freagle

The 1490s.

Well… 80% of the weight humans lose is lost through the breath as CO2… Does that count?

Oh wow, that was an awesome clarification. Thank you! I see now that I was greatly confused by the analogy with the European concept of a fetish in foreign cultures, that such a thing was a set of beliefs held by a people. It did not click for me that commodity fetishization is not an analog to what the European’s believed foreign cultures believed about certain objects, but rather an analog to the role Europeans believed it to play in that society, specifically a material role, a causative role.

Thank you for that.

On the content front, I think there’s a debate to be had, but not now. I need to process and reread with this new focus. Thanks for taking the time. I really appreciate it.

Genuine question, have you read any of Capital?

Yes, but I definitely don’t fully understand it. You and I disagree on the meaning of this concept, and I’m keen to learn, but if it’s not too arrogant, I’d like to continue pushing my understanding and having you critique it so I can learn where my error in understanding is.

“Fetish”, in “commodity fetish” refers to the commodity appearing to have mystical properties, when in actuality it’s an inanimate object.

I always thought this was sort of a metaphorical or poetic way of describing the phenomenon. Like, what even is an example of a “mystical property” that would apply in the context of industrial modernity? I don’t think Marx was critiquing the phenomenon of people believing their kitchen knives were sharp because of their connection with the divine or that automobiles were able to heal your epilepsy if you just laid your head against the engine block.

But it appears animate; it appears to be capable of magical things

Again, this seems metaphorical. My understanding is that Marx’s analysis is that when individual commodities are fetishized he meant that people believe that commodities as commodities are capable of meeting the believer’s personal human needs, when in reality it is actually the human relationships that are meeting the needs through the application of labor on nature to produce that which is needed.

To reiterate, I’m presenting my understanding so you can critique it and help expose my incorrect understanding.

it also makes social relations between people appear as relations between things

I understood this not to be an also but rather a restatement of the same thing referred to by the magical/mystical framing.

the relation of domination between capitalist and worker appears as an exchange of commodities, a wage in exchange for labour-power

Yes, this I see and agree with. I believe it’s consistent with my understanding and does not represent a contradiction with my understanding. Although it’s interesting to see it framed this way and think “was Marx saying this as individual human relations or as class relations, or both?”

Clout-chasing is just clout-chasing, The desire to make money is because, well, we live in a capitalist society, and more money means you can get more stuff

Isn’t this mystical thinking? “Money means you can get more stuff” is ascribing a power to commodity (in this case money) that is actually a power inherent in the relationship between humans. Money is a perfect example of “a belief that the exchange values of goods are inherent to them” and an example of a pathway by which “social phenomena such as market value, wages and rent are reified”

Bringing it back to the video thing, content creators see what they produce as a commodity, a commodity collectively call “content”. If you’ve spent any time at all in the world of content, you know that the way people relate to the production and management of content has “absolutely no connection with the physical nature of the commodity and the material relations arising out of this” (to quote Marx).

And the OP’s post is a prime example. Communication is the fundamental reality when it comes to content. Humans communicate with each other. We’ve created ways to communicate across time and space. And instead of using it to communicate things that humans need or desire to communicate, content creators see content as a way to make money. As such, they subvert the original communication goals and produce lies, rage bait, or shallow attractors and then fill that content with “calls to action” to “like and subscribe” or spend their time trying to be part of other content to spread their “brand awareness” etc, etc, etc.

All of these things feel like the magical properties Marx is describing. All of these things reify the social phenomena of rent, intellectual property, advertising revenues, etc. And none of these things bear any resemblance to real human communication, which is the fundamental “what” that content actually is.

That’s my argument. And I feel like it’s pretty solid. But again, it’s easy for me to feel that way if I have a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept. If I thought cheese was anything that contained milk, and I poured milk on spaghetti, it still wouldn’t mac-n-cheese but I would be real confident it was. So, please don’t take my words to be a religious argument or something I hold strongly. I’m happy to abandon my whole argument if you can help me understand what I’m missing or what I’ve assumed that makes my thinking erroneous.

And if you do engage with this, thanks for your time and effort in helping me develop a clearer understanding.

Characteristics which had appeared mysterious because they were not explained on the basis of the relations of producers with each other were assigned to the natural essence of commodities. Just as the fetishist assigns characteristics to his fetish which do not grow out of its nature, so the bourgeois economist grasps the commodity as a sensual thing which possesses pretersensual properties.

So when OP says “fuck why are videos like this. Why can’t videos just be like that” what is happening?

Is it that OP is assigning characteristics to videos that are actually expressions of the relationship between the producers and consumers of those videos, and of the distributors and the advertisers etc?

As far as I can tell, people chasing clout for money is a human relationship, one of deprevation, desperation, and manipulation. And those relationships drive behaviors which result in the characteristics of commodities, like media.

I don’t know. Maybe I’ve misinterpreted Marx all this time. It’s certainly a topic I haven’t deeply wrestled with in concert with others. Happy to be corrected and learn.

And what observable effect does that have on the world that isn’t exactly what OP is describing?

It means turning everything into a commodity - every hobby, every human act, every creative endeavor, every way of life. The commodity form is fetishized and the drive to commodify everything is what OP is railing against.

Commodity Fetishization

Communism killed 100 million people.

Private property is required for freedom.

Markets are freedom.

Capitalism is free exchange.

Working the land gives you rights over it.

All of life is competition.

The weak die out and the strong survive.

Evolution is driven by the survival of the individual animals the are most fit for their environment.

The lymph system is not connected to the brain.

Black people have high pain tolerance.

Women have low pain tolerance.

Babies don’t feel pain the way we do until they have sufficiently developed.

Human psychological development stops at 18 and after that it’s all acquisition of skills and knowledge and the use of discipline and will power.

Fossilization destroys all soft tissue and no soft tissue can survive the process.

Race is genetic.

Everyone needs to do exercise with resistance (weights, bands, bodyweight). You will not get too muscular by accident. It will prevent aches and pains, it will prevent injuries, it will make it more likely you survive car accidents and false.

Everyone needs to floss, there are no exceptions.

Everyone needs time outside in nature. If you live in a city, get to a park every week, preferably every day. It changes our brain chemistry. We aren’t organized to live in boxes all day.

Learn how to breathe. If you think that sounds silly, you’re the example.

Learn to cook. When you can’t contribute anything else, being able to contribute food is universally accepted