I'm not in the U.K., and it's over nine years since this talk was given. So if anyone else was having trouble figuring out what he was referring to starting at 8:37 ('the Rath'? 'the Raff'? 'the Rav'?), what he's saying is 'the REF,' which stands for Research Excellence Framework -- supposedly objective standards that were introduced about this time to help determine the allocation of research funds in higher education.
Interesting how you think people would have mistaken the pronunciation - the vowel /æ/ for /ɛ/, the consonants /θ/ and /v/ for /f/. The pronunciation seems pretty clear to me, he speaks in a fairly standard middle-class English accent given his education (and not a broad Leicester accent you might expect given his upbringing), the problem is what REF _means_ .
@@pipster1891 OK, good that it was easy for you to get the pronunciation right. It wasn't so clear to me, so I had to make a few guesses before getting it right.
I agree with Fisher here when he says that the left confuses means with ends. Yes, our goal as socialists is the collective ownership of the means of production but that's the goal, that itself being implemented does not end capitalism. Maybe it is as Zizek said, more than acting we need to think
there is not a single example of socialist movement that retained the state and didnt decay into capitalism. on the contrary, only stable socialist regimes are Zapatistas and partially Rojava
Just discovered him recently suprisingly. I am looking forward to getting deeper into his philosophical ideas. Anyone who mentions Manuel DeLanda earns serious points in my book. His manner of speech reminds me of Nobby the mouse from that old Dr.Snuggles cartoon. Sad to hear about his passing. Nice to see he left a nice body of work behind.
I was following along intently, so appreciating the points he was making -- then he had to go and blow it by saying (immediately after he'd warned against repeating failed approaches!) that we had to return to 'mainstream media' and 'parliament.' Claiming that these are not 'essences' but 'terrains'! That's precisely how the powers-that-be get us to keep spinning our wheels over and over and over again!!!-- By conning us into thinking that they are ever going to let such institutions function like 'terrains' and escape their clutches again!!! I'm in the US rather than the UK, and perhaps things don't look quite as bleak over there in terms of the salvageability of institutions. But listening to Fisher's talk more than nine years later, I couldn't help thinking about how he would have reacted had he lived to see the campaign of undermining against the Labour party leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, much of it carried out from within the institutional 'left' itself!!! As realistic as Fisher strove to be, his appraisal of existing institutions and where we stand in relation to them was still too optimistic!
I think the point is here, if we don’t try to fight for these spaces, for power and representation in these spaces, they will stay in the hands of neoliberal interests. The media and parliament still have the most hegemonic role in our society, and even if we want to change that, we have to first use it and go through it. I think he has a point, if we dismiss these spaces as inherently evil then we lose them..
@@Emily-rb4px I think this description, too, applies to an earlier time, before these institutions had been so thoroughly captured by elite interests which are not the least bit inclined to let up on their counteroffensive; so that such advice encourages false consciousness concerning that reality. To retake ground that has been lost to an enemy, it is necessary first to build up positions of strength outside of it, rather than acting as if the way to build strength is instead to continue sending forces from weakened positions into heavy enemy fire, over and over again.
That's an interesting way to put it and I see what you mean now. But how do you think we can build up significant strength (and gain support and reach/enlist more soldiers to extend the metaphor) without the mainstream media? How do we create these domains and grow them, and grow consciousness that doesn't lead to more infighting and fragmentation?
@@Emily-rb4px The domains required already exist but have been fragmented and suppressed by mainstream capitalist culture; direct organizing and reconstructing communities remains the answer. There are a handful of decent examples in the US but from my perspective at least, the PSL is the most grounded in the materialist practice.
Love Fisher's words, books, and talks. R.I.P. Still, here in mid 2024 feels like the only thing with any real chance of killing this zombie is the World War it's currently bum's rushing us all towards. Problem, of course, is we all go with it.
There's a lot of interesting stuff here, especially when he talks about the negative effects of neoliberalism. But he's at his weakest when he claims that the negative outcomes of neoliberalism are intended, rather than unintended. He offers not one shred of evidence for this claim. He doesn't even hint at any evidence for it. He just asserts it and moves on.
Evidence? Breton woods. Privatisation of utilities. Yuppyism. The E.U. The 2007-2008 crash. The Irag war. Etc. Etc. etc. All consequences of Neo liberalism. These were schemes and agendas all deliberately designed and all had planned obsolesence. Of course the negative outcomes of neoliberalism were intended. Unemployment, recession, starvation, poverty, war, exchange rates etc. could all be prevented and stopped over night if the people in positions with the power to do so made it there intention. Instead, people in positions who could have drastic effect choose war, profit, and capitalism. All the negative effects of neoliberalism, made select people very, very rich and others less so. That's all the evidence you need. The existence of capitalism is all the evidence you need. 1% of the population owning 90% of the earths resources if all the bloody evidence you need. He can assert it and move on because it is so bloody glaringly and obviously true. Have fun in the lab looking for evidence while there are people starving!
Exactly. Just like the marxists assert the existence of surplus value as the evidence for his so called exploitation, without giving one shred of evidence for it. They just say that stolen surplus value exists and thats it. Then they build huge horrendous regimes around that assertion and kill hundreds of millions of people because of it. Inconceivably idiotic
He's right about everything but identifies problems well without offering solutions because it's seemingly nigh on impossible at this point without implicating mass violence, which nobody should ever do, especially not a respected academic who during his life fought the good fight with words. Nailing "The right are doing post modernism better" at the time of this lecture was on point and before Trump was even a consideration as a serious candidate and BJ was a joke on the television who happened to hold mayoral position. Love Fisher but it's depressing how prescient he was given his choice to nope out before it gets/got really ugly.
"Capitalist 'Realism'" is just Capitalism. It's ideology. We don't need another name for it - and his book is just a high-school level introduction to the subject.
Well, shit happens not because of capitalism. It's because of freedom itself. And dictatorship is as free as anarchy, just someone used own freedom(and abilities)(and, well, luck) to win the competition, and tries to keep own success forever.
Personally I think it adds to the allure of his personality. What do you want? A brazen, cocky loudmouth? Or a humble, quiet intellectual trying to carefully express his theories? RIP Mark Fisher
@@deathrides4756 bbububut emotionally immature people, want to have some supreme strongman to look up to, youre just SO mean for not licking the boot of even more emtionally immature strongmen, and prefering interlectuallism
I had to do some searching to figure out some of the names he was saying -- (10:58) Manuel DeLanda, (13:34) David Blacker. Unsurprisingly, CZcams's closed-captioning was of little help.
"Hard to imagine now a left-wing Labour Party"...yet just 2 years after this lecture that's what we got. Unfortunately, its enemies all converged to destroy it and now we're even further back.
He was literally so on fire the alarm went off... RIP K-punk. x
The things we lost with his passing... Lost futures of mindblowing thought. Just heartbreaking...
Not literally.
Thought it was the feds
“Ideology isn’t really about what we ourselves believe, it’s what we believe the other believes.”
Zizek talked a lot about this also, "inter-subjectivity" he calls it.
this is basically Lacan
Sure seems that way
the ghost of hegel strikes again
Brilliant to be honest some bits went over my head but couldn't agree more in general. ♡ His passing is a sad loss.
I'm not in the U.K., and it's over nine years since this talk was given. So if anyone else was having trouble figuring out what he was referring to starting at 8:37 ('the Rath'? 'the Raff'? 'the Rav'?), what he's saying is 'the REF,' which stands for Research Excellence Framework -- supposedly objective standards that were introduced about this time to help determine the allocation of research funds in higher education.
Thank you for the explanation. It was an interesting idea that I couldnt possibly understand on my own and the youtube auto subs didnt help.
The WEF (World Economic Forum)
@@Dan_1348 No, he's saying 'the REF,' not the WEF. It makes sense in the context that he's talking about the UK's Research Excellence Framework.
Interesting how you think people would have mistaken the pronunciation - the vowel /æ/ for /ɛ/, the consonants /θ/ and /v/ for /f/. The pronunciation seems pretty clear to me, he speaks in a fairly standard middle-class English accent given his education (and not a broad Leicester accent you might expect given his upbringing), the problem is what REF _means_ .
@@pipster1891 OK, good that it was easy for you to get the pronunciation right. It wasn't so clear to me, so I had to make a few guesses before getting it right.
I agree with Fisher here when he says that the left confuses means with ends. Yes, our goal as socialists is the collective ownership of the means of production but that's the goal, that itself being implemented does not end capitalism. Maybe it is as Zizek said, more than acting we need to think
there is not a single example of socialist movement that retained the state and didnt decay into capitalism. on the contrary, only stable socialist regimes are Zapatistas and partially Rojava
@@zuz-ve4ro so successful that most people have never heard of them?
@@KhelderB so successful that American media can't even speak about them!
@@zuz-ve4ro ok but when has capitalism ever been stable and not spiralling the drain at a varying rate of rotation depending on the year
@@SatelliteSoundLab 1980-2008
Just discovered him recently suprisingly. I am looking forward to getting deeper into his philosophical ideas. Anyone who mentions Manuel DeLanda earns serious points in my book. His manner of speech reminds me of Nobby the mouse from that old Dr.Snuggles cartoon. Sad to hear about his passing. Nice to see he left a nice body of work behind.
I was following along intently, so appreciating the points he was making -- then he had to go and blow it by saying (immediately after he'd warned against repeating failed approaches!) that we had to return to 'mainstream media' and 'parliament.' Claiming that these are not 'essences' but 'terrains'! That's precisely how the powers-that-be get us to keep spinning our wheels over and over and over again!!!-- By conning us into thinking that they are ever going to let such institutions function like 'terrains' and escape their clutches again!!!
I'm in the US rather than the UK, and perhaps things don't look quite as bleak over there in terms of the salvageability of institutions. But listening to Fisher's talk more than nine years later, I couldn't help thinking about how he would have reacted had he lived to see the campaign of undermining against the Labour party leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, much of it carried out from within the institutional 'left' itself!!! As realistic as Fisher strove to be, his appraisal of existing institutions and where we stand in relation to them was still too optimistic!
I think the point is here, if we don’t try to fight for these spaces, for power and representation in these spaces, they will stay in the hands of neoliberal interests. The media and parliament still have the most hegemonic role in our society, and even if we want to change that, we have to first use it and go through it. I think he has a point, if we dismiss these spaces as inherently evil then we lose them..
@@Emily-rb4px I think this description, too, applies to an earlier time, before these institutions had been so thoroughly captured by elite interests which are not the least bit inclined to let up on their counteroffensive; so that such advice encourages false consciousness concerning that reality. To retake ground that has been lost to an enemy, it is necessary first to build up positions of strength outside of it, rather than acting as if the way to build strength is instead to continue sending forces from weakened positions into heavy enemy fire, over and over again.
That's an interesting way to put it and I see what you mean now. But how do you think we can build up significant strength (and gain support and reach/enlist more soldiers to extend the metaphor) without the mainstream media? How do we create these domains and grow them, and grow consciousness that doesn't lead to more infighting and fragmentation?
@@Emily-rb4px The domains required already exist but have been fragmented and suppressed by mainstream capitalist culture; direct organizing and reconstructing communities remains the answer. There are a handful of decent examples in the US but from my perspective at least, the PSL is the most grounded in the materialist practice.
@@nondescriptnamewhat is PSL
He knew he has grasped the essence of the thing but but became pessimistic that lost futures are gonna add some more.
19:39 That's actually quite an alarming thing for Mark Fisher to say
Love Fisher's words, books, and talks. R.I.P. Still, here in mid 2024 feels like the only thing with any real chance of killing this zombie is the World War it's currently bum's rushing us all towards. Problem, of course, is we all go with it.
Marks stuff is so depressing it makes me laugh. RIP
R.I.P. king
Re participation in electoral politics and MSM: "These are not fixed essences, but contested terrains" 20:32
🥺
There's a lot of interesting stuff here, especially when he talks about the negative effects of neoliberalism. But he's at his weakest when he claims that the negative outcomes of neoliberalism are intended, rather than unintended. He offers not one shred of evidence for this claim. He doesn't even hint at any evidence for it. He just asserts it and moves on.
Evidence?
Breton woods. Privatisation of utilities. Yuppyism. The E.U. The 2007-2008 crash. The Irag war. Etc. Etc. etc.
All consequences of Neo liberalism. These were schemes and agendas all deliberately designed and all had planned obsolesence.
Of course the negative outcomes of neoliberalism were intended. Unemployment, recession, starvation, poverty, war, exchange rates etc. could all be prevented and stopped over night if the people in positions with the power to do so made it there intention.
Instead, people in positions who could have drastic effect choose war, profit, and capitalism. All the negative effects of neoliberalism, made select people very, very rich and others less so.
That's all the evidence you need. The existence of capitalism is all the evidence you need. 1% of the population owning 90% of the earths resources if all the bloody evidence you need.
He can assert it and move on because it is so bloody glaringly and obviously true.
Have fun in the lab looking for evidence while there are people starving!
Exactly. Just like the marxists assert the existence of surplus value as the evidence for his so called exploitation, without giving one shred of evidence for it. They just say that stolen surplus value exists and thats it. Then they build huge horrendous regimes around that assertion and kill hundreds of millions of people because of it. Inconceivably idiotic
He's right about everything but identifies problems well without offering solutions because it's seemingly nigh on impossible at this point without implicating mass violence, which nobody should ever do, especially not a respected academic who during his life fought the good fight with words. Nailing "The right are doing post modernism better" at the time of this lecture was on point and before Trump was even a consideration as a serious candidate and BJ was a joke on the television who happened to hold mayoral position. Love Fisher but it's depressing how prescient he was given his choice to nope out before it gets/got really ugly.
3:42
4:39
"Capitalist 'Realism'" is just Capitalism. It's ideology. We don't need another name for it - and his book is just a high-school level introduction to the subject.
It does its job
ML moment
we cannot break down such an obstacle without mass awareness of its existence
Ukraine flag 🤦♂️
Well, shit happens not because of capitalism.
It's because of freedom itself. And dictatorship is as free as anarchy, just someone used own freedom(and abilities)(and, well, luck) to win the competition, and tries to keep own success forever.
Not the greatest speaker.
i think he explains things very clearly. he may stutter a bit but i understand what he says
Personally I think it adds to the allure of his personality. What do you want? A brazen, cocky loudmouth? Or a humble, quiet intellectual trying to carefully express his theories? RIP Mark Fisher
@@deathrides4756 bbububut emotionally immature people, want to have some supreme strongman to look up to, youre just SO mean for not licking the boot of even more emtionally immature strongmen, and prefering interlectuallism
Book, cover, judgement... ?
I had to do some searching to figure out some of the names he was saying -- (10:58) Manuel DeLanda, (13:34) David Blacker. Unsurprisingly, CZcams's closed-captioning was of little help.
"Hard to imagine now a left-wing Labour Party"...yet just 2 years after this lecture that's what we got. Unfortunately, its enemies all converged to destroy it and now we're even further back.
4 July: we are so back
"but they don't materially support Palestin-"
so back
@@blargh65 Yeah