Accelerationism
‘Accelerationism’ comes in very different forms. It has roots in the work of Deleuze and Guattari. But what does speeding-up produce: hypercapitalism and exploitation, social control and repression, chaos and complexification, creativity and experimentation, entropy and the decline of civilization? Is speeding up really a form of slowing down? Take the ‘ferocious but short lived assault’ of Nick Land on complacency and the academic status quo: is he a hero or a shirk? Was he ever the ‘surhomme’ and did he then become dangerous? Is Noys (2014) right to claim that (hyper)speed-up can never surpass capitalism, but only nourishes it? What does accelerationism mean for ‘organizing’?
One thing is clear; it is controversial. Organization studies has drawn its radical and critical voices from the likes of Bataille, Artaud, Blanchot, Deleuze, deLanda, Virilio; theoreticians of motility and vitality. Org. studies has all too often assumed that market capitalism and (post-)Marxist socialism are the only ‘kids on the block’. Does accelerationism point elsewhere, to permanent impermanence? What is really left of ‘organization’ and ‘organizing’ in the (post-)chaos world of acceleration?
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