Questions? Anybody? How about it? I just wonder if either of you actually think that land has a theory of capitalism. It seems to me that this is simply an aesthetics, a sort of kind of extrapolation very common I suppose extrapolation from a certain lyrical vision of capitalism which you of course to one extent or another famously encounter in the communist manifesto but simply doesn't seem to actually involve any theory if by theory
we also understand something that you could find confirmation, reputation or whatever you want to call it. And I say this because actually the, you know, you mentioned the kind of, you know, mad black hegelianism and mad black Deleuzenism and so on. And to one extent or another, the model of, you know, I think as you pointed out very well, the model ever going faster, ever de-territorializing has an inkling of truth. at the same time it completely misunderstands the which I think instead those of what I do understand the completely opportunistic nature of
of a system you know in which you know the form of social life is valued because precisely that's why there's a that's why there's a kind of gap between like the aesthetic pale which is the most disavowed sort of narcissistic humanist thing you could want enjoying the death of the universe I mean, is there anything more like pitifully human? And at the same time, you know, so that on the one hand is, you know, the idea that this is going to be really exciting, that speed is something you can experience and that destruction is something that you can experience. And then on the other hand, actually, the disappointing, you know, day-to-day reality of the sausage pâtés and various other things.
and just from both I mean from both of your presentations what really struck me is this is a constant form of disavowal which is not just I mean I think this is why I'm kind of more interested in this as a sort of symptom of a certain theoretical and political moment because there's a disavowal phenomenology a virulent attack of phenomenology and it ultimately turns out that the only thing that justifies this is a form of experience one calls it human nevertheless you know you have disavowed morality I mean Jameson's very good at pointing out that once you have these dualisms, the intensive, the extensive, okay, you have morality all over again. You have disavowed teleology very clearly. You have disavowed vitalism because it's a bit like that scene in network, like capitalism is this kind of being that wants things and so on. And then you also have this really in a sense kind of disavowed,
and the thing that strikes me here is that it's a completely ideological position, and there's nothing wrong with ideology as such, but it's a position that's simply based on stating things about the world because it would be more exciting for the world to be like that, rather than because there's anything that seems to give purchase to that account. And that might be mobilizing, cynically speaking, but it doesn't necessarily translate into anything that would be recognizably a theory. So there might be I agree that compared to some of the kind of homilies of you know, left moralism, you know, there's a mobilizing kick to this, but it's at a purely ideological level. And in that sense, you know, I might agree that ideologically speaking,
it's an interesting counterpart, but I wouldn't say that it's an interesting theory. I mean, I don't know. But I think in a way, to raise, highlight the issue, the whole status of theory, and that goes back to the leader, right, and the freedom of economy, for this hatred of the of theory itself. That partly is some kind of twisted response to a Marxist moment, or really to the whole reflexivity issue about what theory is doing, and philosophy has interpreted the world, etc. That's the thing, it's not enough. That's the point of that conversation Yeah, with you and, you know, with many of us at various points, it doesn't matter what the theory is.
The theory is just part of the hyperstitional circuit of intensification, in a way. So in order to make it into a theory, you have to, you know, construe it in particular ways. And he's got to get out the clause in relation to that. He doesn't have a theory good, because theory is really bad on the side of representation anyway. I think this is the reason that raised it, a very serious problem with that it is something inherited I think that's why I've emphasised Lyotard above Delos and Gattari as the key figure here that scorched earth burning the ground on which you walk, you know, kind of position in relation to theory, which Lyotard
spectacularly and inevitably fails to generate a good economy is something that makes the tough of. I think the really interesting issue is the status of critique and critical theory. Because in a way he started off his trajectory, it seems that he accepts the kind of post-Hegelian, kind of Marxist critique of the kind of sterility of philosophy. philosophy is just nothing more than this kind of ideological, a series of ideological symptoms, okay? So, and what's interesting is that he thinks you have to kind of, he wants to kind of radicalize the critique of theory, but he says, the question is like, you have to, and he turns a Marxist
critique of philosophy against Marxist critical theory itself, and saying, what is it you're doing? In what way does this kind of critical praxis actually intersect with, if you take this minimalist definition of communism, this kind of simply as the movement to abolish the existing state of things, this kind of minimal definition, the world is constantly changing, it's being transformed, communism is simply kind of the movement that will abolish the existing state of things. And the communist task is somehow to facilitate this movement. All your kind of theoretical activity must be kind of governed by the imperative to kind of connect and facilitate this movement. And it completely agrees with this, except it's obviously the movement is no longer kind
of the bearer of this movement is no longer the kind of the revolutionary proletariat. It becomes capitalism itself. And so in a way, my fundamental disagreement was with the premise of the whole account. If you begin by disavowing the relative autonomy of freedom and the need to negotiate with theoretical problems theoretically, and the need to articulate the relationship between theory and practice in theoretical terms, you end up with... In other words, there's a kind of hyper-practicism which is as impotent as theoreticism. There's a kind of devotion, a blind devotion to practice. We must do something, we must do something, we must intervene. Which ends up being as completely useless as the most abstruse, hyper-critical, hyper-theoretical reflection.
So I think that the initial premise of the Landian trajectory, which I think he inherits from critical theory, from his, well, not mentors, because I think he had a very antagonistic relationship to them, but from people in these kind of Frankfurt school kind of advocates, by whom he was kind of taught. I mean, the other argument against it is, okay, if the appeal is to the hyperstitial kind of efficacy of things. Well, you know, mixed texts have limited hyperstitial efficacy. And they didn't feed back into capitalism at all, which didn't require them. Capitalism didn't require the hyperstitial intensification by any kind of work. And that's
a serious objection to it. Because otherwise, what is it doing? Yeah, well you should, I'm sure it becomes a CEO or something. So why are you waving a flag as the juggernaut of capitalism rushes past him? I mean, why is that any better than trying to stand in front of that juggernaut? It's equally impotent, isn't it? Because as you said, he's completely undercut the position of any kind of agency at all. But then you just pose a very simple question about why write anything? And as you said, unless you maintain a theory practice distinction of at least a minimal can't. You don't get any kind of real model of practice at all. Because weirdly, writing then becomes this hyper-representational thing. Because there's no distinction between writing and theory and practice. So it's endlessly, it's like a dog chasing his tail, isn't it?
Endlessly trying to produce a form of writing which will somehow transcode the intensities that it's alluding to into a kind of, you know, a pure form of intensity. That's why he ends up, you know, in the strings of numbers and all of that. But at least the thing that Will will say about it is at least, you know, at least he took it seriously. You know, and this is really rare. And, you know, particularly in his position, you know, that he really took this seriously, all of these issues. You know, to the point of derangement. You know, to the point where he was getting, it was hearing voices you know this is so admirable about that I think actually the thing about
this issue about I think this is one of the most ironically the thing that makes his work most theoretically interesting, exceptionally interesting which is there right from the beginning is this interest in signifying system, signification. And he took this, and he did this kind of obsession with kind of constructing a counter-signifying regime using numbers. And that's a kind of, I think that's one of the most fascinating kind of moments of the project. It's fascinating, in other words, to create an anti-Logos. You know, something that would, if Logos is the kind of the medium of rational, of kind of, you know, human rationality of means and reasoning, the anti-logos, which would be the pure kind of, a purely numerical
medium. But digital is a mathematical, isn't it? Yes. It's kind of fun, again, so of course it's not about theory of numbers, it's about a numerical practice. But a signifying practice, a signifying practice that signifies things that have never been, that are conceptually unintelligible for anyone using the resources of current kind of conceptual categories, et cetera. That's really... But this is something of conceptual interest. And the point is I think that that could be pursued independently of this whole thing. It doesn't seem to have... it's kind of connection to this kind of practical, you know, to connect theory with capitalism is...
Rob, Pete, Ben-Alex, are you... Can I just make an observation about, as far as there's this critique of organically individuated human subjects, objects. For me it is made more problematic by your invocation of so many proper names of male philosophers, albeit adept with isms in the end. And can I also observe that, and I know what the occasion of this day is, but the oscillation between the Landian trajectory and then occasionally seeping back and forth into Nick is again, I mean, in a sense you're you're describing the difficulty of your own proposition with this romance element in there.
So if I could just observe that as something which seems to me problematic, I mean in a sense, if you're going to maintain this argument to the extent that you seem to be theoretically outlining it, you should dispense with all the proper names whatsoever. There's nothing valid theory of proper names in Deleuze and Catalan. Why do you think proper names refer to organic individuals? Because when they then revert to Nick and some sort of... That's just another form of proper names. We're calling them land. I'm just making an observation. I'm not making a huge... But the reason I made this was to ask Mark, in fact. I mean, it seems to me that if you are talking about questions of practice,
The idea of the human, I think one of the most powerful ideas on the left at the moment is Zizek's insistence on the idea of solving a decision. And you were talking about the kind of remorselessness and so forth, about the kind of predator or terminator quality of capitalism and so forth. But there is in a sense, and this is a hopeful idea, a kind of alternative to that too, which may require a certain idea of the individual too, which is the kind of ability to be absolutely remorseless back. And I just want to give two examples on this, one of which you'll know, you may well know as well. In Onwys' Antigone, at one point Antigone says a wonderful thing to Creon. She says, I'm here to say no to you and then to die. And the second one is, which I know you know, the chief leader in O'Shea Le Guin's The Word for World is Forest,
who in that brilliant early scene will not let go of the adversary. So there's a kind of idea of militancy which I think is almost inconceivable without some kind of idea of absolute counter remors. There's a kind of, to be the terminator back. And so this is why I get a sense I am making quite a serious point about the necessity not to go, well to allow for the fact that the individual, whether in the form of Nick or proper names, remains in the equation, no matter how much one may want to theorise it out, and I don't think one should. Maybe we should take Pete's response first, and Pete and Pete Alex. Mine kind of follows on from Alberto's, but sort of leaving the problems of the relation between theory and practice behind, and just sticking with the theory, I'm wondering whether there's not an additional problem with this kind of metaphysics of capitalism.
whether giving capitalism some kind of special or privileged place within your metaphysics or thinking capitalism from a particularly metaphysical standpoint actually prevents or disables what you might want to think of as concrete empirical social structures involved in capitalism does this kind of metaphysics of capitalism corrupt genuine empirical study of it I mean I probably kind of agree with Roch to a limited extent on the point that I think it is somewhat illegitimate to attempt to valorise someone like Land via a sort of romantic individualistic
conception even though we might want to use his name to indicate like the works which collected underneath it but I think thinking a bit more broadly I really wanted to ask Ray about because I think he's absolutely correct in terms of this dissolution of theory into into pure sort of practical self-generating matter but I think that isn't this partly because of an attempt to bind absolute intensity i.e. equals zero equals death and that it's because of the inadequacy of thought to bind that that he necessarily nominates a kind of inorganic
bearer of to be able to think and experience that. Yes, absolutely. I think, and to that regard, I consider myself an idealist, of course, a materialist, precisely because I want to, I insist on the need to preserve the kind of, the relative autonomy of thinking and the cogency and the consistency of thinking and a conceptual rationality precisely in order to be able to want to adjudicate relationship between representation reality between theory and practice and also to I think it's an enabling condition for practice if you try to use thoughts into kind of material reality in this
indiscriminately you kind of I think that's kind of Lisa can an impotent short circuit so I want to defend I would insist on defending, I mean, representation, the kind of representational structures that are kind of simply kind of attacked, it's kind of a caricature of representation that is being, it's a straw man. Representation here, theoretical representation in particular, is a straw man. And I want to defend representation and a kind of the imperative of conceptualization, and also even of a kind of dialectics. Because I think the point is that although I agree with, I think there's a, you know, what Nick says about the kind of, the wind which kind of death is a marker for real identity, for real, you know, the real identity of matter itself.
The point is that you should never confuse the symbolic marker for the thing, the thing in itself. And I think you need a much more careful, a much more kind of subtle articulation of those terms between 0, 1 and 2. To explain the autonomy of thought and of rationality so that thinking... Well, Dr. Pritchard find a point in it, so that you can maintain, you can generate a locus of rational agency. In other words, you keep, I think, in other words, keep a space of subjectivation open that provides a kind of a prism for practical incision, a point of insertion.
and that has to be done and here I'm kind of and I think this involves kind of re-examining the legacy of Hegel and Hegelianism in other words to maintain a kind of rationality, a kind of conceptual rationality that necessitates transformation at the level of practical existence and you do this but it requires a lot of work, a lot of theoretical work to do this So in other words, I would insist on the need to preserve the autonomy of rationality as something that allows you to intervene, to cut in the continuity of... Yeah, I mean, this is very much the thing that land, it doesn't just, you know, remove it as an option.
I mean, it's very deliberately of use any ability to intervene. There is no agency at all, I think, for land. Well, there's a paradox, there's this strange excrescence of subjectivity, which his project kind of seeks to almost practically erase, because of the difficulties that it presents. And yet there is obviously a paradox there, because at the same time for him it's almost unintelligible at some level. To the other extent, I think the real aim of his project is towards this obliteration of this problematic thing. So I guess it's kind of self-reputing to that extent. Because he wants to close this
and avoid incision into the world. I think there's a problem here. I think that Pete's point is really important. I think, I guess about in work, it's much more towards a very empirical thing, or the quasi-empirical study of capitalism. I don't know. I don't know the answer. I'm not fully sure of the answer to that question, but I think it's a good question. Of course, you're in danger of doing capitalism's work for it. Or are you? That's the weird thing, of course. Part of the problem with Nick's work is, of course, capitalism cannot identify with... He is the cheerleader for capitalism. It's absurd. of course capitalism couldn't work if it was advertised
itself as it really is. Except for those of remorseless terminators, suck up all human intelligence and metabolize it for the tungsten carbide stomach of cap. It can't come out and do that. In fact, it requires an utterly inane set of cultural conditions. PR. Couldn't be further from this kind of It couldn't be further from the sort of Landian model of identity disintegration. It's utterly banal world of PR, advertising, et cetera, et cetera. And you're all left with this thing anyway. If it's irrelevant, it's happening anyway. Well, you know, it could be, you know, Teletubbies or, you know, or John. It's indifferent, isn't it? It doesn't matter. But I do think it's a real important question about to what extent we do need to carry on
talking about capitalism in this quasi-metaphysical way or that we should demystify it. Or is there a danger of the demystification, you know, missing the abstract contours? In terms of Rob's question, I mean, no one has claimed that individuals don't exist, but if you're Marxist, that's a problem where you're starting from. And this, I think, is one of the great virtues of the Lanzanghi-Tauri, understanding of capitalism, that you could have this massive planetary deterritorialisation, destratification, unnameable thing, on the one hand, but on the other hand, how that operates is by the production of
a certain kind of banal biographical individualism. We see that, we can see that everywhere. But the more that this, this is what we just, Nick is wrong, but there is no tendency towards the decoding of individual identity in capitalism. It improvises new and increasingly inane forms of subjective personalisation. Why give up Terminator to the bad guys? No, I don't want to. As the usefulness of the metaphor of these kinds of figures of militants, of impactful militancy, why cede those to the... Terminator is interesting as an agent of an impersonal process.
And that is, we don't think we should see it at all. I think we need to steal it back and that's what leftist accelerationism is. There's no question of stealing it back either because accelerationism starts off as a Marxist thing, I think. And then in a way, Land tries to steal some of that intensity and in a way that he, as Ray was saying, then it's bizarrely neoliberalism becomes the agent of this, planetary term made to desubjectification program, which is going back to this empirical level, manifestly absurd, I would say. We should take just one more, can we? I think we probably need to take a break. Quick of the rest.
Well, then I'd like to go back to politics. I guess one of the things that's being suggested today is that acceleration, we should consider it as a guide to practical political action. But it strikes me there's possibly two problems or pitfalls with it. Firstly, I think when we talk about Deliz and Guzzari in 1980, we have to really place it back in the context in which it was written. Just after 1968, in France, people believed that revolution is around the corner, and that book was very much written in that tone. If we look at Thauss-en-Plateaus by the late 70s, it's a much more sober tone. It's, well, actually, you can't deterritorialize too much. and the book has all these images of people who did de-territalise too much, drug addicts and so on. And there's talk about lines of death, of leading to too much de-territalisation leads
to fascism. And if we look at the futurists, perhaps the original accelerationists, it's not perhaps coincidental that there is a link between futurism and fascism. It's not a necessarily logical one, but nonetheless it's clearly one of the paths that futurism goes down. So first question is whether if we do go down the acceleration road politically, how do we know that that's going to be emancipatory or progressive in any way? Is there not lots of lines of death that we risk encountering or following? And then the second problem in a way is a contrary problem which I think Ray identified, which is then you can easily go down the road of pure instrumentality. in order to get to this particular end we should do things or support causes or processes that we
don't inherently like, liberalism or whatever it might be. And in a way we've been here before, all sorts of trotsky, trotsky, enterism, ideas like it's got to get a lot worse before it can possibly get better. And historically that kind of politics has been quite disastrous mostly. So how do we avoid those two pitfalls? It's about it's not about accelerating anything whatsoever about capitalism. It's about say, going back to fundamental insight on the small test that capitalism makes available certain possibilities that didn't previously exist in any social system. And as Jameson says, this is the most collective society ever to exist for now.
You know, it's a society of total global interdependence. So it's then a question that, and this is why I think his essay, you know, Warcraft is utopia, it's really interesting. You know, it's a question that how do you get from, how do you maximize those potentials which capitalism inhibits? And, you know, that's a strategic question. It's not just we will just make everything faster or make everything worse. Why would it be worse, actually? You know, let's take... There are some fairly banal examples, aren't there, of interesting developments in capitalism where, at the moment,
we just don't know where they're going. Like a decommodification, or somehow seems integral to a certain logic of certain aspects of capitalism or to do with music or whatever, recording music tending towards a status of either decommodification or zero price as a commodity. This has come out in lots of ways through capitalism. Something like the internet again it's emerged through capitalism and it's locked into, at the moment, certain tendencies because of capitalism. Then it's a strategic question of how we can instrumentalise
something like the internet which would not have happened without capitalism in the form it has. In order to achieve goals that capitalism cannot and will not ever achieve. So, you know, it's a question of strategic instrumentalisation not, oh, just make things worse and hope that it'll get so bad that people will move on. I don't think that is the... That's not a form of acceleration as an island advocate. But instrumentalization then, you're back with a kind of teleology, that means as a reason, that's the problem. But if you're in politics, you have to have a means as a reason, you have to have an instrumental. But can you square that with this full-blooded kind of acceleration?
But I mean, that can't be squared anyway, does it? Because as you've said, that kind of accelerationism for its own sake is inconvenient, both kind of pragmatically and conceptually. So the only kind of accelerationism that's wouldn't accelerate is some kind of instrumental one, isn't it? I mean, it's not an absolute accelerationism, but as you've sort of indicated, that's a nonsense idea. I was just saying, why aren't we then describing this as the reform of capitalism? Why aren't we saying, well there are certain bits of capitalism we like, there are certain bits we don't like, we want to keep the bits we like.
Because they're not bits of capitalism. Those things that we want to accelerate are locked by capitalism in a way that inherently and necessarily blocks them. So it's not a case of reforming, it's a case of escaping out of capitalism so that they can deliver these actual potentials which capitalism will inevitably block and must do so. So reform would say we can stay within the capitalist framework and these things will achieve their potential. I'd say no, that's just not true. They never will. Should we take a break? Should we...