Managed public cynicism about media neutralizes hope in public life

Evidence

A manageable level of cynicism about the media actually serves the capitalist realist media system well. Since the media stands in for the public sphere, if journalists and politicians are perceived to be “all liars”, as they widely are, then there is no hope to be had in public life at all. Hack exculpations appeal to a market Hobbesianism: they are giving people what they want but what they won’t admit to liking. When, pickled in the jouissance of self-loathing and their other stimulants of choice, the hacks style themselves as “princes of darkness”, they see themselves as reflecting the public’s own disavowed cynicism back to it. Nobody likes working in the sewers, but don’t you all love the pretty little globules of sensation that we dredge up for you? — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1570

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Fisher’s own capitalist realism thesis and his broader account of how disavowed cynicism stabilizes rather than threatens the system. — connects to: Manageable public cynicism about media protects the status quo — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1570; Political hope can lift personal mood and restore creative capacity
• SEED: Potential essay angle: cynicism as a system-stabilizing thermostat rather than a critical stance — ‘the useful cynic’.

Broader Connections

• Manageable public cynicism about media protects the status quo #expands (0.85) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1570