Hey, friends! As always, I have a request, and a little more urgent one this go around. This is the first video that has been demonitized via the sweet copyright system. With this being my gig as a student, this is definitely painful. I tried to mend it, but it would have destroyed the video. If possible, this channel only survives via Patreon. If you are in decent financial standing and would love to support, here is the link to do so: patreon.com/epochphilosophy Thank you guys for all the support. Truly appreciate all that you do.

I've read this book. The part that hit me the most is where he mentions "depressive hedonia". When he describes a depressive state that, rather than makes you lose interest in things, drives you to seek out pleasure just to ward off that endless despair. I feel this everyday. I want so badly to be free, but I know I'm not.

How to be miserable: 1. work a monotonous blue collar job 2. listen to this video at work

Fisher was one of the first leftists work I read, I couldn't understand all of it, but what I did understand had a huge impact on my worldviews. Especially his critique of mental health, so obvious but at the same time I never really thought of it. I had been struggling with depression, fatigue for years, blaming my "chemical imbalance", but never asked why there was "imbalance" in the first place. Amazing video, you convinced me to read it again!

"It is well enough that people of the nation do NOT understand our banking & monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." Henry Ford knew it.

"a rejection of responsibility outside of the pursuit of capital." perfectly stated!!

I can't help but laugh out loud every time an ad is served while watching this well-done digestion of Mark Fisher

You certainly did Mark Fisher justice. I just finished reading the book and it’s the first theory book I’ve read. I’ve done a lot of research on capitalism and was always deemed as “crazy” for not seeing this current reality as a fixture of life. I remember as a child I always had a negative perception of the phrase “life’s not fair.” I’m beginning to understand the implications of that. On the bright side, with the effects of capitalist realism being so prevalent with each passing day, the youth is particularly active in revolt. There’s theory being spread, but most importantly, action being taken. Every single person is part of the solution. I’ll be sharing this video and book with friends. Great work man.

The reference to Amazon at the end of this video should serve as a terrifying reminder of just how correct Fisher was in his assessment of where we live in the 21st century. Thanks for the synopsis all the same.

Having watched a ton of videos about Capitalist Realism, I can safely say you definitely succeeded in making the best and most comprehensive video about it yet. Bravo!

"work now exists for the illusion of work" that is powerful... It's so existential knowing In the future I might have to work doing nothing for anyone every day for the rest of my life... I literally changed my goal of life from being a youtuber / graphic designer into politician/activist because I realised it's not about enjoyment but truly doing something and making the world a better place. NO OFFENCE to you of course, you are youtuber actually trying to encourage economic discourse and I think you are doing a fine job at that.

I stopped after your introduction and read the book, and it’s insane how closely your selected points are to the highlights I made while reading. I think you achieved your goal for this video, but what worries me is the difficulty in getting “the average person” to care at all. Fisher points out that much of modern [media] tells people how to FEEL, and considering large scale issues sure makes humans FEEL bad. We are conditioned from a young age to avoid these feelings, and to not inflict them upon others. I struggle to find the proper time and place to share ideas like this; even recommending a short video like this one is too much of a commitment for all but a few very close friends. There’s also the inherent worry which you mention: people will learn, and then feel like some mission has been accomplished because of that temporary reckoning. If Trump taught us anything, modern politics does still tell viewers what to think. Billions have been spent spreading blatant, provable lies... imagine if those resources were put towards reckoning with and communicating facts that will help our grandchildren not be cooked alive? A corrupted framework capable of getting masses to care does still exist, it’s just in the wrong hands. Then again, I suppose I’d be expecting capitalism’s problems to be answered within a capitalist framework. These are tough issues.

Mark was a massive loss to UK academia. God rest his soul. I wished I known him in life. He was the same age as me and lived near my sister in law in Felixstowe.

Holy shit it is unreal how much this video covered for 25 minutes, and it felt dense but not dry. I mean wow. I still barely understand this stuff but I can certainly attest that it rings true and undergirds my personal politics and values.

Once again, you've managed to encapsulate a thorough book into a concise and feasible video. The essence of capitalist realism is a modern iteration of Gramsci's cultural hegemony, and to me, it embodies the intertwined nature of all your videos, an ode to rethinking the status quo, and the rational veils that linger behind them. Overall a fascinating video that I will definitely be recommending to those not particularly submerged into theory. Definitely worth the wait.

I lost my copy and just bought another one to read it again and it just arrived today. Serendipitous I must say

Saw this on r/philosophy, and wow, this video was so well made! It's my first time to hear about these subjects, so it was a bit too dense for me. But, I will rewatch this every few days until I understand all those concepts you mentioned. Capitalist realism truly hit me in my core.. working for money's sake. It's deeply disturbing, yet it's difficult to accept because capital is everything when you live in a developing country, especially one that is run by corrupt politicians. My father always tells me (in our vernacular) "Son, if you have no money, then you will be maltreated." Our family lives and breathes capitalism, which is why the truth that you've laid out in this video is a struggle to digest. Thank you for sharing this bitter pill that I must swallow.

Just finished this book today, so this is great timing. It’s a truly beautiful and revolutionary book.

The best KZfaq channel that I've found this half of the pandemic. Thank you for existing.

Capitalism is the artificial reality @ 25:12 is the perfect retort when people say Capitalism is human nature.

One of my new favorite channels, thank you for your educational content. I have no money to offer you but I hope my praise of your work provides even a modicum of compensation.

my favorite video on capitalist realism / mark fisher! seriously thank you. i send this one to people when mark fisher comes up and they wanna know what he's about.

Reading Mark Fisher help me more honestly, rather than Jordan Peterson's self help advice, which is not even that profound or unheard.

Fisher's accessibility is definitely reflected in this video. Great work as always.

Excellent video Epoch. Looks like you put a lot of info into it. It's a good book for an introduction into the horrors that capitalism as a system offers that we experience on a daily basis. It's not written directly for academics so it's not too hard to grasp for beginners. I do have some issues with it but you did an excellent job breaking down some core arguments of the book. Congrats. Keep up the great work!

who else said "awww :(" when epoch philo said he woulnt do a deep dive on lacanian psychoanalysis

RIP Mark Fisher

You did it justice. Mark would be satisfied.

‘The appearance of education’, I’ve been looking for a phrase to sun up my depression & complicity.

I'm so glad I found this channel! Your videos are really great, you're inspiring me to get some seriously necessary reading done. Subscribed, looking forward to more of your stuff!

That amazon link plug at the end hit different.

Your videos are amazing! And you're right. It's too easy to watch these and feel like you're doing something. We need to actually do something.

The emotions and feelings I’ve had while working for a US pharma manufacturer are well articulated in this exposé. The company offers resources to “manage” one’s stress, but NEVER acknowledges that they are the primary cause of it, and speaking with a therapist or doing mindfulness meditation will not remove the cause. Instead they offer banal advice to achieve “work-life balance” while expecting us to be available to call into meetings on weekends and whilst on vacation (“Team Player”). Matthew Crawford’s “Shop Class as Soulcraft” nicely complements Capitalist Realism.

Deep illustrated summary, although i waited for the eloquently forged phrase" depression hedonia" which is contrary to the known "anhedonia " the infamous sign of depression in clinical psychoatry, depression hedonia is the way we pacify ourselves in capitalist society, a more or less the end result of consumerism but by the K-punk's dictionary

Rewatching this right now and wow, I think I was able to process everything in this video better compared to months ago when I first watched ut

your videos are consistently amazing and so informative. thank you so much

This is your first video that I watched. Now I am watching more of your work. Good job!

I really appreciate your effort in this video. The public perception you displayed when talking about interventions for mental health (focusing solely on intrapersonal) is not the reality of practitioners in the clinical mental health field for the last approx. 30+ years. In fact, the counseling field focuses heavily on advocacy by addressing systemic oppression, social determinants of health, holistic factors that contribute to health, barriers to treatment, and more. Rehabilitation counselors and marriage and family therapists have done phenomenal work addressing and working with systems. Take, for example, the advocacy, program evaluation, and research efforts that led the way to programs and protections such as IDEA and the ADA.

I love that book so much. One of my favorites on critique of capitalism!

”A depth that psychology hasn’t been able to penetrate” this is true, except with the psychology of the psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, a misunderstood genuis that I highly recommend that you check out, his book ”Listen Little Man” is a pretty short read (changed my life and my view of things) if you like that one you can go with his ”Selected Writings” to understand him in a practical way.. He had the same insight and view as Fisher and Marcuse, but he offered a psychological solution on a mass scale. And ofc, great video, your work is fantastic, one of the best on youtube! There is also a great 1h lecture on Reich and modern capitalism on the stillspace berlin youtube channel, maybe check that one out first. Peace

Such a shame Mark Fisher passed away, I immediately wanted to hear Fisher speak with "This Is Hell" - a fantastic weekly radio show that is 26 yrs old now. Thank you @op

Absolutely amazing work, needed now perhaps more than ever

A Fisher quote that see and live everyday... "Everyone is bored. Nothing is boring". The tired rehashing of brand new shit. This world guts me.

Fuck man, I had to pauze this a few times and my eyes got wet although this is nothing new to me .But the way you put it... Good and depressing at the same time. The idea that the end of the world is easier to imagine then the end of capitalism got a more profound understanding for me now, and it is fuck scary bro...There is indeed no way out anymore.

the irony of all of this is that Epoch philosophy needs Patreon funding, and I am happy to contribute but just goes to show that everything is commodified

It was originally Baudrillard who states capitalism throws any hopes of change into pure inertia. I sense we see that now in the mass production of AOC t shirts,BLM stickers, and racial representation in the media, I.E, fighting the “system” only appears to neutralize the meaning of that fight because capitalism has essentially swallowed its own opposition.

Sometimes I think of capitalism as a kind of living ideology, and through Nietzsche I’ve always wondered if his idea of the eternal return would also apply to the ideology of capitalism and fascism. I’m probably just confusing a lot of stuff together but I think it was Zizek that said that capitalism seems sturdy because of its eternal state of crisis and that sounds like an eternal state to me

Gracias por los subtítulos en español. Mark Fisher se esta convirtiendo en uno de mis intelectuales favoritos así que este vídeo me ha encantado

Great work. Anything that brings Fisher's seminal work to a wider audience is always welcome. One minor comment, Marx himself didn't think that capitalism would *inevitably* destroy itself - he believed that a failure of socialism to overthrow it would lead to the "mutual ruin" of both contending classes. Some Marxists have taken this line but in my opinion (and that of most Marxists) they are simply wrong.

We listened to this on the ride to school, and came home with a concerned note from the principal

While these types of vids offer some catharsis, I’m always left thinking “so what do we do????”

Oh my god during the debate i had exactly that feeling during the "this is so unpresidential" moment. When he said it, even though he might have intended it to refer to Trump it resonated as a description of the whole situation and political climate, including him. The appeal to the "presidential" felt so anachronistic. Thanks for putting it into more clear language, love the channel!

Haha...a brilliant video on Capitalist Realism that segues effortlessly into a beg for funding on patreon and a request to purchase items through an Amazon link...

as grim as the Snowball Earth of the past - which did nevertheless end. we can do it, folks.

This book completely blew me away and I haven't been the same since.

this is seriously such an amazing video. thank you for sharing

This video was interrupted by a Ford Truck commercial mid-way through 😂

I got a investment Ad while watching this.... Amazing video though! Shared it with a bunch of friends already.

I just bought this book! Can't wait to read it

this is the best explanation i've seen tysm

Watching this video is a clear demonstration of capitalism realism as producing and showcasing such a video through a system like youtube is the very mechanism of the commodification of non-material, which prices an aggregation of ideas in a coherent and entertaining display, thus transforming knowledgeable discourse in a priceable commodity whose value is determined by the succes, or quantity of demand of the product, in a total-market logic which isn't free by any means because of it's inherent structure of total possession by the platform which is not only the producer, not of the content but of the commodification itself, but also the owner of the "added value", or surplus, it creates. But this owner, by paying a "dedomagement" to the author at the pro rata of it's "market value" is giving the false sens of an artificial form of property.

So what you're saying is... Capitalism is a autonomous self-sustaining dialectical synthesis machine, incorporating each antithesis as it goes on to consume everything...? Based

Very interesting, as always!!!!

I really enjoyed this presentation. I do think that you made a mistake when you said that most Americans would be against a health care system modeled on the Canadian system or the British NHS. Polls taken have shown strong majorities supporting such measures over the current US system for a long time.

oh my god listening to this right now with Godspeed You! Black Emperor - F# A# ∞ playing at a low volume at the same time, is just... goddamn

The first step towards 'communist realism' for me has been looking into some of radical policy ideas that have sprung up in different corners of leftist, mostly academic and party political think tank sphere - like, the idea of a 'sovereign monetary policy' in which all money is created directly by the central bank (which can be brought into more public interest control), not through large private banks, and seperated into savings and investments accounts to seperate money for exchange and money for capital. Or a 'universal basic income' and 'sovereign wealth funds' that more directly redistribute money to individuals and to fund important public works projects and services. 'Community land trusts' could bring ownership of housing to the community as a whole, bridging the gap between the desirable direct control of private home ownership and the utilitarian approach to providing housing as a service with public housing. As Mark Fisher advises - learn about how economic systems work, not necessarily the free market ideology, but the mechanisms and what they actually do - then you can desconstruct these grand monolithic concepts like 'the economy' into the boring flow charts that they actually are - and then find solutions and potential fixes.

this video makes me feel better educated on issues and therefore more comfortable with my level of activism

Mark Fisher is a giant

Gerald Horne referred to capitalism as “the dawning of the apocalypse”.

So, awesome video as usual, but holy shit, the synchronicity of all synchronicities (well specifically to me of course, at this particular moment...lol)... Mere _hours ago_ I was listening to a _cover_ of In Bloom by Four Year Strong and seemingly randomly said, "hey, let's check out Kurt Cobain's suicide note" because I never actually did and wanted to see if maybe all those conspiracies actually had any merit because I had some vague inclination/awareness about his dissatisfaction with fame and all the inauthenticity that goes along with it, paralleling the consumerism he is also obviously quite well known for railing against. Needless to say, yeah there's quite a bit of legs to the whole thing, I especially found this quote disturbing: _"Well, I can't really speculate other than what he said to me, which was, he wasn't at all happy about it, success to him seemed like, I think, a brick wall. There was nowhere else to go but down, it was too artificial for him, and he wasn't an artificial person at all. He was actually, two weeks after he died, he was supposed to come here and he wanted to record a bunch of Leadbelly covers. It was kind of in secret, because, I mean, people would definitely not allow him to do that. You also have to wonder, he was a billion-dollar industry at the time, and if the industry had any idea at all of him wishing or wanting to get out, they couldn't have allowed that, you know, in life, because if he was just to get out of the scene, he'd be totally forgotten, but if he was to die, he'd be immortalized."_ And clearly I'm realizing now that I _really_ did all of this to come to this point in time and leave this last man-esque comment of distraction from humanity's inevitable decline. Yay.

Been waiting for this idea.

Amazing analysis - thank you so much, as there were a few portions of the book that I didn’t thoroughly grasp but because of your video, I now understand better. Thoughtful, great work for a thoughtful and great book that, albeit depressing, gives me tremendous hope in the very last line. A better world is possible - if we’re willing to fight, be reflective and be inclusive to those subjugated to capitalist realism. Cheers, and may Mark’s analysis live on to help us create that better world.

He felt and understood it so deeply it ultimately exhausted him. Read all he wrote but keep it at arms length it’s depressingly too real. You will need all your energy for the authoritarianism to come to keep it breathing

This is a cool video, you made some dense content very engaging. Thank you

Also recently finally read this and the video definitively does it justice. Amazing job. Much of the thoughts on mental health and how capitalism commoditized values made me think of Byung Chul Hans writings. Would be very complimentary 😀

BEEN WAITING FOR THIS ONE

Capitalist realism perfectly encapsulates the total domination of the spectacle as articulated by Debord.

this is way too good and have a good take in a lot of points of this contemporary world, deceptive pr, illusion of work, the end of history, etc . . . and yes, the very experiences too

seriously fantastic distillation man, with such atmosphere - ty

Thanks for doing all this.

Excellent work. Thank you.

Great video. really appreciate it

Hi, this video is a good summary of capitalist realism. Can't think of much higher praise than that. Imho no other book provides as much as this does on re-reading. It isn't that the thesis is too complex or the language or ideas Fisher relies on are inaccessible. It is because the book takes such a rare, sober, unflinching step back to look at the monster in front of us in its entirety. Pick it up every 12 months or so and I guarantee it'll be just what you needed to read. (and rewatch this video when you do)

Thank you for all the time you took to make this.

Great video. My favorite work of theory is probably Foucault's Surveiller et Punir.

I share this all the time. Really great work. 👏

Thanks for introducing Capitalist Realism to me. I ordered the book through your Amazon link. I have listened to a few of your videos. Your spoken content and presentation is excellent. However, I think the background music diminishes your well researched work. For me, it's a distraction to hear the music throughout the video. Music just for an intro, now that would be great. Thanks again!

i leave my comment offering for the algorithm god. terrifying book, terrific video.

Awesome video on a great book. A little disappointed there was no mention of Foucault though. He was really the first to systematize the notion of ‘positive, attracting power’ His work on discipline and surveillance is also SUPER relevant to bureaucratization of the workplace and education. Capitalist realism is not possible without Foucault

Amazing video - so brilliant. Thank you! This was a great jump-off point to Marcuse too.

You are the most underrated channel on KZfaq

Beautifully done, very good job

17:50 You finally got to the point most important to you. Thank you

Thank you so much.

Everyone should watch this...without the passivity of course. Incredible 😱🙏

This kind of video is the reason I pay for internet. Thank's!

If my two tours of combat didn’t result in my very sincere belief that I’d be better off dead than have to live with the guilt of my direct role in neoliberal empire building then my mental state wouldn’t be called a disorder. I’d simply be a sociopath.

Great Job!!! Going directly to Patreon now!!!

Great video. Keep doing your thing.

fantastic video. Ive been trying to get people to read Capitalist Realism, but no success.