The Roles of Commodities in Contemporary Culture - Essay Example

Cultivating the Commodities: The Roles of Commodities in Contemporary Culture Studying the roles of commodities is essential to understand contemporary culture or “the culture industry” as it is termed by Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, and which refers to the commoditisation of culture by means of technology. Nevertheless, this task is not as simple as it may appear at first sight, since the analysis of commodity shows that commodity is “a very queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties” (Marx, orig.1867). In “The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof”, Karl Marx (1867) notes that mysterious character of commodity stems from its exchange value, not from its use value, and he calls this phenomenon as “commodity fetishism”. The aim of this paper is to scrutinize what roles commodities do play in contemporary culture in an attempt to unveil the secrets of commodities. Before proceeding to the analysis of commodities’ roles; three key concepts, namely commodity, commodity fetishism and culture must be described briefly. According to Marx (1857), basic definition of commodity is as follows: “an object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another”. Hence, for him, commodity is a sensuous and material thing with useful qualities, catering any kind of human needs and wants. Furthermore, Marx, divides the essential properties of commodities into two categories as of having use value and exchange value. In “‘Introduction to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy” (1859), he describes use value as an aspect of commodity and he gives wheat as an example of useful thing with different properties. In this sense, use value denotes the immediate physical entity, which serves social needs but does not express social relations of production. For Marx (1859), contrary to use value, exchange value is irrespective of commodities’ “natural form of existence”. However, through exchange, the use value is transformed into exchange value, and becomes the commodity, which “is the embodiment of universal labour-time in a particular use-value”. Thus, the exchange value expresses the human labour bestowed upon an object. Nevertheless, although commodities are mere products of human labour, this social relation is hidden from the eyes by means of “fetishism” and the process of material production is veiled under its “mystical veil”. In exchange, this social relation between men, appear as relations between things, due to what Marx called “commodity fetishism”. For him (1967), Fetishism “attaches itself to the products of labour, as soon as they are produced as commodities”. Furthermore, according to Marx, it is the fetishism itself which turns commodities into social hieroglyphs. Unfortunately, Marx’s own words with regard to fetishism sound as cryptic as the fetishism he sought to describe; as if an alien form from space, in disguise of fetishism, attaches itself to commodities. Indeed, as soon as Marx starts to speak about fetishism, the tables also begin to dance around on the pages of Capital, Volume I (1867): as soon as the table “steps forth as a commodity, it is changed into something transcendent. It not only stands with its feet on the ground, but, in relation to all other commodities, it stands on its head, and evolves out of its wooden brain grotesque ideas”. Fetishism, simply, means attributing power to inanimate objects e.g. dancing tables. As Arjun Appadurai (1988, p. 5) warns “no” social analysis of things “can avoid a minimum level of what might be called methodological fetishism” (5). As soon as objects become the subject of a study, it is almost inevitable that the researcher shall bestow special meanings upon his/her own object of study. Even Marx, although he illustrates the power of human imagination in bestowing power to otherwise inanimate objects with his table metaphor, may not be exempted from this tendency or what Appadurai called methodological fetishism. Hence, at this point, it is better to revise the initial research question and ask how contemporary culture endows commodities with “metaphysical niceties”; since the inanimate objects themselves do not actually play roles, but it is the people who make commodities masquerade as embodiments of consumer desire. Herewith, culture must be defined in relation to the commodities and commodity fetishism so that its role as a mediator between human agents and consumer goods can be understood. For Raymond Williams (1958, p. 93), the first fact about culture is it is ordinary. With this statement, Williams eradicates the difference between high and low cultures, while he conceptualises culture as both “a whole way of life” and “the special processes of discovery and creative effort”. In Keywords, Raymond Williams (1976, p.87) notes that the word “culture” derived from Latin “colere” which meant “inhabit, cultivate, protect, honour with worship”. According to Williams, while cultivation is the main meaning, honour and worship are secondary meanings of the word “cultura”. Hence, if we synthesise two meanings of culture, it might be possible to say culture means cultivating the cults. Thus, the original meaning of the term “culture” has similar associations with fetishism which also implies worshipping and honouring the man-made products. Now, the question is how contemporary culture cultivates its own cults? The answer is simpler than Marx’s account on fetishism: by means of mass production and advertisement. In post-Marxist line of thought, commodities are regarded as signs by thinkers like Jean Baudrillard and Roland Barthes. Advertising is the medium of the contemporary societys cults and myths. As Baudrillard (1996, p. 10) states in The System of Objects “Advertising adds mystical qualities to the objects and produces signs as commodities to be consumed”. In fact, Baudrillard (1996, p. 218) notes that “to become an object of consumption, an object must first become a sign and this conversion of objects to the signs “implies the simultaneous transformation of the human relationship into a relationship of consumption”. Baudrillards views echo the Marxist notion of commodity fetishism, in which human relations takes the form of relationship between things. Here, Baudrillard (p. 219) find the logic of commodity as analysed by Karl Marx, just as needs, feelings—in short, all the properly human faculties—are integrated as commodities into the order of production; all desires, all passions and all relationships, are now abstracted (or materialized) as signs and as objects to be bought and consumed”. For Baudrillard, what people consumed is not the object but the sign itself; thus, he concludes that we consume “through” the objects. Lets look at the specific examples in order to understand what Baudrillard means by the consumption of the commodity as a sign and how sign takes the form of commodity. The adverts of fragrance are good examples of the metaphorical substitution between women and fragrances. In those advertisements while the women are objectified, the object (a bottle of perfume) is personified through this metaphorical relationship. The advert of Armani Code illustrated in the figure 1 and figure 2, stimulates consumers’ desire by its connotations. The ad, besides the promise of being a desirable woman with a specific and alluring personality, it also directly communicates a human relationship. While the couple signifies the closeness and passion, the setting signifies that it is not a trivial affair; but a high-class one within the context of urban and modern high-society. What mediated the human closeness in the picture is a commodity: the “coded” fragrance by a prominent designer. The image illustrated in the figure 2, a second ad for Armani Code bottle of fragrance, is even more aggressive with regard to its promises. It appeals to almost all human and hence consumer desires: sex, companionship, money and beauty. The desire for a human relationship is combined with the promise of material acquisitions like the swimming pool and the house. A little bottle of fragrance seems to be offering satisfaction for all human desires and needs. What is sold is not the bottle of perfume; but a grandiose fantasy of love, sex, rich and luxurious life all together. The consumer, through the bottle of fragrance, consumes the fantasy of fantasy life. While the human relationship is objectified in the ad, the objects life becomes rich with the significations. Meanwhile, as human relations increasingly deteriorate and peoples daily satisfaction decrease due to the alienation, the significations of the commodities seem to be enriched and enhanced each and every day thanks to the advertisement technology. As above examples illustrated, the signs in the ads promise more than they can deliver and it further increases peoples dissatisfaction. This creates a vicious cycle, as people get more dissatisfied, they consume even more. As Baudrillard (1996, pp. 224) concludes “consumption is irrepressible, in the last reckoning, because it is founded upon a lack”. And while the lack of human relations leads to depersonalized relationships with the objects, the sign-objects signify the ideas of relationships even more directly. Baudrillard (1981, pp 93) calls this the fetishization of the commodity in which product emptied of its concrete substance of labour and filled by the labour of signification, thus fetishism is attached to the sign-objects.   Appendix Figure 1 Figure 2 REFERENCES: Adorno, Theodor W. And Max Horkheimer, 1994, “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception”. Dialectic of Enlightenment, Continuum, pp. 120-168. Appadurai, A , 1988, The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, Cambridge University Press. Baudrillard, J, 1996, The System of Objects, Verso. Baudrillard J., 1981, For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign, Telos Press. Marx, K., 2005, ‘The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof’ (orig. 1867). http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S1. Marx, Karl ‘Introduction to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy’ http://www.marxists.org/ archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/appx1.htm Williams, R., 1958, ‘Culture is Ordinary’, extract rpt. in A. Gray and J.* Williams, R., 1976, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, Fontana. Read More