We are merely “going forward” into Q2, Q3, Q4. This becomes a general mode of relating to the world, of ‘enframing’ it, in Heidegger’s language. The economic necessity to reduce everything to purely quantitative relationships engenders this attitude, because future and past loose their particularity, becoming mere versions of the present, identical in quality. For example, take the 3-second time-consciousness peculiar to our popular sphere. On any of the areas he touches, abstract or concrete, Fisher is illuminating. The details of why and how, and the ramifications in various domains, are the object of the book. We are not unmoved exactly but yet still we do nothing. The angles of vision it can provide, the theoretical models, the sentiments for the expression of which it provides concepts – in the right hands this is powerful stock, accumulated through a century of reflection.įisher, with skill, employs this body of Theory to open up and understand the machine, and there is enough in the way of observation and concentrated thought, that one is not left merely hanging onto a bag of untamed abstract nouns.Ĭapitalist Realism itself, is basically the cultural condition in which, with Marx, we stare with clear eyes at “naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation” (4) but yet.keep calm and carry on. The Continental tradition in philosophy is still unparalleled in the resources it has to offer theorists attempting to characterize contemporary society.

Capitalist realism review