Fetish & Fetishism veryard projects > technology management > fetish & fetishism

we offer	fetish	examples	links
consultancy workshops	A fetish is a simplified view of the world, in which a property of a relationship or system is reduced to a property of a thing. Fetishism is the tendency to describe something as a property of an isolated entity, instead of describing it through relationships with other entities. It can be regarded as a mode of misplaced concreteness akin to reification. Marx identified economic forms of fetish, Freud identified psychological forms. Both Marxian and Freudian forms of fetish share the same logical structure.	Pseudo Objectivity. The tendency to describe subjective judgements as if they were objective facts. The tendency to focus on specific articles or devices. The tendency to describe technical artefacts or commercial products as if they were independent of any socio-economic context. The tendency to overlook the blood, sweat and tears that went into something.

Pseudo Objectivity veryard projects > technology management > fetish & fetishism > pseudo-objectivity

Both these examples involve a logical fetish. PROMOTION PROSPECTS and ESTIMATED BENEFITS are not pure objective properties of EMPLOYEE and PROJECT PROPOSAL respectively. They are subjective judgements.

The fetish involves overlooking the source of these judgements - the subject making them. Promotion prospects should not be regarded as an isolated property of an employee, but says something important about the working relationship between an employee and his/her manager - among other things. Assessments and estimates are not dry facts but charged opinions. People commit themselves to these opinions, and are then motivated to make them true.
 

veryard projects > technology management > fetish & fetishism

Page last updated August 23rd, 2003 Copyright © 2003 Richard Veryard http://www.veryard.com/tcm/fetish.htm