User:Keyohful/sandbox

Feedback
--User:LuluThrower Good job, I'm not sure but I think that you have to have a refference after each fact, even if the whole paragragh is from the same refference?? --Djjr (talk) 16:14, 31 October 2011 (UTC) Great start. Interesting material.

--Djjr (talk) 17:59, 28 October 2011 (UTC) Any progress? I would start by looking up the term in an Encyclopedia of Sociology/Social Science or two. Several in Mills library; here's an electronic one available through Mills. Read a few of these and make a list of the main variants/sources for this concept. As the current draft of the article says, it's a rather multi-vocal term. The article might be improved by having a solid list of the senses in which the word has been used in sociology.

Named Issues (Font Page + Talk Page)
On the Front Page (Below are specifics from the talk page)
 * 1) This article does not have enough citations--outright needs more sources for the credibility of information presented.
 * 2) Listed as needing cleanup:
 * It originally included a small reference to the word "alien;" not in the foreign sense, but in the "space alien"/non-earthly-being definition of the word. >> Essentially a seemingly very unrelated link to the overall article of "social alienation."
 * The page's neutrality is called in to question.
 * The definition of "atomism" is refuted; the person leaving the comment also suggests the use of a more appropriate sociological term of "individuality" over the chosen "uniqueness."
 * Points out that there many types and variations of alienation which may be housed under different branches of sociology; there is also another definition of social alienation presented by Peter L. Berger.
 * There is a request for clarity about the line "André Gorz, Albert Camus and Theodor Adorno, among others."

Current Article Composition (Outline)

 * 1) Introduction (220 words)
 * 2) History (832 words total)
 * Marx's theory of alienation (405 words)
 * Late 1800s-1900s (427 words)
 * 1) Seeman (668 words total)
 * Powerlessness (197 words)
 * Meaninglessness (124 words)
 * Normlessness (141 words)
 * Social isolation (85 words)
 * Self-estrangement (32 words)
 * 1) After Seeman (848 words total)
 * Post-modern powerlessness (112 words)
 * Post-modern meaninglessness (102 words)
 * Post-modern normlessness (201 words)
 * Post-modern social isolation (149 words)
 * Post-modern self-estrangement (162 words)
 * 1) Social Alienation and Psychology (612 words)
 * Refers to four different people and their interpretations and findings regarding the term "alienation:"
 * Frantz Fanon("psychiatrist/philosopher/revolutionary/writer) - Alienation results in mental disorders in indviduals due to objectification and lack of autonomy in colonized, Third-World countries (focus on Africans)
 * R.D. Liang("psychiatrist) - Alienation results mental disorders due to "neglect and distance from an individual's self-experience and self-identity, and by a lack of autonomy in interpersonal relations." Describes the cause of mental illness as "ontological insecurity" and its four components of engulfment, implosion, petrification, and depersonalization.
 * Ian Parker(psychologist) - Alienation is a potential process through which people can "emancipate" themselves; however, it also "reproduces existing conditions."
 * Slajov Zizek(philosopher) - Alienation is a result of the capitalist society's influence on individuals to "enjoy!" and become estranged from themselves, meaning that they are unable to recognize alienation, which in itself is a form of alienation.


 * 1) Sources
 * 2) References

Intro
The term alienation has many discipline-specific uses, and Roberts (1987: 346) notes how even within the social sciences it “is used to refer both to a personal psychological state and to a type of social relationship”. Kalekin-Fishman (1996: 97) believes “The term alienation refers to objective conditions, to subjective feelings, and to orientations that discourage participation”, and remarks that, “In modern sociology [...] alienation is a term which refers to the distancing of people from experiencing a crystallized totality both in the social world and in the self” (Kalekin-Fishman, 1998: 6).

In sociology and critical social theory, alienation refers to an individual's estrangement from traditional community or others in general (social isolation), the dominant values of society (normlessness), or even themselves (self-estrangement), but in general the term implies a lack of identification between a person (or what he considers himself to be) and another entity. According to Kenneth Keniston, author of The Uncommitted: Alienated Youth in American Society, "Most usages of 'alienation' share the assumption that some relationship or connection that once existed, that is 'natural,' desirable, or good, has been lost." (Keniston, 1965: 452). It was first the writings of Karl Marx in the 19th century and later the works of particularly Melvin Seeman that popularized the concept in sociology, along with Emile Durkheim's anomie. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, it is particularly the works of Felix Geyer, Lauren Langman and Devorah Kalekin-Fishman that address the issue of alienation in the contemporary western world, while Burgert Senekal has studied its manifestation in literature with his literature-theoretical study, "Alienation in contemporary British fiction" (Senekal, 2008:6).

Conflicts/Criticisms of the Term "Alienation"
The term alienation is most often criticized for its lack of precision due to the multiple types of estrangement it represents.(Zablocki,1980:8). Walter Kaufmann notes in his introductory essay to Richard Schacht's Alientation, that "in spite of the term's great populatarity, however, few people have a very clear idea of precisely what it means...the vague ideas people do have often differ significantly" (Schacter 1970: lx).

Marx's theory of alienation
Marx articulated his theory of alienation most clearly in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts (1844) and The German Ideology (1846). Marx identifies four aspects of alienation: Economic and Social Alienation, Political Alienation, Human Alienation, and Ideological Alienation (Axelos, 1976).

In the concept's most prominent use, it refers to the economic and social alienation aspect in which workers are disconnected from what they produce and why they produce. Marx believed that alienation is a systematic result of capitalism. Essentially, there is an “exploitation of men by men” where the division of labor creates an economic hierarchy (Axelos, 1976: 58). His theory of alienation was based upon his observation that in emerging industrial production under capitalism, workers inevitably lose control of their lives and selves by not having any control of their work. Workers never become autonomous, self-realized human beings in any significant sense, except in the way the bourgeoisie wants the worker to be realized. . His theory relies on Feuerbach's The Essence of Christianity (1841), which argues that the idea of God has alienated the characteristics of the human being. Stirner would take the analysis further in The Ego and Its Own (1844), declaring that even 'humanity' is an alienating ideal for the individual, to which Marx and Engels responded in The German Ideology (1845). Alienation in capitalist societies occurs because in work each contributes to the common wealth; they can only express this fundamentally-social aspect of individuality through a production system that is not publicly-social but privately-owned—for which each individual functions as an instrument, not as a social being. Kostas Axelos writes in his book "Alienation, Praxis, and Techni in the Thought of Karl Marx" that according to Marx, "If the essence of man lies in his whole social activity, as practical realizing action, the worker is from the start an alientated being, doing nothing but work, and work for others." Additionally, Axelos summarizes that for Marx, "work renders man an alien to himself and to his own products."

The idea of Political Alienation refers to the idea that “politics is the form that organizes the productive forces of the economy” in a way that is alienating because it “distorts the logic of economic development” (Axelos, 1976: 87)

For Human Alienation, individuals become estranged to his or her self in the quest to stay alive, where “they lose their true existence in the struggle for subsistence” (Axelos, 1976: 111). Marx focuses on two aspects of human nature which he calls “historical conditions.” The first aspect refers to the necessity of food, clothes, shelter, and more. Secondly, Marx believes that after satisfying these basic needs people have the tendency to develop more “needs” or desires that they will work towards satisfying, hence, humans become stuck in a cycle of never ending wants which makes them strangers to themselves. (Axelos, 1976: 113).

When referring to ideological alienation, Axelos proposes that Marx believes that all religions divert people away from “their true happiness” and instead turn them towards “illusory happiness” (Axelos, 1976: 161-162)

There is a commonly noted problem of translation in grappling with ideas of alienation derived from German-language philosophical texts: the word alienation, and similar words such as estrangement, are often used to translate two quite distinct German words, Entfremdung and Entäußerung, interchangeably.

The Article
The term alienation has many discipline-specific uses, and Roberts (1987: 346) notes how even within the social sciences it “is used to refer both to a personal psychological state and to a type of social relationship”. Kalekin-Fishman (1996: 97) believes “The term alienation refers to objective conditions, to subjective feelings, and to orientations that discourage participation”, and remarks that, “In modern sociology [...] alienation is a term which refers to the distancing of people from experiencing a crystallized totality both in the social world and in the self” (Kalekin-Fishman, 1998: 6).

In sociology and critical social theory, alienation refers to an individual's estrangement from traditional community or others in general (social isolation), the dominant values of society (normlessness), or even themselves (self-estrangement), but in general the term implies a lack of identification between a person (or what he considers himself to be) and another entity. It was first the writings of Karl Marx in the 19th century and later the works of particularly Melvin Seeman that popularized the concept in sociology, along with Emile Durkheim's anomie. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, it is particularly the works of Felix Geyer, Lauren Langman and Devorah Kalekin-Fishman that address the issue of alienation in the contemporary western world, while Burgert Senekal has studied its manifestation in literature and popular music.

Marx's theory of alienation
""The ultimate and most important revolutionary aspiration: to see human beings liberated from their alienation... The individual will reach total consciousness as a social being, which is equivalent to the full realization as a human creature, once the chains of alienation are broken. This will be translated concretely into the reconquering of one's true nature through liberated labor, and the expression of one's own human condition through culture and art.""

- Che Guevara, Marxist revolutionary

Marx articulated his theory of alienation most clearly in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 and The German Ideology (1846). Marx identifies three aspects of alienation, namely private property, the commodity character of labour, and the division of labour in society (Ekerwald, 1998: 17). In the concept's most prominent use, it refers to the alienation of people from aspects of their "human nature" (Gattungswesen, usually translated as 'species-essence' or 'species-being'). Marx believed that alienation is a systematic result of capitalism. His theory relies on Feuerbach's The Essence of Christianity (1841), which argues that the idea of God has alienated the characteristics of the human being. Stirner would take the analysis further in The Ego and Its Own (1844), declaring that even 'humanity' is an alienating ideal for the individual, to which Marx and Engels responded in The German Ideology (1845).

Marx's Theory of Alienation is based upon his observation that in emerging industrial production under capitalism, workers inevitably lose control of their lives and selves, in not having any control of their work. Workers never become autonomous, self-realized human beings in any significant sense, except the way the bourgeois want the worker to be realized. Alienation in capitalist societies occurs because in work each contributes to the common wealth, but can only express this fundamentally social aspect of individuality through a production system that is not publicly social, but privately owned, for which each individual functions as an instrument, not as a social being.

There is a commonly noted problem of translation in grappling with ideas of alienation derived from German-language philosophical texts: the word alienation, and similar words such as estrangement, are often used to translate two quite distinct German words, Entfremdung and Entäußerung, interchangeably.

Late 1800s-1900s
Many sociologists of the late 19th and early 20th century were concerned about alienating effects of modernization. German sociologists Georg Simmel and Ferdinand Tönnies wrote critical works on individualization and urbanization. Simmel's "Philosophie des Geldes" ("Philosophy of Money") describes how relationships become more and more mediated through money. Tönnies' "Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft" ("Community and Society") is about the loss of primary relationships such as familial bonds in favour of goal oriented secondary relationships. This idea of alienation can be observed in some other contexts, although the term may not be as frequently used. In the context of an individual's relations within society, alienation can mean the unresponsiveness of the society as a whole to the individuality of each member of the society. When collective decisions are made, it is usually impossible for the unique needs of each person to be taken into account. This form of alienation was criticized by many of the Young Hegelians.

In a broader philosophical context, especially in existentialism and phenomenology, alienation describes the inadequacy of human being or mind in relation to the world. The human mind, as the subject of perception, relates to the world as an object of its perception, and so is distanced from the world rather than living within it. This line of thought can be found in Søren Kierkegaard, who examined the emotions and feelings of individuals when faced with life choices. Many 20th-century philosophers, both theistic and atheistic, and theologians drew many concepts from Kierkegaard, including the notions of angst, despair, and the importance of the individual. Martin Heidegger's concepts of anxiety (Angst) and mortality drew on Kierkegaard and are indebted to the way in which the latter lays out the importance of our subjective relation to truth, our existence in the face of death, the temporality of existence, and the importance of passionate affirmation of one's individual being-in-the-world.

Jean-Paul Sartre described the "thing-in-itself" which is infinite and overflowing, and claimed that any attempt to describe or understand the thing-in-itself is "reflective consciousness." Since there is no way for the reflective consciousness to subsume the pre-reflective, Sartre argued that all reflection is fated to a form of anxiety, i.e. the human condition. As well, Sartre argued that when a person tries to gain knowledge of the "Other" (meaning beings or objects that are not the self), their self consciousness has a "masochistic desire" to be limited, which is expressed metaphorically in the famous line of dialogue from the play No Exit, "Hell is other people."

Seeman
Melvin Seeman was part of the surge in alienation research prominent in the middle of the 20th century when he published his paper, On the Meaning of Alienation, in the American Sociological Review in 1959 (Senekal, 2010b: 7-8). Seeman used the insights of Marx, Durkheim and others to construct what is often considered a model of alienation consisting of five aspects: powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness, social isolation, and self-estrangement. Seeman later added a sixth element, cultural estrangement, although this element does not feature prominently in later discussions of Seeman's work.

Powerlessness
Powerlessness refers to “the expectancy or probability held by the individual that his own behaviour cannot determine the occurrence of the outcomes, or reinforcements, he seeks” (Seeman, 1959: 784). Seeman argues that this is “the notion of alienation as it originated in the Marxian view of the worker’s condition in capitalist society: the worker is alienated to the extent that the prerogative and means of decision are expropriated by the ruling entrepreneurs" (Ibid.). Put more succinctly, Kalekin-Fishman (1996: 97) says, “A person suffers from alienation in the form of ‘powerlessness’ when she is conscious of the gap between what she would like to do and what she feels capable of doing”. In discussing powerlessness, Seeman also incorporated the insights of the psychologist Julian Rotter, who distinguishes between internal control and external control, which “points to differences (among persons or situations) in the degree to which success or failure is attributable to external factors (e.g. luck, chance, or powerful others), as against success or failure that is seen as the outcome of one’s personal skills or characteristics” (Seeman, 1966: 355). Powerlessness is therefore the perception that the individual does not have the means to achieve his goals.

Meaninglessness
Meaninglessness refers to “the individual’s sense of understanding events in which he is engaged” (Seeman, 1959: 786). Seeman (1959: 786) writes that meaninglessness, “is characterized by a low expectancy that satisfactory predictions about the future outcomes of behaviour can be made. Put more simply, where the first meaning of alienation refers to the sensed ability to control outcomes, this second meaning refers essentially to the sensed ability to predict behavioural outcomes.” In this respect, meaninglessness is therefore closely tied to powerlessness, Seeman (Ibid.) argues, “the view that one lives in an intelligible world might be a prerequisite to expectancies for control; and the unintelligibility of complex affairs is presumably conducive to the development of high expectancies for external control (that is, high powerlessness)”.

Normlessness
Normlessness or what Durkheim referred to as anomie “denotes the situation in which the social norms regulating individual conduct have broken down or are no longer effective as rules for behaviour” (Seeman, 1959: 787). This aspect refers to the inability to identify with the dominant values of society, or rather with what are perceived to be the dominant values of society. Seeman (1959: 788) adds that this aspect can manifest in a particularly negative manner, “The anomic situation [...] may be defined as one in which there is a high expectancy that socially unapproved behaviours are required to achieve given goals”. This negative manifestation is dealt with in detail by Catherine Ross and John Mirowski in a series of publications on mistrust, powerlessness, normlessness and crime. See also Senekal's (2010b: 102-123) chapter on alienation in London Fields by Martin Amis.

Social isolation
Social isolation refers to “The feeling of being segregated from one’s community” (Kalekin-Fishman, 1996: 97). Neal & Collas (2000: 114) emphasize the centrality of social isolation in the modern world, “While social isolation is typically experienced as a form of personal stress, its sources are deeply embedded in the social organization of the modern world. With increased isolation and atomization, much of our daily interactions are with those who are strangers to us and with whom we lack any ongoing social relationships.”

Self-estrangement
Self-estrangement is “the psychological state of denying one’s own interests – of seeking out extrinsically satisfying, rather than intrinsically satisfying, activities [...]”(Kalekin-Fishman, 1996: 97). The following section discusses self-estrangement in more detail

After Seeman
After the boom in alienation research that characterized the 1950s and 1960s, interest in alienation research subsided (Geyer, 1996: xii), but was maintained by the Research Committee on Alienation of the International Sociological Association (ISA), a non-profit organization dedicated to scientific study in the field of sociology and social sciences. In the 1990s, there was again an upsurge of interest in alienation, prompted by the fall of the Soviet Union, globalization, the information explosion, increasing awareness of ethnic conflicts, and post-modernism (see Geyer, 1996). Geyer believes the growing complexity of the contemporary world together with post-modernism prompted a reinterpretation of alienation that suits the contemporary living environment, as illustrated in the following reinterpretations of Seeman's original five aspects of alienation:

Post-modern powerlessness
Geyer (1996: xxiii) remarks, “a new type of powerlessness has emerged, where the core problem is no longer being unfree but rather being unable to select from among an overchoice of alternatives for action, whose consequences one often cannot even fathom.” Geyer adapts cybernetics to alienation theory, and writes (1996: xxiv) that powerlessness is the result of delayed feedback, “The more complex one’s environment, the later one is confronted with the latent, and often unintended, consequences of one’s actions. Consequently, in view of this causality-obscuring time lag, both the ‘rewards’ and ‘punishments’ for one’s actions increasingly tend to be viewed as random, often with apathy and alienation as a result.”

Post-modern meaninglessness
Geyer (1996: xxiii) believes meaninglessness should be reinterpreted as well, "With the accelerating throughput of information [...] meaningless is not a matter anymore of whether one can assign meaning to incoming information, but of whether one can develop adequate new scanning mechanisms to gather the goal-relevant information one needs, as well as more efficient selection procedures to prevent being overburdened by the information one does not need, but is bombarded with on a regular basis." Information overload or the so-called data tsunami are well-known information problems confronting contemporary man, and Geyer thus argues that meaninglessness is turned on its head.

Post-modern normlessness
Neal & Collas (2000: 122) write, “Normlessness derives partly from conditions of complexity and conflict in which individuals become unclear about the composition and enforcement of social norms. Sudden and abrupt changes occur in life conditions, and the norms that usually operate may no longer seem adequate as guidelines for conduct”. This is a particular issue after the fall of the Soviet Union, mass migrations from developing to developed countries, and the general sense of disillusionment that characterized the 1990s (Senekal, 2011). Traditional values that had already been questioned throughout especially the 1960s were met with further scepticism in the 1990s, resulting in a situation where individuals rely more often on their own judgement than on institutions of authority: "The individual not only has become more independent of the churches, but from other social institutions as well. The individual can make more personal choices in far more life situations than before” (Halman, 1998: 100). 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. See especially Langman's study of punk, porn, and resistance       (2008) and Senekal's (2011) study of Afrikaans extreme metal.

Post-modern social isolation
Since the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, migrants from Eastern Europe and the developing countries have flocked to developed countries in search of a better living standard. This has led to entire communities becoming uprooted: no longer fully part of their homelands, but neither integrated into their adopted communities. Diaspora literature depicts the plights of these migrants, such as Hafid Bouazza in Paravion. Senekal (2010b: 41) argues, "Low-income communities or religious minorities may feel separated from mainstream society, leading to backlashes such as the civil unrest that occurred in French cities in October 2005. The fact that the riots subsequently spread to Belgium, Denmark, Germany, The Netherlands, Spain, Greece, and Switzerland, illustrates that not only did these communities feel segregated from mainstream society, but also that they found a community in their isolation; they regarded themselves as kindred spirits."

Post-modern self-estrangement
Seeman (1959) recognized the problems inherent in constructing a definition of the 'self', but post-modernism in particular emphasized the difficulty of pin-pointing what precisely 'self' constitutes. Gergen (1996: 125) argues that the very concept of alienation should therefore be rethought, “the traditional view of self versus society is deeply problematic and should be replaced by a conception of the self as always already immersed in relatedness. On this account, the individual’s lament of ‘not belonging’ is partially a by-product of traditional discourses themselves”. If the self is relationally constituted, does it make sense to speak of self-estrangement rather than social isolation? Senekal (2010b) opted for an omission of self-estrangement in his discussion of alienation in contemporary British fiction, for this very reason. However, Costas and Fleming (2009: 354) note that although the concept of self-estrangement “has not weathered postmodern criticisms of essentialism and economic determinism well”, the concept still has value if a Lacanian reading of the self is adopted.

Social Alienation and Psychology
Since the 1960s, a number of psychologists, psychonalysts, and psychiatrists have taken an interest in the concept of alienation, including Frantz Fanon, R.D. Laing, Ian Parker, and Slavoj Zizek. Fanon studied the conditions of objectification and violent oppression (lack of autonomy) that led to mental disorders among the colonized in the Third World, in particular Africans. For Laing, alienation is characterized by neglect and distance from an individual's self-experience and self-identity, and by a lack of autonomy in interpersonal relations (see heteronomy). He argues that people who are diagnosed with disorders such as ADHD and schizophrenia are often suffering from a more sociological condition - ontological insecurity. Ontological insecurity has four elements: "engulfment" (the fear that others are trying to take away or absorb one's identity), "implosion" (the feeling of emptiness the correlates with the feeling that concrete reality itself is a threat to one's identity), "petrification" (terror leading to and dread of turning into a thing or object, see reification), and "depersonalization" (lack of responsiveness to others, as to oneself). All of these can result in the development of mental and behavioural disorders which may be healthy responses to unhealthy circumstances. For Parker, psychology itself normalizes conditions of social alienation. While it could help groups of individuals emancipate themselves, it serves the role of reproducing existing conditions. Slavoj Zizek, drawing on Herbert Marcuse, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Lacan's psychoanalysis, argues that in today's capitalist society, the individual is estranged from their self through the repressive injunction to "enjoy!" Such an injunction does not allow room for the recognition of alienation, and indeed, is itself an expression of alienation.

Social Alienation and Peer Identification: A Study of the Social Construction of Deafness

While almost all scholars of the deaf community acknowledge the role of shared experience in the development of that community, few have made it a focus of study. This paper is about the experiences which lead deaf people to seek interaction with each other, and the difficulties they have encountered with the "hearing world," including family, friends, and fellow employees.

Data were collected through in-depth interviews with twenty-five deaf adults. Interviews followed a life history approach, which included descriptions of family relationships, school and employment experiences, and community participation. Data were analyzed and coded for recurring themes. One theme emerged as dominant and consistent across all categories of life experience: the social rejection by, and alienation from the larger hearing community. Only when informants described interactions with deaf people did the theme of isolation give way to comments about participation and meaningful interaction. Further analysis suggested that informants turned to other deaf people in order to meet specific needs which were not met through interactions with hearing people. These include the need for "real" conversation, the search for information, the opportunity to develop close friendships, and a sense of "family."

It is suggested that through interaction deaf and hearing people create the social meaning of deafness. Historically, the dominant hearing culture has assigned deaf people to outsider social roles, and in response deaf people developed a shared understanding of these roles. Sometimes this understanding led them to challenge these interpretations. It also led them to create alternatives for themselves and other deaf people. The deaf community is one such alternative.

Human Organization Issue: 	 Volume 48, Number 3 / Fall 1989 Pages: 	 226 - 235 URL: 	Linking Options