Sunday, August 5, 2012

Bryant inciting insurrection? Or just academic posturing?

Levi Bryant's 8/4/12 blog post discusses capitalism as a hyperobject. As such it is non-local, everywhere and nowhere. We can experience its local manifestations but its substance is withdrawn from them. So how can one affect such a hyperobject? He certainly thinks that merely complaining about it through ideology is a waste of time and does nothing other than perpetuate its own autopoetic structure in academia. However every hyberobject requires its material infrastructure and it is at these points that one can have an affect. He suggests if you really want to change it then occupy a highway, shut down satellite communications, block a port, erase data banks.

He half-jokes that the Dept. of Homeland Security will come visit with such suggestions. I say half because that is a distinct possibility given the 'materiality' of their law enforcement function. If he was serious about affecting capitalism he'd be building a material underground under strict secrecy. Just inciting others to take up the cause of doing something about it is just as much effete academic posturing as those he criticizes.

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