Deciding popular belief is false consciousness blinds critics to its real appeal

Evidence

If the concept of ideology is the classic one in which the illusion is located in knowledge’, he argues, then today’s society must appear post-ideological: the prevailing ideology is that of cynicism; people no longer believe in ideological truth; they do not take ideological propositions seriously. The fundamental level of ideology, however, is not of an illusion masking the real state of things but that of an (unconscious) fantasy structuring our social reality itself. And at this level, we are of course far from being a post-ideological society. Cynical distance is just one way … to blind ourselves to the structural power of ideological fantasy: even if we do not take things seriously, even if we keep an ironical distance, we are still doing them. — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 30 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Serious pop criticism contested common sense while popism ratifies consumerism — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1212; False consciousness makes people hold beliefs contrary to their own interests; Criticizing a comforting false belief can harm more than it helps — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice: How to Communicate…, 261 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Cynical disbelief masks an unconscious ideological fantasy structuring reality #complicates (0.76) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 30