Outfoxing the Dialectic: A Future of the Same and Ecological Limitation

Temporal forms and the labour of the negative

Historical consciousness within any given epoch is determined by its conception of temporality—the relationship between the past, present, and future. The dialectical development of this consciousness as “geist” occurs within linear time and serves the further elucidation of itself as such. The movement of linear time is the force of annihilation, as the labour of the negative, which is constantly overtaking itself. The “present moment” itself becomes an ungraspable infinite regression, which self-annihilates the moment it is symbolised or, even more fundamentally, experienced at all.

In his book Intelligence and Spirit, Reza Negarestani conceives this development as a component of the development of the general intelligence of mankind as a whole:

“Mind’s consciousness of its history is ultimately the exploration of history as the interface between subjective time and objective time, temporal forms and time’s formlessness. The history of geist, properly understood, is a recognitive-cognitive technology. It is not only a semantic web through which geist’s manifest realizations (self-conceptions and self-transformations) can become transparent and open to analysis, but also a scientific milieu for the development of cognitive means and practical technologies for subjecting what is a manifest realization—the appearance of a totalized history—to a concrete transformation, scientifically suspending what was previously deemed a completed historical totality in an ongoing process of totalization, namely, history.”

Reza Negarestani, Intelligence And Spirit (Falmouth: Urbanomic, 2018), p. 66.

“Temporal form” contains the double meaning of being both temporary and a form of conceiving temporality. The temporal form of antiquity can be summed up as “immediacy”: the world in totality is what exists in the present to be experienced. On the topic of the ancient Greeks, Hegel understands this “immediacy” to be their “being-at-home-with-themselves”. For the Greeks, the analysis of “history” in the modern understanding was not even conceivable. The mistranslation of Herodotus’ magnum opus as “The Histories” as opposed to the more accurate “The Inquiries” is testament to this fact.“Here are presented the results of the enquiry carried out by Herodotus of Halicarnassus. The purpose is to prevent the traces of human events from being erased by time . . .” Herodotus, The Histories, trans. by Robin Waterfield (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 3. The passing from this lack of historical consciousness—in which time is understood as pure presentism—to a higher form occurs through dialectical development, in which any particular “temporal form” is sublated through the very recognition of its particularity, which opens up the past to “scientific” analysis. The word “scientific” is not to be understood in the sense of “an experiment following a rigorous criteria”, but from the Heideggerian standpoint of bringing “present-to-hand”. Any given temporal form necessarily perceives itself as “totalised history”, not in the sense of rejecting the possibility of different societal configurations whether political, institutional, or economic, but by considering its unsymbolisable temporal awareness itself as being “total”. It escapes self-reflection from within its domain, as it is the very foundation from which self-reflection can occur. To bring this temporal form “present-at-hand” is to dialectically negate its “ready-at-handedness” (totalisation) by revealing its particularity, as a mere form (particular) within a greater totality (history). This is what Negarestani understands as the “scientific milieu” created through this moment of negation, as a new possibility of self-consciousness is opened through revealing the totalised history of the temporal form as a mere appearance. From this standpoint one may subject the past to analysis, and the future may be constructed with the past as a reference point. This scientific milieu is to be welcomed as it brings about the possibility of a concrete transformation, but it is not to be dogmatically clung to (which is a common error of modern science). The dialectical movement continues on, and the scientific milieu makes the fatal mistake of considering itself the new “totalised history”. From here there occurs the negation of the negation in which this scientific milieu is found to be merely another temporal form which will itself be subjected to a larger process of “totalisation”. This process is history itself.

Modernity is instability, but it is not unstable!

If dialectical development occurs within linear time—and the evolution of “geist” is a process of understanding time in its objectivity (formlessness, linearity) through the failure of its particular forms—there is no occluding or escaping this process as this would require the very suspension of linear time (or the annihilation of civilisation). However, perhaps something of this nature is possible if we think past the juxtaposition of “bound” and “free”, in which we are either bound to historical development or freed from it. Perhaps there is a way to outfox the dialectic—to beat it at its own game. This has been achieved by modernity: modernity hacks linear time. Modernity is functionally atemporal, it escapes dialectical development through the expropriation of dialectic itself. Through the creation of a complex system of positive feedback loops, the overarching structure of “modernity”—as the democratic political system, the capitalist economic structure, and the individualist Liberal philosophy—propels itself forward through the very failures of its particulars. This logic extends to all of its manifestations, whether they be political, economic, or ideological. Throughout modern history, every temporal form which rears its head pronouncing the end of modernity as we know it (the Communist Revolution and the Fascist takeover being the two primary examples) retroactively becomes components of modernity’s large-scale movement. It is for this reason that modernity is functionally atemporal. The “functionally” aspect must be emphasised, as modernity is not some ontologically unique event which transcends the confines of linear time, but a unique temporal form which has managed to self-propagate through “hacking” the dialectical process itself. Linear time occurs within the “atemporal temporal form” of modernity, meaning the failures of its particular manifestations only strengthen the overarching structure. It is for this reason that every “failure” of one particular temporal form brings about a larger “universalisation” of modernity as a whole. Take the example of “universal suffrage”. In its beginning it is only for men, most likely of a specific class and race. When this “universal suffrage” becomes revealed in its particularity it is negated and sublated by one which includes what was previously left out. In the present day there are even calls for universalising suffrage to allow for convicted felons to vote. It is this constant “universalisation” of its values which characterises modernity: it is a logical development, a process of growth. Modernity as a whole is strengthened through this process, the failures of its particulars act as forms of hygiene. Is this not the very definition of “progress”? In this sense, progress is failure, continual instability and self-overcoming. This logic reveals itself in the political structure with democratic elections, in which every four or so years political leaders become replaced. This is opposed to the stable and consistent rule of a Medieval king. This instability is analogous to the boom-bust cycle of capitalism, something which is inconceivable within the feudal era, which is contingent upon consistency and stability. Žižek explains this nicely in The Sublime Object of Ideology:

“This is exactly how capitalism differs from other, previous modes of production: in the latter, we can speak of periods of ‘accordance’ when the process of social production and reproduction goes on as a quiet, circular movement, and of periods of convulsion when the contradiction between forces and relations aggravates itself; whereas in capitalism this contradiction, the discord forces/relations, is contained in its very concept (in the form of the contradiction between the social mode of production and the individual, private mode of appropriation). It is this internal contradiction which compels capitalism to permanent extended reproduction – to the incessant development of its own conditions of production, in contrast to previous modes of production where, at least in their ‘normal’ state, [re]production goes on as a circular movement.”

Slavoj Žižek, The Sublime Object Of Ideology (London: Verso, 2009), p. 53.

This same process can occur on a larger scale as well, an example being the twentieth century clash between Liberalism, Fascism, and Communism. The latter two, which both pronounced the end of modernity and the rise of something radically new, would turn out to be failures. These failures, which at the time of their being were taken to be examples of the failure of Liberalism and modernity as a whole, retroactively found their place within the totalising process of modernisation. The role of Communism was to demonstrate the superiority of capitalism, and the role of Fascism was to demonstrate the superiority of Liberal democracy. It is no coincidence that the world “progressed” quicker than it ever had before directly after the greatest catastrophe in world history. Moments of intensity followed by moments of retraction and failure is the logical structure of modernity; this instability is what allows it to maintain its stable hegemony across time. It is the expropriation of the dialectic: every moment of negation and sublation always further “universalises” modernity into higher forms of itself, allowing for its constant self-reproduction. While the dialectic normally functions to produce change, within modernity it functions to preclude the possibility of anything other than itself. Modernity is a complex system, and “among complex systems, stability is typically meta-stability, which is preserved through cycling, whilst growth and shrinkage are often components of a larger-scale, cyclic wave.”Nick Land, ‘Eternal Return, and After’, Urban Future, 2011.

Tarrying with the Impossible

While modernity follows an autotelic logic which systematically universalises and strengthens its domain as time moves forward, this is not to say that modernity and the global technological system which it has engendered is immortal. In fact, there is a definite, empirically measurable limit which constrains the development of society within a certain horizon of possibility. This limit is the energy source which underlies any given civilisation. For the modern world, this source is fossil fuel. In fossil fuel modernity, oil is treated as an infinite substance akin to that of Spinoza’s God. However, there exists a definite moment when the amount of oil which can be extracted from the earth reaches a limit, this is known as “peak oil”. Some argue that peak oil will occur many decades in the future, while others argue that it already occurred as early as the mid 2000s. In any case, the point is not to argue when peak oil arrived or will arrive, but to show that there is a definite limit to the progression of modernity despite its self-propelling logic. This limit is an ecological limitation. Industrial society strives towards what the recently-deceased philosopher Pentti Linkola calls an “ecologically impossible object”, which is, of course, infinite technological development with finite resources. Human subjectivity emerges in a form which is akin to the logic of the resource which underlies any given epoch. It is for this reason that the dialectical development of society and consciousness cannot discount ecological limitation. The following is a passage from the philosopher Chad Haag’s book A Critique of Transcendental Memology:

“The givenness of a crucial resource places the subject in a radically passive position in which the subject cannot make more oil exist on will, for example. One does not make oil exist as an activity; one merely discovers that it exists through passive reception of the contingent state of the world one happens to live in. This is why the resources of Phenomenological givenness in experience are much more relevant to the science of Memology than the Marxist theory of Dialectical Materialism is. Dialectical Materialism largely considers any hard physical limit to be an ideological illusion which the forward march of dialectical movement will negate away in order to reform it into a “higher” notion. Phenomenology, on the contrary, allows the radical passivity to recognise material limits which cannot be negated away by the movement of dialectical progress. Phenomenological passivity is, ironically enough, the fitter account of material conditions’ influence on consciousness.”

Chad A. Haag, A Critique of Transcendental Memology: A Peak Oil Philosophy of Truth (Independently Published, 2018), pp. 9–10.

This phenomenological passivity provides the boundaries of the form of subjectivity within any given epoch. This form is called the “deep meme”, which can be understood as a geometrical metaphor. The geometrical form of fossil fuel modernity is the ascending line, constant progress, which is only made possible due to the continuous extraction of oil from the earth. The ascending line of progress structures the spheres of economic, technological, and cultural development. It structures the modern subject itself. The modern subject operates as if there exists no limitations, as if resources have no beginning and no end but simply present themselves at the push of a button. Consider every day quotidian activities which have become an integral part of modern life: showering, shopping, surfing the internet, and using electricity. In all these cases, the vast majority of people have no knowledge of where the resources which are consumed come from, they simply act under the assumption that they will always be there. This form of existence is impossible in the so-called “third world”, where the water utilised to bathe must be taken from a well. In the “first world” there is the illusion of infinite progress in all its domains, which emerges from its alienation from its ecological context. However, as opposed to the cultural sphere which can develop into infinity, hard resources provide a definite limit which pose a fundamental challenge to the logic of modernity. We must think past Marx’s rather arbitrary bias towards the means of production, as one could argue that the energy source which underlies all of civilisation is a far more important field to emphasise when considering its development. The ecological grounding of civilisation, which provides the conditions for historical development to take place, evidently has precedence over every domain of human life. When the finite resource of oil can no longer support the rampant technological development occurring on a global scale, an inevitable decline will commence. At this point the dialectical development of the mode of production will cease to occur (in the linear fashion conceived by Engels). One could counter that this is dialectics occurring as well, but this would be on a larger scale than the limited imagination of the average Marxist could conceive: the negation of the negation would be the end of industrial civilisation itself.

In the end, the fact of the matter is clear for all those who wish to see; so long as we keep putting off the inevitable consequences which lay in the future, we are simply tarrying with the impossible.

Treydon didn’t give us a bio, but we did get a blog link.