Mickey Moosenhauer - Nihil Evadere: How We Are Created Is How We Create: An Empirical Journey to the End of Marxist, Anarchist, and Ultra-leftist Millenarianism

You can ignore this introduction, or maybe read it later, or last. This is a collection of essays written since the beginning of 2020. They have all been revised and amended. Some of the shorter pieces first appeared in crude form in the journal CounterPunch . A couple first appeared on the site Ill Will Editions . I was surprised Ill Will Editions published these pieces, I think my provenance as a co-author of the book Nihilist Communism (which I now disown, amusedly, in its entirety ) was the key factor, since what I wrote in both articles was actually against their core project (some kind of destituent-partisan-insurrectionary-communist-revolution, explicated in a literary fashion following the style of the group Tiqqun or The Invisible Committee , phrased in the terminology of Giorgio Agamben and Martin Heidegger).

My understanding of things in terms of my own perceptions of the world and our part within it has been an evolving one since the early 1980s, markers along the way have been the book Nihilist Communism , then the book The Freedom of Things (written under another name), and now this one. I have travelled an arc from youthful alignment with the social justice imperatives of the left through anarchism and ultra-leftism (though my particular ultra-leftism contained harsh critiques of the Leninism at the core of all ultra-leftism), and back to somewhere closer to where I started, but with what I feel to be a clarity of vision that is informed by my experiences and research. I have worked out why communist revolution is impossible and why it fails or is counter-productive; and why it is a millenarian response to life in a State first manifested, or rather recorded, in the phenomenon of Zoroaster. That is, I think I have worked out why we cannot escape or overturn the society we are born into. These are bold claims, and I am sure many will just stop reading now (bad luck if you bought the book, but at least your money goes to good causes), but I think, of course, that my insights and observations, especially since they are the result of traveling that specific arc, are worth consideration.

Although I started on this particular leg of my inconsequential journey in 2020 with an early version of the piece Wandering: Camatte, Millenarian Confusion, and the Humans who Escaped his Notice (originally titled, The Gemeinwesen Has Always Been Here: An Engagement with the ideas of Jacques Camatte ), it was the Misunderstanding Agamben and Camatte essay that proved pivotal.

This long essay was essentially written as a response, firstly, to the widely shared belief among, for want of a better word, the ultra-left (but I mean specifically Ill Will Editions , the academic, Kieran Aarons, whose perspective forms the bulk of my criticism in the piece, and Tiqqun / The Invisible Committee ) that Giorgio Agambens concept of destituent potential or power is somehow a call to insurrectionary violence, and secondly to the reverence for Jacques Camatte that exists alongside the failure to understand what Jacques Camatte actually means by leaving this world. The essay, apart from this, offers insights into various limits and contradictions within the work of both these thinkers, as well as containing a section that explores, in greater depth than was originally done in The Freedom of Things , the interpretations around Walter Benjamins notion of divine violence.

Through this investigation I also concluded that both Agamben and Camattes politics were traditionalist (though Camatte would, no doubt, object to this label for himself, see below) and that their philosophies opened a space for reactionary thinkers to use (the essay is bookended by this claim, but it is not properly explained in the essay, this has been rectified since, but elsewhere, and can be found in other parts of this book). The influence of Martin Heidegger, who stressed that we apparently live in destituent times, is crucial here. The strand within Continental Philosophy that connects in varying degrees to Heidegger is the complaint against modernity, which always, ultimately, I argue, expresses itself as traditionalism . Indeed, this traditionalist trait extends back to Nietzsche, includes Jakob Bachofen and his admirer, Walter Benjamin, as well as Ferdinand Tnnies . It is also to be found in Marx, and, alarmingly or not, dependent upon ones investment in Marx, it is possible to equate Marxs species-being with Heideggers being-with. The elaboration of these interesting connections however, which can be developed through an analysis of anti-modernism and millenarianism, is for another time and another writer.

The space for reactionary support that both Agamben and Camatte have made possible for themselves and within the ultra-left or the anti-political left (please excuse these cumbersome labels) has been demonstrated or revealed by two small events. The first is Agambens position on the pandemic, which has turned him into the philosopher of the anti-vaxxers and those on the far-right who mobilize and monetize them. who can be described as reactionary red-brown confusionists.

I had a brief, accidental, involvement with Jacques Camatte and Il Covile in 2020, after having been introduced to Il Covile by an ultra-leftist acquaintance who had no idea the site was far-right. What ensued was, on the whole, fairly hilarious in its own small way. I did some translating of Camattes work into English, this was an interesting and enlightening task, and hugely enjoyable, despite the fact that, eventually, Camatte neither liked my translations (he has historically been very harsh on all his translators) nor the article I wrote concerning his notion of Gemeinwesen (see Wandering ). I then heard, from Ill Will Editions funnily enough, that Il Covile was a far-right site (despite its former connection with Lotta Continua , which was all I had been aware of). I investigated, and it was true. I contacted Camatte and he was, of course, fully aware, and told me about his former association with Jaca Book , beginning in the early 1970s. It is important to understand, here, that Camatte has absolutely no problem with this, since he views the left and the right as being equally in error (this is the basis of the anti-political stance, but it is interesting that it does seem to facilitate, here and elsewhere, strong connections with the right against the left) and he does not in any manner try to hide his associations. I also communicated with Il Covile concerning my discovery of their politics. After a brief exchange, with both Camatte and Il Covile , centering mainly around gay marriage and movements for equality (although the association of Il Covile with fascists was enough for me in regard to them) I ceased all communication with both parties, requesting that my name and translations be removed from Il Covile (though I think some of my original phrasing, due to the translations becoming part of a group effort after I had ceased helping, still exists in places. Oh well).