Mark Fisher questions the claims that postmodern capitalism is beyond belief, no longer tied to a symbolic ‘Big Other’ narrative. The other big theme of these chapters is the Big Other – psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan’s term for the collective fiction any society invests in: for example, the collective fiction that companies are well-meaning and provide necessary entrepreneurship to society, while privately we all recognize (without the awareness of the collective fiction) that the hallmarks of success in and for a company are ruthless, brutal exploitation and evasion of all social responsibility. Grassroots, collective, radically free and accessible education is only the first step towards a viable and full alternative to neoliberal education. Teachers and lecturers are required to spend most of their time creating simplistic Powerpoint slides that ensure every student is kept as bored as possible so they hate education and leave it immediately, shimmering off into the reproduction of capital rather than learning the logic of their oppressor. The pointless practices of call centres are duplicated verbatim in school and university checks by organizations like Ofsted. The main possibility considered is education reform. We cannot fight back, because there is nothing to fight, only the physical oppression of capitalist culture keeping us in check.Ĭhapters 6 and 7 of Capitalist Realism attempt to provide practical ways of improving this situation. All material bases of the system are abstracted, and the possibility of an uprising, as Maurizio Lazzarato warns us, are divided and broken. Time ceases to be linear, becomes chaotic, broken down into punctiform divisions”. Everything is mediated, passed on to someone else, abstracted from our tangible grasp.
It guides us through the precarity and meaninglessness of contemporary work, epitomized by the endless web of the call centre. Mark Fisher’s short book Capitalist Realism is one of the twenty-first century’s great reactions to the material horrors of neoliberal capitalism.
Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? Winchester: Zero Books. This book club is facilitated by Silvia Bombardini and Elliot Mason.ĭOWNLOAD Fisher, Mark (2009). Suggested donation £2, booking via EventbriteĬome along and contribute to the third in a series of discussions on Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher, continuing with chapters 6-7 (pages 43-65) on bureaucracy, dreams and memory. Closest stations: Whitechapel / Aldgate Eastįacilitated by Silvia Bombardini & Elliot C.
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