Late-capitalist dystopia depicts catastrophe as an ongoing lived condition rather than a punctual event

Evidence

What is unique about the dystopia in Children of Men is that it is specific to late capitalism. This isn’t the familiar totalitarian scenario routinely trotted out in cinematic dystopias (see, for example, James McTeigue’s 2005 V for Vendetta). In the PD. James novel on which the film is based, democracy is suspended and the country is ruled over by a self-appointed Warden, but, wisely, the film downplays all this. For all that we know, the authoritarian measures that are everywhere in place could have been implemented within a political structure that remains, notionally, democratic. The War on Terror has prepared us for such a development: the normalization of crisis produces a situation in which the repealing of measures brought in to deal with an emergency becomes unimaginable (when will the war be over?) … The catastrophe in Children of Men is neither waiting down the road, nor has it already happened. Rather, it is being lived through. There is no punctual moment of disaster; the world doesn’t end with a bang, it winks out, unravels, gradually falls apart. — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 7

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Crisis normalization makes the repeal of emergency measures unimaginable — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 7; Millennium and apocalypse differ yet usually interlock in catastrophic millennialism — Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic…, 1063; A foreshortened temporal perspective blinds people to accumulating catastrophe (+4 more)

Related

• Late-capitalist catastrophe is a slow unraveling rather than an event. (similarity 0.88)
• Authoritarian measures can persist within nominally democratic structures via normalized crisis (similarity 0.84)
• Emergency measures become permanent once crisis is normalized. (similarity 0.81)
• Low-capacity democracies are rare and historically short-lived (similarity 0.80)
• Apocalypse is contemporary when the catastrophe is felt as already underway rather than imminent (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Apocalypse is contemporary when the catastrophe is felt as already underway rather than imminent #corroborates (0.90) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 556
• A foreshortened temporal perspective blinds people to accumulating catastrophe #corroborates (0.82)
• Late modern temporal experience yields drift and political fatalism #expands (0.75) — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 778