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Symptoms of Decay: another PDF polemic!

In a recent post I mentioned my encounter with a nihilist turn in radical theory.  Since making that post––which was mainly a complaint based on my first impression after having read these "nihilist" texts––I have reread and crafted a sustained polemic about the problems inherent in this understanding of reality.  Furthermore, as noted in the aforelinked post, there was something in these nihilist approaches that intersected with other minorly popular theories, such as left accelerationism, and ended up conceptualizing them altogether as an ab-movementism.



I won't let the proverbial cat out of the bag regarding: i) why I bothered to write what turned out to be 60+ pages on what is in fact be a completely minor trend (or trends); ii) why I link both the two instances of nihilism ("nihilist communism" and "queer nihilism") with accelerationism, treating all three as a larger untheorized trend; iii) what I mean by ab-movementism, why I think this critique is a good appendix to my book.  Rather I'll let you download the PDF and read it yourself, if you have the time or interest.

Download: Symptoms of Decay


(On my other blog I've posted something about genre fiction and me. Also, if you downloaded the above PDF and liked it enough to express your support of my intellectual labour, feel free to donate!)

Comments

  1. Hello ! What do you think of this website's analysis? Its the French Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist)
    Here are their articles in English: http://lesmaterialistes.com/english

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    Replies
    1. I don't know enough about this organization, and it seems like there's some good stuff in English, but some of it seems needlessly sectarian such as the piece on whether or not there is "Charu Mazumdar Thought" that seems to be some sort of high-horsed critique of the CPI(Maoist). Also, I reject the idea of "guiding thoughts" since I think this was a very unmaoist aspect of things that has hampered the Maoist movement for a long time… This is pretty much the Indian's line in the wake of their experience and the experience of the ICM, as well as the whole Prachanda Path stuff they observed in Nepal, but whatever. All in all, though I might disagree with some of the pieces I read, looks like there's a lot of good stuff there as well but not knowing much of this organization I don't really have a more coherent opinion.

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