Casement's Leftovers Hauntology: Zombie Ideologies and Canceled Futures
Our Halloween episode is about the scariest thing of all: Neoliberalism and the futures it robbed from us.
We're joined by political and cultural blogger Matt Wrafter - @therockisdead - in a tribute to The OG blogger, Marxist theorist Mark Fisher, with a focus on his work about Hauntology.
Are we haunted by potential futures that feel promised but never came? Is this the end of history or does the Left have a coherent vision of the future to struggle for? Were things truly better in the 70s? How have we let a revolutionary tool like the internet become the playground for hyper capitalists and surveillance? How can we create class consciousness in the high-panic individualised society that Neoliberalism has created? And most importantly, if the recession proved that Neoliberalism is a zombie, proved a failure but still struggling on, how can we ever kill it?
If you seek answers you'll find them in this episode, but for now we'll leave you with some of Fisher's words: "Our struggle must be towards the construction of a new and surprising world."
Some of Fisher's work that's publicly available:
Exiting the Vampires Castle: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/exiting-vampire-castle/
How to Kill a Zombie: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/how-to-kill-zombie-strategizing-end-of-neoliberalism/