Keywords
Mark Fisher
realism
depression
psychotherapy
How to Cite
Abstract
The article points towards the philosophy of Herbert Marcuse as significant source of inspiration for Mark Fisher’s cultural criticism. It compares selected ideas from both authors, taking the analogy between the relation of the performance principle and pacified existence (Marcuse) and capitalist realism and acid communism (Fisher) as its main framework. The text is built around the concepts of reality, realism and the Real, which are applied in order to analyse the problem of mental health and therapeutic culture in the capitalist system. Particular attention is given to the theory of depressive realism, as popularised by Fisher, according to which depressive perception is more realistic than “normal” perception. For Fisher, depressive realism is a dominant mode of understanding reality as such under capitalism. Sociopolitical transformation requires, above all, a change in the understanding of reality itself—Fisher’s concept of “acid communism” is such a proposition.
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