i hate your cat = Adorning the Opposition in Modernity
(and the Apotheosis of Hate)
Antonio L Rappa
National University of Singapore
Abstract
The more an emotion is concealed, the more it will
become fetishized; the more fetishized the emotion,
the greater its influence over the condition of the
human in question. This paper illustrates how the
apotheosis of hate is central to the human condition
in capitalist, late modernity with reference to a
narrative taken from the past. In 1789, the HMS Bounty
under the command of ruthless Naval Lieutenant and his
languorous but likeable Master’s Mate was anchored
deep in the Pacific for replenishment activities. In
the weeks that ensued, the intercourse between British
sailors and Pacific islanders would change the course
of their lives indelibly. The long sea journey to the
South Pacific and the exotic opportunities that
presented themselves led to changes that were to
remain the talk of the town in both polite society and
among the rabblement. Over the course of 11 years, the
three voyages of the Bounty bred searing envy and
seething hatred between the merciless Commander and
his crew. Why did hatred between two men have such
irreversible results? What does this tell us about the
human condition? In this paper, the concept of hate is
explored and treated as a critical motivator for
consumption ownership in modernity. When equated with
envy, hate creates an even greater desire for
capitalist goods and services. In this paper, Theodor
Adorno’s culture industry thesis is used to explain
hatred and how such an emotive and concealed passion
might be used to constitute part of the social good
rather than a social bad. The paper uses the analogy
of consumption as a form of ownership to explain the
symbolic importance of possession, dispossession, and
its neoMarxist aesthetics in terms of an American
classic mercantilist film, Mutiny on the Bounty. I
argue that the desire for capitalist power and the
trappings of an illusory and eternal paradise may be
extrapolated towards deepening our understanding of
the human condition in modernity.
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This paper was written for presentation at the American Political
Science Association 2006 Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA, August 31 -
September 3, Philadelphia Marriott.
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