Terrortology

The blackness of terrortology.

Contemporary speculative philosophy has been tainted with a black streak that worms and slides on its underbelly through its currents, its propositions and its mediations. This darkness that seeps into its very pores has slowly crept upon us. It is no longer latent, hidden, lurking behind words, a presence implied by its absence. Now it is an absence made present, exploded into the present for all to see and marvel at. The language of blackness has proliferated unashamedly, it has taken over; devouring and conquering the interesting corners of philosophy it has made itself known in all its thick opacity. Linked by many to Lovecraftian horror, the darkness of unknowing, the unthinkable, and esoteric thought, it metaphorically demonstrates the precise current concerns and fears of the psyche of those utilizing it. Are they really horrified at the blackness itself and what it implies or does the blackness merely hide a more pertinent and deeper horror, a horror masked and seduced by blackness?

The blackness being talked of comes from the work of Ben Woodard, Eugene Thacker, Nicola Masiandaro, and Reza Negerastani, to name just a few. For some it is an indication of that which is other than the human, an insurmountable presence that exist beyond the borders of thought, indicating our limited and finite capacity to comprehend it in all its vastness. It is alien because it is not us and because we cannot reach it in our attempt to step beyond our ties to our human chains. It is the unpre-thinkable, the dark void or abyss that precedes nature, life, the human. It is the seeping, malignant oil that lies in the earth’s crust causing apocalyptic wars, terrorism and violence. It is a force of chaos that creates a cosmic horror-fiction replete with mysticism and indeterminate exteriorized absolutes. Completely unhuman – therefore dark and unknown. This abrupt and violent and slow and insidious black essence smacks of neo-paganism, the unavoidable disintegration of the human and its world. It re-examines the place of the human in a world and a nature which have the power to create and destroy life itself. The human and the individual have to escape from and remove themselves from anthropocentric thinking and turn towards ecological nihilism, the grim void and rupture onto an abyss replete with vampirish nightmares, demonology, corpses and childish fears. It is over the top, indulgent, exultant in its affirmation of the negative, seriously taking itself seriously in its theory-fiction, in its poetic and literary eloquence while remaining oh so mythological, yet trying to be advent-garde. Is it just a load of already obsolete jabber? Well, yes and no. Some of what it says sounds ridiculous and far too fanciful. For example when you are handed a small black booklet that says ‘NOTHING’ on the front, and you flick through its matt black pages to come across this sentence ‘In the Beginning there was Nothing, In the End there will be Nothing, In between is irrelevant’ and ‘Have you ever wished you could have a closer Personal Relationship with the Great and Infinite Blackness?’ You think this is amazing! After typing in the website and you find this, you cannot help but think, with a sense of disappointment, how cultish/perhaps even religious this is, almost certainly oh so very Harry Potter:

The Order of the Black Mark as it exists today is an outgrowth of the End Luminous. A nihilistic spiritual organization in the Hermetic and Western Esoteric tradition, which works toward a greater understanding of the void, the Order was founded by the Dark Prophet A. Euripides Shmawls (1903-1986) who broke off and cultivated the Order after having a Grand Vision of Darkness in 1922.

The current Spiritual Leader of the Order is the Artist and Prophet Vincent Como who, after being inducted into the Order’s highest rank: the Circle of None in 2007, was instrumental in consolidating the Order’s assets and moved the headquarters to New York City where he resides. His Darkness is currently working with select members to recruit new devotees and has pledged a commitment to re-printing the seminal texts of the Order as well as ushering the organization into the 21st century. In the meantime, the Order is developing new events for initiates and holding regular rituals in its US and UK Chapters.

Yet philosophical writing on blackness works to think this beyond; this black nothingness, to move philosophy and human thought forward, to strive and claw at its frayed borders. This either entails moving philosophy away from its strict academic and musty confines into something more interdisplinary, where backing is received from fiction, psychoanalysis, music (including black metal), and aesthetics and seeing where and how these disciplines will take it. It also demonstrates the importance of speculation, whether that theorizing is true or false in any objective sense. It  acts to blur the boundaries of validity and of thought. This ‘black’ has implications that are far reaching and so should be examined more deeply – not what the blackness is saying on the surface but the blackness that precedes or lies behind this very blackness. The question 'why are we talking of blackness, and why now?' What is the underlying cause of all this? And is this really anything new? Whether it’s new or not, it still calls into question our current ‘negative’ thinking.

Traditionally teratology  is the study or marvel of that which terrifies: the monster, the abnormal, the not quite human that is all always given as much too human; that which frightens, an appalling thing or person leading to terror, horror or anxiety.  Focusing not upon teratology as such, and not, therefore upon the scientific study of the abnormality of the specific thing or person, I propose a new term for speculative philosophers: the study of terror itself – terrortology -the study of that which darkens thought, blackens goodness, that clouds and swarms our thinking. It demonstrates a new emerging branch within philosophical thought using language riddled with blackness. But this blackness it not as horrific or terrifying as it, or we, make it out to be. In fact we are drawn to it. It beckons us to take a closer look. We revel in its discovery; we think it will lead to the answer of the all. We want more of it; we immerse ourselves in its deep mysterious embrace and vainly seek it out. But to what avail - to test ourselves? To see if we can stand up to it, overcome, triumph and conquer? Would this not just be to triumph over ourselves, to hold ourselves up as shining beacons of light, wisdom and knowledge? How presumptuous and sickening of us. If this blackness is not really that terror inducing, not really that terr-ific what is it? It is a grand opening for philosophy itself, a new presence that opens the path to a new futurity. It is not really all that negative but the most profound speculative space within philosophy that is a rupturing of thought replete with potentialities and virtualities not yet actualized. It reveals to us the beginnings of timid steps that circle around the borders of an edge before it either topples off or leaps too quickly into the chasm. Either it ends with its own premature demise or it, and we, find a way to climb down into its centre, bit by bit, tethered with the guides and ropes of the past, with the ideas of philosophers long dead making adjustments and small leaps into deep, dark depths. Finding a way down into the meaning of blackness is not really that terrifying. It surely has to be collaborative, not solitary. Progressive and adjusting, dynamic and interdependent, we push ourselves into such darkness. No longer pale and blind we might find it not that dark after all.