Difference between revisions of "Fetish/Fetishistic disavowal"

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==Dictionary==
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{{Top}}[[fétichisme]]{{Bottom}}             
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Fetishism first interested psychoanalysts as a sexual perversion, in the strict sense. The term referred to a man's compulsive use of an inherently nonsexual object as an essential condition for maintaining potency and achieving pleasure when having sexual relations with a person of the opposite sex. This view emphasizes that perversion, as originally understood, was viewed as a strictly masculine phenomenon. Freud presented his thinking on the subject in three texts, which represented his changing ideas on the subject: <i>Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality</i> (1905d), "Fetishism" (1927e), and "The Splitting of the Ego in the Process of Defense" (1940e [1938]). The views expressed in those essays are as relevant in the early twenty-first century as when they were first written.
 
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In all observed cases, the fetish, in the fetishist's unconscious fantasy, is a substitute for a woman's "penis." It "completes" the woman by making her phallic. Consequently, the woman's genital organs lose any erogenous quality, in the eyes of the fetishist, erogeneity being completely transferred to the fetish. The fetish becomes the source of excitement, an idealized object capable of providing sexual pleasure to the fetishist.
 
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The psychopathological behavior of the fetishist can be considered exacerbation of a universal anxiety. Freud saw in this perversion one of the clearest demonstrations of the difficulty that some men (perhaps all men) experience in accepting the differences of the sexes.
 
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It has become clear that the most important factor behind this perversion is castration anxiety experienced to an extreme degree. Fetishism arises entirely from defensive measures unconsciously adopted to reject castration and eliminate it from the field of possibility. Only a part of the man believes that a woman does not have a penis. So as far as the fetishist is concerned, castration is still possible under these circumstances. But if both sexes are equipped with a penis, castration cannot occur in this world. It thus becomes essential to remedy this unacceptable reality by attributing a penis to the woman at any cost. Creating such a reality is the primary function of the fetish in the unconscious imagination of the fetishist. The fetishist must then shelter his fragile mental apparatus from the return of disturbing sexual perceptions. He does so by choosing as a fetish an object that is always available, like a high-heel shoe. One fetishist is quoted as saying, "Every time I am in the presence of a naked woman, I imagine a high-heel shoe; I couldn't tell what a vagina looks like." As Freud demonstrated, the fetish makes the woman "acceptable" as an object of sexual love.
 
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Freud considered fetishism important because this pathological structure can be used to observe the workings of two important defense mechanisms that had been partially ignored until then: splitting and denial. Fetishism enabled Freud clearly to identify the mechanism of splitting for the first time, that is, splitting of the thinking ego (to be distinguished from the splitting of the object representation). The fetishist demonstrates that he can accommodate two clearly contradictory conceptions of a woman within himself: a conscious affirmation ("The woman does not have a penis") and an unconscious fetishistic affirmation ("The woman has a penis"). The first is unimportant in the mental representations of the fetishist. These two modes of thought operate in parallel and have no effect on one another. The second mode of thought, a defense mechanism, denies castration, the lack of a penis, the crucial difference between the sexes. Most authors see splitting as arising to ensure the continuity of the denial, though it may be that splitting and continuity of denial occur simultaneously.
 
  
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==Definition==
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The term "[[fetishism|fetish]]" first came into widespread use in the eighteenth century in the context of the study of "[[religion|primitive religions]]", in which it denoted an inanimate object of worship.
  
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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]]").
  
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Since splitting and denial are observed in psychosis, some see fetishism as a protection against an otherwise threatening psychosis. Fetishism is also thought to protect against homosexuality. We should not conclude, however, that the fetishist is homosexual. In terms of his own feelings of identity and his own self-representations at all levels of thought, he sees himself as a man, a man in relation to a woman, except that the woman in this case also has a penis, according to the man's unconscious imagination. This is a major difference with the transvestite, who sees himself as a woman, in this case, a woman with a penis. Overall, in spite of the exceptions encountered, the transvestite is much closer to homosexuality than the fetishist. Rare cases of fetishism alternating with homosexuality have been observed, however.
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==Perversion==
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It follows from the above that fetishism is a sign of narcissistic pathology, with mental operations functioning at a very archaic level, primarily through the extensive use of primitive identification (which some authors refer to as "narcissistic identification" or "projective identification"). This assertion is based on the fact that by endowing the woman (the mother, in the unconscious) with a penis, the fetishist preserves his own sexual organ by identifying with the mother. In doing so, the fetishist exhibits considerable narcissistic vulnerability regarding the integrity of his physical image.
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It was Krafft-Ebing who, in the last decade of the nineteenth century, first applied the term to [[sexuality|sexual behavior]].
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Although opinions are divided, it seems justified to view the mechanism and structure of fetishism as resulting from a massive regression following the oedipal stage. The oedipal conflict was traumatic and results in significant regression to all levels of pregenitality, accompanied by strong anal and oral components. These components are manifest in an anxiety of disintegration, which is very noticeable during psychoanalysis. Another school of thought suggests viewing fetishism as essentially determined by pregenital conflicts.
 
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Psychoanalytic work in the 1990s has shown that the fetish can also take on, in most cases, several other functions in varying proportions. These secondary functions include protection against trauma and depression, release from the outward expression of hostility and contempt while expressing them secretly, relief from psychosomatic symptoms, control over separation anxiety. As a partial delusion, fetishism protects the subject from the delusion. And finally, fetishism provides access to the maternal breast and full possession of the idealized mother.
 
  
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He defined [[fetishism]] as a [[perversion|sexual perversion]] in which [[enjoyment|sexual excitement]] is absolute dependent on the [[presence]] of a specific [[object]] (the [[fetishism|fetish]]).
  
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==Definition==
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The [[fetishism|fetish]] is usually an inanimate [[object]] such as a shoe or piece of underwear.
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fetishism (fÈtichisme)               
 
  
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è
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==Sigmund Freud==
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[[Freud]] argued that [[fetishism]] (seen as an almost exclusively [[male]] [[perversion]]) originates in the [[child]]'s [[horror]] of [[female]] [[castration]].
  
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The term 'fetish' used in the context of the study of 'primitive religions' denotes an inanimate object of worship.
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Confronted with the [[mother]]'s [[lack]] of a [[penis]], the [[fetishism|fetishist]] [[disavow]]s this [[lack]] and finds an [[object]] (the [[fetish]]) as a [[symbolic]] [[substitute]] for the mother's [[lack|missing]] [[penis]].<ref>{{F}}. "[[Works of Sigmund Freud|Fetishism]]", 1927e. [[SE]] XXI, 149</ref>
  
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==Jacques Lacan==
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In [[Lacan]]'s first approach to the subject of [[fetishism]], in 1956, he argues that [[fetishism]] is a particularly important area of study and bemoans its neglect by his contemporaries.
  
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[[Karl Marx]] used the term '[[commodity fetishism]]]' to describe the way that, in capitalist society, social relations assume the illusory form of relations between things.
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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>
  
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He cites [[Freud]]'s [[analysis]] of the phrase "''Glanz auf der Nase''" as support for his argument.<ref>{{F}} "[[Works of Sigmund Freud|Fetishism]]", 1927e. [[SE]] XXI, 149</ref>
  
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Fetishism is a sexual perversion in which sexual excitement is absolutely dependent on the presence of a specific object (the fetish).
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==Penis and Phallus==
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The fetish is usually an inanimate object such as a shoe or piece of underwear.
+
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.  
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Freud argued that fetishism (seen as an almost exclusively male perversion) originates in the child's horror of female castration. Confronted with the mother's lack of a penis, the fetishist disavows this lack and finds an object (the fetish) as a symbolic substitute for the mother's missing penis.<ref>Freud, 1927e</ref>
 
  
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==Disavowal==
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[[Lacan]] also extends the [[mechanism]] of [[disavowal]], making it the operation constitutive of [[perversion]] itself, and not just of the [[fetishism|fetishistic]] [[perversion]].
  
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==Male Perversion==
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However, he retains [[Freud]]'s view that [[fetishism]] is an exclusively [[male]] [[perversion]],<ref>{{Ec}} p. 734</ref> or at least extremely rare among [[women]].<ref>{{S4}} p.154</ref>
  
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In Lacan's first approach to the subject of fetishism, in 1956, he argues that fetishism is a particularly important area of study and bemoans its neglect by his contemporaries.  
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==Phobic Object==
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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 [[lack|missing]] [[phallus]], the [[phobia|phobic]] [[object]] is an [[imaginary]] substitute for [[symbolic]] [[castration]].  
  
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He stresses that the equivalence between the fetish and the 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 (Lacan, 1956b: 267).
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==Preoedipal Triangle==
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Like all [[perversion]]s, [[fetishism]] is rooted in the [[preoedipal]] [[structure|triangle]] of [[mother]]-[[child]]-[[phallus]].<ref>{{S4}} p. 84-5, 194</ref>
  
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He cites Freud's analysis of the phrase 'Glanz auf der Nase' as support for his argument (see Freud, 1927e).
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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>
  
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==Women==
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[[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>
  
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In the following years, as Lacan develops his distinction between the penis and phallus, he emphasises that the fetish is a substitute for the latter, not the former.
+
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]].  
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Lacan also extends the mechanism of [[disavowal]], making it the operation constitutive of perversion itself, and not just of the fetishistic perversion.
 
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However, he retains Freud's view that fetishism is an exclusively male perversion,<ref>Ec, 734</ref> or at least extremely rare among women.<ref>S4, 154</ref>
 
  
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In the seminar of 1956-7, Lacan elaborates an important distinction between the fetish object and the phobic object; whereas the fetish is a symbolic substitute for the mother's missing phallus, the phobic object is an imaginary substitute for symbolic castration (see PHOBIA).
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Secondly, 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]].
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Like all perversions, fetishism is rooted in the preoedipal triangle of mother-child-phallus (S4, 84-5, 194).
 
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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 identifications.<ref>S4, 86, 160</ref>
 
  
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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, 290</ref>
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== In the work of Slavoj Žižek ==
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Firstly, it reverses Freud's views on fetishism; rather than the fetish being a symbolic substitute for the real penis, the real penis may itself become a fetish by substituting the woman's absent symbolic phallus.  
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<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.
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Secondly, it undermines the claims (made by both Freud and Lacan) that fetishism is extremely rare among women; if the penis can be considered a fetish, then fetishism is clearly far more prevalent among women than among men.
 
  
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== def ==
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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).
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The displacement of desire and fantasy onto alternative objects or body parts (eg. a foot fetish or a shoe fetish), in order to obviate a subject's confrontation with the castration complex.  
 
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Freud came to realize in his essay on "Fetishism" that the fetishist is able at one and the same time to believe in his phantasy and to recognize that it is nothing but a phantasy.
 
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And yet, the fact of recognizing the phantasy as phantasy in no way reduces its power over the individual.  
 
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Octave Mannoni, in an influential essay, phrased this paradoxical logic in this way: "je sais bien, mais quand-même" or "I know very well, but nevertheless."
 
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Zizek builds on this idea in theorizing the nature of ideology, which follows a similar contradictory logic.  
 
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Kristeva goes so far as to associate all language with fetishism: "It is perhaps unavoidable that, when a subject confronts the factitiousness of object relation, when he stands at the place of the want that founds it, the fetish becomes a life preserver, temporary and slippery, but nonetheless indispensable.
 
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But is not exactly language our ultimate and inseparable fetish?
 
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And language, precisely, is based on fetishist denial ('I know that, but just the same,' 'the sign is not the thing, but just the same,' etc.) and defines us in our essence as speaking beings."<ref>37</ref>
 
  
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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!
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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.
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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''.
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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.
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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).
 +
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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.”
  
 
==See Also==
 
==See Also==
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* [[Castration complex]]
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{{See}}
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* [[Coprophilia]]
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* [[Castration]]
 
* [[Disavowal]]
 
* [[Disavowal]]
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* [[Phallic mother]]
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* [[Phallic woman]]
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* [[Imaginary]]
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* [[Psychotic defenses]]
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* [[Lack]]
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* [["Splitting of the Ego in the Process of Defence, The.]]
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* [[Mother]]
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* [[Perversion]]
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* [[Phallus]]
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* [[Phobia]]
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* [[Symbolic]]
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* [[Woman]]
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{{Also}}
  
 
==References==
 
==References==
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<references/>
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<references />
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# Freud, Sigmund. (1905d). Three essays on the theory of sexuality. SE, 7: 123-243.
 
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# ——. (1927e). Fetishism. SE, 21: 147-157.
 
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# ——. (1940e [1938]). Splitting of the ego in the process of defence. SE, 23: 271-278.
 
  
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[[Category:New]]
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[[Category:Psychoanalysis]]
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[[Category:Jacques Lacan]]
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[[Category:Practice]]
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[[Category:Dictionary]]
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[[Category:Treatment]]
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[[Category:Sexuality]]
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[[Category:Imaginary]]
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[[Category:Symbolic]]
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[[Category:Concepts]]
 
[[Category:Terms]]
 
[[Category:Terms]]
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[[Category:Concepts]]
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[[Category:Edit]]
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[[Category:Psychoanalysis]]
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[[Category:Zizek Dictionary]]
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{{OK}}
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__FORCETOC__

Latest revision as of 13:40, 13 October 2020

French: [[fétichisme]]

Definition

The term "fetish" first came into widespread use in the eighteenth century in the context of the study of "primitive religions", in which it denoted an inanimate object of worship.

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").

Perversion

It was Krafft-Ebing who, in the last decade of the nineteenth century, first applied the term to sexual behavior.

He defined fetishism as a sexual perversion in which sexual excitement is absolute dependent on the presence of a specific object (the fetish).

The fetish is usually an inanimate object such as a shoe or piece of underwear.

Sigmund Freud

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

Confronted with the mother's lack of a penis, the fetishist disavows this lack and finds an object (the fetish) as a symbolic substitute for the mother's missing penis.[1]

Jacques Lacan

In Lacan's first approach to the subject of fetishism, in 1956, he argues that fetishism is a particularly important area of study and bemoans its neglect by his contemporaries.

He stresses that the equivalence between the fetish and the 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."[2]

He cites Freud's analysis of the phrase "Glanz auf der Nase" as support for his argument.[3]

Penis and Phallus

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

Disavowal

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

Male Perversion

However, he retains Freud's view that fetishism is an exclusively male perversion,[4] or at least extremely rare among women.[5]

Phobic Object

In the seminar of 1956-7, Lacan elaborates an important distinction between the fetish object and the phobic object; whereas the fetish is a symbolic substitute for the mother's missing phallus, the phobic object is an imaginary substitute for symbolic castration.

Preoedipal Triangle

Like all perversions, fetishism is rooted in the preoedipal triangle of mother-child-phallus.[6]

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 identifications.[7]

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.[8]

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

Secondly, it undermines the claims (made by both Freud and Lacan) that fetishism is extremely rare among women; if the penis can be considered a fetish, then fetishism is clearly far more prevalent among women than among men.

In the work of Slavoj Žižek

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)

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:

“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”)

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:

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)

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.”

See Also

References

  1. ↑ Freud, Sigmund.. "Fetishism", 1927e. SE XXI, 149
  2. ↑ Lacan, Jacques. "Variantes de la cure-type", in Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. [1956b]. p. 267)
  3. ↑ Freud, Sigmund. "Fetishism", 1927e. SE XXI, 149
  4. ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Écrits. Paris: Seuil, 1966. p. 734
  5. ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre IV. La relation d'objet, 19566-57. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1991. p.154
  6. ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre IV. La relation d'objet, 19566-57. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1991. p. 84-5, 194
  7. ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre IV. La relation d'objet, 19566-57. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1991. p. 86, 160
  8. ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p. 290


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