“Gun fetish” was, I thought, just a cute way of talking about the obsession some American males have with their guns. The recent mass shootings, however, have made me look more closely at the word and the ideas behind it. That investigation puts the problem of regulating firearms in a new light.
“Fetish” is of Portuguese origin, coined when their explorers noted the special role that some man made objects had among the West African people. The Portuguese used the word “feitiço “ for them meaning a charm or magical object. That word was derived from Latin facticius, artificial, and ultimately from the verb facio, to make. Fetishes were made things, not, in other words, an unusually shaped stone or piece of gnarled wood , but something humans made, especially of metal.
That word must have had rich connotations for these good Catholic explorers (and exploiters),, since the Nicene Creed which they surely knew full well, speaks of Jesus as gentium non factum, “begotten not made,” that is, the son of God, a true divinity, not some pagan idol.
So, from the start, fetishes were scorned by the Europeans. That did not stop Europeans from collecting such objects, enshrining them In museums, and, eventually, exploring their psychological and sexual implications. . (The word begins to be used in a Freudian, or sexual sense in 1897.)
Among curators, anthropologists and art historians the word has now become a mark of “colonialist discourse.” See S. Silva: ”Art and Fetish in the Anthropology Museum” in The Journal of Objects, Art and Belief 13 (2017)
For the understanding of such objects on their own terms the Yoruba cult of Ogun, god of war and metal, may offer a useful perspective. The god stands behind the production of metal objects, but the objects themselves “function as conduits for the god’s power and protection,” as Claude Cernuschi has put it to me in an email. .
The peoples of West Africa, as best I can tell, never treated firearms as having such special powers. Perhaps the Portuguese didn’t either. But today many Americans find that just holding a firearm can have powerful psychological effects. They won’t call their weapons “fetishes,” but psychological research has shown that for some young American males simply holding a gun, even a toy gun, powerfully increases aggressive feelings. In 2006 a team led by the psychologist Francis McAndrew of Knox College reported findings, recently summarized in the New York Times: for June 2, 2022., “Disturbing New Pattern in Mass Shootings: Young Assailants.” In one experiment a group of young men:
“… were given a children’s toy and an actual firearm. The presence of a gun changed their behavior significantly,” … “Just holding a gun gave you guts.” (The NIH provides an a convenient abstract of this work. There are also important observations in “If you give a man a gun: the evolutionary psychology of mass shootings” in The Conversation December 4, 2015 “
None of this research suggests that guns are like fetishes, but it makes me wonder if the motivation behind the observe aggressive impulses may include the feeling that the gun confers a power beyond ordinary human limits. The gun, seen in this way, is an almost sacred object,, not subject to restraints imposed by those who do not understand the psychological power they can confer. . Like all fetishes, the gun can seem sacred to those who possess them, or are possessed by them.
Such power can cloud the mind when it tries to interpret the relatively straight – forward text of the Second Amendment; it inspires zealous resistance to any form of regulation; it deludes some individuals with feelings they are entitled to kill.
Traditional fetishes, to be sure, differ from modern firearms in two important respects. Guns can be, often are, lethal. Second fetishes are usually draw together a group of worshippers, while guns, especially assault rifles, seem to have special appeal to “loners,” isolated individuals, almost always males, who lack friends and feel rejected by society. The high degree of social isolation in the United States may account for much of our country’s off the scale murder rate.
These observations are speculations by someone who makes no claim to expertise in these matters. But surely it is time for all of us to start thinking in radical ways about gun violence. The problem clearly is not responding to measures currently in place, nor are those most widely discussed in the media likely to tame a fetish. So let us struggle with more radical questions: Is it possible to defetishize an object? Can a less dangerous fetish (a motorcycle, pe perhaps) be substituted for a more dangerous one? Can a fetish be turned against itself? For example, could someone skillfully intervene at an early stage with groups of those most clearly at risk- gun owning young men, “loners,” those who feel rejected and experience intense social isolation? Could a shared veneration of the fetish counteract the social isolation that seems to drive some men to murder?
Bad idea? Too hard? Too risky? Too radical? OK, come up with a better one.
“Fetish” is of Portuguese origin, coined when their explorers noted the special role that some man made objects had among the West African people. The Portuguese used the word “feitiço “ for them meaning a charm or magical object. That word was derived from Latin facticius, artificial, and ultimately from the verb facio, to make. Fetishes were made things, not, in other words, an unusually shaped stone or piece of gnarled wood , but something humans made, especially of metal.
That word must have had rich connotations for these good Catholic explorers (and exploiters),, since the Nicene Creed which they surely knew full well, speaks of Jesus as gentium non factum, “begotten not made,” that is, the son of God, a true divinity, not some pagan idol.
So, from the start, fetishes were scorned by the Europeans. That did not stop Europeans from collecting such objects, enshrining them In museums, and, eventually, exploring their psychological and sexual implications. . (The word begins to be used in a Freudian, or sexual sense in 1897.)
Among curators, anthropologists and art historians the word has now become a mark of “colonialist discourse.” See S. Silva: ”Art and Fetish in the Anthropology Museum” in The Journal of Objects, Art and Belief 13 (2017)
For the understanding of such objects on their own terms the Yoruba cult of Ogun, god of war and metal, may offer a useful perspective. The god stands behind the production of metal objects, but the objects themselves “function as conduits for the god’s power and protection,” as Claude Cernuschi has put it to me in an email. .
The peoples of West Africa, as best I can tell, never treated firearms as having such special powers. Perhaps the Portuguese didn’t either. But today many Americans find that just holding a firearm can have powerful psychological effects. They won’t call their weapons “fetishes,” but psychological research has shown that for some young American males simply holding a gun, even a toy gun, powerfully increases aggressive feelings. In 2006 a team led by the psychologist Francis McAndrew of Knox College reported findings, recently summarized in the New York Times: for June 2, 2022., “Disturbing New Pattern in Mass Shootings: Young Assailants.” In one experiment a group of young men:
“… were given a children’s toy and an actual firearm. The presence of a gun changed their behavior significantly,” … “Just holding a gun gave you guts.” (The NIH provides an a convenient abstract of this work. There are also important observations in “If you give a man a gun: the evolutionary psychology of mass shootings” in The Conversation December 4, 2015 “
None of this research suggests that guns are like fetishes, but it makes me wonder if the motivation behind the observe aggressive impulses may include the feeling that the gun confers a power beyond ordinary human limits. The gun, seen in this way, is an almost sacred object,, not subject to restraints imposed by those who do not understand the psychological power they can confer. . Like all fetishes, the gun can seem sacred to those who possess them, or are possessed by them.
Such power can cloud the mind when it tries to interpret the relatively straight – forward text of the Second Amendment; it inspires zealous resistance to any form of regulation; it deludes some individuals with feelings they are entitled to kill.
Traditional fetishes, to be sure, differ from modern firearms in two important respects. Guns can be, often are, lethal. Second fetishes are usually draw together a group of worshippers, while guns, especially assault rifles, seem to have special appeal to “loners,” isolated individuals, almost always males, who lack friends and feel rejected by society. The high degree of social isolation in the United States may account for much of our country’s off the scale murder rate.
These observations are speculations by someone who makes no claim to expertise in these matters. But surely it is time for all of us to start thinking in radical ways about gun violence. The problem clearly is not responding to measures currently in place, nor are those most widely discussed in the media likely to tame a fetish. So let us struggle with more radical questions: Is it possible to defetishize an object? Can a less dangerous fetish (a motorcycle, pe perhaps) be substituted for a more dangerous one? Can a fetish be turned against itself? For example, could someone skillfully intervene at an early stage with groups of those most clearly at risk- gun owning young men, “loners,” those who feel rejected and experience intense social isolation? Could a shared veneration of the fetish counteract the social isolation that seems to drive some men to murder?
Bad idea? Too hard? Too risky? Too radical? OK, come up with a better one.