Discerning dissatisfaction with the present is a productive cultural force, not mere negativity

Evidence

The fact we happen to be alive now doesn’t mean that we must be committed to the belief that this is the best time to live EVER. We have no duty to search out entertainment and spread a little excitement everywhere we go. (Think of how hard to please audiences were in the mid-Seventies, in the midst of a veritable cornucopia by comparison with today’s grim desert; and think of what that dissatisfaction produced.) So, please, no consumerist homilies about the fact that “it is always possible to find good records, no matter what the year”. Yes, of course it is, but as soon as pop is reduced to good records it really is all over. When pop can no longer muster a nihilation of the World, a nihilation of the Possible, then it will only be the ghosts that are worthy of our time. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1093

Categorization

• XREF: Runs directly against the ‘popist-Deleuzianism’ positivity Fisher elsewhere targets; parallels ch33’s claim about identifying causal chains of one’s oppression being freeing, and the cultural-vitality theme of ch56. — connects to: Effective criticism shapes culture rather than merely describing it — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2688; Apparent civic apathy is effortful cultural labor, not genuine indifference — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”: The work of avoiding…, 169
• SEED: The anti-‘always possible to find good records’ homily is a sharp refutation of presentist relativism — material for an essay on why critical discontent, not gratitude, produces culture.

Broader Connections

• Effective criticism shapes culture rather than merely describing it #corroborates (0.85) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2688
• Apparent civic apathy is effortful cultural labor, not genuine indifference #epitomizes (0.75) — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”, 169