To my readers/listeners out there- a quick question:
Have any of y'all ever found yourselves sitting inside of your own head, whilst on an express train to smacked city after you just got done consuming the preferred quantity of your substanceof choice for the night, and, reflecting on the indescribable everyday unfamiliarity we know as 'life', asking yourself a simple question: "What the fuck is goin on here, what's the purpose of all of this, anyway?"
If you aren't suffering from some debilitating case of main character syndrome, you've probably already had that thought arise in your mind before. If so, congratulations, you should be happy to join the club. Though, it's not a very exclusive club at all: just about every single soul on Earth, more or less, has come to the same realization that you just have before.
If it's any consolation to you for being terminally late to the party though: Let's say you just so happen to be really good at peaking into life's cold void and somehow containing the character to actually pull a coherent meaning out it's frigidly intangible unknowns. Then, eventually, only after your dead and gone, and everyone you used to know can no longer remember your name, and everyone's favorite stories about you will become as tired, reheated, and rehashed as the half-baked philosophies that you attempted to piece together during those countless hotbox sessions in the company of unamused friends, you'll receive the empty notability of being a "great thinker" or "someone who was years ahead of their time".
The aforementioned paragraphs were written in a sarcastic tone, because, truth be told, since everybody and their god-fearing mothers know it to be true, it appears damn-near impossible to even think that your average person could have the potential to become the next Diogenes or something.
Well.... if any of you have brushed up on your Greek philosophy, then you'd know why the ideological.. "faint-of-heart" might never want to come across a real-life Diogenes.
The point of the matter being: since everyone, right down to their god-fearing mothers, emotionally detached family members, shaky, fairweather friends, unengaged coworkers, and the masses of the non-impressionable public "too apathetic" to care have a conception of what "the right way to live" actually is, we've become, more or less, paralyzed by the choice of what to do. when to put plans into action, and who to trust when it comes to carrying on a message.
As a means of full disclosure with all you readers/listeners out there: This author makes no illusion of being an "unbiased" source of information. This publication and it's author wear our biases and dispositions as nakedly as could be for everyone to witness and pass judgment on.
The problem, (doing the first cardinal sin of literature, speaking unprofessionally in the first person here) someone like "me" with the vague concept of an "ideology" is the fact that, even if you attempt to describe your position as plainly as possible, using as few words as possible to do it, inevitably, you'll slap so many intellectually dense ideas together that you'll just end up making yourself sound stupid.
Here, (again, attempting to conduct the intellectually sloppy and unprofessional practice of using; I, me, or myself anywhere within a "serious" medium like informational literature) to give my audience a clear point of view for what my specific brand of ideology actually is, I'll tell it to you straight up:
This author would consider himself a luxury communist, who flirts with techno-anarchism, and a person with "illegalist" or "accelerationist" tendencies.
See??? despite applying all five of those ideological labels as neatly as one possibly could while using their textbook definitions both accurately and consistently, for all intents and purposes, there won't be a single soul out there who actually understands what the fuck I'm even talking about when I use that phrase is uttered in that exact sequence. To explain a little bit in order to avoid coming off as one of those "my ideology is too radical to be defined" type of fake ass social media leftists:
I start off by putting "luxury" with "communism" because, getting back on a more professional track, the two concepts exist like some type of oxymoron with each other, and (in the unprofessional opinion of this author), those contradictions paint my brand of politics perfectly: I can't wait for the days where all of the jealously guarded "creature comforts" afforded to those lucky enough to have the resources to maintain them can be enjoyed by someone born into the world with not even two cigarettes to their names or otherwise becomes liberated from the shackles that economic desperation inflicts onto people. Yet, when you hear the word "communism" and attempt to think of a system other than our own, you think of starving people waiting in line for food, you have this idea of unresponsive and apathetic government, you envision wrongs carried out by the state and "swept under the rug". Which, goes without saying, are all aspects of our "perfect, rational, and fair" capitalist society today. Now, when you take a look at the true definition of "communism" you see that, in essence, the main goal of any communist is to wrestle control of wealth, and the means of creating said wealth, away from today's capitalists.
Combined, these two terms coagulate to form one of the most ideologically potent paradoxes that radicals in the "Western world" have ever come up with... the idea that you can "vulgarize" (for lack of a better term) the essence of what material "luxuries" are considered to be by giving them to everyone in order to signify that every life, inherently, has no more worth than the next person.
Then we have the insufferably edgy-sounding term "techno-anarchism", which, this author promises, isn't as eye-roll inducing as it originally might appear to be. Basically, it's another type of "ideological oxymoron" since, technology, of any kind/in general is probably the most identifiable man-made instrument that we've built & based our entire entire society around like no other.
Yet, with the term "anarchy" comes with the idea of mayhem, lawlessness, pandemonium... and all the other sensationalist buzzwords that mainstream news sources enjoy indulging in from time to time during periods of social unrest. Instead, academically speaking here, "anarchy", is used to describe the belief that individual agency is one of the most important virtues that any social order should strive for, which means, on principal, anarchism seeks to abolish all unjust hierarchies wherever they exist.
Combining the two theories results in the wicked belief that our current level of technological advancement today, while not actively being used for social good at the moment, could create a world of collectively liberated individuals under a different political order. A political order that emphasized, above all, the principal that no person, no system, or no entity should ever infringe on another's natural right to pursue a full life. A very simple, yet sensationally seductive idea to ponder upon once you start thinking through the ramifications of it all.
Finally, we have two of the most........ "difficult" terms to wrap our heads around: "illegalism", and "accelerationism". First off, just addressing the elephant in the room before it gets too hard to ignore: Some critics of this author or his personal ideology might think to themselves:
"So...... you're basically saying that anybody can commit a crime as long as they're able to justify it to themselves? How is that not a form of anarchy? Why not go around robbing banks? Why not just go around killing people?"
To the first point, this author's answer will probably be an unsatisfying one for those hypothetical detractors.. How you "justify" crime should not only be dependent on your personal moral compass, but also, if the actions that the target of illegalist action is guilty of perpetrating against the wider community or, other people. For example, let's dig into some hypotheticals for the sake of argument:
Is it morally right for an employee at a pastry shop to "steal"/give away pastries produced by their employer if those same pastries will just get thrown away at the end of the day anyway?
Is "defacing" a building with anti-gentrification graffiti "damaging of private property" when it's occurred on a long-vacant storefront owned by a landlord who's holding out on leasing the retail space in the hopes of landing a lucrative tenant?
If you, and a group of friends are protesting a citizen's death at the hands of the police, and, arbitrarily, the local police force dubs your congregation of protestors an "unlawful assembly", are you in the wrong for staying on the streets after they tell you to go home?.......
In all of those scenarios, an anarchist would say that the individuals taking it upon themselves to bend the morally "gray" areas of laws and regulations would be in the right for their actions. Like any action undertaken by a free individual, however, one must weigh the costs & risks of their actions on themselves, their friends, and family before going out and doing anything that could be construed as "breaking the law" or "against the rules/established protocol" by lawyers viciously litigious enough to prosecute you for doing what you feel is the right thing.
And now, to the fun part for both of us: In order to get a grasp on what the hell "accelerationism" means... this author has to, unfortunately, dedicate another 300~ words to setting enough table dressing for our multi-course ideological buffet. Luckily for you folks though, instead of ranting about obscure theoretical concepts that are more than likely of little interest, or use to any of you, we actually get to dig into some topics that might be able to help some of you willing to take the risk of questioning authority to become more acute critical thinkers.
Everyone has their own ideology after all, so, why would this author shy away from giving you folks the tools to make sure you're seeing the world as clearly as possible? After all, in the realm of raising popular consciousness, there's no need whatsoever to be stingy.
Conceptualizing "Capitalist Realism".
Popularized by his critically acclaimed work published in 2009, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?, even though, the specific phrase and it's key concepts existed as far back as the 1960's, the late British professor, cultural commentator and part-time philosopher, Mark Fisher used the phrase to describe how the economic and institutional changes that've happened since 1991 have, became the "be-all-end-all" political system. According to the concept, that process unfolded, because institutions such as public education and healthcare adopted what Fisher calls business ontology from the corporate world. Which, in essence, has caused critical institutions in our society to be run as coldly and as calculated as businesses are instead of fulfilling their traditional role of being services that exist to cater to social needs.
And, according to the logic of "running _______ like a business", it's unthinkable, unrealistic, and even goes against what's socially perceived as "common sense" to suggest that a business should be ran any differently or organized in a different fashion. This form of ideological domination, has become so complete, that it passes itself off as a reality that's some "empirical" or, unbiased truth. Fisher's issue with the effects of capitalist realism on our societies is the fact that these forms of "invisible" ideology, are, by far, humanity's most persuasive and controlling forms of domination. Quoting Slovenian philosopher Alenka Zupancic, Fisher writes in chapter 3 of the book:
" The 'Reality Principal' itself is ideologically mediated; one could even claim that it constitutes the highest form of ideology, the ideology that presents itself as empirical fact (or biological, or economic) [or] necessity, and what we tend to perceive as non-ideological. It is precisely here that we should be most alert to the function of ideology."
Some lite food for thought, indeed...
Returning to the "End of History".
As any faithful follower of Black Label Detroit would know, our initial report as a publication was written about this very same topic. To avoid retreading too much ground and boring anybody more than necessary: Basically the concept of "The End of History" sets the stage for Fisher's description of capitalist realism. An event, (which was the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union) that was so shocking to the public, containing implications that was far too complicated for any one person to wrap their head around at the time, that every single day that elapses after the fact, more or less, follows inside of the "shadow" of history.
It's not at all the same as saying that "there aren't any important events or news stories happening anymore", as a matter of fact, one could even argue the fact that, now more than ever, the world seems to be accelerating faster than we're able to keep up with it. Instead, the concept moreso elaborates the idea that, until another ideological struggle at the scale or intensity of the Cold War happens again, we'll be stuck existing in a world that, more or less, is "out of ideas" simply because the only idea we have "left standing" is our current capitalist system.
However, one of the concepts that this publication already highlighted in it's maiden report on Fukuyama's theories is the fact that the professor wasn't all that "off-base" in declaring history to be "over". Actually, to his credit, the world had been emerging into a plane of existence that happened "after history" long before Fukuyama even typed up his triumphant declaration. That world, according to academics, exists right into the very moment that you read/listen to this report, and, falls under a title that is possibly, without question, the most controversial label in all of academia: "postmodernism", or, "the era of time after 'modernity'". If any of the readers/listeners out there are hopelessly confused by the implications of this definition, this author would encourage all of you not too worry too much. Because, after all, attempting to figure out just what the hell the term "postmodernism" even means has been the subject of heated debate ever since the term was first coined by British historian Arnold Toynbee in the mid 20th century.
Living in a Land After Time: Understanding "Postmodernity".
If you were born at any point during the 1990's, the chance that your family used to own a couple tapes of an animated series called The Land Before Time are almost certain. The multi-decade spanning movie series exploring the adventures of a group of children who just-so-happened to be sentient talking dinosaurs plays the part of providing the perfect example of postmodernism in this report. Before doing a deep-dive into the subject, this author feels as if the only way to appropriately ease our narrative along is to see this assertion through the lens from potential critics:
"What the fuck does an old & irrelevant kids movie have to do with whatever 'postmodernism' is, or academia? How does that even make any sense?"
Well, the only way to provide an appropriate rebuttal to those potential detractions is to define terms: So... what the hell is "postmodernity' then?.......
So, the precise answer to that question is bound to be a little more than disappointing to the inquisitive reader of Black Label Detroit... It's the academic equivalent of asking "what's an opinion?", different people with different perspectives on life will provide vastly different answers. This isn't some cop-out argument used to augment this author's faulty note-taking abilities. What people define as "postmodernism" is, to this day, one of the most hotly contested issues within the field of academia, just for the simple fact that, even though there is broad agreement that the "postmodern condition" is a real thing that exists, virtually no one can agree on a discrete definition for the term. It's been applied to everything imaginable: architecture, movies, art, culture, philosophy, literature......., everything. If you can name a subject, chances are high that someone, somewhere has done a "postmodern analysis" on it.
This broad overview fails to illuminate core aspects of the idea however, and, if ended here, would leave more questions for the reader/listener than answers. Yet, going over every interpretation of postmodernism would turn this report into an unreadable undergrad thesis. So, to save you astute readers the trouble, this author will analyze the "postmodern condition" through the lens of two thinkers who possess a firm grasp of knowledge on the subject: one who published his work before the information age, and, another who's published his work relatively recently.
[LYOTARD]
Our first thinker, Jean-François Lyotard, was a French philosopher who was credited with popularizing the term in the first place through his 1979 work: The Postmodern Condition- A Report on Knowledge. In his book, Lyotard forwards many key-concepts that would become foundational issues in the battles to come over postmodernism's true meaning, mainly, the need to distinguish the historical era of "modernism" from "post-modernism". According to his theory, the reason why we as a society live in a time "after-modernity", is because during times of "modernist" thinking (such as the "Enlightenment" in Europe), thinkers and philosophers believed that through using "Logic", "Reason", "Rationality", and the sciences, humanity could come to some sorta objective truth concerning the world around us. And, through pursuing those "Truths", humanity could establish a grand narrative that explained the world in totality.
Lyotard was skeptical of modernism because, even though those pursuits produced important discoveries, he cited the fact that authoritarian governments used the vague concepts of "science and reason" to persecute the vulnerable (the Holocaust being his main example). For Lyotard, the concept of a "grand narrative" was dubious at best, because, in his eyes, adopting any "one big truth" about the world was the quickest way for the public to be controlled & influenced by authority figures. So, in summery, according to Lyotard the "postmodern condition" is a state of being that expresses skepticism against any & all "grand narratives". The very reason why "the postmodern condition" is even a coherent phrase within the world of academia, is because the skepticism towards "absolute truths" is so widely accepted among the public.
This latter concept gets fleshed out more thoroughly when taking the concept of the "metanarrative" into the Information Age, which brings us to our next author:
[COFFIN]
Michigan native, and veteran Youtube content creator Peter Coffin posits a similar, yet, distinctive classification of "postmodernism" in his 2018 work Custom Reality and You. In it, instead of seeing "postmodernity" as a tool of control that's wielded directly by government as Lyotard did in his piece, Coffin's entire premise is analyzing postmodernism through the scope of how capitalism and consumer culture are able to indirectly bring about those same types of coercion. According to Coffin, "postmodernism" is characterized by dissecting what's considered the "objective truth" through the relentless scrutiny of ideas. While, at first glance, that seems like a noble pursuit to aim for, Coffin's contention with the concept of "postmodernity" comes from the fact that, through technology's ability to skew our perceptions, there really isn't such a thing as "objectivity".
According to Coffin, social media, marketing, and internet algorithms all coalesce together to form our own individual "custom realities"; within those bubbles, our opinions are constantly under attack from what Coffin describes as "thought leaders" (or, people who have a financial stake in peddling narratives about the world and themselves to you on social media), most of whom do so by using their platforms to express a "cultivated identity". Ultimately, same "thought leaders" have a direct financial & social incentive to tell you information that you wanna hear because it confirms your own biases.
It's reflecting on these two interpretations of the ever-so-vague *label*,"postmodernism" that allow this author to reflect on our own present-day condition: the aesthetics of the world can change very subtly. Some characters may enter out of nowhere, or, fade away inexplicably, but at the end of the day, we exist in a developmentally stunted world, during an age defined by endlessly pursuing our own personal narratives. But also, steadily heading towards a cataclysm we're to afraid to comprehend, or, even attempt to defend against. Our world is no more dynamic than the fictional universe of The Land Before Time, because, the "postmodern condition" has ripped away any concept of historical agency from us.
Whether or not you as a reader/listener of this report find those types of ideas to either be cynically chilling & dystopian, or, seriously illuminating & accurate, in the end, it doesn't matter much. The "postmodern condition" covers every range of emotion that you could possibly think of, what does have some sort of agency however is the main question anyone should ask themselves after ingesting this type of information: If we as a species live in a time that's so bizarre, random, and outwardly meaningless.... what are we supposed to do with ourselves?
In the opinion of this author, the only valid tactic of tackling an absurd world is becoming an oddity in and of yourself.
Living in an "Absurd Age".
The call to embrace "absurdity" isn't some ill-advised suggestion to allow yourself to become some crazy person. It isn't an embrace of irresponsibility. It's none of that. "Absurdism" as a philosophy is, in the opinion of this author, probably one of the more lucid outlooks on the world that can be adopted by anybody. The Absurdist position posits that, while life might be confusing, and establishing "one true meaning" for yourself seems to be a task who's completion is eternally out of reach, what if the true "meaning of life" was to....... "just keep on living"?
To expand on a concept that sounds more than a little corny on it's face, the philosophy of "Absurdism" deals with three main existential issues: Death, ideological "leaps of faith", & what the Algerian-French philosopher Albert Camus calls: becoming "The Absurd Hero".
Camus would develop his philosophy while coming of age as a member of the covert French Resistance networks in WWII-era Paris, during France's Nazi occupation. Camus would formulate his ideas in an attempt to rationalize and reflect on a world that could (and often did) prove to be cruel, irrational, and ultimately meaningless. Even though Camus' war-time condition caused him to question the feasibility of leading a fulfilling life, the philosopher was far from being just some nihilist.
Camus argues, in fact, that one of the most irrational moves a person could make is taking their own lives even though it seems like humanity as a whole only exists on Earth just to wind up dead one day. The reasoning that he gives for this, is the fact that "The Absurd" (which, is the condition he describes as our eternal yearning to find meaning in life while being unable to stumble upon one in any clear or meaningful way) is an experience to be lived through, rather than some emotional punishment to be avoided.
The topics of death and suicide, are, in fact, so instrumental to Camus' argument that the dude immediately opens the very first sentence of his book-The Myth of Sisyphus, with the following line:
"There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to the fundamental question of philosophy."
Despite this bleak and intellectually confrontational proclamation, unlike the philosophies of Nihilism or Stoicism, which instruct their subjects to grow distant and detached from the world, since, according to their reasoning: "there's just too much for you to worry about and those issues are outside of your control anyways", Absurdism, on the contrary, encourages it's adherents to accept the flaws and imperfections of our vastly incomprehensible world as their own.
Okay, so that point needs a bit more elaboration, or, this author fears that his critics will simply write off Camus and Absurdism as some childish embrace of blind, naïve, optimism: No, Camus isn't asking you to live your life through the mantra "ignorance is bliss". On the contrary, according to him, true lucidity comes from accepting that life doesn't actually have any inherent meaning. The simple act of living your life regardless of your circumstances, in his eyes, is the ultimate act of revolt.
Camus eloquently sums up his feelings on existing from within The Absurd with the following quote from chapter five of the book, in- Absurd Freedom:
"Now I can broach the notion of suicide. It has already felt what solution might be given. At this point, the problem is reversed. It was previously a question of whether or not life had to have a meaning to be lived. Now it becomes clear, on the contrary, that it would be lived all the better if it had no meaning. Living is an experience, a particular fate, is accepting it fully[...]To abolish conscious revolt is to elude the problem. The theme of permanent revolution is thus carried into individual experience. Living is keeping the absurd alive. Keeping it alive is, above all, contemplating it[...]One of the only coherent philosophical positions is thus revolt. It is a constant confrontation between man and his own obscurity. It is an insistence on an impossible transparency. It challenges the world anew at every second.
As rebellious and irreverent as the quote may sound, it should be noted that Camus wasn't under any illusion of thinking that his approach to life was some supposed philosophical "be-all-end-all".
He would go on to point out that other philosophical principals (like religion), fulfills our inner desire of understanding the world when confronted with "The Absurd". However, Camus classifies those principals as "leaps of faith" which, ultimately, results in an individual's ideological suicide.
The reason why Camus comes down so hard on ready-made philosophical resolutions like religion, is because he suggests that they represent the death of some divine form of curiosity we inherently hold towards life. Camus rejects the certainty that the prospect of an afterlife brings to people here on Earth, as a rebuttal, he instead suggests that adherents of Absurdism should "live as much as possible" because, instead of waiting for the uncertainty of an afterlife, he suggests that our imperfect world is the closest thing to paradise the we have.
Seeing a bit of Sisyphus in Ourselves.
Through the wholehearted embrace of the lived experience, Camus highlights the segments of society that he feels both readily, and creatively adopt the Absurdist mantra the most, namely: artists and writers. For the philosopher, both groups have the best grasp on channeling the psychological burdens of the Absurd into positive projects.
According to him, some of our best works are often borne from the same pains that accompany living through the Absurd's hardships. We often throw ourselves into pet projects, dedicating countless hours to a piece that might not ever see the light of day, seemingly creating works "for nothing". Since our minds are often steeped in deep thought, the works that we do eventually push out often seem scatter-brained, desperate and disconnected, when the clever creator knows that their best work interacts, contradicts, conflicts with, or, corrects one another. And, if the creator's projects ever do come to a close, it's not because they've completed some "master work" or, decided that they've "said all that there is to say" about every given topic out there....... instead, the certainty of death has brought their Absurd existence, and with it, their everlasting urge to create, to an eternal hiatus.
A summarization of The Myth of Sisyphus poignantly characterizes the personality of the "Absurd Hero" as the following:
"An Absurd [Hero] knows about their own mortality, yet doesn't accept it. Knows about the limitations of their reasoning, yet, still holds it dear. Knows the pain and pleasure of their experiences, yet, tries to take in as many as possible."
The only other figure that's able to capture a twinkle in Camus' eye is the mythical figure of ancient Greek literature, and namesake of his book, is king Sisyphus of Corinth. According to the fables spun by famous poet Homer: Sisyphus found himself eternally punished by the gods for his lies and trickery against them (for example, cheating Hades out of his own death twice in a row), they condemned him to roll a large boulder up a mountain, only for the rock to roll back down to the foot of the mountain, forcing the disgraced king to start his struggle all over again for all of eternity.
Camus borrows Homer's initially odd disposition on the king's permanent fate: they both see Sisyphus as one of the wisest figured of ancient mythology and, in light of that, as their readers to not take pity on the king, but instead, see him as the ultimate example of a liberated man.
Because of Sisyphus' dedication to a task that he'll never realistically complete, unending willingness to walk back down that same mountain over and over again, no matter if in sorrow of his condition or silently satisfied, and the adoption of his fate, the boulder, and the constant struggle under "his" ownership, Camus suggests that the king is performing the ultimate act of rebellion against the universe's most powerful forces: being the master of his own fate, no matter what his circumstance is.
It's through this hypothesis that Camus chooses end his book with the provocative and thought-provoking request that Absurdists should: "imagine Sisyphus happy". A suggestion that, according to this author, is very much worth consideration.
It's at this point that it should be noted this publication slightly disagrees with Camus' assertion that futility comes from attempting to find a meaning in life, instead, the editorial opinion of this paper is that the true "Absurd" comes from the futile and pointless attempt to escape life's natural lessons and meanings. Where Camus potentially highlights something important is when he suggests that artistic/expressionist creation can't exist without the creator experiencing the personal tribulations that are inherent with living within an absurd world.
Black Label Detroit encourages it's readers to identify both with king Sisyphus' divine condemnation and his ability to find meaning while struggling through his condemnation, it's only through his struggle that Sisyphus is able to seek out his true purpose. This author is under the opinion that, once these principals of the "Absurd Hero" are adopted, it's readers will be far better equipped to adjust and adapt to an ever-changing world.
Conclusion: A City Accelerating towards....... something. (On a Collision Course with "the Metanarrative")
So, all of those words were said/typed, and all of those abstract-ass concepts were analyzed & scrutinized, just so this author could say the following: no one has any fucking idea as to which direction humanity will travel in as these next few years fly by and the pivotal decade of the 2020's eventually gives way to the unrealistic sounding 2030's.
This author would be a god damn liar if he even pretended to know the answer with any certainty. For any critic of this publication who would potentially find that suggestion to be, more or less, some cop-out answer, this author would enthusiastically encourage those individuals to find the nearest pastor from the ghetto if they'd be so inclined to hear a "complete" perspective of the future from someone who's financial interest is to tell you shit that you want to hear.
Black Label Detroit has never been into that type of business and won't pick up that revenue stream anytime soon. Instead, this publication will steer it's audience in an orientation that'll help it's readers navigate the future's uncertain waters, how do we do that, exactly? By answer the the rhetorical question this author asked himself at the beginning of this report: Just what the hell is accelerationism?
The question is made "rhetorical" due to the fact that (for my many fictitious fans who pay close attention to Black Label Detroit), this publication already discussed the topic at some length in regards to technology. In that earlier report though, the political implications of the approach weren't really touched, so, this is a good time to correct that:
So....... a better question to ask ourselves is: "What are the political implications of accelerationism?"
Without subjecting Black Label Detroit's reader's with my tediously painful deep dives into obscure ass concepts like "right-wing accelerationism", "left-wing accelerationism", "or the hour -long lecture material on what in the hell "unconditional accelerationism" is; this author will just sloppily summarize "accelerationism" as the ideological belief that nearly all of the aforementioned philosophies are just a bunch of ideological dead-ends, and out of date ideas that need to be thrown away so that something new is able to spring up.
Accelerationism rejects Fukuyama's "End of History" argument as much as it challenges Fisher's nihilism that "Capitalist Realism" has been adopted unquestionably throughout most of society, quelling the urge for people to revolt against "The System". It fundamentally breaks with Postmodernism's assertion that "grand narratives don't matter anymore", by pointing out the fact that the suggestion itself is a form of a grand narrative....... And, finally, it challenges Camus' Absurdist-Sisyphean struggle to see the arrival of a new social order as the ultimate goal in our late-capitalist world rather than some abstract notion of "living for the sake of living".
In general, It's a lucid revolt against "business as usual" in the hopes that something within "The System" will give way to whatever comes next in human development. It's also the realization that the process of "change" itself isn't something that just happens by magic or osmosis, it's a deliberate process carried out by premeditated actions, and any individual can, and should, play a part in shaping our future.
Critics of this publication will probably read the previous paragraph, and question as to what any of the aforementioned philosophies or this author's emphatic embrace of accelerationism have anything remotely to do with the city of Detroit. It's a hypothetical question that, if genuinely asked, would let this author know that his detractors are probably some of the most clueless, unquestioning individuals to ever walk the Earth.......
If any of you, supporter, or critic, have opened any substantial book on the city's history, you'd know that this city was essentially the engine of America's own nationalistic "metanarrative". You had to come to this city to experience what it was like to be in the "Middle Class". During the peak strength of the auto industry, this city innovated a production style so influential that the country's industrial history is divided into two eras: "Fordism" (named after industrialist and professional racist Henry Ford) and "Post-Fordism". Even with the start of the city's decline in the late 60's and the emergence of Detroit as America's "Crime Capital" the name of "Detroit" was shorthand for the massive, globally-destabilizing effects of deindustrialization, shorthand for the worst of the worst ghettos, another name for a place, supposedly "with no future".
As the years have gone on, the elites of this city have opted to try and craft new grand narratives for the city. The narrative of the "renaissance" or the "comeback city" have suddenly been proliferated over the newspapers, local opinion pieces, and relentlessly regurgitated out of the mouths of politicians trying to posture to the public and show how "indispensable" they are at keeping these new metanarratives alive.
The only problem is, instead of these new narratives reflecting an accurate "Real", these new metanarratives just amount to the delusion of a desired aesthetic. A representation of reality no more accurate than the countless fake subway maps centered on the city that get posted every other decade.
Over the course of this project, this author, and Black Label Detroit as a publication has been relentlessly illustrating the point that Detroit, and the wider world around us, sits at a pivotal crossroads in regards to our future. These people deserve genuine change, they're begging for it. Countless people my age, not wanting to waste their youth, leave the city attempting to look for the prospect of change in other cities only to find it in obscured aesthetics. It's the reason why they almost always eventually come back, if not to settle down, then at least to visit and see what's changed in the time that they've last seen the city's sights.
Those people are no longer amused by the token rearrangement that's offered in Downtown Detroit's "transformation", even though buildings have undoubtedly changed in the 7.2 miles of greater downtown, the social environment, the economic opportunities, and the political structure hide behind the aesthetics of the new to hopelessly attempt to hide the tattered rags of the same old systems that have existed for decades now.
Those threads of the old system are now frayed to the point where only one small pull could unravel their whole patchwork, exposing everything underneath, and allowing those old structures to be blown away into the winds of history. What will the people of this city find when those structures are gone? More tatters? Room to weave new patchworks? Maybe a new metanarrative for Metro Detroit altogether?
Regardless of what's found, Black Label Detroit cannot emphasize enough to young radicals from the area that if you're looking for "opportunity", this is the place for you. While Metro Detroit doesn't have many "conventional" opportunities anymore like fulfilling jobs, for the "out of the box" thinker or Absurdist creative, this is a city pregnant with the possibility of birthing a new, drastically different future.
The only way that future can be achieved is if radicals who have grown up in "the city that put the world on wheels" become hell-bent on hotwiring the machinery of the state that maintains the pervasive stagnation around here, orienting ourselves towards our desired future, and throttling ahead at full speed.
Otherwise, if we let the typical Men of the Machine do our job for us, we'll eventually stall out for good.
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