Talk:Social alienation

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 27 August 2019 and 12 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Maxwellkane73.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 09:35, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Space aliens
The link from the rather abstract philosophical discussion at the beginning to the everyday use of the term "alienated" seemed a bit odd. None of the examples relate to aliens from space. However, the examples were useful so I have removed some wording and added a heading "everyday use of the term". Itsmejudith 15:00, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Lack of neutrality.
Qoute; "social alienation refers to the individual's estrangement from traditional community and others in general."

This means that social needs is measured exlusive by it's ability to re-confirm the worth of conservate culture. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.233.116.226 (talk) 03:37, 13 February 2007 (UTC).

It looks like it should be changed to "meaningful forms of community" to take away the connotation that community is based in tradition. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mikem1234 (talk • contribs) 18:57, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Lack of Content/Quality
This article has no sources, is heavily biased towards Marxist social theory, and links "The Catcher in the Rye." No discussion is raised concerning the psychological aspects of alienation, and the overall tone of the article when discussing society is petty and pessimistic. The article's quality is low compared to the other social and psychological articles on Wikipedia. This is not a first-year Sociology course. jdyachimec 1:03, 21 October 2007.

Marx and the situation in the 1800's and 1900's but no information about the current situation of alienation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.41.105.100 (talk) 08:30, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

The definition is inaccurate
atomism of modern society means that individuals have shallower relations with other people than they would normally. Not correct. What does “ normally” refer to, what are “normal” social relations, and by what the “normality” of social relations is defined? Atomistic social structure isn't “abnormal” it simply exists. The social relations in an atomistic social structure are not “shallower” but weaker, more sporadic, momentary, contractual and  more formal, than in a traditional society.

This, it is argued, leads to difficulties in understanding and adapting to each other's uniqueness On the contrary. In an “atomistic” society people are “allowed” to be more unique, and to demonstrate their individual traits and habits in a bolder manner since they are not subdued to a coherent set of behavioral norms. The social structure, simply, does not have the power to impose on individuals a set of restricting  norms and values  of behavior. Therefore there is no defined and clear guideline to conform to, therefore, “uniqueness” (whatever it may mean) is not viewed as an irregular conduct of behavior that one should strive to understand and accept. Please note: 1. The writer of this segment did not explain this part (i.e. why do individuals have difficulties in adapting to each other), basically because it is wrong and therefore inexplicable. 2. the writer refers the reader to the Wiki definition of “ Normlessness”, which is a term  driven from what I have just explained.

I suggest using the proper sociological term “individuality” instead of  “uniqueness” --Cautious Pedestrian (talk) 03:57, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Diferent kinds of alienation
There are likely many different kinds of alienation, which tend to correspond to every different branch of sociology (see List of sociology topics). There is linguistic alienation, when speakers of a different language tend to feel alienated, religious alienation, which has already been described by Marx, age alienation, when people are older or younger, sexual alienation, described by Freud, etc. These sub-branches of alienation ought to described more by using accurate resources. ADM (talk) 19:40, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Peter Bergers Alienation
I found a slightly different definition of alienation in Peter L. Bergers "The sacred canopy - elements of a sociological theory of religion":

"Put differently, alienation is the process whereby the dialectical relationship between the individual and his world is lost to consciousness. The individual 'forgets' that this world was and continues to be co-produced by him. Alienated consciousness is undialectical consciousness. The essential difference between the socio-cultural world and the world of nature is obscured-namely, the difference that men have made the first, but not the second (6). Inasmuch as alienated consciousness is based on this fallacy, it is a false consciousness (7)" (p. 85, paragraph 3)

I find the parts that I marked bold as the important effect of social alienation.

--217.216.59.41 (talk) 10:34, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

André Gorz, Albert Camus and Theodor Adorno, among others
Added on behalf on an unregistered user:

This is unclear, can it be explained? "André Gorz, Albert Camus and Theodor Adorno, among others" what? - 75.18.212.90

--GD 6041 (talk) 05:28, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Headings
I'm going to make a change so it doesn't as directly revolve around Seeman's publication, but rather around proposed aspects of alienation (guided for now by his classification though) - so easier then to cover other aspects/views on it. Eversync (talk) 14:44, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Incomprehensible
The first sentence of this article (see below) is incomprehensible. Where is the verb? What is Eric Fromm doing in it? Why is there a closing quotation mark but not an opening quotation mark? Please correct it.


 * Alienation, a sociological concept developed by several classical and contemporary theorists,[1] Eric Fromm, by a low degree of integration or common values and a high degree of distance or isolation between individuals, or between an individual and a group of people in a community or work environment."

Many thanks, 194.94.133.9 (talk) 08:14, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Negative & conservative
There is a sentence at the end of the "Normlessness" paragraph which seems to arbitrarily attribute a "negative" connotation to non-conservative attitudes:

"These choices are not necessarily "negative": Halman's study found that Europeans remain relatively conservative morally, even though the authority of the Church and other institutions has eroded."

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Aspects of capitalism?
Why is it placed in this template? davronov a.a.  13:04, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Neutrality(?) of war veterans section
I noticed that an IP added a tag disputing the neutrality of the "Among returning war veterans" section back in 2017. I'm not sure exactly what the IP took issue with, but in my opinion, the whole section should be removed. In the first paragraph, most of the content isn't clearly related to social alienation, and most of the content that is more pertinent is full of weasel words. The second paragraph is a bit more encyclopedic, but seems to have too narrow a focus to be a stand-alone section here. Maybe with some changes it could be moved to another article on the Vietnam War.

Just thought I should look for some feedback before I started editing. Clarinetguy097 (talk) 04:16, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Lead sentence: too many ors jammed into a nasty oar lock
I dislike the structure where the lead, definitional sentence largely consists of quoted material.

Social alienation is "a condition in social relationships reflected by a low degree of integration or common values and a high degree of distance or isolation between individuals, or between an individual and a group of people in a community or work environment".

This is not the only definition, by far.

Furthermore, it makes the lead sentence almost impossible to edit or revise, because you can't edit inside quoted material without damaging the authenticity of the quote.

What sucks about this particular quote is that the parse-tree is distinctly non-trivial, as you have to correctly bind the "and"s and all those "or"s, too. Nasty. &mdash; MaxEnt 20:13, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

My first repair effort:

Social alienation is "a condition in social relationships reflected by (1) a low degree of integration or common values and (2) a high degree of distance or isolation (2a) between individuals, or (2b) between an individual and a group of people in a community or work environment [enumeration added]".

But then I thought, "this is wrong".

My second repair effort:

Social alienation is "a condition in social relationships reflected by (1) a low degree of integration or common values and (2) a high degree of distance or isolation (3a) between individuals, or (3b) between an individual and a group of people in a community or work environment [enumeration added]".

The difference is whether "between" binds as a qualifier only to (2) or to both (1) and (2). My point exactly. &mdash; MaxEnt 20:23, 15 December 2020 (UTC)