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{{Top}}[[fétichisme]]{{Bottom}}

In the nineteenth century, [[Marx]] borrowed the term to describe the way that, in [[capitalist ]] societies, [[social ]] relations assume the [[illusory ]] [[form ]] of relations between things ("[[commodity fetishism]]]").

[[Freud]] argued that [[fetishism]] (seen as an almost exclusively [[male]] [[perversion]]) originates in the [[child]]'s [[horror ]] of [[female]] [[castration]].

He stresses that the equivalence between the [[fetishism|fetish]] and the [[mother|maternal]] [[phallus]] can only be [[understood ]] by reference to [[linguistic]] transformations, and not by reference to "vague analogies in the [[visual ]] field" such as comparisons between fur and pubic hair."<ref>{{L}} "[[Works of Jacques Lacan|Variantes de la cure-type]]", in {{E}} [1956b]. p. 267)</ref>

In the following years, as [[Lacan]] develops his [[distinction ]] between the [[penis]] and [[phallus]], he emphasises that the [[fetishism|fetish]] is a substitute for the latter, not the former.

[[Lacan]] also extends the [[mechanism ]] of [[disavowal]], making it the operation constitutive of [[perversion]] itself, and not just of the [[fetishism|fetishistic]] [[perversion]].

[[Lacan]]'s [[statement]], in 1958, that the [[penis]] "takes on the [[value ]] of a fetish" for heterosexual women raises a [[number ]] of interesting questions.<ref>{{E}} p. 290</ref>

Firstly, it reverses [[Freud]]'s views on [[fetishism]]; rather than the [[fetishism|fetish]] [[being ]] a [[symbolic]] substitute for the [[real]] [[penis]], the [[real]] [[penis]] may itself become a [[fetishism|fetish]] by substituting the [[woman]]'s [[absent]] [[symbolic]] [[phallus]].

<blockquote>There is no unhappier creature under the sun than a [[fetishist ]] who longs for a woman’s shoe but has to make do with the [[whole ]] woman. (Kraus 2001: 13)</blockquote>Karl Kraus’s aphorism encapsulates a key element of the ''fetish'' – a disproportionate attachment to a [[particular ]] ordering or [[structure ]] of [[desire]]. The fetish can be viewed as a [[psychological ]] version of the fi gure of [[speech ]] known as synecdoche wherein a part is used to [[represent ]] the whole. Excessive attachment to the part means that the fetishist “misses the bigger picture” – in Kraus’s example, obsessive longing for a shoe displaces appreciation of the whole woman. The standard [[understanding ]] of the fetish has come to be dominated by connotations of [[sexual ]] perversion (the fetishist [[needs ]] rubber clothing, extreme [[pain ]] or [[humiliation]], etc.), but the [[concept ]] of ''[[fetishistic disavowal]]'' allows a wider understanding of the concept that enables important insights into contemporary [[ideological ]] [[processes ]] – the [[political ]] implications and consequences of which reach well beyond the merely sexual.

Žižek frequently tells the story of a surprised visitor to the Danish nuclear physicist [[Niels Bohr ]] who voiced disapproval when he saw a horse-shoe hanging above a door. Bohr replied: “I also do not believe in it; I have it there because I was told that it works also if one does not believe in it!” For Žižek, the story illustrates a crucial, paradoxical element of the way in which [[belief ]] works. Belief is not a simple unilinear [[thing]]; rather, it is an innately reflexive phenomenon – it is possible to believe in belief itself as opposed to the normally supposed [[need ]] for there to be a [[content ]] of belief. Th e seventeenth-century [[French ]] [[philosopher ]] Blaise [[Pascal ]] described the [[performative ]] element of belief in relation to the [[Catholic ]] [[Church ]] with his [[injunction ]] “Kneel down and you will believe!” but Žižek draws attention to the [[self]]-referential [[causality ]] involved in such a performance: “Kneel down and you will believe that you knelt down because you believed!” (''PV'': 353).

The importance of the concept of [[fetishistic ]] disavowal thus resides in what it says [[about ]] the ideological implications of such [[self-referentiality ]] – the combined [[terms ]] fetishistic disavowal stem from an excessive adherence to certain beliefs and practices and a simultaneous [[denial ]] of any genuine belief. To explain how this concept works in [[practice]], Žižek uses the example of [[Father ]] Christmas and the way in which [[parents ]] [[claim ]] they promote the story only “for the sake of the children”. He argues that beyond the youngest and most naive infants, the majority of [[children ]] [[know ]] that Father Christmas does not [[exist]]. In [[reality]], the only [[people ]] who truly believe in Santa Claus are the parents themselves! They pretend to pretend to believe, that is, in the guise of acting like [[knowing ]] [[adults ]] performing for innocent children, what really occurs is that adults hide behind a purported [[fantasy ]] so that they do not have to confront their defining need to believe in the [[existence ]] of innocent and guileless children – self-[[deception ]] in the service of innocence!

Žižek’s [[theoretical ]] insight regarding the [[notion ]] of ''pretending to pretend to believe'' is that, whereas so-called “primitive” cultures develop [[working ]] modes of [[symbolism]]/ideology embodied in social [[rituals ]] and [[objects]], if pushed, their members retain the ability to maintain a healthy sceptical distance towards those practices. Primitives act at a social level as if they believe, but at an [[individual ]] level they may in fact demur. By contrast, “advanced” [[media ]] consumers are part of a generally cynical zeitgeist but, as individuals, tend to act with uncritical belief. The [[split ]] [[nature ]] of this cynical disavowal-structure is encapsulated in the phrase “''je sais bien, mais quand même …''” (“I know very well, but even so …”), and is manifested in media formats that facilitate the deliberate overlooking of obvious ideological questions. For example, the internationally franchised TV series ''[[Secret ]] Millionaire'' is premised upon the presence of a millionaire pretending to be a non-wealthy volunteer working among underprivileged people, and relies upon both the revelation of the initial secret and the maintenance of a much more substantive secret that the format encourages neither the participants nor the audience to ask, namely, what sort of [[society ]] allows such wealth disparity to exist in the first [[place]]? In contrast to the primitive’s [[rational ]] practice of [[irrationality ]] through objects like the [[totem ]] pole, ''Secret Millionaire''’s audience unwittingly disavows through a fetishized [[screen ]] more [[irrational ]] than any totem pole the [[true ]] secret it is watching – the systematically ideological nature of the docudrama format.

The movie ''Kung Fu Panda'' is for Žižek one of the purest representations of fetishistic disavowal. The film’s key [[message ]] is that:<blockquote>“I know very well there is no special ingredient, but I nonetheless believe in it (and act accordingly)…” Cynical denunciation (at the level of rational [[knowledge]]) is counteracted by a call to “irrational” belief – and this is the most elementary [[formula ]] of how [[ideology ]] functions today. (“Hollywood Today”)</blockquote>Rather than merely a clever academic observation confined to the realm of [[cultural ]] studies, the [[physical ]] and hard-nosed [[economics ]] of such cynical disavowal can be seen in Starbucks’ [[recent ]] efforts to [[present ]] elements of its franchise as independent, neighbourhood coffee shops:<blockquote>In a diversion from its usual mixture of stripped wood decor and bland artwork, Starbucks is opening a store in its home city of Seattle intended to [[capture ]] the vibe of a beatnik coffee hangout – and disguise the fact that drinkers are in a Starbucks. Th e store will be called 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea in an [[apparent ]] attempt to mimic a local, independent coffee shop. A Starbucks spokeswoman says the place will have a “mercantile” look with open bins of coffee beans and manual grinding machines. Th ere will be live [[music ]] and [[poetry ]] performances. At least two [[other ]] re-hashed outlets are on the way in Seattle as chairman Howard Schultz tries pushing Starbucks back towards its artsy roots. Steve Gotham, an [[analyst ]] at marketing consultancy Allegra Strategies, thinks this is a smart move as customers look for differentiation among branded coffee houses: “The issue of localness and local relevance has some way to go – it’s a consumer trend more operators need to tap into.” (Clark 2009)</blockquote>Both the marketing consultants and the customers availing themselves of the neo-mercantile atmosphere of carefully culturally re-engineered shops know that genuine “localness” and “local relevance” cannot be corporately generated, but proceed as if it can – the profitable exploitation of ''je sais bien, mais quand même''.

The archetypal examples of this kind of ideological operation are the notions of [[commodity ]] fetishism and electronic/paper [[money]]. We pretend to believe that money made of paper/bytes is actually worth the physical goods we buy with it and that commodities have special non-physical properties. Thus, once again in a [[reversal ]] of the [[primitive ]] who publicly believes, but is privately cynical, although claiming that we do not really believe that brands are special, contemporary consumers nevertheless continue to routinely pay [[orders ]] of magnitude above the [[material ]] value of a T-shirt if it is adorned with a logo such as the Nike swoosh. Žižek’s key point is that [[conscious ]] disavowal contradictorily co-[[exists ]] with [[practical ]] [[acts ]] that embody belief.

At the level of belief, key capitalist [[ideas ]] – commodities are animate; [[capital ]] has a quasi-[[natural ]] status – are repudiated, but it is precisely the ironic distance from such notions that allows us to act as if they are true. The disavowal of the beliefs allows us to perform the actions. Ideology, then, depends upon the conviction that what “really matters” is what we are, rather than what we do, and that “what we are” is defined by an “inner essence” (Fisher 2006).

Whereas the distance held towards his belief by the primitive is a conscious one, our disbelief is mediated by key capitalist mechanisms – the marketplace, the media – so that Kant’s subjectively [[objective ]] (a reality [[interpreted ]] by the subject) becomes the objectively [[subjective ]] (the subject interpreted/interpellated by reality). “Although people may claim not to believe in the political [[system]], their inert [[cynicism ]] only validates that system … the [[idea ]] that the way we behave in society is determined by objective [[market ]] forces rather than subjective beliefs” (Thornhill 2009). Th is introduces a significant degree of ambiguity to Rachel Dawes’s [[words ]] at the end of ''[[Batman ]] Begins'': “Bruce … deep down you may still be that same great kid you used to be. But it’s not who you are underneath … it’s what you do that defines you.”