Franco Berardi – författare

We have entered the gateway to the apocalypse. This theological concept is the best metaphor to describe the world in which we are already living. Chaos is all around us: political folly, economical delirium, ecological catastrophe, intellectual cynicism, technological simulation of life. This is what Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi suggests in this wry, dark, disconcerting but also brilliant and invigorating journey through the main events that we have witnessed in recent years.One century after the Communist revolution, the very idea that the world could be changed for the better seems dead once and for all. Every time that a new change occurs nowadays, it seems to be a change for the worse. But the fact that nothing can save us any more shouldn’t be seen as a form of fatality or a reason for surrender. On the contrary, if our world is dead, then the space is open for another to appear – a world where apocalypse can shake us out of our zombie-like contemporary existence. The second coming of Communism will have nothing to do with 1917. Apocalypse has to be conceived of as a metaphor, and Communism is a metaphor too: the metaphor of the possible deployment of the potentials of the mind.

Félix Guattari: Thought, Friendship, and Visionary Cartography, by Franco Berardi 'Bifo', originates in the author's close personal acquaintance with Félix Guattari's writings and political engagement in the context of Berardi Bifo's activism in Italian autonomist politics and his ongoing collaboration with Guattari in the 1970s and 1980s.

We have entered the gateway to the apocalypse. This theological concept is the best metaphor to describe the world in which we are already living. Chaos is all around us: political folly, economical delirium, ecological catastrophe, intellectual cynicism, technological simulation of life. This is what Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi suggests in this wry, dark, disconcerting but also brilliant and invigorating journey through the main events that we have witnessed in recent years.One century after the Communist revolution, the very idea that the world could be changed for the better seems dead once and for all. Every time that a new change occurs nowadays, it seems to be a change for the worse. But the fact that nothing can save us any more shouldn’t be seen as a form of fatality or a reason for surrender. On the contrary, if our world is dead, then the space is open for another to appear – a world where apocalypse can shake us out of our zombie-like contemporary existence. The second coming of Communism will have nothing to do with 1917. Apocalypse has to be conceived of as a metaphor, and Communism is a metaphor too: the metaphor of the possible deployment of the potentials of the mind.

We live in an age of impotence. Stuck between global war and global finance, between identity and capital, we seem to be incapable of producing that radical change that is so desperately needed. Is there still a way to disentangle ourselves from a global order that shapes our politics as well as our imagination?In his most systematic book to date, renowned Italian theorist Franco Berardi Bifo tackles this question through a solid yet visionary analysis of the three fundamental concepts of Possibility, Potency, and Power. Overcoming any temptation of giving in to despair or nostalgia, Berardi proposes the notion of Futurability as a way to remind us that even within the darkness of our current crisis, still lies dormant the horizon of possibility.

What is the relationship between capitalism and mental health? In his most unsettling book to date, Franco “Bifo” Berardi embarks on an exhilarating journey through philosophy, psychoanalysis and current events, searching for the social roots of the mental malaise of our age.Spanning an array of horrors – the Aurora “Joker” killer; Anders Breivik; American school massacres; the suicide epidemic in Korea and Japan; and the recent spate of “austerity” suicides in Europe – Heroes dares to explore the darkest shadow cast by the contemporary obsession with relentless competition and hyper-connectivity. In a volume that crowns four decades of radical intellectual work, Berardi develops the psychoanalytical insights of his friend Félix Guattari and proposes dystopian irony as a strategy to disentangle ourselves from the deadly embrace of absolute capitalism.

The Unconscious knows no time, it has no before-and-after, it does not have a history of its own. Yet, it does not always remain the same. Different political and economic conditions transform the way in which the Unconscious emerges within the "psychosphere" of society. In the early 20th century, Freud characterized the Unconscious as the dark side of the well-order framework of Progress and Reason. At the end of the past century, Deleuze and Guattari described it as a laboratory: the magmatic force ceaselessly bringing to the fore new possibilities of imagination. Today, at a time of viral pandemics and in the midst of the catastrophic collapse of capitalism, the Unconscious has begun to emerge in yet another form. In this book, Franco 'Bifo' Berardi vividly portraits the form in which the Unconscious will make itself manifest for decades to come, and the challenges that it will pose to our possibilities of political action, poetic imagination, and therapy.

Depression is rife amongst young people the world over. But what if this isn't depression as we know it, but instead a reaction to the chaos and collapse of a seemingly unchangeable and unliveable future?In Quit Everything, Franco Berardi argues that this "depression" is actually conscious or unconscious withdrawal of psychological energy and a dis-investment of desire that he defines instead as "desertion". A desertion from political participation, from the daily grind of capitalism, from the brutal reality of climate collapse, and from a society which offers nothing but chaos and pain.Berardi analyses why this desertion is on the rise and why more people are quitting everything in our age of political impotence and the rise of the far-right, asking if we can find some political hope in desertion amongst the ruins of a world on the brink of collapse.

The notion and nature of play has puzzled and inspired thinkers over the course of history. Interpreted as excessive, illusive, and unproductive, play and imagination have over time permeated cultural spheres and now emerge from the 20th century as two critical ingredients of today s artistic and political discourse. Emphasizing productivity through spontaneity, risk, freedom and pleasure, the act of play and radical imagination have motivated not only significant research and experimentation within the arts, but also social and political change. As artist practices, curatorial models, and institutional frameworks continue to shift, each development makes visible the transformative impact of this critical investigation. This book reflects the conceptual backbone of 2013 Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art Play! Recapturing the Radical Imagination and illuminates an active discourse.

Att producera sanningar i maktens tjänst Produktionen av sådana sanningar i maktens tjänst diskuteras utifrån fyra teman: idén om »civilisationernas kamp«, konsumtionsideologin, samtidens tidsuppfattning och antiziganismens återkomst. Bland de internationella medverkande märks den politiska filosofen Seyla Benhabib, som skriver om Charlie Hebdo-massakern och den »civilisatoriska förtvivlan« som fortsätter att driva fram terror i Mellanöstern. Den politiska filosofen Mark Devenney anknyter till samma tema med sitt bidrag om självmordsbombningar som ett symptom på den globala världsordningens maktskillnader. Filosofen Franco »Bifo« Berardi skriver om 1900-talets framstegsoptimism och 2000-talets förlorade framtidstro, medan historikern Peter Osborne tolkar fascismen som en form av reaktionär modernism. Numret innehåller också den första svenska översättningen av filosofen och sociologen Renata Salecl, som i sitt bidrag behandlar kopplingen mellan konsumtion och ångest i det moderna valfrihetssamhället. Bland de svenska bidragen finns retorikern Frida Buhre, som nytolkar Hannah Arendts teori om det politiska. Idéhistorikern John Björkman skriver om 1800-talets ideologiska omvälvningar och arbetarklassens framträdande på historiens scen. I numrets avslutande text, av Johan Örestig, Hanna Bäckström och Erik Persson, tolkas de samtida antiziganistiska tendenserna i Sverige mot bakgrund av välfärdsstatens moraliska ekonomi – ett ideologiskt normsystem som bygger på rättskaffens arbete samtidigt som det underförstått förnekar vissa människogrupper »rätten till rättigheter«. Sammantaget visar numrets texter att ideologin verkar som starkast när den framstår som något annat, som sunt förnuft. Men i ett samhälle där ideologin härskar, krymper också fantasin och visionerna om andra möjliga sätt att organisera samhället. Med Fronesis nr 52–53 vill vi stärka samtidens intellektuella självförsvar och möjliggöra nya diskussioner som blockeras av de dominerande ideologiska ramarna.