Tag Archives: philosophy

Genderhacking an Alien Future: On Helen Hester’s ‘Xenofeminism’

Hester, Helen. Xenofeminism. Polity Press, 2018.

In 2015, the Laboria Cuboniks collective proclaimed “If nature is unjust, change nature!” at the end of their much celebrated Xenofeminist Manifesto: A Politics for Alienation. After countless discussions in the years that followed, the second canonical xenofeminist text was written by one of Laboria Cuboniks’ founding members, Helen Hester (Associate Professor of Media and Communication at the University of West London). Hester’s new polemic, Xenofeminism, published by Polity in their Theory Redux series, expands upon the groundbreaking work of the initial manifesto by bringing us a fresh look at xenofeminism from a specific perspective. As Hester notes, “[e]ach of the six members of Laboria Cuboniks […] would likely emphasize different aspects of the manifesto” and thus Xenofeminism is not so much “the book on xenofeminism [..,] but rather a book on xenofeminism.” As such, one ought to read Xenofeminism not as a book explaining an already established set of ideas, but, rather, as a growing nodule on the xenofeminist root: Hester’s nodule.

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Fragment on Time Travel

The other day, an entity from the future (I’m not sure if it was even me) reached its tendrils through coagulated spacetime and vomited onto a notebook.

There are a few scenarios:

The future hasn’t happened yet: X – – – – – – – – -> T2; Or, more appropriately, the future isn’t existent.

The future is determined: X –––––––> T2; Or, more appropriately, the future is strictly defined by the present. Given that, actualizations of time travel can only exist if the potentialities for time travel exist in the present.

The future exist independently of the present: X             XT2; Or, more appropriately, the present cannot affect the future. Given that, time travel seems interesting insofar as it’s an anthropological study. This also implies that each moment in time exist as a bubble. In other words, each moment in time is a universe. Given that, there are an infinite number of universes that exist.

Does an omniverse exist?

What’s more interesting, does each universe continue on it’s own temporal trajectory, or is there one temporal trajectory and a static consciousness jump from one universe to another.

The future exists semi-independently of the present: X –––––––> –––––––> –––––––> T2; Or, more appropriately, the present can partially affect the future, but the future itself is independent of the present. The particulars of the future are determined. The same temporal bubble problem still arises, however.

[(Tx) (Tx.x) (Tx.xx) … Omniverse {Tx, Tx.x, Tx.xx,…}]

What is the quantization, though? This view necessarily involves discrete quanta. Can we actually carve up the world as such? If we can carve up time, time is then brought back to a dimensional level. Perhaps we cannot know the quanta.

Further thoughts:

X1 –––––––––––––––––––––>X2 | X1(X3)–––––––––––––––––––––>X2

When X3 comes into existence, the future already exists. The moment an entity from T2 enters anytime in the past, T2 is existentially determined. Given this, if we buy time travel, then time cannot be linear insofar as linearity implies that T2 cannot exist without T1. T2 must already exist in some form and thus time cannot be a line, but is instead circuitous.

To embrace this, we have to shed notions of the past, present, and future as all these terms are loaded and presuppose a linearity. Thus, if we want to question whether time is linear, we cannot use loaded terms.

…receiving signal…

“The Rhizome” by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Translated from English into American

In 2012, Sean Joseph Patrick Carney published an article for continent. titled “’The Precession of Simulacra’ by Jean Baudrillard, Translated from English into American.” The article, while entirely humorous and, at some points, lewd, served to explain Baudrillard’s rather difficult essay in terms the layperson could understand. Given the success of Carney’s translation in elucidating some of Baudrillard’s more complicated ideas, I figured a few other dead French guys deserved the same American love that we export to the world. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari have frustrated students and scholars alike for decades due not only to the intentional obtuseness of their prose, but also due to the difficultly of their ideas. Well no longer! I present Deleuze and Guattari’s (arguably) central idea, the rhizome, in bite-sized, McNugget format. One devient deux.

Translated from Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari A Thousand Plateaus, trans. Brian Massumi, 3-25.

Look at these two love birds.

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Robert Anton Wilson, Finitude, and Realism

The late Robert Anton Wilson has been a person of interest to me for a while now, and although his thoughts are very sporadic and aphoristic (being spread amongst his numerous novels and speeches), his contributions to Discordian thought have been vital. More specifically, however, a quotation by him in The Historical Illuminatus Chronicles has held my attention for a long time. In Nature’s God, writing as Sigismundo Celine, Wilson says the following:

“Is,” “is.” “is” — the idiocy of the word haunts me. If it were abolished, human thought might begin to make sense. I don’t know what anything “is”; I only know how it seems to me at this moment.1)Robert Anton Wilson, Nature’s God: The History of the Early Illuminati (The Historical Illuminatus Chronicles Vol. 3), (Las Vegas: New Falcon, 2007).

Clearly channeling the general semantic theory of Alfred Korzybski and its later incarnations as E-Prime (topics that will no doubt be written about in the future),2)Indeed, in later posts on general semantics and E-Prime, which ‘is’ we’re talking about must be sorted out as the ‘is of identity’ — for example, “Max is a dog” — is, arguably, ontologically different than the ‘is of predication’ — for example, “Max is diabetic.” the quotation has a certain ring of idealism to it. Indeed, while I think Wilson’s comment is insightful, I’ve been hesitant to fully accept his disdain for the word ‘is’ insofar as such an acceptance seems, at first glance, to relegate one to a strictly phenomenal (and arguably, consequently idealist) understanding of the world. While I’m unsure whether or not I’m willing to jump aboard the ‘anti-is’ train, I do think there is a way to reconcile Wilson’s view with ontological realism by utilizing both a brief discussion of what Quentin Meillassoux calls “finitude” and Graham Harman’s ontology of objects.

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References

References
↑1 Robert Anton Wilson, Nature’s God: The History of the Early Illuminati (The Historical Illuminatus Chronicles Vol. 3), (Las Vegas: New Falcon, 2007).
↑2 Indeed, in later posts on general semantics and E-Prime, which ‘is’ we’re talking about must be sorted out as the ‘is of identity’ — for example, “Max is a dog” — is, arguably, ontologically different than the ‘is of predication’ — for example, “Max is diabetic.”

Response to Todd May – Death: A Semiotic Analysis

In his book, Death, Todd May argues, among other things, that death is not an accomplishment. It is not “the fullest expression of life” nor does it “bring a life to what it most characteristically is”. May argues that death is, quite literally, the opposite of this.1)Todd May, Death. (New York: Routledge, 2014), 25-26. During the course of this post, I will attempt to show that May’s argument is not correct and that death is a structuring principle of existence that serves to affirm, as opposed to negate, meaning in life – in other words, death is the “fullest expression of life”. To achieve this, I will look at life and death as structuralistic binary opposites wherein the meaning of either one is conferred upon it by the existence of the other (its opposite).2)The full paper I wrote from which this post is excerpted contains a Jüngerian analysis that I am still working on fleshing out.

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References

References
↑1 Todd May, Death. (New York: Routledge, 2014), 25-26.
↑2 The full paper I wrote from which this post is excerpted contains a Jüngerian analysis that I am still working on fleshing out.