The Cybernetic Hypothesis

by Tiqqun, Robert Hurley (Translator)

An early text from Tiqqun that views cybernetics as a fable of late capitalism, and offers tools for the resistance.

The cybernetician's mission is to combat the general entropy that threatens living beings, machines, societies—that is, to create the experimental conditions for a continuous revitalization, to constantly restore the integrity of the whole.—from The Cybernetic Hypothesis

This early Tiqqun text has lost none of its pertinence. The Cybernetic Hypothesis presents a genealogy of our “technical” present that doesn't point out the political and ethical dilemmas embedded in it as if they were puzzles to be solved, but rather unmasks an enemy force to be engaged and defeated. Cybernetics in this context is the teknê of threat reduction, which unfortunately has required the reduction of a disturbing humanity to packets of manageable information. Not so easily done. Not smooth. A matter of civil war, in fact. According to the authors, cybernetics is the latest master fable, welcomed at a certain crisis juncture in late capitalism. And now the interesting question is: Has the guest in the house become the master of the house?

The “cybernetic hypothesis” is strategic. Readers of this little book are not likely to be naive. They may be already looking, at least in their heads, for a weapon, for a counter-strategy. Tiqqun here imagines an unbearable disturbance to a System that can take only so much: only so much desertion, only so much destituent gesture, only so much guerilla attack, only so much wickedness and joy.

Genres: Philosophy, Technology, Politics, Nonfiction, Science, History, Theory

168 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2001

About the author

Tiqqun is a French collective of authors and activists formed in 1999. Their journal was the first to publish the collective author “The Invisible Committee.” Tiqqun's books include Introduction to Civil War, Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl, and This Is Not a Program (all published by Semiotext(e)).

Reviews

[Tom Ensor · Rating 5 out of 5]

In order to disrupt the continuous revitalization of cybernetic capitalism, I will start answering Facebook Ad surveys and say that I have never heard of Tostitos before.

[Derek · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found this truly horrible. The anonymous authors spend more time talking about Negri and European pseudo-communists than they do actually displaying any research into cybernetic methods of control as they have been constructed in the world, something that looking back on Negri’s irrelevance in 2021 seems striking. I think ARPANET was mentioned once. They approvingly cite British imperialist Lawrence of Arabia and wife-murderer William S. Burroughs however. Not having investigated the matter myself, I’d venture to guess that the authors aren’t exactly the urban guerrillas they style themselves as. They certainly write exactly like the run-of-the-mill French academics they purport to critique. They offer post-facto justification for their style over content writing in their advocacy of meaningless “haze” and “opacity.” This was a total waste of time and I would say is completely representative of the tendency of a flight towards the inward in contemporary capitalist subjecthood.

[Deep · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Cybernetic Hypothesis is still a must read for any communist in the 21st century. Tiqqun's genealogy frames one of the foremost issues: that of not only breaking with capitalism, but of breaking with the entire decentralized technocratic regime which sustains it. Ruthless critique is applied not only to the proponents of the current instantiation of cybernetics but also its left admirers, foremost Hardt & Negri but also Guattari, Deleuze, Lyotard and the Situationist International (Tiqqun has no fear of both using and abusing their teachers). Popular leftist calls for transparency, decentralization, democratization are exposed as not the opponents of this regime but what enables it - a regime that (much like Serres' parasite) thrives on not being seen.

Tiqqun's call is therefore not for the organization of an (potentiality) existing 'multitude' on the basis of commonality but that of the invisible party. A party of intensities and multifold of life-forms purposed not to seize or accelerate the cybernetic system but to utilize flight, panic, "thickening" to cause a klinamen: a swerve that unbalances it and makes it spin out of control. Concepts explored in Introduction of Civil War.

In line with their critique of transparency Tiqqun refuses any equally "transparent" theoretical or practical exposition; do not read this text expecting a manual. Like other texts by Tiqqun The Cybernetic Hypothesis is closer to a bundle of matches - fit to light a prairie fire.

[roz_anthi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Η Κυβερνητική Υπόθεση (κυκλοφόρησε μόλις στα ελληνικά από Periplaneta x Εκδόσεις των Συναδέλφων) δεν αποτελεί απλώς μια νοητική άσκηση επάνω στην αποσύνδεση από τους τρόπους ολοποίησης του βιοπολιτικού ελέγχου όπως διαμορφώθηκε από τον ΒΠΠ κι έπειτα. Ούτε προσφέρει μονάχα μια πυκνή ανάλυση του πώς εκδιπλώνεται αυτός ο έλεγχος μετατρέποντας την κυριαρχία σε πλέγμα πληροφορίας —κι όχι το αντίθετο όπως νομίζουμε. Ούτε όμως και χαρίζεται οπουδήποτε και σε οποιονδήποτε προκειμένου να οργανώσει με τρόπο αρραγή και συνεκτικό μια θεωρία, κριτική και πρακτική αντίστασης.

Σε όσ@ θα τη διαβάσουν, θα χαρίσει προβλήματα, πονοκεφάλους αλλά και ενθουσιασμό. Σε όσους διεκδικούν την αποκλειστικότητα της Αυτονομίας και του κομμουνισμού, θα τους βγάλει τη γλώσσα. Με τους φιλοσόφους θα ανοίξει μπηφ. Με την εξουσία θα κάνει πόλεμο.
Στο τέλος δε θα ξέρεις ακριβώς τι διάβασες και τι κατάλαβες, αλλά με έναν τρόπο θα έχεις οριστικά αλλάξει, θα έχεις βρεθεί στο οριακό σημείο της γλώσσας, θα έχεις φορέσει πέπλα πλουμιστά και αδιαφανή που θα σε κάνουν για λίγο αόρατ@ από τους στροβοσκοπικούς προβολείς της κυριαρχίας. Μεγάλη υπόθεση κι ακριβώς στην αντίπερα όχθη από την κυβερνητική.

[tout · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to Robert Hurley for this overdue translation of one of the Tiqqun texts that doesn't cease to become more and more contemporary.

What is the hypothesis? It seems to be that life can be reduced to data, which can then be governed along these lines. It is a life where all unknowns and life's inherent chaos are banished as much as possible and when they can't be at least they are made space for within a system, constantly producing the feedback which would neutralize them — creating an environment where nothing ever happens there. They claim that this hypothesis replaced the liberal hypothesis, and which is also why Cybernetic Capitalism is a more appropriate name for what we often call neo-liberalism. This is a hypothesis to be rejected, but presenting it as a hypothesis as a definition of life that is false opens up the question of other definitions and ontologies that do and could exist instead.

[Amanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

I understood almost nothing of this book, but as far as I can tell a group of French people have read a lot of philosophers, most of them also French, and they all seem to—disturbingly literally—get off on not making any sense.

I'm so glad I don't do this anymore.

[Derek · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am become haze destroyer of hegemony

[pat]

absolute banger

[Rhys · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Cybernetics is the police thought of Empire, entirely driven, historically and metaphysically, by an offensive conception of politics. Today it is finishing the business of integrating the techniques of individuation—or separation—and totalization that had developed separately: normalization, 'anatamo-politics,' and regulation, 'biopolitics' to put it like Foucault. I call the policing of qualities its techniques of separation. And, following Lukàcs, I call the social production of society its techniques of totalization."

Simultaneous individuation and totalization ... and the solution? "An external line of flight on the one hand, that seems to issue from me; an internal line of flight on the other hand that brings me back to myself." Exactly.

[Fin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally published as part of Tiqqun 2, Tiqqun being an ultra-left anonymous French writing collective conceived as

a space for experimentation. It was an attempt at bridging the gap between theory and a number of practices and certain ways of “being together”,

according to a member.

Wasn't sure how LARPy this would be but I actually found it extremely productive/provocative. The cybernetic as the regime of control, society posited as a neural network needing ever-increasing regulation, information as the new locus of Capital, technological/communication developments as appropriated military advancements etc... The stuff on 'risk' was particularly engaging: statistical technologies aimed at "multiplying the areas of responsibility".

...'zero risk' does not exist: "the notion of risk does weaken causal links, but in doing so does not make the disappear. On the contrary it multiplies them. [...] To consider a danger in terms of risk is necessarily to admit that one can never shield oneself from it absolutely: one can manage it, domesticate it, but never wipe it out." By virtue of its permanence for the system, risk is an ideal tool for promoting new forms of power that favor the increasing hold of security apparatuses on collectives and individuals.

The last stuff on forms of revolt felt for all its protestations of difference very Deleuzian. Particularly loved the stuff on a "politics of rhythm", a pulsation between speed and slowness that avoids falling into existing feedback loops, rather increasing a 'haze' of background noise that cannot be processed as information. All very self-consciously Bartleby-y. Not entirely convinced with how it handles secrecy vs transparency, and the use of "THEY" to describe the originators and promoters of cybernetic governance was a little cringe, but still a valuable text imo.

[Alexander · Rating 5 out of 5]

a critique of systems - an ambiguous transcript advocating rebellion with an insistence on abolishing methods of control. building off of disavowed leftists and communications theorists, tiqqun emphasis that 1) by nature, capitalism never stops growing - Mandel's "late-stage capitalism", after imperialism, was itself a phase of capitalism that, as Derridia once noted, has itself passed. 2) they deem what is typically known as "Neo-liberal capitalism" instead a term that tiqqun dubs "cybernetic capitalism", because of it's emphasis on control and networks in the information age. tiqqun disavows 'technophobes', they explicitly mention ted kaczynski, as essentially being reactionary. the book emphasizes the nature of cybernetic capitalism to appropriate all systems, even the information of information (Big Data moment).

In other words, the relations between subjects is mediated by objects (Debord quietly crawls his way out of the text in a few instances). All relations are mediated by a hegemony of information. The books CTA is fairly vague - I will fault it to a degree for not being practical - AKA Marxist - enough, for all it's theoretical borrowings of Guerrilla warfare, it leaves us on an interestingly vague note. However, and taking aside it was published in 2001, it is a very theoretically sound book, certainly not entry level, certainly not weapon in itself that will finally emancipate lukacs's subject-object - but one which will certainly help him understand the strategies needed to combat Sauron's eye.

[a____ · Rating 4 out of 5]

A critique of cybernetic totalities using the example of improv Jazz as a strategy of avoiding every gesture to be computed as information in order to enter the circle of cybernetic communication.

[Maty Candelaria · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The Cybernetic Hypothesis” is a genealogical map of what they refer to as Cybernetic Capitalism.

What is Cybernetic Capitalism?

It is constituted by a double movement: the detteritorialization of “forms-of-life” and their relations, as well as the rigid recoding of these flows which can be subjected to expansive control and surveillance.

Cybernetics controls the runaway aspects of Capitalist detteritorialization. It limits the amount of haze, and noise which threaten the system but codifying it through a binary machine.

As another reviewer here has already noted, their analysis pays homage to, and ruthlessly critiques both academic cyberneticians, as well as their Post-Marxist admirers. Deleuze and Guatarri, for example, can both be read as theorists of escape and refusal, as well as affirming figures of the cybernetic aspects of the present situation (liberal values of transparency, democracy and technocratic control of the means of production).

The vague “opacity” of the the text is both its theoretical strength and difficulty. Which is to say, it’s analysis is provocative, but it’s call to action is unclear. However, this isn’t a textual weakness, but rather a key feature of the text. It’s goal is to “bring something incomprehensible into the world”, not reinforce the present state of things.

[Kin · Rating 3 out of 5]

อ่านค่อนข้างยากถึงยากมาก เพราะศัพท์เทคนิคเยอะไปหมด แต่คิดกับมันเยอะๆ แล้วก็เห็นอะไรน่าสนใจอยู่ ธีมของหนังสือพยายามวิเคราะห์โลกปัจจุบันที่เสนอว่าเราทุกคนอยู่ภายใต้ cybernetics hypothesis ที่มองว่าทุกอย่างตั้งแต่ชีวิตจนถึงระบบเศรษฐกิจเป็นระบบๆ หนึ่งซึ่งควบคุมได้ ปรับเปลี่ยนและดูแลตัวเองได้ และพยายามให้คาดเดาได้ผ่านข้อมูลจำนวนมหาศาลซึ่งถูกป้อนเข้ามาอย่างไม่มีวันหยุด ชีวิตเรากลายเป็นชีวิตที่เราแทบไม่รู้จัก แต่มีอะไรบางอย่าง (THEY) ที่รู้จักเราดีกว่าเรา ภายใต้สถานการณ์นี้ชีวิตเราจึงถูกควบคุมด้วยอัลกอริธึมที่มีเราเองเป็นส่วนหนึ่งในการป้อนข้อมูลที่ช่วยมันควบคุมตัวเอง แบบที่ผมกำลังทำอยู่ตอนนี้ เราเป็นแรงงานฟรีๆ ของระบบสังคมและเศรษฐกิจที่บอกว่าเราเป็นอิสระ แต่ให้อิสระเฉพาะเท่าที่ไม่ทำให้ 'ระบบ' สั่นคลอน ความสุขส่วนตัวและความสำเร็จของปัจเจกจึงเป็นเสรีภาพขั้นสุด แต่ความสุขส่วนรวมและชีวิตที่ดีขึ้นร่วมกันกลับเป็นภัยคุกคาม เพราะนั่นอาจหมายถึงการสั่นคลอนตัว 'ระบบ' เป็นลำดับแรก การต่อสู้จึงต้องอาศัยความวุ่นวาย สร้างความตระหนกตกใจ ทำให้ระบบรวน ทำให้กลไกการทำงานของมันไม่เป็นอย่างที่มันเป็น คือการเข้าไปใช้งานเทคโนโลยีภายในระบบเพื่อเป้าประสงค์อื่นที่นอกเหนือจากที่ระบบอนุญาต

[Felipe Arriagada · Rating 4 out of 5]

El libro propone una teoria coherente de criticar el capitalismo y las posibilidades cibernéticas. Sin embargo, sus posibilidades de revuelta no dejan de ser ensoñaciones de "situacionistas europeos trasnochados" como señala pablo rodriguez en el prologo de la edición que leí. El mismo Tiqqun establece como posibilidad de la revuelta la creación de una base, un terreno fértil para surgir, al modo de la guerrilla de Lawrence de Arabia, via la proopaganda o una forma radical de la autonomiía. Es dificil pensar esas bases o esos núcleos desde el sectarismo , incluso hacia el mismo mundo anarquista que propone Tiqqun. Eso no quita que sus premisas y su análisis se presenten correctos. La opacidad como forma de combatir al capitalismo cibernético resulta interesante en un contexto de omnipresencia del dato, la data science, los modelos de machine learning, etc.

[El · Rating 2 out of 5]

Offensively opaque, indeed. There are perceptive passages here and there on cybernetics and political technologies’ explicit promise of control. But if this is the best that French left academics can do against “cybernetic capitalism / Empire / THEY” (other than breaking a few windows and insulting Antonio Negri), then they may as well just abandon the charade and go into marketing. Judging from the example of the so-called Invisible Committee and its culmination in the Conspiracist Manifesto, that’s precisely what they did.

[Slow Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

had my doubts going in given my background in cybernetics but this is an impressively synoptic (and vicious, always vicious) critique of socio-cybernetics as the dominant method of human subjugation in the 21st century

[Augustus · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The Empire, armed with cybernetics, insists on autonomy for it alone, as the unitary system of the totality: it is thus forced to annihilate all autonomy whenever it is heterogeneous”

Quite marvelous book indeed.

[Joanna Forde · Rating 4 out of 5]

A call for chaos through chaotic writing.

[Dominic Trinajstic · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic theory book, (a must-read if you're interested in ideas about left-accelerationism) and a brilliantly crafted argument that appears to hold up 20 years later.

[Alana · Rating 5 out of 5]

yasss speak on it 🗣

[Syd · Rating 4 out of 5]

pairs well with the docuseries All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this before reading other Tiqqun, later things make more sense through this.

[Emma Poopy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Central text i alla fall i vägnar av mitt förstånd av kritiken av flödeskapitalismen.
Intressant referensram har Tiqqun, och ett relativt lättillgängligt språkbruk med tanke på hur invecklat ämnet av diskurs faktiskt är.

[Emma Eugénie · Rating 4 out of 5]

extremely interesting, eye opening essay. though the alternatives given to the cybernetic hypothesis are a bit deceiving in my opinion (not a fan of the slow movement).

[Siya Kumar · Rating 4 out of 5]

i am opaque

[Luke Echo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Provocative exploration of the failures of 20th Century Marxist, Ecologist and Autonomista political theories in resisting the imaginary of cybernetic capitalism and governmentality. Although I found the vitalist insistence on "life" as something non-mechanical unjustified and hence left the work a ephemeral.

[Liam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Formulae to how one may render omnipresent empire obsolete, ineffectual: through rebellion, that is the metaphysical reappropriation of Being from ignorance where the relations between subject have become objects; commodified in their thought essence, behaviour, desires, gestures, attitudes & bodies themselves-conquered by the prevailing orthodoxy.

[Arnob Haque · Rating 1 out of 5]

Human security system-derived drivel.