I’ve written a short essay for New Statesman today, which attempts to address the return of Mark Fisher’s “Exiting the Vampire Castle” to Twitter discourse, in light of the damning allegations made against Russell Brand.
I try to offer a balanced reading of Mark’s essay, the problems with it (mainly Brand’s inclusion), whilst pointing readers to essays he wrote in 2014 and 2015, which I think show a great deal of contrition on his part as he addressed his own mental health more candidly and began writing about contemporary feminism far more emphatically.
Unlike Russell Brand, who has responded to these very serious allegations with more conspiracy theories, doubling down on a reactionary rhetoric all too common amongst an “anti-woke” red-brown commentariat, Mark Fisher listened to his critics. He logged off, reflected and found a new clarity with regards to his vision of a post-capitalist, post-patriarchal, post-work future. He looked anew at the past and the present and hoped to salvage a far more positive political project, not only from the wreckage of a twentieth-century left, but from the mistakes he had made in recent years as well.
You can read the essay here. (It is paywalled, unless you sign up for three free articles a month. If that’s not your bag but you’re very interested, I can email it to you.)