Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will …
Preamble: ...Difficult to rate this short work; at first, I was hopeful that it would be accessible, Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will …
Preamble: ...Difficult to rate this short work; at first, I was hopeful that it would be accessible, engaging and foundational given its brevity, use of pop culture, and title (perhaps most of the blame should be on the publisher and how this book is marketed). ...Engaging it remains. However, Fisher does not explain his brief references to political economy (“logic of Capital”, foundational) and history (esp. Lenin/Stalin), and his use of critical theory seems rather tangential (more like speculative creative writing). The topics are compelling, but I've heard them better developed elsewhere... --I've had less success with cultural studies, but I do realize the problem with taking too rigid a position on the base (labour/production) vs. superstructure (culture) mode of analysis. My struggle has been around applying systems-thinking (esp. synthesizing micro vs. macro behaviors) to cultural theories. Fisher has not alleviated this. …As a result I am even more appreciative of David Graeber (RIP), who eloquently weaved together political economy with cultural studies (including social imagination for alternatives!): 1) Directly related to this book is Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs: A Theory and The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy. 2) To remedy the social imagination vacuum, there's Graeber's The Democracy Project: A History, a Crisis, a Movement. ...Note: both Graeber and Fisher fall on the idealist side (focus on human ideologies/imagination, be it uplifting or pessimistic) more than the materialist (physical conditions and how these shape social possibilities). Graeber's posthumous The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity really reflects this; see the book link which includes a materialist critique worth synthesizing. --Fisher’s cultural analysis is indeed creative; I see it more as intriguing thought experiments since the style is too sporadic to be judged as systematic (more on this later), where Fisher strings together references ranging from novelist Kafka to Disney’s “WALL-E” in a manner that makes it difficult to fully contextualize the original sources.
The Useful: 1) “Capitalist Realism” as the end of social imagination for alternatives: --Commonly known as “Neoliberalism” (popularized in the Western public by The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism and in Western academia by A Brief History of Neoliberalism), although Fisher uses “Capitalist Realism” to distinguish the generational changes since the Reagan/Thatcher era there was still the Soviet bloc alternative, etc. --Performative anti-capitalism can actually facilitate participation in capitalism (another common example is green/ethical consumerism). --At first, I felt Fisher’s brief mentions of “capital” omits explaining any political economy (i.e. commodification, alienation, accumulation by dispossession, atomization), for intro see Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: or, How Capitalism Works—and How It Fails, and of course the source Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1. I now see this was touched on (to varying degrees) in the main case study Fisher uses (i.e. his job as a professor and his students), which was at least vivid and relatable.
3) Bureaucracy of capitalist realism: anti-production (driven by false representations, i.e. quantification of what cannot be quantified esp. in social services of education/healthcare), internalized surveillance (ex. more “flexible” work, self-reporting), how individual choice (where instantaneous satisfaction is mistaken as freedom) can coexist with political authoritarianism, etc. Once again, see the Graeber recommendations above.
2) Capitalist spillover too far from solutions? --One reason I have trouble with this kind of cultural analysis is that many of the observations seem like spillover effects far down river from the structural origins (to clarify, Fisher also assumes political economic structural origins: “systemic consequences of a logic of Capital”). From a systems perspective (Thinking in Systems: A Primer), such spillover effects offer such low leverage points for actual change... I suspect this spillover approach contributes to the under-development of the “solutions” ending of the book (thus, no space for optimism of the will). -I find structural analysis/systems-thinking so compelling for the desire to make changes closer to the source of the river, which can have profound spillover effects, rather than starting from the end and working backwards against the current. Another analogy would be investing more in preventative healthcare, rather than waiting until people are already so sick that they are hospitalized. -Examples of systems thinking applied to the economy: -macro + micro: Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present -Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist -micro: Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism
3) Anti-systematic?: -Whenever I confront anything that broadly resembles “psychology”, I first take a deep breath and slowly exhale. I next roll my eyes at any crude use of “human nature” (any action by a human can potentially be traced back to “human nature”, unless you believe in demonic possession/aliens). Thankfully, the latter does not apply to Fisher. -Finally, I think about Ben Goldacre’s critique of systemic biases and lack of rigour, with psychology reaching new heights. Now, Goldacre is coming from a scientific methodology perspective for research publications, whereas the “psychology” in this book is buried in the humanities. Still, I do wonder how systematic the humanities can be (and how/where this can even be applicable). -Goldacre’s “publication bias” point is that positive findings in observational or experimental studies (and papers deemed more interesting in general, esp. feeding our confirmation biases) are more likely published and amplified, creating bias. This is scary in the medical field, where Big Pharma hides negative findings(!), but I’m not sure how this plays out in the humanities (in this case: critical theory/philosophy/political economy). -I Think You'll Find it's a Bit More Complicated Than That -Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks ...basically, do not be like this: Outliers: The Story of Success...more
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