Been very much exposed by accelerationist ideas, mainly through reading the old Fisher´s Capitalist Realism (a great book, a great way to diagnisticize what is going on after post-modernity), preparing the course I´m lecturing on the history of accelerationism from Marx to the 2013 manifesto, following the recent interview of Nick Land by Justin Murphy and getting to know some texts by Justin Murphy including this one. This latter text makes the point of how to best interpret D&G quite nicely:
The whole point of D&G’s project, in my view, is to identify very general mechanisms; such that they can serviceably explain the perpetuation of systemic oppressions but also serve as actionable maps for spinning new, non-linear systemic dynamics (world-historical transitions) from the most micro-scopic mechanisms. If “decoding” meant “commercialization,” why are their texts otherwise quite clearly anti-capitalist? In other words, while I think these readings of D&G are often quite brilliant and productive, the current frontiers of accelerationism have something of a problem around “face validity.”
I think the biographical evidence makes it very hard to fathom that D or G intended any kind of passive capitulationism, and their works are a brilliant catalogue of calls to activity. Their writings are filled with injunctions such as, “Always follow the rhizome by rupture; lengthen, prolong, and relay the line of flight,” etc. Am I really to imagine that all of these lines are trying to tell me that I should start a business? I am not dismissing the provocative capitalist reading of D&G, I am only pointing out the obvious (which is surprisingly glossed over by the current frontiers of accelerationsim): D&G’s call to accelerate seemed pretty clearly to be part of a larger vision in which any interested party could learn how to accelerate into liberation from the inertia of systemic oppression; that the other side is more desirable, and that we might even find each other there together.
I am not saying that the passivism or “horrorism” of Landian or unconditional accelerationism (i.e., there’s basically nothing for us to do) is not possibly the correct, final conclusion that D&G were simply incapable of drawing; it is only to say that, insofar as accelerationism is premised on D&G, passivist interpretations should explain why D&G spent so much effort delineating all of those general mechanisms in a general way, with so many inspiriting exhortations, if not to use them for liberatory ends.
Much to say about all that, but only a quick note on how I see Federici´s way of recounting the history of capitalism as reactionary can hint in the right anti-accelerationist direction - one that is not reactionary nor primitivist. Federici´s two main anti-accelerationist lines of argument are;
1. Capital doesn´t flow on its own, it needs a biopower to set it flowing in the first place.
2. Capital, the fear of all socious and social establishment, comes to fore as a (reactionary) way to counter what was already revolutionary in the 15th century - in that century, all that was solid in the feudal establishment was melting in the air and the only way out to preserve the existing feudal privileges or part of them was to bite the bitterest bullett and usher in free-floating capital.
The whole point of D&G’s project, in my view, is to identify very general mechanisms; such that they can serviceably explain the perpetuation of systemic oppressions but also serve as actionable maps for spinning new, non-linear systemic dynamics (world-historical transitions) from the most micro-scopic mechanisms. If “decoding” meant “commercialization,” why are their texts otherwise quite clearly anti-capitalist? In other words, while I think these readings of D&G are often quite brilliant and productive, the current frontiers of accelerationism have something of a problem around “face validity.”
I think the biographical evidence makes it very hard to fathom that D or G intended any kind of passive capitulationism, and their works are a brilliant catalogue of calls to activity. Their writings are filled with injunctions such as, “Always follow the rhizome by rupture; lengthen, prolong, and relay the line of flight,” etc. Am I really to imagine that all of these lines are trying to tell me that I should start a business? I am not dismissing the provocative capitalist reading of D&G, I am only pointing out the obvious (which is surprisingly glossed over by the current frontiers of accelerationsim): D&G’s call to accelerate seemed pretty clearly to be part of a larger vision in which any interested party could learn how to accelerate into liberation from the inertia of systemic oppression; that the other side is more desirable, and that we might even find each other there together.
I am not saying that the passivism or “horrorism” of Landian or unconditional accelerationism (i.e., there’s basically nothing for us to do) is not possibly the correct, final conclusion that D&G were simply incapable of drawing; it is only to say that, insofar as accelerationism is premised on D&G, passivist interpretations should explain why D&G spent so much effort delineating all of those general mechanisms in a general way, with so many inspiriting exhortations, if not to use them for liberatory ends.
Much to say about all that, but only a quick note on how I see Federici´s way of recounting the history of capitalism as reactionary can hint in the right anti-accelerationist direction - one that is not reactionary nor primitivist. Federici´s two main anti-accelerationist lines of argument are;
1. Capital doesn´t flow on its own, it needs a biopower to set it flowing in the first place.
2. Capital, the fear of all socious and social establishment, comes to fore as a (reactionary) way to counter what was already revolutionary in the 15th century - in that century, all that was solid in the feudal establishment was melting in the air and the only way out to preserve the existing feudal privileges or part of them was to bite the bitterest bullett and usher in free-floating capital.
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