Neoliberal ideology, not market forces, caused cultural resignation and stagnation.

Evidence

The real crisis in culture, then, isn’t market domination—it’s resignation. Neoliberalism didn’t just create pernicious economic structures; it provided a set of extremely seductive ideologies that convinced us to stop idolizing artistic progress. So far this has been a century of pop realists who find it harder to imagine the end of Taylor Swift than the end of the world. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 849

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The sharpest causal claim in the chapter — that the crisis is ideological resignation rather than structural domination — reframes the entire four-period analysis and gives the reader their strongest attack point.
• CANDY: ‘Harder to imagine the end of Taylor Swift than the end of the world’ is a perfect elevator-conversation line.
• XREF: connects to: The ruins of rave culture mark sites where neoliberal redevelopment erased dreams of collectivity — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on…, 482