Have we become too dependent on the very thing we thought we had under control?
I won't make this too long, but this past month had me engrossed in a novel that I've been indulging in a little too much.
If you are into novels with a seemingly unreliable narrator that mindfucks you to death, this is the one for you.
Without going into too many spoilers, there are really two stories that fit into the overall plot. The first is about a young American woman who goes to Istanbul (a city in Turkey) to meet an online friend who never actually arrives. Through a series of events, she discovers a manuscript that makes her question whether her friend was really a real person (Dead Internet theory?). However, this story actually makes up a significantly small chunk of the book. The story is a riddle that you, the reader, must solve to understand the plot.
The actual story and relevant bits that play into it are as follows: An internet-password-protected laboratory discovers the notes of former professor Dr. Hamid Parsani, who has suddenly disappeared. The notes uncover seemingly 'schizophrenic ramblings' about the cross of Akht, xenodrome, the so-called 'myth of fossil fuels', etc. These notes cross over into the hyperstition's already-existing project, which attempts to grasp war itself as a machine. In particular, Middle Eastern wars (this book takes place during the War on Terror, keep in mind).
In short, the narrator takes you along the journey of the hyperstition's project, along with the discovered notes of Parsani, to bring about this idea: Oil is sentient and alive, and it has its own agendas, which are actively shaping Middle Eastern geopolitics along with America.
Obviously, it's an extremely bogus idea, and the consensus on Parsani happens to agree (summarized paragraph from page 11):
Leper creativity has its own set of symposiums and essays, which I cannot wait to dig my grubby hands into once I'm finished reading: Leper Creativity: Cyclonopedia Symposium
I will admit, this is not an easy read by any stretch of the imagination. It does require some knowledge of ancient Middle Eastern religions like Zoroastrianism, some Iranian folklore, Persian history here and there, as well as some knowledge of H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu, as the hyperstition's project takes many of these novels, ideas, and concepts together to make up an argument. (Definitely my least grammatically correct paragraph I've written here.)
It's important to realize that this book falls under the genre of theory fiction. This implies a real idea that the author wants you to take away while still enjoying a good story. It's extremely important that you do not fall into biblical literalism while reading this. A novel that fits under theory fiction tends to personify philosophical concepts as characters; other times, it may personify political ideas, opinion pieces, etc. Unlike the traditional novel, theory fiction does NOT follow the typical linear rise up to the plot, then to the climax, sort of approach. Rather, it uses bits and pieces, and some parts of fake history, to craft a story. It is far from linear.
With all of this being said, I do think the book raises an extremely valuable conversation.
I think it's a no-brainer that the entire world runs on oil. Even with all of the technology and the push by capitalists to make the world as independent from gas as possible, the very electricity that a lot of newer cars run on is ultimately produced by gas. We still have a long way to go before we fully switch off oil for good. It's not too helpful that we're already $40 trillion or so in debt.
Just a week or two ago, my home was hit with a particularly nasty hurricane. The electricity was knocked out, which ended with us having to resort to generators that produce electricity with... You guessed it, oil! (Parsani would be horrified.) While we are definitely getting closer, we ultimately still need oil for a lot of our technology.
The book states oil's 'agenda' in the chapter Palaeopetrology from Gog-Magog Axis to Petropunkism, which is titled Xenodrome; in a nutshell, this means the turning of the Earth into a barren desert. Think: Fallout and other video games that take place post-nuclear war.
The narrator tries to make the argument by effectively personifying oil and arguing for its 'personality traits', or, more specifically, the innate nature of oil likened to the innate nature of a person. The book argues A LOT against the myth of fossil fuels and claims that it's an ever-moving, near-infinite resource that makes its way not just across the Middle East, but even the United States, with the intent of centralizing geopolitics.
Here's the thing: nearly everything the hyperstition talks about can be true without oil literally being sentient and alive. The extreme outcome of climate change is the Earth succumbing to a barren desert, and it's no secret that much of climate change is being actively driven by machines that are oil-powered. Many of the wars we have with the Middle East are driven not just by money, but by the race for more oil. Many wars have had the agenda of obtaining oil for themselves or giving it to some other country for economic stability. The economics part of this paragraph is particularly important, as the book concludes that capitalism is not merely a human construct, but oil's agenda and, hence, humanity's fate long before we arrived on this planet. This is briefly mentioned on page 27 in the chapter Palaeopetrology from Gog-Magog Axis to Petropunkism:
Petroleum poisons Capital with absolute madness, a planetary plague bleeding into economies mobilized by the technological singularities of advanced civilizations. In the wake of oil as an autonomous terrestrial conspirator, capitalism is not a human symptom but rather a planetary inevitability. In other words, Capitalism was here even before human existence, waiting for a host.
It's almost insulting; it effectively puts a spotlight on capitalism not as a mere resource-management and profit system, but as a full-blown parasite motivated by non-human entities.
It's an extremely thought-provoking book written by an amazing author. I'm still a little ways off from finishing this book and being able to confidently say, as Mortimer J. Adler puts it, "I understand." I hope to check out his Intelligence and Spirit pretty soon if I'm not diving further into the schizophrenic writings of war as a machine.
One last thing: Reza Negarestani is definitely not the only one who has played around with the idea of war itself being the machine and of capitalism being a side effect rather than a mere outcome. There's an entire line of literature that the book mentions that builds upon the idea, with the works of Gilles Deleuze being one example. It is probably one of the weirdest and most interesting facets of philosophy you can stumble upon. If you're interested in this, I do plan on posting a final write-up on this entire book once I've done a thorough reading of it.