What the fuck is commodity fetishism?

[Hollis]

Well,okay.. he interpreted it somewhat weirdly..

"Much of Baudrillard's notoriety as an academic and political comentator comes from his deliberately provocative claim in 1991 that the first Gulf War 'did not take place.' His argument — which sparked heavy criticism from the likes of Chris Norris (see below) who perceived, in Baudrillard, a denial of empirical events — described the war as the inverse of the Clausewitzian formula: not 'the continuation of politics by other means', but 'the continuation of the absence of politics by other means.' According to Baudrillard, Saddam Hussein was not fighting the Allied Forces, but using the lives of his troops as a form of sacrifice to preserve his power (p. 72 in the 2004 edition); and neither were the Allied Forces fighting Saddam, they were merely dropping 10,000 tonnes of bombs a day as if to prove to themselves there was an enemy to fight (p. 61). So too were the Western media complicit, presenting the war in 'real time' and recycling images of war to propagate the notion that the two enemies were in actual conflict. But, Baudrillard followed, this was not the case: Saddam did not use what military capacity he had (his air force); nor was his power eventually weakened (as he managed to put down the insurgency against him after the war ended). And so, Baudrillard concluded, little politically changed in Iraq: the enemy was not defeated, the victors were not victorious. Ergo, there was no war: the Gulf War did not take place" wikipedia

 

[MysteryGuest]

He was just having a bit of a larf.


Commodity fetishism is typified by, say, attaching an unjustified value to the arrival of OU modules in the post.

 

[Hollis]

Indeed I'm sure an evening down the pub with Pierre would be a barrel of laughs.

 

[Hollis]

Commodity fetishism is typified by, say, attaching an unjustified value to the arrival of OU modules in the post.

And could one not also argue that the life-enriching quality of an OU study module gives them a high 'use value', probably exceeding their exchange value.

 

[MysteryGuest]

And could one not also argue that the life-enriching quality of an OU study module gives them a high 'use value', probably exceeding their exchange value.

Well it depends on what sort of value you're giving them - if it's the wrong sort, the sinfully materialistic sort, you're fucked.

 

[Hollis]

Well it depends on what sort of value you're giving them - if it's the wrong sort, the sinfully materialistic sort, you're fucked.

Oh no after a day studying Unit D850 I am now as culturally enriched as fuck.

Life just couldn't get better.

 

[MysteryGuest]

Oh no after a day studying Unit D850 I am now as culturally enriched as fuck.

Life just couldn't get better.

Well... as long as it is a spiritual enrichment and not a vainglorious* worldly enrichment... then I am pleased for you.


* - I love this word, just saw it somewhere else and had to post it

 

[Hollis]

Well... as long as it is a spiritual enrichment and not a vainglorious* worldly enrichment... then I am pleased for you.


* - I love this word, just saw it somewhere else and had to post it

Indeed spiritual enrichment.. but also, I like to think, in my own way, a selfless form of cultural enrichment.

 

[MysteryGuest]

Indeed spiritual enrichment.. but also, I like to think, in my own way, a selfless form of cultural enrichment.

Perhaps selfless cultural enrichment is isomorphic, or identically equivalent somehow, with the concept of spiritual enrichment... perhaps. *ponders*

 

[Hollis]

Yes. We all have our role to play within society. I like to think I do my bit.

 

[Blagsta]

Well,okay.. he interpreted it somewhat weirdly..

"Much of Baudrillard's notoriety as an academic and political comentator comes from his deliberately provocative claim in 1991 that the first Gulf War 'did not take place.' His argument — which sparked heavy criticism from the likes of Chris Norris (see below) who perceived, in Baudrillard, a denial of empirical events — described the war as the inverse of the Clausewitzian formula: not 'the continuation of politics by other means', but 'the continuation of the absence of politics by other means.' According to Baudrillard, Saddam Hussein was not fighting the Allied Forces, but using the lives of his troops as a form of sacrifice to preserve his power (p. 72 in the 2004 edition); and neither were the Allied Forces fighting Saddam, they were merely dropping 10,000 tonnes of bombs a day as if to prove to themselves there was an enemy to fight (p. 61). So too were the Western media complicit, presenting the war in 'real time' and recycling images of war to propagate the notion that the two enemies were in actual conflict. But, Baudrillard followed, this was not the case: Saddam did not use what military capacity he had (his air force); nor was his power eventually weakened (as he managed to put down the insurgency against him after the war ended). And so, Baudrillard concluded, little politically changed in Iraq: the enemy was not defeated, the victors were not victorious. Ergo, there was no war: the Gulf War did not take place" wikipedia

That's from Wikipedia and not an interpretation I had seen before. I always had the impression he was on about it being a media spectacle.

 

[Blagsta]

Indeed I'm sure an evening down the pub with Pierre would be a barrel of laughs.

Pierre? Pierre who?

 

[bluestreak]

Is it something to do with being into Transformers?

 

[Hollis]

Oops Jean.. clearly getting confused with Pierre Bourdieu.

rolleyes: @ self)

 

[MysteryGuest]

I like that Pierre Bourdieu - who'd've thought that chefs could be so crazy!

 

[Jonti]

This ...

 

[Hollis]

Oops Jean.. clearly getting confused with Pierre Bourdieu.

rolleyes: @ self)

Btw.. I specifically mentioned Jean in the exam. Anyway I can forget all the stuff now.

 

[phildwyer]

That's from Wikipedia and not an interpretation I had seen before. I always had the impression he was on about it being a media spectacle.

His point was that people in the West have ceased to be able to tell the difference between image and reality. This is the condition he calls "hyper-reality." It emerges out of commodity fetishism, because the primitive form of commodity fetishism is the imposition of an image (value) on a material thing.

 

[llantwit]

Karl Marx wrote:
A commodity appears, at first sight, a very trivial thing, and easily understood. Its analysis shows that it is, in reality, a very queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.

So far as it is a value in use, there is nothing mysterious about it whether we consider it from the point of view that by its properties it is capable of satisfying human wants, or from the point that those properties are the product of human labour. It is as clear as noon-day, that man, by his industry, changes the forms of the materials furnished by nature, in such a way as to make them useful to him.

The form of wood, for instance, is altered, by making a table out of it. Yet, for all that the table continues to be that common, every-day thing, wood.

But, so soon as it steps forth as a commodity, it is changed into something transcendent. It not only stands with its feet on the ground, but, in relation to all other commodities, it stands on its head, and evolves out of its Wooden brain grotesque ideas far more wonderful than "tableturning" ever was.

How fucking COOL is that paragraph - that's a great intro to commodity fetishism from the dude who thought it up. Once you get into th flow of the slightly archaic language it's just great! For starters - what a trippy description - spooky brainy tables and whatnot.
The rest of the chapter is here:

And it's *well* worth a read in my book.http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/MODERN/FETISH.HTM

 

[Dubversion]

That's from Wikipedia and not an interpretation I had seen before. I always had the impression he was on about it being a media spectacle.

i think that still holds - the 'showing out' that Baudrillard claims the Yanks and Saddam were doing is being done through the media. The media will portray the bombings and the sacrifice..

 

[revol68]

His point was that people in the West have ceased to be able to tell the difference between image and reality. This is the condition he calls "hyper-reality." It emerges out of commodity fetishism, because the primitive form of commodity fetishism is the imposition of an image (value) on a material thing.

That my dear is pure drivel, putting an image or value (not in a financial sense) onto something beyond "itself" is not a primmitive form of commodity fetishism but a fundamental of the human condition. We only have acess to the material thing through our symbolic order, and therefore our interaction with the "material thing" is always already mediated, not only that but the material thing only takes on significance by being mediated into our symbolic realm. Through your definition a poem about a fucking lake that invests it with a symbolic excess is a form of commodity fetishism, or if one person swaps a cow for a sheep.

 

[boshem]

It's the process, characteristic of capitalism, in which commodities cease to be produced for social use and become absolute ends in themselves, dominating humans instead of serving them, becoming the ultimate values in the system of production.

It's closely related to the notion of alienation.

See: Captial, volume One, Chapter 1 "Commodities", Section 4. The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof.

Sounds a bit like materialism.

 

[boshem]

Karl Marx wrote:
A commodity appears, at first sight, a very trivial thing, and easily understood. Its analysis shows that it is, in reality, a very queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.

So far as it is a value in use, there is nothing mysterious about it whether we consider it from the point of view that by its properties it is capable of satisfying human wants, or from the point that those properties are the product of human labour. It is as clear as noon-day, that man, by his industry, changes the forms of the materials furnished by nature, in such a way as to make them useful to him.

The form of wood, for instance, is altered, by making a table out of it. Yet, for all that the table continues to be that common, every-day thing, wood.

But, so soon as it steps forth as a commodity, it is changed into something transcendent. It not only stands with its feet on the ground, but, in relation to all other commodities, it stands on its head, and evolves out of its Wooden brain grotesque ideas far more wonderful than "tableturning" ever was.

I don't see it.
Doesn't this discard craftmanship. Seems to me there is a creative commodity here as well, an expression that made wood it's medium. Unless were dealing exclusively with mass production. Even still, effort went into the design and creation of the system used. Sure the ending is cool, it's got a real Lovecraftian feel to it. Maybe Marx missed his calling, he should have been a sci-fi writer.

 

[phildwyer]

That my dear is pure drivel, putting an image or value (not in a financial sense)

But I was referring to the financial sense, as the rest of my quote that you snipped makes perfectly clear.

 

[revol68]

But I was referring to the financial sense, as the rest of my quote that you snipped makes perfectly clear.

When you exchange, say, a pig for a sheep, you have to be able to perceive the "value" of the sheep in the body of the pig. When this value becomes autonomous and takes on a life of its own it is said to be "fetishisized."

a) you only need to percieve a "use" of the sheep in the pig, or rather the use does not exist in the pig itself but rather in it's relationship or potentiality to the something else eg a field that needs grazing or a lamb shank in cous cous.

b) this value becoming autonomous (or an image) is not commodity fetishism but rather the very basis of abstract thought.

c) Commodity fetishism is therefore not just some misreading in the mind, some fetish like high heels but rather a fetishism that is rooted in the very material realm of production, in the seperation of the proletariat from the means of production and how they therefore access the world they produce as an alien power vis a vis money.

 

[In Bloom]

I don't see it.
Doesn't this discard craftmanship. Seems to me there is a creative commodity here as well, an expression that made wood it's medium. Unless were dealing exclusively with mass production. Even still, effort went into the design and creation of the system used. Sure the ending is cool, it's got a real Lovecraftian feel to it. Maybe Marx missed his calling, he should have been a sci-fi writer.

The point is that the only thing that makes a lump of wood into something useful, like a table, is human labour, the "use value" of an object comes from the input of labour.

Similarly, an expensive meal cooked in a restaurant is nothing more than it's composite ingredients, it's only when a human being takes those ingredients and makes them into a meal that they gain more use value than the sum total of the value of the ingredients. The value which is added by this is referred to as surplus value; surplus value (the value created by the workers) minus the cost of labour (the ammount of that value that the workers are given) equals profit.

Though I wouldn't take my word for it, I'm sure revol68 is about to tell me that I've got it completely wrong

 

[boshem]

Lemme take another shot at this:

So far as it is a value in use, there is nothing mysterious about it whether we consider it from the point of view that by its properties it is capable of satisfying human wants, or from the point that those properties are the product of human labour. It is as clear as noon-day, that man, by his industry, changes the forms of the materials furnished by nature, in such a way as to make them useful to him.

Man makes stuff useful to himself.

The form of wood, for instance, is altered, by making a table out of it. Yet, for all that the table continues to be that common, every-day thing, wood.

A wooden table, is no more than altered wood.

But, so soon as it steps forth as a commodity, it is changed into something transcendent. It not only stands with its feet on the ground, but, in relation to all other commodities, it stands on its head, and evolves out of its Wooden brain grotesque ideas far more wonderful than "tableturning" ever was.

As a commodity the table becomes a variable asset, relative to other commodities.

Then finally it evolves a grotesque wooden brain, and the transformation is complete. That makes perfect sense. Though this might lower the market value, unless you could pass it off as modern art.

 

[kyser_soze]

Poncey term for 'must keep up with the Joneses'.