這是我前幾天在我們66級物理系同學網上聊天時，從歐陽博兄學到的另一個時髦詞。轉載《維基百科》上的說明；對了解當前歐、美社會思潮的某些奇葩應該小有幫助。

看到下文第3節中諾伊教授的一段話(1)，讓我想到自己20多年前所做評論：

唸成「後現代」主義，它是批判社會的一種立場和策略(Lyotard, 1993，Best/Kellner, 1994)。大多數法蘭克福學派成員和「後現代」主義者，都師出馬克思主義。他們的不同在於：前者(如Habermas)認為「現代性」仍是實用的價值系統，後者(如Baudhillard、Lyotard)認為它已淪為當權集團悍衛既得利益的意識型態(比較81 - 12)。「後現代」主義者認為當代社會是資本主義制度下的一場惡夢(25)。但他們無法撼動資本主義的生產模式。到了20世紀50年代，西歐知識份子對共產制度的幻想終於完全破滅(26)，在鬥爭策略上需要新的出路，在意識型態上需要新的旗幟。「後現代」主義者採取了鬥倒鬥臭現代社會主流價值的策略，企圖從顛覆上層建築(78 - 11)下手，來瓦解資本主義制度。 -- 此欄開欄文(9之6)第2.2-b小節

這個觀點跟諾伊教授的評論有相通之處。

《維基百科》原文甚長，下面只摘錄前3節。

附註：

1. “Noys later stated "at this point, what we can call accelerationism is dedicated to trying to ride these forces of capitalist production and direct them to destabilize capitalism itself."^[4]"

Accelerationism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the white supremacist movement, see Militant accelerationism.

For the concept from future studies, see Accelerating change.

For the concept of time in late modernity by sociologist Hartmut Rosa, see Social acceleration.

前言

Accelerationism is a range of ideologies that call for the use of capitalism and associated processes to create radical social transformations.^[1] Broadly, accelerationism engages with antihumanism,^[2][3] as well as posthumanism,^[4] and seeks to accelerate desired tendencies within capitalism at the expense of negative ones, though variants differ greatly on which tendencies and if this will lead beyond capitalism or further into it.^[5]

Accelerationism originated from ideas from philosophers such as Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, who speculated in the 1970s that emancipatory forces within capitalism, particularly deterritorialization, could be radicalized against it and its oppressive aspects.^[5][6] Inspired by these ideas, some University of Warwick faculty and students formed a philosophy collective known as the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU) in the 1990s, led by Nick Land.^[7] Land and the CCRU drew upon contemporary media and culture such as cyberpunk and jungle music to further develop these ideas^[8] in a right-wing, pro-capitalist manner.^[5] They theorized a self-revolutionizing capitalism that would culminate in a technological singularity, resulting in artificial intelligence surpassing and eliminating humanity,^[6] though they drifted from these ideas and dissolved by the 2000s.^[7]

In the 2010s, the movement was termed accelerationism by Benjamin Noys in a critical work,^[9] followed by a renewed interest in its ideas.^[8] Thinkers such as Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams advocated a left-wing accelerationism based on embracing capitalist technology and infrastructure to move past a stagnant capitalism,^[10] exploring themes such as automation of work.^[4] This was associated with Prometheanism, which engaged with ideas such as rationalism,^[5] posthumanism,^[2] and a rejection of limits on change.^[11] Land, having moved to China, also engaged with the Dark Enlightenment movement as part of his right-wing accelerationism, rejecting egalitarianism and democracy in favor of CEO-run states to promote the singularity.^[12] Effective accelerationism arose with influence from effective altruism to promote technological progress and artificial general intelligence to solve human problems,^[13] and ascend the Kardashev scale.^[14]

Various other meanings for the term also emerged, such as to worsen capitalism to promote revolution against it,^[15] as well as by far-right extremists promoting racial violence and the collapse of society in order to establish a white ethnostate (militant accelerationism).^[16]

Background

The history of accelerationism has been divided into three waves. First, there were the late 1960s and early 1970s French post-Marxists such as Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Jean-François Lyotard, and Jean Baudrillard, whose thought arose in the wake of May 68.^[17][18][19] According to David R. Cole, texts produced during this period had little effect "other than as perhaps scattered art practices", with the result being that "capitalism has emerged as triumphant in the past 50 years, and the idealism of the student 1968 revolution in Paris has subsequently faded."^[17] The second wave arose in the 1990s with the work of Nick Land and the CCRU, with the third being the Promethean left-accelerationism of the 2010s.^[17][18][19]

Influences and precursors

The term accelerationism was previously used in Roger Zelazny's 1967 novel Lord of Light.^[7][20] It was later popularized by professor and author Benjamin Noys in his 2010 book The Persistence of the Negative to describe the trajectory of certain post-structuralists who embraced unorthodox Marxist and counter-Marxist overviews of capitalist growth, such as Deleuze and Guattari in their 1972 book Anti-Oedipus, Lyotard in his 1974 book Libidinal Economy and Baudrillard in his 1976 book Symbolic Exchange and Death.^[21][10][9] Noys later stated "at this point, what we can call accelerationism is dedicated to trying to ride these forces of capitalist production and direct them to destabilize capitalism itself."^[4]