A Quote by Mark Fisher

The vast numbers of people who suffer some kind of mental illness under capitalism can either think, 'there is some failing with me, if only I could fit into this system better, if only I were working harder, if only I could enjoy these empty pleasures more, then things would be OK' or 'the problem is with the system that is making me ill.'
But that is the only thing that slows me down is the system. No one, two or three was big enough to slow me down, only the system. It was the system that slowed me down to make my numbers fall. Not because I am older.
The only thing I think about is doing something where I'm the only person making all the decisions - I think that would be fun to do, just to get it out of my system. And honestly, I kind of got it out of my system when I recorded three songs and put them online. That was enough of a solo experience for me; it scratched that itch.
They [political leaders ] thought the only problem was the banking system, and if they fixed the banking system, all would be fine. But the banking system and the mortgage problem were symptomatic of some deeper problems, and evidently they still haven't recognized those deeper problems.
The Romanticists predominantly, were enemies of capitalism, which they regarded as a prosaic, materialistic, “petty bourgeois” system — never realizing that it was the only system that could make freedom, individuality and the pursuit of values possible in practice.
Nothing seems real anymore. Even the flames from the fire seem to beckon to me, drawing me into some great past life buried somewhere deep in my subconscious, if only I could find the key..if only..if only. Ever since my illness, my condition, I've been trying to find some logical way of passing my time, of justifying a means to an end.
Code wants to be simple... I had to give up the idea that I had the perfect vision of the system to which the system had to conform. Instead, I had to accept that I was only the vehicle for the system expressing its own desire for simplicity. My vision could shape initial direction, and my attention to the desires of the code could affect how quickly and how well the system found its desired shape, but the system is riding me much more than I am riding the system.
So what you do [under apartheid system] is you convince black people that the reason they are being oppressed is because there are some within their community who just can't behave. And if only they could behave, then everyone else would have more freedoms and liberties, which, of course, is not true.
In Washington, one man could do what ten of them do. There could be only a quarter or a third as many congressmen or senators, and we would pick better ones then. But it's the system that we have always used, and there is no use getting all overcome with perspiration over it. Things kinder run themselves, anyhow.
I always wished I could go to confession. I was so full of things I couldn't name and had an instinct to hide. I felt burdened by the loneliness of my interior life. I wanted some container that I could empty myself into, some ear that would never be shocked, even if it offered me some kind of penance.
The first time I ever performed spoken word poetry in front of a big crowd, it totally failed. It ended, people barely clapped...in retrospect the poem was terrible. And for a while I thought this was something I would never do again. And then I realized that, in my 17-year-old head, that was the worst it could have been. And it wasn't that bad - [because] from there, it could only get better. And I think that failure kind of freed me up to explore and not be afraid of failing again.
I think that if you have a single payer system and an opt-out for people who want to pay more [for better service, etc.], I think it would be better - and I think we'll eventually get there. It wouldn't be better at the top - [our current system] is the best in the world at the top. But the waste in the present system is awesome and we do get some very perverse incentives.
Capitalism has proven to be the only system that works, but the problem with capitalism is that extreme wealth ends up in the hands of a few people.
There's this belief that some things can be taken seriously in an intellectual way, while some things are only entertainment or only a commodity. Or there's some kind of critical consensus that some things are "good," and some things are garbage, throwaway culture. And I think the difference between them, in a lot of ways, is actually much less than people think. Especially when you get down to how they affect the audience.
To me, the most terrifying form of warfare would be if there was some simultaneous cyber attack on our grid, on the banking system, and on our transportation system. That would be quite a devastating thing, and yet in theory, absent some real protective measures, that could happen.
The very term ['mental disease'] is nonsensical, a semantic mistake. The two words cannot go together except metaphorically; you can no more have a mental 'disease' than you can have a purple idea or a wise space". Similarly, there can no more be a "mental illness" than there can be a "moral illness." The words "mental" and "illness" do not go together logically. Mental "illness" does not exist, and neither does mental "health." These terms indicate only approval or disapproval of some aspect of a person's mentality (thinking, emotions, or behavior).
In the '50s and in the '60s, the private insurance system originally was a benefit for the bureaucrats in Germany. And this system became ever bigger because the private insurance industry lobbied successfully for making this system bigger. In the '70s and in the '80s, they managed to find a system where they could take everyone beyond 40,000 euros income per year but didn't have to take everyone. So they only took those that had both high income and a secure job and who was not ill at that time.
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