When is the deadline for posing questions?

The way I understand it is that the ‘Commodity Fetishism’ is referring to the idea of holding to a set ‘objective’ value only by monetary measurement. I do see that the fungible application of money gives it a distinct sense of ‘objective’ value where in reality is acts as a kind of hierophant between humans.

I think the ‘exchange value’ is seen only in terms of ‘money’ - in terms of what is meant by ‘Commodity Fetishism’ as it creates a boundary between the ‘commodity’ (good or service) and the one producing/giving said ‘Commodity’. My position is an exploration of what happens when through a natural human inclination toward ‘novelty’ we find ourselves in a marketplace where custom products natural produce more chance of human interaction rather than supplanting this interaction with the barrier of monetary valuation - the true worth to the individuals involved becomes exposed.

Please keep in mind this is an idea I had recently. It is very much in its infancy and here I’m thrashing out as best I can. There are multiple layers of application this thought that I’ve only just started to uncover.

Note: if you read the previous section it is clear enough the section you mentioned follows from it. How can it not be referring to monetary value? What else is there that is spoken of in a market where exchanges are made? A system of barter is merely a less refined example of applying a fungible proposition.

Of course, maybe I’m misinterpreting something but you’ll have to explain further as the following extracts don’t conflict with what I’ve been saying as far as I can tell:

A commodity is therefore a mysterious thing, simply because in it the social character of men’s labour appears to them as an objective character stamped upon the product of that labour; because the relation of the producers to the sum total of their own labour is presented to them as a social relation, existing not between themselves, but between the products of their labour. This is the reason why the products of labour become commodities, social things whose qualities are at the same time perceptible and imperceptible by the senses. In the same way the light from an object is perceived by us not as the subjective excitation of our optic nerve, but as the objective form of something outside the eye itself. But, in the act of seeing, there is at all events, an actual passage of light from one thing to another, from the external object to the eye. There is a physical relation between physical things. But it is different with commodities. There, the existence of the things quâ commodities, and the value relation between the products of labour which stamps them as commodities, have absolutely no connection with their physical properties and with the material relations arising therefrom. There it is a definite social relation between men, that assumes, in their eyes, the fantastic form of a relation between things. In order, therefore, to find an analogy, we must have recourse to the mist-enveloped regions of the religious world. In that world the productions of the human brain appear as independent beings endowed with life, and entering into relation both with one another and the human race. So it is in the world of commodities with the products of men’s hands. This I call the Fetishism which attaches itself to the products of labour, so soon as they are produced as commodities, and which is therefore inseparable from the production of commodities.

And:

In Karl Marx's critique of political economy, commodity fetishism is the perception of the social relationships involved in production not as relationships among people, but as economic relationships among the money and commodities exchanged in market trade. As such, commodity fetishism transforms the subjective, abstract aspects of economic value into objective, real things that people believe have intrinsic value. - Wiki ‘Commodity Fetishism’

Please point out where and how you think my points don’t attend to the idea of Commodity Fetishism. Thanks

Because you have schizophrenia you’ll probably appreciate that you have difficulty focusing because you have numerous distractions affecting your ability to deal with ‘the everyday’ others do. Effectively you’re juggling several different ‘mental’ items at once while most others are only trying to handle one or two at once.

The key difference is you have a higher load to deal with than most people. The g factor is mysterious. IQ tests are only an approximate measure of g.

I’m not saying this as a ‘should’ or ‘need’ statement. I’m stating what I see as happening already through more one-to-one interactions online.

People will convince themselves through a combination of a desire for ‘self expression’, a desire to ‘stick out’, a desire to ‘be part of a group’ and by refining their aesthetic sense by being naturally involved in the growing complexity of interactions.

As an example maybe I want the respect you have and so I make the false judgement that people only respect you because of what you have, so I try and attain the possessions you have. By doing so I am exposing myself to exploring what I find ‘good’/‘bad’/‘beautiful’ etc.,. In a marketplace shifting more and more to ‘product placement’ and ‘custom items’ I would inevitably fall into collaboration with someone looking to give me what I didn’t know I wanted.

Note: I am looking at this long term and in a very broad sense. The basis is that through the pursuit of self expression and/or adherence to a group, the ‘custom products’ made to fit the individual in a person to person basis will bring personal taste into focus - on the part of me copying you to gain more respect and/or on the part of me wanting to express myself better.

Keep in mind here we’re talking about Commodity Fetishism which is about the monetary value attached to ‘material resources’ rather than the use (both practical, as in as tools, and as non-practical, as in ‘artistically creative’ - the effect of status and aesthetic valuation is the primary conflict I am trying to delve into here.

Thanks for stick with this btw. As I said, I am displaying this thought in its infancy so I’m grappling with what I mean and what I’m saying. I think I’ve been pretty consistent though. My intention is not to paint everything with one brush, but the thought is more or less looking past the ‘monetary’ valuation of items/people and into the ‘human value’ and the direction I see things slightly tipping toward given technological advances in communication over only the past couple of decades (a huge event we’re only just beginning to open our eyes to let alone beginning to understand in any constructive manner).

I necessarily must ‘doubt’ to know anything at all. What is ‘known’ is known only in the sense that I appreciate it as an evolving process that cannot be held down as ‘true’. If you think about ‘knowing’ that if you relax your body you’ll fall, yet the ‘truth’ of this means I don’t spend all my seconds thinking about falling over or gravity - in some circumstances these items are more important (self preservation being one).

The ‘question’ itself is what intrigue me more than anything/

Philosophy of Knowledge and Reality

The Meaning of Reality
What do descriptive claims, that attempt to say what is real, even mean?

Bonus question:
What do mathematical claims, about numbers and geometric shapes and such, mean, and how do they relate to descriptive claims about reality?

The Objects of Reality
What are the criteria by which to judge descriptive claims, or what is it that makes something real?

The Methods of Knowledge
How are we to apply those criteria and decide on what to believe, what descriptive claims to agree with?

The Subjects of Reality
What is the nature of the mind, inasmuch as that means the capacity for believing and making such judgements about what to believe?

The Institutes of Knowledge
What is the proper educational system, or who should be making those descriptive judgements and how should they relate to each other and others, socially speaking?

Bonus question: How do we get people to care about education and knowledge and reality to begin with?

The Importance of Knowledge
Why does is matter what is real or not, true or false, in the first place? — Pfhorrest

Meaning? I don’t understand the question. Sounds quite silly tbh.

Bonus: Mathematics? What does Mathematics mean? I can tell you roughly what it is and no more. It is a field of play from which we can create rules and problems that can be proven logically - I guess maths is ‘abstractly applied reason’, meaning numbers are real and so theories involving explicit numbers can be shown to be correct or incorrect (unlike in day to day language where the articles in play are not explicit - ‘real’ - enough to remain universal).

Note: Just trying to offer something from a question I find kind of meaningless.

Object of Reality? Okay, maybe a little easier. We simply must distinguish between items of cognition to cognitise. The set up is a false dichotomy yet a necessarily useful one by which we can establish ground for ‘difference’. Essentially the distinction between ‘real’ and ‘existent’ is usually held in terms of empirical value - how can I measure and how consistent can my measurements be?

There is too much to go into here to sum this up in several pages let alone a few paragraphs (to say some simple takes a damn long time I’ve found!)

I believe I’ve touched on both Subjects of Reality and Methods of Knowledge above.

To give some more about ‘knowledge’ my preferred line of attack is relatively simple. I view ‘knowledge’ in a negative sense - meaning I ‘know’ because there is room for questioning and explanation. Without ‘room to maneuver’ there is no ‘knowledge’ to be had about anything. Obviously I understand that people don’t usually use the term ‘knowledge’ in an absolute sense, yet I do see some people that get hoodwinked by this because they forget to examine what ‘knowledge’ means within specific areas and that it doesn’t have a universal application - although some items are more far reaching than others.

Educational Systems - something I feel strongly about. The ‘best’ way is the most impractical way. Education shouldn’t be about creating a system that has a ‘one size fits all’ mentality, nor should education encourage a ‘factory-like’ attitude - the industrial revolution has passed! Basically education works best when ‘students’ are left to explore their interests and it is down to ‘teachers’ to facilitate their exposure to different items so they have a better chance of finding something that gives them a sense of meaning.

Again, this is a very complex matter and not something I can sum up any better than that - too many ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ that spring to mind against my own words here!

Bonus: People already do. It is more about nurturing our natural curiosity. It doesn’t need much encouragement just less of an authoritarian attitude made solely for the purpose of some imaginary scheme called ‘society’.

Importance of Knowledge? For starters we can’t talk about ‘importance’ without ideas of ‘true’ or ‘false’. Another rather silly question which is interesting because it is the inaccuracy of lingual exchanges that leads to a great many problems and mistakes (some good and some bad).

Jeez, that talk between Krauss, Dennett and the above was pretty dull. At least I have a gist now - but not much of one.

Is there a paper I could read about his views on ‘the nature of science’?

This seems nothing more than running with the common phrase “you need to own your actions”. Self-help guru stuff.

It was merely an example to emphasis a point, not evidence.

Let me attempt again by noting a scenario. If I wish to buy a chair the idea of Ikea would be to side with Commodity Fetishism in the sense that it is distanced from human interaction and collaboration. If I went online and said I needed a chair - specifying my needs - then I can begin to have a personal exchange with someone passionate about chairs who is able and willing to see the ‘chair’ as more than just a ‘chair’. My personality would be of interest to them, maybe the discussion would move into unrelated areas and the ‘consumer’ would become more interested in ‘chairs’.

The point being ‘custom made’ items in this way are not entirely about the exchange of money and services. There is a human interaction in the form of collaborative investigation. Being treated like a ‘human’ rather than taking part in an activity viewed only as purchasing goods and services.

I wasn’t talking about ‘individual desires’ I was talking about interpersonal human exchange (socialising and exchanging stories, wishes, dreams and hopes).

But anyway, your OP was about the possibility of custom made products creating a decrease in Commodity Fetishism. I guess my thoughts now are, no they can’t. — Brett

That is hardly an argument. Plus, it makes no sense whatsoever, as the leading proposal - from what I’ve read - of Commodity Fetishism is that the human emotional exchange is removed. It seems commonsense enough to me to suggest that greater levels of intimacy and interaction between the creator of a product with the customer becomes a human exchange and a human collaboration - the refining of aesthetics lays on top of this.

As for ‘elitism’? I’m not entirely against ‘elitism’ if the cost against it is possessing no value judgement whatsoever - that sounds like ideological insanity. People who are ‘better’ at something than others are more likely to help others learn than not - by way of competition, collaboration and/or innovation. Removing interpersonal engagement would have the effect of instilling Commodity Fetishism not guarding against it.

This is the crux of it. Without input the brain lacks a means to locate itself within an environment. Sensory deprivation produces ‘hallucinations’ because we’re essentially rummaging through our mental tool box and randomly applying tools that may help us navigate.

@fdrake At least I can see where this discussion turned from philosophical approaches to neuroscience. It is a little confusing when two related, yet altogether different discussions are going on parallel in one thread.

You’re asking too much from me. Sum it up?

Are people able to become less alienated despite all the elements that would encourage them to stay within the lines? Do market conditions ever permit degrees of freedom to create others? — Valentinus

Please reframe these questions. I don’t quite understand what they’re referring.

Thanks

This is a good question. It does, however, get entangled with the general conditions that Marx saw the formation of individual aesthetics. The problem as drafted by Marx was not that individual desires were substituted for something not-individual but that what an individual wants is shaped by systems of exchange. — Valentinus

Personally I see this as no more than a conflict between wanting to be part of a group and wanting to be different/unique. As we act more or less as ‘groups’ of political bodies then we are socially encouraged to seek status. I think if Marx said that he’d got it backwards. The systems of exchange stem from the growth of communities (something looked at in the anthropological question of ‘the birth of inequality’ - although that title is a little misleading imo).

The next step is the transaction between producer and consumer. Someone loves the pot, they’re ecstatic, their response adds further to this value. What shall you sell this pot for? If it’s not your only source of income, then fine, except you still have to pay for your physical resources. But if not then you need to make a living. What is the worth of this pot in monetary terms? How do you avoid this trap of monetary value? — Brett

I’m not sure what you’re asking here. I haven’t stated that we should avoid monetary value. I have stated that economics isn’t only about monetary value and had a look at what other valuations matter societally from individuals that have a greater impact than we may we aware of.

I’d also say the above example if an artist doesn’t relate to my point at all because of this. My point could be attached to it by stating today artists have greater exposure and people’s tastes therefore have a wider variety of experiences to develop from. The ‘one size fits all’ state of mass production appears to have been in decline - with the exceptions of hardware. My point is then that people would attach status to possession of more ‘original’ products and thus seek out more original products and - key point - this would eventually become more about refine aesthetic/artistic tastes than about owning items as a status symbol.

I am not viewing monetary valuing as a ‘trap’. My point is about equating the use and limits of a fungible go between. I haven’t found substantial literature on this topic except the occasional anthropological snippet looking at how humans have made ‘tools’ and then used these ‘tools’ to create abstract systems.

I’ll have a listen and see if I can pose a decent question. The limits of science would be something of interest to me given my interest in Husserlian phenomenology.

Only if you’re judging ‘value’ by monetary means. I’m not. Just because money is a practical measure of ‘value’ in terms of economics it certainly isn’t the only possible means of measure.

The ‘labour’ is of value to the individual in the sense that it is understood to be of import both in terms of social status (personal aptitude) and/or an individual’s personal attitude to the task at hand.

I don’t see ‘economics’ as some body orbiting ‘monetary value’. That is - just to repeat for emphasis - not to say I find ‘monetary value’ redundant.

The criteria with which I am approaching ‘economics’ is in a broad sense with emphasis toward more ‘personal’/‘subjective’/‘abstract’ understandings, especially in relation to ‘taste’, ‘aesthetic appreciation’, ‘communication/education’, and such other items that are not often the focus of attention in terms of ‘resources’ because they are not readily measurable in a monetary sense - and maybe they shouldn’t be thought of as being items to which to attach ‘price tags’.

I most certainly think it is a flawed approach to view ‘economics’ as primarily a system of valuing everything/anything only in terms of monetary valuation - and to repeat again (to avoid being misquoted) I certainly don’t see monetary valuation as redundant.

Just to make what I am referring to explicit I’ll use a personal example. I have won money playing poker, yet the best game of poker I ever had didn’t involve me winning any money. The personal experience gained far outweighed the loss of money. In this sense the ‘monetary value’ is relative in many different circumstances and this is the use of money as a fungible ‘go-between’ of subjective judgement. Even if I’m paid in ‘food’ or ‘clothes’ the judgement is never static in the now - the difficulty is how some people are more willing to commit to some given personal project where others are not (or simply never come to grapple with anything in life with considered direction). In this sense the ‘willingness’ of effort varies drastically from one individual to another in terms of projecting themselves into the future as a possibility at odds with their current situation/circumstances.

Like I said, maybe this does sound quite strange - more strange than it should - because I’ve only relatively recently turned my thoughts to this matter in ‘economic’ terms.

Thanks for the feedback/bounce-back :)

I wouldn’t say there is any useful difference to be made between ‘feeling good’ and ‘feeling happy’. In that sense I could then say something along the same lines with ‘my good actions’ and ‘my happy actions’ - in that I am talking about an action that makes me feel good/happy.

Morally speaking I would say the greater the moral problem the more it shifts away from ‘happiness’. Happiness isn’t the be all and end of moral action/choice because morality is tested properly only when we have to take on an ‘unhappy’ role to fulfill a moral stance - to kill a man and suffer the inner turmoil of committing murder even when we realise the death of said man was almost certainly the best moral choice at the time (if said man was about to rape and torture three million people until the slowly and painfully lost their minds whlist their friends and families looked on). Even taking the life of such a person would inevitably be tough as taking a life, no matter how abhorrent you believe the life to be, cannot to my mind be something that won’t leave some mental scar.

Essentially to understand something abhorrent is to realise you’re capable of such abhorrence. The ‘good’ cannot be perpetually ‘happy’ and must, if intent on securing the ‘good’, willingly force themselves to be ‘unhappy’ - to some degree.

It is probably the key difficulty of human life dealing with this impossible balance. Clinging to ‘happiness’ is for fools and children only. Once experience takes hold all sense of ‘happiness’ will evaporate if one is silly enough to exit the warmth of one’s home naked and smiling into a blizzard - simply put if we avoid pain we’ll never mature and come to understand what pain we can cause and what pain we can feel (such a life is hardly a life at all).

I know next to nothing about Satre’s ideas. I can say that I do tend to carry around my ‘world view’ as ‘me looking at myself’. What I ‘see’ is only ever ‘myself’. I don’t mean this in a solipsistic way, but more as ‘how I see’ is ‘me’, and the ‘me’ is only ever a temporally directedness rather than some explicit ‘point’ with inward/outward and/or future/past facing.

I love the idea of using the Greek Titans Prometheus and Epimetheus (forethought and hindsight) to express our conscious regard - sense of ‘existing’.

No, I don’t read latin. Just answer my question please.

It appears I got it correct then. I guess ‘decrease’ may have been s misleading term though. I meant more or less to lessen the gaze of fetishism and put value into the commodity as item produced artistically/aesthetically.

I’m not massively familiar with this area so you’ll have to excuse as I claw around for the best terms. There does appear to be something conflicting in what I’ve read of Marx concerning what is and isn’t delineated as a ‘resource’ or ‘commodity’, and how they relate.

I know it sounds weird. I meant as ‘tailor made’, there seems to be technologies coming into play that will provide ‘custom design’ by the consumer and I believe this could drive more demand for actual individually produced items by individuals for individuals.

I do wonder about how this could possibly lead to ‘monetary worth’ shifting more into alignment with artistic sensibility rather than as a ‘symbol of status’ - fashion as a true force for concerns with artistic appreciation in terms of how art can benefit people as opposed to mere ‘peacocking’.

Would that be any different than saying 10 people as opposed to 1. I still don’t quite see what you were getting at with the original point or this one?

Would 10 people with 10mil each and 1 person with 10mil in terms of consumer demands compared to 10 people with 1mil each and 1 person with 10mil? If so, how and why?

I meant this in a way to suggest that more concern with the aesthetics would create a more interpersonal relationship between producer and consumer. I am certainly not holding to this idea as absolutely true, but I believe it is worth talking about the effect of an expanding marketplace where ‘novelty’ and ‘rarity’ become the norm - as strange as that sounds.

I never said that. I was arguing against that your opinion is ‘flat out better’.

I may have read more into what you wrote than you intended though. If it is just individuals working independently then it is generally better to have ten people with clout than one person with clout - that said someone with ten million would likely have gotten to that point by mutual exchanges and will likely continue to feed back into the system. This is basically down to the individuals social attitudes and concerns.

I’d hazard a guess that a great number of successful business types are obviously stuck in a bit of a bubble, but I would say it is wrong to assume they’re completely blind to societal difficulties as well as inactive. Some don’t care and some do.

I wasn’t using ‘worth’ in that way. Sorry for the confusion. I was referring to inherent human ‘worth’, like the emotional value of sitting down in the company of another without speaking - the emotional weight.

If someone wants company all humans have ‘worth’ in that respect. Social interaction is a ‘resource’ that we cannot put monetary value on though - at least not in a manner that seems either accurate or fair. We’re quite happy to say we value our friends (see them as a source of emotional value) without putting an actual price tag on them.

Sorry for the confusion.

I’m stating direct opposition to the following ‘ought to know’ for the reasons stated.

Everyone ought to know that 10 people with a million is simply flat out better than one person with 10 million in any sort of socio-economic dynamical equilibria (perhaps barring monopolies, and even that is a stretch). — Wallows

Not only do I not know this I find it to be incorrect because it is a very poor generalisation.

What determines the ‘better’ is what is done with the resources NOT how equally they are distributed. What people do with what they’ve got matters more than the amount they have. I don’t see a way to avoid this point.

Both

One person with one million can do more than ten people sharing one million because you’d likely never get everyone pulling in the same direction. One person will attract like minded people where ten will tend to splinter.

I was just pointing out that the individual talents count rather than the number of people. Not everyone with money hoards money for the sake of hoarding money, anymore than every poor person has ten children and a drug habit.

So no, I don’t think everyone with some wit would agree with your statement at all.

What I mean, is that people aren't inherently worth anything unless self-taught or venture capitalists, etc. — Wallows

I completely disagree with this. You’ll have to explain better what you mean by ‘worth’.

You have an extremely narrow view of what is and isn’t a ‘resource’ then.

Consider that people with money tend to get money because they know how to use it. 10 million doesn’t make you a billionaire either. What is all this about distributing Ferraris?

Everyone ought to know that 10 people with a million is simply flat out better than one person with 10 million in any sort of socio-economic dynamical equilibria (perhaps barring monopolies, and even that is a stretch). — Wallows

Not necessarily. Depends who they are.

You’ll have to explain that confusing statement.

I guess I meant that where Husserl ‘side-stepped’ the dichotomy held to for centuries Nietzsche created - and tried to articulate the framework of solution to - a dichotomy of ‘morality’ (probably not the best way to articulate what I mean but it’ll do for now).

Even though they are in completely different fields of play I’ve found their approaches similar in respect to how they worked with huge ‘divisions’ philosophy - I’d say this was also the reason that characters like Descartes and Kant have such prominence even up to today. That said I think both Nietzsche and Husserl merely laid down the ‘beginnings’ of something rather than causing a huge stir anything like either Descartes or Kant. In time I imagine they will be seen more and more as a force in the shaping of philosophical thought (Nietzsche already is and perhaps I’m wrong about Husserl - he’s not insignificant though).

Anyway, we’re digressing.

I’m asking because I believe the state of society has changed today and the ‘novelty’ of mass production is not exactly something that has lasting appeal (as fashions shift). Reputation is the selling factor for mass produced goods - Apple is an example of this (although it has waned by most people’s standards). Really I was trying to highlight how what is ‘new’, ‘original’ and ‘novel’ plays into this ‘fetishism’ as well as the distance between the manufacturers and consumers.

I think we’re really consumed by ‘rarity’ and the conflicting drives to feel/appear ‘uniquely individual’ whilst also craving to be ‘part of the crowd’. I don’t see there being any other major force behind what drive economics that doesn’t fall into one of these two broad categories. The question is then how best to satisfy both in a stable economic system. On an interpersonal basis I would like to put forward the idea of artistic/aesthetic qualities being a force to drive a healthier social interaction between what is made, who is making it and the buyer.

In no way shape or form can I see a way to nullify human temperament, and nor would I want to. The Global Village is very much here now, but we’re still adjusting from less obvious ties - I mean this in the sense that the world has opened up for all ‘classes’ by ready access to immediate communication.

I think it was Chomsky who said the Soviets created propaganda and then the Americans perfected it in the form of ‘advertising’. Resources are more widely available than ever before and I see the economic problem as being misaligned with ‘material’ ideological views of economics rather than seeing economics as ‘resource management’ - as a means of spread opportunity. Every human is a ‘resource’ to the each other. The current problem, as far as I can see, is that we have access to resources yet don’t know how to use these resources effectively or efficiently.

I’m certain a better economic solution lies in creating an effective means of showing people what they could do rather than what material items they could have. I cannot see how this doesn’t begin with changes to ‘education’ and a larger focus on ‘pedagogy’ as a means to serve each human as a human, as opposed to ‘humanity’ (a one size fits all mentality) because as similar as we all are the minuscule differences are what give us a sense of direction and value rather than shuffling along in line.

Many people may be pessimistic about this. I cannot help but have an optimistic outlook as no matter how hard I try to envelope my thinking is staunch pessimism my reasoning just doesn’t agree with some future dark view of the world and I see ‘art’ sprouting in humanity - simplistically put the means of ‘propaganda’ and its refinement in ‘advertising’ has created a richer and richer field of play for artistic endeavors. The Fetishism will, and is, evolving. The ‘poor’ will not ‘eat the rich’, they’ll just come to realise what ‘poverty’ really means outside of the scope of monetary wealth - a person living on a few dollars a day understands the meaning, use and value of money far more than I do.

Marx noticed something I think. That is those repressed by ‘powers above’ are happier because they know their direction better than any other and rely on each other for survival. As an example look at what people say who’ve escaped North Korea when asked if people are ‘happier’ in South Korea. The answers seem counter intuitive at first, but with a little thought ‘happiness’ takes on a whole new meaning when you listen.

This is what drew me to your website. I was going to ask if you’d tried to show how these relate.

Hopefully we have a lot to discuss about how best to structure the current layout of philosophy in this ‘zoological’ manner :)