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/279/ Society of the Speculative ft. Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou (Patreon)

Published:
2022-08-02 17:18:50
Imported:
2026-06
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On our financialised world. 

We talk to Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou about his new book, Speculative Communities. How has speculation become the very practice around which modern societies coalesce? And how does speculation actually give voice to the  waning legitimacy of neoliberalism? 

Do dating apps, Tik Tok and other social media give birth to 'speculative communities'? And is populism a speculation on the future, a leap into the unknown?

 

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Comments

Anders-William Berg

George likening his jokes to the function of a Doonesbury or Garfield cartoon in a newspaper felt very apt. I have personally gone from a "what the fuck is this guys problem" to a "Haha, oh George" reaction when hearing Georges awful jokes. Interesting episode, by the way!

Blake

Almost felt like we were back in 2011 with Komporozos talking about "decentralized, swarm-like movements", Occupy, left-populism, etc. It is a shame that after a decade still nobody has still found a way to translate these movements into effective political organizations, or anything but footstools for technocrats and political opportunists.

Ran Heilbrunn

Two quick things: 1) It seems to me that the author’s position corresponds to what Mark Fisher called ‘vulgar Deleuzianism’ – a too forcefully affirmative view of the present that denies or evades the fundamentally negative aspects of our socio-historical condition (the emphasis on concepts like fragmentariness, ephemerality, fluidity, etc., is almost a natural consequence of this Deleuzian bent). To me, there is something deeply outdated about this attitude – it’s an obvious legacy of the new left. And thus I wonder, without reading the book, whether the timeliness and originality of the subject-matter is not undergirded by a deeper political-intellectual anachronism. 2) Relatedly, I noticed that there’s a kind of anti-nostalgic impulse that comes up fairly often in your discussions (particularly when you talk about the so called “les trente glorieuses”, but also more generally). While I totally support this suspicion toward nostalgia, I also think that not every past-oriented critique of the present amounts to a romantic idealization of previous historical phases. I don’t see why saying that dating apps are a problematic development, that they undermine people’s capacity for intimacy and commitment, is nostalgic. In the exact same way, one could argue that there is something nostalgic about saying that the quality of our public debate, of contemporary art and culture, or of mainstream journalism, has deteriorated during the last several decades. So, while nostalgia is indeed something to be avoided, there is nothing inherently nostalgic about saying that in some important respects life in the past were better.

Sam

THIS guest is an actual scholar. Not satisfied to chew his cud until the last chapter, then timidly tack on exactly one highly qualified original thought. I disagreed with him more than I agreed but ultimately I think this fearlessly bold mode of thought is the only thing that will save us.

Nic Johnson

Puts the arguments of Levy’s freaks of fortune and michel feher’s rated agency into the language of Wendy brown. Good they’re getting circulation

Alex McAuliffe

The “speculative community” this ep called to mind for me is the US cult of homeownership - combines the speculative hope that land inflation will continue to be assessed in the owner’s favor with the natural scarcity of land itself. Every homeowner is buying a stake to entitle themselves to (for the kind of buyer I’m envisioning) good schools, reliable services, low crime, parks, etc. This brings to mind some aspects of such a community that aren’t mentioned at least in this interview - group boundary policing (who gets to buy a stake) and consequent group identity creation (we are the Haves, at least for our Neighborhood). But such a community, though it can take certain kinds of political action (Lakewoodization of larger cities to lower their tax burden, prop 13 to do the same on an astonishing scale), is actually provincial in the extreme when it comes to anything beyond the bounds of their little realm. Visible issues like Poop scooping or homelessness can raise their ire - because it might affect the all-holy Property Values - but anything of import seems beyond them. I would guess that this generalizes fairly well to such self-willed communities of speculative interest… try to get a group of crypto enthusiasts to agree on anything *except* the promise of their coins, etc.

dshamz_

It’s hard for me to discern the difference between what the guest is suggesting and the by-now tired attempt to find ‘resistance’ to neoliberalism or capitalism in every little thing people do individually or collectively. It makes sense given that his major influences seem to be Foucault and Wendy Brown, but I’m still surprised this kind of thing still has legs. There’s no ‘resistance’ in any of this stuff, just coping strategies whereby people try to adapt themselves to the reality of neoliberalism the best way they can. I just don’t see any kind of historical agency here.