<nettime> a few thoughts prompted by Eyal Wesiman’s Ungrounding

[GM - tedbyfield via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>]

Last night I saw Eyal Weizman speak at the New School in NYC. I know 
Eyal a bit, have spent *many* years working with close colleagues of his 
(from Goldsmiths, Forensic Architecture, and in that wider milieu), and 
have followed his work from as beginning as it gets in the US — his 
exhibition at Storefront for Art and Architecture back in 2003. Even so, 
I was completely blown away by his presentation — *completely*. All 
the more impressive because he he was visibly ill and sped through just 
one part of his new book. It was very strange to walk out with the sense 
that it’d be hard to think of any other talk that’s transformed 
*how* I think about a subject. What he said hardened my views, but not 
too much — they were pretty hard to begin with — and not in ways you 
might assume.

To be specific: the way he approaches the subject finally crystalized an 
idea I’ve been nurturing for a while now — that what Israel is doing 
in the region (Gaza certainly, southern Lebanon TBD, Iran 🥶) should 
be seen as *worse* than genocide. Not because it’s “bigger” (it 
isn’t) or “more systematic” (it *is* in some ways) or “more 
evil” (whatever), but because it’s *different*. There are practical 
reasons for declaring it to be genocide — there are precedents and 
fora for prosecuting that crime — but, theoretically, calling it that 
way might also be a category error.

Genocide as a concept didn’t spring fully formed from the head of 
Zeus; it’s a legal category that was articulated at a specific point 
in history to address what was then a new phenomenon and, as such, the 
concept was necessarily provisional. However, in the decades since WW2 
have seen technical advances — not just in overt technologies (e.g., 
in surveillance and destructive capacity) but, equally important, in 
other conceptual and applied fields that have intensified this 
catastrophe (e.g., military strategy, operations research, 
urban/environmental planning, population control, agronomy, and so on). 
I’m well aware (probably far more than most) of the jaw-dropping 
extent of the Nazis’ ambitions, but those ambitions were as 
aspirational as the ridiculous figure of a  “Thousand Year Reich.” 
Today, ambitions on that scale are entirely practical — indeed, 
they’re within reach of a small country. Some of them are being 
implemented with a speed and intensity that would’ve left the Austrian 
Painter shaking his head in disbelief. Eyal’s book will be an 
important contribution to a wider understanding of what exactly is being 
implemented.

The upshot: Theoretically speaking, I think we need to develop a new 
category, one that can encompass these advances’ density, complexity, 
and integration — and, most of all, the *ecocidal* aspect. And, in 
practice, an effort to articulate a new category could be a good 
opportunity to dissolve the Atlantic powers’ Old Boys’ Clubs that 
have dominated our juridical imagination for generations, and to form 
new new structures that reflect a profoundly different geopolitical 
world. Think of calls to expand the UN Security Council — but rather 
than tweaking existing institutions, create new ones founded on 
ecological thought in the broadest sense (think Gregory Bateson, Elinor 
Ostrom, or Achille Mbembe): diversities of people, cultures, relations, 
environments, juridical forms.

That, I believe, is the challenge that the current resurgence of fascism 
around the world asks us to consider. I *detest* glib declarations like 
“[whatever] is broken” and “burn it all down” because, more than 
anything else, they reveal that the speaker is more interested in 
nihilism than in building collective resources. But it *is* true that we 
desperately need new categories, institutions, and procedures — so if 
fascists want to destroy the ones we have, then non-fascists should 
respond by creating new ones.

(For netters in NYC, Eyal is giving another talk tonight (Fri 30 Oct) at 
Giorno Poetry Systems, 222 Bowery — home of William S Burroughs’s 
(in)famous “bunker,” if that’s your fancy. My advice: 👉🏼 RUN 
DON’T WALK. 👈🏼 RSVP needed — don’t wait. 👉🏼 
https://nyra.nyc/organizations/giorno-poetry-systems

Cheers,
Ted
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