What was once a specter that haunted Europe, the specter of Communism, the most significant teleological ideology since the invention of democracy in Ancient Greece, is all but dead. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the dream that began in 1917, the dream of justice, equality, and solidarity, with people working together for a common good, free from the class divisions that continue to haunt society today, has faded into political obscurity. Margaret Thatcher famously said in a speech in 1980, “There’s no easy popularity in what we are proposing but it is fundamentally sound… I believe people accept there’s no real alternative,” and followed up, “What’s the alternative? To go on as we were before? All that leads to is higher spending. And that means more taxes, more borrowing, higher interest rates, more inflation, more unemployment.” Thatcher’s slogan of the 1980s sowed roots into the ideological nihilism of today: “There is no alternative.” These statements perfectly exemplify the current attitudes so many of us hold today: that we cannot imagine, let alone create, a new, radically different form of society and can instead make only minor, superficial changes to our current one. The point of this article is to try to explain why this is so. 

Modern society, as a holistic system, is depressed. Traditionally, depression is best understood as a condition characterized by a state of anhedonia, the inability to derive pleasure from activities we would normally consider meaningful to pursue. The depressive patient holds no care for the state of affairs in his life and, as such, makes no effort to improve his condition. Instead, he is resigned to the comforting numbness of nihilism, an acceptance of the futility of his life. At a societal level, one does not have to listen to the news for long before being encapsulated by a state of disillusionment. From the intrusion of our privacy through technological means to failures of our government to create meaningful change to foreign global conflicts that kill innocents on all sides to, above all else, the ever-approaching, man-made climate catastrophe that could threaten to end our species, it is hard to not become disillusioned by modern society; to resign oneself to a political nihilism.

This disengagement in politics is widespread: it is common to hear others express this attitude in such phrases as, “our votes do not matter,” or “nothing will ever change.” The resignation to our current state of affairs, to the fates of our political machine, is a matter of reflexive impotence. While we can easily identify the flawed nature of our system, we simultaneously believe that change is impossible. However, this perceived knowledge of our state of affairs is far from the passive observation that we believe it to be. Instead, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy, our passivity turned into a pathology to maintain the status quo; a pathology of non-resistance against the system. This attitude of reflexive impotence penetrates deep within the youth of certain Western nations such as the United States and the United Kingdom. In fact, according to the National Health Service, depression is the most prevalent condition in Britain. It has become an epidemic among the youth. 

However, this depression is unlike the anhedonic state of the traditional depressed patient. Instead, it is characterized by what Mark Fisher, the author of Capitalist Realism, calls depressive hedonia. In contrast to the depressed patient’s inability to obtain pleasure, the youth’s depressive hedonia is constituted by an inability to do anything but pursue pleasure. The alarmingly rapid proliferation of social media in our culture exemplifies this phenomenon. I am not the only one guilty of mindlessly scrolling through Reddit or checking Snapchat whenever I feel the slightest tinge of boredom at school or at home. Wherever I look, I see my peers scrolling through countless TikToks and Instagram Reels when they encounter any task that fails to stimulate their dopamine receptors. 

Our treatment of mental illness further demonstrates capitalism’s drive towards atomized individualism: it presumes that the rise of mental illness could not possibly correlate with any social causation and instead treats it like chemico-biological problem. This serves two distinct purposes. First, it provides pharmaceutical companies a lucrative market wherein they can sell their medication (think of the multitude of SSRIs prescribed around the world). And secondly, it relegates mental illnesses simply to their neurological instantiation. By depoliticizing mental illness, society aims to do away with the potential social and political causations of said illnesses. For example, while it is true that depression is constituted by low serotonin levels within an individual, our depoliticization of the topic does not provide an explanation of why certain individuals have low serotonin levels. By treating mental illness as a natural fact rather than a political issue, we have been able to make it acceptable that so many people have become ill over the last thirty years. However, the rise of mental health issues in capitalist societies that has correlated with the proliferation of neoliberal capitalist policies would suggest the inherently dysfunctional nature of capitalism. 

In order for capital to remain prevalent, it must necessarily be able to control our thoughts and actions in order to sustain its ideological power. Therefore, it is important to recognize the distinction between disciplinary societies and societies of control. Looking at the historical development in the 20th century, from our modernist roots of Fordist capitalist systems of production to post-Fordist technological societies, it is crucial to distinguish between how power has been integrated into society. In contrast to how disciplinary societies were organized around the confines of the organizational boundaries of the factory, the school, or the prison, control societies blur the lines between strict institutional boundaries. Rather than a sharp divide between institutions, all institutions are now embedded into a dispersed cooperation such that the external surveillance of disciplinary societies is succeeded by internal policing. This can best be demonstrated through the usage of communicative technology. While in disciplinary societies the exercise of power necessitates the restriction of communication, control societies encourage it. This is because the more you use technologies such as your phone, the more data is collected about you and the more you can be surveilled, sampled, and evaluated for data.

The exercise of our own freedom, therefore, exists paradoxically: while it may seem that we act of our own volition, without external factors dictating what we can or cannot do, in reality, the act of exercising free will only serves to give more power over the institutions that control our lives through data. And, again, in contrast to the strict confines of institutionalized boundaries of disciplinary societies, which require physical intervention, it is now possible to exercise power, limit freedom, and place prohibitions from a distance once an institution decides that you have transgressed their standards. With our ever-growing dependency on technologies like electronic payment methods, emails, phones, etc., it is easy to see how control can be exercised: all aforementioned freedoms can be shut down at any moment. This manipulation of the flow of information is the primary method of how a control society exercises power. For example, your Internet service provider collects your browsing data and is able to sell it to corporations and the government perfectly legally. Freedom, in this context, is the catalyst for control. 

Even within institutions themselves, we can see the disintegration of disciplinary techniques for a more control-based implementation of power through the process of identification with one’s role within an organization. For example, in order for corporations to maximize the amount of time from its members, it must instill a sense of desire within the worker to actively desire work. The way the workspace culture was designed was to constitute this embracement of one’s role through various mechanisms so that employees would self-identify as workers all the time. The association of guilt with time off work, regardless of whatever reason, and the value placed on productivity, so much to the point where workers actively seek out how best to commodify themselves to their employers by taking mind-altering substances or studying productivity techniques, lead to this identification of one’s role within the corporation. 

Even within an institution like the school, the old disciplinary framework is long gone. No longer do we have the rigid body posture of the past, the strict dress codes, or the infliction of physical punishment; instead, walk into any high school classroom and you will see students scrolling on their phones with earbuds in, sleeping on their desks, or snacking while chatting with classmates. Characteristics once uniquely defined in opposition to labor in disciplinary societies, such as individuality, creativity, or self-expression, are no longer suppressed in pursuit of pure, mindless production output but rather have become integrated and intrinsically tied within labor itself. The disintegration of disciplinary techniques have not been compensated for through an increase in student self-motivation. Instead of using their newfound freedoms to pursue whatever meaningful projects they may desire, they fall into a state of hedonic lassitude.

This phenomena can be seen within the majority of high school students through the act of reading. The difficulty with reading comes not from the content of the text itself but rather because the act of reading itself is deemed boring. The constant connection to the sensation-stimulus matrix of social media, fast food, and television is a direct cause of this difficulty. Our generation has simply become post-literate: we have become too wired to concentrate. Boredom, therefore, simply means to be denied, even for a brief moment, the easy, constant flow of gratification on a whim. Our connection to this sensation-stimulus matrix manifests itself even if we do not actively engage with it. Note the difficulty we have being separated from our phones. It is not the presence of the phone that actually impacts us, but rather a constant reassurance that we have access to the matrix whenever we so desire it. 

Moreover, the influence of images in the media on the psychological foundation of consumerism should not be understated. Since capital necessarily requires infinite growth in order to be sustainable, it must be presupposed that there must exist an underlying pathology to create the desire to consume within the individual. Like how Romulus, raised by wolves from birth, became ever more like a wolf in nature, so too do we exemplify this phenomenon. But, rather than take on the nature of a wolf, we become more so like the objects and images that have taken hold of our consumerist society. Whereas those in the past may have associated cultural signifiers such as religion, community, or nationality with their identity, the introduction and proliferation of advertising and media has desecrated the unification of these signifiers through its rapid fire succession of material signifiers, creating a temporal discontinuity within the viewer. The images that flash across our screens are isolated, disconnected, and discontinuous material signifiers that fail to link up into a coherent sequence, and they disorient the viewer. This further manifests itself within the classroom; the consequence of addiction to the ever-present entertainment matrix is an inability to concentrate on tasks and to connect the current lack of focus with future failure. 

This inability to synthesize time into any coherent narrative isn’t as simple as demotivation; it is symptomatic of the society that students exist in. The breakdown of the signifier chain, therefore, reduces the individual to an experience of pure material signifiers with no coherent sequence – just a series of pure, unrelated presents in time. Thus, our association with these images constitutes the egolessness, or lack of identity, characteristic of modern society. For example, with clothing, when deciding what we want to purchase, we are bombarded with images of models and celebrities, selling us an image of happiness and recognition so long as we decide to buy the product. Our identification with this image, in our minds, leads to the temporary association with the status the image promotes. However, this process of association with such material signifiers is not based in any cultural significance and is instead, as I have already claimed, isolated, disconnected, and discontinuous, failing to form a coherent sequence of identification within the viewer. While we may identify with a product during our time of purchase, is it more likely than not that, after the fact, we will cast it aside or wear it the same as any other piece of clothing, with no real meaning attached to it. 

Therefore, ego dissolution is simply the necessary presupposition for consumer society to exist. The force of images is to alienate us from such cultural signifiers that constitute our identity and instead leads to the identification of the individual with an idealized misrepresentation. It is the force of the teen boy gazing upon his favorite athlete, the woman looking upon the cover of a fashion magazine, or the man peering at the image of the world-renowned actor. As this process continues, our culture becomes rootless, separated from history, with its only purpose being to replicate, reproduce, and reinforce the logic of consumer capitalism. This force is most prevalent in the canonization of oppositional social movements into the status quo. For example, the implementation of rebellious forms of music into the mainstream, such as Black Sabbath and heavy metal, or, more popularly, a figure such as Martin Luther King Jr., so dangerous to the state at the time of his civil rights protest, has since been modernized, with their ideas quelled by time and integrated into the status quo.

Applying this phenomena to every other aspect of our lives, it is not hard to understand why so many feel empty, purposeless, or lonely. No longer can we create the new: all culture is a reiteration of the old, with any form of rebellion merely diminished and integrated into the norm. It is impossible to escape the simulacrum, the replacement of basic reality with a sign supposedly representative of this reality and yet bears no relation to itself, and its grasp on our identity. This process of hyperreality comes into fruition as the sign, initially representative of a reflection of basic reality, evolves, first masking reality, becoming distorted, then marking the absence of reality before finally leading to the final stage of its own pure simulacrum: bearing no relation to reality whatsoever. The images so prevalent in media, advertising, or television constitute this process of hyperreality.

The prevalence and power of capitalism come mainly from the idea that there is no viable alternative system. To best understand why this is so, we must first understand that it is not the role of capitalist ideology to make an explicit case for itself in the same way that fascist ideology requires propaganda. This is because in order for capitalism to function, there does not have to be any sort of subjectively assumed belief in the same way that facism does. Instead, capitalism is able to function perfectly fine without any defense of itself. This is what the philosopher Žižek calls a post-ideological society. In such a society, it is no longer necessary for people to believe in ideological truths. Instead, the fundamental level of ideology is an unconscious fantasy that structures social reality. It is through this contradiction that we can simultaneously disavow the values of the capitalist system while continuing to partake in the capitalist process of exchange. This is further exemplified in the fact that, while we can believe money is a meaningless token with no intrinsic value, we act as if it holds a holy value. This structure of the disavow of capitalism is the necessary precondition for the separation of belief and action to occur. It is because we have distanced ourselves from money in our heads that we are simultaneously able to fetishize it. It must be understood that capitalism is both an abstract impersonal structure and that it would be nonexistent without our cooperation. It is through this distancing that capitalism immunizes us to the seductive appeal of fanaticism. 

In such a profoundly inegalitarian society, where the evaluation of the individual is so closely connected to his monetary value, it is hard to justify capitalism as a utopian ideal. Instead, proponents of capitalism claim that while capitalism is not perfect, it is the best system we have. Sure, democracy has its flaws, they may claim, but at least we don’t live in a totalitarian regime. These proponents may further argue that while capitalism may be unjust, at least it is not criminal like Stalinist communism. We allow millions of Africans to die from AIDS and bomb Iraqis with our planes, but at least we don’t make racist, nationalistic declarations like Milošević or execute our enemies like Charles Taylor. 

Furthermore, moral critiques of capitalism, such as an emphasis on how it leads to suffering through poverty, war, and famine and its inevitability to exist as a fundamental part of reality, only serve to reinforce the idea that capitalism is the only viable system. Hopes that these forms of suffering can be eliminated are often brushed aside as naive utopian thinking rather than realistic goals we could strive towards. Over the past few decades, the naturalization of capitalism as the only viable economic and political system has led to a sort of business ontology, which claims that everything in society must be run as a business. The result of this process has led to the slew of privatization within the US since the 1970s,the suspension of unions, and the denationalization of utilities and railways. These reforms have served to make impossible what used to be practical for the largest number of people and make profitable for the ruling class what did not used to be so. 

The replacement of political issues with ethical immediacy serves to enforce the ideological structure of capitalism. For example, with the issue of famine, it is said that individuals could end famine directly through philanthropy and that any political solution or systemic reorganization was unnecessary. The point of this argument is not to offer any alternative to capitalism but rather accept that capitalism is the only viable system and that we could solve systemic global inequalities through it, so long as we made better purchasing decisions, without stopping to consider that capitalism could be inherently implicated in the global issues themselves. 

At this point, I would like to clarify a term used in psychoanalysis: what Lacan calls the Real. What Lacan defines as the Real is the suppression of reality, an unpresentable, traumatic void that can only be viewed through the gaps in reality. An example of this Real is the environmental catastrophe that threatens our species. The way we understand environmental catastrophe is largely through a kind of simulacra; its image, bearing no relation to reality, is heavily incorporated into advertising and media. However, the way we treat this environmental catastrophe is based upon a presupposition that resources are infinite and that all problems can be solved by innovations in the market. The point of this simulacra is to repress the real implications of the environmental catastrophe for capitalism, for otherwise it would be too traumatic to be assimilated into the system. Capitalism’s need for a constantly expanding market proves its relationship to the environmental catastrophe is not coincidental or even accidental. Instead, it means that capitalism, by its very nature, is opposed to any notion of sustainability. 

Being aware of the immensity of the situation we face and the lack of resources we have realistically to resolve it, it is not hard to understand those who become disillusioned with society. The issue arises, however, when our cynicism turns into nihilism and defeat. Therefore, while the message is bleak, we must remain hopeful. Sartre famously claimed that “existence precedes essence.” It is not that we were designed by a greater power for a precise purpose predetermined at birth, but rather that we define ourselves through our experiences and actions. We were granted absolute freedom at birth. Dizzying, confusing, an inescapable burden, in our freedom we know we alone are responsible for every choice we make. Freedom manifests itself as a crushing anxiety, for every choice forever closes off all other possible lives we could have lived as we inevitably hurtle towards death, which finally severs our life’s projects. And yet, in spite of our awareness of life’s futility, we strive for projects larger than man, serving to benefit mankind as a whole. The dreams of the past have since become integrated into reality today. However, the most powerful dream of the 20th century, the dream of change from the divisions and dominion that characterized all previous societies, has since been repressed by time. The dream that was fought for and died for to protect has since been characterized as a nightmare from which we have luckily awoken from. It is now that we have forgotten this dream, relegated to a time that is long past, and drowned ourselves so deeply into the mindless tedium and drudgery of the harsh reality of the world that we have vowed to never dream again. But what is life without a dream? It is propitious now more than ever to act, to free ourselves from the chains of our own self-hostage. The indomitable human spirit, in a tragically magnificent resistance against its own mortality, has preserved against all that has challenged it, transcending the limits of possibility for all previous generations. To surrender now would be treason against those before you who had fought for and died for a better tomorrow. It is now our duty for us to do the same. Marx famously claimed, “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.”

Special thanks to my sister, Miriam, for helping me refine this article