Must read: Automatic Insurrectionary Manifesto Generator

From Revolution by the Book, AK Press Blog

Hey Kids.

If you’re too busy on the barricades to write your own insurrectionary manifesto, cut yourself some slack and head to objectivechance.com for some instant revolutionary rhetoric.

Be sure to click on the “why+code” link on the bottom left of the page for the machine’s rationale and—for the more technically inclined among you—the code that makes it whir and spew.

Yours,

charles

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From me, rba:
The best part can be found through the link in the lower left hand corner mentioned above:

"The purpose of this little program is to expose the seductions of rhetoric, not to criticize actions taken. Despite my admiration for many of the actions taken in the name of insurrection, I'm suspicious of how easy it is to substitute style for substance in the communiques describing these actions. And this is not to say that all 'insurrectionist' texts are meaningless, despite its difficulty, I found the Coming Insurrection to be, with all its excesses, a serious (if contentious) contribution to revolutionary thought. And, to point out just one other exemplar, the recent 'Communique from an Absent Future: The Terminus of Student Life' is by and large an excellent piece of analysis. This program is intended only to demonstrate the pitfalls of language which sounds too good to be meaningful."

So, basically, if you want to write fiction, go for it. Just quit pretending you're going to topple the state and capitalism with it.

it reads like tiqqun

it reads like tiqqun throwing up all over itself, lolz

Haha, brilliant.

Haha, brilliant.

Funny shit, ridiculous

Funny shit, ridiculous spaceman talk.

Some of the shit, however, makes absolutely no sense (not in the satirical way, but in the "I really misunderstood the thing I was mocking" way) such as

"Our need to riot is less the construction of a concept than the articulation of a state of exception."

Just saying.

well, it's auto-generated

well, it's auto-generated text, with an algorithm with the computational power of a mad-lib behind it - they're not all going to be winners.

That makes perfect sense to

That makes perfect sense to the usual faux-intellectual masturbatory not actually saying anything but it sounds smart rhetoric that a lot spew.

States declare a state of

States declare a state of exception, but it could mean (disregarding the fact that it is auto generated) that riots encourage authorities to declare a state of exception and thus no longer abide by their founding principles and thus anarchists need no longer work within the paradigm of authority.

Yeah, it's interesting.

Yeah, it's interesting. Anarchists talk about "insurrectionary anarchism" and "social war", but then they go to demonstrations and street protests, and carry signs. The act of carrying a sign is not a warlike act, it's an appeal to those in authority to change their policies which affect the people carrying the signs. It's kind of stupid, because the people in authority have basically told the people carrying signs that they don't care what the protestors say, they're going to go ahead and do whatever they want. So even though anarchists make a lot of tough talk about social war and insurrectionary anarchism, they actually don't mean any of it. They prefer ineffectual street protests which are marginalized by the official media and ignored by the government. Police laugh at the protestors and make fun of them and gas and beat them with total abandon, realizing they risk no real physical harm to themselves. If this is "social war" and "insurrectionary anarchism", it's a contemptible joke.

What does social war and

What does social war and insurrectionary anarchism have do with people who go to protests? Did you hear the people at the protest talking about social war and IA?

The sovereign is defined by

The sovereign is defined by those who can make the exception (from the relation or its own laws that other must follow). The state of exception doesn't necessarily imply the state, but the situation where the normal functioning of what justifies and order no longer applies. An insurrection or revolution can also be an exception. And a new "revolutionary" relation could be a "real state of exception" as talked about by Benjamin.

Also a state of exception is justified whether or not anarchists riot.

But not everyone has read

But not everyone has read political theology. that is the point it is trying to get across. i can talk all day about decisionism. no one will get it, thus, i am a nerd. consider this the anarchist version of frat boys beating up nerds.

It seems far too often it is

It seems far too often it is assumed that if you speak critically or use any language that others don't understand then your simply speaking gibberish and this seems to speak to the intellectual impoverishment of the US anarchist milieu (but more society in general). As people who are seemingly critical of what currently exists, or assume an identity or position based on opposition, we are stuck in a place of being to critical to the point of isolating ourselves in building a new form of communicating or stuck not understanding the world or being able to talk to one another.

I see it more as frustrated

I see it more as frustrated nerds teaming up with the frat boys to knock down the sexy crowd. The majority of folks these days spewing Agamben and Foucault are just making the scene, appropriating other people's actual interests to mutually masturbate with other hipsters about how superior they are. Let them have their fun; these folks change the colors on their flags faster than I can keep up with. In another year, the nerds can go back to talking about critical theory, just like how the deep ecologists got tree-hugging back, and the labor folks got to go back to actually seeing a few working class people around.

Sounds pretty specialistic

Sounds pretty specialistic to me. Why should only nerds talk about critical theory?

It would be in the best

It would be in the best interest of hipsters to shut up. Their use of stolen material to perpetuate civilization has annoyed the nerd enough. "Think antifa style actions against hipsters. Keep talking about shiv you do not know about and you lose teeth."

God, i love you! Churches

God, i love you! Churches are burning, Liam is done for and salon is falling apart. We only need to drop bombs on milwaukee, brooklyn and asheville. i am defending those nerds who will not settle for agamaben but cry when they realize German nazis generalized parts of their life, also those nerds who wrote and it was called theory just on aesthetic value. The frats and hipsters have more in common than they realize. Both churches need burned.

True, I just didn't want to

True, I just didn't want to vilify the sovereign because I operate under the Bataillian conception of sovereignty, not the Nazi one.

The nazi one? sometimes it

The nazi one? sometimes it is okay to just say "i do not know."

It's a good way to make fun

It's a good way to make fun of bullshit intellectualizing. Capitalism is destroying itself. For details, check these out: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/americas-soul-is-lost-and-collapse-is-inevitable-2009-10-20 - and this - http://seekingalpha.com/article/167348-three-asset-classes-that-can-actually-outpace-coming-inflationary-price-increases?source=hp_mostpopular - and this - http://seekingalpha.com/article/167060-the-greatest-depression-is-coming

None of the above is rhetoric, it's hard cold reality which says that degrees in the social sciences and liberal arts won't be worth the paper they're written on. No one will be able to afford to hire teachers to teach the stuff, and no one will hire freshly-minted graduates. Colleges will close down, grant aid will dry up, you'll have to learn a real skill for which people will pay money, like a skilled trade. No more sitting around writing meaningless articles for scholarly journals or producing equally meaningless manifestoes, because there won't be any taxpayer money to pay for this stuff, and people won't buy it uncoerced.

Welcome to the world of the working class!

Actually, with a little more

Actually, with a little more work done to this we could be producing some damn good manifestos.

"Our need to riot is less

"Our need to riot is less the construction of a plan than the elaboration of an event. What's needed is not activism, and even far less normalization, but a putting-into-practice of radical crisis, a rejection in all forms of the structure of representation."

Sweet!

yeah! a few times i found

yeah! a few times i found some lines that i actually dug! haha!

-laozi

"The purpose of this little

"The purpose of this little program is to expose the seductions of
rhetoric, not to criticize actions taken. Despite my admiration for
many of the actions taken in the name of insurrection, I'm suspicious
of how easy it is to substitute style for substance in the communiques
describing these actions. And this is not to say that all
"insurrectionist" texts are meaningless, despite its difficulty, I
found the Coming Insurrection to be, with all its excesses, a serious
(if contentious) contribution to revolutionary thought. And, to point
out just one other exemplar, the recent "Communique from an Absent
Future: The Terminus of Student Life" is by and large an excellent
piece of analysis. This program is intended only to demonstrate the
pitfalls of language which sounds too good to be meaningful."

a quote from the creator of this little toy.

nm didn't read full text

nm didn't read full text just front page blurb.

Thank you for the

Thank you for the clarification. Not so much on my behalf; but the foolish, foolish people who all-too-often comment on A-news.

Hilarious stuff, btw.

This also just furthers the

This also just furthers the tendency of a categorical opposition to understanding and engaging with these concepts by people who don't want to. As if to say "it's only gibberish, I can just make a generator to say everything they ever would" is an easy way to never engage with actually ideas within this discourse.

Good point...a generator can

Good point...a generator can be made from any discourse / language.

IA has developed it's rhetoric. So what? Point to a "perspective" that doesn't use rhetoric?

I don't see any substance to this "criticism" at all.

Well, if the author is dead,

Well, if the author is dead, aren't randomly generated manifestos just as legitimate as ones carefully written by professional, full time philosophers?

As long as it isn't

As long as it isn't Liamtarded.

also people should not "pull

also people should not "pull a sionnach", that is to lie about their knowledge of philosophy to look cool, be legit not a sionnach!

The funny thing is that it

The funny thing is that it already long since universally acknowledged that leftists and activists writing is far more banal than the gibberish they oppose.

"In the realization of

"In the realization of desiring-bodies, we destroy those who would have us give up the inoperative ecstasy of rupture for the misery of impotentiality. This is a call to social war, not an insistence on totality."

Haha ha!

"This is a call to indifference, not an insistence on impotentiality."

WTF?

We must exteriolize that

We must exteriolize that which is entheta to our emotive confronts!

i think this generator needs

i think this generator needs to be enhanced and made widely available. we need options for the various 'tendencies'. an anarcho-primitivist generator should be real easy. nefacish, crimethincish, and anarchafem would be too.

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