Dark Enlightenment 3: On the Zombie Apocalypse

 

'Democracy is as close to a precise negation of civilization 

as anything could be, short of instantaneous social collapse into 

murderous barbarism or zombie apocalypse (which it eventually leads to).'

 

 

I. 

 

According to Nick Land [1], it's not only popular culture that ends up eating itself, but democracy too becomes self-devouring in what he refers to as the zombie apocalypse, which is why, as we saw in an earlier post, those who can are already searching for an exit and regard flight as a matter of imperative.

 

But what, exactly, does Land mean by this phrase; one that derives from a subgenre of horror fiction in which an overwhelming plague of undead zombies results in the total breakdown of society and leaves just a small group of individuals who have been unable to flee struggling to survive. 

 

That's what we are going to discuss here ...

 

 

II. 

 

If the idea of a zombie apocalypse entered the popular imagination thanks to George A. Romero's 1968 classic movie Night of the Living Dead, it's Land who places the idea within a neoreactionary political context [2] - although, it's true of course, that many other artists and theorists have used the phrase to metaphorically express various cultural anxieties and social tensions.   

 

Land - who, as a philosopher, is kind of a cross between Thomas Hobbes, Georges Bataille, and H. P. Lovecraft - conceives the dynamics of democratisation as fundamentally degenerative; "systematically consolidating and exacerbating private vices, resentments, and deficiencies until they reach the level of collective criminality and comprehensive social corruption". 

Bound together by a circuit of reciprocal incitement, democratic governments and the people who elect them push one another further and further towards "ever more shameless extremities" including cannibalism. Idealists call this progress; neoreactionaries, however, see only voraciousness and fear that the authorities will ultimately be unable to "spare civilization from frenzied, ruinous, gluttonous debauch" - i.e., the zombie apocalypse. 

 

As the democratic virus works its way through society, says Land, then concern with the past and long-term planning into the future both die away and are replaced by "a sterile, orgiastic consumerism, financial incontinence, and a 'reality television' political circus". As we are trapped in a perpetual present at the end of history, it makes perfect sense to "eat it all now". 

 

III.

 

Finally, to help readers understand how we got where we are today, i.e., stuck in an age of relentless state expansion, spurious human rights, and mind control ensuring defence of a universalistic dogma, Land provides a convenient guide to the main sequence of modern political regimes, that I think it worth reproducing here [3]:

 

 

Regime 1: Communist Tyranny 

Typical Growth: -0% 

Voice / Exit: Low / Low 

Cultural climate: Pyschotic utopianism 

Life is … hard but ‘fair’ 

Transition mechanism: Re-discovers markets at economic degree-zero 

 

Regime 2: Authoritarian Capitalism 

Typical Growth: 5-10% 

Voice / Exit: Low / High 

Cultural climate: Flinty realism 

Life is … hard but productive 

Transition mechanism: Pressurized by the Cathedral to democratize 

 

Regime 3: Social Democracy 

Typical Growth: 0-3% 

Voice / Exit: High / High 

Cultural climate: Sanctimonious dishonesty 

Life is … soft and unsustainable 

Transition mechanism: Can-kicking runs out of road 

 

Regime 4: Zombie Apocalypse 

Typical Growth: N/A 

Voice / Exit: High (mostly useless screaming) / High (with fuel, ammo, dried food, precious metal coins) 

Cultural climate: Survivalism 

Life is … hard-to-impossible 

Transition mechanism: Unknown 

 

 

IV.

 

The question, I suppose, is: How seriously should we take Land's thoughts on these matters? 

 

Well, when I first encouraged readers of Torpedo the Ark to accept the challenge of his writings on dark enlightenment back in October 2015 - click here - I have to admit that I didn't take them as seriously as I do now. 

 

The world has changed dramatically in the last decade, however, and changed in a manner which, it seems to me, only lends credence to Land's analysis. One worries more now about the fate of the West than one worried ten years ago  and it seems to me that offensive strategies are required urgently if we are to avoid a zombie apocalypse (that defensive strategies, such as quarantine, just won't do the trick).

 

Although, if I'm honest, I suspect it's already too late and the election of Keir Starmer's Labour government with a huge majority here in the UK hardly fills me with hope for the future ...

 

Notes

 

[1] See Nick Land, The Dark Enlightenment (Imperium Books, 2022). The essay, written in 2012, is also available online: click here. Note that I am quoting from the first and third parts of this online version.

 

[2] Having said that, one might recall the 1940 film The Ghost Breakers (dir. George Marshall, 1940), starring Bob Hope as Larry Lawrence who delivers a hilarious line concerning zombies and democrats: click here. 

 

[3] Note that by Voice / Exit Land refers to freedom of speech contra the far more substantial autonomy of the sovereign individual (i.e., the freedom to act without state interference and the freedom to leave when state interference in and control over one's life becomes intolerable). And note also that for all regimes, growth expectations assume moderately competent population.

 

 

Dark Enlightenment 1: On the Politics of Hate (4 July 2024): click here.  

 

Dark Enlightenment 2: On Exiting the Present (5 July 2024): click here. 

 

Dark Enlightenment 4: On Rejecting Universalism (6 July 2024): click here.

 

 

On the Nature of the Ridiculous (and the Ridiculous Nature of the Sex Pistols)

Sex Pistols

Photo by Richard Young (1976)

 

"We have passed beyond the absurd: our position is absolutely ridiculous." [1]

 

 

I. 

 

Gavin Butt is a professor at Northumbria University and someone who knows more than most - certainly more than me - about the connections between visual art, popular music, queer culture, and performance [2].

So when he privileges the term ridiculous in his work I'm confident he has very good reasons for doing so. 

 

However, that doesn't mean I can't briefly reflect upon this concept myself in contradistinction to what some regard as the more profound (and serious-sounding) philosophy of absurdism and then say something about the Sex Pistols. 

 

 

II. 

 

The crucial aspect of the ridiculous is that it solicits, incites, or provokes laughter; often of a mocking or cruel nature, but not always. If you're someone like Georges Bataille, then you'll probably find everything ridiculous - one recalls the following short poem:

 

Laugh and laugh 

at the sun 

at the nettles 

at the stones 

at the ducks 

 

at the rain 

at the pee-pee of the pope 

at mummy 

at a coffin full of shit [3]  

 

For Bataille, this laughter is liberating; by viewing the entire universe as ridiculous - including death and the excremental nature of the decomposing corpse - he feels able to escape from what Zarathustra terms the Spirit of Gravity.

 

This may seem synonymous with the sublime philosophical idea of absurdism, but, actually, it's not the same thing at all. Finding existence laughable is very different from finding it meaningless; one is expected - as a creature of reason - to be angst-ridden by the latter idea, not gaily indifferent to the fact or able to smile when standing before the nihilistic void [4].

Being ridiculous makes one in the eyes of those who insist upon moral seriousness at all times an inferior being; shallow and lacking dignity. But I would counter this by saying it makes us Greek in the sense understood by Nietzsche: i.e., superficial - out of profundity! [5].

 

 

III.

 

One might also view punk - in its more playfully anarchic manifestation as given us by Malcolm McLaren - as an attempt not merely to challenge authority, but to escape from enforced seriousness. 

 

The Sex Pistols - and those closely associated with them, such as members of the Bromley Contingent - were ridiculous because they advocated for a Lawrentian revolution:

If you make a revolution, make it for fun,

don't make it in ghastly seriousness,

don't do it in deadly earnest,

do it for fun.

Don't do it because you hate people

do it just to spit in their eye. [6]

Po-faced punks concerned about social justice might recoil from this, but, for me, the idea of tipping over the apple cart simply to see which way the apples will roll, is crucial. McLaren encouraged the youngsters under his spell to be childish and irresponsible - to be everything this society hates - to make themselves ugly and grotesque: in a word, ridiculous [7]. 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] I'm slightly misquoting the American actor, director, and writer Ronald Tavel, who coined the phrase Theatre of the Ridiculous in 1965 initially to describe his own work. Tavel himself ends this sentence with the word 'preposterous'. 

 

[2] I had the pleasure of listening to Butt speak at the Torn Edges symposium held at the London College of Communication on 20 March 2024 - an event exploring the points of contact and crossover between punk, art, design, and history. 

      Although his paper was rather more Pork than punk, that was fine by me and his discussion of Warhol's 1971 play in relation to the Theatre of the Ridiculous - a genre of queer experimental theatre - was fascinating.  

 

[3] The original poem by Bataille, entitled 'Rire' ['Laughter'], can be found in volume 4 of his Oeuvres complètes, (Gallimard, 1971), p. 13. The English translation is from the Preface to Nick Land's The Thirst for Annihilation: Georges Bataille and Virulent Nihilism, (Routledge, 1992), p. xvii.

 

[4] In a sense, I'm following Hobbes here who distinguished between the absurd and the ridiculous, arguing that the former is to do with invalid reasoning, whilst the latter is simply about laughter. For non-philosophers, however, the absurd and the ridiculous are pretty much now regarded as synonymous. 

      As for the sublime - with which the ridiculous is often juxtaposed - it's interesting to note just how quickly one can pass from the former to the latter; one small misstep is all it takes.

 

[5] Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Preface to the second edition (4).

 

[6] D. H. Lawrence, 'A Sane Revolution', The Poems, Vol. I, ed. Christopher Pollnitz (Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 449. 

 

[7] Not only ugliness, but deformity is considered by some to be essential to the ridiculous; one recalls that Johnny Rotten in part based his hunched over stage persona on that of Richard III and would perform in an exaggerated physically awkward manner.    

On Courage and Cowardice (with Reference to the Case of Sir Craig Mackey)

Sir Craig Mackey with the white feather he should receive 

when stripped of his knighthood

Image: Press Association

I. Courage

Courage - be it bravery in the face of physical danger or hardship, or the determination to do the right thing even in the teeth of popular opposition - is one of those ancient virtues that still resonates today. One is even tempted to suggest it's a universal human value.

Certainly in the Western philosophical tradition, courage is right up there; Socrates and his followers may have subjected it to questioning and been unable to ever quite arrive at a satisfactory definition of what it is, but they never doubted its importance. The man who would be master of himself must be able to control his fear and endure suffering. And wisdom alone, as Cicero knew, isn't enough here; it also requires the heart's strength. 

Even Christian thinkers in the medieval period admired courage - often thought of in terms of fortitude - and listed it as one of the cardinal virtues. Indeed, it was also said to be one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. That said, Aquinas and company tend to see courage in purely reactive terms, as a form of perseverance, rather than as something active, such as bravery in battle.

Later, in the modern era, Hobbes thought of courage as a natural virtue belonging to the individual that assists in his survival. Hume also identified courage as a natural virtue and suggested that it was the one of the sources of human pride and wellbeing. For whilst excessive courage can, perhaps, result in recklessness, it brings the individual the admiration of his fellows (and of posterity) and plays a protective role within society - whereas cowardice, on the other hand, lays us open to attack.   

For the existentialists, courage is the affirmation of being in the face of the void and life's absurd cruelty; a way for man to exhibit faith in themselves and grace under pressure, as Hemingway once put it.  

II. Cowardice

Etymologically, the word coward enters into English from the Old French term coart and implies having a tail - as in an individual who turns tail and runs whenever danger threatens, or one who places his tail between his legs like a submissive dog.   

Essentially, cowardice is the opposite of courage; a condition wherein fear and/or excessive self-concern stops one from taking decisive action or speaking up and saying the right thing. It is both a failure of nerve and of character and is looked down on as universally as courage is respected. Indeed, it is often not only stigmatized, but severely punished; particularly within a military context that demands every man do his duty and be brave under fire.  

III. The Case of Sir Craig Mackey

And so to the case of Sir Craig Mackey, Deputy Commissioner of the Met ... A man now condemned and widely mocked by colleagues, journalists, and members of the public as a coward, after it was revealed that during the Westminster terror attack last March, in which PC Keith Palmer was fatally stabbed, he drove off, sharpish, having first locked the windows of his car.

To be fair, he was unarmed and had no protective equipment; he also had the safety of his passengers to consider. So maybe he was simply following police protocol. But, having said that, this story is profoundy dispiriting; one expects more from a British Bobby and a knight of the realm (or indeed any Englishman worth his salt).