Lost futures haunt a city more keenly than its past does

Evidence

Near future, maybe…But listening to Burial as I walk through damp and drizzly South London streets in this abortive Spring, it strikes me that the LP is very London Now – which is to say, it suggests a city haunted not only by the past but by lost futures. … The album is like the faded ten year-old tag of a kid whose Rave dreams have been crushed by a series of dead end jobs. — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life, 212

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies ‘hauntology’/‘lost futures’ as distinct from mere nostalgia — a haunting by what could still happen, not only what was.
• XREF: connects to: Britpop’s 90s dominance suppressed a pluralist future that never materialised — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on…, 101; A music generation can elapse from rave euphoria into haunted deadbeat melancholy — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on…, 215; Pervasive cultural nostalgia signals an inability to make new memories — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on…, 249 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• People are haunted by futures the Eighties neoliberal turn terminated #exemplifies (0.90) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2290
• Present experience re-encounters a past that was once a projected future. #expands (0.82) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 1068
• Futures are increasingly represented in the forms of the past. #qualifies (0.78) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 515