iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Yeah bitch be scared it’s about to be a rabelaisian carnival. socialism? if opposite day happened on april fools’ day every day. day is night up is down. dogs walk us on little leashes we walk on our hands. poop is gold the dead live you drink with your butt cry more

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I consider Neel an absolute comrade in arms, & on that level I’m ride or die. But that’s also why no punches can be pulled on the theory, &, like the authors, I think Neel’s theoretical approach is ultimately an obstacle (a pervasive, entrenched one) to the communist emancipation we both want.

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R&X’s polemic struck me as fundamentally generous in explicit recognition of a shared problematic, a partly-shared diagnosis of the problems, & a common set of theoretical-practical aspirations. I do think that has been overlooked.

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Have to disagree on polemics, but afaict that comes down to diff diagnoses of the deficiencies of left-wing intellectual life today. A more interesting q is: what constitutes a real theoretical contribution today? & I might be even more “negativistic” (Adorno style) about that than the authors!

Not the idiom I’d use either, but I’d even double down on anachronism! E.g.: “Does this theory for our times rise to the level of the hoariest, moth-eaten theories from long-dead partisans of revolutions whose crushing defeats the author claims to be wizened by? No, it does not.”

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We’re talking in circles. Rather than responding in kind to what I do consider rhetorical cop outs (“Of course you’d say that, you’ve already decided the book *must* be more complex, even if you won’t—or can’t—elaborate”), I’ll pass & say I hope we can have a better discussion on another occasion.

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I also think this shift in Western Europe was reinforced by the weakness of Marxian critical social theory in the Anglosphere. If this hypothesis doesn’t work then I’m not sure what the fuck happened. Ergot poisoning? Lead paint?

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My leading hypothesis is: an attempt to “correct” for the perceived naiveté of the 60s internationalist left accounts for the drastic change (hard right pivot into abstract “internationalism”indistinguishable from chauvinism) in theory output from left-wing communist circles/journals by the 80s.

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Got a good follow-up question re: the claim “anti-anti-imperialists” would likely make that their motive is more “a desire for adherence to communist politics” than a rejection of violence as such, & this was my response

Odd way of “adhering to communist politics” when “anti-anti-imperialism” effectively entails blanket support for US-Israeli aggression in the Middle East & a blanket rejection of any communist liberation struggle outside of W Europe since the early 20th c. This is one of those problems I would personally expect self-proclaimed communists to do a little soul-searching & reflection about. They haven’t & given how long Germans in particular have had to refine their rationalization defense mechanisms, I’m not holding my breath.

This is also true of “internationalist” left-communist currents today more broadly throughout Western Europe & the Anglosphere. Based on the dogshit they put out, you’d never know Bordiga defended anti-colonial natlib struggle or about councilist support of / connects to the DFLP.

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You & Phil claim the authors have made conflations or reductions without, afaict, acknowledging that they are explicitly arguing that *despite what it says,* Hellworld *does* something else, & makes those conflations/reductions. To me that argument deserves more than dismissal as misrepresentation

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Apparently not closely enough! Seem to have missed the meaningful difference in defining tactics you’ve alluded to (you’ve only said “not just street fighting,” but I assume you have something else in mind). I’ll reread, but to be honest I don’t think you engaged with the substance of the criticism.

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They argue: Hellworld does not accomplish its self-assigned task, is full of distinctions b/w levels that collapse back into one another anyway, & commits the conflation of aesthetic & argument Phil accused them of doing. So no, I don’t think the piece can be dismissed as baseless misrepresentation

To your point on tactical fetishism though, this is just what I mean: the authors explicitly note that Phil wants to go *beyond* tactics, their argument is neither “the sigil” nor “the principle of active/intentional separation” in “partisan organizing” have been, are, or will be the means to do so

Horkheimer from the same: Never trust someone “who becomes a human being only when tears are to be shed for a Tsar” &, “learning of the nexus of imperialist world politics, [European] prisons, & colonial terrors, flies into rage—but [first & most] at who exposed, not authored it.”

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“How can you be a Horkheimerian who supports armed anti-imperialist resistance movements?” The conclusion to every essay Horkheimer writes for the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung ~1934-1939:

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Despite what the “anti-anti-imperialists” who claim the tradition today would have you believe, orthodox critical theory was actually, as Horkheimer wrote in Twilight, all about utter contempt for the “vacuous pacifism which condemns a colonial war & a prison revolt in equal measure for ‘violence.’”

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So aside from your impression that they didn’t do the reading, is there a substantive point of contention you have with the piece other than the authors’ (admitted in the piece, by the way!) proximity to Phil on a lot of points?

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His other two points were on the historical sequence of subjectivity-formation via rebellion, insurrection, revolution, etc, as distinct “levels” & an apparent “conflation” of diagnosis of the populist moment w/ endorsement of it. (Whether either of these objections dodge the crit is imo debatable)

Genuine q: what’s misrepresented? Phil pointed to the labor-value stuff, claimed they took views he wanted to crit as his own, & otherwise conceded quite a bit, e.g. that his corrective tactics focus could be read as a substitution for politics (rather than an acct of the condition/s of politics)

Reposted by James Crane

Love it, finally a good polemical engagement! Everyone should read this if they read Hellworld. As with most polemics, it might feel a little unfair in places, but that's the point of a polemic. I'l...

Good response to the piece already from Neel, who not only recognizes & appreciates it *as* a polemic but also starts outlining a counter-argument by trying to tease out what he considers the real points of contention. Other detractors, step it up! substack.com/@philneel/no...

substack.com

Phil A. Neel (@philneel)

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Which authors are allowed to write polemics—like Althusser’s Reply to John Lewis, Badiou’s Fascism of the Potato, or Ranciere’s Althusser’s Lesson—without being dismissed for being so uncharitable? & when has the uncharitability of a text ever meant it couldn’t also be true!

I say this with love but: come on lol! The point of the crit is Neel wants to historicize a set of problems (& theoretical tools for analyzing them) by appeal to “the problems of our time” in a way that repeats old mistakes in a new aesthetic—bending the same stick b&ff! Imo worth worrying about!

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fuck “latinidad” @ytnessisdeath.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

substack.com

Phil A. Neel (@philneel)

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Reposted by James Crane

I am pleased to present this critique I worked on with Richard Hunsinger. Many thanks to those who provided support through conversation, notes, and study. ctwgwebsite.github.io/blog/2026/Part…

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Reposted by James Crane

Critical Theory Working Group @crittheoryworkgrp.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

New on our site: "Beneath Class and Consciousness," an essay from X. Rivera Maya and Richard Hunsinger. The authors provide a critique of the theory of the party in Phil A. Neel's work and defend an alternative conception of the party. ctwgwebsite.github.io/blog/2026/Pa...

Image: La città che sale by Umberto Boccioni (1911), an Italian Futurist painting of men in a city street struggling to restrain horses

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James Crane @jamescrane.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

few of us can say we’ve lived every day of our lives doing exactly what we wanted to do exactly when we wanted to do it, & almost always surrounded by friends. Cat could have, if speaking wasn’t beneath her

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James Crane @jamescrane.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

from the jump she was constantly filthy, sassy as hell, & sweet as could be.

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James Crane @jamescrane.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

1 week & 10 yrs ago, my partner at the time & i brought home a 12 lb puppy who we decided to name Catherine after a late relative of my partner’s, bc what better way is there to honor someone’s memory than naming “the most entitled animal i’ve ever met” / “entropy incarnate” after them

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James Crane @jamescrane.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Thanks all for the love! One of my favorite Adorno lines is “animals could teach us what happiness is,” & Cat did, every day! She was the ultimate creature, a real creature’s creature, & taught me how to be a better one. She was all low-effort mischief to the end. Thank you Cat

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James Crane @jamescrane.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Cat the dog passed away tonight. After waking up from her post-2nd dinner evening nap, she collapsed. She died in my arms at the emergency vet. She had exactly the last day she would’ve wanted. These are the last 2 pics I have of her, taken just hours before, at the creek with her bestie

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*extremely old person voice* what happened to all the nice places to sit outside. why is there nowhere that’s just nice to sit anymore. what happened to benches. where are all the public stoops

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was he going to tell me anything i couldn’t read in any of his books? no. was he unpleasant to be around? yes. asked myself the same questions about the dog, got the opposite results for each. so i followed the dog & got a guided tour around some lovely garden plots. 0 regrets

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was once at an event Zizek was also at. did not talk to him, overheard him telling stories (not as funny as he thought) about celebrity philosophers sleeping with their grad students, noticed he was dressed like a toddler & smelled like a bar of soap, & went back to hanging out with the host’s dog

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no i live in Atlanta lmao. but the neighbor is also, as i learned today, a proud “poli sci” degree holder so that probably explains a lot

straight up: people will get fucked over by the police in every single interaction they’ve ever had with them & still think that next time it won’t happen, that they’re special somehow. story after story about this. “I wish a cop still lived here” no you don’t lmao

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talking to your neighbors introduces you to so many new kinds of people. Mamdani fan who gives principled defenses of Flock cameras? alright sure why not. dialectical materialism pilled PC gamer? yeah alright.

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go to the dumpster right now and put your hand in the dumpster for no reason

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you know i keep that mf thing (a silly creature) on me

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dumpster diving is an art and a science

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