Commodity exchange reduces difference to identity through endless novelty

Evidence

Benjamin called novelty, ‘a quality which does not depend on the use-value of the commodity’, ‘the quintessence of false consciousness, of which fashion is the tireless agent. This illusion of novelty is reflected, like one mirror in another, in the illusion of infinite sameness.’ The exchange of commodities reduces difference to identity, as the passage of time demotes each ‘innovation’ to merely one item in an endless sequence by virtue of the fact that it is no longer the ‘latest’ - an observation which, though formulated with respect to nineteenth-century Paris, retains all its relevance to a culture dominated by what Harold Rosenberg called ‘the tradition of the new’. — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 548

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Jameson’s own reading of novelty and pastiche in Postmodernism, and to Adorno’s critique of the culture industry elsewhere in this book. — connects to: Mass-produced culture reduces individuality to a stamped counterfeit detail — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 117; The demand for novelty paradoxically strengthens the conventions it appears to escape — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 100; Attention-economy identity requires continuously producing new content to prevent being replaced by one’s double — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror…, 133 (+10 more)

Broader Connections

• Money erases qualitative distinctions by reducing everything to quantity #exemplifies (0.80) — Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 9785
• Cultural stasis is constant novelty without ordered sequential change #expands (0.80) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 18
• Attention-economy identity requires continuously producing new content to prevent being replaced by one’s double #expands (0.78) — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 133
• Exchange of labor-power injects novelty into circulation while system stasis persists #qualifies (0.75) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1553
• Money economy reduces persons to quantitative exchange value #exemplifies (0.75) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 750
• Familiarity reduces experienced world complexity until another self disrupts it #qualifies (0.72) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 135