Defeated political movements must choose between obsolescence and full capitulation.

Evidence

Negri here describes the destitution that the left endured after the defeats of the 1970s: the destruction of all its hopes, the way in which it had been outflanked by a neoliberalism which successfully installed business thinking into all areas of everyday life. … To go back to the seeming certainties of older forms of militancy would be to consign oneself to irrelevance, obsolescence, to become an historical relic; but to accept the new situation, to adapt to it, would be to concede total defeat. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1560

Categorization

• XREF: This is Fisher’s own concept of capitalist realism in its immediate post-1970s — not post-2008 — formulation; connects to the broader capitalist-realism argument across the collection. — connects to: Leftists must transform during defeat rather than retreat or adapt — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1561; Discredited successor parties must break with the past early to regain power; A movement’s founding ideology can become a trap that ensures its defeat — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting…, 392 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Leftists must transform during defeat rather than retreat or adapt #corroborates (0.82) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1561
• A movement’s founding ideology can become a trap that ensures its defeat #expands (0.78) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 392
• Discredited successor parties must break with the past early to regain power #qualifies (0.75)
• Discredited parties must transform organizationally and break with the past to regain power #qualifies (0.75) — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 87