Social alienation
In
sociology and
critical social theory,
alienation refers to the individual's estrangement from traditional community and others in general. It is considered by many that the
atomism of
modern society means that individuals have shallower relations with other people than they would in a traditional community. This, it is argued, leads to difficulties in understanding and adapting to each other's uniqueness (see
normlessness). This is sometimes also referred to as
commodification, emphasizing the compatibility of
capitalism with alienation (a common theme of the early work of
Karl Marx). Many sociologists of the late 19th/early 20th century were concerned about alienating effects of modernization. German sociologists
Georg Simmel and
Ferdinand Tönnies have written rather 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 family bonds in favor 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 individual-society relation, alienation means 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 is the inadequation of human
being or
mind 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, among others, in
Søren Kierkegaard,
Friedrich Nietzsche,
Martin Heidegger, and
Theodor Adorno.
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 term 'alienation' is frequently used in senses close to 'annoying', 'upsetting', or 'creating a distance from'.
It is possible that everyone experiences some form of alienation at least once in their lives. Some categories of people that have been considered as socially alienated include:
*Alien residents (i.e. with a different
nationality)
*Ethnic minorities
*Religious minorities
*Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered people
*
Poor or lower class people *
Taboo violators
*People with disabilities,
People with autism
