The
differential is the ideological difference between social classes. “Luxury beliefs” are indelible status markers. Once the luxury belief goes mainstream, the final station on Foucault’s long march from the French literature department, it is useless as a marker. Unless something still more radical—
voluntary human extinction, maybe—comes down this pipeline—after the victory of the marker,
there is no marker at all. Energy has to flow from high to low voltage. Once everything is high voltage—
“Antiracism,” for instance, is no longer a marker. Hick preachers in Arkabama are “antiracist.” Your baby is “antiracist.” So is mine. It’s all good, man. We may move on from “antiracism”—we can never move
past it. It happened. Now it’s done. There are no cool teenage parties of the only nine “antiracist” skater kids in Oxford, Arkabama.
Live by fashion, die by fashion
! When there is no differential, there is no energy. The structures created by the energy remain, but there is no force that maintains them. Rather than being highly resilient under attack, they are highly friable under attack. They are husks without the power to defend or restore themselves.
