Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week

[Dak]

Bah, yes there is. There have been shifts in the number of people and extra resources, but there is most certainly a shift in the location of value.

I'm not going to go through what I've already said again, but it's fairly obvious to me.

I don't think you are understanding what I'm saying. This shift of the location of value occurs person by person, and has been occuring, for anyone with the spare income to put towards non-necessities, throughout history. All you need to do to see this is see the opulent palaces, statues, fine garments depicted in the art, the ownership of art. At this point and history, there are simply more people with the spare income, and the lack of a history of lack, than have been as far as we know in history. This transfer of value is still absent in places of scarce resources, or at least seriously hampered markets. Were an apocalyptic event to occur, rendering us all to scratching in the dirt again, survivors would immediately have to shift value back, and would not need some sort of "social signal" to do so. Their empty bellies will do so.

All of this completely ignores the potential mental damage done to those whom he dismisses on the basis of identity.

Absolutely anything (no, that is not hyperbole) could be potentially "mentally damaging". I'm sure members of the slave trade were harmed in all sorts of ways, both mentally and materially, by the drying up of the slave trade. Buggy whip manufacturers probably dealt with depression and other mental issues observing the rise of the automobile. The CEOs and careerists of JCPenneys or Sears are now probably losing some sleep, etc. over the trajectory of their businesses, partially in thanks to the rise of online shopping. Some people are so "unhardy" so as to meltdown at the slightest deviation from the preferred experience or outcome. "Mental damage", "mental pain", is not a foundation for anything approaching meaningful critique of a particular policy, system, etc.

 

[Einherjar86]

I don't think you are understanding what I'm saying. This shift of the location of value occurs person by person, and has been occuring, for anyone with the spare income to put towards non-necessities, throughout history. All you need to do to see this is see the opulent palaces, statues, fine garments depicted in the art, the ownership of art. At this point and history, there are simply more people with the spare income, and the lack of a history of lack, than have been as far as we know in history. This transfer of value is still absent in places of scarce resources, or at least seriously hampered markets. Were an apocalyptic event to occur, rendering us all to scratching in the dirt again, survivors would immediately have to shift value back, and would not need some sort of "social signal" to do so. Their empty bellies will do so.

Nope, it doesn't occur person by person; it occurs objectively. And although this may come as a disappoint to some, I'm not going to explain why because Dak won't buy it anyway.

Absolutely anything (no, that is not hyperbole) could be potentially "mentally damaging". I'm sure members of the slave trade were harmed in all sorts of ways, both mentally and materially, by the drying up of the slave trade. Buggy whip manufacturers probably dealt with depression and other mental issues observing the rise of the automobile. The CEOs and careerists of JCPenneys or Sears are now probably losing some sleep, etc. over the trajectory of their businesses, partially in thanks to the rise of online shopping. Some people are so "unhardy" so as to meltdown at the slightest deviation from the preferred experience or outcome. "Mental damage", "mental pain", is not a foundation for anything approaching meaningful critique of a particular policy, system, etc.

I agree. So your position is, because it will inevitably happen anyway (i.e. anything is potentially harmful to individuals in some way), we should reduce everything to the individual and let them fend for themselves. We have no means by which to culturally mediate the disagreements among individuals? The minimal social impact of the owner's personal opinions becomes more culturally valuable than the broader social impact he's inflicting upon others "because: self-ownership."

This is where self-ownership becomes dogmatic and ridiculous. Where it precludes the possibility of collective action.

EDIT: this is a fitting response: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/02/...ve-fggots-gets-internet-push-as-best-gay-bar/

The owner of an Oklahoma restaurant who declared last week that he won’t serve “freaks,” “f*ggots,” the disabled, or people on welfare now finds himself the victim of an online campaign to brand his establishment the “Best Gay Club” in Oklahoma City.

 

[Dak]

I agree. So your position is, because it will inevitably happen anyway (i.e. anything is potentially harmful to individuals in some way), we should reduce everything to the individual and let them fend for themselves. We have no means by which to culturally mediate the disagreements among individuals? The minimal social impact of the owner's personal opinions becomes more culturally valuable than the broader social impact he's inflicting upon others "because: self-ownership."

This is where self-ownership becomes dogmatic and ridiculous. Where it precludes the possibility of collective action.

EDIT: this is a fitting response: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/02/...ve-fggots-gets-internet-push-as-best-gay-bar/

Doesn't look like it precludes collective action/mediation to me....

If we are going to get dogmatic on something, self-ownership looks like the one thing to get pretty dogmatic on. There's no workably pleasant alternative. No one is dying in the street because he won't allow them to increase his profits. Additionally, although we can't put a dollar value on the unpleasantry of being unwelcome in a given establishment (I've never been in the cool crowd, so I need a million dollars!), we can estimate the dollar value that the owner is being charged for his bigotry. Average check size X ( number of customers lost + number turned away) = Cost of bigotry. It's not like he's "getting away with it". And of course, he can win the best Gay Bar Award. Looks like he's having a pretty outsized broader impact and it's not to his benefit - and doesn't require us to hold a gun to his head.

 

[Einherjar86]

You could look at it as: "He can afford getting away with it."

I'm done with this, but I don't agree.

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

The European Debt Crisis Visualized

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4Fr4NyJQWA

Thoughts?

 

[Dak]

I like how the guy says "because of the US housing collapse, Greece fiscal policy stopped functioning". No, it didn't stop functioning at that point, it was already failing to function. The problem was merely papered over, and after '08, the paper for the papering over ran out.

I think it's funny that it tries to make Germany look like workaholics. They get a hell of a lot more time off than the US does. It is a matter of culture - quality production and frugality.

The conclusion at the end of the video though is purely propagandist, Cathedralistic narrative driven. You can have separate fiscal and monetary policies. Also, this is one of those excellent real-time examples about how the problems of bigger and bigger government are always suggested to be corrected by what? Even bigger government. "smh".

On that note:

http://www.smh.com.au/world/thailands-failed-rice-scheme-creates-moulding---mountains-of-grain-20130724-2qjdy.html

That the Sydney Morning Herald's acronym is SMH is a cool coinkydink here.

Edit: Land on "Left-Accelerationism":

The sole (querulous) rejoinder from UF at this stage: If this is accelerationism, what would an intentionally decelerationist program look like?

Nailed it.

 

[Einherjar86]

I have no qualms with the video, although none of it interests me very much. The math behind the quantification of debt makes the entire argument appear very narrow and myopic, but there are possibilities beyond the immediate gratification of need and necessity that problematize the whole scenario.

That is, these kinds of discussions always leap to the imminent certainty of total collapse but ignore the malleability of global social organisms.

Edit: Land on "Left-Accelerationism":

I don't understand that quote being so out of context.

Furthermore, I do not think that Land's theorization of accelerationism and his own approach to it mesh at all with yours, Dak. Land is absolutely an anti-humanist, pure and simple.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/deba...lerationism-and-the-politics-of-the-internet/

Nick Land took up this trajectory with the CCRU in the nineties embracing a deterritorialization free of the caution which Deleuze and Guattari advised. Land attempted to uproot the association of the market with capitalism arguing that the latter is stagnating while the former can be used to deterritorialize and accelerate towards a post-human post-capitalist society.

Where Land’s writing was an anti-political celebration of the irrelevance of human agency, the emergence of a left accelerationism in recent years offers a more enlightened politicized theory. Land’s misconception of capital as a sole and primary accelerator of innovation is even more glaringly obvious in its divorce from reality today.

Technological progress, rather than erasing the personal, has become almost entirely Oedipalized, ever more focused on supporting the liberal individual subject. The very agent which Land identified as the engine of untold innovation has run dry. This is alienation of an all-too familiar, ennui-inducing kind, rather than a coldly thrilling succession of future-shocks. All of this opens up a space for the political again: if we desire a radically innovative social formation, capital alone will not deliver.

To be clear, I do not agree with either Land or Brennan or Williams. I agree with Land's anti-humanist push, but not with his reconstruction of arbitrary hierarchies. I agree with Brennan and Williams that Land's hierarchical push is irrational and ultimately grounded on contradiction, but I do not agree with them that technological innovation is reinforcing the liberal humanist subject or individuality.

Inconsistencies everywhere.

 

[Dak]

I have no qualms with the video, although none of it interests me very much. The math behind the quantification of debt makes the entire argument appear very narrow and myopic, but there are possibilities beyond the immediate gratification of need and necessity that problematize the whole scenario.

That is, these kinds of discussions always leap to the imminent certainty of total collapse but ignore the malleability of global social organisms.

I'd disagree. The very concept of a national or regional monetary policy explicitly hinges on a very Leftist/Progressive understanding of social organisms and subsequent assertion of their general "malleability". Of course, my position is that this belief in freedom of malleability is both theoretically and empirically flawed. See: current economic problems, banana republic price controls, Thailand's subsidy/market fixing attempt, etc.

I don't understand that quote being so out of context.

Furthermore, I do not think that Land's theorization of accelerationism and his own approach to it mesh at all with yours, Dak. Land is absolutely an anti-humanist, pure and simple.

To be clear, I do not agree with either Land or Brennan or Williams. I agree with Land's anti-humanist push, but not with his reconstruction of arbitrary hierarchies. I agree with Brennan and Williams that Land's hierarchical push is irrational and ultimately grounded on contradiction, but I do not agree with them that technological innovation is reinforcing the liberal humanist subject or individuality.

Inconsistencies everywhere.

Land is responding to the position of Left Accelerationism in that it will or should free us all from having to work as much (if at all). I think that this is really the logical end of assuming that capital is some sort of independent entity, arising in spite of, and can continue in spite of, whatever we do. May as well hop on its coattails right?

Land's political direction is in fact in sharp contrast, as far as I can deduce, with his former writings. This means he is
A. either unable to work out the logic of his writings
B. We are all mistaken in our interpretation
C. He has come to a different understanding of the processes (most likely)

Land is most certainly not a humanist per se - not in the Universal Enlightenment tradition. But I think he wouldn't necessarily object to stating that just as Left Accelerationism could be called "de/anti-acceleration", (Leftist) Liberal Humanism is the actual de/anti-humanism.

Land can't possibly believe, or at least still believe, in the irrelevancy or maybe even the non-existence of human agency. If he does, NR is going to have to deal with a lot more problems than merely being labeled racist, and Land is headed for another breakdown.

 

[Einherjar86]

I'd disagree. The very concept of a national or regional monetary policy explicitly hinges on a very Leftist/Progressive understanding of social organisms and subsequent assertion of their general "malleability". Of course, my position is that this belief in freedom of malleability is both theoretically and empirically flawed. See: current economic problems, banana republic price controls, Thailand's subsidy/market fixing attempt, etc.

I am curious to hear your theoretical refutation of malleability. This should, of course, force an absolute preclusion of even the slightest consideration of alternative means of subsistence.

Land is responding to the position of Left Accelerationism in that it will or should free us all from having to work as much (if at all). I think that this is really the logical end of assuming that capital is some sort of independent entity, arising in spite of, and can continue in spite of, whatever we do. May as well hop on its coattails right?

Land's political direction is in fact in sharp contrast, as far as I can deduce, with his former writings. This means he is
A. either unable to work out the logic of his writings
B. We are all mistaken in our interpretation
C. He has come to a different understanding of the processes (most likely)

Land is most certainly not a humanist per se - not in the Universal Enlightenment tradition. But I think he wouldn't necessarily object to stating that just as Left Accelerationism could be called "de/anti-acceleration", (Leftist) Liberal Humanism is the actual de/anti-humanism.

Land can't possibly believe, or at least still believe, in the irrelevancy or maybe even the non-existence of human agency. If he does, NR is going to have to deal with a lot more problems than merely being labeled racist, and Land is headed for another breakdown.

Libidinal materialism totally rejects any strand of latent humanist aesthetics or relevancy. As far as I can tell, his entire current philosophy is grounded on his original libidinal materialism.

 

[Dak]

I am curious to hear your theoretical refutation of malleability. This should, of course, force an absolute preclusion of even the slightest consideration of alternative means of subsistence.

I'm not rejecting malleability, just the freedom of it. Hayek alluded to this with the statement that "The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."

I can make a bridge for cars out of marshmellows. Very malleable. Very deadly.

Libidinal materialism totally rejects any strand of latent humanist aesthetics or relevancy. As far as I can tell, his entire current philosophy is grounded on his original libidinal materialism.

I really don't see a point of intersection (of course, not that there can't be one).

 

[Einherjar86]

I'm not rejecting malleability, just the freedom of it. Hayek alluded to this with the statement that "The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."

I can make a bridge for cars out of marshmellows. Very malleable. Very deadly.

A bit silly, no?

I really don't see a point of intersection (of course, not that their can't be one).

He needs Deleuze and Guattari's work to make his argument. His entire conceptualization of capitalism takes off from their work; and their work is radically anti-humanist. Capitalism is a cybernetic, inhuman social model that reproduces itself. It may have emerged as a complex system from the interactions of human agents, but this doesn't preclude it from operating on its own even if the combinations of its internal components shift.

 

[Dak]

A bit silly, no?

About as silly as price controls, et al. And deadlier. At least most people don't defend the marshmellow bridges based on "malleability", and don't use them either.

He needs Deleuze and Guattari's work to make his argument. His entire conceptualization of capitalism takes off from their work; and their work is radically anti-humanist. Capitalism is a cybernetic, inhuman social model that reproduces itself. It may have emerged as a complex system from the interactions of human agents, but this doesn't preclude it from operating on its own even if the combinations of its internal components shift.

I understand that, but what I'm saying is that I see no intersection between this sort of anti-humanism and NRx. NRx specifically appears to have a sort of human ark mentality in relation to Capitalism, since Capitalism and the Cathedral are inextricably bound based on a Marxist/D&G conceptualization.

 

[Einherjar86]

You tend to dismiss potentially important ideas/arguments by introducing rather ridiculous examples.

As far as Land goes, I'm not sure how much clearer I can put it: neoreaction is Land's theory-baby; his theories are derived from a Deleuzian anti-humanist theory of deterritorialization; instead of pursuing the humanist "left-accelerationist" path, he claims that markets deterritorialize via the libidinal urgency of matter itself. "Humans" don't matter here. All that matters is the thanatropic thrust of stuff.

 

[Carpe Mortem]

Just kinda treating this as a general 'philosophy' thread if thats cool, that's the gist I'm getting.

Having a feeling of 'destiny' isn't that relevant when you examine the limited permutations of what a human being would generally want in life, which usually boils down to happiness and security. Compounding that with the limited achievable 'purposes' one might feel inclined towards, yours could easily be somebody else's destiny as well. And it could just as easily fail or change for you.

But of course... this is a good thing. Why is the concept of 'destiny' so thoroughly embraced by so many differing camps of people? I say it's nonsense, good riddance, and to hell with the whole idea. I'd rather float on the waves of time and space than drown trying to swim to shore.

 

[Dak]

You tend to dismiss potentially important ideas/arguments by introducing rather ridiculous examples.

As far as Land goes, I'm not sure how much clearer I can put it: neoreaction is Land's theory-baby; his theories are derived from a Deleuzian anti-humanist theory of deterritorialization; instead of pursuing the humanist "left-accelerationist" path, he claims that markets deterritorialize via the libidinal urgency of matter itself. "Humans" don't matter here. All that matters is the thanatropic thrust of stuff.

But Neoreaction does not agitate for deterritorialization. Rather, hyperterritorialization, as long as exit is allowed. Secondly, the entire "optimize for IQ" thing betrays a significant "mattering" of people - just not equally.

The idea of unlimited malleability (unlimited by relatively predictable consequences) is ridiculous, and only important in a historical sense: Its repeated historical presence and failure (failure particularly by liberal humanist standards).

 

[Einherjar86]

Just kinda treating this as a general 'philosophy' thread if thats cool, that's the gist I'm getting.

Having a feeling of 'destiny' isn't that relevant when you examine the limited permutations of what a human being would generally want in life, which usually boils down to happiness and security. Compounding that with the limited achievable 'purposes' one might feel inclined towards, yours could easily be somebody else's destiny as well. And it could just as easily fail or change for you.

But of course... this is a good thing. Why is the concept of 'destiny' so thoroughly embraced by so many differing camps of people? I say it's nonsense, good riddance, and to hell with the whole idea. I'd rather float on the waves of time and space than drown trying to swim to shore.

Just out of curiosity... was this in response to something? Or just something you've been thinking about?

I'm in probably obvious agreement; destiny is an idealistic projection of a teleological purpose in life.

But Neoreaction does not agitate for deterritorialization. Rather, hyperterritorialization, as long as exit is allowed. Secondly, the entire "optimize for IQ" thing betrays a significant "mattering" of people - just not equally.

This is why I've said, time and time again, that neoreaction is inconsistent.

The idea of unlimited malleability (unlimited by relatively predictable consequences) is ridiculous, and only important in a historical sense: Its repeated historical presence and failure (failure particularly by liberal humanist standards).

I did not say unlimited malleability in my original statement; you introduced limitlessness when you suggested building a bridge out of marshmallows.

 

[Dak]

Just out of curiosity... was this in response to something? Or just something you've been thinking about?

I'm in probably obvious agreement; destiny is an idealistic projection of a teleological purpose in life.

Destiny when considered entirely external is probably both an illusion and extremely un-useful. An internal locus of control though can use a "destiny" illusion as extra motivation.

This is why I've said, time and time again, that neoreaction is inconsistent.

You should fence with Land on this then. I haven't seen anyone attempt to actually smack NeoReactionary Land with his own writings.

I did not say unlimited malleability in my original statement; you introduced limitlessness when you suggested building a bridge out of marshmallows.

I did clarify that as Left/Progressive perception of malleability.

 

[Carpe Mortem]

Just out of curiosity... was this in response to something? Or just something you've been thinking about?

I'm in probably obvious agreement; destiny is an idealistic projection of a teleological purpose in life.

Just expanding on my own long-standing beliefs that any lean towards some sort of destiny is erroneous and faulting. I enjoy abridging my beliefs with additional thought and proof.

But I'm sure it could tie in to what you guys are discussing here somehow, if I understood all the jargon you're throwing around

 

[Einherjar86]

You should fence with Land on this then. I haven't seen anyone attempt to actually smack NeoReactionary Land with his own writings.

As far as I'm concerned, Ray Brassier has already done it. I have no real time or inclination to do so, and there's no possible way I can do it as coherently or eloquently as Brassier.

I did clarify that as Left/Progressive perception of malleability.

I don't think leftism or progressivism have an "anything goes" approach to malleability; I think it's about determining acceptable alternatives within agreeable social bounds. This is, of course, why I'm a proponent of politics and see them as more beneficial than detrimental.

That said, I wouldn't classify my politics as progressive, since I don't think progress actually exists.

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]