materialist realism

“Capitalist realism as I understand it cannot be confined to art or the quasi-propagandistic way in which advertising functions. It is more like a pervasive atmosphere, conditioning not only the production of culture but also the regulation of work and education, and acting as a kind of invisible barrier constraining thought and action.” from Capitalist Realism, is there no alternative?

Used as a term to describe the saturation of public discourse with the idea that capitalism is the natural economic system and not one among other possible forms of production, capitalist realism is compared to the Socialist Realism of Soviet Union under Stalin, where all art and culture was coerced into a systemic promotion of a certain kind of materialist reality.

But we need more. We need an analysis of how materialist realism is dominant in public discourse. Promoted widely by all the main establishment cultural institutions (note especially the BBC's popular science programmes) this realism can be juxtaposed to spiritual realism, a view of the world based on understanding the essential nature of human consciousness and its relation to society and culture. 

pic from here