No 13. We have "Depressive Hedonia"
Do you doom scroll on tiktok then switch over to the outnet or farfetch? Do you binge watch mindless tv until 1 am just to feel like you've relaxed. Let's talk about it.
Most of the time, a diagnosis is accompanied with a sense of relief. An answer for the all the symptoms you’ve been trying to piece together. Knowing what is happening is the first step at either managing it or trying to cure it.
These past two weeks social media is booming with “underconsumption core” and even our substack conversations are digging into accessibility, sales , wanting (
, influencing ( ), the fact that we already have enough ( ), navigating all of it ( ), and more.We’re tired of wanting things. Tired of pushing things to sell. Tired of being sold to. Tired of “consumption” but still have to consume to exist Tired of decisions. Tired of the system. We’re depleted and we struggle to find a way out.
I have some ideas on a way to the cure, but first let’s get to our diagnosis.
Mark Fisher’s “Depressive Hedonia”
My car rides in the Catskills take me about 20-25 minutes to get anywhere from my house. Usually, it’s been filled with music but this past week I have listened to two podcast episodes from Philosophize This three times each just to absorb it all.
Before I started Big Brain, I was going to start a substack on existentialism and how people approach the concept of making and finding meaning in their life - a way to understand how other people navigate existentialism in a way that might help others with their own struggles.
But it seems that project and feeling is intersecting with all of the conversations happening on and offline. For everyone that has ever followed an influencer, consumes any type of social media, or has just plain existed on the internet is depleted.
For example, Totally Recommend posted a great article today and shared this extremely relatable feeling
“In the wake of the highest ever Prime Day sales, I sense a giant wound that we fill with individual aspiration and stuff. I see that I live in a country where there isn’t a lot of agency for everyone and where the sense of belonging is weak. Right now, we don’t have the sanest society or the healthiest world. People confuse their wants with needs and continually feel threatened and competitive, pitting us against each other.” -
in her latest post “Are You Satisfied Yet?”
Depressive hedonia is what we all may be collectively experiencing.
It’s not just wanting, but it’s actually the particular historical moment we are living through that I think has been diagnosed by Mark Fisher in his book Capitalist Realism.
Philosophy has always been the salty treat I need, but don’t always crave. It’s kind of like liquorice. Some people hate it and will not touch it, but some of us are brave enough to give it a whirl and at least can be grateful for the experience even if the flavor just isn’t our cup of tea.
The two podcast episodes above dive into Mark Fisher’s philosophy is much more extensively than what I will cover here so I encourage you to also go give them both a listen, because it is literal brain food. (And Stephen West talks fast so for us adhd-ers we don’t get bored!)
Who is Mark Fisher & what is Captialist Realism
Mark Fisher was a cultural theorist and philosopher. In his book Capitalist Realism, he identifies something we all can relate to.
[Capitalist Realism is] the widespread sense that not only is capitalism the only viable political and economic system, but also that it is now impossible even to imagine a coherent alternative to it.”
It is the idea that sometimes it’s easier to imagine the collapse of humanity than imagine an alternative to capitalism. He credits this back to other philosophers Fredric Jameson and Slavoj Žižek.
Let’s just pause there.
In my mind, it is easier for me to picture an asteroid blasting into a continent than an alternative future. Prime Day shoved into our eye sockets at every turn. Real estate properties inhaled by private equity. The fact that most of the products we consume in our bodies and put on our bodies are owned by a few major conglomerates. We can all spin off into the capitalist doom scape of our present moment.
But Mark Fisher argues that this sense is particular to our present historical moment. *Whew* He describes it as a “pervasive atmosphere.” I can almost picture this noxious gas suffocating us like a scene from Ghostbusters.
The reason we can’t imagine an alternative future is because of the current neoliberal regime that has created this particular flavor of capitalism.
The deeper history of neoliberalism is best laid out in the shared episodes above, but the gist is that we had Classic Liberalism thought by the likes of Adam Smith that championed the idea of the individual (individual liberties, rights, being suspicious of overarching power like a monarchy) and that markets were naturally occurring and we would all benefit from the competition in a market. It had the idea that the market would always correct itself. But it’s when we get to the Great Depression, thinkers are realizing that laissez faire economic practices don’t work and we do need government to step in to ensure that it doesn’t hurt people (social liberalism). But what is core in these ideas is that this was all built with the idea of how to create social good. The idea of engaging in the market was to make things better.
But we historically swung towards neoliberal policies (thank you Reganomics ugh) that champion the idea that if you work hard and are the best you will succeed but also that government intervention was the worst possible thing for us all. It maximized the individual to the point that any issues that arise in your life and with your business are essentially your fault and if it’s not working you need tow work harder in order you need to maximize your value in the market. It is a kind of social Darwinism.
We’re currently still in that neoliberal moment. But what is really important to understand is that goal of neoliberalism isn’t social good like classic liberalism to benefit us all collectively, it’s actually competition. Businesses are built to expand capital, not make a better product or provide a good service. You can’t find good clothes because the system isn’t set up where making good clothes is even a goal. At the end of the day it’s people, the employees, that lose in that expansion of capital for capital’s sake.
We’re told that in this system the only way to be is to be valuable to the market which ultimately puts us in constant competition with each other. We’re competing on all kinds of markets to be the best - the dating market, the friends market, definitely economic market. It’s lonely. My brain instantly goes to the most exhausting point of capitalism is that if you are not fully healthy or you have a fully abled-body - well then good fkin luck. Capitalism slams the door shut and say it’s your fault.
Preventing solidarity
Before, liberal ideas of individualism were for the benefit of people and making the world a better place. But Mark Fisher argues that the goal of this entire system is to “prevent solidarity” amongst people so that we cannot come together to imagine and build a new future.
Think about it, when we are competing against everyone all the time in every way how could we build something together? Then, the system is actually severing social cohesion.
This brings us right back to Totally Rec’s musing that “People confuse their wants with needs and continually feel threatened and competitive, pitting us against each other.”
We are pitted against each other. But it’s not our fault, we live in a system that is built on this very fact and relies on this fact.
See? Diagnosing it by saying it out loud can be freeing. Once we see it, we can name it, and then we can start to deal with it.
Mark Fisher says that “Capitalist Realism” and neoliberalism are mutually reinforcing ideas. If acted out, this would sound like “You need to compete to get this job. Oh, but so you feel alone and terrible being constantly in competition with everyone and everything? Well, too bad we can’t get out of it so get back to work. Oh and buy this terribly made item which isn’t meant to be good it’s just meant to do enough so that you have to buy another and we can deliver a good P&L statement. But make sure you keep working so that you can buy it. Oh and yeah, if you’re sad it’s your fault. ”
Greatttt. But this situation of Capitalist Realism. it’s not objectively true or real - it’s a constructed sense. The concept of “realism” is a concept by Jacques Lacan who describes “realities” as ideologically based understandings of the world that reject any and all possible facts outside of it.” Basically, “real” doesn’t exist for Lacan, but is constructed by language. In this case, Captialist Realism is a construction and a part of our current historical moment. But the comfort here is that it isn’t a fixed reality.
Fisher uses many different subjects to explore this state of Capitalist Realism, but spends a great deal talking about mental health.
Now we’re getting to our diagnosis.
Looking at depression, Fisher argues and I agree, that we have turned our mental health into an industry. It’s one that just wants us to take our depression into our own two hands, take the pills we’re supposed to, and move on to get back to work. Depression is an inconvenience in a system that isn’t about social good anymore. How can people compete if they’re depressed and at home? That’s not good for the system.
But our depressions can’t just be our fault entirely. We exist in a system currently that is objectively not built for our benefit or humanities benefit. It only benefits capital.
It is built to take away the idea of collectively imagining an alternative future. We can’t imagine an alternative to or out of capitalism cause we can’t imagine possibilities or a future outside of this current historical moment .
For example, pretty much all of popular culture right now is recycling old IP. Everywhere, we are just collectively reliving nostalgia. Fashion, entertainment, music - it’s all recycled and remixed. Taylor Swift is reliving eras. Comic books from the 60s are the movies of today. We’re remaking every franchise of the 90s again and again. Yet, no one is getting me closer to making that microwave from Spy Kids that pops out a full meal in a second (you know the one).
Living in a system that where it’s just accepted that this is the state of things forever, is depressing. Especially this current one that thrives in this state of acceptance.
Fisher argues that “Capitalist Realism” robs young people of the future because we’re just supposed to accept the current state of things. (Would be curious what would think of his book as a Gen Z expert.)
This is where “depressive hedonia” comes in. Fisher argues that it’s particular kind of depression that has only existed now.
“Depression is usually characterized as a state of anhedonia, but the condition I’m referring to is constituted not by an inability to get pleasure so much as it is by an inability to do anything except pursue pleasure. There is a sense that ‘something is missing’ — but no appreciation that this mysterious, missing enjoyment can only be accessed beyond the pleasure principle.” - Mark Fisher
He argues that in the past people were depressed by the lack of enjoyment in things. But now, in our dopamine-driven and constant buy-me bombardment in a 2 hour doom scroll - there is a new type of depression. It isn’t one that is based on not being able to enjoy things, but the life-less vacuum of escaping this fatalistic “capitalist realism” with a constant stream of distraction.
We are experiencing “depressive hedonia” as we scroll constantly to distract ourselves from the feeling that there is a lack of possibilities and that the future feels futile. Depressive hedonia is the escape we find ourselves in that is like a hamster constantly running on its wheel because it doesn’t remember other toys exist in its cage. Or maybe that the cage is just a temporary moment and it could run free.
Diagnosis is the first step to managing our symptoms and maybe curing it. But the cure lies with not really in escaping the sense that hangs like a gaseous cloud because it is a constructed “vibe” we’re living it, but it is first in recognizing that it is a sense - it is a cloud! A constructed time capsule of a cloud. A sense built by policies and time that hold us in this feeling.
There is an escape — we have to be ready, open, and willing for possibilities. We have to push against the sense. The cure for our “depressive hedonia” isn’t individual, it’s collective. It’s imagination. It’s realizing that it’s not all your fault. It’s the system.
That’s our first step. And let’s name it, shame it, and keep talking about it.
XX Bailey
Mark Fisher did write about his approach to a way out of it and so have other philosophers so if you’d like to learn more let me know in the comments!
What an insightful piece! This quote in particular really resonated with me and pinpointed a particularly dreadful feeling I've had in the evenings scrolling on the couch.
"But now, in our dopamine-driven and constant buy-me bombardment in a 2 hour doom scroll - there is a new type of depression. It isn’t one that is based on not being able to enjoy things, but the life-less vacuum of escaping this fatalistic “capitalist realism” with a constant stream of distraction."
I used to love Philosophize This! I listened to it when I was watching The Good Place. Thanks for putting it back on my radar.