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"Exiting the Vampire Castle" by Mark Fisher (1968-2017)
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January 06, 2018
"EXITING THE VAMPIRE CASTLE" BY MARK FISHER (1968-2017)
—
As part of my reading and thinking to help me
prepare to write my Sunday address this week I
went back to look at a couple of pieces written
by Mark Fisher (1968-2017). In recent years he
increasingly became an important influence on
my own thinking and, like many others, I
continue to miss his creative, critical and always
helpfully provocative voice. The fine
contemporary Italian philosopher Franco "Bifo"
Berardi (whose thought readers of this blog will
know I also value highly) has recently written a
powerfully reflective piece about Fisher's suicide
and what it might say to us.
Anyway, the piece that struck me as most
powerfully relevant during this week's re-
Mark Fisher
reading was something Fisher wrote back in November 2013 called "Exiting the Vampire Castle".
It is a sustained reflection on how someone like me – and perhaps, if you regularly read this blog
anyway, someone like you – might best be able to resist succumbing to the feeling that for our own
well-being we need to disengage from politics entirely. Do please consider reading the whole piece
(found at the link above and at the end of this post) but, to whet your appetite, here are Fisher's Five
Laws of the Vampire's Castle . . .
The first law of the Vampires’ Castle is: individualise and privatise everything.
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terribly well brought up, and can be very rude at times. Remember: condemning individuals is
always more important than paying attention
impersonal structures.
The actual ruling class
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"Exiting the Vampire Castle" by Mark Fisher (1968-2017)
propagates ideologies of individualism, while tending to act as a class. (Many of what we call
‘conspiracies’ are the ruling class showing class solidarity.) The Vampires’ Castle, as dupe-servants
of the ruling class, does the opposite: it pays lip service to ‘solidarity’ and ‘collectivity’, while always
acting as if the individualist categories imposed by power really hold. Because they are petitbourgeois to the core, the members of the Vampires’ Castle are intensely competitive, but this is
repressed in the passive aggressive manner typical of the bourgeoisie. What holds them together is
not solidarity, but mutual fear – the fear that they will be the next one to be outed, exposed,
condemned.
The second law of the Vampires’ Castle is: make thought and action appear very, very difficult.
There must be no lightness, and certainly no humour. Humour isn’t serious, by definition, right?
Thought is hard work, for people with posh voices and furrowed brows. Where there is confidence,
introduce scepticism. Say: don’t be hasty, we have to think more deeply about this. Remember:
having convictions is oppressive, and might lead to gulags.
The third law of the Vampires’ Castle is: propagate as much guilt as you can.
The more guilt the better. People must feel bad: it is a sign that they understand the gravity of
things. It’s OK to be class-privileged if you feel guilty about privilege and make others in a
subordinate class position to you feel guilty too. You do some good works for the poor, too, right?
The fourth law of the Vampires’ Castle is: essentialize.
While fluidity of identity, pluarity and multiplicity are always claimed on behalf of the Vampires’
Castle members – partly to cover up their own invariably wealthy, privileged or bourgeoisassimilationist background – the enemy is always to be essentialized. Since the desires animating
the Vampires’ Castle are in large part priests’ desires to excommunicate and condemn, there has to
be a strong distinction between Good and Evil, with the latter essentialized. Notice the tactics. X has
made a remark/ has behaved in a particular way – these remarks/ this behaviour might be
construed as transphobic/ sexist etc. So far, OK. But it’s the next move which is the kicker. X then
becomes defined as a transphobe/ sexist etc. Their whole identity becomes defined by one illjudged remark or behavioural slip. Once the Vampires’ Castle has mustered its witch-hunt, the
victim (often from a working class background, and not schooled in the passive aggressive etiquette
of the bourgeoisie) can reliably be goaded into losing their temper, further securing their position as
pariah/ latest to be consumed in feeding frenzy.
The fifth law of the Vampires’ Castle: think like a liberal (because you are one).
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The Vampires’ Castle’s work of constantly stoking up reactive outrage consists of endlessly pointing
and user agent are shared with Google, together with performance and security metrics, to
out the screamingly obvious: capital behaves like capital (it’s not very nice!), repressive state
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apparatuses
We mustusage
protest!
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"Exiting the Vampire Castle" by Mark Fisher (1968-2017)
Exiting the Vampire Castle by Mark Fisher (1968-2017)
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Labels: Exiting the Vampire Castle, Franco "Bifo" Berardi, leftist politics, Mark Fisher
Andrew James Brown
Unitarian minister, religious naturalism, new materialism, Christian atheism, Shin Buddhism & Kyoto School
philosophy—photographer, walker, jazz bassist.
COMMENTS
beverley said…
Reading this a little belatedly - thank you for another thought provoking blog entry !
...and skimming Bifo's Heroes (maybe less optimistic than Fisher) ! He talks about the
establishment of a kingdom of nihilism and the suicidal drive that permeates contemporary
culture - a phenomenology of panic, aggression and resulting violence.
He laments the fact that mass murderers have not read the relevant texts before acting. In
the case of James Holmes - Guy Debord (the shootings during a Batman film having
situationist elements).
He comments on the "metaphorical density of an act that could be interpreted as breaking
the separation between the spectator and the movie, the spectacle and real life (or death)".
Always a fascinating writer!
Hope you are having a good break!
21 August 2018 at 04:50
Unknown said…
If I may introduce myself, I am a worshiping atheist and an internationalist Scottish
Nationalist, a bundle of what to many, may seem an impossible and paralyzing tribe of
savage ferrets in a sack of crippling contradictions. I also happen to be an acknowledged
lay preacher within the Unitarian tradition but a Post-Christian. Oh dear, what a mess!
How can I meet myself coming or going as I exercise my late-octogenarian body before
breakfast? I am also a retired academic, a social entrepreneur, a trainer of psychotherapists
and still an active pursuer of enlightenment and understanding. Oh dear!
I was moved by the family story of the uncle who followed Hitler and by the strong
affinities and echoes that arose within the developing political situation.
I suggest that, in our present multiple dilemmas, we need to free ourselves from the
emotional power of our tribalism, the inescapable inheritance of evolutionary past, and
adopt what the leaders of the EU recognised and understood as the principle of
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subsidiarity. Some problems are best delt with at global level (for example an attack from
another
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now,
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its festival are different from
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most enduring and emotionally
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"Exiting the Vampire Castle" by Mark Fisher (1968-2017)
inflaming problems arise where there are not just geographical or economical/commercial
clusters of interests but also historical and cultural issues of identity.
At the moment we have a severe case of localised English Nationalism (remember the
doctrine of economic autocracy (or was it autarchy?) of nineteen-thirties fascism) and all
the echoes of old conflicts and wars are raised.
Iain Brown
30 August 2019 at 00:39
Andrew James Brown said…
Readers may be interested to know that the comment above makes reference to the
following post A meditation on a dark and evil heirloom following the proroguing of
Parliament yesterday.
30 August 2019 at 08:21
Andrew James Brown said…
Dear Iain,
Thank you for taking the time post your perspicacious comments. Much appreciated. I
think you are right to point out the whole problem of English Nationalism. Given this you
may be interested in watching the following talk byAnthony Barnett - Albion’s Call: Brexit,
democracy and England
Best wishes,
Andrew
30 August 2019 at 08:30
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Andrew James Brown
Andrew James Brown
—
Unitarian minister,
religious naturalism,
new materialism,
Christian atheism, Shin
Buddhism & Kyoto
School philosophy—
photographer, walker,
jazz bassist.
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