Hey, friends! As always, I have a request, and a little more urgent one this go around. This is the first video that has been demonitized via the sweet copyright system. With this being my gig as a student, this is definitely painful. I tried to mend it, but it would have destroyed the video. If possible, this channel only survives via Patreon. If you are in decent financial standing and would love to support, here is the link to do so: patreon.com/epochphilosophy Thank you guys for all the support. Truly appreciate all that you do.
It sounds like some questionable links have been drawn between capitalism, consumerism and other unrelated cultural aspects. He makes it sound like as if capitalism must be accompanied by consumerism, and it suggests that our economic system, culture and believes coalesce into this monolithic thing called capitalism realism. It makes too many assumptions regarding how cultural and political evils are deeply embed in capitalism, but not never stops to consider that they are fundamentally issues about human behavior that can exist outside of capitalism. Capitalism was not introduced by aliens. It evolved from human social behavior. Perhaps capitalism is a reflection of human nature and not the other way around. The economic gears of capitalism exist because people have a tendency to want more things, but unfortunately resources are limited. Perhaps capitalists societies are an modeled after our innate and insatiable need to always want more. Our basic survival dependents on constantly getting more food, water and having more sex. This is not a product a capitalism, it is human nature.
@@epochphilosophy Ok... so he asserts capitalism must come with consumerism, but I don't see how this idea is explored. He described why consumerism CAN thrive in capitalism, but not necessarily that it is caused by it. Why is it fundamentally impossible to have a capitalism without consumerism? Besides that, how can anyone attempt to dissect capitalism with such depth without even covering how it was established in the first place?
@@AdrianoFeria th-cam.com/video/DnPmg0R1M04/w-d-xo.html From minute 15 about you'll get an outline of why consumerism necessarily arises out of capitalism. "It evolved from human social behavior." - we live in a society, well spotted "The economic gears of capitalism exist because people have a tendency to want more things, but unfortunately resources are limited. Perhaps capitalists societies are an modeled after our innate and insatiable need to always want more." - you're confusing materialism with a general pleasure principle "Our basic survival dependents on constantly getting more food, water and having more sex." - not true. As a silly example, if you eat til you're fat you won't run very fast from the lion. Concluding that capitalism arises out of human nature from the above is stretching it to say the least
@@axelkruse1544"we live in a society, well spotted " fuck off with your patronizing attitude. "confusing materialism with a general pleasure principle". No, I am saying these are related. "As a silly example, if you eat til you're fat you won't run very fast from the lion." Almost half of the USA population is obese, I don't see them getting eaten by lions. You have to factor intelligence in the equation, rather than just the raw ability to outrun predators. I'm still waiting to hear what is a better model for society other than some form of capitalism considering that resources are not unlimited.
I've read this book. The part that hit me the most is where he mentions "depressive hedonia". When he describes a depressive state that, rather than makes you lose interest in things, drives you to seek out pleasure just to ward off that endless despair. I feel this everyday. I want so badly to be free, but I know I'm not.
Lmfao, this is true. Sorry about that. This was actually a very hard video to make. It's so massively relevant and impactful. Very rare theory can get to you like Capitalist Realism does.
One thing to keep in mind. We are the solution. With our actions day to day. Every individual person is the solution and has a responsibility to engage with life. That mindset, along with collective empathy is the solution. As zizek said, it’s patient theoretical work. We need dream of a better future and act on it. We need to breed and cultivate that optimism to push humanity into better days. You can do this and embody this while doing anything. Whether you work a blue collar job or as president of the United States. Inform others. Share these videos. But most importantly, life your life engaged and help wherever you can. Don’t destroy your life and stay miserable over it. Capitalism feeds on that. Cheers fellow internet human.
Fisher was one of the first leftists work I read, I couldn't understand all of it, but what I did understand had a huge impact on my worldviews. Especially his critique of mental health, so obvious but at the same time I never really thought of it. I had been struggling with depression, fatigue for years, blaming my "chemical imbalance", but never asked why there was "imbalance" in the first place. Amazing video, you convinced me to read it again!
It reminds me of Fanon. Fanon was a psychiatrist in French occupied Algiers treating his oppressed countrymen who had grown depressed, suicidal, and somewhat mad. Many of his patients, despite his best efforts died by their own hand. He realized there was no way to cure these men because the problem was not in them, but in the brutal french occupation. So he literally joined the revolution!
Honestly I'd recommend people work backwards these days with stuff like Fisher, Zizek, Byung-Chul Han, and Saito, then move onto Marx and Lenin. Fisher especially I feel is pretty easy to grasp on an emotional level for people who have never engaged with leftist philosophy.
@@tj-co9goalso the lack of access to proper communal experiences creating isolation. And the commodification of necessary goods creating a constant sense of insecurity. Also pushing our bodies beyond their limits in pursuit of the money needed to relieve our situation. We are constantly hungry, lonely, endangered, and tired. And we're also constantly bombarded with the idea that the opposite is true. Chemical imbalance doesn't seem sufficient to describe what all that does to the neurotransmitters, NGL.
"It is well enough that people of the nation do NOT understand our banking & monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." Henry Ford knew it.
You certainly did Mark Fisher justice. I just finished reading the book and it’s the first theory book I’ve read. I’ve done a lot of research on capitalism and was always deemed as “crazy” for not seeing this current reality as a fixture of life. I remember as a child I always had a negative perception of the phrase “life’s not fair.” I’m beginning to understand the implications of that. On the bright side, with the effects of capitalist realism being so prevalent with each passing day, the youth is particularly active in revolt. There’s theory being spread, but most importantly, action being taken. Every single person is part of the solution. I’ll be sharing this video and book with friends. Great work man.
Ironically, people who like capitalism and reactionary politics are more likely to believe that life is fair than others. The first step in fixing a problem is recognizing it exists.
The reference to Amazon at the end of this video should serve as a terrifying reminder of just how correct Fisher was in his assessment of where we live in the 21st century. Thanks for the synopsis all the same.
Having watched a ton of videos about Capitalist Realism, I can safely say you definitely succeeded in making the best and most comprehensive video about it yet. Bravo!
"work now exists for the illusion of work" that is powerful... It's so existential knowing In the future I might have to work doing nothing for anyone every day for the rest of my life... I literally changed my goal of life from being a youtuber / graphic designer into politician/activist because I realised it's not about enjoyment but truly doing something and making the world a better place. NO OFFENCE to you of course, you are youtuber actually trying to encourage economic discourse and I think you are doing a fine job at that.
The emotions and feelings I’ve had while working for a US pharma manufacturer are well articulated in this exposé. The company offers resources to “manage” one’s stress, but NEVER acknowledges that they are the primary cause of it, and speaking with a therapist or doing mindfulness meditation will not remove the cause. Instead they offer banal advice to achieve “work-life balance” while expecting us to be available to call into meetings on weekends and whilst on vacation (“Team Player”). Matthew Crawford’s “Shop Class as Soulcraft” nicely complements Capitalist Realism.
I stopped after your introduction and read the book, and it’s insane how closely your selected points are to the highlights I made while reading. I think you achieved your goal for this video, but what worries me is the difficulty in getting “the average person” to care at all. Fisher points out that much of modern [media] tells people how to FEEL, and considering large scale issues sure makes humans FEEL bad. We are conditioned from a young age to avoid these feelings, and to not inflict them upon others. I struggle to find the proper time and place to share ideas like this; even recommending a short video like this one is too much of a commitment for all but a few very close friends. There’s also the inherent worry which you mention: people will learn, and then feel like some mission has been accomplished because of that temporary reckoning. If Trump taught us anything, modern politics does still tell viewers what to think. Billions have been spent spreading blatant, provable lies... imagine if those resources were put towards reckoning with and communicating facts that will help our grandchildren not be cooked alive? A corrupted framework capable of getting masses to care does still exist, it’s just in the wrong hands. Then again, I suppose I’d be expecting capitalism’s problems to be answered within a capitalist framework. These are tough issues.
you can get people to admit marxist ideas to themselves if you’re silver tongued enough even in casual political/economic conversation with simple observations
The average person knows things are screwed, but they also know that they still have a lot less to lose. And it's easy for propagandists to manipulate the proletariat into destroying its own revolutionary potential.
Saw this on r/philosophy, and wow, this video was so well made! It's my first time to hear about these subjects, so it was a bit too dense for me. But, I will rewatch this every few days until I understand all those concepts you mentioned. Capitalist realism truly hit me in my core.. working for money's sake. It's deeply disturbing, yet it's difficult to accept because capital is everything when you live in a developing country, especially one that is run by corrupt politicians. My father always tells me (in our vernacular) "Son, if you have no money, then you will be maltreated." Our family lives and breathes capitalism, which is why the truth that you've laid out in this video is a struggle to digest. Thank you for sharing this bitter pill that I must swallow.
Mark was a massive loss to UK academia. God rest his soul. I wished I known him in life. He was the same age as me and lived near my sister in law in Felixstowe.
@@epochphilosophy totally. It helped bring to light my ignorance of what postmodern theory was. I don’t know of any other book that diagnoses our condition better than this. It introduced me to a lot more than the more orthodox Marxism I used to swear by
Holy shit it is unreal how much this video covered for 25 minutes, and it felt dense but not dry. I mean wow. I still barely understand this stuff but I can certainly attest that it rings true and undergirds my personal politics and values.
Once again, you've managed to encapsulate a thorough book into a concise and feasible video. The essence of capitalist realism is a modern iteration of Gramsci's cultural hegemony, and to me, it embodies the intertwined nature of all your videos, an ode to rethinking the status quo, and the rational veils that linger behind them. Overall a fascinating video that I will definitely be recommending to those not particularly submerged into theory. Definitely worth the wait.
One of my new favorite channels, thank you for your educational content. I have no money to offer you but I hope my praise of your work provides even a modicum of compensation.
I just recently found out i have schizoid personality disorder. But what schocked me about it is, that the system around me didn't actually see anything "wrong" with me, i work perfectly fine in this system. I struggled to understand that my specific condition isn't "normal" (whatever that means, but let's say "mentally healthy human") i'm so far removed from every other person - and I just rationally thought that this CAN'T be the norm for a social animal. I don't feel lonely, but I see people suffering with the loneliness and I would never think that other people should be like me...because this state of being is just waiting for life to be over, because nothing matters to me and I don't have the ability to make things matter. But I think that ability in humans is beautiful...never stop caring!
The idea of a “normal” categorized human has always been a farce, my dude. Foucault and Deleuze and Guattari have a lot of interesting work in that realm that you might be interested. Definitely sad to hear you feel far removed from others, but if it’s any solace, many neurotypical individuals feel the exact same. You keep doing right, be good to people, and doing you my dude.
my favorite video on capitalist realism / mark fisher! seriously thank you. i send this one to people when mark fisher comes up and they wanna know what he's about.
This is incredibly kind! Being quite a nerd on theory, Capitalist Realism is really the only book I really recommend nearly everyone read tbh. It's extremely powerful.
Deep illustrated summary, although i waited for the eloquently forged phrase" depression hedonia" which is contrary to the known "anhedonia " the infamous sign of depression in clinical psychoatry, depression hedonia is the way we pacify ourselves in capitalist society, a more or less the end result of consumerism but by the K-punk's dictionary
Such a shame Mark Fisher passed away, I immediately wanted to hear Fisher speak with "This Is Hell" - a fantastic weekly radio show that is 26 yrs old now. Thank you @op
Excellent video Epoch. Looks like you put a lot of info into it. It's a good book for an introduction into the horrors that capitalism as a system offers that we experience on a daily basis. It's not written directly for academics so it's not too hard to grasp for beginners. I do have some issues with it but you did an excellent job breaking down some core arguments of the book. Congrats. Keep up the great work!
Sometimes I think of capitalism as a kind of living ideology, and through Nietzsche I’ve always wondered if his idea of the eternal return would also apply to the ideology of capitalism and fascism. I’m probably just confusing a lot of stuff together but I think it was Zizek that said that capitalism seems sturdy because of its eternal state of crisis and that sounds like an eternal state to me
Liberal capitalism is able to assimilate foreign material to make itself more resilient. For example, Locke originally grounded human rights in a Deist God. As Stirner points out, human rights are a spook. Bentham and Mill continue Locke’s project without appealing to God (utilitarianism). Then Rawls makes the case for affirmative action and liberal interventionism. Nozick represents the more ‘classical’ Reaganite side of liberalism, but it’s all liberalism nonetheless. Most so-called Leftists are just Keynesians and they don’t even know it. If you really want to move beyond liberalism, we reach into Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, Spengler, Evola, Deleuze, etc.
I'm so glad I found this channel! Your videos are really great, you're inspiring me to get some seriously necessary reading done. Subscribed, looking forward to more of your stuff!
I really appreciate your effort in this video. The public perception you displayed when talking about interventions for mental health (focusing solely on intrapersonal) is not the reality of practitioners in the clinical mental health field for the last approx. 30+ years. In fact, the counseling field focuses heavily on advocacy by addressing systemic oppression, social determinants of health, holistic factors that contribute to health, barriers to treatment, and more. Rehabilitation counselors and marriage and family therapists have done phenomenal work addressing and working with systems. Take, for example, the advocacy, program evaluation, and research efforts that led the way to programs and protections such as IDEA and the ADA.
Great work. Anything that brings Fisher's seminal work to a wider audience is always welcome. One minor comment, Marx himself didn't think that capitalism would *inevitably* destroy itself - he believed that a failure of socialism to overthrow it would lead to the "mutual ruin" of both contending classes. Some Marxists have taken this line but in my opinion (and that of most Marxists) they are simply wrong.
Oh my god during the debate i had exactly that feeling during the "this is so unpresidential" moment. When he said it, even though he might have intended it to refer to Trump it resonated as a description of the whole situation and political climate, including him. The appeal to the "presidential" felt so anachronistic. Thanks for putting it into more clear language, love the channel!
”A depth that psychology hasn’t been able to penetrate” this is true, except with the psychology of the psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, a misunderstood genuis that I highly recommend that you check out, his book ”Listen Little Man” is a pretty short read (changed my life and my view of things) if you like that one you can go with his ”Selected Writings” to understand him in a practical way.. He had the same insight and view as Fisher and Marcuse, but he offered a psychological solution on a mass scale. And ofc, great video, your work is fantastic, one of the best on youtube! There is also a great 1h lecture on Reich and modern capitalism on the stillspace berlin youtube channel, maybe check that one out first. Peace
Fuck man, I had to pauze this a few times and my eyes got wet although this is nothing new to me .But the way you put it... Good and depressing at the same time. The idea that the end of the world is easier to imagine then the end of capitalism got a more profound understanding for me now, and it is fuck scary bro...There is indeed no way out anymore.
I hope that this video (and Fisher's work) doesn't kill hope for the future. It is really hard to grapple with this stuff. This was probably the most difficult video I've made simply due to the subject matter. But, this is all process, and stuff ebs and flows, the future is still open.
the irony of all of this is that Epoch philosophy needs Patreon funding, and I am happy to contribute but just goes to show that everything is commodified
This is exactly that black mirror episode about credits, the system absorbes critique and commodifies it for average joes. Buy the book, share the video that's all capitalism need from you, bye
Not everything is a commodity even though that seems to be the end goal of the right wing establishment. Epoch doesn't need Patreon, he wants it. He has built that into the design of his labour to suit his circumstances. To say he doesn't have a choice is to say he cant think or create without a pay off. Its his choice of circumstance that determines the commodification of his creativity. Its like saying art works can only be produced if they can be sold.
@@bottomendbliss creating this content would require more free time than working people possess. If he refused to commodify his videos, then he would have spend that time engaging in some other commodified activity to pay the bills. The "choice" you are referring to here is ultimately a lie. It is the same illusion of choice and freedom which is the entire foundation of the capitalist ideological superstructure.
It was originally Baudrillard who states capitalism throws any hopes of change into pure inertia. I sense we see that now in the mass production of AOC t shirts,BLM stickers, and racial representation in the media, I.E, fighting the “system” only appears to neutralize the meaning of that fight because capitalism has essentially swallowed its own opposition.
Hi, this video is a good summary of capitalist realism. Can't think of much higher praise than that. Imho no other book provides as much as this does on re-reading. It isn't that the thesis is too complex or the language or ideas Fisher relies on are inaccessible. It is because the book takes such a rare, sober, unflinching step back to look at the monster in front of us in its entirety. Pick it up every 12 months or so and I guarantee it'll be just what you needed to read. (and rewatch this video when you do)
Haha...a brilliant video on Capitalist Realism that segues effortlessly into a beg for funding on patreon and a request to purchase items through an Amazon link...
Watching this video is a clear demonstration of capitalism realism as producing and showcasing such a video through a system like youtube is the very mechanism of the commodification of non-material, which prices an aggregation of ideas in a coherent and entertaining display, thus transforming knowledgeable discourse in a priceable commodity whose value is determined by the succes, or quantity of demand of the product, in a total-market logic which isn't free by any means because of it's inherent structure of total possession by the platform which is not only the producer, not of the content but of the commodification itself, but also the owner of the "added value", or surplus, it creates. But this owner, by paying a "dedomagement" to the author at the pro rata of it's "market value" is giving the false sens of an artificial form of property.
Amazing analysis - thank you so much, as there were a few portions of the book that I didn’t thoroughly grasp but because of your video, I now understand better. Thoughtful, great work for a thoughtful and great book that, albeit depressing, gives me tremendous hope in the very last line. A better world is possible - if we’re willing to fight, be reflective and be inclusive to those subjugated to capitalist realism. Cheers, and may Mark’s analysis live on to help us create that better world.
So what you're saying is... Capitalism is a autonomous self-sustaining dialectical synthesis machine, incorporating each antithesis as it goes on to consume everything...? Based
The first step towards 'communist realism' for me has been looking into some of radical policy ideas that have sprung up in different corners of leftist, mostly academic and party political think tank sphere - like, the idea of a 'sovereign monetary policy' in which all money is created directly by the central bank (which can be brought into more public interest control), not through large private banks, and seperated into savings and investments accounts to seperate money for exchange and money for capital. Or a 'universal basic income' and 'sovereign wealth funds' that more directly redistribute money to individuals and to fund important public works projects and services. 'Community land trusts' could bring ownership of housing to the community as a whole, bridging the gap between the desirable direct control of private home ownership and the utilitarian approach to providing housing as a service with public housing. As Mark Fisher advises - learn about how economic systems work, not necessarily the free market ideology, but the mechanisms and what they actually do - then you can desconstruct these grand monolithic concepts like 'the economy' into the boring flow charts that they actually are - and then find solutions and potential fixes.
this is way too good and have a good take in a lot of points of this contemporary world, deceptive pr, illusion of work, the end of history, etc . . . and yes, the very experiences too
He felt and understood it so deeply it ultimately exhausted him. Read all he wrote but keep it at arms length it’s depressingly too real. You will need all your energy for the authoritarianism to come to keep it breathing
I really enjoyed this presentation. I do think that you made a mistake when you said that most Americans would be against a health care system modeled on the Canadian system or the British NHS. Polls taken have shown strong majorities supporting such measures over the current US system for a long time.
That’s my major gripe with the current mental health therapy framework. Particularly CBT bur it applies to all derivatives of Freudian psychoanalytical frameworks. Everything is individual, intrapersonal driven, and doesn’t have any way to deal with the socio-economic inputs that also drive mental instability. Though it does recognize those inputs. So it takes the position, especially CBT, that you can not change your circumstances, instead, YOU need to change how you conceptualize those circumstances. It’s a methodology that keenly focuses on accepting what happened to you and where you are in life, and the goal is to make you feel better about that. There is no framework of noting that changing the circumstances is possible. If your problem is that you feel like a cog in the machine and have hopelessness in the world, the methodology is to acquire better coping mechanisms to be a cog in the machine. To feel better about the terrible world around you. All the while the mental health apparatus itself being a limited access, capital building machine itself because it’s too expensive for poors anyway. It is a supremely pro-capitalistic view of mental health. And you can’t tell me there’s any other way because we know communal and spiritualistic methodology are successful as well. I think it’s useful in things like PTSD where you can’t change your history and things done to you, so the only option is reshaping how you think about it. But it does fuck all to generalized depression which is mostly a response to societal structure and how it’s affecting you.
I tots agree with Marx in the quote at 4:50. Capitalist calculation is really culture-destroying / re-creating in its own diluted image. But maybe thats necessary (a necessary loss) for a global, healthy economy... A "rich culture" sounds great when you're not standing in bread lines or fighting other tribes for food. The totalizing, "narcissistic" objectivity of capitalism is what makes it so successful at functioning in a global context. It takes and gives in the same way all over the place. For nationalist ideologies (fascism *and* socialism to an extent) this is terrible. Both these ideologies are focused on culture and people. Work is less important than workers. And workers are not defined by their work. But maybe work is important. Sweatshops, backbreaking labor, 12+ hour shifts... all these things make the world go 'round and capitalism injects all of these into the world with enthusiasm at the expense of all else. We used to live in a more culturally rich society -- all of us, all around the world -- before neoliberal capitalism damaged it. Corporate media produces everything we watch. Movies nowadays are scared to push any agenda besides the most dystopian liberal crap (and when they do push something, they state it in the most obvious of terms so as not to be misunderstood as more or less radical). We live and breath advertising and have become soulless. How to solve this?... maybe a cultural change at the hands of a more authoritarian government. A ban on excessive advertising, a cultural director in charge of the art and architecture of every major city... I don't know: would Fisher support this? But student loan debt? Global warming? The non-cultural aspects of this analysis don't seem all that relevant... Capitalism can't solve them, but we don't expect it to (neither can a socialist economy to an extent).
So, awesome video as usual, but holy shit, the synchronicity of all synchronicities (well specifically to me of course, at this particular moment...lol)... Mere _hours ago_ I was listening to a _cover_ of In Bloom by Four Year Strong and seemingly randomly said, "hey, let's check out Kurt Cobain's suicide note" because I never actually did and wanted to see if maybe all those conspiracies actually had any merit because I had some vague inclination/awareness about his dissatisfaction with fame and all the inauthenticity that goes along with it, paralleling the consumerism he is also obviously quite well known for railing against. Needless to say, yeah there's quite a bit of legs to the whole thing, I especially found this quote disturbing: _"Well, I can't really speculate other than what he said to me, which was, he wasn't at all happy about it, success to him seemed like, I think, a brick wall. There was nowhere else to go but down, it was too artificial for him, and he wasn't an artificial person at all. He was actually, two weeks after he died, he was supposed to come here and he wanted to record a bunch of Leadbelly covers. It was kind of in secret, because, I mean, people would definitely not allow him to do that. You also have to wonder, he was a billion-dollar industry at the time, and if the industry had any idea at all of him wishing or wanting to get out, they couldn't have allowed that, you know, in life, because if he was just to get out of the scene, he'd be totally forgotten, but if he was to die, he'd be immortalized."_ And clearly I'm realizing now that I _really_ did all of this to come to this point in time and leave this last man-esque comment of distraction from humanity's inevitable decline. Yay.
You organize, join a base-building organization around your area or, a way we can all organize is start at your building and/or community. What do they want to change? What are they willing to fight on? (It’s a lot easy to join a base-building organization than doing it yourself though)
Awesome video on a great book. A little disappointed there was no mention of Foucault though. He was really the first to systematize the notion of ‘positive, attracting power’ His work on discipline and surveillance is also SUPER relevant to bureaucratization of the workplace and education. Capitalist realism is not possible without Foucault
Hey, friends! As always, I have a request, and a little more urgent one this go around. This is the first video that has been demonitized via the sweet copyright system. With this being my gig as a student, this is definitely painful. I tried to mend it, but it would have destroyed the video. If possible, this channel only survives via Patreon. If you are in decent financial standing and would love to support, here is the link to do so: patreon.com/epochphilosophy
Thank you guys for all the support. Truly appreciate all that you do.
It sounds like some questionable links have been drawn between capitalism, consumerism and other unrelated cultural aspects. He makes it sound like as if capitalism must be accompanied by consumerism, and it suggests that our economic system, culture and believes coalesce into this monolithic thing called capitalism realism. It makes too many assumptions regarding how cultural and political evils are deeply embed in capitalism, but not never stops to consider that they are fundamentally issues about human behavior that can exist outside of capitalism.
Capitalism was not introduced by aliens. It evolved from human social behavior. Perhaps capitalism is a reflection of human nature and not the other way around. The economic gears of capitalism exist because people have a tendency to want more things, but unfortunately resources are limited. Perhaps capitalists societies are an modeled after our innate and insatiable need to always want more. Our basic survival dependents on constantly getting more food, water and having more sex. This is not a product a capitalism, it is human nature.
@@AdrianoFeria "He makes it sound like as if capitalism must be accompanied by consumerism" lol ya that's the point.
@@epochphilosophy Ok... so he asserts capitalism must come with consumerism, but I don't see how this idea is explored. He described why consumerism CAN thrive in capitalism, but not necessarily that it is caused by it. Why is it fundamentally impossible to have a capitalism without consumerism? Besides that, how can anyone attempt to dissect capitalism with such depth without even covering how it was established in the first place?
@@AdrianoFeria th-cam.com/video/DnPmg0R1M04/w-d-xo.html From minute 15 about you'll get an outline of why consumerism necessarily arises out of capitalism.
"It evolved from human social behavior." - we live in a society, well spotted
"The economic gears of capitalism exist because people have a tendency to want more things, but unfortunately resources are limited. Perhaps capitalists societies are an modeled after our innate and insatiable need to always want more." - you're confusing materialism with a general pleasure principle
"Our basic survival dependents on constantly getting more food, water and having more sex." - not true. As a silly example, if you eat til you're fat you won't run very fast from the lion.
Concluding that capitalism arises out of human nature from the above is stretching it to say the least
@@axelkruse1544"we live in a society, well spotted
" fuck off with your patronizing attitude.
"confusing materialism with a general pleasure principle". No, I am saying these are related.
"As a silly example, if you eat til you're fat you won't run very fast from the lion." Almost half of the USA population is obese, I don't see them getting eaten by lions. You have to factor intelligence in the equation, rather than just the raw ability to outrun predators.
I'm still waiting to hear what is a better model for society other than some form of capitalism considering that resources are not unlimited.
I've read this book. The part that hit me the most is where he mentions "depressive hedonia". When he describes a depressive state that, rather than makes you lose interest in things, drives you to seek out pleasure just to ward off that endless despair. I feel this everyday. I want so badly to be free, but I know I'm not.
Damn this is exactly how I feel.
@Solitaire Meaning?
@@umidnazarov5725 I hear you.
That's how I feel and holy shit
I still can't understand why people query the increasing popularity of doomerism & drug addiction in young people
How to be miserable:
1. work a monotonous blue collar job
2. listen to this video at work
Lmfao, this is true. Sorry about that. This was actually a very hard video to make. It's so massively relevant and impactful. Very rare theory can get to you like Capitalist Realism does.
A very similar experience set me on a journey to answer the question: "How the fuck do I get more people to read this book?!?"
One thing to keep in mind. We are the solution. With our actions day to day. Every individual person is the solution and has a responsibility to engage with life. That mindset, along with collective empathy is the solution. As zizek said, it’s patient theoretical work. We need dream of a better future and act on it. We need to breed and cultivate that optimism to push humanity into better days. You can do this and embody this while doing anything. Whether you work a blue collar job or as president of the United States. Inform others. Share these videos. But most importantly, life your life engaged and help wherever you can. Don’t destroy your life and stay miserable over it. Capitalism feeds on that. Cheers fellow internet human.
Oh hey that's what I'm doing right now. Can confirm, currently spiraling into a pessimistic void.
@@hussainshah5868 and organize your workplace!
Fisher was one of the first leftists work I read, I couldn't understand all of it, but what I did understand had a huge impact on my worldviews. Especially his critique of mental health, so obvious but at the same time I never really thought of it. I had been struggling with depression, fatigue for years, blaming my "chemical imbalance", but never asked why there was "imbalance" in the first place.
Amazing video, you convinced me to read it again!
It reminds me of Fanon. Fanon was a psychiatrist in French occupied Algiers treating his oppressed countrymen who had grown depressed, suicidal, and somewhat mad. Many of his patients, despite his best efforts died by their own hand. He realized there was no way to cure these men because the problem was not in them, but in the brutal french occupation. So he literally joined the revolution!
There are still Communist and all sorts of pre-modern societies out there. You should go and live in one.
Chemical inbalance literally means the diet you eat is bad and insufficient because of the greed of people. So yeah.
Honestly I'd recommend people work backwards these days with stuff like Fisher, Zizek, Byung-Chul Han, and Saito, then move onto Marx and Lenin. Fisher especially I feel is pretty easy to grasp on an emotional level for people who have never engaged with leftist philosophy.
@@tj-co9goalso the lack of access to proper communal experiences creating isolation.
And the commodification of necessary goods creating a constant sense of insecurity.
Also pushing our bodies beyond their limits in pursuit of the money needed to relieve our situation.
We are constantly hungry, lonely, endangered, and tired. And we're also constantly bombarded with the idea that the opposite is true.
Chemical imbalance doesn't seem sufficient to describe what all that does to the neurotransmitters, NGL.
"It is well enough that people of the nation do NOT understand our banking & monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." Henry Ford knew it.
Yep
“Criticizing banking or citing Henry Ford is very antisemitic goyim. Just vote for Puppet 1 or Puppet 2 - er, I mean Harris or Trump.”
I don’t think he was alluding to what you think he was. Look up what he thought of jews lol
"a rejection of responsibility outside of the pursuit of capital." perfectly stated!!
Tis the way of neoliberalism. It isn't just an ideology, it's an ontology!
Oh yes. Acutely translated...Republican
I can't help but laugh out loud every time an ad is served while watching this well-done digestion of Mark Fisher
That's what adblockers are for!
I got a Daily Wire ad 💀
Precisely...greedy bastards
You certainly did Mark Fisher justice. I just finished reading the book and it’s the first theory book I’ve read. I’ve done a lot of research on capitalism and was always deemed as “crazy” for not seeing this current reality as a fixture of life. I remember as a child I always had a negative perception of the phrase “life’s not fair.” I’m beginning to understand the implications of that.
On the bright side, with the effects of capitalist realism being so prevalent with each passing day, the youth is particularly active in revolt. There’s theory being spread, but most importantly, action being taken. Every single person is part of the solution. I’ll be sharing this video and book with friends. Great work man.
Ironically, people who like capitalism and reactionary politics are more likely to believe that life is fair than others. The first step in fixing a problem is recognizing it exists.
The youth is not in revolt. The youth is reworking the face of capitalism to be less offensive to their sensibilities.
@@greyfells2829cooperatives and sharing economies will bring democracy to the masses.
@@greyfells2829how can anyone revolve if sexual relations do not exist?
The reference to Amazon at the end of this video should serve as a terrifying reminder of just how correct Fisher was in his assessment of where we live in the 21st century. Thanks for the synopsis all the same.
Capitalism is the artificial reality @ 25:12 is the perfect retort when people say Capitalism is human nature.
Having watched a ton of videos about Capitalist Realism, I can safely say you definitely succeeded in making the best and most comprehensive video about it yet. Bravo!
Thank you so much, friend!
"work now exists for the illusion of work" that is powerful... It's so existential knowing In the future I might have to work doing nothing for anyone every day for the rest of my life...
I literally changed my goal of life from being a youtuber / graphic designer into politician/activist because I realised it's not about enjoyment but truly doing something and making the world a better place.
NO OFFENCE to you of course, you are youtuber actually trying to encourage economic discourse and I think you are doing a fine job at that.
The emotions and feelings I’ve had while working for a US pharma manufacturer are well articulated in this exposé. The company offers resources to “manage” one’s stress, but NEVER acknowledges that they are the primary cause of it, and speaking with a therapist or doing mindfulness meditation will not remove the cause. Instead they offer banal advice to achieve “work-life balance” while expecting us to be available to call into meetings on weekends and whilst on vacation (“Team Player”). Matthew Crawford’s “Shop Class as Soulcraft” nicely complements Capitalist Realism.
I stopped after your introduction and read the book, and it’s insane how closely your selected points are to the highlights I made while reading. I think you achieved your goal for this video, but what worries me is the difficulty in getting “the average person” to care at all.
Fisher points out that much of modern [media] tells people how to FEEL, and considering large scale issues sure makes humans FEEL bad. We are conditioned from a young age to avoid these feelings, and to not inflict them upon others. I struggle to find the proper time and place to share ideas like this; even recommending a short video like this one is too much of a commitment for all but a few very close friends. There’s also the inherent worry which you mention: people will learn, and then feel like some mission has been accomplished because of that temporary reckoning.
If Trump taught us anything, modern politics does still tell viewers what to think. Billions have been spent spreading blatant, provable lies... imagine if those resources were put towards reckoning with and communicating facts that will help our grandchildren not be cooked alive? A corrupted framework capable of getting masses to care does still exist, it’s just in the wrong hands. Then again, I suppose I’d be expecting capitalism’s problems to be answered within a capitalist framework. These are tough issues.
you can get people to admit marxist ideas to themselves if you’re silver tongued enough even in casual political/economic conversation with simple observations
The average person knows things are screwed, but they also know that they still have a lot less to lose. And it's easy for propagandists to manipulate the proletariat into destroying its own revolutionary potential.
Saw this on r/philosophy, and wow, this video was so well made! It's my first time to hear about these subjects, so it was a bit too dense for me. But, I will rewatch this every few days until I understand all those concepts you mentioned.
Capitalist realism truly hit me in my core.. working for money's sake. It's deeply disturbing, yet it's difficult to accept because capital is everything when you live in a developing country, especially one that is run by corrupt politicians. My father always tells me (in our vernacular) "Son, if you have no money, then you will be maltreated." Our family lives and breathes capitalism, which is why the truth that you've laid out in this video is a struggle to digest.
Thank you for sharing this bitter pill that I must swallow.
Mark was a massive loss to UK academia. God rest his soul. I wished I known him in life. He was the same age as me and lived near my sister in law in Felixstowe.
There is no personal big DADDY GID to thank . We appear to be born into a huge ancient cold impersonal universe.
@@georgenelson8917your truth not the truth. you can be as condescending as you can. doesnt change it
I lost my copy and just bought another one to read it again and it just arrived today. Serendipitous I must say
Perfect timing. Such a wonderful book. In every way.
@@epochphilosophy totally. It helped bring to light my ignorance of what postmodern theory was. I don’t know of any other book that diagnoses our condition better than this. It introduced me to a lot more than the more orthodox Marxism I used to swear by
Holy shit it is unreal how much this video covered for 25 minutes, and it felt dense but not dry. I mean wow. I still barely understand this stuff but I can certainly attest that it rings true and undergirds my personal politics and values.
Thanks so much! Means a ton to me.
Once again, you've managed to encapsulate a thorough book into a concise and feasible video. The essence of capitalist realism is a modern iteration of Gramsci's cultural hegemony, and to me, it embodies the intertwined nature of all your videos, an ode to rethinking the status quo, and the rational veils that linger behind them. Overall a fascinating video that I will definitely be recommending to those not particularly submerged into theory. Definitely worth the wait.
Compliment of the ages. Thank you, friend.
@@epochphilosophy please make more videos about capitalism like this please!
@@epochphilosophy I’m begging you 🙏
Just finished this book today, so this is great timing. It’s a truly beautiful and revolutionary book.
The best TH-cam channel that I've found this half of the pandemic. Thank you for existing.
Comments like this mean the world. Appreciate you.
You did it justice.
Mark would be satisfied.
Thank you so much.
RIP Mark Fisher
One of my new favorite channels, thank you for your educational content. I have no money to offer you but I hope my praise of your work provides even a modicum of compensation.
It absolutely does, thanks so much.
I just recently found out i have schizoid personality disorder. But what schocked me about it is, that the system around me didn't actually see anything "wrong" with me, i work perfectly fine in this system. I struggled to understand that my specific condition isn't "normal" (whatever that means, but let's say "mentally healthy human") i'm so far removed from every other person - and I just rationally thought that this CAN'T be the norm for a social animal. I don't feel lonely, but I see people suffering with the loneliness and I would never think that other people should be like me...because this state of being is just waiting for life to be over, because nothing matters to me and I don't have the ability to make things matter. But I think that ability in humans is beautiful...never stop caring!
The idea of a “normal” categorized human has always been a farce, my dude. Foucault and Deleuze and Guattari have a lot of interesting work in that realm that you might be interested.
Definitely sad to hear you feel far removed from others, but if it’s any solace, many neurotypical individuals feel the exact same. You keep doing right, be good to people, and doing you my dude.
Did you have an episode?
‘The appearance of education’, I’ve been looking for a phrase to sun up my depression & complicity.
my favorite video on capitalist realism / mark fisher! seriously thank you. i send this one to people when mark fisher comes up and they wanna know what he's about.
This is incredibly kind! Being quite a nerd on theory, Capitalist Realism is really the only book I really recommend nearly everyone read tbh. It's extremely powerful.
Fisher's accessibility is definitely reflected in this video. Great work as always.
Deep illustrated summary, although i waited for the eloquently forged phrase" depression hedonia" which is contrary to the known "anhedonia " the infamous sign of depression in clinical psychoatry, depression hedonia is the way we pacify ourselves in capitalist society, a more or less the end result of consumerism but by the K-punk's dictionary
Such a shame Mark Fisher passed away, I immediately wanted to hear Fisher speak with "This Is Hell" - a fantastic weekly radio show that is 26 yrs old now. Thank you @op
Your videos are amazing! And you're right. It's too easy to watch these and feel like you're doing something. We need to actually do something.
I love that book so much. One of my favorites on critique of capitalism!
Excellent video Epoch. Looks like you put a lot of info into it. It's a good book for an introduction into the horrors that capitalism as a system offers that we experience on a daily basis. It's not written directly for academics so it's not too hard to grasp for beginners. I do have some issues with it but you did an excellent job breaking down some core arguments of the book. Congrats. Keep up the great work!
your videos are consistently amazing and so informative. thank you so much
Sometimes I think of capitalism as a kind of living ideology, and through Nietzsche I’ve always wondered if his idea of the eternal return would also apply to the ideology of capitalism and fascism. I’m probably just confusing a lot of stuff together but I think it was Zizek that said that capitalism seems sturdy because of its eternal state of crisis and that sounds like an eternal state to me
You might like to read some CCRU era Land, before he went off the deep(er) end
Liberal capitalism is able to assimilate foreign material to make itself more resilient. For example, Locke originally grounded human rights in a Deist God. As Stirner points out, human rights are a spook. Bentham and Mill continue Locke’s project without appealing to God (utilitarianism). Then Rawls makes the case for affirmative action and liberal interventionism. Nozick represents the more ‘classical’ Reaganite side of liberalism, but it’s all liberalism nonetheless. Most so-called Leftists are just Keynesians and they don’t even know it. If you really want to move beyond liberalism, we reach into Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, Spengler, Evola, Deleuze, etc.
🧠 child
That amazon link plug at the end hit different.
Absolutely amazing work, needed now perhaps more than ever
I'm so glad I found this channel! Your videos are really great, you're inspiring me to get some seriously necessary reading done. Subscribed, looking forward to more of your stuff!
Thanks so much. Happy to hear that. That is the ultimate goal!
Gracias por los subtítulos en español. Mark Fisher se esta convirtiendo en uno de mis intelectuales favoritos así que este vídeo me ha encantado
Rewatching this right now and wow, I think I was able to process everything in this video better compared to months ago when I first watched ut
That's the goal!
I really appreciate your effort in this video. The public perception you displayed when talking about interventions for mental health (focusing solely on intrapersonal) is not the reality of practitioners in the clinical mental health field for the last approx. 30+ years. In fact, the counseling field focuses heavily on advocacy by addressing systemic oppression, social determinants of health, holistic factors that contribute to health, barriers to treatment, and more. Rehabilitation counselors and marriage and family therapists have done phenomenal work addressing and working with systems. Take, for example, the advocacy, program evaluation, and research efforts that led the way to programs and protections such as IDEA and the ADA.
This is your first video that I watched. Now I am watching more of your work. Good job!
Great work. Anything that brings Fisher's seminal work to a wider audience is always welcome. One minor comment, Marx himself didn't think that capitalism would *inevitably* destroy itself - he believed that a failure of socialism to overthrow it would lead to the "mutual ruin" of both contending classes. Some Marxists have taken this line but in my opinion (and that of most Marxists) they are simply wrong.
Oh my god during the debate i had exactly that feeling during the "this is so unpresidential" moment. When he said it, even though he might have intended it to refer to Trump it resonated as a description of the whole situation and political climate, including him. The appeal to the "presidential" felt so anachronistic. Thanks for putting it into more clear language, love the channel!
A Fisher quote that see and live everyday... "Everyone is bored. Nothing is boring". The tired rehashing of brand new shit. This world guts me.
who else said "awww :(" when epoch philo said he woulnt do a deep dive on lacanian psychoanalysis
One first has to be familiar with psychoanalysis to grasp lacanian psychoanalysis. The video would possibly be longer than 30 minutes.
this is seriously such an amazing video. thank you for sharing
I just bought this book! Can't wait to read it
”A depth that psychology hasn’t been able to penetrate” this is true, except with the psychology of the psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, a misunderstood genuis that I highly recommend that you check out, his book ”Listen Little Man” is a pretty short read (changed my life and my view of things) if you like that one you can go with his ”Selected Writings” to understand him in a practical way.. He had the same insight and view as Fisher and Marcuse, but he offered a psychological solution on a mass scale. And ofc, great video, your work is fantastic, one of the best on youtube! There is also a great 1h lecture on Reich and modern capitalism on the stillspace berlin youtube channel, maybe check that one out first. Peace
Fuck man, I had to pauze this a few times and my eyes got wet although this is nothing new to me .But the way you put it... Good and depressing at the same time. The idea that the end of the world is easier to imagine then the end of capitalism got a more profound understanding for me now, and it is fuck scary bro...There is indeed no way out anymore.
I hope that this video (and Fisher's work) doesn't kill hope for the future. It is really hard to grapple with this stuff. This was probably the most difficult video I've made simply due to the subject matter.
But, this is all process, and stuff ebs and flows, the future is still open.
this is the best explanation i've seen tysm
12:44 man that quote is the most resonate thing ive heard in a long time. damn. i wish more people understood that.
I got a investment Ad while watching this....
Amazing video though! Shared it with a bunch of friends already.
Reading Mark Fisher help me more honestly, rather than Jordan Peterson's self help advice, which is not even that profound or unheard.
Comparing Mark Fisher to Jordan Peterson is like comparing Tom Brady to Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite
the irony of all of this is that Epoch philosophy needs Patreon funding, and I am happy to contribute but just goes to show that everything is commodified
Have you heard of liberapay? More post-capitalist proponents should use it.
@@mikeandyholloway lmao 🤣
This is exactly that black mirror episode about credits, the system absorbes critique and commodifies it for average joes. Buy the book, share the video that's all capitalism need from you, bye
Not everything is a commodity even though that seems to be the end goal of the right wing establishment. Epoch doesn't need Patreon, he wants it. He has built that into the design of his labour to suit his circumstances. To say he doesn't have a choice is to say he cant think or create without a pay off. Its his choice of circumstance that determines the commodification of his creativity. Its like saying art works can only be produced if they can be sold.
@@bottomendbliss creating this content would require more free time than working people possess. If he refused to commodify his videos, then he would have spend that time engaging in some other commodified activity to pay the bills.
The "choice" you are referring to here is ultimately a lie. It is the same illusion of choice and freedom which is the entire foundation of the capitalist ideological superstructure.
It was originally Baudrillard who states capitalism throws any hopes of change into pure inertia. I sense we see that now in the mass production of AOC t shirts,BLM stickers, and racial representation in the media, I.E, fighting the “system” only appears to neutralize the meaning of that fight because capitalism has essentially swallowed its own opposition.
We need you Mark, come back to us ...
Mark Fisher is a giant
This book completely blew me away and I haven't been the same since.
Thank you for all the time you took to make this.
this video makes me feel better educated on issues and therefore more comfortable with my level of activism
Fantastic video. Now I need to go watch all your other stuff!
seriously fantastic distillation man, with such atmosphere - ty
Excellent work. Thank you.
as grim as the Snowball Earth of the past - which did nevertheless end. we can do it, folks.
You are the most underrated channel on TH-cam
Hi, this video is a good summary of capitalist realism. Can't think of much higher praise than that.
Imho no other book provides as much as this does on re-reading. It isn't that the thesis is too complex or the language or ideas Fisher relies on are inaccessible. It is because the book takes such a rare, sober, unflinching step back to look at the monster in front of us in its entirety.
Pick it up every 12 months or so and I guarantee it'll be just what you needed to read. (and rewatch this video when you do)
Very interesting, as always!!!!
Thank you, friend.
BEEN WAITING FOR THIS ONE
Wait, Jman, you know Mark Fisher?
@@epochphilosophy no I just wanted to comment something this time I usually don’t
Lmfao fair enough. The algorithm (and me) thanks you.
@@epochphilosophy oh yeah lmfao I forgot lololol I will keep at it next time
I share this all the time. Really great work. 👏
Haha...a brilliant video on Capitalist Realism that segues effortlessly into a beg for funding on patreon and a request to purchase items through an Amazon link...
and.........
What is your point? That people have to forsake their ideals for financial security under capitalism? You think this helps your argument?
Everyone has to pay their bills.
Watching this video is a clear demonstration of capitalism realism as producing and showcasing such a video through a system like youtube is the very mechanism of the commodification of non-material, which prices an aggregation of ideas in a coherent and entertaining display, thus transforming knowledgeable discourse in a priceable commodity whose value is determined by the succes, or quantity of demand of the product, in a total-market logic which isn't free by any means because of it's inherent structure of total possession by the platform which is not only the producer, not of the content but of the commodification itself, but also the owner of the "added value", or surplus, it creates. But this owner, by paying a "dedomagement" to the author at the pro rata of it's "market value" is giving the false sens of an artificial form of property.
Amazing analysis - thank you so much, as there were a few portions of the book that I didn’t thoroughly grasp but because of your video, I now understand better. Thoughtful, great work for a thoughtful and great book that, albeit depressing, gives me tremendous hope in the very last line. A better world is possible - if we’re willing to fight, be reflective and be inclusive to those subjugated to capitalist realism. Cheers, and may Mark’s analysis live on to help us create that better world.
So what you're saying is... Capitalism is a autonomous self-sustaining dialectical synthesis machine, incorporating each antithesis as it goes on to consume everything...? Based
Thanks for doing all this.
Beautifully done, very good job
oh my god listening to this right now with Godspeed You! Black Emperor - F# A# ∞ playing at a low volume at the same time, is just... goddamn
Godspeed You! Black Emperor is among my favorites. Lift Your Skinny Fists is god tier stuff.
Great Job!!! Going directly to Patreon now!!!
The first step towards 'communist realism' for me has been looking into some of radical policy ideas that have sprung up in different corners of leftist, mostly academic and party political think tank sphere - like, the idea of a 'sovereign monetary policy' in which all money is created directly by the central bank (which can be brought into more public interest control), not through large private banks, and seperated into savings and investments accounts to seperate money for exchange and money for capital. Or a 'universal basic income' and 'sovereign wealth funds' that more directly redistribute money to individuals and to fund important public works projects and services. 'Community land trusts' could bring ownership of housing to the community as a whole, bridging the gap between the desirable direct control of private home ownership and the utilitarian approach to providing housing as a service with public housing.
As Mark Fisher advises - learn about how economic systems work, not necessarily the free market ideology, but the mechanisms and what they actually do - then you can desconstruct these grand monolithic concepts like 'the economy' into the boring flow charts that they actually are - and then find solutions and potential fixes.
Capitalist realism perfectly encapsulates the total domination of the spectacle as articulated by Debord.
Great video. really appreciate it
i leave my comment offering for the algorithm god. terrifying book, terrific video.
This video was interrupted by a Ford Truck commercial mid-way through 😂
this is way too good and have a good take in a lot of points of this contemporary world, deceptive pr, illusion of work, the end of history, etc . . . and yes, the very experiences too
Amazing video - so brilliant. Thank you! This was a great jump-off point to Marcuse too.
He felt and understood it so deeply it ultimately exhausted him. Read all he wrote but keep it at arms length it’s depressingly too real. You will need all your energy for the authoritarianism to come to keep it breathing
I really enjoyed this presentation. I do think that you made a mistake when you said that most Americans would be against a health care system modeled on the Canadian system or the British NHS. Polls taken have shown strong majorities supporting such measures over the current US system for a long time.
17:50
You finally got to the point most important to you.
Thank you
Thank you so much.
Best Channel on TH-cam
That’s my major gripe with the current mental health therapy framework. Particularly CBT bur it applies to all derivatives of Freudian psychoanalytical frameworks. Everything is individual, intrapersonal driven, and doesn’t have any way to deal with the socio-economic inputs that also drive mental instability. Though it does recognize those inputs. So it takes the position, especially CBT, that you can not change your circumstances, instead, YOU need to change how you conceptualize those circumstances. It’s a methodology that keenly focuses on accepting what happened to you and where you are in life, and the goal is to make you feel better about that. There is no framework of noting that changing the circumstances is possible. If your problem is that you feel like a cog in the machine and have hopelessness in the world, the methodology is to acquire better coping mechanisms to be a cog in the machine. To feel better about the terrible world around you. All the while the mental health apparatus itself being a limited access, capital building machine itself because it’s too expensive for poors anyway.
It is a supremely pro-capitalistic view of mental health. And you can’t tell me there’s any other way because we know communal and spiritualistic methodology are successful as well.
I think it’s useful in things like PTSD where you can’t change your history and things done to you, so the only option is reshaping how you think about it. But it does fuck all to generalized depression which is mostly a response to societal structure and how it’s affecting you.
Great video.
My favorite work of theory is probably Foucault's Surveiller et Punir.
I tots agree with Marx in the quote at 4:50. Capitalist calculation is really culture-destroying / re-creating in its own diluted image. But maybe thats necessary (a necessary loss) for a global, healthy economy... A "rich culture" sounds great when you're not standing in bread lines or fighting other tribes for food. The totalizing, "narcissistic" objectivity of capitalism is what makes it so successful at functioning in a global context. It takes and gives in the same way all over the place. For nationalist ideologies (fascism *and* socialism to an extent) this is terrible. Both these ideologies are focused on culture and people. Work is less important than workers. And workers are not defined by their work. But maybe work is important. Sweatshops, backbreaking labor, 12+ hour shifts... all these things make the world go 'round and capitalism injects all of these into the world with enthusiasm at the expense of all else. We used to live in a more culturally rich society -- all of us, all around the world -- before neoliberal capitalism damaged it. Corporate media produces everything we watch. Movies nowadays are scared to push any agenda besides the most dystopian liberal crap (and when they do push something, they state it in the most obvious of terms so as not to be misunderstood as more or less radical). We live and breath advertising and have become soulless. How to solve this?... maybe a cultural change at the hands of a more authoritarian government. A ban on excessive advertising, a cultural director in charge of the art and architecture of every major city... I don't know: would Fisher support this?
But student loan debt? Global warming? The non-cultural aspects of this analysis don't seem all that relevant... Capitalism can't solve them, but we don't expect it to (neither can a socialist economy to an extent).
Everyone should watch this...without the passivity of course. Incredible 😱🙏
So, awesome video as usual, but holy shit, the synchronicity of all synchronicities (well specifically to me of course, at this particular moment...lol)...
Mere _hours ago_ I was listening to a _cover_ of In Bloom by Four Year Strong and seemingly randomly said, "hey, let's check out Kurt Cobain's suicide note" because I never actually did and wanted to see if maybe all those conspiracies actually had any merit because I had some vague inclination/awareness about his dissatisfaction with fame and all the inauthenticity that goes along with it, paralleling the consumerism he is also obviously quite well known for railing against. Needless to say, yeah there's quite a bit of legs to the whole thing, I especially found this quote disturbing:
_"Well, I can't really speculate other than what he said to me, which was, he wasn't at all happy about it, success to him seemed like, I think, a brick wall. There was nowhere else to go but down, it was too artificial for him, and he wasn't an artificial person at all. He was actually, two weeks after he died, he was supposed to come here and he wanted to record a bunch of Leadbelly covers. It was kind of in secret, because, I mean, people would definitely not allow him to do that. You also have to wonder, he was a billion-dollar industry at the time, and if the industry had any idea at all of him wishing or wanting to get out, they couldn't have allowed that, you know, in life, because if he was just to get out of the scene, he'd be totally forgotten, but if he was to die, he'd be immortalized."_
And clearly I'm realizing now that I _really_ did all of this to come to this point in time and leave this last man-esque comment of distraction from humanity's inevitable decline. Yay.
Been waiting for this idea.
Great video. Keep doing your thing.
What an epic video. Great work mate.
While these types of vids offer some catharsis, I’m always left thinking “so what do we do????”
You organize, join a base-building organization around your area or, a way we can all organize is start at your building and/or community. What do they want to change? What are they willing to fight on? (It’s a lot easy to join a base-building organization than doing it yourself though)
Awesome video on a great book. A little disappointed there was no mention of Foucault though. He was really the first to systematize the notion of ‘positive, attracting power’
His work on discipline and surveillance is also SUPER relevant to bureaucratization of the workplace and education.
Capitalist realism is not possible without Foucault