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Malign Velocities: Accelerationism and Capitalism

Benjamin Noys

3.41 · Rating details · 218 ratings · 31 reviews

We are told our lives are too fast, subject to the accelerating demand that we innovate more, work more, enjoy more, produce more, and consume more. Thats one familiar story. Another, stranger, story is told here: of those who think we havent gone fast enough. Instead of rejecting the increasing tempo of capitalist production they argue that we should embrace and ...more

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Published October 31st 2014 by Zero Books

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Feb 06, 2017 philosovamp rated it did not like it

I suspect most academic books, maybe books in general, are just a list of excuses for personal prejudices. You believe what you want and then wave your hands until you have some mildly convincing reasons why you believe what you want to believe. That's particularly easy in continental philosophy. Some academic books forcefully and shamelessly delve into polemics, and the reader is along for the ride. Other academic books are clear and precise enough that you forget you're reading some asshole I suspect most academic books, maybe books in general, are just a list of excuses for personal prejudices. You believe what you want and then wave your hands until you have some mildly convincing reasons why you believe what you want to believe. That's particularly easy in continental philosophy. Some academic books forcefully and shamelessly delve into polemics, and the reader is along for the ride. Other academic books are clear and precise enough that you forget you're reading some asshole with a PhD's preferences. Other books aren't out-and-out polemics, but are also shoddily reasoned, so the reader is left scratching their head, writing "????" in the margins, and wondering why they bothered. Here's where Malign Velocities comes in.

Malign Velocities is a critique of accelerationism. What's accelerationism? It is a complex, heterogenous group of thinkers, who generally emphasize speed, technological progress, and anti-humanism. Accelerationism is now hip with the youngins because of: Living Meme Nick Land, vaporwave thinkpieces, and of course the encroaching sense of doom and futility in contemporary life. Apparently Noys coined the term. He describes influences and predecessors: Italian Futurists, Soviet poets, French theorists, etc. He also describes different trends in accelerationism: apocalypticism, terminality, so on. His critique amounts to the following: accelerationists are apologists to capitalism even when they think they're piercing through it; they indulge in a "fantasy" of the "Real" (note the capital R); and they forget, or try to dismiss, living labor in the productive process.

Noys does not furnish a single reason why you should believe any of the preceding. Partly because he avoids naming his targets; partly because when he does name his target, he is simplifying and misunderstanding them beyond recognition; and partly because there's no clear sense of argumentation or consistency in the chapters. The first problem is simple enough; considering accelerationism is not infrequently broken up into "left" and "right," its dangerous to try and criticize accelerationism as a unified intellectual and political program. When Noys is criticizing accelerationism, he doesn't often say "Land says x and here's why that's problematic" for example. The second problem does not even depend on one's familiarity with the figures he's discussing. Let's take the 1970s French theorists, who Noys criticizes at a theoretical level most considerably (other people, like Land, get no noteworthy appraisal; others, like the Futurists, are dismissed off hand - after all, if they were Fascists or misogynists, they can't be taken seriously for one moment, right?). I have some knowledge of Deleuze and Guattari, a passing knowledge of Baudrillard, and no familiarity at all with Lyotard. The sections on D&G are based on a very simplistic reading of them, and do not levy any worthwhile criticism; furthermore, a more considerate reading of Anti-Oedipus (especially the passages on desiring machines working by "breaking down") could have informed what Noys believes is a preferable alternative to accelerationism (chapter 7). Not knowing anything about Lyotard, though, I can still spot the sleights of hand Noys makes. In the Introduction, he does not present what Lyotard says of accelerationism in a satisfyingly clear way; he then talks about Lyotard views using the term "sublime," without any uncontroversial evidence; he then says an "embrace of the sublime" is a conservative trope. Connect the dots, Lyotard is a conservative...apparently. This leads into the third problem; most chapters in this book go the following way: summarize a writer; summarize a book; summarize a movie; this writer sucks because x. There is no flow or consistency between any of the sections, or any of the chapters, that gives any credence to Noys' critique. For example, in chapter 3, "Machine-Being," Noys says he is going to show why D&G actually believe in a fantasy when they think they're talking about real production. Okay, fine. Noys summarizes a book by Victor Tausk, which D&G refer to in Anti-Oedipus. Noys reminds us again what he wants to argue about D&G. Noys then summarizes Gravity's Rainbow and hints at two readings: a psychoanalytic one (Noys is a card-carrying psychoanalyst by the way, so let's not pretend D&G ever had a chance of a fair interpretation), and an accelerationist one. Noys does not explore either in detail. Finally, there's a few paragraphs basically saying desire is repetitive and hollow. Oh okay. So why are D&G fantasizing? Noys just says they do, he does not argue for this position at all. Towards that end, Noys uses the very handy tactic of deploying economic buzzwords accepted by postmoden social sciences and humanities academics. Neoliberalism and its twin horses of doom, Thatcher and Reagan; dotcom bubble; financialization; housing crisis; stagflation; and of course the big one, which is so huge and useful that it makes it into the title: "capitalism." Pepper them in anywhere! Ever notice that the CCRU started changing around the time of the dotcom bubble? Weird, huh? Silly Nick Land, he never had a chance of knowing his career would be historically situated, and thus defeated, by the economic machinations of stockbrokers across the Atlantic.

Here's some positives, because on the internet you're supposed to try to make friends and respect your elders. Noys gives a solid history and background for accelerationism. You can learn a bit about where accelerationist ideas came from by reading this book, and come up with a nice reading list. Also, Noys is careful enough to not take the most belligerent and wrong-headed polemical critique of accelerationism. Imagine this book written by someone much less intelligent, or...even worse....a critical theorist! And on that note, I applaud Noys for trying to criticize accelerationism. It is an absolutely worthwhile project to try and dispel the illusions and hype surrounding accelerationism.

Unfortunately, this book is just too short and underdeveloped to be worth reading. Noys just presents some unsubstantiated things he thinks about accelerationism as a middle-of-the-road Socialist, and summarizes a series of books you can just read for yourself. Skip it, or read it and defend your favorite theorist's honor if you feel so inclined. ...more

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Oct 17, 2017 Aung Sett Kyaw Min rated it it was ok

i don't think it is entirely unfair to say that Noys' critique only comes together in the final chapter. The part on Bataille and anal economy is indigestibly hard going as I clearly didn't have the pre requisite background knowledge, though honestly I don't see how it ties into the rest of the book. You will emerge from the other side having a better understanding of the intellectual predecessors of contemporary accelerationism (Italian fascismo-futurism), but not with a clear grasp of why it ...more

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Nov 03, 2019 Peter (Pete) Mcloughlin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 00001bad-things, 1890-1959, 1960-to-1989, 1990-to-2019, american-history, asian-history, complexity, computers, economics, european-history

Touches on liquid modernity and its relationship to speed and disruption and its links to mental disorders like schizophrenia (the ultimate ghost in the machine disorder that is at the heart of modernity). Relates all of these to late-stage capitalism. This book is a 100-page outline or a sketch. It is more like a hunch. I think this hunch is on the right track but I so much want a longer and more rigorous treatment. So far it is nice but merely a confirmatory hunch.

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May 11, 2016 Rob Adey rated it it was ok

Wilfully obscure, sloppily thought-out tract on how you probably shouldn't meld with your fridge.

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Sep 22, 2017 Alice Farmer rated it really liked it

Not convinced on Noys argument agains accelerationismwhich seems to only come in in the last small chapter. Is a good chronology of accelerationism in its different forms. ...more

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Jun 10, 2017 Baglan rated it it was ok

Shelves: accelerationism

Leaves much to be desired, especially a thorough discussion of Nick Land's positions on accelerationism. But I guess the book was planned to be a handy short book for people who are interested in accelerationism but not necessarily immersed (pun intended) in the contemporary discussions about it. The best part is on Russian and Italian futurisms.

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Jul 04, 2018 Valdimar rated it did not like it

Shelves: deleuze, economics, politics

thanks for the summaries, would have preferred actual ideas

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Apr 07, 2020 Itai Farhi rated it it was amazing

Shelves: history-of-compossibility-spaces, keeping-up-with-the-lefties, keeping-up-with-the-philosophers, love-s-homework, post-thesis, stimulating, theoretical-formation

Noys assembles genealogical materials that successfully strip away (some of) the appeal of accelerationism. The spirit is argumentative, but Noys is sensitive to the intricacies of the arguments he addresses, reconstructing them often with more clarity than is achieved by the disciples of the cult of non-personality. The readings of the accelerationist canon and the careful analysis of its excremental vision are highlights.

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Mar 11, 2019 Kit rated it really liked it

Parts of this book were decidedly a bit beyond my comprehension and took awhile for me to dig around the vocabulary I am not that familiar with, but beyond that, I am surprised by the well-roundedness of Noys's exploration of the topic. As such, some quotes showing his words are better than my attempt to sum them up:

"What we can trace between anti-accelerationists and accelerationists is a strange
convergence on nostalgia nostalgia for a vanishing possibility of socialist slow-down, itself a
...more

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Jul 07, 2019 Alex rated it really liked it

Shelves: historical, philosophy, politics

Gives a nice, fairly concise-yet-comprehensive history of the CCRU brand of accelerationism and its forerunners. A couple of the latter chapters of critique didn't land as hard for me, but most of this was quite solid I thought.

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Jan 09, 2016 Josh Carswell rated it really liked it

As one of the few (perhaps the only book-length) critiques of accelerationism, Malign Velocities provides a powerful and necessary alternative approach to the idea that the only valuable strategy the political left can adopt in the second decade of the twenty-first century is not to resist, rather to speed up capitalist modes of production in order to assist them in reaching their own breaking-point. Noys navigates through historical examples of accelerationism, identifying common themes shared As one of the few (perhaps the only book-length) critiques of accelerationism, Malign Velocities provides a powerful and necessary alternative approach to the idea that the only valuable strategy the political left can adopt in the second decade of the twenty-first century is not to resist, rather to speed up capitalist modes of production in order to assist them in reaching their own breaking-point. Noys navigates through historical examples of accelerationism, identifying common themes shared by the Italian Futurists, defiant "communist accelerationists" such as Aleksei Gastev, the post-'68 machinic utopianists such as Deleuze-Guattari and Pynchon, and the "cyberpunk phuturists" of the 90s, Nick Land and the Ccru. Of course this means that Noys' definition of accelerationism is quite generic, and his individual critiques tend not to travel far beyond their own chapters. Regardless many of his criticisms tend to stick in the memory and seem fair and measured (as opposed to unfair and scathing): accelerationism as "utopian excess", experienced as jouissance (ecstasy that collapses into masochistic pain); an ironically nostalgic attempt to recreate the future of the past; and a "postgraduate disorder" (suggesting the postgraduate's confrontation of the world of labour of which they are about to be integrated as "one of future horror - endless and trivial"). Particular attention is given to accelerationism's "machinic impulses": Noys suggests the ongoing theme of the integration of man and machine (note the gender) is symptomatic of the desires "to produce the Real as the Real of production and circulation [italics in original]" and "to integrate the repetitive and deadening circuit of the sexual drive into the deadening circuit of labour." Using Walter Benjamin's reading of "The Railway Disaster at the Firth of Tay" as a springboard, Noys begins to plot out an alternative to accelerationism that doesn't simply regress back into traditional (failing) proletarian narratives. Two key measures would be to "tap and resist the incitement of desire that capitalism produces" and "a restoration of the sense of friction that interrupts and disrupts the fundamental accelerationist fantasy of smooth integration." ...more

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Dec 07, 2014 Artur Coelho rated it really liked it

Uma ideia intrigante: e se em vez de combater os excessos do capitalismo a estratégia fosse de aprofundamento e estímulo aos excessos, provocando a sua derrocada através da aceleração a extremos? Curiosa teoria. Pessoalmente tenho alguma dificuldade em imaginar células de bilionários revolucionários, nadando em riquezas incomensuráveis, empenhados em deixar exsangues os sistemas económicos, sonhando com o dia em que as turbas ululantes se revoltarão e espetem as suas cabeças em paus como Uma ideia intrigante: e se em vez de combater os excessos do capitalismo a estratégia fosse de aprofundamento e estímulo aos excessos, provocando a sua derrocada através da aceleração a extremos? Curiosa teoria. Pessoalmente tenho alguma dificuldade em imaginar células de bilionários revolucionários, nadando em riquezas incomensuráveis, empenhados em deixar exsangues os sistemas económicos, sonhando com o dia em que as turbas ululantes se revoltarão e espetem as suas cabeças em paus como vingança pela desigualdade devastadora, sociedade esquizofrénica e catástrofes ambientais legadas pelo capitalismo terminal.

Desta premissa Noys parte para uma análise de movimentos artísticos e teorias filosóficas influentes ao longo do século XX e princípios do XXI. Começa com o sempre interessante futurismo, com a sua estética deslumbrada pela então novidade da massificação mecânica, da velocidade e da guerra. Recorda-nos como os entusiastas da velocidade mecanicista e do belicismo desenfreado se estamparam sob as balas na frente da I Guerra, fim apropriadamente catastrófico para os entusiasmos mais destravados. Daí mergulha nos campos mais rarefeitos das teorias do real da escola francesa, terreno pantanoso mais intrigante. Toca, como não poderia deixar de ser, no cyberpunk como tomada de pulso da colisão entre utopias e distopias tecnicistas propiciadas pelo mundo digital. Termina com um toque escatológico, afirmando a merdice do capitalismo desenfreado quer como característica que lhe é inerente quer como o estado em que deixa aqueles que são descartados pelo sistema.

Com uma boa análise sobre ideias da contemporaneidade sobre velocidade, não perde de vista um catastrofismo deslumbrado, entusiasta da derrocada total sem olhar às consequências. Mas não deixa de tocar num ponto óbvio e doloroso para aqueles com incapacidades bilionárias: o capitalismo desregulado de índole neo-liberal está a ter consequências devastadoras no tecido social. Este conceito de aceleração em direcção ao colapso é uma perspectiva algo absurdista que nos ajuda a sentir a extensão dos problemas causados por ganância sistematizada em estado puro. ...more

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Dec 04, 2016 Rein rated it liked it

Noys, as the author of the concept of "accelerationism", is certainly the right author to have delivered us an overview of its background and future. However, given the current state of the debate, I don't really feel the promise was entirely fulfilled. Some sections of the book were just quick summaries of someone's views or what a film/book was about - not long enough to provide an argumented analysis, but not brief enough to be mere examples or asides - and did not integrate into the whole as ...more

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Sep 21, 2015 Tara Brabazon rated it really liked it

This is a fascinating book that manages the balance between high theory and a social diagnosis of contemporary life. It features a deep undergirding of left politics, which enables the diagnosis of accelerationism as "a political and cultural strategy."

At its most basic, this book enters the 'problem' of speed. It explores the contradictory hope and devastation of new technologies, exploring the Futurists, Detroit techno, the cyberpunks and the dot.com bubble.

Perhaps most significantly, Noys ...more

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Feb 12, 2015 Dan rated it really liked it

An appropriately speedy, at times even breathlessly paced intervention that critiques the revolutionary powers so often ascribed to accelerationalism. I'd say it's a bit heavy on theory and light on examples, but each chapter is so densely packed and forcefully argued that there's little to complain about apart from the fact that, like most Zero books (including my own), this one also would have benefited from some diligent copy-editing. ...more

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Jun 11, 2017 ger rated it it was ok · review of another edition

The odd interesting point is obscured by the very way it is written. The usual theorist speak nonsense fails to engage with the problem any Futurist has with prediction of any sense. Pity, because it could have been a good pamphlet on why 'Accelerationism' fails to be anything more than a postgraduate masturbation fantasy.

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Jun 20, 2016 Kersplebedeb rated it really liked it

A fun short overview of accelerationism, and the romance of the machine, so to speak. Well-written, in the sense that even when i encountered bits that i knew nothing about (i.e. Lacan), and did not really understand what was being said, it still didn't become boring or make me zone out.

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Jan 05, 2019 Subliminal rated it really liked it

Shelves: left-critique

Brief overview on the most important accelerationist movements. If you're new to the matter this will help you to gain a critical view on the fourth or fifth approach to revive accelerationism ...

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Mar 11, 2017 Jacob rated it really liked it

Noys critique of Accelerationism, in general, is on point. I do, however, find his criticism of more contemporary movements (notably Srnicek and Williams) to be lacking.

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Mar 14, 2015 Samuel York rated it really liked it

chill book i found especially stimulating the historical references to russian cosmism etc

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Jun 21, 2018 King Ludd rated it really liked it

brief, insightful and thought-provoking. bonus points for not besmirching or misrepresenting Baudrillard.

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Jul 29, 2019 Alfredo Bojórquez rated it liked it

Un libro oscuro para gente oscura. Yo me lo encontré en la librería, en la mesa de novedades y me tentó. No es barato, pero quise leer una actualización de los debates que los marxistas han tenido sobre el aceleracionismo desde los 70 hacia aquí. Es un buen estado de la cuestión al respecto. En el sentido de la filosofía y teoría del norte global: habla de películas, música, literatura... siempre dentro del canon oscuro: Lovecraft, el techno de Detroit y un largo etcétera. En cuando a lo teórico ...more

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Sep 24, 2019 Maciej Sitko rated it it was ok

I have yet to read something as repetitive and disinteresting as this.

The author went on repeating the same simple idea but dressing it in hundreds of different examples over and over and over again. It is an ok critique of the movement but it could be summarised in 20 pages or so, using much easier language.

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Apr 09, 2020 TSVW rated it liked it

Interesting if one is looking for a genealogy of accelerationism. Most of the psychoanalytic and French theory stuff went over my head, but the beginning of the book and the discussion about Futurism and communism were pretty insightful.

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May 31, 2018 Steve Dewey rated it did not like it

Shelves: cultural-studies, economics, sociology, politics, non-fiction

I see some reviews of this already that say more eloquently what I think. I'd heard of accelerationism, and I'd vaguely heard of Nick Land. I was vaguely aware that the two were linked. I've come out of this book knowing the two are vaguely linked. The book is subtitled "Acceleration and Capitalism". I was therefore expecting to learn something about Accelerationism, but I am as vague now as I was before I went in. I thought I might learn how accelerationism actually connects to capitalism, I see some reviews of this already that say more eloquently what I think. I'd heard of accelerationism, and I'd vaguely heard of Nick Land. I was vaguely aware that the two were linked. I've come out of this book knowing the two are vaguely linked. The book is subtitled "Acceleration and Capitalism". I was therefore expecting to learn something about Accelerationism, but I am as vague now as I was before I went in. I thought I might learn how accelerationism actually connects to capitalism, whether it exclusively attaches to capitalism, and guessing from the title of the book that Noys likely thought there was a linkage and it was bad, what the problem with the linkage was. Again, I came out the other end - a bit like the shit one chapter is obsessed with - lacking nourishment.

While the whirlwind tour of Italian futurism was kind of okay, I remained unsure whether it really was a precursor to accelerationism. And then things got a little worse, because the book quickly follows a path through Deleuze and Guattari, but a path that is really only known to initiates. The book is not helpful to those who know little about these thinkers, or who have forgotten what little they knew, because the book doesn't help the uninitiated become initiated. So I kept falling off the path. And as the book continued, I kept trying to get back on the path, but the book continued to provide only the most rudimentary guidance to whatever writer Noys was arguing against or agreeing with. The chapter on shit was most unsatisfying, and very unconvincing. All in all, I found the whole thing a bit - meh.

About ten pages from the end I looked in the back and found Zer0 Books' manifesto or mission statement. Apparently, "another kind of discourse is possible, intellectual without being academic, popular without being populist." That isn't this book. This book is written in the (not-very-popular) idiom of critical theory by a university professor. It felt exactly like a monograph for learned colleagues in critical theory. ...more

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Feb 26, 2015 David Walsh rated it it was ok

Before reading this book I would have been unable to begin to define accelerationism. Having read this book, I could probably fumble my way through some vague notions, but I would still fail to precisely, succinctly define.

Perhaps a prerequisite of full appreciation of this book is some prior immersion into the topic of accelerationsim. Short of that, I am left with a pervading sense that Noys is arguing with some unidentified antagonist.

That said, it was not so obtuse that I was left without ...more

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Sep 09, 2016 River rated it it was ok

Shelves: capitalism

Sloppy and vague throughout.

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Sep 06, 2015 Rhys rated it liked it

Step on the gas, or 'activate the emergency brake'?

Or, "jump out of the vision of history as infinite waiting for the revolutionary situation"

Or, perhaps it it "the question whether this anal economy of incorporation, digestion, and excretion that Bataille traces can be derailed into an ecstatic and apocalyptic voiding"

Yes, apocalyptic voiding ... the (butt) end of 'cloacal capitalism'

Will the beautiful 'new' grow from the decomposing detritus of capitalism? or will we be simply left with a pile ...more

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Apr 29, 2015 Steen Ledet rated it liked it

A short, fast book on one of the critical complexes currently debated. The strength of the book is clearly the historical overview of how accelerationism developed, while there is relatively little new critical development. The conclusion brings new ideas to the table but it feels like the train has left the station by then.

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