Nick Land

Nick Landin Urban Future -blogissa (that's Shanghai -sivustolla) vuonna 2012 alun perin julkaistua Pimeää valistusta (engl. The Dark Enlightenment) voidaan pitää neoreaktionismin (NRx) filosofisena runkona. Teksti on saavuttanut kulttistatuksen ja kuuluu Landin luetuimpiin. Pimeä valistus on analyysi länsimaita kalvavasta viruksesta, ja tätä patologiaa tarkastellaan historiallisten tekstien sekä internetissä vaikuttaneiden kirjoittajien – erityisesti Curtis Yarvinin (Mencius Moldbug) – tarjoaman linssin läpi. Menneisyyden virtaukset syväluodataan, jotta lopuksi voidaan kurottaa kärsimättömästi kohti bionista horisonttia. Teksti ja sen sisältämät ajatukset ovat ehtineet olla laajasti niin sensaatiohakuisten lehtiartikkelien kuin akateemisten analyysien kohteena. Vaikka suomennos saapuu 14 vuotta alkuperäisen tekstin jälkeen, siinä esitetyt teemat ovat yhä ajankohtaisia, eikä ole viitteitä siitä, että tilanne muuttuisi tulevaisuudessa.

"Kylmyys ole jumalani" kokoaa yhteen brittiläisen filosofi Nick Landin aforistisia kirjoituksia vuosilta 2013-2023, joissa hän kritisoi modernia länsimaista yhteiskuntaa, demokratiaa, liberalismia ja egalitarismia sekä puolustaa ankaraa realismia koskien älykkyyttä, perinnöllisyyttä ja väestötiedettä. Land tarkastelee kapitalismia ja teknologiaa (kuten tekoälyä ja kryptoa) epäinhimillisinä, kiihdyttävinä voimina, joilla on oma tarkoituksensa ja potentiaalia johdattaa meidät sivilisaation rappion tuolle puolen. Land provosoi tarkoituksellisesti lukijaa ja omaksuu kiistanalaisia konsepteja itsetietoisesta ”ulkopuolisesta” perspektiivistä, tarkastellen historiaa valinnan, konfliktin ja brutaalin muutoksen linssin läpi. Tekstikokoelma on raaka ja kronologinen artefakti Landin vaikutusvaltaisesta - mutta kiistanalaisesta - neoreaktionaarisesta ja akselerationistisesta ajattelusta. Se tarjoaa tylyn, haastavan ja häiritsevän näkymän teknologiaan, yhteiskuntaan ja tulevaisuuteen. Teos on ensimmäinen kirjana julkaistu suomenkielinen käännös Nick Landin teksteistä. Suomennosta varten kirjoitetussa johdannossa Landin filosofian peruspilarit saatetaan ymmärrettävään muotoon ja hänen ajattelunsa keskeisimmät termit avataan lukijalle. Lisäksi luodaan katsaus Landin vaiheisiin ja hänestä pyritään muodostamaan totuudenmukainen kokonaiskuva, jollaista on vaikea löytää muualta.

Neoreaction is not your grandfather's conservatism, but the web 2.0 era marriage between modern engineering principles and classical anti-democratic thought. Its central tenet is that the Enlightenment was a mistake, and in The Dark Enlightenment, Nick Land burns progressivism to the ground, salts the earth around its ashes, and raises an altar to anti-humanism in its place.Land explicates the main ideas of neoreaction-the Cathedral, neocameralism, formalism, etc.-always viewing democracy, liberalism, and politics in general through the lens of Darwinism. The result is something like Thomas Hobbes as ghostwritten by H. P. Lovecraft. Included in this volume is an unreleased essay by Land on the writing and impact of The Dark Enlightenment.Absolutely none of this incendiary work has been proven wrong in the ten years since it was written. No doubt it will remain relevant for many years to come.

A dizzying trip through the mind(s) of the provocative and influential thinker Nick Land.During the 1990s British philosopher Nick Land's unique work, variously described as "rabid nihilism," "mad black deleuzianism," and "cybergothic," developed perhaps the only rigorous and culturally-engaged escape route out of the malaise of "continental philosophy" -a route that was implacably blocked by the academy. However, Land's work has continued to exert an influence, both through the British "speculative realist" philosophers who studied with him, and through the many cultural producers-writers, artists, musicians, filmmakers-who have been invigorated by his uncompromising and abrasive philosophical vision.Beginning with Land's early radical rereadings of Heidegger, Nietzsche, Kant and Bataille, the volume collects together the papers, talks and articles of the mid-90s-long the subject of rumour and vague legend (including some work which has never previously appeared in print)-in which Land developed his futuristic theory-fiction of cybercapitalism gone amok; and ends with his enigmatic later writings in which Ballardian fictions, poetics, cryptography, anthropology, grammatology and the occult are smeared into unrecognisable hybrids.Fanged Noumena gives a dizzying perspective on the entire trajectory of this provocative and influential thinker's work, and has introduced his unique voice to a new generation of readers.

An important literary and philosophical figure, Georges Bataille has had a significant influence on other French writers, such as Foucault, Derrida and Baudrillard. The Thirst for Annihilation is the first book in English to respond to Bataille's writings. In no way, though, is Nick Land's book an attempt to appropriate Bataille's writings to a secular intelligibility or to compromise with the aridity of academic discourse - rather, it is written as a communion . Theoretical issues in philosophy, sociology, psychodynamics, politics and poetry are discussed, but only as stepping stones into the deep water of textual sacrifice where words pass over into the broken voice of death. Cultural modernity is diagnosed down to its Kantian bedrock with its transcendental philosophy of the object, but Bataille's writings cut violently across this tightly disciplined reading to reveal the strong underlying currents that bear us towards chaos and dissolution - the violent impulse to escape, the thirst for annihilation.

An important literary and philosophical figure, Georges Bataille has had a significant influence on other French writers, such as Foucault, Derrida and Baudrillard. The Thirst for Annihilation is the first book in English to respond to Bataille's writings. In no way, though, is Nick Land's book an attempt to appropriate Bataille's writings to a secular intelligibility or to compromise with the aridity of academic discourse - rather, it is written as a communion . Theoretical issues in philosophy, sociology, psychodynamics, politics and poetry are discussed, but only as stepping stones into the deep water of textual sacrifice where words pass over into the broken voice of death. Cultural modernity is diagnosed down to its Kantian bedrock with its transcendental philosophy of the object, but Bataille's writings cut violently across this tightly disciplined reading to reveal the strong underlying currents that bear us towards chaos and dissolution - the violent impulse to escape, the thirst for annihilation.