is there any method to the madness? I stumbled upon some stuff and its horrifying, but could be understood from a very neutral perspective. Is it entirely full of racists and reactionaries?
Anyone who thinks that poor material conditions in the US (under current circumstances) would lead to Communism is an absolute rube.
Most people don't even know what it is, those who have heard the word think it's when the government does stuff, and a lot of lot those people think it's an ideology that rose from Hell itself to destroy America.
That's why stuff like organisation and talking to people is important. You actually need people on your side, people who understand why things got this bad. Material conditions worsened with Trump, and half a million Americans died of a preventable disease under his rule, and the American people responded by either voting for Trump, or voting for Joe Biden.
Millions of Americans will look at Trump's Presidency and not conclude that he was the endpoint of pro-US, pro-capitalism, pro-Western propaganda, but rather that he was a really mean man who got voted in because too many people were also mean and also stupid for not realising Hillary was our next Queen.
It's your job to teach them otherwise. To show them a better way.
I mean it is rather obvious that accelerationism in the US would just lead to fascism, but that is sometimes even the goal of "left" accelerationism. To create an America that is exclusively america focused, lead by idiots that don't understand the importance of Americas imperialism when it comes to their own prosperity.
The goal is to promote an isolationist hyper capitalist America, that would fail quicker than capital could react. The goal of that accelerationism is not to help save America, but to help save the world from America.
Now having a fascist nation is always bad, but having an imperialist/expansionist nation is arguably worse for everyone around them. There are not that many important exports from America that the world relies on, mostly just copyrighted things. And America has little to none of the Lebensraum ideology that made the Nazis expansionist.
I am not advocating for accelerationism here, I dont think "sacrificing" hundreds of millions for a risky gamble would be worth it, but I think this version of accelerationism is still far more realistic.
Now having a fascist nation is always bad, but having an imperialist/expansionist nation is arguably worse for everyone around them.
Then there's the third option, an imperialist / expansionist fascist nation that tries to do a genocide speedrun. I'm aware the right wing of the GOP leans towards isolationism, but Bush already showed that you can be a unilateral isolationist who hates international institutions and still be an expansionist warmonger. The US is just not weak and tiny enough to make them the non-expansionist kind of fash, if there even is such a thing in the first place.
This is not directed at you, just saying that the people you're describing are missing the elephant in the room when they think it's either imperialism or isolationist fascism.
The spectacle is a daunting beast. Especially for older folks. You bring up points or even get them to refute their own points by asking questions and as soon as they hit the point of realization, it's like a switch is flipped. They just change subjects or use a thought terminating cliche or just go silent. No one wants to be wrong. Contradicting the false spectacular resolutions to the contradictions of capitalism is worse to them than the base contradictions.
the nature of the accelerationist philosophy basically requires a reactionary attitude. You don't get capital to pile up contradictions and then blow up without assuming that a whole lot of exploited and helpless workers at the bottom rungs of the world are going to bear the brunt of the damage
The idea that capital won't find a way to adjust to its own hypothetical demise is nonsense. It's also not guaranteed at all that the proletariat will have a socialist outlook if they do rise up. Climate change has shown that we could end up with an ecofascist outcome as much as a socialist one. That's the context in which Marx and Lenin ever talked about the acceleration of capitalism. The contradictions are inevitable, but the outcomes need to be shaped from a socialist framework. It's just as foolish to try and tame capitalism as it is to say let it all go to hell
Are you referring to Thiel? It does show what accelerationist thought collapses into. I remember reading Nick Land's stuff way back in the day. It was mildly interesting but even then you could see that he was hovering on the precipice of becoming a complete maniac. His relatively recent stuff with that Moldbug character really proved how unhinged and fascist the whole ideology is.
It reminds me of something akin to the telephone game where you send a message along and see how garble it comes out when it reaches the final person. How accelerationism is understood seems to have taken that route, from Marx and Lenin to the baguette thinkers like Delueze and co and then to someone like Nick Land, and finally you end up with Peter Thiel. Strange times we live in
the nature of the accelerationist philosophy basically requires a reactionary attitude. You don’t get capital to pile up contradictions and then blow up without assuming that a whole lot of exploited and helpless workers at the bottom rungs of the world are going to bear the brunt of the damage
:this:
Yes. There are millions upon millions of accelerationists out there, people who spend all day every day trying to exploit the system and make everything worse - the vast majority just call themselves capitalists, and don’t bother to dress it up by loudly announcing their misreading of Deleuze, however
Yeah, I think if you were a fortune teller and could know with certainty that bringing the HOI global tension score to X% by year Y was the only way to have the global revolution happen in the next 100 years, and wasn't going to lead to fascism instead, you could justify acceleration for acceleration's sake, but since not even the immortal science can be that precise, really you just end up making assumptions and oversimplifications that make accepting trends you'd rather not deal with easier.
It's bullshit though. If accelerating bad conditions is what leads to revolution then every third world country would be in the middle of a revolution every other year. The movements for socialism in tsarist Russia and Germany grew when the economy was growing.
Che's Foquismo concept was turned into a kind of accelerationist theory by the RAF in the late 1970s, but it didn't work out at all. Ché couldn't replicate his successes in Cuba himself when he tried that in other countries, either.
The RAF was more or less a total failure. Yes, they shot a bunch of nazis who had made stellar careers in postwar Germany (these small details about the past of their vicitms is usually omitted in the coverage of the "German Autumn"), but it didn't create pre-revolutionary conditions in spite of Germany having a fairly massive militant left at that point in time. It did create a very brutal reactionary backlash, with the SPD purging the public sector of "radicals" and laying the groundwork for a new surveilance state.
Anybody who wants to do a stochastic minecraft should keep that in mind. Individualist adventurism is no replacement for and not a proper lead-in to a revolutionary mass movement. You have to get the people on your side before you turn to revolutionary violence.
If they're serious they aren't gonna be on the internet talking about it.
Pretty much, Nick Land is a turbo racist and is overall kinda a weirdo and I guess everyone just followed in step
it's a word people use in internet arguments as either a meme or a boogeyman. doesn't really mean much outside of that.
Early Nick Land is 100% worth a read for the prose alone, the same goes for the other CCRU folks (Sadie Plant and Mark Fisher especially.) Deleuze and Guattari notably inspired much of the acc theory and they were very based imo. Make of that what you will.
Early Nick Land
Can you point me to anything specific? I tried reading 'How to kill Oedipus in Cyberspace' and I don't think I really got anything out of that. Might be my fault though, dunno.
He's not an easy writer to get into in all fairness.. In order for your reading to bear fruit a foundational knowledge in Kant, Nietzche, Bataille, Marx, Deleuze/Guattari, and even some Lovecraft is very helpful.
Also, just because Land is a full fledged reactionary these days, doesn't mean he's like one of these pseudo-intellectual figures of the alt right a la Peterson or Molyneux. Land isn't so easily dismissed in my opinion. He has an incredibly exhaustive background in continental philosophy/ critical theory which he consistently draws from and purposefully subverts at any opportunity.
His most important essays are probably:
“Kant, Capital, and the Prohibition of Incest”
“Machinic Desire”
“Meltdown”
I would reccomend reading them in that order. As they get progressively unhinged as they go.
I would also reccomend reading a bit on his concept of Teleoplexy and his theory of time, which is...fucking wild lol.
This is article is a good primer for that:
https://onscenes.weebly.com/philosophy/nick-land-on-time-teleoplexy-templexity
Edit:
I would also reccomend the Lemurian Time War, and the Origins of the Cthuhlu Club to get a hint of the pulp horror theory-fiction he had been trying to make as well.
First off, thanks for that. I have read your linked primer, and I think I'm getting somewhere. Made me think of roko's basilisk a whole lot, that. I'm planning to make my way through those essays over the next days - do you mind me messaging you, if I do manage to formulate a coherent question regarding the material?
Not at all! Although keep in mind I'm still working on formulating my own understanding haha. Nick Land and the CCRU stuff is a fairly recent hyperfixation of mine so I've amassed a ton of resources though.
I've been fascinated by all things cybernetics since reading a whiff of Stafford Beer a while ago, so this is really getting interesting. I've been getting into the first pages of 'Kant, Capital, and the Prohibition of Incest', and there's already been a few sentences that... maybe not exactly blew my mind, but certainly were a pleasure to read and re-read. What he said about the ideal of bourgeois politics being the absence of politics; that was just chef's kiss. Anyways, I'll be logging off soon - see ya, and thanks again <3
Can't get the wall if you already died a glorious heroic death in the revolution. :think-about-it:
If we consider 9/11 both the start of the decline of the american empire than accelartionism works. And that Bin Laden either cracked the code or learned it from the cia. Given the history of Afghanistan I am inclinded to think it is the former.
