All-Consuming Fetishes? A Guide for Design Students (In Singapore)
You’ve heard of fetishes, of course.
The common meaning of fetishes are: objects that certain groups of people use as substitutes for sexual gratification.
Now that I’ve gotten your attention, I just want to state up front that we’re not here to JUST talk about sexual fetishes--not that I am an expert in this area, in the first place!—but to examine how the concept of fetish has mutated into its capitalist form. We’ll be talking about two other forms of fetishes, just to round off our discussion in relation to capitalism and design matters.
Sexual Fetishes
The common media representations of a fetish are usually consumable objects like furs, shoes (stilettoes to be precise), leather gear, whips and even exotic food, used by fetishers—who can apparently only get sexually aroused by (and through) these objects. Why this is the case is beyond the scope of our discussions and my expertise.
Of course the objects of obsession can also be certain body parts, like soles of feet or earlobes, or other obscure body parts not usually associated with sexual activity by “normal” folks to get turned on (you can use your imagination here…)
In the cases described above, the meaning of fetish is taken to be an unnatural sexual obsession. It is considered a sexual deviation in psychiatric manuals—which goes to show how far “civilized” humans have been purified of their “wild” instincts, their "polymorphous perversities," desexualised and compartmentalized by the sterile dictates of modern life into capitalists, consumers, labourers, and—only when they have any re-creational time left—lovers. And in this case, lovers, not of other humans, but of inanimate (?) objects.
Anyway, here are the two other meanings of fetish that I’d like you to consider, for our discussion.
Divine Fetishes
In a more religious context, fetishes were once repositories of divine favour—much like magical charms blessed by the gods. The Native American Zunis used fetishes in this manner. Thus the fetishes were religious icons used as amulets to increase the tribesman’s chances of success in his foraging activities. A hunting fetish would thus imbue the hunter with enough of a spiritual boost to his confidence to hunt well.
This example shows, if nothing else, how far humans have become alienated from their “native” state of communion with divine forces, in the same way that they’ve been alienated from their "whole" sexual natures. We are way off from the ideals of the tantric worshippers who fused sexuality and spirituality into one compact package. No longer are we “holistic beings” with divinely sexual connections to the cosmos, it would seem.
Commodity Fetishes
Wait, there’s more. In contemporary society, or rather, capitalist society, the meaning of fetish takes on another twist. Post-Marxist analysts use the term commodity fetish—which is the separation or “alienation” of the product from the context of its production. This is the third meaning of fetish I’d like you to consider—one that shows the next big fall humanity has taken, in our headlong transformation from homo sapiens to capitalist consumers.
Here is an excerpt from the article “The Reproduction of Daily Life” by Fredy Perlman on this topic:
The real danger of fetishism is that it reverses the ontological status of the parties and activities involved in the creation of a product, confusing the real “value” of labour, and productivity. Why is this dangerous? Because it devalues the work we do, and dehumanizes us, and turns us into mere “factors of production” known as human resources—a form of economic capital. The world is thus “magically” created through these “animated” and “automated” entities like “market forces” or “technology” without any mention of “human” intervention. Fredy Perlman again:
The consumer is alienated on a number of levels.
The first and most obvious form of alienation is the consumer's belief that he has a choice when he is deciding whether or not to buy a product. The slogans that you have more “choice” when you buy from a range of products is really a bogus proclamation—a consumerist wolf in sheep’s clothing. Never once is the consumer really given any chance to stop to think that real choice might well be to “not buy”, or to get involved in some other alternate activity other than consumption. So conditioned is he to live within the bounds of capitalist ideology, so bombarded is she by the incessant barrage of media ads that she no longer questions this state of things or the meaning and validity of this kind of social-capitalist configuration.
The second form of alienation is the disconnect of consumer from the actual contexts of production.
For example, the consumer has no idea how a product was created—an example is how urban folks who have never been to dairy farms, think that milk originates from cartons of milk, rather than from cows. Or kids who think that orange juice appears magically from bottles found in the supermarket, not squeezed from real oranges plucked from orange trees in Florida—activities they would never have a chance to witness in their lives, unless they’ve gone on tours of these exotic locales.
Another way to think of fetishism, is that it is an applied form of idolatry, the substitute of the image for the substance, so to speak. Thus the fetish object is projected, or imbued with magical, sexual, or divine, attributes—obscuring the real “virility” or productive power of the individual. Fredy Perlman again:
This is the next level of alienation that occurs—that people do not see the “invisible hand” of capitalism shaping their lives, and reproducing the very system that enslaves them.
Is there any way we can escape our wage-enslavement and have more equitable exchange between life and labour? That's the question we'll be pondering for a bit ...
Thoughts to labour over
I’d better stop this part of the discussion here for now, lest this article becomes way too long! In any case, for my Design Thinking 2 students, I’d like you to think about the issues of commodity fetish discussed above, and how it relates to your work as graphic designers:
To what extent do your creative works ...
We can never go back in time to the time of the Zunis, whom I believe had a more healthy relationship with the divine—in the sense that their use of the fetishes were more “inspired” than its modern manifestations (this is of course my assumption). I mean "inspired" here to mean a return to a "right relationship" to reality (a big task indeed!), not distorted by mediating forces like capitalism.
My hope is that we can learn to fully understand the mediating function of commodity fetishes so that we do not fixate our attentions wrongly on the fetish object, but understand their original divine functions, like the Zuni fetishes that act as conduits that "channel" power to its user via its association with a divine presence.
Perhaps it's still not too late for us to reconnect soulfully to the world again, and for us to realise now that we are collaborators with the world, with the divine, and that our actions CAN have some impact.
Also, I hope that we will be able to expunge the wrong and disempowering views relating to our lack of creative "virility", and NOT lose sight of our real productive power to make a difference in our life and in our work. In this way, we can make our way back to a "soulful" and authentic existence, and gain access to true "divine" inspiration, through our creative works, and the designs that we create. This of course is an ideal, but an ideal I believe to be worth fighting for.
Students: after reading this article, and mulling through the issues presented, I’d like you also to reflect on the issues of fetishes and alienation, and think about how you could use your creative work to:
So let’s do some thinking and writing! Go for 500 words, okay!? (More is better, of course!) Create a visual journal of this topic and post it online!
_______________________________________
References:
Chapter 3: Alienation of Living Activity, by Fredy Perlman.
Chapter 4: The Fetishism of Commodity, by Fredy Perlman.
The common meaning of fetishes are: objects that certain groups of people use as substitutes for sexual gratification.
Now that I’ve gotten your attention, I just want to state up front that we’re not here to JUST talk about sexual fetishes--not that I am an expert in this area, in the first place!—but to examine how the concept of fetish has mutated into its capitalist form. We’ll be talking about two other forms of fetishes, just to round off our discussion in relation to capitalism and design matters.
Sexual Fetishes
The common media representations of a fetish are usually consumable objects like furs, shoes (stilettoes to be precise), leather gear, whips and even exotic food, used by fetishers—who can apparently only get sexually aroused by (and through) these objects. Why this is the case is beyond the scope of our discussions and my expertise.
Of course the objects of obsession can also be certain body parts, like soles of feet or earlobes, or other obscure body parts not usually associated with sexual activity by “normal” folks to get turned on (you can use your imagination here…)
In the cases described above, the meaning of fetish is taken to be an unnatural sexual obsession. It is considered a sexual deviation in psychiatric manuals—which goes to show how far “civilized” humans have been purified of their “wild” instincts, their "polymorphous perversities," desexualised and compartmentalized by the sterile dictates of modern life into capitalists, consumers, labourers, and—only when they have any re-creational time left—lovers. And in this case, lovers, not of other humans, but of inanimate (?) objects.
Anyway, here are the two other meanings of fetish that I’d like you to consider, for our discussion.
Divine Fetishes
In a more religious context, fetishes were once repositories of divine favour—much like magical charms blessed by the gods. The Native American Zunis used fetishes in this manner. Thus the fetishes were religious icons used as amulets to increase the tribesman’s chances of success in his foraging activities. A hunting fetish would thus imbue the hunter with enough of a spiritual boost to his confidence to hunt well.
This example shows, if nothing else, how far humans have become alienated from their “native” state of communion with divine forces, in the same way that they’ve been alienated from their "whole" sexual natures. We are way off from the ideals of the tantric worshippers who fused sexuality and spirituality into one compact package. No longer are we “holistic beings” with divinely sexual connections to the cosmos, it would seem.
Commodity Fetishes
Wait, there’s more. In contemporary society, or rather, capitalist society, the meaning of fetish takes on another twist. Post-Marxist analysts use the term commodity fetish—which is the separation or “alienation” of the product from the context of its production. This is the third meaning of fetish I’d like you to consider—one that shows the next big fall humanity has taken, in our headlong transformation from homo sapiens to capitalist consumers.
Here is an excerpt from the article “The Reproduction of Daily Life” by Fredy Perlman on this topic:
Thus Economics (and capitalist ideology in general) treats land, money, and the products of labor, as things which have the power to produce, to create value, to work for their owners, to transform the world. This is what Marx called the fetishism which characterizes people's everyday conceptions, and which is raised to the level of dogma by Economics. For the economist, living people are things ( « factors of production » ), and things live (money « works, » Capital « produces » ).
The real danger of fetishism is that it reverses the ontological status of the parties and activities involved in the creation of a product, confusing the real “value” of labour, and productivity. Why is this dangerous? Because it devalues the work we do, and dehumanizes us, and turns us into mere “factors of production” known as human resources—a form of economic capital. The world is thus “magically” created through these “animated” and “automated” entities like “market forces” or “technology” without any mention of “human” intervention. Fredy Perlman again:
The fetish worshipper attributes the product of his own activity to his fetish. As a result, he ceases to exert his own power (the power to transform nature, the power to determine the form and content of his daily life); he exerts only those « powers » which he attributes to his fetish (the « power » to buy commodities). In other words, the fetish worshipper emasculates himself and attributes virility to his fetish.
The consumer is alienated on a number of levels.
The first and most obvious form of alienation is the consumer's belief that he has a choice when he is deciding whether or not to buy a product. The slogans that you have more “choice” when you buy from a range of products is really a bogus proclamation—a consumerist wolf in sheep’s clothing. Never once is the consumer really given any chance to stop to think that real choice might well be to “not buy”, or to get involved in some other alternate activity other than consumption. So conditioned is he to live within the bounds of capitalist ideology, so bombarded is she by the incessant barrage of media ads that she no longer questions this state of things or the meaning and validity of this kind of social-capitalist configuration.
The second form of alienation is the disconnect of consumer from the actual contexts of production.
For example, the consumer has no idea how a product was created—an example is how urban folks who have never been to dairy farms, think that milk originates from cartons of milk, rather than from cows. Or kids who think that orange juice appears magically from bottles found in the supermarket, not squeezed from real oranges plucked from orange trees in Florida—activities they would never have a chance to witness in their lives, unless they’ve gone on tours of these exotic locales.
Another way to think of fetishism, is that it is an applied form of idolatry, the substitute of the image for the substance, so to speak. Thus the fetish object is projected, or imbued with magical, sexual, or divine, attributes—obscuring the real “virility” or productive power of the individual. Fredy Perlman again:
But the fetish is a dead thing, not a living being; it has no virility. The fetish is no more than a thing for which, and through which, capitalist relations are maintained.
The mysterious power of Capital, its « power » to produce, its virility, does not reside in itself, but in the fact that people alienate their creative activity, that they sell their labor to capitalists, that they materialize or reify their alienated labor in commodities.
This is the next level of alienation that occurs—that people do not see the “invisible hand” of capitalism shaping their lives, and reproducing the very system that enslaves them.
In other words, people are bought with the products of their own activity, yet they see their own activity as the activity of Capital, and their own products as the products of Capital.Thus the common notion of people selling their souls—that wage labour is a form of social and spiritual prostitution, in this context, according to Perlman.
By attributing creative power to Capital and not to their own activity, they renounce their living activity, their everyday life, to Capital, which means that people give themselves, daily, to the personification of Capital, the capitalist.
Is there any way we can escape our wage-enslavement and have more equitable exchange between life and labour? That's the question we'll be pondering for a bit ...
Thoughts to labour over
I’d better stop this part of the discussion here for now, lest this article becomes way too long! In any case, for my Design Thinking 2 students, I’d like you to think about the issues of commodity fetish discussed above, and how it relates to your work as graphic designers:
To what extent do your creative works ...
- act as substitutes/fetishes for things in reality (is that a good or bad thing anyway?)
- sell you and your target audience (out),
- attempt to break away from the cycle of commodification to liberate humanity.
We can never go back in time to the time of the Zunis, whom I believe had a more healthy relationship with the divine—in the sense that their use of the fetishes were more “inspired” than its modern manifestations (this is of course my assumption). I mean "inspired" here to mean a return to a "right relationship" to reality (a big task indeed!), not distorted by mediating forces like capitalism.
My hope is that we can learn to fully understand the mediating function of commodity fetishes so that we do not fixate our attentions wrongly on the fetish object, but understand their original divine functions, like the Zuni fetishes that act as conduits that "channel" power to its user via its association with a divine presence.
Perhaps it's still not too late for us to reconnect soulfully to the world again, and for us to realise now that we are collaborators with the world, with the divine, and that our actions CAN have some impact.
Also, I hope that we will be able to expunge the wrong and disempowering views relating to our lack of creative "virility", and NOT lose sight of our real productive power to make a difference in our life and in our work. In this way, we can make our way back to a "soulful" and authentic existence, and gain access to true "divine" inspiration, through our creative works, and the designs that we create. This of course is an ideal, but an ideal I believe to be worth fighting for.
Students: after reading this article, and mulling through the issues presented, I’d like you also to reflect on the issues of fetishes and alienation, and think about how you could use your creative work to:
- reconnect humanity to its creative (divine and imaginative) roots,
- un-alienate us from the systems of production that dehumanizes us into mere consumers, and capitalist tools, and
- reclaim our symbolic power to determine the form and content of our daily lives
- recover our “SOUL” through alternate ways of relating/communicating to an audience with/through our artworks.
So let’s do some thinking and writing! Go for 500 words, okay!? (More is better, of course!) Create a visual journal of this topic and post it online!
_______________________________________
References:
Chapter 3: Alienation of Living Activity, by Fredy Perlman.
Chapter 4: The Fetishism of Commodity, by Fredy Perlman.
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