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"[[fetishism]]" ([[Fr]]. ''{{Top}}[[fétichisme]]'') {{Bottom}}

The term "In the nineteenth century, [[fetishMarx]]" first came into widespread use in borrowed the term to describe the eighteenth century way that, in [[capitalist]] societies, [[social]] relations assume the context of the study [[illusory]] [[form]] of relations between things ("[[religion|primitive religions,commodity fetishism]]" in which it denoted an inanimate object of worship).

In ==Perversion==It was Krafft-Ebing who, in the last decade of the nineteenth century, [[Marx]] borrowed first applied the term to describe the way that, in capitalist societies, social relations assume the illusory form of relations between things ("[[commodity fetishism]sexuality|sexual behavior]]").

It was Krafft-Ebing who, He defined [[fetishism]] as a [[perversion|sexual perversion]] in which [[enjoyment|sexual excitement]] is absolute dependent on the last decade [[presence]] of a specific [[object]] (the nineteenth century, first applied the term to sexual behavior[[fetishism|fetish]]).

He defined The [[fetishism]] as a [[perversion|sexual perversionfetish]] in which sexual excitement is absolute dependent on the presence of a specific usually an inanimate [[object]] (the [[fetish]])such as a shoe or piece of underwear.

The ==Sigmund Freud==[[fetishFreud]] is usually argued that [[fetishism]] (seen as an inanimate almost exclusively [[male]] [[perversion]]) originates in the [[child]]'s [[objecthorror]] such as a shoe or piece of underwear[[female]] [[castration]].

==Jacques Lacan==In [[FreudLacan]]'s first approach to the subject of [[fetishism]], in 1956, he argues that [[fetishism]] argued is a particularly important area of study and bemoans its neglect by his contemporaries.  He stresses that the equivalence between the [[fetishism|fetish]] (seen as an almost exclusively and the [[mother|maternal]] [[phallus]] can only be [[maleunderstood]] by reference to [[perversionlinguistic]]) originates transformations, and not by reference to "vague analogies in the [[childvisual]] 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> He cites [[Freud]]'s horror [[analysis]] of the phrase "''Glanz auf der Nase''" as support for his argument.<ref>{{F}} "[[Works of Sigmund Freud|Fetishism]]", 1927e. [[femaleSE]] XXI, 149</ref> ==Penis and Phallus==In the following years, as [[castrationLacan]]develops his [[distinction]] between the [[penis]] and [[phallus]], he emphasises that the [[fetishism|fetish]] is a substitute for the latter, not the former.

Confronted with the ==Disavowal==[[motherLacan]]'s also extends the [[lackmechanism]] of a [[penisdisavowal]], making it the operation constitutive of [[fetishist]] [[disavow]]s this [[lackperversion]] itself, and finds an [[object]] (not just of the [[fetish]]) as a [[symbolic]] [[substitute]] for the mother's [[lackfetishism|missingfetishistic]] [[penisperversion]].<ref>{{F}}. 1927e</ref>

==Phobic Object==In the [[seminar]] of 1956-7, [[Lacan]] elaborates an important distinction between the [[fetishism|fetish]] [[object]] and the [[phobic]] [[object]]; whereas the [[fetish]] is a [[fetishism|symbolic]] substitute for the [[mother]]'s first approach to [[lack|missing]] [[phallus]], the [[phobia|phobic]] [[object]] is an [[imaginary]] substitute for [[symbolic]] [[castration]].  ==Preoedipal Triangle==Like all [[perversion]]s, [[fetishism]] is rooted in the [[preoedipal]] [[structure|triangle]] of [[mother]]-[[child]]-[[phallus]].<ref>{{S4}} p. 84-5, 194</ref> However, it is unique in that it involves both [[identification]] with [[mother]] and with the [[imaginary]] [[phallus]]; indeed, in [[fetishism]], the [[subject ]] oscillates between these two [[identification]]s.<ref>{{S4}} p. 86, 160</ref> ==Women==[[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]], in 1956the [[real]] [[penis]] may itself become a [[fetishism|fetish]] by substituting the [[woman]]'s [[absent]] [[symbolic]] [[phallus]].  Secondly, he argues it undermines the claims (made by both [[Freud]] and [[Lacan]]) that [[fetishism]] is extremely rare among [[women]]; if the [[penis]] can be considered a [[fetishism|fetish]], then [[fetishism]] is clearly far more prevalent among [[women]] than among [[men]]. == In the work of Slavoj Žižek ==<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 particularly 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 area insights into contemporary [[ideological]] [[processes]] – the [[political]] implications and consequences of study and bemoans its neglect by his contemporarieswhich reach well beyond the merely sexual.

He stresses 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 equivalence between story illustrates a crucial, paradoxical element of the way in which [[fetishbelief]] and 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 [[mother|maternalneed]] for there to be a [[phalluscontent]] can only be understood by reference of belief. Th e seventeenth-century [[French]] [[philosopher]] Blaise [[Pascal]] described the [[performative]] element of belief in relation to linguistic transformations, the [[Catholic]] [[Church]] with his [[injunction]] “Kneel down and not by reference you will believe!” but Žižek draws attention to "vague analogies the [[self]]-referential [[causality]] involved in the visual field' such as comparisons between fur a performance: “Kneel down and pubic hair."<ref>{{L}} 1956byou will believe that you knelt down because you believed!” (''PV'': 267353)</ref>.

He cites 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 [[Freudparents]]'s [[analysisclaim]] they promote the story only “for the sake of the phrase "''Glanz auf der Nase''" as support for his argumentchildren”.<ref>{{F}} 1927eHe argues that beyond the youngest and most naive infants, the majority of [[children]] [[know]] that Father Christmas does not [[exist]].</ref>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!

In Žižek’s [[theoretical]] insight regarding the following years[[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 [[Lacanindividual]]level they may in fact demur. By contrast, “advanced” [[media] develops his distinction between the ] consumers are part of a generally cynical zeitgeist but, as individuals, tend to act with uncritical belief. The [[penissplit]] and [[phallusnature]]of this cynical disavowal-structure is encapsulated in the phrase “''je sais bien, he emphasises 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 ''[[fetishSecret]] Millionaire'' is premised upon the presence of a substitute for 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 latterparticipants nor the audience to ask, not 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 formerdocudrama 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 [[Lacanideology]] also extends functions today. (“Hollywood Today”)</blockquote>Rather than merely a clever academic observation confined to the mechanism realm of [[disavowalcultural]]studies, making it the operation constitutive [[physical]] and hard-nosed [[economics]] of such cynical disavowal can be seen in Starbucks’ [[perversionrecent]] itselfefforts to [[present]] elements of its franchise as independent, neighbourhood coffee shops:<blockquote>In a diversion from its usual mixture of stripped wood decor and not just 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 [[fetishisticmusic]] 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 [[perversionanalyst]]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''.

HoweverThe 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, he retains once again in a [[Freudreversal]]'s view 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 [[fetishismorders]] of magnitude above the [[material]] value of a T-shirt if it is an exclusively adorned with a logo such as the Nike swoosh. Žižek’s key point is that [[conscious]] disavowal contradictorily co-[[maleexists]] with [[perversionpractical]],<ref>{{Ec}} 734</ref> or at least extremely rare among [[womenacts]]that embody belief.<ref>{{S4}} p.154</ref>

In At the [[seminar]] level of 1956-7belief, key capitalist [[Lacanideas]] elaborates an important distinction between the – commodities are animate; [[fetishcapital]] has a quasi-[[objectnatural]] and status – are repudiated, but it is precisely the [[phobic]] [[object]]; whereas ironic distance from such notions that allows us to act as if they are true. The disavowal of the [[fetish]] is a [[symbolic]] substitute for beliefs allows us to perform the [[mother]]'s [[lack|missing]] [[phallus]]actions. Ideology, then, depends upon the [[phobia|phobic]] [[object]] conviction that what “really matters” is what we are, rather than what we do, and that “what we are” is defined by an [[imaginary]] substitute for [[symbolic]] [[castration]]“inner essence” (Fisher 2006).

Like all 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 [perversion[interpreted]]s, by the subject) becomes the objectively [[fetishismsubjective]] is rooted (the subject interpreted/interpellated by reality). “Although people may claim not to believe in the political [[preoedipalsystem]] , their inert [[structure|trianglecynicism]] of only validates that system … the [[idea]] that the way we behave in society is determined by objective [[mothermarket]]-forces rather than subjective beliefs” (Thornhill 2009). Th is introduces a significant degree of ambiguity to Rachel Dawes’s [[childwords]]-at the end of ''[[phallusBatman]]Begins'': “Bruce … deep down you may still be that same great kid you used to be.<ref>{{S4}} pBut it’s not who you are underneath … it’s what you do that defines you.84-5, 194</ref>”

However, it is unique in that it involves both ==See Also=={{See}}* [[Castration]]* [[Disavowal]]||* [[Imaginary]]* [[identificationLack]] with ||* [[motherMother]] and with the * [[imaginaryPerversion]] ||* [[phallusPhallus]]; indeed, in * [[fetishismPhobia]], the ||* [[subjectSymbolic]] oscillates between these two * [[identificationWoman]]s.<ref>{{S4Also}} p.86, 160</ref>

[[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==References==<references /ref>

Firstly, it reverses [[FreudCategory:Psychoanalysis]]'s views on [[fetishismCategory:Jacques Lacan]]; rather than the [[fetishCategory:Practice]] being a [[symbolicCategory:Dictionary]] substitute for the [[realCategory:Treatment]] [[penisCategory:Sexuality]], the [[realCategory:Imaginary]] [[penisCategory:Symbolic]] may itself become a [[fetishCategory:Concepts]] by substituting the [[womanCategory:Terms]]'s [[absentCategory:Edit]] [[symbolicCategory:Zizek Dictionary]] [[phallus]]. {{OK}}