The exhaustion of possibility in contemporary capitalism: dramatization of the wearied

Abstract

This thesis is a dramatization, a practice not concerned with generating normative claims or a ‘new’ interpretive stance on claims already made, but with treating theory as a dramatic performance which brings concepts to life, intensifying them enough so that they engender dynamic affects and provocations. Dramatization understands that writing only ever happens from within the conditions of its own experience and so works from within the problematic perspective of a tired, yet optimistic, western conceptual persona to explore the concepts and experiences of tiredness and their relationship to culture, work and productivity within contemporary capitalism.

Beginning with fatigue’s nineteenth century emergence as a concept and concern for philosophers and factory owners alike, the thesis uses Karl Marx’s Capital to demonstrate how, despite the prevailing preoccupation with overcoming fatigue, productivity is only made material reality through its repeated expenditure and so is, by capitalist design, constitutive of fatigue. The thesis then traces this concept through to the twenty-first century, and –through the work of Franco Berardi, Mark Fisher, Jean Baudrillard and Deleuze – shows how productivity is expanded within post-fordism to include all kinds of productive life not traditionally considered so, thus creating new conceptualisations and experiences of fatigue. It considers fatigue derived from the productive mentality converging with entertainment and consumption, and fatigue felt from the accelerative proliferation of signs and signification more generally. The thesis also explores ways in which the west responds to fatigue by reducing complex problems and structural realities into simple and sensible narratives forming a circulation of clickbait affectivity – obfuscating meaningful engagement while alleviating fatigue. The later stages of the thesis contrast fatigue with exhaustion – an intensive Deleuzian posture nullifying any value in activity whatsoever – and speculates on the impossibility of achieving any wilful activity without rekindling this irreconcilable relationship between productivity and fatigue.

Date of Award	Jan 2025
Original language	English
Supervisor	Robert Porter (Supervisor), Stephen Baker (Supervisor) & Phil Ramsey (Supervisor)