Acid Horizon Mark Fisher Meets James Hillman: Melancholy, Manic Culture & the End of Capitalist Realism (with Emma Stamm)
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Oct 23, 2025 Emma Stamm, a researcher and writer focused on Mark Fisher and digital culture, dives into the connections between Fisher and James Hillman’s ideas on melancholy and mania. They explore how depression can be a collective mood reflecting societal malaise rather than a personal affliction. Discussion points include the potential of psychedelia to challenge capitalist norms and the political implications of privatized mental health. The conversation emphasizes the need for communal experiences that transform individual sadness into collective mourning.
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Depression As Collective Condition
- Mark Fisher and James Hillman diagnose shared psychic conditions produced by capitalism rather than purely individual illnesses.
- Both link private depression to collective, cultural processes that need political and imaginal remedies.
How Emma Found Fisher
- Emma Stamm discovered Fisher while writing a dissertation on psychedelics and read "acid communism" as a key text that linked psychedelia, privatized mental health, and political economy.
- That moment launched her wider engagement with Fisher's corpus and public writing about his ideas.
Acid Communism Reclaims The Sixties
- Acid communism reframes the 1960s–70s counterculture as a suppressed radical potential rather than mere escapism or nostalgia.
- Fisher argued capitalist powers actively neutralized that collective spirit to prevent alternative social imaginaries.
