CAPITALIST REALISM AND DEPRESSIVE ONTOLOGY

Abstract

This paper will deal with the works of Mark Fisher containing an analysis of political conditions that have brought about the contemporary cultural position that Fisher characterizes as “the loss of the future”. We will focus on the connection between the ideology of capitalist realism, the position that today it is impossible to imagine any kind of alternative to capitalism, and its psychological counterpart, the position Fisher designates as depressive ontology, the prevailing belief that behind the illusions we have discovered the Truth of the futility of life and desire. We will base our interpretation of Fisher’s thought on the existentialist critique of culture and individual modes of existence provided by Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. Connecting analyses of political and cultural topics with questions of personal significance is the mutual trait of these two authors. Themes of aestheticization, depression and mechanisms of ideology provide a common framework within which their positions can be confronted and complemented.