[D66] The Ends of the World: Death

[A.OUT]

"The importance and frequency of the word “death” in Meillassoux's and
Brassier's writings is worth remarking upon. Meillassoux (2012) speaks
of “dead existence” and “dead matter” as the ultimate substance of the
cosmos, on which the phenomena of life and thought supervene
metaphysically ex nihilo, as realities that have no bearing on the
universe's inorganic substrate. Brassier, in turn, makes abundant use of
Freud's death drive as a cosmological principle, identifying a
thanatological tropism (“thanatropism”) in life and thought. The
emancipatory potential of this fatal attraction – emancipatory for
humans, it is understood; other living beings were not consulted – is
something that should be politically stimulated; Brassier's nihilism is
a militant stance, not a quietistic one."
--The Ends of the World, polity