Dreamwork’s confabulated smoothness models how capitalist realism papers over contradictions

Evidence

The inability to make new memories: a succinct formulation of the postmodern impasse… … If memory disorder provides a compelling analogy for the glitches in capitalist realism, the model for its smooth functioning would be dreamwork. When we are dreaming, we forget, but immediately forget that we have done so; since the gaps and lacunae in our memories are Photoshopped out, they do not trouble or torment us. What dreamwork does is to produce a confabulated consistency which covers over anomalies and contradictions, and it is this which Wendy Brown picked up on when she argued that it was precisely dreamwork which provided the best model for understanding contemporary forms of power. — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 122

Categorization

• DEFINE: The core mechanism distinction of the chapter: anterograde amnesia (Memento) models capitalist realism’s glitches; dreamwork models its smooth functioning.
• XREF: Dreamwork as ideological smoothness connects to earlier Frankfurt School notes on how ideology operates as lived consciousness rather than error. — connects to: Accepting senseless contradictions is the exemplary technique of sanity in late capitalism. — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 113; Dreamwork’s confabulated consistency models how ideology now covers its contradictions. — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 123; Dreamwork’s confabulated consistency models how contemporary power maintains itself — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 123

Related

• Dreamwork’s confabulated consistency models how ideology now covers its contradictions. (similarity 0.93)
• Neoliberalism and neoconservatism rule together purely through dreamwork’s confabulated consistency (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Dreamwork’s confabulated consistency models how ideology now covers its contradictions. #corroborates (0.95) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 123
• Dreamwork’s confabulated consistency models how contemporary power maintains itself #expands (0.82) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 123