I have seen some of the recent online beefs that center on afropessimism in relationship to marxism. I cannot say much about the interpersonal dynamics between different folks because I am largely not aware of the history. I am not sure what exactly started this current conversation. I am interested in the conversation because it is only one example of a much larger and increasingly problematic conflict between marxists and afropessimism. I hope to engage this topic more in the future because I think it is both fruitful and important. Yet, there is a strain of this engagement that looks to treat afropessimism as a new iteration of black liberallism espoused by the black elite. In this reading, because afropessimism poses a critique of marxism, it must be an elite rejection of communism in favor of dealing within racial inequality within capitalism. In this reading, afropessimism is merely a philosophical version of Killer Mike and can be easily dismissed. Talking with my partner helped me to concretize this image and its self-fulfilling prophecy. If afropessimism is philosophical Killer Mike for marxists, then a good marxist will not need to read it or only read a few online comments. If one does not read or study afropessimism, it makes it easier to spread misinformation with the assumption, “who cares?” This is a repetitive dynamic online, wherein intellectual discourses become flattened to posts, comments, and other easily digestible forms. We all become camps and reduce the other side to stereotype instead of engaging in study. We all do not have to agree and disagreement can be the source of learning and critical thought. Yet, too much of this conversation has been dominated by treating "marxism" and "afropessimism" as competing discourses in direct opposition to each other. Is there another way beyond competing camps? I want to provide a different entry-point into dealing with the actual and real tensions between marxism and afropessimism without attempting to resolve the differences.
I would argue the tension that afropessimism names between blackness and marxist theory is actually much older than the term "afropessimism." This tension is repeatedly discussed by different black radicals in their encounter with marxist theory and communist organizing spaces. Black radicals have always had to negotiate the terms of marxist critiques to fit the way blackness cleaves the seeming universality of the working class. These negotiations have not always yielded the same responses, but the process of negotiation names a tension that is productive for thinking. Blackness is a difficult subject -- or object -- for any theory that espouses a universal subject and it historically has been for marxism as a theoretical field and political praxis. This difficulty or tension does not signal defeat, but it does name a problem and a ground for critical thought. The key to thinking, in my opinion, is to hold this tension without attempting to resolve it. What do I mean by this? To answer is to think again about what is the point of a critique and how can we sit with critiques that do not provide easy answers to their posed questions.
In spite of appearances, afropessimism is not a rejection of marxist theory -- it poses a critique of marxist theory amongst many of its other critiques, provocations, and analysis. People think "critique" means "reject" or "oppose." In social media, one only critiques those they oppose. In actuality, "critique" means "judgment" and "evaluation." To think critically is to evaluate information, arguments, and systems of thought. To pose a critique of marxist theory does not necessarily mean one disagrees with the totality of the theory. Instead, it is an evaluation of the problem of blackness for marxist theory. Only sectarian thinkers believe that a theoretical systems is perfect and has no problems worthy of thinking. To think problems necessarily extends the life of a theoretical system. Dogmatism is the death of a theoretical system. A living theoretical system continues to pose and deal with problems. People may be surprised to know Wilderson, for instance, still identifies as a communist. Pretty much every single person I know who engages afropessimism as thought are communists, anticapitalists, and anti-imperialists. From my reading, I cannot see an argument in afropessimism against communism. I can't speak for everybody, but afropessimism is clearly a theory for revolution, which seems to get lost in translation for some folks. The critique that afropessimism posed is to intensify the social antagonisms and political imaginations of revolution. Afropessimism is constitutively anticapitalist and pro-revolution and is thus directly oppositional to black liberalism and black capitalism, including that of the Killer Mike’s of the world.
This last note is a point of tension for folks that believe afropessimism is simply petite bourgeois thought. I would imagine this accusation is made because many, including myself, are academics. I would agree with the distrust of academics. Though one wonders does that distrust extend to marxist academics, many of whom are secure in standard academics disciplines like economics, history, and sociology and are doing far better than those of us in small black studies departments under direct threat from fascists. Regardless, parts of this distrust dovetails with a belief that "academics" only theorize but do not practice. There seems to be much assumption on folks' bonafides in these online conversation -- too many insults hurled around without acknowledging we all do not know each other actually. Folks who have only dealt with afropessimism online may be surprised at the political praxis of those who engage and read afropessimism. I am less interested in proving this point then in considering why social media leads so quickly towards dismissal without knowledge. Why does the conversation take on this kind of tone when we are not actually in real-life relation with each other?
The online iteration of this debate repeats too much of the toxic structure of social media activity wherein one must signal to a crowd which "side" they sit on. I'm sure the fact that I appear to be defending "afropessimism" will make some people say that I am an afropessimist. In fact, I don't identify with the theory, I am a reader of the theory. I am also a reader of marxism. I am reader of many things. I believe in political study and reading is a fundamental aspect of study. Yet, on social media, one must constantly signal which group they are a part of. This kind of in-group signaling is directly antithetical to actually reading and thinking -- which is to say, to sit with the contradictions, convergences, divergences, questions, paradoxes, connections, and fissures. I am much more interested in the ability to think with contradictions and to stay with them. One wonders why dialectical thinking seems to disappear when considering afropessimism?
Afropessimism is not a rejection of communism or marxist theory in general, it is an analytical system that poses questions about the unthought force of the libidinal (a force that cannot be simply contained as "ideological") and the libidinal force of antiblackness in particular. In the age of digital capitalism, I would implore all marxists to think about the libidinal because it is the reason capitalists are able to construct new fascist hegemonic blocs, in spite of the clear contradictions of capitalism. The use of blackness to break apart the working class is understood by many as a capitalist tactic. Of course this is right on face -- it is and has been a tactic of the capitalist class. Yet, the knowledge that antiblackness is used by capitalists does not answer another question: why does it work?
The question is deceptively simple. Most think that the way a tool works is the way it can be used. A computer "computes." Sure. I am typing on a computer, but there is a great distance between the interface I use and the actual computational infrastructure that makes up the computer's hardware. To use a computer is not the same thing as understanding how a computer works. An engineer sees a computer differently than a user.
This is the way I take libidinal economy. We tend to understand the libidinal through its ripple effects in ideology. That is the utility of the libidinal for capitalists -- how our desires can be organized and used to form consent for capitalist accumulation and domination. Yet the libidinal is more than the capitalists' tool, like any tool are more than its immediate utility. To actually think the libidinal is to understand a general economy of forces that operate in excess of capitalist control, yet is precisely where the capitalist class targets to form its hegemony. To understand it requires much more than simply saying "capitalist use racism as a divide and conquer strategy." In that way, afropessimism is explicitly not a political praxis, it is a diagnostic tool for praxis. Afropessimism is closer to engineering theory, for instance teaching one how a pulley mechanism works. Understanding the theory behind a pulley mechanism does not build a machine for you. That theory does not tell you what machines to build. Instead, it teaches you the dynamics of a mechanism that can be of use if you would like to build a machine or fix one that is broken. If you did not understand the mechanism, you could not effectively build or fix in the future and may be confused when it breaks down. Analytical theories do not have to tell you what to build, they help you to understand, evaluate, and pose better questions in the future that can lead to better and more efficient solutions.
Libidinal economy is the way our collective desires are formed by an infinite array of assemblages and dynamics. One of the analytical tools that afropessimism develops is analyzing the mechanisms of our collective desires, in particular blackness as an object of desire and how negation operates as an organizing principle. One must understand this libidinal economy as something that operates in excess of its immediate utility, which is why afropessimism is an analysis instead of a practice (utility). Yet, these questions of libidinal economy lead directly towards questions of political practice, if one is willing to study, engage, and apply.
One of afropessimism's questions is why does antiblackness make cross-racial solidarity -- the very basis of working class politics -- so difficult and treacherous? Folks tend to hear that critique of afropessimism as stating "cross-racial solidarity is impossible." Yet, the question does not make it impossible, the question instead points out why antiblackness makes solidarity with black people so treacherous and difficult. To pose the question is to better understand libidinal dynamics that wold make political praxis easier if we think and deal with it instead of burying it in universal categories. The capitalists manipulate the libidinal through fascist organizing -- we must interrogate the libidinal as a terrain of struggle to fight against its effectiveness.
This is why I argued above that critiques are not rejections. To pose a critique does not mean to reject, it is an invitation for engagement and study -- to pose better questions that provide for better praxis. It is understandable if folks decide it is not useful for them. All theories are not immediately or necessarily useful. Yet, I would wonder, in an age of fascist ascendency that weaponizes the rhetorical figure of the criminal that was forged in the carceral trajectory of antiblack captivity, how could the question of the libidinal economy of antiblackness not be useful? If you cannot understand the gravity of the question of the libidinal among the many other questions that afropessimism raises for political praxis, I actively wonder: are you actually reading or are you just looking for an out-group to help shore up the borders of your in-group?
Nicholas Brady is a black writer from Baltimore and an Assistant Professor of Critical Black Studies at Bucknell University. His scholarly work investigates the ways that blackness conceptually disturbs the politics of technology, sound, ecology, and culture. He is currently at work on a monograph exploring the relationship between blackness, sound, and the libidinal economy of artificial intelligence. You can find more of his work: https://lnk.bio/nicholasbrady