Petroleum Fetishism

Historical and Conceptual Context

Fetishism originally described the attribution of mystical or supernatural powers to objects, particularly in religious or ritual contexts. In the industrial era, Marx adapted the term to critique how commodities acquire social “magic,” obscuring the labor and violence behind their creation. Petroleum fetishism extends this logic: oil is not merely energy or resource, but a symbol invested with myths of abundance, technological progress, and national destiny.

From the early oil booms to the rise of petro-states and the spread of mass consumer culture, oil has been imagined as a force of transformation—turning deserts into cities, creating fortunes overnight, and powering the machinery of the modern world. The aesthetics of oil—its sheen, color, viscosity—are celebrated in advertising, art, and ritual, transforming crude matter into a substance of aspiration.

Everyday Presence

Petroleum fetishism infuses everyday life, often unnoticed. Cars, plastics, cosmetics, and luxury goods are seen not only as useful but as extensions of identity and status. The “new car smell,” the gleam of fuel, and the tactile allure of synthetic materials become objects of longing and pride. Oil-rich lifestyles—fast cars, private jets, opulent fashion—are marketed as dreams to be desired, pursued, and consumed.

In popular culture, petroleum is eroticized: from glossy fashion shoots and music videos to the dark glamour of “black gold,” oil is imbued with sensuality and allure. This fetishism distracts from the environmental and social costs, masking exploitation beneath spectacle.

Social and Political Dimension

Petroleum fetishism shapes class, power, and geopolitics. Oil wealth is equated with modernity, influence, and legitimacy—nations and corporations vie for control, and elites display petro-wealth through architecture, art, and consumption. Political narratives glorify energy independence, while the true dependencies and inequalities created by oil economies are obscured.

At the same time, petroleum fetishism can function as ideology—making it difficult to question or resist the dominance of oil in society. Alternative energies, conservation, and critique are marginalized as unfashionable, even traitorous, compared to the seductive mythology of petroleum.

Philosophical Reflection

Philosophically, petroleum fetishism reveals the paradox of material desire: the very thing that powers dreams and progress is also the agent of destruction and alienation. The fetish invests oil with meanings beyond its substance—turning it into a symbol of vitality, sexual energy, and collective destiny. Yet this transformation hides the realities of extraction, pollution, and violence.

Petroleum fetishism asks: What are we really worshipping when we worship oil? Is the attraction to power and beauty inseparable from self-destruction? Can modernity escape the spell of its most intoxicating resource?

Hybrid Collapse Perspective

Within Hybrid Collapse, petroleum fetishism is ritualized and aestheticized: oil becomes a sacred substance, an object of sacrifice, and a marker of identity. Fashion, art, and biopolitical control are saturated with petro-symbolism—the goddess in black latex, the gleaming architecture, the ritual burning of oil as spectacle. The collective obsession with petroleum animates both submission and rebellion, offering beauty while accelerating decline.

In Hybrid Collapse, to recognize petroleum fetishism is to see through the glamor of modernity—unmasking the rituals, myths, and desires that keep society enthralled by the dark promise of oil.

In Hybrid Collapse, petroleum fetishism is the dark mirror of desire: a force that animates the spectacle of power, beauty, and catastrophe at the heart of the posthuman world.