Hello from the American Midwest:
Today’s edition of CP is another bit of expanded notes I took when I was reading Mark Fisher’s Capitalist Realism.
After I send this out, I’m going to put CP on a break for about three weeks. I’m doing this so I can focus on doing the grading I need to do to wrap up the semester and do some other long-form writing. I’ll also continue to work on From78.
Having said all of that, let’s jump in.
A FEW THINGS TO KNOW
First, in the text that follows, I use the term neoliberalism to describe what Fisher is calling capitalist realism. I think I did this because I’m currently also doing some reading of texts written by Wendy Brown, and she uses the term neoliberalism to represent the current dominant social-economic norms we are contained within.
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Having said all that…
ECONOMIC RATHER THAN POLITICAL
If we can make an alternative, it will need to be political. This is a crucial point nowadays almost everyone has been subjected to neoliberalism for their entire lives, and has, therefore, come to believe that the only way to offer effective resistance to things-as-they-are is through creating an economic alternative (make and sell something better), or by offering economic resistance (a sort of “voting with your dollars).
To be clear: Economic resistance is not 100% useless, but it can only go so far. Active opposition to the dominant neoliberal order could be political and economical, but then I’d say the political has to come first. Organizing economically means playing by and within Capital's rules. Organizing politically would be creating new rules for how Capital is used and how it affects the lives of people [EN1].
The idea that if people participate in rebellion to neoliberalism through economic channels alone (by "protesting," boycotts, giving to charity, etc.), then people often don’t feel compelled to organize political resistance to the exploitative neoliberal order as such.
Of course, organizing as a political group is far more cumbersome and complicated than doing individual acts of economic resistance. But, even though it is far more complicated (I think), political resistance is the essential ingredient in the creation of what will be a far more effective alternative in the longterm.
IMPOTENT PROTEST
Fisher’s text claims that protest has gone from being an organized political action to being a product or commodity that is sold to protesters. In this way, what use to be a political form of protest has become a form of "protest" that is symbolic, theoretical, economic, and above all, impotent.
This impotent "protest" can be seen today in “protests” that are huge street parties, but they don’t demand any real change from the established neoliberal order.
Real protest required people to organize and band together to take risks; it produced anxiety in those who participated in it. Real protest also needs people to give their time and energy (their labor-power), not just their money to a cause. When people give their resources to a cause, they can’t use those resources to do things like kick back and relax while binge-watching something.
“Protest,” on the other hand, (usually) does not require the protestors to feel discomfort [EN2]. People spend a little bit of money then show up and have a good time.
Perhaps it’s time for an absurd comparison to illustrate the point. Engaging in what I’m calling “protest” is to engage in dissent to the current conditions of the world in a purely symbolic way. It would be like buying/renting a graduation cap and gown, going to a graduation ceremony, getting to walk across the stage, but not getting any degree. That’s purely symbolic graduation, which might be a fun experience, but it does not give the person who takes part in it any material that is valuable [EN3].
This form of symbolic "protest" often takes the form of a sort of theatre where “protestors” buy lots of stuff to make things like giant puppets. The result is the performative production of significant events in the streets which look like politically-themed carnivals, but accomplish what?
Seriously, I mean that as a genuine information question. Other than a lot of preaching to the choir, what do these “protests” accomplish?
I see them accomplishing the following:
They make the neoliberal institutions a lot of money. (People had to buy the supplies to build those puppets. They had to spend money to get to the protest.)
They make the (organized!) conservatives more interested in trying and getting revenge.
I think “protest” might be what Lacan was talking about in the late 60s when he said, “As revolutionaries [engaging in the discourse of the hysteric], you demand a new master and a new master you shall get!” Lacan was saying that their “protest,” which they believed was in the service of overthrowing the master, is very successful at giving the master even more power than it would have had they not “protested.”
WRAP
Ok, that’s all I’ve got time for this week. Thanks for taking the time to read it.
As I said above, CP will be taking a bit of a break for the next few weeks while I work on accomplishing some other things that I need to get done. However, it will be back as soon as I wrap up those other projects.
Till then, if you want to hear more of what I’m doing, please give my podcast From78 a listen.
Endnotes:
[EN1] — I’m not opposed to spending money on creating resistance to neoliberalism. Truth be told, I don’t see how we could effectively resist neoliberal Capital without using money. However, we can’t disavow the ways that our actions might support the very thing we desire to change.
[EN2] — Some people say that symbolic things are important, and I do not argue with that. Symbolic stuff is fine, and sometimes it’s downright enjoyable. However, engaging in purely symbolic forms of dissent is not a good way to effect any meaningful structural or material changes to our current conditions.
[EN3] — I do, of course, realize that sometimes the people I’m calling “protestors” here do endure things like getting arrested, putting their bodies in harm’s way, so on and so forth. What I want to point out is that, more often than not, the individuals ding those things are doing them in a more performative way than not. I say performative because whatever discomfort they feel tends to be transitory because the individuals who do “protest” are usually not in any real danger. For some (most?) “protestors,” going and putting their body in harm’s way is something that provides them with a tremendous amount of jouissance.