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is it okay to be an accelerationist now? rethinking diversity of tactics

16 Mar 2024

I used to be a firm advocate of diversity of tactics (look at my cute and innocent 2020 entry on it). I’d use this umbrella term to also promote my view that we should be using witchcraft in the Left (since the Right is already doing it anyway…). But the recent episode of Death Panel on collapse made me realize that diversity of tactics might not be the way to go. Again, we cannot vote our way out of fascism. Also, democracy is an illusion. ‘‘The idea of a nation-state is a spell,’’ as it was well said in the say episode.

From the podcast Weird Studies this time, I came accross the idea of Hyperstition, that is a ‘‘magical’’ construction of the mind that makes something conceptual real, the equivalent of the egregor in occult realm. On the episode, it made a very interesting point on how academia was relying on those hyperstitions to exist, and also how intellectuals didn’t put enough work on creating boundaries around their creation like the fellow sorcerers and magicians are doing. With the idea that “the nation-state is a spell”, that is, an hyperstition, it makes me want to divest even more from it. It also gives another flavor to the infamous ‘‘withering of the state” of Marx and Engels…

But of course, it’s not like ‘‘oh I realised the state is a social construct so I just want to magicalthink it away’’. It’s just an added layer of why it sucked in the first place, as if it serves to control (monopoly of violence) and, in its current form, it serves Capital first and foremost. Again, the system is not broken, it is working as it is intended.

And all of this makes me for the first time think that voting isn’t so much harm reduction anymore. I have flashbacks of the electoral campagin after the 2020 Black Lives Matters uprising and how so much organizing energy was wasted around the say campaign… For the first time, I think I might not vote for the lesser evil in the upcoming elections (here in Quebec and Canada).

Is it because I almost want the worst candidate to win so people get angry more quickly, so the society can collaspe sooner? Maybe. That’s why I was wondering if I was turning a bit (more) accelerationist of now… I mean, I know I am not the only one dreaming of collapse to rebuild anew. The collapse is already happening in that very instant anyway. But I still don’t want to fall into the fascist trap of thinking that it’s okay for people to suffer and die in that fantasy, even though, for sure it will happen, as it is happening now… But also, how can I reconciliate the indigenous thinking of Deep Time with this intellectual bourgeois Accelerationist thought? Should I give up thinking about time altogether, like is it a framework not investigating? Probably not.

Divesting from the state also makes me lean more into anarchism. But anarchism always made me feel small, like anarchism grassroot stuff cannot make an international revolution. And I want the whole international solidarity deal. But maybe it’s just a matter of learning how to think differently, to reshape the theory of change in my brain. (Maybe I should look up at The Solutions are Already There : Strategies for Ecologiclal Revolution from Below by Peter Geldeloos)

But in my divesting from my diversity of tactics in its all emcompassing form, I want to focus on :

  • Popular education (spirituality + how to work collaboratively)
  • Systemic Change
  • Collective action

Which means these are out :

  • Individual behavior-oriented change (don’t need to be using a reusable straw to be a revolutionary)
  • Anything electoral

An you know what I think about violence.

Basically, I just want to empower people and work toward class war. Radicalization anchored in radical empathy. And as framed in the book of Rebecca Solnit Hope in the Dark, people can get together in time of catastrophe and find great joy and empowerment in it.

Anyway, I don’t know if it’s ok to be an accelerationist now, I don’t know if I can (or want) to qualify as one. One thing I know it’s that it feels horrible to see the rise of fascism and people remaining apathic to it. I mean, maybe it’s defeatist of me to feel like we just won’t be able to stop their movement. Genuiely, one of the most urgent and haunting question in my life is how to defeat those fascists. As of now, I don’t have any answer on how to do that efficiently in the short time, no global perspective. Juste a desire to scream : can they fascists fucking fall already?

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