Jetsetting is now not the privilege of the elite so much as a veritiginous mundanity for a permanently dispossessed global workforce.
Mark FisherRead
The tiniest event can tear a hole in the grey curtain of reaction which has marked the horizons of possibility under capitalist realism. From a situation in which nothing can happen, suddenly anything is possible again.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Even small events can disrupt the limitations imposed by capitalist realism, opening up new possibilities.
This quote by Mark Fisher highlights the idea that under the constraints of capitalist realism, society often feels stagnant and unchanging. However, even the smallest event or action can break through this illusion, allowing for a resurgence of possibilities and hope for change, reminding us that the future is not predetermined by current conditions.
Themes
CapitalismPossibilityChangeEventReaction
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion on social change, one might use this quote to emphasize that transformative moments can arise unexpectedly.
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All quotes →If it is true, for instance, that depression is constituted by low serotonin levels, what still needs to be explained is why particular individuals have low levels of serotonin. This requires a social and political explanation.
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The most powerful love songs always turn on the discrepancy between the act of declaring love and the knowledge that the ostensible addressee is no longer there, was never there, and could never be there.
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Little Axe's records are wracked with collective grief. Spectral harmonicas resemble howling wolves; echoes linger like wounds that will never heal; the voices of the living harmonise with the voices of the dead in songs thick with reproach, recrimination and the hunger for redemption.
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What many students most want from college, although they would never admit it, is an authority structure. There is a demand for an authority which they can then reject; they want to be told what to do, so they can disobey. It is a textbook case of bad faith, a flight from freedom.
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