process, the workingman is transformed into the capitalist’s commodity. His life hours are absorbed by the capitalist either in the from of money or in the form of the produced commodity. In that way, a person is transformed into something tangible, as the first principle suggests. Kaplan’s second principle of fetishism explains the substitution of ambiguity or uncertainty: “Fetishism transforms ambiguity and uncertainty into something knowable and certain and in doing so snuffs out any sparks of creativity that might ignite the fires of fetishism,” (Kaplan 6). This principle can best be related to the rain talisman example. The tribesman does not know what controls the rain, and thus the survival of his crops, which is also his own survival, is uncertain and ambiguous. As one discussed earlier, the fetish or rain talisman acts as a type of security blanket. But since there is no point where the tribesman learns meteorology, the talisman is not a temporary tool, but rather a permanent fetish. Kaplan’s third principle of the fetishism strategy relates to hiding personal details, preferences, and characteristics: “Fetishism brings uncertain details into the foreground of experience in order to mask and disguise other features that are thus cast into the shadows and margins and background,” (6). She relates this principle to Freudian sexual fetishism. As mentioned earlier, the sexual fetish may arise as a psychological ploy to avoid thinking about a traumatic event. On the surface, it would appear a person has strange sexual preferences ad desires. People are often shocked, repelled, or disgusted by another person’s bizarre sexual fetish. This is exactly how the fetishism strategy works; “the surface layer, the images that captivate the visual field, the words that clamor to be heard, are masquerades,” (6). A person is so focused on the bizarre aspects of the fetish
conflict between life and death, and names these urges Eros after the Greek God of Love, representing life energy and the life instinct, and Thanatos after the Greek God of Death, representing death energy and the death instinct. While Stekel’s writings are in German, Lothane translates a portion of a dream analysis in which Stekel refers to these concepts: Just as in the dream there is generally no negation, there is similarly no negation of life. Dying in dreams most often means living and it is precisely the highest life’s pleasures that finds its expression in a death wish… such ideas were reportedly spoken of by poets and philosophers, too, have repeatedly highlighted these connections between Eros and Thanatos. (Lothane 278) Lothane also provides us with an excerpt from Spielrein’s essay in which she quotes Jung’s perspective on Eros and Thanatos (though again the terms are not used directly): The passionate yearning, i.e., the libido, has two sides: the power that beautifies all and one that on occasion destroys… the destructive nature of the creative power… To become generative means to destroy oneself, since the becoming of the next generation means that the preceding one has reached its peak: In this way our descendants are our most dangerous enemies, with whom one cannot cope… The anxiety over the erotic fate is understandable, for there is something unforeseen in it… He who renounces the courage to experience, must stifle in himself the wish to commit a kind of suicide. This explains why death fantasies readily accompany erotic wishes. (Lothane 278-279)