...But, does commodification really mean the necessary reification of an identity, or is it more complex than that? Do identities formed in a capitalist moment change when they are "co-opted?" If so, how?

I think that, in essence, Bike Snob’s post reproduces a conservative and inherently Romantic notion of identity that depends very much upon a notion of purity, and upon the notion of the degenerative force of capitalism. It’s understandable, to a degree. The Romantic notion of the corrupting influence of bourgeois capitalism is as old as, well, bourgeois capitalism, as is the Romantic notion of a pure and unadulterated cultural existence that pertained before the advent of bourgeois capitalism.

All this is not to defend capitalism or capitalist exploitation. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. My point is to suggest that people like Bike Snob can’t conceive of capitalism as a totality, and thus they miss the extent to which it is a force on all forms of practice, including identity formation. They still think there are realms of cultural “purity” that exist outside the structures of capitalism, and so it’s only when Nike, say, decides to jump on the fixed-gear bandwagon that the fixed-gear scene becomes compromised.

Yes, companies seek to exploit pre-existing groups and identities. It’s so easy for Nike to sell windbreakers to an exiting “market.” Just learn the cultural codes and shared signs of the “group” and build a marketing approach out of that material. Yes, it’s problematic. But does it mean that a group or an identity or a scene are hopelessly corrupted? Rubbish. The fixed-gear “scene,” to the extent that there even is one coherent scene, is born of capitalism. It’s inherently bound up in the relations of production that has cheap frames made from from Indian steel by migrant workers in Taiwanese factories shipped across the Pacific on Nigerian registered freighters crewed by Indonesian sailors, unloaded by Polish dockers in the United States and bought by kids in SoCal from the "local” bike shop that is financed by a small business loan from a Swiss bank. It’s a totality. We exist within it, and to some degree it shapes (though it doesn’t define) our habitus, our opportunities for action.

It seems to me that Bike Snob is a hopeless Romantic, longing for the days of Rousseauian purity, all the while seeing capitalism as something “out there,” something alien. That’s why he uses the word “appropriation” so much, as if things, practices, identities, groups exist beyond capital first, and are only later appropriated by it and thus rendered invalid. Well, I’ve news for you, capitalism is corrupting, but it touches everything, and identities must be formed from within its totality. Maybe those identities are not as explicitly revolutionary as we might like them to be, maybe they’re inherently reactionary, but the point is, they don’t start outside the realm of capital and then get co-opted. They are formed inside the realm of capital. But, even though they are formed inside that realm doesn't mean that they won't or can't seek to move beyond it. An identity or a group or a practice is never one or the other, it’s never outside capital and pure, or inside capital and corrupted. It’s always, to some extent, both.

For a theorist like deCerteau, even just walking around the city could be an expression of liberty against the tyranny of the scopic gaze, so why not fixed-gear bikes? Maybe even if the riders are wearing Nike?

- posted by vcmc @  3/11/2009 07:10:00 PM