This is going to sound insane but I absolutely promise you it's true. The first use of the word "accelerationist" that I've been able to identify is in a sci-fi novel from 1967. The book is Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny.
It's set in a space far-future peopled with technologically-augmented functional immortals who style themselves as Hindu gods. It's about the end of the space Kali Yuga.
The protagonist is Mahasamatman, "Sam" to his friends, who introduces space Buddhism to cripple the power of the post-human tech-reincarnating space gods. He used to be one of them himself. He was (to the surprise of nobody who knows why I'm talking about this) Kalki.
Sam is the last Accelerationist. His grand scheme is to break the power of the gods and distribute their technological innovations to their human and alien subjects.
"It proposes that we of Heaven give unto those who dwell below of our knowledge and powers and substance. This act of charity would be directed to the end of raising their condition of existence to a higher level, akin to that which we ourselves occupy...
... Then every man would be as a god, you see. The result of this, of course, would be that there would no longer be any gods, only men." In this respect the book's philosophy is much more closely aligned with technoindustrial accelerationism than with terrorist acceleration.
I haven't finished it yet because I have to write this bloody paper, but don't run away with the idea that this is a fascist book. It's not. Not remotely.
Zelazny is, mercifully, getting his Hindu cosmology at first hand. This isn't the Kali Yuga filtered through Evola, it's just the wolf age, when vice and despotism prevail. In the space Kali Yuga even the gods have become tyrants, and Sam's project is to democratize immortality.
HOWEVER. I find it impossible, in light of the existence of this book, to write off the subsequent use of the word "accelerationism" to describe Evolian Kali Yuga surfing as a coincidence without further inquiry.
I don't even have a hypothesis as to how it's connected, but I dare you to look me in the eye and tell me that there's nothing to see here. Both accelerationisms are in this book. I don't know what to do with that. I don't know what it means either. Don't @ me.
I guess what I'm saying is Noyes borrowed the word to describe Land but did someone else read this book and see a very different ideological analogy.
You can follow @heupchurch.
Tip: mention @twtextapp on a Twitter thread with the keyword “unroll” to get a link to it.

Latest Threads Unrolled: