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4.14 AVERAGE
4.14 AVERAGE
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
challenging
dark
informative
slow-paced
challenging
informative
medium-paced
This book was very informative and eye opening!! A must read!
It's hard to rate a book like this. I definitely recommend it, but there are some parts that stick out sorely like the curmudgeonly grumbling at stuff like hip-hop which feels a bit tone deaf(to say the least). However the highs definitely outweigh the lows.
Anyone with leftist inclinations has to face the entrenched capitalist realism and Mark Fisher is definitely a great place to start thinking about this. He is very readable despite often talking about philosophically complicated ideas (there are in particular numerous invocations of Fredric Jamieson and Zizek, among others), and has quite a few incisive comments about the size of the enemy being faced, and how to start softening capitalism's grip over the societal unconscious.
I might have more to say later but for now I say give it a go.
Anyone with leftist inclinations has to face the entrenched capitalist realism and Mark Fisher is definitely a great place to start thinking about this. He is very readable despite often talking about philosophically complicated ideas (there are in particular numerous invocations of Fredric Jamieson and Zizek, among others), and has quite a few incisive comments about the size of the enemy being faced, and how to start softening capitalism's grip over the societal unconscious.
I might have more to say later but for now I say give it a go.
It is indeed easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. Fisher’s grandiose claims (seconded and pronounced by both Jameson and Žižek before him) do not seem far-fetched when relating them to the predicaments we’re living through. I must say that Fisher’s elaborate arguments, theoretical ponderings and fluxive writing make this book exorbitantly entertaining.
informative
medium-paced
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
now to get through the ‘mark fisher: cinema’ letterboxd list
I'll keep rereading this book just to feel something -- and what about it?
I would say this is an essential book to read on neoliberalism. It reminded me a lot of Zizek's work, not only in its denouncement of contemporary politics and discourse but through its literary and cinematic comparisons and references. For example, Fisher aptly recalls how The Children of Men describes the neoliberal regime, a state stripped of all functions except for the military and policing: "capitalism subsumes and consumes all of previous history...which can assign all cultural objects... a monetary value." Within this review, I will attempt to recap what Fisher means by capitalist realism is the ongoing ideological system that established itself in the 1980s under Reaganism and Thatcherism under which beliefs are transformed into artifacts, and capitalist realism is like realism in itself (4). Even more importantly capitalist realism "is supposed to immunize us against the seductions of fanaticism" (5), justifying our miserable conditions by saying there is no other option. Importantly, Fisher points out that although we know money has no intrinsic value, we still treat it as if it does, permitting our ironic disposition to perpetuate the useless item's value (12). This creates a "reflexive impotence" in which we passively accept the wrongness of our situation (21).
At another point, Fisher pointed out the mundane "supersaturation of corruption" and evil banalness that occupies the works of Frank Miller and other Reagan-era crime fiction (11). Perhaps the most important point is that moral critiques of capitalism alone make us complacent and reinforce capitalist realism; rather, we must sho how capitalism is "inconsistent or untenable" (16); for example, how capitalism destroys the environment and its own sustainability with its emphasis on perpetual growth (18). To defeat Capital, there must be an authentic alternative to Capital (79). Another valuable reference is the comparison Fisher makes between Heat, a cold, rootless world, to Goodfellas and The Godfather, cruel terfs with established connections and traditions, in order to distinguish the uprootedness difference between Fordist and post-Fordist production and society (31): "you find yourself employed in a series of short-term jobs, unable to plan for the future" (34). Fisher also invents the term "market Stalinism" in which the post-Ford shallow expectations of symbols and public relations resemble the Soviet Union in the 1930s (42).
In addition, capitalism realism is so daunting becuase there is no big "Other" to rally against; the system more so resembles a kafkaesque endless line of bureaucratic meddling (49 - 50), like a call center, "a world without memory," an isolated and disconnected, yet eternal and ubiquitous paternalism. Toward the end, Fisher points out that the slightest blimp might be enough to change the "horizons of possibility under capitalism realism" (81), although I am unsure whether or not he considered fascism rather than socialism emerging under such a horizon.
At another point, Fisher pointed out the mundane "supersaturation of corruption" and evil banalness that occupies the works of Frank Miller and other Reagan-era crime fiction (11). Perhaps the most important point is that moral critiques of capitalism alone make us complacent and reinforce capitalist realism; rather, we must sho how capitalism is "inconsistent or untenable" (16); for example, how capitalism destroys the environment and its own sustainability with its emphasis on perpetual growth (18). To defeat Capital, there must be an authentic alternative to Capital (79). Another valuable reference is the comparison Fisher makes between Heat, a cold, rootless world, to Goodfellas and The Godfather, cruel terfs with established connections and traditions, in order to distinguish the uprootedness difference between Fordist and post-Fordist production and society (31): "you find yourself employed in a series of short-term jobs, unable to plan for the future" (34). Fisher also invents the term "market Stalinism" in which the post-Ford shallow expectations of symbols and public relations resemble the Soviet Union in the 1930s (42).
In addition, capitalism realism is so daunting becuase there is no big "Other" to rally against; the system more so resembles a kafkaesque endless line of bureaucratic meddling (49 - 50), like a call center, "a world without memory," an isolated and disconnected, yet eternal and ubiquitous paternalism. Toward the end, Fisher points out that the slightest blimp might be enough to change the "horizons of possibility under capitalism realism" (81), although I am unsure whether or not he considered fascism rather than socialism emerging under such a horizon.