Mark Fisher’s comments on mental health have been so helpful to me, and listening to the postcapitalist desire audiobook has recently been the highlight of my day. I truly am thankful for him as well
Sure! The particular comments I was thinking of are two connected ones from capitalist realism, and I luckily have them saved.
>“Capitalist realism insists on treating mental health as if it were a natural fact, like weather (but, then again, weather is no longer a natural fact so much as a political-economic effect). In the 1960s and 1970s, radical theory and politics (Laing, Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari, etc.) coalesced around extreme mental conditions such as schizophrenia, arguing, for instance, that madness was not a natural, but a political, category. But what is needed now is a politicization of much more common disorders. Indeed, it is their very commonness which is the issue: in Britain, depression is now the condition that is most treated by the NHS. In his book The Selfish Capitalist, Oliver James has convincingly posited a correlation between rising rates of mental distress and the neoliberal mode of capitalism practiced in countries like Britain, the USA and Australia. In line with James’s claims, I want to argue that it is necessary to reframe the growing problem of stress (and distress) in capitalist societies. Instead of treating it as incumbent on individuals to resolve their own psychological distress, instead, that is, of accepting the vast privatization of stress that has taken place over the last thirty years, we need to ask: how has it become acceptable that so many people, and especially so many young people, are ill?”
>"Considering mental illness an individual chemico-biological problem has enormous benefits for capitalism. First, it reinforces Capital's drive towards atomistic individualization (you are sick because of your brain chemistry). Second, it provides an enormously lucrative market in which multinational pharmaceutical companies can peddle their pharmaceuticals (we can cure you with our SSRIs). It goes without saying that all mental illnesses are neurologically instantiated, but this says nothing about their causation. If it is true, for instance, that depression is constituted by low serotonin levels, what still needs to be explained is why particular individuals have low levels of serotonin. This requires a social and political explanation; and the task of politicizing mental illness is an urgent one."
He has various other comments in this vein of thought, both in articles and blog. For me they have helped me to recontextualize my illness in a collective lens, something that should come obvious from a critical perspective, but is often hard to do when you’re suffering from something yourself. Hope you find them interesting :)
The first sentence of Capitalist Realism changed my life. I was a libertarian troll who was then confronted with the realization that capitalism was a construct that has been treated as some existential and unchangeable force, of which it is not. I'll never forget that lightbulb moment.
Yes, it's about how in our art, "It's easier to imagine the end of the world than it is the end of capitalism." He goes on to use Children of Men as an example.
Certain abstract entities like numbers, the sign, logical inferences, and so on, and certain objects like stones, galaxies, and the eagle soaring above me right now.
Every abstract entity is a construct, first of all. Everything abstract you listed is a construct.
As for material reality (stones, galaxies... (why "certain" objects?)), your interaction with it outside direct experience is via constructs, for example maps and media. Direct experience is arguably mediated through sense perception and the mind, both constructs.
> Every abstract entity is a construct, first of all.
This is a minority position. According to the philpapers survey only 15% of philosophers lean towards mathematical constructionism. If you are going to claim this position, at least give us an argument. Stating it as a fact is intellectual lazyness.
Regarding your last point, maps and media are obviously constructs, but maps do represent something, so even your own argument here assumes there are non-constructs.
When you say sense perception and the mind is constructed this makes no sense. When a toad senses something who constructed that sense perception? God? Again, provide us with an argument.
> Stating it as a fact is intellectual lazyness.
this is reddit
> According to the philpapers survey only 15% of philosophers
glad to hear philosophy is a democracy now.
Every abstract entity is constructed because it's abstract. Numbers do not exist in this world outside human cognition, their construction, assuming otherwise is Platonist metaphysics.
> maps do represent something
whether a construct represents something or not is irrelevant. Your understanding of the world is mostly constructed, and you would have little way of knowing it's false outside of trust systems and direct experience.
> sense perception and the mind is constructed this makes no sense
if there is a physical reality that isn't a construct, that means our minds and sense perception are made up of it, i.e. biological, which means we can't know if we perceive it as it is. We also know other organisms have different sense perceptions and minds. Any theory of epistemology is constructed, but some work better. Lazily, I say read Kant.
What? As I said in another comment: Less than 3% of philosophers believe in mathematical constructionism, with an additional 12% leaning towards it. It is clearly a minority position. You are talking as if "numbers are a construct" is an obvious statement. Give us an argument. Philosophers from Plato to Deleuze deny mathematical constructionism. I don't see what is so radical in this.
I would argue that 100 Gecs and Charli XCX in particular built their entire sounds using past ideas - 100 Gecs with nu-metal, ska, soundcloud rap etc and Charli with various strands of pop and club music. They're *interesting* sure in the way they combine these styles in a way that hasn't been done before, but it's certainly nothing revolutionary - they revel in being referential
Of course they have influences on their tastes and the culture they will produce due to the things they grew up with if you wanna get Bourdieu about it.
Instead I think the point is that those artists aren't just mixing in your favorite songs to a techno beat like the dua lipa rocket man cover or like MIA sampling the Clash for Paper Planes which makes use of the familiarity of and nostalgia for the past, but that these artists are decontextualizing and re-contextualizing samples to go beyond just a reference and making it something new for you now. "Hyper-ing" all their genre influences, smashing styles together without reverence for genres just because it's fun...
Or maybe I'm huffing my own farts idk you tell me...
There is no way that 100 Gecs making a Sublime sounding song is anything other than that. It’s no more “new” than Q-Tip sampling Lou Reed, you strip it of its context and make it your own, all music is “mulch to be recycled” like Mount Eerie said of Lil Peep sampling him.
Much as I love Mark Fisher, his writing on Burial (which is brilliant) has influenced a decade of people to over-intellectualise any music that they love, you can’t just love 100 Gecs and Charli you have to explain how they “hyper their genre influences” and over-explain these artist’s music for them. It’s ok to just like silly referential music :))
Tbh I don't listen to that much 100 gecs and I had artists like Sophie or Femtanyl in mind when writing that, but i see your point.
I still think that there's a way to relate to that "mulch" that reveres the original and to make use of the meaning associated with it and one which sees it truly as mulch to be repurposed. Maybe these examples aren't it but that idea seems interesting and useful to me.
He wrote about heaps of music/musicians not just burial, are you familiar with his K-Punk blog? He was essentially a music critic, he wrote about Drake ffs
I'm going to Leicester this December. Does anybody know if there are any local exhibits or commemerations for him in his home city, or any organizations dedicated to reading and discussion of his work or anything like that? I guess for his working life he was more centered in Manchester, though?
Man I’d love to say there is but I don’t know if there would be anything, as heartbreaking as that sounds. If you’re ever in London go and see his quote on the wall at goldsmiths.
We all do man.
If you’re jonesing, try “There Is An Alternative” by Schutzbach. He takes care in reconstructing the work Fisher was making when he passed and trying to build on it a bit.
I fully recommend Matty Colquhoun's book [Egress: On Mourning, Melancholy and Mark Fisher](https://repeaterbooks.com/product/egress-on-mourning-melancholy-and-mark-fisher/)
Where would you recommend starting with reading his stuff? I'm just learning about him from the newest episode of Philosophize This and I think I'd like to dive in somewhere.
Gosh, anywhere really. If you're online go to [https://k-punk.org/](https://k-punk.org/) and just dive in. Otherwise, Capitalist Realism is the masterpiece, like the strongest vodka shot of a book you'll ever neck, 80 pages of pure brilliance. If you get hooked, there's the K PUNK collected works which is an absolute doorstep but you'll still breeze through it cause it's so good.
Mark Fisher’s comments on mental health have been so helpful to me, and listening to the postcapitalist desire audiobook has recently been the highlight of my day. I truly am thankful for him as well
Which comments please if you could share?
Sure! The particular comments I was thinking of are two connected ones from capitalist realism, and I luckily have them saved. >“Capitalist realism insists on treating mental health as if it were a natural fact, like weather (but, then again, weather is no longer a natural fact so much as a political-economic effect). In the 1960s and 1970s, radical theory and politics (Laing, Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari, etc.) coalesced around extreme mental conditions such as schizophrenia, arguing, for instance, that madness was not a natural, but a political, category. But what is needed now is a politicization of much more common disorders. Indeed, it is their very commonness which is the issue: in Britain, depression is now the condition that is most treated by the NHS. In his book The Selfish Capitalist, Oliver James has convincingly posited a correlation between rising rates of mental distress and the neoliberal mode of capitalism practiced in countries like Britain, the USA and Australia. In line with James’s claims, I want to argue that it is necessary to reframe the growing problem of stress (and distress) in capitalist societies. Instead of treating it as incumbent on individuals to resolve their own psychological distress, instead, that is, of accepting the vast privatization of stress that has taken place over the last thirty years, we need to ask: how has it become acceptable that so many people, and especially so many young people, are ill?” >"Considering mental illness an individual chemico-biological problem has enormous benefits for capitalism. First, it reinforces Capital's drive towards atomistic individualization (you are sick because of your brain chemistry). Second, it provides an enormously lucrative market in which multinational pharmaceutical companies can peddle their pharmaceuticals (we can cure you with our SSRIs). It goes without saying that all mental illnesses are neurologically instantiated, but this says nothing about their causation. If it is true, for instance, that depression is constituted by low serotonin levels, what still needs to be explained is why particular individuals have low levels of serotonin. This requires a social and political explanation; and the task of politicizing mental illness is an urgent one." He has various other comments in this vein of thought, both in articles and blog. For me they have helped me to recontextualize my illness in a collective lens, something that should come obvious from a critical perspective, but is often hard to do when you’re suffering from something yourself. Hope you find them interesting :)
I like it a lot. Thanks.
The first sentence of Capitalist Realism changed my life. I was a libertarian troll who was then confronted with the realization that capitalism was a construct that has been treated as some existential and unchangeable force, of which it is not. I'll never forget that lightbulb moment.
Isn’t the first sentence about Children of Men?
Yes, it's about how in our art, "It's easier to imagine the end of the world than it is the end of capitalism." He goes on to use Children of Men as an example.
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I don’t think what I said was meant to be hopeful, just that it radically changed my worldview.
And what exactly is not a construct?
Certain abstract entities like numbers, the sign, logical inferences, and so on, and certain objects like stones, galaxies, and the eagle soaring above me right now.
Every abstract entity is a construct, first of all. Everything abstract you listed is a construct. As for material reality (stones, galaxies... (why "certain" objects?)), your interaction with it outside direct experience is via constructs, for example maps and media. Direct experience is arguably mediated through sense perception and the mind, both constructs.
> Every abstract entity is a construct, first of all. This is a minority position. According to the philpapers survey only 15% of philosophers lean towards mathematical constructionism. If you are going to claim this position, at least give us an argument. Stating it as a fact is intellectual lazyness. Regarding your last point, maps and media are obviously constructs, but maps do represent something, so even your own argument here assumes there are non-constructs. When you say sense perception and the mind is constructed this makes no sense. When a toad senses something who constructed that sense perception? God? Again, provide us with an argument.
> Stating it as a fact is intellectual lazyness. this is reddit > According to the philpapers survey only 15% of philosophers glad to hear philosophy is a democracy now. Every abstract entity is constructed because it's abstract. Numbers do not exist in this world outside human cognition, their construction, assuming otherwise is Platonist metaphysics. > maps do represent something whether a construct represents something or not is irrelevant. Your understanding of the world is mostly constructed, and you would have little way of knowing it's false outside of trust systems and direct experience. > sense perception and the mind is constructed this makes no sense if there is a physical reality that isn't a construct, that means our minds and sense perception are made up of it, i.e. biological, which means we can't know if we perceive it as it is. We also know other organisms have different sense perceptions and minds. Any theory of epistemology is constructed, but some work better. Lazily, I say read Kant.
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You are clearly out of your depth here. I will only say that Kant, who you recommend I read, did not believe in mathematical constructinism.
Bro really wrote "numbers are not a construct"
What? As I said in another comment: Less than 3% of philosophers believe in mathematical constructionism, with an additional 12% leaning towards it. It is clearly a minority position. You are talking as if "numbers are a construct" is an obvious statement. Give us an argument. Philosophers from Plato to Deleuze deny mathematical constructionism. I don't see what is so radical in this.
I mean…exactly.
Also Graeber.
Man was I sad when I discovered him and then I was told he died not so long ago. What a loss 😔
[How can Rick be dead when we still have his poems?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7c02FZOjK9I)
But why are the kids crying? ^I ^miss ^Fisher ^too.
Same, I’m currently reading Ghosts of my life and listening to Tricky and Drum & bass on a daily basis…
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Sorry if I seem out of touch, but what is special about these musicians that would make them relevant to him?
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I would argue that 100 Gecs and Charli XCX in particular built their entire sounds using past ideas - 100 Gecs with nu-metal, ska, soundcloud rap etc and Charli with various strands of pop and club music. They're *interesting* sure in the way they combine these styles in a way that hasn't been done before, but it's certainly nothing revolutionary - they revel in being referential
Of course they have influences on their tastes and the culture they will produce due to the things they grew up with if you wanna get Bourdieu about it. Instead I think the point is that those artists aren't just mixing in your favorite songs to a techno beat like the dua lipa rocket man cover or like MIA sampling the Clash for Paper Planes which makes use of the familiarity of and nostalgia for the past, but that these artists are decontextualizing and re-contextualizing samples to go beyond just a reference and making it something new for you now. "Hyper-ing" all their genre influences, smashing styles together without reverence for genres just because it's fun... Or maybe I'm huffing my own farts idk you tell me...
There is no way that 100 Gecs making a Sublime sounding song is anything other than that. It’s no more “new” than Q-Tip sampling Lou Reed, you strip it of its context and make it your own, all music is “mulch to be recycled” like Mount Eerie said of Lil Peep sampling him. Much as I love Mark Fisher, his writing on Burial (which is brilliant) has influenced a decade of people to over-intellectualise any music that they love, you can’t just love 100 Gecs and Charli you have to explain how they “hyper their genre influences” and over-explain these artist’s music for them. It’s ok to just like silly referential music :))
Tbh I don't listen to that much 100 gecs and I had artists like Sophie or Femtanyl in mind when writing that, but i see your point. I still think that there's a way to relate to that "mulch" that reveres the original and to make use of the meaning associated with it and one which sees it truly as mulch to be repurposed. Maybe these examples aren't it but that idea seems interesting and useful to me.
He wrote about heaps of music/musicians not just burial, are you familiar with his K-Punk blog? He was essentially a music critic, he wrote about Drake ffs
Great take/words. I like to compartmentalise Hauntology as being a specific period in music history.
Wow I am truly with my people, have you listened to Brat or Tidal Memory XO?
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I really enjoyed it.
I'm going to Leicester this December. Does anybody know if there are any local exhibits or commemerations for him in his home city, or any organizations dedicated to reading and discussion of his work or anything like that? I guess for his working life he was more centered in Manchester, though?
Man I’d love to say there is but I don’t know if there would be anything, as heartbreaking as that sounds. If you’re ever in London go and see his quote on the wall at goldsmiths.
We all do man. If you’re jonesing, try “There Is An Alternative” by Schutzbach. He takes care in reconstructing the work Fisher was making when he passed and trying to build on it a bit.
He'd have a few choice words about the lack of imagination and ambition of the Labour party.
http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/archives/005462.html
I fully recommend Matty Colquhoun's book [Egress: On Mourning, Melancholy and Mark Fisher](https://repeaterbooks.com/product/egress-on-mourning-melancholy-and-mark-fisher/)
Already love the title. Thanks.
Where would you recommend starting with reading his stuff? I'm just learning about him from the newest episode of Philosophize This and I think I'd like to dive in somewhere.
Gosh, anywhere really. If you're online go to [https://k-punk.org/](https://k-punk.org/) and just dive in. Otherwise, Capitalist Realism is the masterpiece, like the strongest vodka shot of a book you'll ever neck, 80 pages of pure brilliance. If you get hooked, there's the K PUNK collected works which is an absolute doorstep but you'll still breeze through it cause it's so good.
Thanks! I appreciate this!
He is the best!
MVP jungle blogger.
Same. I especially miss his blogposts about music