In "The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof " Karl Marx explores human labor as a commodity to individuals in society. From my understanding, humans create the products that ultimately perform the services people need and want in the form of commodities, by taking materials and transforming them into essentials. For instance, cars, dishwashers, washing machines, dryers and toilets are all commodities. These things are not necessarily detrimental to human survival, but they sure do make life a lot easier.

Marx explains that instead of people interacting personally, "material relations between persons and social relations between things" are formed. I especially like Marx use of the word 'fetishism' to describe the human attraction to these material products.

Although this quote refers to how the fruits of labor are associated with the commodities produced, I feel it could easily hold true to the age of text messaging, instant messaging, chat rooms and dating sites. How many jokes have been made to the affect of "my husband loves his blackberry more than he loves me"? Our society has become individuals mass producing things that become integrated into our every day lives, which we simply cannot live without.

I grew up without a dishwasher in the kitchen of my family home. My parents had manufactured and (re)produced their own little personal dishwasher and named it Amber. I can tell you from experience, the simple commodity of having a Kenmore next to the sink saves a good hour and a half after a large Thanksgiving dinner and probably thirty minutes after a home cooked dinner for five.

How do you spend the extra time available because you have the opportunity to take advantage of these commodities? Glued to a screen of some sort I would bet; a cell phone, television, computer, or iPod maybe? While you are having a conversation with a family member or friend, how often do you glance at your phone during the exchange, in fear of missing something off in cyberspace? When should we expect to stop intimately communicating altogether and live in an all-encompassing virtual world? We’ve all seen the movies, right? Very recently the movie Surrogates was released portraying humans as socially secluded, and living their lives in the world through robot proxies.

These commodities surround us and are viewed as necessities by many people in our society. Thus, post industrialism, Americans have simply moved onto what I like to refer to as The Era of Mass Production. Goods and services run our economy and our lives. Instead of working in factories, mines and mills, Americans are spending their time inventing bigger (or smaller) and better gadgets and researching technology to improve that, too. However, when I look at what these luxuries have cost Americans, it makes me wonder if we are destroying ourselves from the inside.

Cultural Differences in Technology

American's have become solely dependent on technology. We file away our financial information online and communicate through social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Even businesses jumped onto the cyberspace bandwagon advertising to online consumers via tweets and Facebook status updates. Many relationships are built upon text messaging alone. Others blossom out of online dating sites such as eHarmony or Match.com.

Our society has yearned for faster, more inventive and even more attractive technology of all sorts, ranging from cars to computers to internet speeds. Days and nights are spent partaking in every form of technological advancement imaginable. Many stop signs have been replaced by electrically generated stoplights. LED billboards promote and boldly state how people can obtain the glittering devices connecting them to the rest of the world.

Not to burst anyone's bubble, but the rest of the world is not necessarily so internet savvy. Our culture has become defined as technologically progressive. American charities and Oprah are taking this technology and placing it into schools in Africa in the form of Mac desktops, where the children have never even seen a computer before. The mass culture in America largely differs from that of most of the rest of the world.  Children in other cultures do not grow up playing video or computer games and watching television for hours on end at the age of five. These children are lucky to have clean water. The technology available to people in third world countries cannot compare to the incredible amount of mechanical devices that function as America's supporting arm.  Without many electronics we use today, some American's would be unable to function.  Have we forgotten The Millennium?  

Even within our own country, there are subcultures disconnected from all of this technology. The Amish make it a point to travel by horse and buggy, use outdoor plumbing and live their lives as though they are unaware of the technological hyperspace surrounding their communities.

You cannot ignore the fact that the technology available to the masses in America is far more progressed than the majority of the world. Many other countries including China, England and France are just as progressive or even more so going places with technology. However, I feel as though many people engulfed in our society do not realize just how fortunate they are to live in a mechanically driven society.

How do you wash dishes? Clothes? Think about bathing in anything cleanlier than your shower. Running water in your home in general is a blessing. Going to school forces the internet upon you and if you can tell you know someone without a television in their home I would be pleasantly surprised. We have cars, Marta and airplanes to get us from one place or the other. The Amish travel by horse and buggy. If you actually think about it, it can be a lot to grasp. Your life void of these luxuries.

Imagine

Growing up in a generation deeply dedicated to the evolution of technology, I have felt somewhat out of place. While I played my fair share of Super Mario Brothers as a child, I rarely spent time in front of a television set. I was never allowed to watch the "cool" shows like 'Beavis & Butthead' and I often turned the volume down to the slightest hum and watched 'Rin & Stimpy' in secrecy. Nowadays, my phone looks as if it is from the stone age and its uses are limited to texting and telephone calls. And voicemail. This is bliss simplicity compared to the friends of mine sporting glittering touchscreen devices and blackberries that seem to do everything my laptop can, but faster. I'm the last to know of any celebrity news and I will be quite honest, I did not know about the volcano eruption a few months ago until about four days after it happened. Not because I'm out of touch with society, but the single period of time I ever have to catch up on the news between school and work is grabbing a Creative Loafing on my lunch break, which ultimately leads to scribbling through the crossword for half an hour.

Imagine for a minute, living in a world void of wireless routers and even color television. No gps', ipods or, dare I say it, cell phones. That was as short a time ago as the 40's. Long before that, people received mail from the Pony Express and towns were small. Headline news probably went something along the line of "Outlaw Brawl at Local Saloon Leads to Shootout" and word of mouth was most typically a communities primary source of information. There was no texting a friend across the country at the first thought of a shared memory and the response being within the next minute. You couldn't google directions to the nearest Dairy Queen after watching a commercial for an all too appetizing Blizzard from wherever you happen to be in the world, much less from the palm of your hand. No dishwashers or dryers. No cars.

I'll let you in on a little secret...

people actually lived like this.