alden wood - the unrecyclable ontology of nihilism

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For the Marxist cultural critic David McNally,the prolieration o cultural orms utilizing thecharacter-trope o the zombie points to a deep-

seated social anxiety about the catastrophismundergirding the dominance o late-capitalism.He argues that the figure o the zombie, or theliving dead, aesthetically mirrors the death-likealienation rom ones own existential experi-ence o living within late-capitalism. Tus, theprolongation o lie beyond death is complicit

in the pervasive prolieration o late-capitalistpower dynamics, but it also paradoxically actsas the very ontological transormation that pre-cludes the dissolution o such domination. TeFrench philosopher Georges Bataille treats thenotion o death as the undamental reality that

acts as a delimiting orce exerting itsel uponlie. For Bataille, death is inherently restorativeas it dissipates the existential interruption heposits is caused by lie. Te French autonomist-Marxist journal iqqun argues that the onlyrecourse to the totalizing domination o late-capitalism is to embrace the latent nihilism

inherent in late-capitalist power dynamics as a

way to negate these very orces. In their essaySilence and Beyond, iqqun argues that sincelate-capitalism is already a social space which is

inhabited by the living dead, the only positiono attack lef to anticapitalists is one which par-adoxically attempts to negate the very nihilisminherent within late-capitalism itsel. By situat-ing such an argument against McNallys analy-sis o the living dead, and tempered by Bataillestreatment o death, iqquns position here be-

gins to appear as one that eschews prescriptiveaffirmations o non-capitalist alterities (arguingthat there is no ontological or political outsideto the dominance o late-capitalism) and in-stead argues that only the affirmative negativityo late-capitalisms complete nihilistic destruc-

tion can usher in the very prerequisites or itstranscendence.According to both McNally and iqqun,

a definitive logic o nihilistic catastrophism hasbegun to emerge within the sociopolitical spaceo late-capitalism. It is a space in which capitalistcommodity exchange relations have effectively

created a rhizomatic network o dominance

The Unrecyclable Ontology of Nihilism: TiqqunsAnnihilation of Nothingness, Georges Batailles

Conception of Death, and David McNallys Living Deadby Alden Wood

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across the entirety o the world in the twenty-

first century; so much so, that as iqqun claims,it is now the era o the authoritarian commod-ity or the completion o capitalisms quest orreal subsumption. For Marx, real subsump-tion, as opposed to ormal subsumption,constituted the historical moment in whichthere were no longer any pre-capitalist ormso production to be orcibly integrated into thecapitalist schema.1 For iqqun, the era o theauthoritarian commodity is that in which thecommodity-etish, that metaphysical obusca-tion o exchange relations taking the place oauthentic social relations, becomes normalized

and totalized. It is within this sociopoliticalspace o catastrophism that the horizon o deathominously looms as the only possible outcomeo the destructive impulses o late-capitalism.Paradoxically, death itsel becomes the finalontological obstacle, which late-capitalism at-tempts to overcome through the complete codi-

fication, delineation, and dominance o thislast othered existential space. Tus, implicitwithin the rhetoric surrounding discourses ocatastrophism is the coalescence o the two sup-posedly distinct spheres o lie and death. Tiscoalescence reveals that lie within late-capital-isms era o the authoritarian commodity is

death itsel, and the individuals experiencingthis existence as the living dead qualitativelylack any traces o authentic lie.

In his essay, Land o the Living Dead:Capitalism and the Catastrophes o EverydayLie, McNally argues that the earliest mod-

ern images o the zombie are tied to figures o

mindless labor (114). He goes on to claim that

this image carried a latent but powerul socialcriticism: the idea that in capitalist society themajority become nothing but bearers o undi-erentiated lie energies, dispensed in units oabstract time. Te raison dtreo zombies is thelabor they perorm (116). It is precisely this re-duction o lived-experience to abstract labourpotential, which inorms the figurative death osuch individuals within late-capitalism. Teyare dead in so much as their living is qualita-tively devoid o meaning beyond the produc-tion o exchange value, which is already meta-physically removed rom use value.

McNally describes two dominant repre-sentations o the zombie that are explicitly tiedto the development o neoliberalismthose ocrazed consumers and lieless laborers (117).He argues that the older representations o thezombie, specifically those that trace their lineagerom Haitian lore by way o the Western Con-

go, did not involve the characteristics o canni-balism that have become all but ubiquitous inWestern representations o the zombie. McNallytraces this development to the rise o consumer-culture in the 1960s, specifically in the UnitedStates, and argues that it is not until this his-torical context that zombies begin to mindlessly

crave the flesh o the living. Tere is some-thing inherently sel-negating in the ever in-creasing lust or the consumption o living fleshas embodied by the cannibalistic zombie tropeo American/European cultural production, asconsumption and scarcity differentiates it rom

the colonial orm o the lieless laborer zom-

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bie trope that McNally argues is still prevalent in

Arican cultural orms. Te cannibalistic con-sumer zombie encounters problems o scarcity,or it ostensibly ceases to exist itsel i it cannotconsume living flesh. Tis problem o scarcityseems to mirror the ecological concerns o re-source allocation, procurement, and sustain-ability so prevalent in late-capitalist discourseso catastrophe. Tus, in the same way that thelogic o late-capitalism creates an irreconcilableschism between the realities o consumption ina finite physical world and the theoretical im-pulses which underlie late-capitalisms quest orprofit accumulation, so too does the cannibalis-

tic consumer zombie embody the contradic-tion o its need to consume more living-fleshand the scarcity which begins to maniest as thedirect result o such consumption.

McNally hints at the inherent possibilitywithin such cultural renderings o the zombieas a figure that evokes catastrophic anxieties.

He argues that the clash o the manic flesh-eat-er and the laboring-drone also hints at anotherstartling zombie capacity: rebellion (123).While his analysis o the emergence o the twotypes o zombie cultural orms, the cannibalis-tic consumer zombie o developed countriesand the mindless-labourer slave zombie o de-

veloping countries is compelling, his depictiono the truly subversive image o the zombie re-volt is prosaically emblematic o past utopianvisions. He uses the image o zombie rebellionas a metaphor or the everyday work o resis-tance, arguing that revolution grows out o or-

dinary, prosaic acts o organizing and resistancewhose coalescence produces mass upheaval

(123). In critiquing the catastrophic opposition

to his prescriptive perspective on the manies-tation o revolutionary politics, McNally arguesthat the other apocalyptic scenario, in whicha complete collapse o social organization ush-ers in a tumultuous upheaval, is ultimately amystical rather than political one (124). Tisdismissal o the mystical, o the messianic, in a-vour o a purely political rendering o revolt allsinto the reductive trap o positing an affirma-tive counter-logic to capitalism within a socialspace which is already completely contained,delineated, and dominated by late-capitalism asa space which has no ontological outside.

McNally ails to acknowledge that in thefigurative-representational space o the zombie,the only act that can negate the cyclical violenceo the zombies consumption (and by extensionthe logic o late-capitalism) is the sel-negationo the zombie by its own nihilistic consumption,which inevitably leads to absolute scarcity and

the impossibility o its own continued suste-nance. McNallys approach is clearly concernedwith the earlier stages o the zombies historico-cultural development. Tus, his dichotomizedand relatively undifferentiated conception othe zombie as a cultural orm overlooks theway in which many zombie representations are

currently being depicted across many contem-porary cross-cultural genres. Te zombie is un-dergoing a transition in which it is seeminglysynthesizing its olkloric incarnations ability toexist indefinitely without the consumption oflesh with the popular Western incarnations in-

satiable desire or the living. Te result is a newzombie orm that no longer needs to consume

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flesh to sustain itsel, yet it continues in its at-

tempts to consume the living. Tis problematiz-es both McNallys scarcity-consumption argu-ment and his calling or a conscious uprisingo the living dead.

McNally misconstrues Marx when heargues that just as, to paraphrase Marx, theworking class must negate its own alienatedcondition i it is to emancipate itsel, so zom-bie rebels must de-zombiy themselves and ac-quire consciousness and identity in the processo overturning their degraded state (126). Teorm o the consumer-zombie already containswithin itsel the inevitability o its own destruc-

tion, and urther, its own transcendence. It pos-sesses this internal potentiality or sel-negationprecisely because it encounters the very limits oscarcity and causes its own destruction throughthe mindless act o sustaining itsel the deatho the already-dead. Tus, taking this culturalorm and transposing it onto the dispossessed

subjects o late-capitalist domination, it isnot a question o how to acquire conscious-ness and identity but rather an anti-political,mystical embracing o the nothingness that islatent within the nihilistic contradictions at thecore o late-capitalism. Tis destruction o thenihilism undergirding the contradictions o late-

capitalist logic through the adoption o nihil-ism itsel as an ethical position is precisely thecourse that iqqun argues or in their essay Si-lence and Beyond.

iqqun essentially agrees with McNallyin the catastrophic analysis o late-capitalism,

yet their respective recourses to such a bleak u-

ture could not be more divergent. Whereas Mc-

Nally argues that the zombie/disenranchised/proletariat subject o late-capitalism must ac-quire consciousness and identity, iqqun ar-gues that this logic fits precisely within the con-fines o the biopolitical abric o late-capitalistdomination. Borrowing rom Foucaults workon biopower,2iqqun argues that with the his-torical development o capitalism, the disci-plinary practices o sovereign power where thetyrannical enemy . . . draws its power rom itsability to shut people up have given way to aorm o power (biopower) which expresses itsaptitude to make them talk [ . . . and as a result]

has moved its center o gravity rom its masteryo the world itsel to its seizure o the worldsmode o disclosure (70). Tus, McNallys claimthat in order to effectively challenge late-capi-talism all one has to do is analyze its mystifiedsocial relations [ . . . as a means to] disclose whatthey tell us about the genuinely monstrous,

deadening, and zombiying processes to whichwage-laborers are subjected in modern society(127) ails to acknowledge that such modes odisclosure are already codified according to thevery logic o late-capitalism itsel. iqqun ar-gues that through the domination o biopoweras the delimiting power dynamic concomitant

with the rise o post-industrial late-capitalism,all attempts to speak to or disclose truthwithin it merely unction to serve late-capitalisms primacy.

iqqun is writing rom the temporal po-sition o Francis Fukuyamas end o history,3

a position contextualized by the ailures o so-




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cial-democratic reorm, the communist state,

and the new lefall impotently opposed to thesupposed totalizing triumph o capitalism. It iswithin this quasi-atalism that iqqun arguesthat even contestation [against capitalism]proves daily how incapable it has been o sup-porting itsel on that modernizations uninter-rupted avalanche o deeats (70). iqqun arguesthat such antagonistic contestations have ailedprecisely because anticapitalists have attemptedto engage late-capitalism using its own modeso disclosure and recognition. Tey claim thatthe hypermediated discourse o late-capitalismonly recognizes as a truly existent opposition

the opposition that is willing to speak; that is,to speak its language, and hence to subscribe tothe alienation o the Common (71). Here con-testation takes on a meta-linguistic component,in that through biopowers coercive institution-al apparatuses, any attempts to contest withoutthe language o political demands have been rel-

egated to the impractical, insane, and anarchic.Yet, what iqqun elucidates at this theoreticaljuncture is the need to conront the metaphysi-cal nothingness underneath the veneer o reallate-capitalist social relations with a negatingorm o nothingness that is conscious o itsel assuch. For as they claim:

the real hostility, the metaphysical hostility,which allows neither language nor the mo-ment it will express itsel to be controlled,and which moreover preers silence to anyspeech, has been pushed back into the shad-ows o what does not appear and hence doesnot exist. (71)

Tus, according to iqqun, the project or the

antagonist aligned against capitalism becomesone that must simply be affirmative negation,without any prescriptive qualifiers positivelyarguing or something to replace capitalism(such as state socialism, alter-globalization,green or sustainable social-democratic welarestates, etc).

It becomes apparent then that iqqun be-lieves all social struggles are ridiculous (72),because they are merely serving what theythink theyre challenging (71). Within such aperspective, a conscious and active nihilism be-gins to align itsel as, to borrow rom Engels,

the negation o the negation.4

Here, an activenihilism conscious o its own potentiality tobring about the destruction o the passive nihil-ism latent within late-capitalisms own contra-dictory nature begins to maniest. Te ormaldistinction between active and passive nihilismis merely a question o intentionality. Accord-

ing to this argument, capitalism produces apassive nihilism within the orms it subsumes,as its very logic o control and domination isone that seemingly negates all potentiality oralternatives to capitalism. Active nihilism isthereore first the recognition o this passivenihilism latent within capitalism and the im-

possibility o escape, ollowed by an enactingo the program-less destruction o this verynegation. iqqun writes: Capitalism producesthe conditions or its transcendence, not thattranscendence itsel (70). Tus paradoxically,iqqun at once embraces and eschews the col-lapsist rhetoric o late-capitalist catastrophism.Inherent within the late-capitalist contradiction

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between the theoretical impulse to maximize

profit amidst the reality o finite resource scar-city is the production o the conditions orcapitalisms transcendence. Yet iqqun seemsto be articulating that i such conditions are notmet with a conscious ethical orce aware o itspotential to hasten the destruction o capitalistrelations, then the passive nihilism within late-

capitalism will have run its courseresulting insomething akin to a series o ecological, social,and political collapses. It is in this way then thatiqqun claims that among those we encoun-ter, we appreciate nothing more than such coldresolution to ruining this world (70).

iqquns assumption o an active orm onihilism within Silence and Beyond is para-doxically both an unwilled reaction to the to-talizing encroachment o late-capitalist socialrelations as well as an ethical position which isconsciously possessed. Because o this schizoid-like occupation o such an anti-political posi-

tion, iqquns active negation o the metaphysi-cal nature underlying late-capitalism as theway or crossing the line, the way towards theexit rom nihilism [ . . . and the way] beyond it(74) proves to be a position that takes on an in-herently ontological and existential dimensionakin to Georges Batailles conception o death.

For Georges Bataille, there is a certainexistential wholeness that exists outside o thelimits that death imposes on lie. Bataille schol-ar Michael Richardson claims that

Batailles sensibility is essentially tragic: hereused to accept any possibility o an escaperom the human condition. In the end we

are condemned to death, and to the annihi-

lation o our being. Indeed, ar rom strivingagainst this condition, he believed we shouldaccept it. ragic it may be, but it remainedthe only truth o our existence. (202)

At ace value this essentially pessimistic view olie seems in stark opposition to the potentiality

o transcendence that iqqun posits, yet uponcloser juxtaposition both Bataille and iqqunare speaking to the way in which being mustultimately negate itsel.

For Bataille, the ontological whole that ex-ists apart rom lie, in death, is quite similar to

iqquns messianic conception o the commu-nism, which maniests in the active negation ocapitalism in its entirety. For iqqun, commu-nism is irreducibly rooted in the becoming-o-ne-gation, the communality that emerges when thepredicative identities, individual subjects, values,and moralities all beholden to the simulacra o

late-capitalism are stripped awayleaving onlya total, existential hostility (75). Tis destruc-tion o predicative, simulated ontologies, by re-moving them rom their temporal element, stripsnude the truth o our times (iqqun 73). Tisdestruction, the active nihilism aligned againstlate-capitalist domination (passive nihilism), in-

orms the journals very namesake, as they claim:In the Sabbatean tradition the moment o thegeneral destruction o things was given the nameiqqun. In that instant, each thing is repairedand removed rom the long chain o suffering itunderwent in this world (77). Tis is very simi-lar to the way that Bataille views the emergenceo cognizant lie as a finite interruption rom the




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pure continuity o infinite existence. Tus, death

acts as both the moment o repairing the sepa-ration o lie rom death by reintegrating dead-lie back into the infinite totality o death and asthe totality o death itsel. For Bataille, death isat once a singular moment (an act) and a com-plete and infinite totality (state o being). In thesame way then, iqquns advocacy or the ac-

tive destruction o late-capitalism is the singularmoment (the act) that repairs and reintegratesorms-o-lie into the complete and infinite to-tality o communism (state o being). Tis is adestruction o the vestiges o the sel en masse,done in a communal process o becoming-noth-

ing-together.In Silence and Beyond iqqun usesBatailles work to elucidate what they deem asthe importance o destroying the present stateo things. Tey quote Bataille rom Teory ofReligion: All the subsistence existence and toilthat permitted me to get there were suddenly

destroyed, they emptied out infinitely like a riv-er into the ocean o that one infinitesimal mo-ment (iqqun 77). Tus death, as the momento the existential destruction o the sel as wellas the moment o reintegration with that whichis beyond the narrow confines o human lie, isa messianic bearer o trutha tenuous position

to hold in the midst o postmodernity. Batailleargues that death actually discloses the impos-ture o reality, not only in that the absence oduration gives the lie to it, but above all becausedeath is the great affirmer, the wonder-struck olie . . . Death reveals lie in its plenitude and

dissolves the real order (OR46-47). Tis dis-

solution o the real order through death findsits parallel in iqquns contention that who-ever has never experienced one o those hourso joyous or melancholic negativity cannot tellhow close to destruction the infinite is (77).Tus the act o destruction, o an active nihil-ism, hints at the possibility o transcending the

alsity o the temporal present and the reinte-gration with the infinite.

For iqqun late-capitalism and all othe affects bound up within its own displays osimulacra and biopower must be destroyed tobe overcome, much in the same way that death

or Bataille orms the basis o the reconnectionwith the existentially infinite. Bataille writes inInner Experience that it is by dying, withoutpossible evasion, that I will perceive the rupturewhich constitutes my nature and in which I havetranscended what exists . . . Death is in onesense the common inevitable, but in another

sense proound, inaccessible (71-72). Tus, lieor Bataille is a rupture which separates andisolates, while death is a rupture which joinsand repairs. Similarly or iqqun, reedom firstcomes rom the death-like finitude presupposedby existing within the confines o late-capitalistpower dynamics and, secondly, rom attempt-

ing to destroy such an ontology. Tey claimthat there are indeed those who are applyingnihilism to nihilism itsel, yet they still retain,rom their prior state, the eeling that they areliving as i they were already dead; but rom thisstate o indifference concerning the raw act o

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being alive, they draw the ormula or the great-

est possible sovereignty, a reedom which is in-capable o trembling in the ace o anything any-more (76). It is thus in this way that iqqunsprogram is precisely the abandonment o thevery idea o such positive programs, in avouro a revolt or insurrection that is undamentallynegative, without demands, silent, and invis-

ible. It is a conception o struggle firmly rootedin the metaphysical negation o everything inthis enemy world (77).

Trough articulating such a highly con-tentious theoretical position, iqqun acknowl-edges that such belies warrant placing a high

importance on the orm o the maniestationso negativity that invent a new active grammaro contestation (72). Central to this new activegrammar o negativity is an evasion o languagesimposition o meaning. iqqun argues that allprevious social movements aligned against late-capitalism mistakenly attempted to speak to late-

capitalist domination on its own terms, enteringa discourse in which all o the language is alreadyeffectively controlled. Tey contend that thegreatest possible demands dont allow themselvesto be ormulated (76), and in so doing they cre-ate an antagonistic position which, through itsown inarticulation, evades the propensity o late-

capitalist power dynamics to impose meaningand subsequently exert control over that which isbeing signified. iqqun claims that between thepassive nihilism inherent in the contradictionso capitalism as first outlined by Marx himseland the active nihilism which seeks to destroy all

that exists within the late-capitalist ontology is

the line. And that line is the unspeakable, whichimposes silence (76). Tis line, the demarca-tion between real/simulacra, lie/death, capital-ism/communism, must be shrouded in silence,or that which actively negates all that exists mustnecessarily be complete and total absence, exis-tences lack, the void that threatens to assert itsel

and thus rejoins the interruption o lie, in Ba-tailles terms, to the infinite nature o death. Tus,the lack o language and the signification or im-position o meaning that accompanies it mani-ests itsel as a negative ethical hostility, which isexistentially the unspeakable (iqqun 75).

iqquns argument or silence, a radicalnegation o all that exists without the prescrip-tive expression o utopian antasies, proves tobe markedly different than the silence/voice-lessness that typifies the cultural trope o thezombie. David McNallys zombies are reducedto the living dead; they are stripped rom both

language and existence. Tey are the mirroredmetaphor o an ontology under late-capitalismwhich embodies the complete expenditure ohuman labour-power entirely or the produc-tion o exchange values. Ironically, the onlycreature capable o existing purely as limitlesshuman labour-power is precisely the figure o

the non-human. ransposing his metaphor othe zombie as the dispossessed worker/con-sumer o late-capitalism, McNally argues thezombies voicelessness and lack o language isan expression o its innate oppression. Tusor McNally, the zombie and, by figurative




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extension, the late-capitalist proletariat merely

needs an awakening to consciousness to turnthe world upside down (123).

iqquns position is radically opposed tothis view o silence, as they revel in the conscioussilence o a nihilism aligned against late-capi-talist domination. Tey argue that silence is anoffensive position that does not allow struggle

or resistance to enter into the very languageand logic o late-capitalism. By consciouslydisavowing the propensity o resistance to late-capitalism to articulate its political, social, oreconomic demands, iqquns silent antagonismevades the trap o language and the imposition

o meaning that accompanies it. It is precisely inthis way that the rejection o demands and theresulting conscious silence appears very similarto Georges Batailles theoretical conception odeath. For Bataille death acts as the transcen-dent moment in which the interruption o lie isfinally reintegrated with the infinite. Tis paral-

lels iqquns own communist transcendence, as

they claim that only a conscious nihilism cantranscend the totality o late-capitalist relations.Tey write that we cannot transcend nihilismwithout realizing it, nor realize it without tran-scending it. Crossing the line means the generaldestruction o things as such, or in other wordsthe annihilation o nothingness (77). Tere-

ore, any sociopolitical model that exists along-side capitalism posturing as an alternative toit is still within capitalisms totalizing realm obeing. Only capitalisms complete destructioncan oment the beginnings o a post-capitalistalterity. o annihilate the nothingness is the re-

alization o a metaphysical negation o a nega-tion, and according to iqqun it is only throughsuch an act o Bataillean death that commu-nism can be realized.

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1 Reer to Section II o Results o the ImmediateProcess o Production included as an appendix inMarxs Capital: Volume 1.

2 Reer to Foucaults lectures at the Collge deFrance as collected in Security, erritory, Population:Lectures at the Collge de France 19771978and TeBirth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collge de France,19781979.

3 See Fukuyamas Te End of History and the LastMan.

4 See Engelss Anti-Dhring: Herr Eugen DhringsRevolution in Science.


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Works Cited

Bataille, Georges. Inner Experience. rans. LeslieA. Boldt. Albany: State University of NewYork, 1988. Print.

---. Teory of Religion. rans. Robert Hurley.New York: Zone, 1992. Print. (cited in-text as OR)

Engels, Friedrich.Anti-Dhring: Herr EugenDhrings Revolution in Science. rans.

Austin Lewis. New York: InternationalPublishers, 1966. Print.

Foucault, Michel. Security, erritory, Population:Lectures at the Collge de France 1977-

1978. rans. Graham Burchell. New York:Picador, 2004. Print.---. Te Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the

Collge de France, 19781979. rans.Graham Burchell. New York: Picador,2008. Print.

Fukuyama, Francis. Te End of History and the

Last Man. New York: Avon Books,1992. Print.

Marx, Karl. Results of the Immediate Processof Production. Capital: Volume 1. rans.Ben Fowkes. New York: Penguin Books,1976. Print.

McNally, David. Land of the Living Dead:

Capitalism and the Catastrophes ofEveryday Life. Catastrophism: Te

Apocalyptic Politics of Collapse and Rebirth.Ed. Sasha Lilley. Oakland: PM Press,2012. 108-127. Print.

Richardson, Michael. Georges Bataille Essential

Writings. London: Sage, 1998. Print.iqqun. Silence and Beyond. iqqun 1:Conscious Organ of the Imaginary Party.Berkeley: LBC Books, 2011. 70-77. Print.

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