The Fad of Hauntology
The Fad of Hauntology
Vaporwave is a sickness: Drink Coca-Cola
It is important now to discuss the fad of Hauntology and how it has distorted philosophy, art critics, and musicians alike. I will not focus on criticizing certain philosophers, artists, or musicians for admiring and implementing Hauntology into their craft. Instead, I will give a rundown of why I am extremely critical of Hauntology, and why it is ultimately a toxic influence among Westerners and artists alike. I believe it is a fad of its time, a nostalgic trip towards nowhere, and an admiration for the endgame to become one with “The Borg.”
It’s no secret Jacques Derrida’s concept of “Hauntology” already has a biased tone to it. Realize, that “a return or persistence elements from the past,” or returning to “haunt” the present, is rooted in the concept of cyclical history. Thomas Cole’s paintings of The Course of Empire demonstrate the seasonal turn of a great civilization. Oswald Spengler duly noted that civilization was an organism, and it begins with birth and ends with death. There is spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Cole, in his series of paintings, presents an empire, which begins to organize its resources, then celebrates its achievements, and suddenly, falls towards decadence, and ends with abrupt violence.
For the Hegelian thinker, we learn about the past to correct errors in the present. Once a previous trend causes destruction, a future society will erase it, and replace it with a new one. However, for the communist thinker, much of what defines a “utopia” is abstract.
For a communist, socialism is a means to an end. For those arguing for socialism, communists often see both the socialists and even the anarchists, as nothing more than useful idiots to make a transition towards an overabundant society.
Everyone has a different definition of what “communism” means, but it is generally agreed that communism is an “overabundant, resource-rich society, where working becomes optional, and the individual works on his terms.”
Karl Marx even described the nature of this wonderful utopia:
“For as soon as the distribution of labor comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a herdsman, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood; while in a communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.”
The communist goal, accordingly, is to create an Epicurean society, where this cold libertarianism does not isolate and harm the weak, but instead, celebrates our free time, without the anxiety of the electric bell ringing for us to do our job, and rather focuses our greater importance and energy around Abraham Maslow’s theory of Self-actualization. In this Marxist society, I can finally write Substack articles and make electronic music daily. No one demands it, and I am rewarded for my artistic contribution to society.
It sounds good on paper, right?
Many socialist societies fought upon which variant of “communism” works and which one fails. Soon, the philosophy of America was threatened by this European enlightenment and had to reexamine its entire state of existence.
Now what is the point of The Founding Fathers of the United States? What were they trying to say? Is America just an outlet for freedom against the old, monarchist world? What could replace it?
Somehow along the way, capitalism became the center of American “freedom” in its ideology. With the advancement of technology and the overabundance provided by the capitalist class, everyone can eventually have access to the best resources. Freedom is centered around private interest, and profits-in-command is the unit of power for the liberated.
What if everyone had universal basic income, didn’t have to work at McDonald’s anymore, and just enjoyed consuming in their own private spaces?
What if an AI could produce "Fully Automated Luxury Communism?”
An accelerating capitalist society can provide a pseudo-communism, all while existing under a system that is hostile toward socialism. And such American values seethe through “the abolition of work.” As it happens, the definition of communism has become skewed again. A synthetic left is created to cater towards American values, which calls itself, “neoliberalism.”
Neoliberalism is not just a fancy economic strategy of the 1980s to save capitalism, but also a set of beliefs, ideologies, and attitudes to protect the American state. A neoliberal can often be seen fighting for “social justice,” protecting the neighborhood for the bourgeoisie, and proclaiming they hate “white people.” A neoliberal is not interested in abolishing capitalism, as much as they say that, but instead imagines a welfare society where race is eliminated, gender is abolished, no one works, and violence is encouraged against those who are “mean and genocidal.” The neoliberal is a chameleon that pretends it is a communist, socialist, or anarchist when it feels like it. It is the definition of a leftoid “intersectionality.”
Neoliberalism is itself not only a product of postmodernity but of radical egalitarianism. It is not about the concept of leveling fair opportunities for its citizens, but rather, about harming and hurting those who are outright different from society’s demands. Egalitarianism is a front for totalitarianism. And egalitarianism has become the main trait of The New Left and The Frankfort School, which pushes the concept of mythological “culture war” under capitalism to win over the masses towards “communism.” Communism can never be accepted in America, and thus the new version becomes a hybrid between neoliberal values and egalitarian demands. Abolishing capitalism is futile because it is the capitalist system that is creating neoliberalism and its values to create a pseudo-communism for quite all socialists. Being distracted by grand narratives of egalitarianism, racial multiculturalism, individualism, and feminism all provide tools against orthodox communism, in favor of a new one.
We come back to Hauntology and Derrida’s plan to create and envision a fair, utopian society, where the basic premise of the past is that “everyone wants egalitarianism.” It is interesting to note that Derrida previously “canceled” Paul de Man, a member of The Rexist party, for espousing antisemitism and neo-fascism. As if criticizing Jewish power is somehow genocidal, and to desire for an ideology similar to Maurice Bardèche is always downright evil. The same values of the screaming neoliberal come out, bent on correcting the speech of its dissenters and censoring any opposing ideology against egalitarianism.
I ask all “BreadTubers,” modern-day communists, anarchists, liberals, and democratic-voting Americans this one question; “why are you fighting for egalitarianism?”
Egalitarianism in and of itself, has nothing to do with communism, let alone to do what it means to be “left-wing.” Yet there are loyal followers and misguided culture vultures who tell me this is pivotal in understanding punk music or fighting as an activist. Has it not become clear that egalitarianism is a revolt against nature? These so-called “leftists” are not warriors of social justice, but agents of transhumanism.
America, or the state, is fighting for egalitarianism. It envisions one day that some “Skynet” government from the Terminator movies will control every aspect of our lives. The only way to end violence and conflict is to divide ourselves through the privileges of accelerating technology. This Skynet will offer us a Fully Automated Luxury Communism, peace, and more importantly, white ethnostates. That’s right! The very racist and vile thing that all left-wingers hate! Racial nationalist states advocated by a Transhumanist AI system. The subcultural interest of being “white” will be protected through advanced technology that will enforce this skewed libertarianism.
Transhumanism can benefit both the left and right. I don’t believe these categories mean anything anymore. What is left (pun intended) is the cultural values that divide people into team red or team blue. All egalitarians and altruistic guilt trippers side with the left, and the unapologetic bourgeoisie and race realists side with the right. Transhumanism itself denies nature. It seeks to escape it and become an immortal soul. Neoliberals also see transhumanism as a means to an end as well. And what does that mean for “communism?”
Derrida can only get his utopian Skynet if he argues that human society has always desired to be egalitarian, thus communist. The past does not exist, and only the future where we will make moral contributions to society will get to Skynet. History for Derrida constantly happens in the present, and the past was nothing more than Hegelian errors. For his eventual students to understand history, one must realize that communism is good because it has good humanitarian values. Communism haunts us because it’s what we truly want in society.
By using the logic of Hauntology, we must fight for transhumanism, and seek a Skynet AI that will implement a perfect “communist” society where we can finally go fishing. But again, this also means giving white nationalists what they truly want as well. Are white nationalists “inferior” problems to the major goals of abolishing capitalism? Or is it that white nationalists seek comfort and correction in a burning society? Perhaps the egalitarian ghost that makes white nationalism possible is justified too. And yet the narrative of The Holocaust keeps pushing them down. Such haunting logic imposed in 2021 includes mandatory vaccinations from pharmaceutical companies, shouting “Black Lives Matter” that one day they can be “white” like them, wearing a mask so no one is harming anyone, “working” home alone on a computer, all of these cult rituals because we want to advance towards that perfect utopian society, where all faults can just magically go away.
Transhumanism is already apparent. It insists there is no such thing as gender, pronouns are ambiguous, and we can ask for a fleeting sex change at our heart’s content. We are judged as avatars in virtual spaces, and the “meat world” is a nihilistic space without value. There is only “a great automation” existing inside of America that works 24/7, without any end. No matter if we stay a home and do nothing, there is always a machine being improved, accelerating, and taking care of the rest of us, until one day, like in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, we can program and ask it “what is the meaning of life?” We worship Moloch until the day we wake up in our communist utopia. By calling it a “fascist” one, you are a criminal.
Maybe “Hauntology” is just another academic distraction. For example, anyone claiming to enjoy the work Anti-Oedipus by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari is not into it as a rational science, but as a set of ideas, or as “what if” thought experiments. Derrida can be read the same, as he never described what is “hauntology” or how it is used. The real culprits seem to be the neoliberal critics, asserting and echoing these avant-garde works to advocate an egalitarian view. What could be written in Anti-Oedipus, is that “capitalism creates a schizophrenic effect to it’s users and institutions.” Here there is clarity. But instead, we are given poetic commentary and abstract concepts, so the reader fills in the blanks. Hauntology is a vague concept that presupposes that the natural order of history is an egalitarian one. Maybe “Hauntology” could be read as, “the past that haunts the present, which is a superior irrationality and cultural trend that needs further investigation.”
Much of this French creative writing is a trend. The abstract terms could be written in a single sentence. For Deleuze and Guattari, “institutions and doctors gaslight you.” Or that, “the ‘bodies without organs’ is Skynet.” This is all Rorschach ink blots without context. It is a popularity contest behind what is artsy and fashionable among young people. The so-called Hauntology in popular music, from vaporwave and other “aesthetics” meme microgenres, have no context either. Just because something samples an old nostalgic tune, or advocates “Afrofuturism,” doesn’t mean we like music because of a good memory. If that’s the case, Pepsi-cola, or “for those who think young,” is a good thing. The entire premise of Hauntology criticism in music is a neoliberal exercise of the American music market to pump out whatever garbage its consumers can enjoy. Hauntology creates a Stockholm syndrome scenario where we are forced to like the noise because “it’s nostalgic.” There is nothing wrong with soda. Keep drinking! As if there was no history, and the only future we have is creating a utopian one.
We can live out our “lost futures” in the comfort of our own homes using the internet, glued to our smartphones. Hauntology is nothing more than a popular postmodern fad of the 1980s, celebrating an overabundance of Funko-Pop dolls and Coca-Cola being available around the world. Or, as the jingle sings,
“I’d like to buy the world a home And furnish it with love. …I’d like to teach the world to sing In perfect harmony. I'd like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company. That's the real thing.”
The transhumanist soul is alive, and I’m not plugging in with this nostalgic narrative.
Don’t tell me vaporwave is an intellectual genre. It’s not.
Egalitarianism is a sign of modernity, and modernity is a cancer.
And it just won’t die.
…The next article you should read is “The Invention of ‘Mental Health’ and The Police State Without Police.” Please click on this link to read it.
-pe
10-20-2021
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The Fad of Hauntology
Based and Redpilled Skynet?