(This post was delayed while Vaush went to Freer Future Fest)
I know it's a little bit of a meme that Vaush is criticised by people who do not understand his position. And yeah that seems to happen a lot. But I am going to go very thoroughly through his statements and examples, because I actually appreciate Vaush's content and contribution a lot. - I do not expect Vaush to know everything in the world, reality is large and complex. But I think this mistake can be challened based on Vaush's own training and general perception of the world. Buckle up!
This is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NwZf6dvxxA Grimes Breaks Up With Elon Musk and GOES FULL COMMIE?
And it was wrong because (PLOTTWIST) Vaush followed THEORY!
Okay, now I don’t take any issue with calling out Grimes being performative. But when he brings it in to movies and Anti-Capitalist media and methods of publishing. I have a lot to say here, so let’s unpack it a little here. This is the quote he brings up on screen.
According to Fisher, capitalist realism has so captured public thought that the idea of anti-capitalism no longer acts as the antithesis to capitalism. Instead, it is deployed as a means for reinforcing capitalism. This is done through media which aims to provide a safe means of consuming anti-capitalist ideas without actually challenging the system. The lack of coherent alternatives, as presented through the lens of capitalist realism, leads many anti-capitalist movements to cease targeting the end of capitalism, but instead to mitigate its worst effects, often through individual consumption-based activities.
Pieces of media he brings up is:
- Parasite (2019) by Bong Joon-ho
- The Hunger Games (2012-2015) films
- Che Guevera shirts.
A primary premise or conclusion of this video by him is: “The Bourgeoisie know they are safe to co-opt anti-capitalist aesthetics because it doesn’t create revolutionaries and why would they promote and signal boost these pieces of media if they promote values antithetical to their interests.”
Another thing he puts forward incredulously is “show me any revolution in history motivated by a triple A blockbuster”
So I will get to the meat of the premise in a moment, but I’d really be sincerely interested where and why he draws a line between art which is anti-capitalist sincerely and which is simply capitalism recouping anti-capitalism. Because he mentions in the video that a book can be self-published but a studio cannot be doing anything but recouping capitalism.
Which is very interesting, considering books that are self-published today usually come to people through a platform of some kind, usually a conglomerate. Spotify, Amazon, Youtube etc. I presume the idea is that these platforms are being passive and they are not actively green lighting videos that go on their platform because of the sheer volume.
Again the boundary here is very interesting to me. Is the audiobooks on audible a product of turning anti-capitalism in to a commodity? Is reading “Capital in the Twenty First Century” by Piketty, Capitalist Realism? Is listening to“Understanding Socialism” by Richard Wolff, Capitalist Realism? Is listening to the audiobook of Lenin’s “State and Revolution”, Capitalist Realism? Every single one of these are on Amazon and have had quite a bit of money put into them to turn them in to audiobooks, by capitalist companies. I believe Wolff’s book was turned in to an audiobook by Tantor Audio. This is a capitalist enterprise as far as I can tell.
Sure, you might say, these haven’t been explicitly greenlit by executives. Never mind the fact some kind of transaction is often needed to self-publish and you still need to make other kinds of money on the side to survive or live off of benefits long enough to write a book you can self-publish – let alone if you don’t use capitalist publishers and hand every single copy directly to the person – this is an enormous amount of effort to publish anything like this, not to mention all of the material required to print or avenues to advertise on. Marx himself lived off Engels, a member of the owner class.
Okay okay, to start, let’s zoom out a little and then focus back in. Let's do a case study. Bernie Sanders has been responsible for a sizeable push left. He is still a socdem in policy and rhetoric atleast, and yes by providing socdem policies he is technically saving capitalism. But I think for many people Bernie Sanders has opened the door to going further than becoming socdem, he identified as a socialist and has seen a rise in the DSA. There are far more communists now in the USA than there was before this socdem candidate ran for president. I maintain even as if a socdem, he represents a threat to the bourgeoisie.
Has he been suppressed in the past? Yes, he has. Is it still possible to watch him be interviewed on live television, has he spent time on the stage of the democratic debates? Yes. He has. And everytime he comes on TV he can push people left, can he counter bad narrative? Yes.
So why is the news even interviewing him? Surely this is against their interests? The answer is one of two main ones. Either its capitalist realism to let their narrative be crushed live on air and reduce their own legitimacy, or it is because the Senator is newsworthy, and people will click on videos that have Bernie Sanders in it. To explain it simply – they are following the market incentive.
The first one does not make any sense from their perspective, they have no interest to let Sanders on if they are not doing it for profit. Therefore, it is most likely the latter.
Now we have excused the behaviour of news corporations, where do we stop? Why does Amazon host anti-capitalist books and audiobooks? They’re following the market incentive. Why does Amazon prime or HBO actively make anti-capitalist movies and tv series? They’re following the market incentive. Why is John Oliver allowed to make loud systemic critiques which trend on twitter every time they hit the nail on the head?
Yes, he’s never said get rid of capitalism. But systemic critiques only lead to certain conclusions and one of those conclusions is get rid of the system. They’re following the market incentive. Why are capitalists at all touching socialism when it cannot simply be printed on a tee and forgotten? Because they are following the market incentive. It’s profit.
And if it still doesn’t make sense, because in the long term anti-capitalism could endanger their own systems and livelihoods. They’re doing something against their interest, no? They should be scared of this but... they’re not because in the long-term –
Well, I’d like to present to you a list of capitalists and other dumb humans doing stuff for short term gain which actively hurts them or their class in the long run, but that would be far too long and encompass the near entirety of human history.
For the highlights see, climate change, alcohol abuse, ponzi schemes, bitcoin. Also see: setting up anti-capitalist newspapers and expecting them not to unionize or democratise. Do you think Current Affairs, or The Young Turks thought about class warfare this meticulously before creating top-down companies (in some cases without unions) or thought this would happen in the long run? Obviously not.
Humans are dumb incentive-driven creatures that even Vaush has admitted it his recent videos. And we’re not awesome at thinking long term, unless you think that those socialist publications are somehow dumber than regular business owners.
Sure, they think about their power and how to suppress unions but honestly, 8 times out of 10 even if these big companies didn’t want to platform anti-capitalism, it could cost them, in either clout or monetary loss because, partially, the winds are changing where anti-capitalism or critiques are becoming popular - and lots of lefties are in the creative industry.
And yes, this can result in just preserving capitalism, but a message sent to you in something made in the perfect ethical way over the telephone or over facebook doesn’t change whether or not the message is anti-capitalist. You could say fuck capitalism let’s overthrow it today and actually mean it even if you tell them over WhatsApp instead of Signal.
Yes, T.O.S can come in to not breaking the law and stifling revolutionary activity, but I’m pretty sure there are people out there who will use implication to circumvent it or just break the rules anyway.
I think I have demonstrated enough that long term class warfare is not the only pressure on capitalist’s minds, they have other pressures like profit, credibility, legitimacy (especially important in the awards shows like the Emmy’s and etc, for which explains why they might choose anti-capitalist art like Parasite) as well as trying to keep on top of short term class warfare (unionizing), and that a commodity being made for profit is not always in capitalist’s interests by default. I believe instead of acting as a body, these people act as if they are in a market, because… they are, they are in one.
Yes, capitalists have convergent interests with each other, but we cannot assume all their behaviour is defined by their identity as a capitalist. Furthermore, this sort of assumption, that socialist agitprop always results in cheapening by commodification happens in all cases (as opposed in just certain cases like a Che Guevara shirt which has lost essentially all of its meaning) runs somewhat counter to Vaush’s previous ideas around producing prosperous socialists and advocating for socialists to be in positions of power or influence or to be landlords or capitalists (who allow unions of course).
(About what I am about to say: I realise Vaush said on his video that there is “nothing wrong” with making anti-capitalist media, however, regardless of moral impunity or not, this belief could act as a disincentive regardless)
Because if there were a socialist creator in a capitalist workplace, why would they want to produce anti-capitalist mass media if they were convinced this would be an act of preserving capitalism? Even if we could take it for granted that all capitalist-created media creates socdems and therefore reinforces capitalism. Would it not be better to produce left leaning socdem people from an anti-capitalist film than it would be to have a piece of art which doesn’t attempt to challenge, criticise, or raise any sort of issue that we care a lot about? Additionally, this theory doesn’t take in to account that the anti-capitalist can convince capitalists to publish their anti-capitalist art.
Because the capitalists aren’t constantly thinking of long-term class warfare.
In fact, this confidence in the assertion that anti-capitalist art cannot end capitalism could feed in to the confidence of the capitalist that they can safely produce anti-capitalist art.
It seems obvious to me that we would want anti-capitalist media way more, even if it reinforced capitalism despite what the theory says. Yes, people can try to replace activism with consumption, but that would be a problem regardless of if you had anti-capitalist media being recouped. Excessive consumption of theory, as in going over it again and again, say in an insular book club which never does any activism or planning, could also be considered a form of replacing activism with consumption, and may be no less detrimental than anti-capitalist blockbuster, which even has a chance of floating the boat of new ideas to the audience.
To not push for even commodified good-represented anti-capitalism strikes me as shooting ourselves in the foot.
Finally, lets look at this assertion: “Show me any revolution in history motivated by a triple A blockbuster.” It’s fortuitous that he brought up the Hunger Games, because that series of triple a block buster's symbols have actually been used to rally mass civil disobedience before, and according to Wikipedia this event is locally called the “Spring Revolution.” And this happened in Burma/Myanmar. The Three Fingers used as a sign of rebellion in the triple A movies have been used by real world resistance to the military coup there in early 2021. (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-05/myanmar-blocks-facebook-as-resistance-grows-to-military-coup/13124148)
I apologize for my example being less socialist than imagined but he did not specify socialist revolution. Still, I believe the will to change a system or government can be applied with some flexibility, similar situations that produce sentiment to oppose an oppressive regime might also produce anti-capitalist sentiments too. There might be even two types of people who are living in the same sort of event, one reacts to the oppressive regime to want liberalism and the other wants socialism.
This highlights another problem with the Fisher theory as applied here is it is far too focused on one corner of the world. One thing which is revolutionary in one country or context, can be mundane in others – like healthcare in Europe v USA. A film suppressed in the USA might be smuggled out and proliferated abroad, like the indie film Salt of the Earth, from the 50s, which is pretty low budget film but still proof of this concept. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047443/?ref_=ttls_li_tt
Lastly, it would seem preposterous to suggest the parasocial contact hypothesis, which is widely widely supported by sociologists and which is the reason representation matters because it can actively normalise and destigmatize certain types of people, does not work when applied to destigmatize unionizing, the working class and working class struggles. Anyone who believes even a well-created anti-capitalist movie would not have some statistically significant effect on the audience in their sympathies to the working class, would have to explain why the parasocial contact hypothesis works for queer people, black people, women, trans people, etcetera but would not also affect working class people if shown sympathetically.
In conclusion:
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The Bourgeoisie are not a hive mind and actually have different incentives and competing interests.
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Capitalists are not always mastermind planners and some are just following short term profits.
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Anti-capitalist art which tries to send a message (when it is not just a cheap design) can actually make a difference. (But to Grimes: She can fuck right off with that performative photoshoot.)
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Vague gestures in the Hunger Games in the USA can be revolutionary in Burma.
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And theory is not always correct in all circumstances, should be challenged and corroborated by interdisciplinary evidence and should not be treated as dogma!
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
(Hi r/VaushV, I moved this on to the reddit from the discord so it was easier to see!)
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