Bergsonism, not Spinozism, is the true ideology of late capitalism

Evidence

Emotions don’t just happen, they emerge out of fields of cause and effect which can be analysed. This means that feelings can be engineered, in a hyperstitional spiral, which has more to do with what Justin Barton calls “lucidity” than with what academic philosophers call Reason. I’m using the term “emotion” rather than “affect” here, very deliberately. Affect as it is now routinely used by academics is pretty much completely opposed to what Spinoza meant by it. The problem begins with Deleuze, and the fatal splicing of Spinoza’s project of emotional engineering with Bergson’s vitalist cult of creativity and unpredictability. It’s hard to think of thinkers more opposed in their fundamental presuppositions and orientations than Spinoza and Bergson — and more or less everything that is wrong with Deleuze, in my view, is tied up with his infatuation with Bergson. It is Bergsonism, rather than Spinozism, which is the true ideology of late capitalism. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1990

Categorization

• XREF: Ties to Fisher’s earlier embrace of hyperstition and libidinal engineering; connects strongly. — connects to: Late capitalism’s irrationality thwarts the rational systematic theory Marx could achieve — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 903; Late capitalism is the purest form of capital, colonizing nature and the unconscious — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 128
• QUESTION: Worth verifying Fisher’s reading of Deleuze and Bergson against the scholarship on Deleuze’s Spinozism; also whether ‘Bergsonism as late-capitalism ideology’ echoes wider critiques (e.g., by those who see Bergson revived by affect theory).

Broader Connections

• Late capitalism is the purest form of capital, colonizing nature and the unconscious #exemplifies (0.85) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 128
• Late capitalism’s irrationality thwarts the rational systematic theory Marx could achieve #qualifies (0.80) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 903