Normalized uncertainty produces permanent low-level panic replacing object-directed fear

Evidence

It isn’t only work that has become more tenuous. The neoliberal attacks on public services, welfare programmes and trade unions mean that we are increasingly living in a world deprived of security or solidarity. The consequence of the normalisation of uncertainty is a permanent state of low-level panic. Fear, which attaches to particular objects, is replaced by a more generalised anxiety, a constant twitching, an inability to settle. The uncertainty of work is intensified by digital communication technology. As soon as there is email, there are no longer working hours nor a workplace. What characterises the present moment more than our anxious checking — of our messages, which may bring opportunities or demands (often both at the same time), or, more abstractly, of our status, which, like the stock market is constantly under review, never finally resolved? — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1626

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The whole claim feels preliminary here but this chapter is mostly setup concluding in a fragment about the K-Punk site text: it does contain a complete thought about the anxiety of ‘never resolved’ status.
• XREF: Connects to ‘The Frankfurt School’ on increasingly calculating, always-reviewed social world and to Standpoint work on constant self-monitoring. — connects to: Normalised uncertainty converts fear of objects into diffuse chronic anxiety. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1626

Broader Connections

• Normalised uncertainty converts fear of objects into diffuse chronic anxiety. #corroborates (1.00) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1626