K-Punk

xenogoth

looking for an exit
The affirmation question is a good one. At this point, it’s a bit of a verbal tic I’ve developed without much thought, but I suppose what I mean affirmation in a Nietzschean sense, which — at the most superficial level — I suppose means the affirmation of the beauty and good in something, often despite itself. There are lots of knotted twists and turns in that, depending on the context, but in the context of Mark and ‘Egress’, the main struggle was affirming the collective joy and solidarity that developed (and, perhaps, would not have otherwise developed) were it not for Mark’s death. And so there comes a very difficult process in even affirming that event. I wish it hadn’t happened but also I personally feel like my life is richer for the experiences and relationships it led to. That’s what I like about a lot of Bataille and Blanchot, particularly in the context of mourning.

In this context, it’s similar. There is this tendency to constantly remind people that Mark wasn’t all good or wasn’t always right, as if that even needs to be said. When I think what most people are interested in is affirming the politics Mark wrote in favour of, often despite himself. That’s precisely the gesture being made and so the self-aggrandising hand-wringing about who he was or wasn’t friends with always come across as quite pathetic to me.

Doing that with someone like Land is less easily argued for, and I also wouldn’t argue for it. (Again, I don’t actually find myself disagreeing with much that poetix says, but as soon as it slips into this vibe of “people like him - wayward, thoughtful, obviously intelligent - might be won over if they were engaged rather than shunned and despised.” That’s poetix approach to lots of things and, during one disagreement about Land and XF some months back, saw him express as much to others about me, as if I’m someone who needs to be course corrected and he’s done the righteous thing of trying to show me the light. Typically, it just comes across as patronising AF.

Do I have a tendency to go meta-level with Land’s racism? I don’t think I’ve ever discussed it. But as has been demonstrated, it's difficult to follow a line of disavowal consistently throughout all of his work. And that’s part of the very issue with Land. I’ve fought with him and also had quite pleasant conversations with him. He’s not consistent in himself, from work to work, twitter account to twitter account. There’s plenty that’s abhorrent and there’s much to be said for the way he cunningly and purposely tries to resist being boxed in. Much to the same extent that Kantbot terms himself to be a ‘ironist’ and toes the alt-right line one month before going FALC the next. (EDIT: Much to be said about in the sense of it deployment as a strategy online these days -- as if there's some white hat / black hat dichotomy within trolling -- but not in the sense that I admire it or anything... I remain vigilant about it more out of trying to avoid being played rather than having any interest in engaging in that sort of practice.) Land isn’t so divergent but there’s an extent to which he’s purposefully playing a game. I try and watch it closely, that’s all. And I certainly wouldn’t judge anyone else for doing the same, in that particular instance.

Poetix has taken a stance. That’s cool. I’m still happy to read him, even if uncomfortably.
 
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xenogoth

looking for an exit
On a tangent: I was trying to think earlier of the most inapposite possible pairing of thinkers (one being written about, the other providing the theoretical vocabulary for doing so), and hit upon Simone Weil and Julius Evola...but then I found myself thinking actually, that could totally work...

on a similar note, my first essay written as a postgrad was doing this with Land and Agamben and it was very fun and horrifying
 

poetix

we murder to dissect
I spent some time reading through the bits of Crypto-current Land was releasing, basically to see if there was any "there" there. Gave up when I saw him describing hash functions as ciphers (the whole point with a hash function is that you can't recover the input from the output - actually it's very difficult to find an input that would hash to a given output, which is precisely why it's useful for proof-of-work - whereas with a cipher the whole point is that you can recover the input from the output, if you have the necessary cipher key). So no, I'm not saying late-Land should not be read at all, or at least not for that reason. But there's reading as reconnaissance, and reading for nutritional value, if I can put it that way.
 

poetix

we murder to dissect
Matt, I don't recall the XF conversation at all - apart from anything else, as I said above I've always been very pro-XF, and happy to be associated with the project. I suppose it's lost in the mists of twitter history now...

The thing about trying to win over the wayward - that was about people under the sway of NRx, or driven to edgelordism by sheer frustration with the thought-terminating clichés of the left. The notion was that if one offered them real intellectual sustenance, they would naturally go where the action was. It wasn't really a campaign of moral reform, more a recruitment drive. You have sometimes talked, I think, about not wanting to cede certain bits of intellectual territory to the enemy; don't you, also, want to win hearts and minds? I admit I personally am terrible at it.
 

catalog

Well-known member
The affirmation question is a good one. At this point, it’s a bit of a verbal tic I’ve developed without much thought, but I suppose what I mean affirmation in a Nietzschean sense, which — at the most superficial level — I suppose means the affirmation of the beauty and good in something, often despite itself. There are lots of knotted twists and turns in that, depending on the context, but in the context of Mark and ‘Egress’, the main struggle was affirming the collective joy and solidarity that developed (and, perhaps, would not have otherwise developed) were it not for Mark’s death. And so there comes a very difficult process in even affirming that event. I wish it hadn’t happened but also I personally feel like my life is richer for the experiences and relationships it led to. That’s what I like about a lot of Bataille and Blanchot, particularly in the context of mourning.

In this context, it’s similar. There is this tendency to constantly remind people that Mark wasn’t all good or wasn’t always right, as if that even needs to be said. When I think what most people are interested in is affirming the politics Mark wrote in favour of, often despite himself. That’s precisely the gesture being made and so the self-aggrandising hand-wringing about who he was or wasn’t friends with always come across as quite pathetic to me.

cheers. i've never read any nietzsche, i keep tellin myself i need to, but never do for some reason
 

xenogoth

looking for an exit
You have sometimes talked, I think, about not wanting to cede certain bits of intellectual territory to the enemy; don't you, also, want to win hearts and minds? I admit I personally am terrible at it.

Absolutely, and I try to do that through blogging more than anything.

I've never directed that desire at an individual though, nor have I declared my intentions in that regard when talking about someone's blog on Facebook. You certainly did that.
 

poetix

we murder to dissect
Ah, FB lets you search back through your comments, yea even unto October 2019. Here's the only one I found mentioning you, specifically in the context of a discussion of XF and related matters:

It struck me that the underlying premise of u/acc was that you could wean esoteric fascists off fascism by really ramping up the esotericism, specifically the anti-humanism which in theory is supposed to corrode its way through the usual fascist territorialities like xenomorph acid blood. I don't think this worked, and I believe many of the original instigators eventually realised it wasn't working and abandoned ship.

XG has remained loyal to the project, and to its justificatory framework, somewhat in defiance of reality it seems to me. The lasting accomplishment of u/acc has been to make DC Miller even more insufferable than he was before he heard of it - no small accomplishment, but not one to be especially proud of.

I don't think that says exactly what you accuse me of saying though.
 

poetix

we murder to dissect
I mean, it's actually recounting the story I heard from two early cavetwitter instigators, that they were trying to tunnel through to the other side, as it were, and turn a few heads. It's more identifying you with the "project" of turning heads, than identifying yours as one of the heads to be turned.
 

catalog

Well-known member
I just read your poem, poetix. Read it backwards cos of the way tumblr works. This line stuck out:

Junior anti-sex league a non-starter.

Also, I never liked the red riding films, or rather, I didn't think there was anything special about them, could not really understand why k punk was so mad on them
 

catalog

Well-known member
I don't see the problem really. Dissensus has seen far worse. People are allowed to bicker.

Yeah it seems a trifle is what I mean, there's a lot of beating around the bush, that might be better sorted in person, but then I remembered you can't really meet in person ATM.

So yeah, carry on, and we'll watch from the sidelines
 

xenogoth

looking for an exit
nah, that's cool. didn't really want to drag all this over here anyway. was basically out of patience with the wordpress comments, but found being pinged in here added an extra level of irritation to the whole thing.
 

catalog

Well-known member
on a different tip... what's the 'K' about with these lads?

Kode9
K-Punk

Did Kodwo have a word?

'Kicking Cuh' is how I remember it from primary school. More forceful. Visually like the X.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
on a different tip... what's the 'K' about with these lads?
Kode9
K-Punk
Did Kodwo have a word?
'Kicking Cuh' is how I remember it from primary school. More forceful. Visually like the X.
I don't know the answer in most of the above cases, but strangely, I do remember a specific article from MF in which he explained that his pseudonym was a different version of the expression cyber-punk but he changed the c into a k because... actually I can't remember why, but he did make that change. So I guess that in actual fact I don't know, apologies for jumping the gun.
 
I don't know the answer in most of the above cases, but strangely, I do remember a specific article from MF in which he explained that his pseudonym was a different version of the expression cyber-punk but he changed the c into a k because... actually I can't remember why, but he did make that change. So I guess that in actual fact I don't know, apologies for jumping the gun.

κυβερνήτης, meaning "helmsman" or "pilot."
It's the root for both cybernetic and government.
Norbert Weiner came up with cybernetic as a name for his work on self-governing systems.
 
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