The Problem is Not the End of Capitalism but 'the End' Itself
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
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Capitalist Realism
13 min read
Mark Fisher's concept is central to the article's thesis about imagining the end of capitalism versus the end of the world. Understanding Fisher's full argument and its cultural context enriches the reader's grasp of the critique being extended here.
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Jean Baudrillard
20 min read
Baudrillard's 'The Illusion of the End' is directly referenced as exploring how we think about endings. His broader philosophy of simulation, hyperreality, and the disappearance of meaning provides essential context for the article's argument about our inability to conceptualize true endings.
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Alain Badiou
16 min read
The article references Badiou's philosophical work on the concept of 'world' as incomplete and self-contradicting. Understanding his ontology and theory of truth events helps readers appreciate the philosophical depth of the article's argument about capitalism and world being entangled.
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In the last few years, our obsession with post-apocalyptic and end-of-the-world zombie films seems to have gained a renewed investment. Within the space of only a year, productions such as 28 Years Later, 2073, Apocalypse Z, or The Last of Us all appear to conveniently bring to mind the famous motto of Mark Fisher’s Capitalist Realism, that “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” For every hundred films imagining some form of the collapse of civilisation, hardly any films present visions of a civilization that continues after capitalism comes to an end. The historically more recent problem of the end of capitalism, it seems, is more difficult to face than the end of the world as such.
But is this really the right conclusion to draw today in the face of a proliferation of apocalyptic cinema? We should recall one of Freud’s methods of interpretation here: in dreams or literature, multiple presentations of an object often signifies that this very object is in fact what is missing. For example, a multiplicity of maternal imagoes will arise at the exact moment where maternal affection is the very thing that is most traumatically absent. In the same way, what seems clear from the masses of apocalyptic, end-of-world films is that it is precisely the end of the world that we have a great deal of trouble in thinking. ‘The end of the world’ is in fact a very malleable term: it could imply the almost complete end of biological life due to a solar or nuclear event, or it could more solipsistically imply the end of human civilisation. It could be triggered by a virus, global warming, a nuclear fallout, a zombie apocalypse, or universal infertility. The endless catalogue of films depicting ‘the end
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