TY - JOUR

T1 - Capitalism with a Transhuman Face

T2 - The Afterlife of Fascism and the Digital Frontier

AU - Pinto, Ana Teixeira

PY - 2019/5/4

Y1 - 2019/5/4

N2 - The most salient feature of the far-right movement, which became known as the alt-right, is its relation with IT rather than with the diminished expectations of the post-industrial working class. The ethos of the tech industry transmogrified in recent years, shifting from the market-besotted optimism championed by Bill Gates to the digital feudalism represented by Bay Area neoreactionaries and cybermonarchists. The article argues that this points to a new configuration of fascist ideology taking shape under the aegis of, and working in tandem with, neoliberal governance. If every rise of fascism bears witness to a failed revolution (a thought attributed to Walter Benjamin but as an elision of his arguments), the rise of cryptofascist tendencies within the tech industry bears witness to the failures of the ‘digital revolution’ whose promises of a post-scarcity economy and socialised capital never came to pass. From this perspective, it is proposed, the online cultural wars are a proxy for a greater battle around de-Westernisation, imperialism and white hegemony.

AB - The most salient feature of the far-right movement, which became known as the alt-right, is its relation with IT rather than with the diminished expectations of the post-industrial working class. The ethos of the tech industry transmogrified in recent years, shifting from the market-besotted optimism championed by Bill Gates to the digital feudalism represented by Bay Area neoreactionaries and cybermonarchists. The article argues that this points to a new configuration of fascist ideology taking shape under the aegis of, and working in tandem with, neoliberal governance. If every rise of fascism bears witness to a failed revolution (a thought attributed to Walter Benjamin but as an elision of his arguments), the rise of cryptofascist tendencies within the tech industry bears witness to the failures of the ‘digital revolution’ whose promises of a post-scarcity economy and socialised capital never came to pass. From this perspective, it is proposed, the online cultural wars are a proxy for a greater battle around de-Westernisation, imperialism and white hegemony.

KW - Ana Teixeira Pinto

KW - Fascism

KW - de-Westernisation

KW - alt-right

KW - AI

KW - whiteness

KW - libidinal economy

KW - cyberlibertarianism

KW - digital economy

KW - Science of art

U2 - 10.1080/09528822.2019.1625638

DO - 10.1080/09528822.2019.1625638

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 33

SP - 315

EP - 336

JO - Third Text

JF - Third Text

SN - 0952-8822

IS - 3

ER -