In the post-Cold War 1990s, Francis Fukuyama declared "The End of History." Fisher translated this for culture: if history is over, so is genuine novelty. All that remains is to endlessly reprocess the archive.
“It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” – Frederic Jameson (via Mark Fisher) mark fisher slow cancellation of the future
At first glance, the term sounds like science fiction—a gradual erasure of tomorrow by some unseen force. But for Fisher, it was not a metaphor. It was a clinical diagnosis of 21st-century culture. Fisher argued that sometime around the turn of the millennium, society lost its ability to generate new visions of the future. We did not run out of time; we ran out of imagination . In the post-Cold War 1990s, Francis Fukuyama declared
Then, something stopped.
Look back at the 20th century. The 1960s had the space race, psychedelic utopias, and radical civil rights dreams. The 1970s had punk’s "No Future" (which was, paradoxically, a future-oriented rebellion). The 1980s had cyberpunk and neon-lit dystopias. Each decade had a distinct sonic and visual signature. But for Fisher, it was not a metaphor
Think about fashion, architecture, or movie design. In 1968, 2001: A Space Odyssey showed a white, minimalist future. In 1982, Blade Runner showed a dense, multicultural, rain-slicked future. Now, look at Dune: Part Two (2024). It is beautiful. It is also a revival of 1970s brutalist sci-fi. Fisher would argue that we no longer produce new futures; we only curate old ones. Why did this happen? Fisher traced the root cause to Capitalist Realism —the pervasive belief that capitalism is the only viable political and economic system. If there is no alternative to the present, why imagine a different future?