Between Material and Virtual Worlds: Fetishism and the Discourse of Capitalism

Abstract

This paper explores a theory of the relationship between online and offline worlds based on the concept of fetishism. It begins by examining the concept of fetishism in anthropology, Marxism, and particularly, psychoanalysis. It then explores the increasing fetishization of the virtual in everyday life and the simultaneous fetishizing of the material world in cyberspace. This bidirectional movement is associated with the growing hybridization between online and offline worlds. Finally, a parallel is drawn between symmetrical or dual fetishism and the logic of the discourse of capitalism as defined by Jacques Lacan.