Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?

Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?. By Mark Fisher. Winchester, UK: 0 Books, 2009. 81pp. ISBN 978-1-84694-317-1

My brother gave me a book a couple of months ago which I’ve just managed to read. Interestingly, I read the book just days after being involved in an online discussion about politics. It was a late, tangential, and general contribution to a post on the issue of asylum-seekers in Australia. I began my series of reflections (or, perhaps, rants) by declaring that there was a part of me that felt ‘blah, blah, blah’ about the issue. This was not something I wrote with a sense of sardonic superiority nor a cynicism which might have grown from such a position. Rather, I felt disappointed, frustrated and perhaps even exasperated. Moreover, it was an expression of a response to politics that has been growing for some time now; first articulated, I think, in the aftermath of the last federal election in Australia. 

Essentially, I am tired of boring, lazy, uncreative, expedient, conservative politics. I am completely uninterested in a politics that is only different in respect to the story within which it locates itself (and even this can seem barely indistinguishable at time). Ironically perhaps, this lament is, I think, a pretty boring, clichéd, glib statement. Yet, the point remains that I want to see, hear and participate in a truly alternative politics. Yet, it seems any time I have a conversation with someone, it is either explicitly stated or implied that ‘what we have is the best of the admittedly flawed offerings’. What we have, of course, is some kind of liberal capitalism. Can we really not imagine anything else...anything better?

Mark Fisher begins his book, Capitalist Realism, at this point in the story. Chapter 1 is titled, after Jameson and Žižek, ‘It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism’. As someone who is not at all well-versed in the literature of cultural theorists such as Foucault, Lacan, Baudrillard and Žižek, I found this to be a most apt and profound premise. By capitalist realism, Fisher means ‘the widespread sense that not only is capitalism the only viable political and economic system, but also that it is now impossible to even imagine a coherent alternative to it’ (p.2). Beginning with a brief cultural analysis of the film, Children of Men, Fisher writes that it poses questions born of anxiety: ‘how long can a culture persist without the new? What happens if the young are no longer capable of producing surprises?’ (p.3). While one response to such anxieties might be to hold out a knowingly weak hope that change is actually on the horizon, another might be the opposite, defeatist position of despairing belief that what is now is all there will be. Furthermore, when we can only imagine capitalism as the foundational structure for society, despite its liberal rhetoric of decentralisation and the devolution of power, it becomes a force no different to the totalitarianism of modernist conceptions of dystopias. The all pervasive capitalist realism is a deep and pervasive ‘sense of exhaustion, of cultural and political sterility’ (p.7).

Thus, despite the language of freedom and liquidity key to capitalism (think free-market), capitalist realism should, according to Fisher, be seen as something structural and, it seems to me, public. By this, I mean that, while the individual is primary in neo-liberalism (be it negative self-interest or ‘positive’ individual responsibility for world-wide poverty), the power of capitalist realism is one that defies the very notion of the individualism its rhetoric affirms. With reference to Žižek, Fisher writes about the ways in which capitalist realism flourishes in a post-ideological world where individuals’ internalised beliefs become paramount to any overarching political or cultural structure. Therefore, we may see the way in which a particular ideological foundation may be having a negative effect on the world’s poor, acknowledge that it is unjust, but continue to participate in giving life to that particular ideological foundation (justifiably) because we ourselves believe it to be bad. Put another way, ‘so long as we believe (in our hearts) that capitalism is bad, we are free to continue in capitalist exchange’ (p.13).

Essentially, all this is to say that perhaps the insidious nature of capitalist realism is that, while it purports to be free of any ‘big brother’ or top-down totalitarian tendencies, it actually functions in a way that perpetuates heavy bureaucracy and fails to come close to eradicating economic elites through competition as the neo-liberal  ideologues would like us to believe. In fact, Fisher uses the education sector in the UK as an example of the way in which, though marketisation promised to deliver ‘friction-free’ exchanges, has only caused greater concern with measurement of performance resulting in ‘additional layers of management and bureaucracy’ (p.42). Furthermore, these managers at the top of organisations enjoy a much greater slice of national income than in the days of democratic socialism (p.29). Yet Fisher is not suggesting that the alternative is to look back to previous political times and, indeed, return to them. He writes, ‘It’s well past time for the left to cease limiting its ambitions to the establishing of a big state’ (p.77) and instead, it needs to seek ways to actually do what neo-liberals said capitalism could do: reduce bureaucracy. The way to respond to the capitalist failures such as the global financial crisis is not return to old ways of thinking, but a ‘spur of renewal’ (p.79).

There is much more that the book offers as an analysis of the current cultural and political malaise in which we now find ourselves. It does not seek to provide answers with any specificity. Rather, it provokes the reader to actually consider carefully the question ‘is there no alternative’ to capitalism? Moreover, assuming that we can be imaginative enough to assume there is an alternative, Fisher invites us to be creative and speculate as to what the alternatives might be. Such questions invite us, I believe, to imagine what is the goal – the telos – to which we are directed? They invite us to indeed imagine a better alternative. My next book review will focus on the very question of to what or whom we intend our ‘desire’ and how we do this as an alternative to the dominant systems.

Tithing: Test Me in This - Douglas Le Blanc

It is fair to say that I was a touch skeptical - perhaps even smug – about the latest book for review. Tithing, I thought, was so conservative. Me, I’m into the more radical, free-wheelin’, give generously kinda giving (in theory, not practice, of course!). So when in the introduction author, Douglas Le Blanc, writes that his experience of being part of a middle-class suburban bible group who talked of radical giving but gave little has meant that ‘something in [him] has felt skeptical when I encounter prosperous American Christians who speak of tithing in tones that sound almost contemptuous’, I can’t help but find myself a little pegged.

This small book, “Tithing: Test Me in This” is another addition to the Ancient Practices Series. Le Blanc, a journalist, has put together a series of interviews conducted with a vast range of people from across the USA. Some are very conservative. Others are rather liberal. All have made a commitment to tithe.

This range of stories is compelling. It does not allow the reader to protest with ‘but that’s such a conservative thing, to focus on tithing’ or ‘those liberals read into the bible whatever they please’. Rather, Le Blanc ensures there is a bi-partisan approach to this issue, making it difficult for any of us to escape the central idea that giving our first-fruits to God is a fundamental spiritual discipline.

Having been compiled by a writer used to a popular audience, the book is exceptionally easy to read and mostly interesting. The range of ‘characters’ in the story manage to keep the reader interested in what is an otherwise potentially bland plot.

I was pleasantly surprised by this short read; if not a little disturbed by the message it presents. I wouldn’t rush to buy it, but it is a widely accessible book and, thus, well worthwhile.

This review was part of the BookSneeze project

The Selfless Gene: Living with God and Darwin, by Charles Foster

Real, full-blooded Darwinism, marked and scarred where it has engaged properly with the world, is a hugely more compelling creed than the one peddled in the paperbacks and accepted uncritically by scientifically unlettered people who want some sort of scientific excuse to rubbish religion. Real, full-blooded Christianity, acknowledging the absurdity of anemic literalism, confronting the challenges of the Bible (a very difficult, cryptic, challenging document) and the world (a very difficult, cryptic, challenging place), is a hugely more compelling creed than the one peddled in the fundamentalist ghettos by the fearful and the fearfully dogmatic. (p.235)

Very soon, here in Australia, the Global Atheist Convention will be taking place. In the lead-up to this sold-out convention, the biggest name in contemporary atheism has been wowing the public with his wonderfully appealing, seemingly measured, denouncement of God. What I am about to state about this man – Richard Dawkins – is by no means new, but still, I feel, a pertinent point considering the many blind followers he has. The problem with Dawkins’ atheism is that it is simplistic, polarising, certain and pushy. Indeed, not at all dissimilar to the style of Christianity he is most clearly up against (though it would be unfair to suggest that he is only opposed to the “Answers-in-Genesis types” – he is, of course, opposed to all who profess faith in a decidedly un-provable god). Certainly, though, the locus of his polemic lies in the territory of the Conservative Christian Creationist; a truly strange beast that has recently evolved in an effort to survive the attack of the science-based predators of the 19^th Century.

Charles Foster in, The Selfless Gene, seeks to navigate his way through the thick jungle of simplistic positions immediately before us and explore the complex relationship between Darwin and God which lies in deeper part of the jungle amidst the muddy waters. Foster writes beautifully, often with wonderfully dry, British wit. Despite this, the subject matter does ensure that this is not always an easy read. Yet, given the nature of the fundamentalists’ debate, this reality is probably an important and positive feature of the book.

To my mind, Foster attempts to reveal to us an evolving world of meaning, beauty, goodness and truth. So what? Well, for hard-core evolutionists, things happen purely for the sake of survival. Such a theory has no place for anything as intangible and un-pragmatic as beauty. However, making an assertion in favour of the existence of that which does not fit neatly into biological evolution, does not equal a total knock-out for creationists. In case you missed it, re-read the first sentence of this paragraph. I suggest that Foster wants to reveal an ‘evolving world’. Indeed, in regards to the natural world, he writes that Darwinism “is not just a potential explanation: there is no doubt at all that it has shaped a lot of what we see whenever we go outdoors” (p.235). So, according to Foster, Darwinism is a theory that holds true. Yet, his point is that, while natural selection explains aspects of what we see in this world, it does not provide the full explanation for the world in which we live.

So maybe, just maybe, there is a way to live with both God and Darwin.

This review was part of the Thomas Nelson BookSneeze project.

Everything Must Change: Book Review

The very earliest Christians were known as followers of ‘The Way’. The very first of these people came from the various Jewish sects that were functioning in the first century CE. They did not commit themselves to a system of belief. Rather, they committed themselves to a way of life which followed Jesus of Nazareth who, they came to see, was Messiah and Lord. Indeed, Jesus’ resurrection and ascension was not understood primarily as a static event which secured their place, as believers, in Heaven and, thus, saved from hell. It seems that they, instead, got involved with trying to figure out what it was they were saved for.

It is this simple but profound shift in emphasis that has inspired much of Brian McLaren’s writing up to this point. In introducing his recent book, Everything Must Change: When the World’s Biggest Problems and Jesus’ Good News Collide, he writes,

…more and more of us are realizing something our best theologians have been saying for quite a while: Jesus’ message is not actually about escaping this troubled world for heaven’s blissful shores, as is popularly assumed, but instead is about God’s will being done on this troubled earth as it is in heaven. So people interested in being a new kind of Christian will inevitably begin to care more and more about this world, and they’ll want to better understand its most significant problems… (p.4)

The Sacred Meal - by Nora Gallagher: Book Review

The Sacred Meal by Nora Gallagher is part of the Ancient Practices Series. It is a good book. Gallagher writes with efficiency and a decidedly non-academic style. The reflections are thoughtful, personal. As a discussion of the Sacrament of Communion, it is a worthwhile and perhaps even important addition to the literature available.
And, I didn’t like the book.

I found that the reflections were so personal that they became, at times, mere opinion. I felt the subjectivity at the core of the understanding of the Eucharist espoused by Gallagher - combined with the sparing use of other sources - lacked depth and diversity. All this sometimes capitulated into the feeble world of liberal sentimentalism and the spinelessness of contemporary relativism.

Yet, despite the book not appealing to my tastes, it is full of story and real-life grittiness rather than theory and abstract speculation. It is largely free of jargon and keeps its focus aligned to the heart of the series: practice.

My hope is that The Sacred Meal may be a book willingly devoured by self-confessed theology-avoiders. Gallagher is passionate about the significance of Communion as any practising Christian should be. If this can be effectively communicated with a wider-than-usual Christian readership, then Nora Gallagher has done a great service to the world-wide Church.

This book was reviewed as part of the Thomas Nelson Book Review Blogger program. You can read other reviews of this book here

The Search for God and Guinness A Biography of the Beer that Changed the World

Beginning with much promise, Stephen Mansfield’s The Search for God and Guinness: A biography of the beer that changed the world, left me a little disappointed, somewhat confused, though pleased I’d had the opportunity to read the book.

The book begins with an exploration of the connection between Christianity, beer and wider society. Mansfield seeks to show the reader that not only should beer not be seen by Christians as an ‘evil’ in society but rather, when ‘well respected and rightly consumed, can be a gift from God’ (xxv). At this point, it seems that there will be a strong link between the Guinness people, the Guinness beer and service to society. Yet, as the story unfolds, these links become increasingly tenuous.

For those who enjoy history, biography and beer, this remains an interesting read. The stories of Arthur Guinness and, indeed, the Grattan Guinness clan are revealing and well told. Though, as Mansfield does make clear, there seemed to be three, sometimes rather distinct, vocational paths for Guinness family members: beer, clergy and social concern. To make a link between beer and God when the brewery-owning Guinness is not the same person as the evangelical social crusader seems a tad disingenuous.

I think the book would have benefited greatly from the inclusion of a family tree at the outset. If the book had then been divided into more chapters or, at least, subsections, there could have been an image of the part of the family tree relevant to the persons being discussed in each section.

Nevertheless, it was an interesting project on which to embark and has been well-researched and written by Mansfield. It may not go down as one of the most inspiring or gripping books I have read, but I would be pleased to recommend it to others who would be interested in some of the history of the great Irish beer.

This review is part of the Thomas Nelson Book Review Blogging program

The Expanded Bible: Review

As a teacher of Christian Studies, I was keen to see if Thomas Nelson's recent "The Expanded Bible: New Testament" might be useful to my students.

When I opened to the introduction, I was pleased to see that the idea was to provide alternate, literal and traditional meanings of certain parts of the text. It seemed to me that this might provide an opportunity to discuss with the students the implications of adopting the various readings. Moreover, the introductory comments explained that there is also space for a brief comment - which could also prove useful.

I decided to read a short book in its entirety - Philemon - as well as some chapters from other books which could prove interesting (such as Romans 8).

On opening to Philemon, I was immediately struck by the typeset. The base translation (NCV) is in bold-face and the alternate readings are standard. This is not particularly appealing to the eyes as it provides significant breaks in the text. Once I began reading the book, I realised this would be a problem for me. I found it very difficult to just read the text. I found that I wasn't really following the overall direction or intent of Paul's letter. Instead, every sentence reads as though it is ridiculously over-punctuated!

Having said this, the Expanded Bible does, perhaps, have its place in the vast library of bible tools. If it is to have some use, I think it would be as a "quick look" resource when preparing a reflection on a particular passage in the New Testament. This "quick look" would likely happen alongside the main event of the deeper study of the text using a commentary or theological reflection.

It is not rigorous enough for a theology lecturer or student. Nor does it comment on the text in a way that would be immediately useful to a preacher, lay or school teacher. Further, due to its rather clumsy nature, it is not a first choice for devotional reading.

In the end, I am not sure how much use I will get from the Expanded Bible, though I am happy to keep it on my shelf alongside the other study tools.

Other reviews of The Expanded Bible can be read here