I think this is an imprecise definition, or at least too simple. I don’t think Musk has the historical function of promoting chaos, except apparently. His political activity, starting with the purchase of Twitter, is aimed at the destruction of the State and public structures built during the modern era. From this point of view, Musk’s project meets that of Steve Bannon and in general of the Trump Administration.

But Musk’s multifaceted activity, in addition to this definitive destruction of the modern order (i.e. the completion of the work begun by Thatcherite liberalism), includes a constructive part: the construction of a system of total control of the global telecommunications system (Starlink), and the creation of interfaces between biological and digital that will make the creation of fully intelligent automatons possible (Neuralink).

A few days ago, the South African racist took a stance on the upcoming German elections in a commentary in Welt Am Sonntag, supporting the Alternative fur Deutschland party. This is not a Nazi party, Musk said, arguing as follows:

“The portrayal of AFD as a far-right party is clearly false, considering the fact that Alice Weidel, the party’s leader, has a same-sex partner who comes from Sri Lanka. Does this sound like Hitler to you?”

The issue deserves to be explored further. It is true that individuals like Donald Trump, or parties like the German ADF appear very different from the Nationalistic Socialist German Workers’ Party. And they are: for starters, Trumpism has erased every reference to socialism, which Hitler had instead preserved, not only in the name of his party, but also in some of the social policies of the Third Reich.

Furthermore, the entire imaginary world that formed the backdrop to Hitler’s regime (the dark colours of the uniforms, the rigidity of the poses, and so on…) has been replaced by the explosion of colour and the carnivalesque excitement of the MAGA crowds.

The severe Gothic style of the territorialised and Protestant industrial bourgeoisie is replaced by the astonishing Baroque of the lumpen-mafia bourgeoisie which, from Berlusconi to Trump, has re-founded power on the spectacular cosmovision.

Should we therefore abandon the assimilation of global Trumpism with Hitler’s Nazism, which the left has perhaps used to frighten the electorate that has gradually become accustomed to not being impressed by the bogeyman of Nazism?

Yes and no.

No, because the revival of the colonialist racial supremacism of the white West is, in fact, the long-term historical function played by the global reactionary movement, of which Trump is the symbol and Musk the main instrument.

The enemy to be exterminated for Hitler were the Jews, while for contemporary racist supremacism the enemy to be exterminated are the immense masses of colonised people who, although incapable of an internationalist political offensive, constitute a danger to Western stability by their mere existence, with their migratory movements, and with their claims for redistribution of global wealth.

The Israeli military, and the Israeli people themselves, appear very different from Hitler’s SS from an aesthetic and political point of view, but they perform the same function as Hitler’s SS when it comes to exterminating the enemies of Western civilisation, which for Hitler were the Jews, and for Israel are instead the colonised who claim the right to survival and possibly to a territory.

The regime that is now unstoppably asserting itself throughout the West is, moreover, the consequence and the full implementation of the economic liberalism that has asserted itself since the 1980s, with the very active collaboration of the European left in its generality.

Liberal democracy has now been swept away everywhere, but the fundamental rule of the destruction of rules (and their replacement with the /absolute rule/ of maximum profit) is confirmed and exalted by those who have made the word ‘freedom’ their slogan, only that it is the freedom of slave-holders.

The left was a dependent function of liberalism in the past phase, when the workers’ movement had to be liquidated. This function was carried out by the left and the Democrats, and for this reason they are and will forever be objects of contempt.

But now the left is disappearing and what is emerging is a regime that no longer has much to do with the fascism of the past. I have long decided to adopt the definition of /Nazi Liberalism/.

The liberal devastation of the social system is the origin of Trumpist racist nationalism, but it is also its North Star.

The declared intention of the most aggressive Nazi Liberals, like Javier Milei, or like Steve Bannon and Elon Musk, is the definitive demolition of public structures (healthcare, education, transportation, etc.) that made social survival possible.

This naturally entails a social extermination, which is already underway and which we will see worsen frighteningly in the coming years. But the social extermination underway within Western countries is only part of the global genocide that is taking place on the border between the North and the South of the world, and which has its bloody symbol in the genocide of the Palestinians.

The era we have entered after October 7 is the era of global genocide — and this era is naturally characterised by the multiplication of chaotic precipitation points. It is evident that the global reactionary movement of which Musk is an expression causes chaotic ruptures in an ever greater number of points on the planet.

But this is only one step in the process that has been set in motion in recent decades, which is both the proliferation of chaos and the creation of a higher Order, which is the order of the Automaton.

The global reactionary movement is today engaged in the devastation of the human world, which is the world of indeterminacy, approximation, analogy and conjunction.

But beyond the chaotic action of the reactionary movement there is a deterministic, digital and connective objective: the Cognitive Automaton is destined to take the place of living chaos.

Musk, if we want, is an agent of political chaos, but political chaos has the function of making possible, in two logically successive (but chronologically contemporary) movements, the elimination of the Human: Genocide of the marginal and mutation of the collective mind for its submission to the Automaton, therefore the establishment of the Automatic Order.

In some programming languages, taking up a concept of the neo-positivist philosopher Rudolf Carnap, we speak of a “functor” as a variable dependent on a mathematical sequence

Outside the computational metaphor, the functor is an agent perfectly compatibilised and synchronised with the global cognitive automaton.

In the first decades of the twenty-first century, the Automaton operated the formatting and synchronisation of the individual minds of individuals belonging to the first connective generation.

Humans have been essentially subjected to the digital order, progressively deprived of characteristics and drives incompatible with the Automaton (such as erotic desire, critical capacity, and essentially expressive singularity).

This mutation cannot occur without enormous suffering, dysphoria, depressive or aggressive psychopathies.

But a part of the human race cannot be formatted and synchronised, and remains on the margins of the production process and the privileged territory.

The unformatted-unsynchronised (which a science fiction writer whose name I will not tell you called daisies) will be progressively exterminated with the instruments of war, hunger, submission to slave labour rhythms impossible for the human organism and with other termination techniques…

This process is the horizon of the twenty-first century, and we already see it clearly outlined in the political lines of Trumpism and in the techno-totalitarian action of which Elon Musk is the linchpin.

A race of functionally superior and emotionally sterilised white males is taking over the levers of technical, economic and military power. No political force can oppose this seizure of power, for the simple reason that it is not a political process, but a techno-cognitive mutation.
Cognitive mutation and genocide are the two decisive processes of this transition.

Cognitive mutation is achieved by subjecting the human mind to a formatting that aims to synchronise the mind’s activity to the rhythm of the automaton.

Inevitably this process of mutation involves suffering.

Think of pathologies such as ADHD, or attention deficit disorder: it is not a pathology, but rather an attempt to adapt and synchronise the mind to the ten thousand times accelerated rhythm of the Infosphere.

Ethical consciousness and erotic sensitivity are remnants of pre-formatted humanity that are rapidly disappearing in the emerging connective generation.

Another emerging characteristic of mutants is the imperception of the pain of others, the effect of the continuous exposure to flows of simulated nervous stimulation, so that the mind tends to no longer distinguish simulations from organisms, and tends to consider suffering bodies as little green men in video games, who do not suffer and if they die can always get back on their feet a moment later.

This is the horizon of the twenty-first century, this is the trend that is unstoppably unfolding.

Climate collapse, geopolitical collapse, social collapse are the ideal environment for this process of mutation, formatting and elimination of residual daisies .

But there is also the possibility (very likely) that the combination of these three collapses will produce the definitive extinction of the human race.

In this case, everything human would finally be erased, and this would allow the realisation of the perfect ideal of the Muskian Order: the unlimited reproduction of the automaton in a territory that has finally been purged of every chaotic and unpredictable element.

That said, we (deserters) know that the unpredictable is not yet erased.

But whereof one cannot speak, it is better to remain silent.

_____________

SOURCE: https://freedomnews.org.uk/2025/01/10/introduction-to-the-twenty-first-century/

The post Introduction to the 21st century- Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi appeared first on Void Network.

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To Aόρατο Χέρι μας πνίγει

“Το Αόρατο Χέρι είναι ένας από τους πιο ανθεκτικούς μύθους των (νεο)κλασσικών οικονομικών. Η μαγική του δύναμη είναι να διασφαλίζει την μεγιστοποίηση του κοινωνικού οφέλους όσο ο καθένας δρα με βάση το ατομικό του συμφέρον διαμέσου της αγοράς -φαινομενικά. Αλλά τι θα συνέβαινε αν το Αόρατο Χέρι ήταν λιγότερο αγαθό από αυτό; Ο πρόσφατος χείμαρρος εικόνων αστυνομικής βίας που προήλθαν από τις Η.Π.Α., με έβαλαν σε σκέψεις μήπως αυτό είναι δουλειά του Αόρατου Χεριού –το κράτημα σε λειτουργία του σχήματος Πόντσι που αποκαλούμε καπιταλισμό. Ίσως ήταν το Αόρατο Χέρι που χτύπησε την πόρτα του συντρόφου μου λίγα χρόνια πριν απαιτώντας την άμεση πληρωμή ενός παλιού χρέους, “ή αλλιώς”. Ίσως ήταν το Αόρατο Χέρι που πυροδότησε την βίαιη έκρηξη που κατέστρεψε τις 46.000 χρόνων ιερές σπηλιές των Puutu Kunti Kurrama και Pinikura φυλών στο φαράγγι του Juukan, για λογαριασμό του Rio Tinto.”

(Το Αόρατο Χέρι, ένα καλλιτεχνικό εγχείρημα από την Lara Luna Bartley@MoneyLab#X)

Το Αόρατο Χέρι ξεκάθαρα πνίγει την ανθρωπότητα, όπως ο Gunther Anders είχε προβλέψει ήδη από τα χρόνια μετά την Hiroshima και το Nagasaki. Στο κείμενο του, Εμείς, Οι Γιοί του Άιχμανν, o Anders γράφει ότι το πρότυπο του Ναζισμού θα φτάσει στην τελειότητα όταν η τεχνολογία πάρει το πάνω χέρι στα ανθρώπινα όντα. Το Άουσβιτς ήταν το πρώτο πείραμα στην βιομηχανική διαχείριση της εξόντωσης, και σήμερα οι συνενωμένες δυνάμεις της τεχνολογίας και του ρατσισμού προετοιμάζουν τo Endlosung σε πλανητική κλίμακα. Όπως έγραφε ο Anders:

“Μπορούμε να περιμένουμε ότι η φρίκη του Ράιχ θα επισκιάσει κατά πολύ την φρίκη του Ράιχ του παρελθόντος. Αναμφίβολα, όταν μια μέρα τα παιδιά ή τα εγγόνια μας, περήφανα με την τέλεια “συμηχανοποίηση” τους, κοιτάξουν από τα σπουδαία ύψη του χιλιόχρονου Ράιχ τους κάτω στην αυτοκρατορία του χθες, στο αποκαλούμενο “τρίτο” Ράιχ, θα τους φανεί απλά ένα ελάσσων, επαρχιώτικο πείραμα.” (Εμείς, Οι Γιοί του Άιχμανν)

Αυτή η αποκαρδιωτική πρόβλεψη πραγματοποιείται. Ο αυτοματισμός της εξόντωσης, σύμφωνα με τον Anders, είναι η ουσιαστική συνεισφορά που έφερε ο Ναζιστικός μηχανισμός, και στην μεταμοντέρνα και μεταβιομηχανική εποχή, το εγχείρημα της αυτοματοποιημένης εξόντωσης μπορεί να υλοποιηθεί σε μια πολύ μεγαλύτερη κλίμακα από ότι στην εποχή του Hitler.

Τι δεν μπορούσαμε να δούμε το ’70

Οι ακτιβιστές που ενηλικιώθηκαν στο δεύτερο μισό του περασμένου αιώνα δεν ήταν προετοιμασμένοι να αντιμετωπίσουν μια επιστροφή τόσο άγρια όσο αυτή που κάποτε χαρακτήρισε τον Ναζισμό. Αλλά στον νέο αιώνα, η αγριότητα αυτή επέστρεψε: η διακυβέρνηση του Trump έχει επαναφέρει φρικώδη θεάματα όπως ο χωρισμός παιδιών μεταναστών από τις οικογένειες τους, μια από τις αμέτρητες πράξεις απάνθρωπης βίας που λαμβάνουν χώρα ανά την υφήλιο, και συγκεκριμένα ενάντια των μεταναστών.

Η κουλτούρα της Ιταλικής Αυτονομίας, στην οποία ήμουν συμμετέχων τότε, προέβλεψε πολλές πλευρές του τωρινού μετασχηματισμού στο πεδίο της εργασίας, της τεχνολογίας και της ταξικής σύνθεσης, αλλά ήταν ουσιαστικά ανήμπορη να δει την εξάντληση της οικονομικής ανάπτυξης και ήταν εξίσου ανίδεη για την επίμονη δυναμική της φασιστικής υποκειμενοποίησης.

Παρά την έκδοση της μελέτης πάνω στα Όρια της Ανάπτυξης (1971), απλά δεν συνειδητοποιήσαμε τις μακροχρόνιες επιδράσεις που συνεπάγονται την κατάρρευση του φυσικού περιβάλλοντος, ούτε εκτιμήσαμε πλήρως τις επιδράσεις της ψυχικής κατάρρευσης που προκαλείται από την απεριόριστη εκμετάλλευση των διανοητικών ενεργειών.

Αυτός είναι ο λόγος που, αν θέλουμε να σκεφτούμε τις στρατηγικές του σύγχρονου κινήματος και τις τακτικές μορφές αντίστασης που απαιτούνται τώρα, δεν θεωρώ ότι η εμπειρία μου με το Ιταλικό ’70 βοηθάει ιδιαίτερα.

Στις ακόλουθες σημειώσεις, προσπαθώ να επαναπροσδιορίσω την πιθανότητα μιας αυτόνομης υποκειμενοποίησης μέσα από τον ορίζοντα του αφανισμού που σηματοδοτεί η πανδημική κατάρρευση.

Σπασμός

Το φθινόπωρο του 2019 ένας σπασμός συντάραξε το πλανητικό σώμα: από το Hong Kong στην Bogota, από την Barcelona στην Beirut, Quito, Βαγδάτη, La Paz, Santiago και Valparaiso, νέοι άνθρωποι, κυρίως άνεργοι και επισφαλώς εργαζόμενοι βγήκαν στους δρόμους σε ένα είδους παγκόσμιας διαμαρτυρίας. Καμία κοινή στρατηγική δεν ήταν ορατή σε αυτόν τον αναβρασμό, ούτε κοινοί στόχοι. Αυτό που ήταν κοινό, ωστόσο, ήταν μια αίσθηση πνιγμού, αφόρητου πόνου, η αίσθηση της απόγνωσης που εκφράζεται στις λέξεις, “δεν μπορώ να αναπνεύσω”. Τρεις σχετικές ταινίες πιάνουν αυτήν την στιγμή: Joker του Todd Phillips, Parasite του Bong Joon-ho, και Sorry we missed you του Ken Loach.

Ύστερα, μετά τον σπασμό, η κατάρρευση.

Η πανδημία που εξαπλώθηκε τους πρώτους μήνες του 2020 έδρασε σαν ένα είδος ψυχο-ύφεσης: η παγκόσμια μηχανή σταμάτησε απότομα.

Αυτός ο κλονισμός δεν θα έπρεπε να αναγνωστεί σαν ένα απομονωμένο γεγονός, αλλά αντίθετα σαν μια αποκάλυψη των καταστροφικών διαδικασιών που ήταν ήδη δρομολογημένες για πολλά χρόνια και οι οποίες ξαφνικά συγκρούστηκαν όλες μαζί: οικονομικός μαρασμός, περιβαλλοντική καταστροφή, ψυχική αδυναμία του κοινωνικού οργανισμού εξαντλημένου από την τεχνοοικονομική επιθετικότητα και την ψηφιακή επιτάχυνση της νευρικής διέγερσης.

Αποκάλυψη

Ετυμολογικά, αυτή είναι μια Αποκάλυψη: μια στιγμή αλήθειας στην οποία γίνεται σαφές ότι η νεοφιλελεύθερη οικονομία είναι ασύμβατη με την επιβίωση την ανθρωπότητας. Τι είναι ο νέος ορίζοντας που ανακαλύπτουμε (όχι και τόσο) σταδιακά στο κατώφλι της πανδημίας; Ο αφανισμός. Αυτή η λέξη, που ποτέ δεν άνηκε στο λεξιλόγιο της πολιτικής, παίρνει την κεντρική σκηνή στην κοινωνική φαντασία για πρώτη φορά στην ιστορία.

Αγωνιώδη κινήματα για την φιλελεύθερη δημοκρατία και την νέο-αντιδραστική ταυτότητα (εθνική, φυλετική, θρησκευτική, πολιτισμική, και λοιπές) συγκλίνουν προς τον παγκόσμιο εμφύλιο πόλεμο: ταυτοτικές συγκρούσεις σε κάθε χώρα του κόσμου, βία κατά των μεταναστών, και γεωπολιτικό χάος. Η οικονομική επιθετικότητα της νεοφιλελεύθερης παγκοσμιοποίησης έχει ενισχύσει την ανοιοκρατία του Trump: γηραιά λευκά αρσενικά με άνοια, που έχουν εμμονή με την εξαφάνιση της κυριαρχίας τους, με την ανικανότητα τους.

Επιτέλους, ο νεοφιλελευθερισμός αποκαλύπτεται σαν η οικονομική στρατηγική του Φασισμού.

Τα κοινωνικά κινήματα δεν μπορούν να κάνουν τίποτα για να διαλύσουν αυτήν την τάση. Πρέπει να επιβιώσουμε από την καταιγίδα, και πρέπει να δημιουργήσουμε, να πολλαπλασιάσουμε και να υπερασπιστούμε -με κάθε αναγκαίο μέσο- εικονικούς και φυσικούς χώρους αναπνοής, αυτοθεραπείας, κοινωνικού και τεχνικού πειραματισμού.

Θεραπεία

Η εξέγερση που ακολούθησε την δημόσια εκτέλεση του George Floyd από την Ku Klux Klan με τις μπλε στολές σηματοδότησε την ανάδυση μια υποκειμενικότητας που είναι ταυτόχρονα αντιρατσιστική, πολυφυλετική και αντικαπιταλιστική, και η οποία δρα σαν μαζική θεραπεία για την ασφυξία της επισφαλούς τάξης, το νέο διαγενεακό και διαφυλετικό προλεταριάτο των Ηνωμένων Πολιτειών.

Στον απόηχο της πανδημίας, οι διαμαρτυρίες υπήρξαν ο μόνος τρόπος αποφυγής της ασφυξίας: η εξέγερση είναι πρώτη βοήθεια για τον κοινωνικό οργανισμό και τον κοινωνικό εγκέφαλο.

Αλλά τώρα, παρά τον κατακερματισμό του επισφαλούς κοινωνικού σώματος, πρέπει να κάνουμε μια πράξη στρατηγικής φαντασίας: ποια είναι η ατζέντα του κινήματος για τον ερχόμενη εποχή, ειδικά στις Η.Π.Α., όπου οι εκλογές -ασχέτως του νικητή- πιθανόν να ξεκινήσουν μια περίοδο γενικευμένης αστάθειας και βίας;

Θα έπρεπε να εμπλακούμε στην Αμερικανική μάχη για την εξουσία ή θα έπρεπε να μείνουμε έξω από την κατάσταση αυτή ενώ η αποσάθρωση των Η.Π.Α. εξελίσσεται;

Τα κοινωνικά κινήματα δεν θα έπρεπε να παγιδευτούν στον αγώνα μεταξύ της φιλελεύθερης (ιμπεριαλιστικής) δημοκρατίας και την εθνικιστικής ανοιοκρατίας. Ωστόσο θα πρέπει να αρπάξουμε κάθε ευκαιρία για την δημιουργία χώρων αυτόνομης ζωής και πρέπει συνεχώς να βεβαιώνουμε και να επαναβεβαιώνουμε μια απλή ιδέα: η αναδιανομή του πλούτου είναι ο μόνος δρόμος εξόδου από την κόλαση. Ισότητα, ολιγάρκεια και αναδιανομή του πλούτου.

Κατάρρευση

Ότι οικονομικά μέτρα και αν πάρει το κράτος, η καπιταλιστική οικονομία δεν θα αναστηθεί. Καμία ανάκαμψη, καμία ανάπτυξη, καμία κοινωνική ειρήνη δεν είναι ορατή για τα επόμενα δέκα χρόνια. Όμως, όσο είμαστε ανίκανοι να δραπετεύσουμε από το πτώμα του καπιταλισμού, αυτό το πτώμα θα συνεχίσει να επιβάλλει του κανόνες του πάνω μας, οι οποίοι δεν αντιστοιχούν πλέον καθόλου στην δυναμική της κοινωνικής πιθανότητας.

Σε αυτήν την περίοδο, καθώς αντιστεκόμαστε στις συγκλίνουσες επιθετικότητες του ρατσισμού και του εταιρικού κεφαλαίου, καθώς προσπαθούμε να επιβιώσουμε, πρέπει να μάθουμε το μάθημα της πανδημικής κατάρρευσης: το ενσωματωμένο πεδίο της τεχνοοικονομικής αφαίρεσης καταστράφηκε από την βιολογική υλικότητα του ιού. Αυτό που χρειάζεται τώρα δεν είναι η χρηματική αφαίρεση, αλλά χρήσιμα προϊόντα της γνώσης και της συνεργασίας: τροφή, φροντίδα, παιδεία. Διατροφική αυτάρκεια, μέτρα δημόσιας υγείας και αυτονομία στην παιδεία θα είναι οι ενασχολήσεις του κοινωνικού κινήματος. Γνωρίζουμε ότι αυτό δεν θα συμβεί ειρηνικά και ότι η βία της οικονομικής δύναμης και του φασισμού θα απειλούν συνεχώς την κοινωνική αυτονομία. Επομένως, το πρόβλημα της αυτοάμυνας θα πρέπει να είναι ένα μόνιμο θέμα συνείδησης και πειραματισμού.

Τραύμα

Στο παρόν, ενώ η πανδημία συνεχίζει να ξεδιπλώνεται, μεγάλες εταιρίες εξάγουν τεράστια κέρδη από την ευρεία δυσφορία και η ανισότητα εκτοξεύεται: μια μικρή μειοψηφία ανθρώπων ευημερεί σε βάρος του πόνου της μεγάλης πλειοψηφίας της ανθρωπότητας.

Αυτό είναι το αποτέλεσμα ενός κανόνα που είναι ενσωματωμένος σαν ένας αυτοματισμός στην γλώσσα μας, στην φαντασία μας και στην καθημερινή ζωή: υποταγή στην χρηματική κυριαρχία, και πάνω από όλα στο χρέος— αυτή είναι μια διανοητική παγίδα που το συνεχιζόμενο τραύμα πιθανόν να μπορεί να διαλύσει. Αυτό το τραύμα θα ξεδιπλωθεί σε μια μακρά περίοδο χρόνου, καθώς οι επιρροές της στον πολιτισμό, την συμπεριφορά και στο συλλογικό ασυνείδητο καταγράφονται σταδιακά.

Πρέπει να δράσουμε πάνω στην μετατραυματική διανοητική εξέλιξη μας: χρειαζόμαστε την θεραπεία και ταυτόχρονα την αναβίωση της αλληλεγγύης.

Χρεοκοπία

Καθώς η παγκόσμια οικονομία θα είναι σε μια κατάσταση μόνιμης κατάρρευσης, η κοινωνία πρέπει να μάθει να είναι ανεξάρτητη από την αγορά και πρέπει να δημιουργήσει τις συνθήκες για την επιβίωση εκτός της αγοράς. Πρέπει να πειραματιστούμε σε μικρή και μεγάλη κλίμακα με την τροφή, την παιδεία, την υγειονομική αυτάρκεια και την απενεργοποίηση την χρηματικής κυριαρχίας πάνω στην καθημερινή ζωή, όποτε και όπου αυτό είναι δυνατό.

Η απαλλοτρίωση των απαλλοτριωτών πρέπει να οργανωθεί επιστημονικά— μια αναδιανομή του πλούτου είναι ο μόνος τρόπος να αποφευχθεί ένα πλανητικό ολοκαύτωμα.

Μη-αναγνώριση του χρέους πρέπει να διακηρυχθεί όποτε και όπου είναι δυνατόν. Μια γενική χρεοκοπία θα πρέπει να οργανωθεί.

Γνωρίζω ότι όλα αυτά είναι ευσεβείς πόθοι αυτή την στιγμή.

Γνωρίζω ότι η πλειοψηφία του κόσμου ψάχνει προστασία στην ταυτότητα, στο ανήκειν, στο έθνος, στην φυλή… και ότι αυτό οδηγεί σε πόλεμο. Γνωρίζω ότι δεν μπορούμε να σταματήσουμε αυτήν την τάση, καθώς οι επιθετικές ενέργειες που έχουν συσσωρευτεί τις προηγούμενες δεκαετίες και που έχουν οξυνθεί στα χρόνια του Trump, οδηγούνται αδρανειακά προς την σύγκρουση. Γνωρίζω ότι αυτή η καταιγίδα δεν μπορεί να διαλυθεί πλήρως- ωστόσο, θα πρέπει να προσπαθήσουμε να αποφύγουμε την καταιγίδα όσο το δυνατόν περισσότερο και να δημιουργήσουμε αυτόνομους χώρους.

Ευτυχία

Ο αφανισμός έχει αναδυθεί σαν τον ορίζοντα του νεαρού αιώνα μας.

Ας χαλαρώσουμε και ας αποδεχτούμε αυτήν την πραγματικότητα, χωρίς πανικό. Εξάλλου, η διάλυση -αργά ή γρήγορα- μέσα στο τίποτα είναι η μοίρα του κάθε οργανισμού.

Για την ώρα η ερώτηση είναι η εξής: είναι μια ευτυχισμένη ζωή εφικτή μέσα στον ορίζοντα του αφανισμού;

Αν όχι, είμαστε καταδικασμένοι και ο αφανισμός θα είναι το μόνο αποτέλεσμα του ξέφρενου ανταγωνισμού και της στρατιωτικής εχθρότητας, μετά από μια περίοδο επεκτατικής κόλασης.

Αλλά δεν πιστεύω ότι είμαστε καταδικασμένοι— ναι, μια ευτυχισμένη ζωή είναι δυνατή μέσα στον ορίζοντα του αφανισμού.

Ο ατομικός αφανισμός δεν είναι μια καινούργια προοπτική: είμαστε εξοικειωμένοι με το γεγονός της ατομικής μας θνητότητας. Ωστόσο, έχουμε καταφέρει εδώ και εκεί να δημιουργήσουμε τις συνθήκες για μια ευτυχισμένη ζωή, έτσι δεν είναι; Οπότε αυτό είναι το έργο: να δημιουργήσουμε και να πολλαπλασιάσουμε συνθήκες για την ευτυχία, ότι και αν συμβεί.

Η πραγματικότητα είναι βάναυση, αλλά πρέπει να αποφύγουμε να γίνουμε και εμείς οι ίδιοι βάναυσοι: αυτό, σήμερα, είναι ένα πιθανό νόημα της λέξης “αυτονομία”.

Μόνο όταν ένα κίνημα, μια μεγάλη μειοψηφία γίνει ικανή να δείξει ότι μια ευτυχισμένη ζωή είναι δυνατή στον ορίζοντα του αφανισμού, μπορεί πιθανώς να βρεθεί μια γραμμή απόδρασης από τον αφανισμό.

______________

23 Οκτ. 2020

Μετάφραση: Κώστας Μπατσής / Κενό Δίκτυο

πηγή: Ill Will Editions

εικόνες: David Maisel

The post Αφανισμός, Εξέγερση, Ευτυχία- Franco “Bifo” Berardi appeared first on Void Network.

* * * * *

1. The Invisible Hand is strangling us

“The Invisible Hand is one of (neo)classical economics’ most enduring mythologies. Its magical power is to ensure that social benefit is maximised as long as everyone acts in their own self-interest through the market—apparently. But what if the Invisible Hand were less benign than this? The recent torrent of images of police brutality which have come out of the US, have got me wondering whether this is the Invisible Hand at work—keeping the Ponzi scheme we call capitalism at play. Maybe it was the Invisible Hand that knocked on my partner’s door a couple of years ago demanding instant payment on an old debt, ‘or else’. Perhaps it was the Invisible Hand that set off the brutal explosion that destroyed the 46,000 year old sacred caves of the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura people in the Juukan Gorge, on behalf of Rio Tinto.”

(The Invisible Hand, an art project by Lara Luna Bartley@MoneyLab#X)

The Invisible Hand is clearly strangling humankind, as Gunther Anders had predicted already during the years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In his text, We, Sons of Eichmann, Anderswrites that the template of Nazism will reach its perfection when technology will get the upper hand over human beings. Auschwitz had been the first experiment in the industrialised management of extermination, and today the conjoint forces of technology and racism are preparing the Endlosung on a planetary scale. As Anders wrote:

“We can expect that the horrors of the Reich to come will vastly eclipse the horrors of yesterday’s Reich. Doubtless, when one day our children or grandchildren, proud of their perfect ‘co-mechanization’, look down from the great heights of their thousand year Reich at yesterday’s empire, at the so-called ‘third’ Reich, it will seem to them merely a minor, provincial experiment.” (We Sons of Eichmann).

This appalling prediction is coming true. The automation of extermination, according to Anders, is the essential contribution brought about by the Nazi machinery, and in our postmodern and postindustrial age, the project of automated extermination can be implemented on a much larger scale than during the age of Hitler.

2. What we couldn’t see in the 1970s  

Activists that came of age during the second half of last century were not prepared to face a comeback of the sort of ferocity that once epitomized Nazism. But in the new century, that ferocity is back: the Trump administration has restaged horrific spectacles like the separation of migrant children from their families, one of countless acts of inhuman violence extending around the globe, and particularly against migrants. 

The culture of the Italian Autonomia movement, of which I was a participant back in the day, did anticipate many aspects of the present transformation in the field of labour, technology, and class composition, but was essentially unable to foresee the exhaustion of economic growth, and was equally unaware of the persistent dynamics of fascist subjectivation.

In spite of the publication of the report on The Limits of Growth (1971), we simply did not realize the long term effects entailed by a collapse of the physical environment, nor did we fully appreciate the effects of the psychic breakdown provoked by the unbounded exploitation of mental energies. 

This is why, if we want to think about the strategies of the contemporary movement and the tactical forms of resistance that are needed now, I don’t think that my experience of the Italian 1970s helps all that much.

In the following notes, I try to reconsider the possibility of autonomous subjectivation from within the horizon of extinction disclosed by the pandemic collapse. 

3. Convulsion

In Fall of 2019 a convulsion shook the planetary body: from Hong Kong to Bogotà, from Barcelona to Beirut, Quito, Baghdad, La Paz, Santiago and Valparaiso, young people, mostly unemployed and precarious workers took to the streets in a sort of global riot. No common strategy was visible in this upheaval, no common goals. What was common, however, was a sense of suffocation, of unbearable suffering, the sense of despair expressed by the words, ‘I can’t breathe’. Three movies of interest capture that moment: Joker, by Todd Phillips, Parasite by Bong Joon-ho, and Sorry we missed you, by Ken Loach.

Then, after the convulsion, the collapse.

The pandemics that spread in the first months of 2020 acted as a sort of psycho-deflation: the global machine came abruptly to a halt.

This breakdown should not be read as an insulated event, but rather as the revelation of a multiplicity of catastrophic processes that had been underway for many years, and which suddenly crashed together: economic stagnation, environmental devastation, psychic frailty of the social organism exhausted by techno-financial aggression and the digital acceleration of nervous stimulation. 

4. Apocalypse

Etymologically speaking, this is an Apocalypse: a moment of truth in which it becomes clear that the neoliberal economy is incompatible with the survival of humankind. What is the new horizon that we are (not so) slowly discovering during the pandemic threshold? Extinction. This word, which never belonged to the political lexicon, takes central stage in the social imagination for the first time in history.

Agonising movements for liberal democracy and neo-reactionary identity (national, racial, religious, cultural, and otherwise) converge towards global civil war: identitarian conflicts in every country of the world, violence against migrants, and geopolitical chaos. The economic aggressiveness of neoliberal globalisation has fuelled the dementio-cracy of Trump: demented senescent white males obsessed by the fading of their supremacy, by their impotence. 

At last, neoliberalism is revealed to be the economic strategy of Fascism.

Social movements can do nothing to dispel this tendency. We must survive the storm, and we must create, multiply, and defend—by any means necessary—virtual and physical spaces of respiration, self-therapy, social and technical experimentation.

5. Therapy

The insurrection that followed the public execution of George Floyd by the Ku Klux Klan in blue uniforms has marked the emergence of a subjectivity that is simultaneously anti-racist, multi-racial and anti-capitalist, and acts as massive therapy for the suffocating body of the precarious class, the new intergenerational and interracial proletariat of the United States.

In the wake of the pandemic, riots have been the only way of avoiding suffocation: insurrection is first aid for the social organism and the social brain.

But now, despite the fragmentation of the precarious social body, we must perform an act of strategic imagination: what is the agenda of the movement for the coming time, particularly in the U.S., where the elections—no matter who wins—will likely open a period of widespread instability and violence?

Should we be involved in the American struggle for power, or should we stay out of the fray while the disintegration of the U.S. unfolds? 

Social movements should not be trapped in the struggle between liberal (imperialist) democracy and nationalist dementio-cracy. Nevertheless we should seize every occasion for the creation of spaces of autonomous life, and we should constantly assert and reassert a simple concept: redistribution of wealth is the only way out of hell. Equality, frugality, and redistribution of wealth.

6. Collapse

Whatever financial measures the state may take, the capitalist economy will not resurrect itself. No recovery, no growth, no social peace are in sight for the next ten years. Still, as long as we are unable to escape the corpse of capitalism, this corpse will continue imposing its rules upon us, which no longer correspond whatsoever to the dynamics of social possibility.

In this period, as we resist the convergent aggressions of racism and corporate capital, as we attempt to survive, we must learn the lesson of the pandemic collapse: the integrated domain of techno-financial abstraction was severed by the biological materiality of the virus. What is needed now is not monetary abstraction, but useful products of knowledge and cooperation: food, care, education. Nutritional self-reliance, public health measures, and autonomy in education will be the concerns of the social movement. We know that this will not happen peacefully, and that the violence of economic power and of fascism will constantly threaten social autonomy. Therefore, the problem of self-defence must be a permanent subject of awareness and experimentation.

7. Trauma

Presently, as the pandemic continues to unfold, large corporations are extracting enormous profits from the widespread distress, and inequality is skyrocketing: a small minority of people are thriving on the suffering of the large majority of the human kind. 

This is the effect of a rule that is embedded like an automatism in our language, imagination, and daily life: subjection to monetary rule, and above all to debt—it’s a mental trap that the ongoing trauma just might possibly sever. This trauma will unfold over a long period of time, as its effects in culture, behavior, and in the collective unconscious are progressively registered. 

We must act upon our post-traumatic mental evolution: we need to heal and simultaneously to revive solidarity.

8. Insolvency

As the global economy will be in a state of permanent collapse, society must learn to become independent of the market, and must create the conditions for extra-market survival. We must experiment at a small and large scale with nutrition, education, sanitary self-reliance, and the deactivation of monetary rule over everyday life, whenever and wherever this is possible. 

The expropriation of the expropriators must to be organised scientifically—a redistribution of wealth is the only way to avoid a planetary holocaust. 

Non-recognition of debt must be declared whenever and wherever it is possible. A general insolvency has to be organized.

I know that this is wishful thinking at the present moment. 

I know that the majority of people are seeking protection in identity, belonging, nation, race… and this is escalating war. I know that we cannot stop this trend, as the aggressive energies accumulated in the past decades, and exacerbated in the Trump years, are inertially headed toward a clash. I know that this storm cannot be dispelled completely; however, we should try to sidestep the storm as much as possible, and to create spaces of autonomy. 

9. Happiness

Extinction has emerged as the horizon of our young century.

Let’s relax and accept this reality, and not panic. After all, to devolve sooner or later into nothing is the fate of every organism.

For now, the question is this: is a happy life possible within the horizon of extinction?

If not, we’re doomed, and extinction will be the only outcome of frantic competition and military enmity, after a period of expansive hell.

But I don’t believe that we are doomed—yes, a happy life is possible within the horizon of extinction. 

Individual extinction is in no way a new perspective: we are familiar with the prospect of our individual mortality. However, we have managed here and there to create the conditions for a happy life, haven’t we? So this is the task: to create and proliferate conditions for happiness, no matter what.

Reality is brutal, but we must avoid growing brutal ourselves: this, today, is one possible meaning of the word “autonomy.”

Only when a large minority (a movement) is able to show that a happy life is possible in the horizon of extinction, can a line of escape from extinction possibly be found.

Oct 23th, 2020

Images: David Maisel

source: Ill Will Editions

The post Extinction, Rebellion, Happiness- by Franco ‘BIFO’ Berardi appeared first on Void Network.

Figures such as Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida, among many others, have stressed in the past that we need to create institutions for unified political decisions at the level of the European Union. In the aftermath of the Greek debt crisis, it seems that the Europhile intellectuals have gotten what they asked for. The EU entity has been subjected to a sort of political directorate that has unfortunately only served to reveal that financial interests lie at the heart of the Union’s priorities. The early stage of the European tragedy has manifested itself as a political enforcement of the financial domination of European society.
The institutions of the welfare state have been under attack for thirty years: full employment, labor rights, social security, retirement, public schools, public transportation—all of these areas have been weakened, neglected, or destroyed. After thirty years of neoliberal obsession, we arrive at a collapse. What comes next? The ruling class answers coarsely: more of the same. Further reduction of public sector salaries, further raising of the age of retirement. No respect for society’s needs and the rights of workers.
Thatcher said thirty years ago that there is no such thing as society, and today this statement comes across as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Society is in fact dissolving, leaving space to a jungle where everyone fights against one another. Following the Greek crisis, the monetarist dogma has been strongly reinforced, as if more poison could act as an antidote. Reducing demand will lead to recession, and the only result will be to further concentrate capital in the hands of the financial class and further impoverish the working class.
Following the Greek financial crisis, emergency law was declared: a self-proclaimed Merkel-Sarkozy-Trichet directorate imposed a deflationary policy to be forced on the various national governments of European countries. In order to rescue the financial system, this self-proclaimed directorate diverts resources from society to the banks. And in order to revive the failed philosophy of neoliberalism, social spending is cut, salaries are lowered, the retirement age is raised, and the younger working generation is precarized. Those who do not acknowledge the great necessities of competition and growth will be cut out. Those who choose to play the game will have to accept any punishment, any renunciation, any suffering demanded by the great necessity. But who said that we must absolutely be part of this?
So far, the result of the collapse of neoliberal politics has been its confirmation and consolidation. When the American financial system collapsed, there was a general expectation that capital concentration would be abandoned or at least diminished, as a redistribution of wealth seemed necessary to rescue the economy. This has not taken place. The Keynesian way has not even been explored, and Paul Krugman has been left to repeat a series of perfectly reasonable options that no one is willing to consider.
Thanks to the crisis, American society has been robbed by big finance, and now Europe is following with its own mathematical ferocity. Is there any chance of stopping this insane race? A social explosion is possible, as it is apparent that living conditions will soon become unbearable. But precarious labor and the decomposition of social solidarity may open the way to a frightening outcome: ethnic civil war on continental scale, and the dismantling of the Union, which would unleash the worst instincts of nations.
In Paris, London, Barcelona, Rome, and Athens, massive demonstrations have erupted to protest the restrictive measures, but this movement is not going to stop the catastrophic aggression against social life, because the European Union is not a democracy, but a financial dictatorship whose politics are the result of unquestioned decision-making processes.
Peaceful demonstrations will not suffice to change the course of things and violent explosions will be too easily exploited by racists and criminals. A deep change in social perception and social lifestyle will compel a growing part of society to withdraw from the economic field, from the game of work and consumption. These people will abandon individual consumption to create new, enhanced forms of co-habitation, a village economy within the metropolis.
Unless one is seized by avarice or psychotic obsession, all a human being wants is a pleasant, possibly long life, to consume what is necessary to keep fit and make love. “Civilization” is the pompous name given to all the political or moral values that make the pursuit of this lifestyle possible. Meanwhile, the financial dogma states that if we want to be part of the game played in banks and markets, we must give up a pleasant, quiet life. We must give up civilization.
But why should we accept this exchange? Europe’s wealth does not come from the stability of the Euro or international markets, or the managers’ ability to monitor their profits. Europe is wealthy because it has millions of intellectuals, scientists, technicians, doctors, and poets. It has millions of workers who have augmented their technical knowledge for centuries. Europe is wealthy because it has historically managed to valorize competence, and not just competition, to welcome and integrate other cultures. And, it must be said, it is also wealthy because for four centuries it has ferociously exploited the physical and human resources of other continents.
We must give something up, but what exactly? Certainly we must give up the hyper-consumption imposed on us by large corporations, but not the tradition of humanism, enlightenment, and socialism—not freedom, rights, and welfare. And this is not because we are attached to old principles of the past, but because it is these principles that make it possible to live decently.
The prospect of a revolution is not open to us. The concept of revolution no longer corresponds to anything, because it entails an exaggerated notion of the political will over the complexity of contemporary society. Our main prospect is to shift to a new paradigm not centered on product growth, profit, and accumulation, but on the full unfolding of the power of collective intelligence.

The European tragedy has been founded on a false representation of social reality, based on some assumptions that contradict daily experience, but are nevertheless delivered as absolute truth, as unquestionable dogma.
Platitude 1: Public spending must be drastically cut if European budgets are to be balanced. In fact, European states have been cutting their budgets over the last thirty years, and are now diverting financial resources from social infrastructure towards banks and corporations. This diversion has already produced extensive damage, and will produce more.
Platitude 2: The European economy must compete with the emerging economies of developing countries, and this can happen only by reducing labor costs. This means that in order to become competitive, in a strictly economical sense, European life should be impoverished. And this is what is happening: unemployment is rising, education is being privatized, and racism is spreading. Nobody has ever explained why the only criterion for evaluating wealth must be financial in nature.
Platitude 3: The European worker’s productivity must be increased while salaries must be reduced. This produces an effect of low demand, deflation, and depression, but also overproduction. 40 percent of cars produced in Europe will not find buyers (thank God). So why should carmakers seek to increase the productivity of their already hyper-exploited workers? Consumption declines because salaries shrink, but also because Europeans simply do not need any more cars.
Platitude 4: The age of retirement must be raised, as there will be too many young people and too few old people in the future. The retirement age has already been raised in every European country, and now in France as well. But the rationale does not make sense. The productivity of the average European worker has increased fivefold over the past fifty years, so when the time comes, fewer young people actually will be able to feed more old people. But in reality, raising the retirement age has nothing to do with any social concern whatsoever. Rather, it is a trick for reducing labor costs. Capitalists would much rather pay a poor, old worker a salary than a deserved pension, and leave the young to find their own way, accepting any kind of occupation, whether precarious or simply underpaid.
No European politician dares to question these fundamental platitudes. And those who protest against these devastating measures are accused of being unable to comprehend the task at hand: to advance the deregulation that produced the present collapse. The late-neoliberal ruling class states that if deregulation produced the systemic collapse, we need more deregulation. If lower taxation on high incomes led to a fall in demand, let’s lower high-income taxation. If hyper-exploitation resulted in the production of unsold and useless cars, let’s intensify car production. Are these people crazy? Perhaps they are panicking, in fear of their own impotence.

Aesthetics of Europe

The aesthetics of the European Union is cold by definition. The European Union was born in the aftermath of World War II with the goal of overcoming old nationalist and ideological passions, and here lies its progressive and pragmatic nature. Lately, however, this founding anti-mythological myth seems to have been blurred, confused, forgotten. In the words of Ève Charrin:

Europe is peace, Europe is prosperity … Granite, glass and concrete: depressing architectural neutrality … This modesty without grace is a way of pretending that we are not political (rather, we are only managing).¹

Charrin expresses the aesthetic predicament of the European Union over the past decades, but such an apathetic way of being together was only possible under prosperous conditions. Insofar as a growing level of consumption could be guaranteed within the EU, monetarist rule could favor economic growth, and the EU could exist as an entity. It is a fiction of democracy governed by an autocratic organism, the European Central Bank. While the US Federal Reserve was established to stabilize the value of currency and maximize employment, the primary goal of the ECB charter is to fight inflation. Now this goal has become irrational, as deflation is the overwhelming trend.
Citizens can do nothing to influence the politics of the ECB, as the Bank does not respond to political authority, and this is why European citizens have been conscious of the vacuity of European elections. In the future, these citizens will come to view the EU as their enemy.
Social movements should focus on a founding myth of European history: the myth of energy. Modern culture and political imagination have emphasized the virtues of youth, of passion and energy, aggressiveness and growth. Capitalism is based on the exploitation of physical energy, and semiocapitalism has subjugated the nervous energy of society to the point of collapse. The notion of exhaustion has always been anathema to the discourse of modernity, of romantic Sturm und Drang, of the Faustian drive to immortality, the endless thirst for economic growth and profit, the denial of organic limits.
The romantic cult of youth is the cultural source of nationalism. In the colonial era, British and French nationalism was the cultural condition of colonial expansion, but in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, nationalism resurfaced to express the self-affirmation of young countries (Italy, Japan, and Germany), while the old empires (Russia, Austria, and the Ottomans) headed towards collapse. Nationalism also affirms the role of the young generation at the cultural and economic level. Old-fashioned styles are devalued, old people and women are despised for their weakness. Fascism always depicts itself as the young nation.
In late modernity, this depiction became an essential feature of advertising. But contrary to Fascist discourse, late modern advertising did not abuse old age, but denied it, claiming that every old person could be young if he or she would simply accept to partake in the consumerist feast. As Norman Spinrad showed in his novel Bug Jack Barron (1967), the denial of age and time marks the ultimate delirium of the global class.
The Fascism that triumphed in Italy after 1922 can be seen as the energolatreia (worshipping of energy) of the young. Now, Berlusconi re-stages the same arrogance, but the actors of the present comedy are old men who require make up and Viagra to inhabit an image of energy and potency. Like the heroic mythology of Fascism, as well as the mythology of advertising embodied by Berlusconi’s subculture, the myth is based on a delirium of power. Where the former was based on the youthful virtues of strength, energy, and pride, the latter employs the mature virtues of technique, deception, and finance. And while the nemesis that followed the youthful violence of Fascism in Italy was World War II and its unthinkable mass of destruction and death, one must ask what nemesis will be brought about by the present energolatreia of the old people?
With very few exceptions, literature and cinema have scarcely dealt with the subject of love between the elderly. It is a subject we know very little about, simply because old people have never really existed. Until some decades ago, it was rare to find a person older than sixty, and while many that were would be surrounded by an aura of respect and veneration, many others were banished to the border of society, where they would find themselves alone, deprived of the means of survival, and unable to form a community. We know very little about growing old, and we know nothing about the emotions of the elderly and their ability of social organization, solidarity, and political force. We don’t know because we have not experienced it. But that experience is now beginning.
The destiny of Europe will be played out in the biopolitical sphere, at the border between consumerism, techno-sanitarian youth-styled aggressiveness, and possible collective consciousness of the limits of the biological (sensitive) organism. The age of senilization is here, and Europe is the place where this experience will first find its voice.

A Therapeutic Paradox

Exhaustion has no place in Western culture, and this has become a problem, for exhaustion now needs to be understood and accepted as a new paradigm for social life. Its cultural and psychic articulation will open the door to a new conception of prosperity and happiness. The coming European insurrection will not be driven by energy, but by slowness, withdrawal, and exhaustion. It will be the autonomization of the collective body and soul from exploitation by means of speed and competition.
Western people were first advised of exhaustion in 1972, when the Club of Rome commissioned the book The Limits to Growth.² For the first time, we became aware that the physical resources of the planet are not boundless. Some months after the publication of the report, the Western world experienced the first oil shortage following the Yom Kippur war in 1973. Since then, we are expected to be conscious of the fact that energy is leaving the physical body of the Earth. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the collapse of the dot-com economy led to the pauperization and precarization of cognitive workers, while the financial meltdown of September 2008 initiated a process of pauperization and precarization of overall society. Western culture is unprepared to deal with the patterns exposed by these crises, because it is a culture based on the identification of energy and good, of expansion and social well-being.
At the moment the change in perception towards exhaustion seems rather dark and depressing, because the game is played following the rules of modern energolatria: growth. In the coming years one third of the European population—the generation born after World War II, when the fulfillment of the modern promise of peace, democracy, and well-being was apparently at hand—will reach old age. The new generation now entering the labor market does not possess the memory of this past civilization, nor the political force to defend their existence from the predatory economy. The age of senility is here, and it may introduce a generalized form of dementia senilis: fear of the unknown, xenophobia, loss of historical memory. But in a different scenario—one that we should anticipate at the cultural level—the process of senilization may open the way to a cultural revolution based on the force of exhaustion, of facing the inevitable with grace, discovering the sensuous slowness of those who do not expect any more from life than wisdom—the wisdom of those who have seen a great deal without forgetting, who look at each thing as if for the first time.
This is the lesson that Europe may learn if it can come out from the capitalist obsession with accumulation, property, and greed. In a reversal of the energetic subjectivation that animated the revolutionary theories of the twentieth century, radicalism should abandon the mode of activism, and adopt a passive mode. A radical passivity would dispel the ethos of relentless productivity that neoliberal politics has imposed. The mother of all the bubbles, the bubble of work, would finally deflate. We have been working too much over the past three or four centuries, and outrageously too much over the last thirty years. If a creative consciousness of exhaustion could arise, the current depression may mark the beginning of a massive abandonment of competition, consumerist drive, and dependence on work.
Anthropologist Gregory Bateson would define the European malaise in terms of a double bind, or contradictory injunction, with a paradoxical solution that could be this: don’t be afraid of decline. Decline and de-growth imply a divestment in the midst of frenzied competition, and this is the paradox that may bring us out of the neoliberal double bind.

originaly published in Dec. 2010 in e-flux:
http://www.e-flux.com/journal/view/191

Platitudes

The post “Exhaustion and Senile Utopia of the Coming European Insurrection” by Franco Berardi Bifo appeared first on Void Network.