“With the new conditions that now predominate in the society crushed under the iron heel of the spectacle, one knows, for example, that a political assassination finds itself placed in another light; can in a sense be sifted. Everywhere the mad are more numerous than before, but what is infinitely more convenient is that they can be talked about madly. And it is not some kind of reign of terror that imposes such mediatic explanations. On the contrary, it is the peaceful existence of such explanations which should cause terror.” – Guy Debord, Comments On the Society of the Spectacle, 1988

When nothing means anything, anything becomes possible. That’s certainly the mad method at play here, and has been for a long time. It can’t be any other way in a falling empire.

Charlie Kirk was an influencer. Yes, he was an influencer whose persona existed entirely in the realm of politics, and he managed to assemble a large, even powerful network of conservatives on college campuses, but that did not make him a politician. That someone who does what an influencer does – posting online, speaking at functions, but mostly posting online – can be legitimately accepted in the realm of politics speaks to how much the boundaries between have dissolved.

The tidbits of decontextualized information, the fragments of definition that can bounce so freely around the internet; these were Kirk’s bread and butter, an atomic unit for online outrage. Which generates more online outrage, which generates more online outrage still. Build it up enough and those at the center of it will be launched into the public eye. But the momentum that puts them there – the “clout” – is ultimately without substance. That substance is filled with meaning only after the fact, when the vague and nebulous gains enough speed to produce the event.

That’s what is happening now. Even the fact that Kirk’s shooting death is being called an assassination, let alone that liberals are scrambling to paint this vicious yammering charlatan as an honorable political actor, speaks to how deeply our basic sense of meaning is being remade right now.

Flags now fly at half mast, for someone who has been able to do a measurable amount of damage to the lives of others. Meanwhile, Trump blames “the radical left” for Kirk’s killing, despite no suspect being arrested and no motive being known. He blames this same left for the attempt on his own life last summer, though Thomas Crooks had no known connections to any leftist organization and was, according to some sources, a registered Republican. This, again, does not matter.

None of those shot at school or at work or in any number of various public spaces get this level of reverence. None command such strident vows for revenge. None of their supporters invoke blood for blood like Kirk’s are now. And yet it is Kirk’s supporters, and the right writ large, who are the real victims, armed to the teeth and yet somehow powerless.

Make no mistake, out of this event, they are assembling new meanings, definitions and redefinitions reshaping the world. The far-right has understood hegemony better than liberals or the center for a long time now. Intrinsically, it grasps that assembling the social forces necessary for shaping a new reality requires this kind of redefinition. They’re good at it. And they’re getting better. Their core meaning is violence, and they mean to do violence.

What is there to do then? It is difficult to tell how exactly Trump and his base intend to follow through on their threats against the left, but some sort of physical defense is almost certainly going to have to be in the cards for our side. Coordination between the armed wing of the state and the armed far-right is being strengthened right now. Without giving into panic, with clear-eyed, cool-headed urgency, we need to understand and accept that we are not safe right now. All the coded false promises being dangled by liberals right now – learn to be civil and they won’t come after you – mean nothing on a long enough timeline.

Past that, there is a pressing need to understand exactly how we’ve been outflanked, how it is that we’ve gotten to the point where Trump and the right are able to so readily exploit the event like this. I’m sympathetic to what Julia Alekseyeva calls “radical media literacy,” mentioned in her book Antifascism and the Avant-Garde. In a world so wholly mediated, understanding how aesthetics and the struggle over interpretation have a real material impact on our sense of possibility – and the willingness to act on that possibility – is essential.

The opposite is also true: in a world so wholly mediated and aestheticized, media literacy on its own comes a day late and a buck short. In Disaster Nationalism, Richard Seymour dismisses the concept entirely. Though he may be oversimplifying the argument, he also rightly argues that the right knows how to mobilize passionate despair in an incredibly effective way. If we cannot counter this, on this level, then we are well and truly fucked.

What Jacques Lacan calls the chain of signification or signifying chain comes into play here. How does one word or phrase trigger another? How do these link together in such a way that the subject is moved to action? What alternative frameworks of meaning and mental association can be constructed through the actual associations of solidarity? How can this sentiment be understood, not just on an intellectual level, but on a deep psychological and practical level? How can this worldview be reinforced psychologically, and how can the psychological map make itself real?

If this sounds like a shade of the utopian, then you’re catching on quick. It’s not a liability right now. In fact, if we grasp it rigorously and sensitively enough, it may be our best asset. We could have, and should have, learned this a long time ago. Now we’ll simply have to learn as we go. Either we figure out how to build something new, or something old and spiteful, something that refuses to die, overtakes us entirely.

Header image is Francis Bacon’s Three Studies for a Crucifixion (1944).

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Seeing

Trainspotting, directed by Danny Boyle. screenplay by John Hodge (1996)
Every Cook Can Govern: The Life, Impact, and Work of CLR James, directed and written by Ceri Dingle and Rob Harris (2016)
David Lynch: The Art Life, directed and written by John Nguyen, Olivia Neergaard-Holm, and Rick Barnes (2016)

Hearing

Stars of the Lid, The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid (2001)
Manic Street Preachers, The Holy Bible (1994)
MF Doom, Mm..Food (2004)

Reading

Comments on the Society of the Spectacle, by Guy Debord (1988)
Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution, by David Harvey (2019)
Collected Poems, by EP Thompson (2020)