Thomas Sutherland

Liquid networks and the metaphysics of flux: ontologies of flow in an age of speed and mobility

It is common for social theorists to utilize the metaphors of ‘flow’, ‘fluidity’, and ‘liquidity’ in order to substantiate the ways in which speed and mobility form the basis for a new kind of information or network society. Yet rarely have these concepts been sufficiently theorized in order to establish their relevance or appropriateness. This article contends that the notion of flow as utilized in social theory is profoundly metaphysical in nature, and needs to be judged as such. Beginning with a discussion of the accelerating timescape that characterizes the network society, it will then move on to examine three main issues with this ‘metaphysics of flux’. First, that the concept of flows unjustly privileges the process of becoming and, as a result, is unable to account for the materiality, substantiality, and agency of the objects being mobilized, and the contingency of their mediation. Second, that it posits the accelerating tendencies of capital as an ontological inevitability, thus discounting resistance to such forces. Finally, that it ignores the human faculty for reason and speculative thought in developing alternative means of political praxis. The solution, it will be argued, is not to abandon metaphysical accounts of the network society, but rather to challenge those accounts that, in exhibiting a crude empiricism, work to justify the status quo.

Getting nowhere fast: A teleological conception of socio-technical acceleration

It has been frequently recognized that the perceived acceleration of life that has been experienced from the Industrial Revolution onward is engendered, at least in part, by an understanding of speed as an end in itself. There is no equilibrium to be reached – no perfect speed – and as such, social processes are increasingly driven not by rational ends, but by an indeterminate demand for acceleration that both defines and restricts the decisional possibilities of actors. In Aristotelian terms, this is a final cause – i.e. a teleology – of speed: it is not a defined end-point, but rather, a purposive aim that predicates the emergence of possibilities. By tracing this notion of telos from its beginnings in ancient Greece, through the ur-empiricism of Francis Bacon, and then to our present epoch, this paper seeks to tentatively examine the way in which such a teleology can be theoretically divorced from the idea of historical progress, arguing that the former is premised upon an untenable ontological privileging of becoming.

Intensive Mobilities: Figurations of the Nomad in Contemporary Theory:

The figure of the nomad, representing the virtues of freedom, mobility, and exploration, is a frequently occurring trope within contemporary continental philosophy and social theory, derived chiefly from the work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. This paper will interrogate the concept of nomadism, firstly in the philosophy of these two foundational thinkers, and then subsequently in the feminist and posthumanist theorizations of Rosi Braidotti. Whilst accepting that Braidottis challenges to sedentarist, essentialist metaphysical accounts of the transcendental subject are still politically relevant, it will be argued that the deployment of the nomadic figure—and more generally, the positing of an ontology of creative desire, or ‘becoming’—risks not only absolutizing the historical contingencies of the digitized, postindustrial society that it seeks to criticize, but actually reinforcing the unsustainable ideology of perpetual production upon which such a society is premised.

Michel Foucault, Friedrich Kittler, and the interminable half-life of 'so-called man'

Abstract This article considers Friedrich Kittler’s deterministic media theory as both an appropriation and mutation of Michel Foucault’s archaeological method. Focusing on these two thinkers’ similar but divergent conceptions of the “death of man,” it will be argued that Kittler’s approach attempts to expunge archaeology of its last traces of Kantian transcendentalism by locating the causal agents of epistemic change (namely media technologies) within the domain of empirical experience (thus tacitly deriving the transcendental from the empirical), but in doing so, actually amplifies the anthropological vestiges that Foucault hoped to eradicate. The result is an alluring but dogmatically positivist theory of mediatic causality that, in spite of its best efforts, can only reify, rather than dispel, the image of “so-called man.”

'The monument to a crisis': Nietzsche and the industrialization of creativity

Friedrich Nietzsche describes Human, All Too Human, his third book to be published within his own lifetime, as a work of liberation: one that seeks to strip away the increasingly malignant influences – of Richard Wagner and Arthur Schopenhauer particularly – that he perceives as infecting his work. In this article, the author argues that it is more than just a rejection of these individual thinkers however, but instead represents a broad critique of the relationship between bourgeois art, Romantic conceptions of creativity and the modernizing demand for productivity. Realizing that the role of the artist increasingly mimics the oppressive, dispiriting temporality of industrialized labour, the author contends that Nietzsche attempts to develop a more moderate conception of artistic culture built in large part upon the philosophy of Epicurus, seeking to identify a mode of creative practice that is not degraded by the exigencies of the industrial tempo of work, and displaying a surprising sympathy toward the working masses incongruous with his output as a whole.

Communication, causation, and the logos

Popular culture then reiterates as well as illuminates and/or contests the sorts of anxieties circulating in the political and public imaginaries, and Uncertain Lives provides ample analysis of various films and genres to clearly and compellingly demonstrate the ways in which this is enmeshed in racialized and economic relations of power. Stratton offers important critiques of the function of racism in everyday relations in Australia. In so doing, he canvasses an impressive array of sites and theories, inviting the reader into significant debates and urging them to appreciate the magnitude of these urgent ethical issues and their fundamental relationship to the workings of capital. More than a snapshot of a specific political landscape, however, Uncertain Lives provides a way into key theoretical debates circulating in the first decade of the 2000s, weaving complex theory into grounded debates. These critical interventions highlight the continuity current policy and law has with historical forms of racism and exclusion in Australia. As such, the insights developed in this book bring to the forefront the urgent need for our politicians to reflect upon the ethics of our policy positions. While the book is brought together by the overriding concerns of race, culture and neoliberalism, each chapter also makes sense on its own, making it an ideal choice for inclusion on University courses concerned with the nexus of politics and race, immigration and exclusion, neoliberalism and punishment, or popular culture and racism.