Unsettling the Politics of Race: Kevin Bruyneel's Settler Memory

Abstract

large, as Critchley’s definition of “active” nihilism implies. Examples in this realm span far-right and racist acts of terror, so-called Incels who fantasize about murdering women and, relatedly, the so-called “epidemic” of domestic violence and femicide. In each case, a nihilist dilemma lies at the heart of the futilitarian condition and articulates the challenge of transforming futility from an individual experience to a source of collective solidarity. The relationship between futility and nihilism thus concerns how political possibilities are (im)mobilized, how subjective experiences of meaninglessness or pointlessness can be turned inward, outward, or both depending on the extant forms of collectivity available to them. While Futilitarianism explores “the relationship between political desire and the practice of politics” and suggests that “the pandemic has accentuated the simultaneous decline of political deliberation and increase of political desire for the wider populace” (130), the many examples Vallelly discusses are only the beginning of where analysis and critique might go using the conceptual tools this book offers.