Cultural critique’s political effect is indeterminate and unknowable in advance
Evidence
The issue is how culture connects up with struggles, and you can’t second guess that. It’s possible that any of the films I talked about could contribute to the development of class consciousness or inspire people to engage in struggles. Conversely, it’s possible that even those films or television programs which inventory the features of capitalist realism end up reinforcing it. Take something like The Wire: yes, it exemplifies practically everything I say about capitalist realism, but, for that very reason, you could say that it supports, rather than subverts, capitalist realism. You could very easily take away the message that struggling to change things is pointless; the system wins in the end. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2223
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to Frankfurt School debates about whether culture industry is inherently containment or has subversive potential (Adorno vs Benjamin). — connects to: Doing things wrongly, incl making grave mistakes is unavoidable in cultural revolutions — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as…, 77; Critiques of modernism can be hijacked for reactionary cultural politics — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 178; Culture’s failure to absorb discontent may force politics into rawer, uncaptured form. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1296 (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- Critiques of modernism can be hijacked for reactionary cultural politics
#exemplifies(0.80) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 178 - Culture-talk in anti-Muslim discourse both displaces and produces political meaning
#expands(0.76) - Culture’s truth depends on immanent critique of its own untruth.
#complicates(0.73) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 966 - Cultural nationalism can smuggle in obscurantism merely by inverting the traditionmodernity binary
#exemplifies(0.73) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 49 - Culture’s failure to absorb discontent may force politics into rawer, uncaptured form.
#complicates(0.72) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1296