporia would be the actual disaster of the RAF and equivalents – the model of provoking the state led to the securitisation of the state and not revolution. Also, I’d say, the impasses and disasters of a certain aesthetics of nihilism. In the case of BM I’m trying to write something that takes seriously (ie critically) the role of right-wing/facist politics in the aesthetic (I don’t think you can split the ‘radical/experimental music’ from the ‘retrograde aesthetic’.
More grandly I was thinking of Malcolm Bull’s work in the NLR on the symmetry between market (non-) agency and populist mobilisation as caught in a vicious feedback loop.

On ‘accelerationism’ I’d distinguish from this a politics of reclamation, or ‘recuperating the recuperators’, which would detourne (or salvage to use Evan’s term) existent social and technological forms in non-commodified ways. This is where I’d tend to go. I suppose this was prompted for me even more by a reading of Polanyi. I certainly don’t think the alternative to accelerationism is neo-primitivism or ‘abandonment’ – in fact I tend to think accelerationism converges with these kinds of currents in a modelling of exodus / catastrophe / lines of flight – just in different directions…

On the other hand, I do think non-commodified forms would involve some ‘slowing down’ or putting on the brakes – there are some nice remarks on this in Timothy Brennan’s recent book Secular Devotion.

Anyway some of these ideas will appear in the new book, which I hope doesn’t fall into the trap of substitutionism of theory for politics but rather tries to think through theory as form of political reflection. If you / anyone else want a look at the pre-pub version feel free to email.

By: Seb

Seb — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 03:16:33 +0000

All righty then, Jane, see you down on the corner of Lexington to rally the Gloom Troops at, what, 9:30? I don't think anyone here is an apologist for capital, at all. Rather, I just think we fail to see how being the most turgidly despondent motherfucker in the room is an effective political maneuver. "Not militant enough"... what is that, a McClusky paraphrase?

By: anodyne lite

anodyne lite — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 02:56:12 +0000

In the grand scheme of things, I’m not sure typing this is more important than the proverbial butterfly flapping its wings, Chris. So don’t lump me into your little “group” who’s “playing” a “game.”

I’m commenting on a blog about a post or two I’ve read. That’s all. I don’t feel guilty about anything. I was stating a fact: the internet is not a class-free zone. Endpunkt.

By: Ads

Ads — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:55:45 +0000

Ben,

I agree with what you say about accelerationism etc, and yes especially in the current situation. I would really appreciate it if you could say more about this:

I do wonder whether it recapitulates the stalled aporia of agency, however, although I think that’s an effect of reality.

Truth be told, I can imagine forms of accelerationism that would potentially be viable. Consolidation of industries into near-monopolies ripe for the picking of the public, media companies especially. But even still, it’s very tricky politics. And I’d have nothing to do with any that does anything close to fantasing about disaster, “post-humanity,” and the like.

At any rate, helpful comment…

By: Ads

Ads — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:43:34 +0000

No agree absolutely. But it’s not what Chris thinks it is. If we’re going to have a discussion, this is about as “open club” as we’re going to get.

I spend my days teaching classes that are only open to those who’ve paid to be there. This on here is a different story, even if your point is valid.

By: roger

roger — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:27:36 +0000

Chris, it seems to me that you think the word “game” has some terrible discrediting meaning, as opposed to… well, what? Real life? Any part of real life in which you can apply a strategy is a game. Prison, work, dinner table conversation – even the strategy of making a comment about blogs being a game, as if one were some spectator, is a game.

The game, here, is commenting on the ideas in a book. This id different from Dungeons and Dragons, or shooting off nuclear missiles – two other games -but has certain similarities. And so what?

By: water and sewer

water and sewer — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:10:39 +0000

But your characters are “prostitutes” and other exotic people from the outer boroughs.

LOL! How DARE you! I’m from da Village, close to where Sylvia Myles lives, in goddam Manhattan.

By: pollywog

pollywog — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:55:10 +0000

its not about ‘them’. it’s all me, all the time…

…dysphoria is contagious. seems not even wealth and privilege is a cure

funny, but i think it would cure me!