The post-postmodernist era of terminal crisis and phase transition

The current rupture moment has frozen us. We are thoroughly jaded by the dreams of “progress” associated with modernity and capitalism, but unable to venture in another direction. Can we confront our situation? Can we be the ones we have been waiting for?

Adbusters, the excellent ‘culture jammers’ magazine, tries to determine the characteristics of the new era we have entered, the Post-Postmodernism Era (which I would call with the ugly term of the proto-p2p era). One of the new terms being banded around for this era is that of the Altermodern.

However, in an analysis of and an appeal to Generation Y, Douglas Haddow prefers the term of “alter-realism”:

This is our decisive moment. Either we wallow in debt as passive observers of history and pray that technology will eventually solve all our problems or we actively seize power and deal with the consequences. The only hope for the West is if we tear our current system apart piece by piece from the inside out, replacing what we destroy with viable alternatives. Starting with the renunciation of the label “Gen Y” – a hollow marketing term thought up by a balding boomer advertising executive. Instead we should refer to ourselves as the “Barbarian Generation,” because that’s what we are: the greatest threat yet to capitalist civilization.

“Now that so many Western economies are trapped in a deepening recession with no end in sight, Gen Y faces the possibility of becoming a lost generation, plagued by un- and underemployment for the whole of their adult life. We were born into Spielbergian dreams and all-you-can-eat promises of prosperity, but now we’ll be lucky if we can scrape together a scrap of the half-eaten capital pop tart.

But gradually we’re waking up to realize that our place in history is uncertain, that our destiny is no longer predetermined by perpetual growth. The greatest generation, which weathered the depression and defeated fascism, is considered exceptional because it was willing to sacrifice itself for the benefit of future generations. By this standard, the boomers are the worst generation because they have sacrificed the economies and environs of the future for their own comfort and security. But what of Gen Y?

Unlike Gen Xers, many of whom found ways to express anticapitalist sentiment through subculture, Gen Y has nowhere to run or hide. All forms of cultural rebellion have long since been appropriated and integrated into the ideology of capital. Marketing firms and advertising agencies now enjoy an unprecedented relationship with the avant-garde, so much so that they’ve become one and the same.

Gen Y only has one choice if it wants to avoid becoming a lost generation: push the boomer way of life onto an ice floe and let it die. Rather than Bourriaud’s altermodernism, we should pursue an alter-realism: dispense with the art gallery altogether and make reality our experimentation lab.

There is a revolutionary current running through the subconscious of this generation that has yet to be realized or defined. We champion piracy, instinctively believing that information should be free and open, that intellectual property law is contra-progress and that capital is not a necessary intermediary for social organization. Postcapital collaboration is our daily bread, and we hold a distinctly global worldview, void of class, race or nation. But we grew up too comfortable, played too much Nintendo, watched too much Saved by the Bell, read too much Chuck Klosterman and not enough Frantz Fanon. We naïvely drank the consumerist-credit card Kool-Aid, and now that the Final Fantasy is upon us, we’re in danger of sliding into a delusional techno-utopianism.

This is our decisive moment. Either we wallow in debt as passive observers of history and pray that technology will eventually solve all our problems or we actively seize power and deal with the consequences. While Gen Y outnumbers the boomers, we won’t hold the balance of power for another ten years, at which point the climate may be all but lost. So democracy is not an option.”

More:

The most important essay in this special issue is probably Chris Hedges‘ essay entitled, The Zero Point of Systemic Collapse:

All resistance must realize that the body politic and global capitalism are dead. We should stop wasting energy trying to reform or appeal to them. This does not mean the end of resistance … it means very different forms of resistance must emerge.

However, as much as it captures the right tonality, his proposal for lifeboat strategies (self-sufficient communities away from the cities), does not strike me as the right one.

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