Fetishism and Empathy

Theorists of popular culture have long spoken of fetishism, the process by which an object is mystified and emptied of its productive process. Starting with Marx, passing through Freud and with a corrective from Lacan, the key idea is that commodities are fetishized as supernatural things than create jouissance (or pleasure) through our desire to own them. Products thus relate to deeper desires, displacing lack and desire through their relationship to the real. Substitution is the key concept, with relations between people replaced by relationships between people and objects. This substitution erases the exploitation and alienation inherent in capitalist production but also creates the quasi-religious relationship that develops between consumers and the sensuous commodities. The system then weaves a "system of needs" into a "libidinal economy" that connects people through the mediation of commodities and markets. Psychoanalysis looks at this relationship from the individual first through the trauma of castration anxiety that leads to the neurosis and psychosis that results from replacing sexual desire with fetishized objects to Lacan, who looks at the lack that develops between subjects and their other (first the image in the mirror, then the symbol). The point, again, is that an innate substitution occurs between the relationships between people and the relationships between people and objects. Zizek thus points out the humanism in Marxism, in that overcoming commodity fetishism implies a fully transparent society where there is no need for substitution.

I was thinking about this theory in relationship to the question of empathy, a key concept in a humanistic approach (or even post-humanist biopolitiical approach). Without empathy, social justice becomes meaningless and democracy loses its truly radical potential. It we are replacing relationships between people with relationships between people and objects - or subjects and objects - how does this affect our relationship to each other? If we are fetishizing commodities and fetishizing images, how does this affect our ability to emphasize with other human beings? Even when we try to buy "sweat shop free" clothes, are we really concerned about people or just doing it to feel better about ourselves? When we interact with our friends and family with facebook or through text, does this alter the nature of the exchange, the mediation done through the very objects we are fetishizing? Empathy still exists in the world, but if we go back to film studies where fetishism theory really emerged, does it explain why we can cry in a movie then ignore the homeless person we walk by? When one thinks of neoliberal ideology and its incantation to act in our own self interest as a way to be citizens and serve society, does this further solidify the point? And when we add the "blame the victim" argument that has dominated conservative discourse since Reagan, are we left in a society where there is really no place for empathy outside the small circle of family and friends (if it even extends that far)? Certainly I exaggerate the relevance of these new circumstances, with plenty of empathy still obviously existent across the country and world, it certainly leads one to pause and contemplate the future of humanity. Can fetishism and commmodification of all human emotions ultimately lend itself to a society founded on an underlying sociopathology (the absence of empathy and concern for the ramifications of one's actions on others)? I believe hints of this are already present across the social, political and economic landscape. I will provide examples in future entries . . .