<div dir="ltr"><br><div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">Örsan Şenalp</b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:orsan1234@gmail.com">orsan1234@gmail.com</a>></span><br>Date: Tue, Oct 20, 2015 at 12:47 PM<br>Subject: [NetworkedLabour] Birth of Thanaticism<br>To: "<a href="mailto:networkedlabour@lists.contrast.org">networkedlabour@lists.contrast.org</a>" <<a href="mailto:networkedlabour@lists.contrast.org">networkedlabour@lists.contrast.org</a>>, Discussion list about the WSF <<a href="mailto:worldsocialforum-discuss@openspaceforum.net">worldsocialforum-discuss@openspaceforum.net</a>><br><br><br>Below is a bohemian look at the empty part of the World, from the author<br>
of the Molecular Red. Unfortunately he fails to mention our role in all<br>
this. By our I meam those many of us willingly or unwillingly did follow<br>
the politics of intra-class warfare and serve one or other fraction of<br>
global ruling classes (for instance by subscribing<br>
merchantalist-keynesian green anti-carbon alternative globalization<br>
politics of Al Gore-Clinton-Soros sort). Although Wark masterfully<br>
delivers his rethoric of the darkness coming for us, instead of using<br>
his skills to build on hope what he serves by using 'antropocene'<br>
language mostly talked to anarco-slicon valley generation, and (still)<br>
postmodern individualist and market friendly anarcho-liberarian-avant<br>
garde artists and environmentalists. This momentum gaining vision<br>
however is a pushing harder on the other end, the war-lord capitalism,<br>
of neo-cons, as well as state classes of the Brics. So darkness and<br>
pessimism, what the author describes, might be the half part of the<br>
self, probably most of the people share.<br>
<br>
and here is a downloadable reader of the book:<br>
<a href="http://syntheticzero.net/2015/05/05/molecular-red-reader/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://syntheticzero.net/2015/05/05/molecular-red-reader/</a><br>
<br>
For a optimistic version I would suggest Paul Mason's latest book<br>
Postcapitalism, that was shared by Anna before.<br>
<br>
And a bourgiouse vision of hope, at least for his class, documentary<br>
verison of the Kurzweil's The Singularity is Near:<br>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GcL3a4WK6M" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GcL3a4WK6M</a><br>
<br>
In my opinion, war and natural destruction number one to avoid.<br>
Distributed and all encompassing capitalism is eally bad. Mason's<br>
project sounds better. But there is an open large scale forum like<br>
debate and collective building process is required. The real hope<br>
remaining is there am tended to believe:<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
McKenzie Wark — April 3, 2014<br>
<br>
<br>
I don’t know why we still call it capitalism. It seems to be some sort<br>
of failure or blockage of the poetic function of critical thought.<br>
<br>
Even its adherents have no problem calling it capitalism any more. Its<br>
critics seem to be reduced to adding modifiers to it: postfordist,<br>
neoliberal, or the rather charmingly optimistic ‘late’ capitalism. A<br>
bittersweet term, that one, as capitalism seems destined to outlive us all.<br>
<br>
I awoke from a dream with the notion that it might make more sense to<br>
call it thanatism, after Thanatos, son of Nyx (night) and<br>
Erebos(darkness), twin of Hypnos (sleep), as Homer and Hesiod seem more<br>
or less to agree.<br>
<br>
I tried thanatism out on twitter, where Jennifer Mills wrote: “yeah, I<br>
think we have something more enthusiastically suicidal. Thanaticism?”<br>
<br>
That seems like a handy word. Thanaticism: like a fanaticism, a gleeful,<br>
overly enthusiastic will to death. The slight echo of Thatcherism is<br>
useful also.<br>
<br>
Thanaticism: a social order which subordinates the production of use<br>
values to the production of exchange value, to the point that the<br>
production of exchange value threatens to extinguish the conditions of<br>
existence of use value. That might do as a first approximation.<br>
<br>
Bill McKibben has suggested that climate scientists should go on strike.<br>
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its 2013 report<br>
recently. It basically says what the last one said, with a bit more<br>
evidence, more detail, and worse projections. And still nothing much<br>
seems to be happening to stop Thanaticism. Why issue another report? It<br>
is not the science, it’s the political science that’s failed. Or maybe<br>
the political economy.<br>
<br>
In the same week, BP quietly signaled their intention to fully exploit<br>
the carbon deposits to which it owns the rights. A large part of the<br>
value of the company, after all, is the value of those rights. To not<br>
dig or suck or frack carbon out of the ground for fuel would be suicide<br>
for the company, and yet to turn it all into fuel and have that fuel<br>
burned, releasing the carbon into the air, puts the climate into a truly<br>
dangerous zone.<br>
<br>
But that can’t stand in the way of the production of exchange value.<br>
Exchange value has to unreel its own inner logic to the end: to mass<br>
extinction. The tail that is capital is wagging the dog that is earth.<br>
<br>
Perhaps its no accident that the privatization of space appears on the<br>
horizon as an investment opportunity at just this moment when earth is<br>
going to the dogs. The ruling class must know it is presiding over the<br>
depletion of the earth. So they are dreaming of space-hotels. They want<br>
to not be touched by this, but to still have excellent views.<br>
<br>
It makes perfect sense that in these times agencies like the NSA are<br>
basically spying on everybody. The ruling class must know that they are<br>
the enemies now of our entire species. They are traitors to our species<br>
being. So not surprisingly they are panicky and paranoid. They imagine<br>
we’re all out to get them.<br>
<br>
And so the state becomes an agent of generalized surveillance and armed<br>
force for the defense of property. The role of the state is no longer<br>
managing biopower. It cares less and less about the wellbeing of<br>
populations. Life is a threat to capital and has to be treated as such.<br>
<br>
The role of the state is not to manage biopower but to manage<br>
thanopower. From whom is the maintenance of life to be withdrawn first?<br>
Which populations should fester and die off? First, those of no use as<br>
labor or consumers, and who have ceased already to be physically and<br>
mentally fit for the armed forces.<br>
<br>
Much of these populations can no longer vote. They may shortly loose<br>
food stamps and other biopolitical support regimes. Only those willing<br>
and able to defend death to the death will have a right to live.<br>
<br>
And that’s just in the over-developed world. Hundreds of millions now<br>
live in danger of rising seas, desertification and other metabolic<br>
rifts. Everyone knows this: those populations are henceforth to be<br>
treated as expendable.<br>
<br>
Everybody knows things can’t go on as they are. Its obvious. Nobody<br>
likes to think about it too much. We all like our distractions. We’ll<br>
all take the click-bait. But really, everybody knows. There’s a good<br>
living to be made in the service of death, however. Any hint of an<br>
excuse for thanaticism as a way of life is heaped with Niagras of praise.<br>
<br>
We no longer have public intellectuals; we have public idiots. Anybody<br>
with a story or a ‘game-changing’ idea can have some screen time, so<br>
long as it either deflects attention from thanaticism, or better –<br>
justifies it. Even the best of this era’s public idiots come off like<br>
used car salesmen. It is not a great age for the rhetorical arts.<br>
<br>
It is clear that the university as we know it has to go. The sciences,<br>
social sciences and the humanities, each in their own ways, were<br>
dedicated to the struggle for knowledge. But it is hard to avoid the<br>
conclusion, no matter what one’s discipline, that the reigning order is<br>
a kind of thanatcisim.<br>
<br>
The best traditional knowledge disciplines can do is to focus in tightly<br>
on some small, subsidiary problem, to just avoid the big picture and<br>
look at some detail. That no longer suffices. Traditional forms of<br>
knowledge production, which focus on minor or subsidiary kinds of<br>
knowledge are still too dangerous. All of them start to discover the<br>
traces of thanaticism at work.<br>
<br>
So the university mast be destroyed. In its place, a celebration of all<br>
kinds of non-knowledge. Whole new disciplines are emerging, such as the<br>
inhumanities and the antisocial sciences. Their object is not the<br>
problem of the human or the social. Their object is thanaticism, its<br>
description and justification. We are to identify with, and celebrate,<br>
that which is inimical to life. Such an implausible and dysfunctional<br>
belief system can only succeed by abolishing its rivals.<br>
<br>
All of which could be depressing. But depression is a subsidiary aspect<br>
of thanaticism. You are supposed to be depressed, and you are supposed<br>
to think that’s your individual failing or problem. Your bright illusory<br>
fantasy-world is ripped away from you, and the thanatic reality is bared<br>
– you are supposed to think its your fault. You have failed to believe.<br>
See a shrink. Take some drugs. Do some retail therapy.<br>
<br>
Thanaticism also tries to incorporate those who doubt its rule with a<br>
make-over of their critique as new iterations of thatatic production.<br>
Buy a hybrid car! Do the recycling! No, do it properly! Separate that<br>
shit! Again, its reduced to personal virtue and responsibility. Its your<br>
fault that thanaticism wants to destroy the world. Its your fault as a<br>
consumer, and yet you have not choice but to consume.<br>
<br>
“We later civilizations… know too that we are mortal,” Valery said in<br>
<a href="tel:1919" value="+661919">1919</a>. At that moment, after the most vicious and useless war hitherto,<br>
such a thing could appear with some clarity. But we lost that clarity.<br>
And so: a modest proposal. Let’s at least name the thing after its<br>
primary attribute.<br>
<br>
This is the era of the rule of thanaticism: the mode of production of<br>
non-life. Wake me when its over.<br>
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</div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div>Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: <a href="http://commonstransition.org" target="_blank">http://commonstransition.org</a> </div><div><br></div>P2P Foundation: <a href="http://p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://p2pfoundation.net</a> - <a href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://blog.p2pfoundation.net</a> <br><br><a href="http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation" target="_blank"></a>Updates: <a href="http://twitter.com/mbauwens" target="_blank">http://twitter.com/mbauwens</a>; <a href="http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens" target="_blank">http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens</a><br><br>#82 on the (En)Rich list: <a href="http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/" target="_blank">http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/</a> <br></div></div></div></div>
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