The Weaver Reads reviewed The Memeing of Mark Fisher by Mike Watson
Goodreads Review of The Memeing of Mark Fisher: How the Frankfurt School Foresaw Capitalist Realism and What to Do About It
2 stars
This was a wholly disappointing contribution to the literature. I was hoping for more discussion of the interplay between the Frankfurt School and Fisher, but that's not at all what I got. The argument seems to be that the Frankfurt School acted as a forerunner to Fisher's work, but this should have been so obvious to anyone reading Fisher as to be meaningless.
Watson did his Ph.D. at Goldsmiths, so I expected there to be more rigor on Fisher's work, given that he taught there until his death in 2017. In fact, Fisher almost seems to be mischaracterized--Watson hangs onto the link that Fisher draws out between capitalist realism and mental health, which was important, but it's not the whole point. There's some material here on capitalist realism, Hauntology, and even Acid Communism at the end, but none of them get the attention they deserve. At the same time, Fisher's …
This was a wholly disappointing contribution to the literature. I was hoping for more discussion of the interplay between the Frankfurt School and Fisher, but that's not at all what I got. The argument seems to be that the Frankfurt School acted as a forerunner to Fisher's work, but this should have been so obvious to anyone reading Fisher as to be meaningless.
Watson did his Ph.D. at Goldsmiths, so I expected there to be more rigor on Fisher's work, given that he taught there until his death in 2017. In fact, Fisher almost seems to be mischaracterized--Watson hangs onto the link that Fisher draws out between capitalist realism and mental health, which was important, but it's not the whole point. There's some material here on capitalist realism, Hauntology, and even Acid Communism at the end, but none of them get the attention they deserve. At the same time, Fisher's cybergothic, gothic materialist, and accelerationist writings get wholly missed. He was very much a product of the CCRU, and it's evident through his entire body of work, but that seems to be meaningless here.
The most interesting aspects of the work are Watson's discussion of Walter Benjamin's Paris Arcades project and Marcuse's writings on the relationship between capitalism and sexuality. There's a clear link between Marcuse and Fisher here, especially with Acid Communism, but also his earlier writing, which is heavily influenced by Lacan, Freud (esp. the death drive), and so on. I don't fully agree with Watson's push for a Benjamin-esque examination of digital spaces akin to the Paris Arcades. Judging by his discussion in the text, Watson is chronically online. A much more interesting way of approaching this is by doing the same for warehouses, malls, markets, and so on. It did inspire me to look at Tunisia in this way: What do the souks, malls, 3attars, concept stores, and boutiques of Tunis tell us about global capital? Quite a lot, I would imagine.
Watson's book is a really quick read, so it isn't a huge time investment, but I'm not so sure that it's worth it.