In Laruelle’s quadripartite — rather than dialectical — schema, a schema he calls the “Nietzsche Machine,” the Dionysian (that is to say, the non-signifying but active and unmediated forces, or what he calls “Rebellion”) mediates the Apollonian (that is to say, the signifying forces of “Mastery”), but only as the other side of a duplicitous interface. “The Nietzschean Cut contains no term, no essence, but only relations of duplicity and of chiasmus.”34 Both poles of the interface are active in the “Nietzsche-Thought” (i.e., in Nietzschean thinking); the one does not annul or sublate the other, but instead crosses-over or better-yet double-crosses the other. This “duplicity” (as Laruelle calls it) accounts for the presence of both fascistic and subversive tendencies in a Nietzschean mode of thinking. It is from this duplicity that Laruelle develops a theory regarding the inherently political function of Nietzschean thinking: “The Nietzsche-Thought is a complex political process with two ‘contradictory’ poles that are not mediated: the subordinate relation of a secondary ‘fascistic’ pole (Mastery) to a principal revolutionary’ pole (Rebellion). Nietzsche became fascist to better defeat fascism; he assumed the worst forms of Mastery to become the Rebel. […] We are all fascist readers of Nietzsche, we are all revolutionary readers of Nietzsche.”
The Digital Dionysus: Nietzsche and the Network-Centric Condition
