Postmodernism is capitalism’s recycling of readymade identities because it cannot innovate

Evidence

Capital is nothing if it is not parsimonious, and for the last thirty years it is has sustained itself by relying on readymade forms of existential affiliation. This reliance on already-existing forms of identification — all those nationalisms and religions, with any number of archaisms ready to crawl out of the crypt — is what postmodernism has been. There are no “pure” archaisms, nothing ever repeats without difference, and ISIS is properly understood as a cybergothic phenomenon which combines the ancient with the contemporary (beheadings on the web). It faces not a confident capitalist modernity, but a capitalism that has retreated from the present, never mind the future. Left to its own resources — or rather, left to the resources it retains from previous forms of exploitation — capital can never come up with anything new. Postmodernism was its ideal form, and the naturalised postmodernism of capitalist realism was its optimal solution to political and cultural antagonism. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2021

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the book’s own capitalist realism thesis — Fisher’s core concept of imagination colonized by the lack of alternatives. — connects to: Postmodernism cannot be understood apart from late capitalism’s economic structure — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 374; Postmodernism is a reflex of capitalism’s modification, not a new social order. — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 13; So-called postmodern trends merely continue capitalist processes begun under modernism — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 574 (+6 more)
• BMF: The ‘steampunk model: Victorian social relations, but now with iPhones’ evokes the deliberately anachronistic worldbuilding in We by Zamyatin, where a hyper-modern one-state resurrects archaic ritual — actually closer to Fisher’s own point about archaisms crawling out of the crypt.

Broader Connections

• Postmodernism is a reflex of capitalism’s modification, not a new social order. #corroborates (0.85) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 13
• Postmodernism cannot be understood apart from late capitalism’s economic structure #expands (0.82) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 374
• Postmodernism’s rejection of innovation still depends on the very notion of novelty. #complicates (0.80) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 276
• Capitalism’s resilience comes from its plasticity in adopting new social forms #expands (0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1647
• So-called postmodern trends merely continue capitalist processes begun under modernism #corroborates (0.78) — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 574
• Radically open, recomposable realities in culture mirror late capitalism’s care-destroying impermanence #exemplifies (0.76) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 759
• Postmodernist thought arises from the new technologies of knowledge communication in advanced capitalism. #expands (0.75) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 339
• The discourse of creativity masks real needs that capitalism cannot actually satisfy #corroborates (0.74) — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 572
• Modernity names real novelties of capitalism even though it cannot explain them #qualifies (0.72) — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 162