K-Punk

dilbert1 · Jul 13, 2020

version said:
I'm not convinced that's true.

I think he’s always made the point that therapy, “self help,” SSRIs and other individual solutions to mental health issues have value in different contexts for different people. But when you look at the historical trends in depression and anxiety, there’s clearly a correlation with capitalism’s ravaging of the social world. The danger of the “self help” model becoming predominant is the neoliberal model of individualizing responsibility, so you’re just a morally bankrupt layabout if you can’t get yout shit together. Slippery slope, at the end of which you get a Jordan peterson advising you to clean your room and stick your depoliticized head in the sand (or else blame the feminist marxist post-structuralist historical materialist boogeymen)

constant escape · Jul 13, 2020

dilbert1 said:
This is as close as you could get to uploading nietzsche’s philosophical view into your brain, highly recommend and i can say with relative certainty that fisher would endorse “geuss’s nietzsche” if you will. 100x better than walter kaufman. Speaks plainly and clearly, ive relistened to this series 3 or 4 times. Link——>

Giving this a listen now - thanks.

linebaugh · Jul 13, 2020

version said:
The world is wrong, but I don't think taking a mentally ill person out of the world and sticking them in another one would necessarily cure them of their illness. Surely mental illness existed long before capitalism? Also the people I know and have known with mental health issues have often being traumatised by specific things.

Yah Ive found the same thing considering trauma. Amongst my friends that struggle most that's the root, but what fisher is on about is detrimental to the recovery. Locks them in.

And to be fair, I think he's speaking more to the increase of mental illness rather than just mental illness in the abstract.

version · Jul 13, 2020

dilbert1 said:
The danger of the “self help” model becoming predominant is the neoliberal model of individualizing responsibility, so you’re just a morally bankrupt layabout if you can’t get yout shit together. Slippery slope, at the end of which you get a Jordan peterson advising you to clean your room and stick your head in the sand (or else blame the feminist marxist post-structuralist historical materialist boogeymen)

This ties in with the "wanting Nietzsche like they want a hamburger" thing. People buying self-help books hoping for a quick fix. Life hacks.

linebaugh · Jul 13, 2020

Self help can also be a personality supplement. Seems people are particularly desperate to have a 'thing.'

linebaugh · Jul 13, 2020

I have alot of unprocessed thoughts on that. Surely branding yourself in certain way is more prevalent now than decades earlier?

dilbert1 · Jul 13, 2020

Linebaugh said:
Yah Ive found the same thing considering trauma. Amongst my friends that struggle most that's the root, but what fisher is on about is detrimental to the recovery. Locks them in.

And to be fair, I think he's speaking more to the increase of mental illness rather than just mental illness in the abstract.

There does seem to be a qualitative shift in the kind of depression and anxiety we deal with in relation to technology’s temporal acceleration/flattening. His “cybertime crisis” lecture bit is some of his best, even tho a lot of it is just (skillfully) recapitulated stuff from jodi dean and franco berardi

version · Jul 13, 2020

Linebaugh said:
Self help can also be a personality supplement. Seems people are particularly desperate to have a 'thing.'

Linebaugh said:
I have alot of unprocessed thoughts on that. Surely branding yourself in certain way is more prevalent now than decades earlier?

A package of interests you must have to be a certain kind of person. I saw someone saying they were "getting really into BLM and meditation and animal rights" the other day, as though they were hobbies or TV shows or something.

shiels · Jul 13, 2020

The MENTAL HEALTH CONVERSATION has moved very quickly. “It’s just a disease, a chemical imbalance in the brain” was the prevalent idea when the book came out. His headline here in 2012 wouldn’t be contentious today, they wouldn’t use it https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jul/16/mental-health-political-issue

dilbert1 · Jul 13, 2020

version said:
A package of interests you must have to be a certain kind of person. I saw someone saying they were "getting really into BLM and meditation and animal rights" the other day, as though they were hobbies or TV shows or something.

cringe. Reminds me of tiqqun’s musing about personal hygiene products incorporating words like “epistemology” “philosophy” or “metaphysics.” Every consumer item is treated like a metonymous indicator of some larger unitary lifestyle/worldview. Capitalism is a hell of a religion

version · Jul 13, 2020

shiels said:
The MENTAL HEALTH CONVERSATION has moved very quickly. “It’s just a disease, a chemical imbalance in the brain” was the prevalent idea when the book came out. His headline here in 2012 wouldn’t be contentious today, they wouldn’t use it https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jul/16/mental-health-political-issue

It strikes me as too complex to speak as though that's all it is. I agree the stuff Mark was talking about is a huge part of it though. Basically everyone I know's stressed out and anxious about work, money, housing and so on. It wears you down and breaks you.

linebaugh · Jul 13, 2020

version said:
A package of interests you must have to be a certain kind of person. I saw someone saying they were "getting really into BLM and meditation and animal rights" the other day, as though they were hobbies or TV shows or something.

I also think it works as a kind of depression barrier, and I think the depression barrier is a huge factor in a few things. A perpetual bummer is the ground if you don't find a 'thing.' Where once community stood in as the ground and held off that inevitable perpetual bummer, now you have to consciously code yourself in some way. Leads to alot of ridiculous behavior, think it loops back into the leftist in fighting we were on earlier: people aren't just speaking at the level of intellect, theres an peice of it that comes from this fight to hold off depression. Gives everything this dire edge.

version · Jul 13, 2020

I'd heard the book was a little dated now, but I didn't feel it was at all. The stuff he was saying about everything being done for PR, targets becoming the focus over performance when they were originally supposed to be measuring it, the Big Other. It all seemed just as applicable to Brexit, COVID and whatever else is going on now as anything at the time it was published.

version · Jul 13, 2020

Linebaugh said:
I also think it works as a kind of depression barrier, and I think the depression barrier is a huge factor in a few things. A perpetual bummer is the ground if you don't find a 'thing.' Where once community stood in as the ground and held off that inevitable perpetual bummer, now you have to consciously code yourself in some way. Leads to alot of ridiculous behavior, think it loops back into the leftist in fighting we were on earlier: people aren't just speaking at the level of intellect, theres an peice of it that comes from this fight to hold off depression. Gives everything this dire edge.

Probably the same for Trump, Brexit.

linebaugh · Jul 13, 2020

Thats what D&G are on about a bit. Love of power and facism isn't entirely some weird oedipal desire to be dominated from above, comfort in that security, its also something to participate in, and thats where its really effective. Cant think of a mainstream political group that makes The Cause more a life defining activity than the Trump supporter

linebaugh · Jul 13, 2020

Particuarly effective when crossed with what CR is on about- there's really very little to genuinely participate in that isnt some shitty job.

version · Jul 13, 2020

Linebaugh said:
Cant think of a mainstream political group that makes The Cause more a life defining activity more than the Trump supporter

It's there with Brexit somewhat, but it can come off as a pale imitation of the American stuff. You get Brexit supporters trying to use similar talking points and language and it's a bit desperate. Some of them even wore MAGA hats for a while.

linebaugh · Jul 13, 2020

I know alot of Trump supporters in bumfuck parts of Texas and I imagine Id get pretty desperate too if I worked 40 hours a week for the privilege of paying 1000 bucks a month to slowly rot in the sun.

shiels · Jul 13, 2020

version said:
It strikes me as too complex to speak as though that's all it is. I agree the stuff Mark was talking about is a huge part of it though. Basically everyone I know's stressed out and anxious about work, money, housing and so on. It wears you down and breaks you.

It’s very complex, I see this as bringing the complexity back in when things were being simplified, medicated, isolated, pathologised. The complexity and mess of environment, belief systems, hegemony

linebaugh · Jul 13, 2020

version said:
It's there with Brexit somewhat, but it can come off as a pale imitation of the American stuff. You get Brexit supporters trying to use similar talking points and language and it's a bit desperate. Some of them even wore MAGA hats for a while.

The Brexit crowd and the Trump crowd have essentially the same interests no? I don't know much about Brexit, just that its the same xenophobia, unknowing neo-lib backlash, and weird national strength fetish

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