MOUNT RUSHMORE--The Fetishism of Statues and Monuments--FROM MARX TO FREUD

05 July 2020

NOTES---

     A statue or monument has value only in the amount of labor and material expended to create it.  From a social, as Marx, or psychological, as Freud, would define, its "surplus" value in what it stands for, is a fetish. To what degree the inanimate stone or bronze object takes on a life of its own is explored in Tim Dant's research paper Fetishism and the Social Value of Objects;
     "In 1886, Kraftt Ebing had treated 'fetichism' as a pathological tendency, connected to stealing female linen, handkerchiefs and shoes. While he emphasized the criminological aspect, he also connected it to sexuality." (Dant)
Freud inevitably carried the concept of fetishism to a perversion in the young boy who believes his mother has a penis like his own and upon the horror of discovery that she doesn't, suffers from a castration complex.
     Dant follows the usual pathway by dividing the origin of fetishism from its "proto-anthropological" roots in inanimate object worship to its gradual evolution into the Marxian model of private property and material objects and to Freud's sexual fantasy worship. In the first case, the evolution stems from "glitter-worship" to an object's use-value. The second case is far more interesting, the substitution of the object in place of some sexual perversion or fantasy. Both serve a purpose in society and both are essentially at the base of the need for statues and monuments.
     Dant, however, fails to recognize the role of patriarchy in the proliferation of statues and monuments although it clearly is at the core of their jealous preservation in the culture. In her chapter on Feminist Criticism, in Critical Theory Today, Professor Lois Tyson makes a strong argument against the overbearing male-dominated cultures that exist throughout the modern world;
     "Traditional gender roles cast men as rational, strong, protective, and decisive ; they cast women as emotional (irrational), weak, nurturing, and submissive." (Tyson, 81)

     Reinforcement of the male-dominated culture is apparent in the predominant number of statues and monuments that are currently the targets of dissent. Those include the statue of Robert E. Lee in Virginia, the many Columbus statues that have suddenly become vandalized or have been negatively scrutinized, and in particular the most famous one in South Dakota of Mount Rushmore. The reasons are similar, based on a dark past in slavery, but from a deeper standpoint, the institution of patriarchy is also being challenged.
     Fetishism plays an important part in the preservation of these symbols of patriarchal culture. From a Marxian point of view, they represent material progress, the dominant male persona defined in Tyson, regardless whether it is a Confederate general on a horse, a foreign explorer on a ship or a distant past president carved into a mountain on Native-American land. In Freud, they are the buffer in the young boy's mind when he discovers a penis that the young girl doesn't have, a symbol of machismo that will prevent him from secretly dressing up in a bra and panties and admiring himself in a mirror. The statues and monuments guarantee he won't be castrated or become homosexual.
    The status quo will have the young boy believing there is some protective magical power to the inanimate stone or bronze carving, that has no more value than the labor and materials used in making it. Dant correctly infers that the fetish has real power;

      "A fetish is created through the veneration or worship of an object that is attributed some power or capacity, independently of its manifestation of that capacity. However, through the very process of attribution the object may indeed manifest those powers, the specialness with which an object is treated makes it special." (Dant, 6)
So long as the patriarchal status quo venerates Robert E. Lee, Columbus and the Mount Rushmore presidents, the rich can find comfort in glitter-worship, objects that have no value, and young boys can feel safe from penis castration. There is no difference between Robert E. Lee and Theodore Roosevelt other than one fought for a Lost Cause and the other led a charge up San Juan Hill. One might argue the VietNam War Memorial has meaning, the names of those who were killed in action in Southeast Asia are relevant to the culture. Perhaps it does.
   

References
Dant,T., Fetishism and the Social Value of Objects, https://core.ac.uk/reader/68098
Freud, S., Fetishism, https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/portfolio.newschool.edu/dist/9/3921/files/2015/03/Freud-Fetishism-1927-2b52v1u.pdf
Tyson, L.,  Critical Theory Today, Routledge, London, 2015
Vietnam War Memorial, https://www.wayfair.com/
Lee Statue, The Hill
Mount Rushmore image , VOA