organic food, Parker Posey, and commodity fetishism

Yesterday was the midterm for the film appreciation class, and as I lurked and prowled up and down the aisles of the giant lecture hall I made a startling discovery – one of the students looked like Parker Posey:

Yes, please.

One of the things about being a TA in a large class is that you barely have an opportunity to get to know your own students, much less those in other sections. In this case, however, the lack of contact is a good thing because there are only two possible outcomes of having such a student in my section:

1) The student's personality and affect would be like that of Parker Posey, in which case I would be overcome by uncontrollable feelings of lust and fascination.

2) The student's personality and affect would be unlike that of Parker Posey, in which case I would be terribly disappointed.

Disappointment and lust are beside the point.

The point is that after class I hung out with the professor who teaches it. Over the couple of years we've known each other, a friendship has grown between us that exceeds the realm of academia. So, we went back to his office and somehow the conversation turned to organic foods.

Apparently, he and his wife are members of the same farm co-op as my yin and I, and they had gone the previous weekend to the annual open house, which allows members to see how the farm operates, walk around the fields, and pick itty-bitty tomatoes. It isn't a wholly organic farm, and this was the point my friend and I found most interesting: from where does the mystical allure of organic food derive?

This dead German had some thoughts on this.

The whole "organic" food trend has bothered me for years, primarily because it seems to be more of a marketing ploy than anything else. During my conversation Monday night, however, I came to a clearer understanding. Marx had this notion of the commodity fetish, which is essentially the objectification of a relationship or process so that it can be sold on the market.

As far as I can see, the level of alienation (from our labor, from our selves, from our fellows) in our society has reached a point whereby we feel completely separated from the very food that gives us our sustenance and energy. The modern practice of industrial organic farming hinges upon this phenomenon.

As a society, we feel this disconnection from the plants that provide us with nourishment, but this is not a natural state of being for any organism. As a result, there is a demand to connect with the planet, and the market responds to this by a veritable cavalcade of products labeled "organic" and "natural." The sad irony, of course, is that by consuming these goods, we actually increase the distance between us and Mother Nature.

For example, an organic strawberry from California gets trucked across the country to Florida. Once it gets here, someone buys it, truly believing that he or she is acting in a responsible manner. But, inside this "organic" food there also lies all the karma it incurred in making that trip from one coast to the other. It takes tremendous resources to haul food back and forth, and yet our society tells us that we have the "right" to have whatever food we like, whenever we like it.

I fall victim to this tendency myself: Although I have yet to see a single blueberry bush in Florida, somehow they keep ending up in my yogurt.

North Carolina blueberry patch

The whole system is set up to hide these facts, and the imperative of Profit leaves farmers and consumers – even those with the most noble intentions – with little choice but to embrace the system.

To quote another student of Marx: What is to be done?

my best guess