"Today's prominent founders and investors communicate in a visual grammar that shares a great deal with the aesthetic languages of Italian Futurism, primarily, but also of 'return to order' neoclassicism, World War II-era propaganda, and modernist museum branding."
"This move proudly dovetails with a broader effort in the US to repackage the right as transgressive and rule-bending rather than conservative and tradition-bound."
"'War Secretary' Pete Hegseth recently summed up the attitude of the administration with a phrase straight out of the playbook of F. T. Marinetti, characterizing US military action in Iran as motivated by 'maximum lethality, not tepid legality; violent effect, not politically correct.'"
"Technostalgia for the historical avant-garde in venture circles emerged in the run-up to Trump's reelection, most grandiosely in the form of venture capitalist Marc Andreessen's 2023 Techno-Optimist Manifesto."
Venture capitalists are increasingly using a military-industrial aesthetic that mirrors 20th-century artistic movements like Italian Futurism and neoclassicism. This trend reflects a broader cultural shift in the US, repackaging right-wing ideologies as transgressive. The defense-tech sector's cultural output aligns with the aggressive tone of the Trump administration, exemplified by figures like Pete Hegseth. Additionally, the emergence of technostalgia in venture circles, highlighted by Marc Andreessen's Techno-Optimist Manifesto, underscores this blending of military and avant-garde influences in contemporary discourse.
#venture-capital #military-industrial-complex #cultural-aesthetics #right-wing-ideology #technostalgia
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