Denial and Disavowal

[sufi]

“To reclaim a real political agency means first of all accepting your insertion at the level of desire in the remorseless meat-grinder of Capital,” Fisher wrote in Capitalist Realism. The denial of our participation in the world, he implies – the disavowal of our desire for iPhones even as we diligently think anti-capitalist thoughts – is incapacitating. It leads to a regressive utopianism that cannot envision going through capitalism, but only retreating or escaping from it, into a primitive past or fictional future.

So in 15 years we are only deeper in Denial and Disavowal than ever - and especially in politics where lines are drawn and taboos raised up stifling discourse and obstructing governance, or what?

 

[version]

Where did Mark think the desire for iPhones itself came from? Did he think that was an important question?

 

[version]

Where did Mark think the desire for iPhones itself came from? Did he think that was an important question?

This was just discussed in that Lasch book I keep banging on about,

Only a handful of employers at this time understood that the worker might be useful to the capitalist as a consumer; that he needed to be imbued with a taste for higher things; that an economy based on mass production required not only the capitalistic organization of production but the organization of consumption and leisure as well. “Mass production,” said the Boston department store magnate Edward A. Filene in 1919, “demands the education of the masses; the masses must learn to behave like human beings in a mass production world. . . . They must achieve, not mere literacy, but culture.” In other words, the modern manufacturer has to “educate” the masses in the culture of consumption. The mass production of commodities in ever-increasing abundance demands a mass market to absorb them.

The American economy, having reached the point where its technology was capable of satisfying basic material needs, now relied on the creation of new consumer demands—on convincing people to buy goods for which they are unaware of any need until the “need” is forcibly brought to their attention by the mass media. Advertising, said Calvin Coolidge, “is the method by which the desire is created for better things.” The attempt to “civilize” the masses has now given rise to a society dominated by appearances—the society of the spectacle. In the period of primitive accumulation, capitalism subordinated being to having, the use value of commodities to their exchange value. Now it subordinates possession itself to appearance and measures exchange value as a commodity’s capacity to confer prestige—the illusion of prosperity and well-being. “When economic necessity yields to the necessity for limitless economic development,” writes Guy Debord, “the satisfaction of basic and generally recognized human needs gives way to an uninterrupted fabrication of pseudo-needs.”

In a simpler time, advertising merely called attention to the product and extolled its advantages. Now it manufactures a product of its own: the consumer, perpetually unsatisfied, restless, anxious, and bored. Advertising serves not so much to advertise products as to promote consumption as a way of life. It “educates” the masses into an unappeasable appetite not only for goods but for new experiences and personal fulfillment. It upholds consumption as the answer to the age-old discontents of loneliness, sickness, weariness, lack of sexual satisfaction; at the same time it creates new forms of discontent peculiar to the modern age. It plays seductively on the malaise of industrial civilization.

 

[version]

“To reclaim a real political agency means first of all accepting your insertion at the level of desire in the remorseless meat-grinder of Capital,” Fisher wrote in Capitalist Realism. The denial of our participation in the world, he implies – the disavowal of our desire for iPhones even as we diligently think anti-capitalist thoughts – is incapacitating. It leads to a regressive utopianism that cannot envision going through capitalism, but only retreating or escaping from it, into a primitive past or fictional future.

Maybe the denial and disavowal is part of it? That's one explanation for the push into progressive politics by big business. It's an assurance that you're a good person. You can shrug off the abuses and excesses of the machine, or at least put them out of mind, because your consumption's done for the right reasons.

Both the desire and the denial/disavowal seem at least partly to be coming from the top down.

 

[sus]

People want too much, they want everything, but they can't have everything and they don't know what they want more, because they don't have good models for what to choose, so they can't choose, because the culture doesn't provide them [coherent] models

 

[sus]

I dont feel bad about my smartphone if the
Chinese children were better off without my patronage they wouldnt be working

 

[sus]

People get really upset about Guiyu's ewaste disposal and want to shut it down because theyre concerned about the Guiyuans getting lead poisoning but if you talk to the Guiyuans the thing theyre most worried about is people shutting down their livelihood out of superficial concern

 

[sus]

Wow not even those last two posts managed to bait anyone, this forum's really dead

 

[version]

It's Saturday night and I think everyone's baited out at this point anyway. It's been a fractious forum for a while.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

Wow not even those last two posts managed to bait anyone, this forum's really dead

See, it's harder than it looks.

 

[sufi]

"I think the US is in a terrible state of denial," he says firmly. "Worse than that, we seem to be caught in a kind of Gotterdammerung response: we'd rather have the world go down in flames than change our lifestyle or admit we're wrong. Even here in California, 50% of cars on the freeway are SUVs, and they're political statements: they say, we're going to take the rest of the world down with us because we don't give a damn.

Essentially they're Republican vehicles: when you see an SUV go by, you know the driver voted for Bush. I do think the world has larger global warming problems, but if the US were actually engaged in dealing with them, there'd be a sense that the worst abuser had seen the light and the whole world was on the same page. There's a really sizeable minority here who back measures to reduce emissions, but the political process is controlled by the Republican administration, which is basically in thrall to the oil industry. So it'll come down to another election - and with the last two elections both in their different ways perhaps having been stolen, we can't even really count on democracy anymore. It's pretty scary here."

Kim Stanley Robinson back in 2005

 

[shakahislop]

“To reclaim a real political agency means first of all accepting your insertion at the level of desire in the remorseless meat-grinder of Capital,” Fisher wrote in Capitalist Realism. The denial of our participation in the world, he implies – the disavowal of our desire for iPhones even as we diligently think anti-capitalist thoughts – is incapacitating. It leads to a regressive utopianism that cannot envision going through capitalism, but only retreating or escaping from it, into a primitive past or fictional future.

So in 15 years we are only deeper in Denial and Disavowal than ever - and especially in politics where lines are drawn and taboos raised up stifling discourse and obstructing governance, or what?

from what i can see even on the less anti-capitalism is hardly even a strand of thought anymore. it's boring as fuck to say but identity-everything has captured all of that energy. in the UK in the early 2010s the only game in town was anti-austerity and so much UK left discussion that isn't identity stuff is essentially about public spending. the anti-globalization thing of the early 2000s in particular feels long gone, a comprehensively lost battle. no-one cares in the slightest about sweatshops and all of that. one thing that's been lost in all of that is any consideration of class / production relationships across borders. there's a certain myopia in both the identity stuff and the public spending stuff where it takes the country as its unit of analysis rather than the world.

feels like k punk was writing a long time ago now, talking about a structure of feeling that no longer exists. in light of the above i don't think there's much of a need for disavowal of our desires any more

 

[version]

the anti-globalization thing of the early 2000s in particular feels long gone, a comprehensively lost battle.

Anti-globalisation's the right's territory now, and they have a different set of priorities.

 

[thirdform]

from what i can see even on the less anti-capitalism is hardly even a strand of thought anymore. it's boring as fuck to say but identity-everything has captured all of that energy. in the UK in the early 2010s the only game in town was anti-austerity and so much UK left discussion that isn't identity stuff is essentially about public spending. the anti-globalization thing of the early 2000s in particular feels long gone, a comprehensively lost battle. no-one cares in the slightest about sweatshops and all of that. one thing that's been lost in all of that is any consideration of class / production relationships across borders. there's a certain myopia in both the identity stuff and the public spending stuff where it takes the country as its unit of analysis rather than the world.

feels like k punk was writing a long time ago now, talking about a structure of feeling that no longer exists. in light of the above i don't think there's much of a need for disavowal of our desires any more

Anti-capitalism is such a nebulous term. It could mean everything from artisanal and localist commune production (the anarchist wet dream) or a stronger welfare state. Generally though, today it takes the form of opposition to big capital, ignoring that the centralisation of capitalist production engenders the very working class which can destroy it at the point of production. Certainly where the struggle is between small and big capital, big capital is to be prefered, so that we can crush it with what it has created.

The problem with k-punk and his accolytes is they made capital the subject of history, when the subject of history is history itself.

 

[HMGovt’s Glorious Return!]

"I think the US is in a terrible state of denial," he says firmly. "Worse than that, we seem to be caught in a kind of Gotterdammerung response: we'd rather have the world go down in flames than change our lifestyle or admit we're wrong. Even here in California, 50% of cars on the freeway are SUVs, and they're political statements: they say, we're going to take the rest of the world down with us because we don't give a damn.

Essentially they're Republican vehicles: when you see an SUV go by, you know the driver voted for Bush. I do think the world has larger global warming problems, but if the US were actually engaged in dealing with them, there'd be a sense that the worst abuser had seen the light and the whole world was on the same page. There's a really sizeable minority here who back measures to reduce emissions, but the political process is controlled by the Republican administration, which is basically in thrall to the oil industry. So it'll come down to another election - and with the last two elections both in their different ways perhaps having been stolen, we can't even really count on democracy anymore. It's pretty scary here."

Kim Stanley Robinson back in 2005

Hysterical. Like all bullshit climate alarmism, this didn't age well.

If you still believe in that, I've a vaccine to sell you.