Nick Land | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1962-03-14)14 March 1962 (age 63) |
| Nationality | British |
| Philosophical work | |
| Era | Contemporary philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | Continental philosophy[1] Accelerationism Dark Enlightenment |
| Institutions | University of Warwick |
| Main interests | |
| Notable ideas | Accelerationism |
Nick Land (born 14 March 1962) is an English philosopher best known for popularising the ideology ofaccelerationism.[2] His work has been tied to the development ofspeculative realism,[3][4] and departs from the formal conventions of academic writing, incorporating unorthodox and esoteric influences.[5] Much of his writing was anthologized in the 2011 collectionFanged Noumena.
In the 1990s, Land was closely affiliated with theCybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU), a "theory-fiction" collective co-founded by Land andcyberfeminist philosopherSadie Plant at theUniversity of Warwick.[3][6] During this era, Land drew inspiration frompost-structuralist theory andleftist thinkers likeBataille,Marx, andDeleuze & Guattari as well asscience fiction,rave culture, andthe occult.[7] He also coined the termhyperstition to refer to memetic ideas that bring about their own reality.
Land resigned from Warwick in 1998. After a period ofamphetamine abuse, he suffered a breakdown in the early 2000s and disappeared from public view.[8] Later, he moved toShanghai and re-emerged as a figure on thepolitical right, becoming a foundational thinker in thereactionary movement known as theDark Enlightenment. His related writings have exploredanti-egalitarian andanti-democratic ideas.
Land obtained a PhD in 1987 in theUniversity of Essex underDavid Farrell Krell, with a thesis onHeidegger's 1953 essayDie Sprache im Gedicht (Language in the Poem), which is aboutGeorg Trakl's work.[9] He began as a lecturer incontinental philosophy at theUniversity of Warwick from 1987 until his resignation in 1998.[5] In 1992, he publishedThe Thirst for Annihilation: Georges Bataille and Virulent Nihilism.[10] Land published an abundance of shorter texts, many in the 1990s during his time with the CCRU.[3] Most of these articles are compiled in the retrospective collectionFanged Noumena, published in 2011.
At Warwick, Land andSadie Plant co-founded theCybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU), an interdisciplinary research group described by philosopherGraham Harman as "a diverse group of thinkers who experimented in conceptual production by welding together a wide variety of sources:futurism,technoscience,philosophy,mysticism,numerology,complexity theory, andscience fiction, among others".[11] During his time at Warwick, Land participated in Virtual Futures, a series of cyber-culture conferences. Virtual Futures 96 was advertised as "an anti-disciplinary event" and "a conference in the post-humanities". One session involved Land "lying on the ground, croaking into a mic", recalls Robin Mackay, while Mackay playedjungle records in the background.[2] He was also the thesis advisor of some PhD students.[12] After he resigned, the CCRU continued meeting under his leadership. In the early 2000s, Land suffered abreakdown after a period of "fanatical"amphetamine abuse, disappearing from public.[2]
Land taught at the New Centre for Research & Practice until March 2017, when the Centre ended its relationship with him "following several tweets by Land this year in which he espoused intolerant opinions aboutMuslims and immigrants".[13][better source needed]
As of 2017[update], Land resided inShanghai.[2] During theCOVID-19 pandemic, he experienced Shanghai's strictlockdown measures firsthand. AfterXenosystems, his primary blog, was removed from the internet in 2022, he took an extended hiatus from social media before returning later that year. In October 2023, he launched a new social media account, Xenocosmography, marking a shift toward religious and numerological themes.[14]
Land's work has been influential to the political philosophy ofaccelerationism. Land viewscapitalism as the driver of modernity anddeterritorialization, advocating its use to dissolve existing social systems and reach atechnological singularity.[2][15][16][17] Along with the other members of CCRU, Land wove together ideas from theoccult,cybernetics, science fiction, andpoststructuralist philosophy to try to describe the phenomena oftechnocapitalist acceleration.[2]
Land coined the termhyperstition, aportmanteau ofsuperstition andhyper, to describe something "equipoised between fiction and technology". According to Land, hyperstitions are ideas that, by their very existence as ideas, bring about their own reality.[18][19]
Land has contributed to theDark Enlightenment—also known as the neo-reactionary movement (NRx)—which opposesegalitarianism anddemocracy. According to reporterDylan Matthews, Land believes democracy restricts accountability and freedom.[20] His Dark Enlightenment work also contributes to his accelerationism; he views democratic and egalitarian policies as only delaying acceleration and the technocapital singularity. Thus, he prefers capitalist monarchies to pursue long-term technological progress, as he believes democracy focuses on short-term public interests.[16][21] Shuja Haider notes, "His sequence of essays setting out its principles [has] become the foundation of the NRx canon."[19]
His writing has also discussed themes ofscientific racism andeugenics, or what he has called "hyper-racism".[22][23][24][25] Since 2016, he has increasingly been recognised as an inspiration for thealt-right.[26] Land disputes that the NRx movement is a movement, and defines the alt-right as distinct from the NRx.[27]
Mark Fisher, a British cultural theorist and student of Land's, argued in 2011 that Land's greatest impact had been on music and art rather than philosophy. The musicianKode9, the artistJake Chapman, and others have studied with or been influenced by Land, with Chapman highlighting Land's "technihilism".[3] Fisher underscores in particular how Land's personality during the 1990s could catalyze changes in those engaging with his work through whatKodwo Eshun called a manner "immediately open, egalitarian, and absolutely unaffected by academic protocol" that could dramatise "theory as ageopolitico-historicalepic".[3] Fisher has also written that "Land was ourNietzsche" in baiting progressive tendencies, mixing thereactionary and futuristic, and his writing style. He also praised Land's attacks on left-wing academia while taking issue with his interpretation ofDeleuze and Guattari's views on capitalism.[28]
Nihilist philosopherRay Brassier, also formerly from theUniversity of Warwick, said in 2017, "Land has gone from arguing 'Politics is dead', 20 years ago, to this completely old-fashioned, standard reactionary stuff."[2]
Land himself, after what he later described as "perhaps a year of fanatical abuse" of "the sacred substance amphetamine", and "prolonged artificial insomnia ... devoted to futile 'writing' practices", suffered a breakdown in the early 2000s, and disappeared from public view.
Land proposes an acceleration of the "explicitly superior" and already "genetically self-filtering elite" through a system of "assortative mating" that would offer a "class-structured mechanism for population diremption, on a vector toward neo-speciation".
. He advocates for racial separation under the belief that "elites" will enhance their IQs by associating only with each other.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
