To browse Academia. The essay explores the evolving concept of fetishism across various contexts, from everyday language to psycho-sexual and economic dimensions. It critiques how the sexual fetish often overshadows the commodity fetish in contemporary discourse, suggesting that as critical thinkers, we should examine the implications of consumerism and the inequalities intrinsic to market practices. Ultimately, the essay advocates for a deeper understanding of the hidden inequities in consumer culture, highlighting the potential for transformative consciousness through critical thinking.
Fetish is a familiar and enigmatic word in our everyday lives. We call any relation with an object or sometimes a person or an act, on an irrational basis of desire, power, affection, attention, attachment, overvaluation as a fetish.
And most of the time we are aware of its irrationality that there is no justifiable reason for our excessive commitment and feelings. Fetishism is the psychological tendency to attribute inordinate significance to a target. The target, also called the fetish, can be an idea, an event, or an object, among other things. Characteristically, the fetish is not only highly valued but also perceived in especially simple and concrete terms.
In short, fetishism involves separating a target from its context and injecting it with undue significance, such that the target becomes a focal point of attention and desire. This entry considers research-based insights into the causes and consequences of fetishism in the realm of gender relations. Fetishization refers to a process of imbuing an object or idea with power.
A fetish object is often associated with sexual gratification, desire, and worship. Fetishization marks a cultural, psychological and social technique of fetishizing things by making them appear larger than life, animate, or sexually desirable. This process has been argued to profoundly influence contemporary consumer culture. Book Review of J. Duke University Press, Contaminated by psychoanalysis, criminology, socioanthropology, trade books on collecting, fashion, and social etiquette, Catholic primers, and mass-market journalism, realist-naturalist-decadent works, from those of the Goncourt brothers to Octave Mirbeau, offer a rich parallel to contemporary genres of prose fiction that plunder the tabloids, the police file, and the psychiatric archive.
