Gun as "fetish"

The power of a thing

When you see the word fetish, you probably either don’t know what it means or think it’s something sexual. As with so many words, its meaning has changed over time and something of the original flavor has been lost. Let’s do a taste test.

It’s dangerous out there

The school of philosophy called Existentialism concerns itself with the challenges of living as a tiny vulnerable organism in a huge dangerous impersonal universe. A key existential concept is angst which is often translated coldly and clinically from the German as anxiety. It’s more/worse than that. It’s more than garden variety fear. It’s more like the kind of dread you feel in your worst nightmare or when facing a life-threatening event (aka trauma).

Angst is painful and immobilizing, and so we embrace ways to tamp it down so we can function, including:

• ingesting mood-altering substances

• huddling together

• making music, dancing, drumming, singing

• having sex

• eating food

• grooming (self and others)

• playing/watching games

• gambling

• praying to protective spirits/gods

These activities work very well as angst reducers, and so we do them a lot. You will notice that some of them turn into what we call addictions when we do them “too much”.

Another way we reduce existential dread is by possessing things that make us feel big, powerful and invulnerable (Super-Man/Woman). These include:

• strong muscles

• weapons

• money

• defensible spaces/homes

• cohesive tribes

• militias, armies, police

• strong leaders

In a kill-or-be-killed existence (which is how humans have lived most of their time on this planet), it is smart and good to possess as many of these safety resources as possible. Due to their life preserving function, we tend to imbue them in our minds with inherent powers. When we do this, we transform an object into a fetish:

FETISH (fĕt′ĭsh): An object believed to have magical power to protect or aid its owner

Sometimes a fetish object has no instrumental power per se. These include carved animals, jewels, trinkets and magical talismans often used in rituals performed to summon up forces of power and protection. But objects whose actual nature provides protection and a survival advantage can become very powerful symbols of strength and safety.

Nature, red in tooth and claw

Our need for protective fetishes is inversely proportional to the degree of danger/threat we experience in our daily lives. Certain members of earlier generations of (US) Americans recall fondly the days when they left their front doors unlocked because they knew and trusted their neighbors. Others locked their doors and kept a sword or rifle nearby in preparation for an attack. Each practice makes sense depending on the environment.

Barack Obama got himself into a bit of a jam in 2008 when he was talking about why he was having trouble attracting voters in Pennsylvania and the mid-west “rust belt” states due to their hard economic conditions. A recording of the following words ignited a firestorm:

“And it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them … or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

While this sentence was interpreted (genuinely or for political spin) as a negative judgment about these hard-to-attract voters, it was in fact a rather nuanced and accurate understanding of how people cope with suffering and hardship and a sense of powerlessness. When your jobs and livelihood are torn away by powerful corporations, and your government either ignores your plight or even blames you for it, an accurate assumption is made that “We’re on our own and need to defend ourselves as best we can”.

Obama’s words accurately capture some of our evolved strategies for defending ourselves against perceived threats:

• Guns (kill or be killed)

• Religion (appeals to an omnipotent protective power)

• Fear/expulsion of strangers (xenophobia)

• Mistrust of unfair trade deals imposed by others (this was the root cause of the American Revolution/separation from England)

If a person or group feels physically, emotionally or economically threatened, they will grab for the nearest best protection. This will include those objects and strategies that possess both real and symbolic life-saving powers. If someone tries to take away those survival tools without providing a credible replacement, they will be perceived as an enemy with deadly intent. This dynamic helps to explain why simplistic appeals for “gun control” are met with such strong (even violent) resistance and pushback.

Beating swords into ploughshares

Some people are driven by malevolent intent to use the fetishes of power (muscles, weapons, money, status) to ruthlessly impose their will on others. It’s their nature and they need to be isolated from society to reduce the extreme harm they do. Most people adopt a more live and let live philosophy unless they feel threatened (physically, emotionally, economically), at which point their evolved self-protective (fight and flight) strategies will kick in.

While many people are now objectively safer and healthier than in earlier eras, many people today still feel very unsafe due to their immediate situation or vicarious exposure (read: internet/social media) to the angst of others like them. This triggers a search for sources of power and safety. The only way to reduce an over-reliance on fetishes like guns and muscles and belief systems that encourage the dehumanization and mistreatment of others is to create positive cultural norms of ethical behavior backed up by swift and certain consequences for their violation.

In safe cohesive societies, people feel they can put down their defenses and weapons because they believe/trust that no harm will come to them. In the absence of such a solid prosocial compact, no simple legislative or legal “policy” approach will do much good on the fetish front.

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