Operation Valhalla by Friedrich Kittler

“‘The condition of being vanquished apparently contains an inexhaustible epistemological potential,’ especially when the defeated are forced to elaborate new methodological interpretations of history to account for the disturbing hiatus between expectation (we will win) and experience (we lost). Defeat is the ultimate defamiliarization exercise, a BRechtian V-effect with high casualty rates. If accepted and pondered, defeat will facilitate a new view of history. By contrast, victory breeds intellectual laziness, since it is liable to confirm established, self-serving historiographical narratives. The loser, thrown to the ground, is closer to the subterraneous movements of history than the winners strutting around on their victorious stilts.”

-Geoffrey Winthrop-Young, 2021