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10:43

(In »The free and open Internet versus the ecological apocalypse«)

Syntheism is thus a revolutionary subtractionism. To subtract is to withdraw from the contemporary chaos in order to be able to formulate an accurate truth of the future that can then be given full expression. Both Critchley and the French philosopher Alain Badiou claim that the genuine utopia is based on subtraction and not destruction. But it is not a pause from reality such as during a capitalist holiday in the sunshine that we are talking about here. Critchley is even an aggressive opponent of the Marxist John Gray’s ideas of subtraction as a rational and tranquil oasis in an irrational and chaotic reality, something which he contemptuously considers to be a kind of passive nihilism. He rejects Gray’s external and objective shift within physical geography and replaces this with a genuinely syntheist subtraction, which is an internal and subjective experience that entails a shift in the mental landscape and makes possible truth as an act. Critchley calls this truth as an act mystical anarchism.