Accelerationism questioned from the point of view of the body

Abstract

The article starts out with a question: is acceleration, proposed as a strategy by the accelerationist hypothesis, not only a necessary but also a sufficient condition for the ultimate and unalterable destruction of capitalist order? The author is quick to respond in the negative, arguing that catastrophism per se is already written in this order - and even constitutes the ground of its power. In turn, the deduction of the accelerationist hypothesis from the works of Deleuze and Guattari (which is commonly performed by both its champions and opponents) has its own limitations. In "What is Philosophy?", Deleuze and Guattari move away from the irrevocable value of acceleration (as a revolutionary methodology) in favour of the determination of stability in the midst of chaos. In that work, they emphasize the relation between chaos and the brain, leading the author to suggest that the bodily point of view is crucial, not only for a discussion of occasional ruptures in the works of Deleuze and Guattari, but also for any discussion of the "accelerating machine." From the perspective of sensibility, chaos acts as the pathological perception of speed. Acceleration itself becomes a function which leads to the dysfunction of the whole system of the body - to a panic which appears as an inversion of the paranoia of capitalist order. The author notes that there is some conceptual proximity between the concept of general intellect (from Marx of the "Grundrisse" era to Autonomist Marxist Paolo Virno) and the accelerationist hypothesis. However, seeing that the latter mistakes liberating potentiality (latent in the present composition of work and technology) for almost logical necessity, he perceives the proximity between them to be very dangerous.