Unfocused public discontent gives politicians no incentive to act on it.
Evidence
Again: learn from neoliberalism. It doesn’t control parliament because it has its own people directly in there, though that might to some extent be true. The point is that even if that were true, how is it possible? It’s possible because of the constitution of forces inside society, isn’t it? That’s it at its basic behaviourist level, I think. Politicians and administrators will bow to the strongest force in a certain way. Then what we need in the first instance is to create conflict in their own minds. At the moment, it’s just all too easy to bow down to business, because it’s only powerful force acting upon them. There’s a widespread, inchoate discontent, for instance, about the banks — and since there’s no agent that’s capable of focusing that discontent and bringing it to bear on politicians, then they can ignore it — they just make a few moralising gestures towards it. To me it’s a question of how you constitute those extra parliamentary forces, how we produce these new forms of solidarity. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2186
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Neoliberal-era anger lacks any political formation to channel it — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1357; Riots can be political yet lack all goals or strategy — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 2209; Culture’s failure to absorb discontent may force politics into rawer, uncaptured form. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1296 (+1 more)
Broader Connections
- Neoliberal-era anger lacks any political formation to channel it
#expands(0.82) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1357 - Riots can be political yet lack all goals or strategy
#exemplifies(0.75) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2209 - Elected officials were reacting to, not leading, antibusing constituents.
#exemplifies(0.74) — Matthew D. Lassiter, The Suburban Origins of “Color-Blind”…, 69 - Culture’s failure to absorb discontent may force politics into rawer, uncaptured form.
#complicates(0.72) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1296