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Global Histories, Vol Global histories a student journal Capitalist Realism, Disappointment, and the History of Sensibilities: A Case for Fiction as Historical Source Dennis Koelling DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17169/GHSJ.2021.352 Source: Global Histories, Vol. 6, No. 2 (January 2021), pp. 102-120. ISSN: 2366-780X Copyright © 2021 Dennis Koelling License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Publisher information: ‘Global Histories: A Student Journal’ is an open-access bi-annual journal founded in 2015 by students of the M.A. program Global History at Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. ‘Global Histories’ is published by an editorial board of Global History students in association with the Freie Universität Berlin. Freie Universität Berlin Global Histories: A Student Journal Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut Koserstraße 20 14195 Berlin Contact information: For more information, please consult our website www.globalhistories.com or contact the editor at: [email protected]. Capitalist Realism, Disappointment, and the History of Sensibilities: A Case for Fiction as Historical Source by DENNIS KOELLING 102 Global Histories: a student journal | VI - 2 - 2020 Dennis Koelling | Capitalist Realism, Disappointment, and the History of Sensibilities 103 history proper. VI - 2 - 2020 | ABOUT THE AUTHOR University Institute. His dissertation focuses on the University Institute. Dennis Koelling is currently a PhD-Researcher at the is currently a PhD-Researcher Dennis Koelling Department of History and Civilization at the European main research interests include the history of capitalism John-F.-Kennedy-Institute at Freie Universität Berlin. His John-F.-Kennedy-Institute Universität zu Berlin and Freie Universität Berlin, as well popular culture in the twentieth and twenty-first century. popular culture in the twentieth and twenty-first century. as a Bachelor of Arts in North American Studies from the as a Bachelor of Arts in North American Studies representations of the character of Homo Oeconomicus in with a focus on neoliberal subjectivity, the recent history of with a focus on neoliberal subjectivity, He holds a Master of Arts in Global History from Humboldt- popular culture(s), and the relationship between fiction and Global Histories: a student journal Blending a reflection on the historiography of sensibilities in the study of the recent past with a discussion on the relationship this between literary criticism and the field of history proper, a case for a further engagement with fiction as paper makes a historical source by cultural historians. Briefly engaging with of concept of a “structure Williams’ the evolution of Raymond history new for a call Daniel Wickberg’s it to tracing feeling” and of sensibilities, the article then engages with the field of what as an object of study that Mark Fisher called “capitalist realism” on how to apply the study of fiction in can serve as an example recent history. ABSTRACT s e i t i ‘Being realistic’ may once have groundwork for the controversial l i b i s meant coming to terms with of a French author’s oeuvre, modern n e reality experienced as solid and capitalism succeeds in creating a S f o immovable. Capitalist realism, strong cognitive dissonance between y r o t however, entails subordinating ideal and real, between what could s i H oneself to a reality that is be and what is. Put differently, e h t infinitely plastic, capable of capitalism rests on the paradoxical d n reconfiguring itself at any (re-)invention of infinite forms of a , t 1 n moment. desire, limiting at the same time the e m potentiality of possible satisfaction. t n i o Mark Fisher – Capitalist Realism This dynamic, ultimately erasing the p p a temporal dimension of historical past s i D and privileging recentness in pursuit , m s Compte tenu des of ever-contingent futures, marks i l a e caractéristiques de l’époque the center of the study of a cultural R t s moderne, l’amour ne peut malaise, inherent to the sensibilities i l a 3 t i plus guère se manifester; of life after the ‘end of history.’ The p a C mais l’idéal de l’Amour n’a pas incommensurability of this dynamic | g diminué. Étant, comme tout has led to a sensibility of constant n i l l idéal, fondamentalement situé disappointment in denial, a state e o K hors du temps, il ne saurait ni that cultural theorist Mark Fisher s i n n diminuer ni disparaître. D’où has called “nihilistic hedonism” or e 4 D une discordance idéal-réel “hedonic depression.” particulièrement criante, source While so far widely under- de souffrances particulièrement researched by historians of emotions riche.2 and cultural historians of the recent past, a number of authors from Michel Houellebecq – Rester varying disciplines have taken Vivant 3 Francis Fukuyama, “The End of History?,” The National Interest, no. 16 (1989): 3–18; Francis Fukuyama, The End of History INTRODUCTION and the Last Man (New York : Toronto : New York: The Free Press, 1992); For the temporal dimension of financial capitalism Just like ‘modern love’ in see for example Jens Beckert, Imagined Michel Houellebecq’s poetical Futures: Fictional Expectations and manifesto Rester Vivant, laying the Capitalist Dynamics, 1st ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016); Joseph Vogl, Das Gespenst des Kapitals, 3. (Zürich: Diaphanes, 2010); For the purpose of this paper, I have worked with 1 Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There the German original of Vogl’s text, for the No Alternative? (Winchester, UK: Zero English translation see Joseph Vogl, The Books, 2009), 54. Specter of Capital (Stanford, CA: Stanford 2 Michel Houellebecq, Rester vivant (Paris: University Press, 2014). Flammarion, 2001), 13. 4 Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 1, 36. 104 Global Histories: a student journal | VI - 2 - 2020 D e 8 n up the destructive circulatory the economic.” Lastly, economist n i s movements inherent in capitalist Philip Mirowski has elaborated on K o e l ontology. Mark Fisher has pointed the cognitive grip that neoliberal l i n g out in his groundbreaking essay ideology has manifested in an | C Capitalist Realism that capitalism has ontological dimension, enabling its a p i t succeeded in creating an integrative epistemological edifice to survive a l i s ‘realist’ ontology and that its subjects and thrive even throughout the 2008 t R 9 e are involved in a Lacanian struggle of global financial crisis. a l i s dissonance between this realism and Surveying the treatment of m , the underlying Real(s) of capitalist psychocapitalist dimensions in the D i s 5 a exploitation. In a similar direction, realm of history proper, however, p p o literature theorist and economist reveals scarce scholarly engagement. i n t Joseph Vogl has theorized an Notable exceptions here include m e n ‘oikodicy,’ questioning how capitalism the inquiries conducted by the DFG- t , a succeeds in portraying itself as research cluster “Nach dem Boom” n d t the best possible of all worlds, led by German historians Anselm h e while at the same time suffering Doering-Manteuffel and Lutz Raphael. H i s t from inherent contradictions and In their eponymous essay, Doering- o r y 6 outraging levels of inequality. Manteuffel and Raphael have o f S German-Korean philosopher Byung- introduced a way of reforming recent e n s i Chul Han has throughout his work Western European histories of ideas b i l i t engaged with the intverrelationship to acknowledge the emergence of i e between capitalist expectations a neoliberal “structural fracture,” s and rising rates in mental illnesses reshaping the way historians engage in capitalist societies around the with the history of subjectivity world.7 Critical theorist Wendy Brown after the end of Keynesianism and has, furthermore, argued that the political consensus-culture.10 In the ontological dimension of capitalism United States, intellectual historian has brought along an emptying of Daniel T. Rodgers has worked on a political space, “transmogrif[ying] comparable hypothesis in his book every human domain and endeavor, Age of Fracture, emphasizing the along with humans themselves, fluidification of identities and the according to a specific image of 8 Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: 5 Fisher, Capitalist Realism. Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution (New 6 Vogl, Das Gespenst des Kapitals. York: MIT Press, 2015), 9–10. 7 See for example Byung-Chul Han, 9 Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Müdigkeitsgesellschaft, 1st ed. (Berlin: Go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived Matthes & Seitz Berlin, 2010); Building the Financial Meltdown (London ; New upon Michel Foucault’s concept of York: Verso, 2013). biopolitics, Han has coined the term of 10 Lutz Raphael and Anselm Doering- neoliberal psychopolitics, see Byung- Manteuffel, Nach dem Boom: Chul Han, Psychopolitik: Neoliberalismus Perspektiven auf die Zeitgeschichte und die neuen Machttechniken, 5th ed. seit 1970 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & (Frankfurt am Main: S. FISCHER, 2014). Ruprecht, 2008). Global Histories: a student journal | VI - 2 - 2020 105 s e i t i fracturing of consensus as part of be applied by recent historians, as l i b 11 i s the neoliberal order. Exploring a it provides an invaluable archive n e broader idea of liberal psychopolitics to contextualize recent economic S f o and the construction of a liberal and social developments. The y r o t realism, Amanda Anderson has struggle between realism and the s i H made a related case for the history Real as proclaimed by Mark Fisher, e h t of modernity (centered mostly in the manifests nowhere as explicit as d n nineteenth and twentieth century) in in the literature of disappointment, a , t 12 n her monograph Bleak Liberalism. in the genre cultural theorist Ben e m While Anderson’s book provides Jeffery has described as “depressive t n i 14 o an important insight into the mental realism.” Michel Houellebecq, who p p a mapping of liberal capitalist society, a has structured his oeuvre around the s i D comparable study for recent history is idea of ‘writing to stay alive (rester , m s still missing.
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