A Reassessment of Alienation in Karl Marx

HE TWO CATEGORIES of usage of alienation in contemporary writing appear, according to Bell, to be associated with the ideas of "estrangement" and "reification." Fundamentally, "estrangement" in the current writing is seen as a socio-psychological condition in which the individual has a feeling of distance or separateness from community and society. He is or feels, Bell says, that he ".. . cannot belong. He is deracinated." 1 The other category, "reification," is philosophical in nature but has psychological overtones. For Bell this terms implies that the individual is treated as an object or thing and has, therefore, lost his identity he is depersonalized.2 One need not go far in contemporary social, literary, and political discourse to find numerous examples of writing which would fall into Bell's two categories or, at least, cut across them. In an excellent collection of excerpts from writing in this vein, the Josephsons provide a useful compilation of comment. One finds E. Fromm discussing complete alienation as insanity and proposing that man is helpless before the social forces he creates; P. Lasslett laments the loss of the family as a defense against loneliness; H. Swados describes the conditions of modern factory with the workers appearing as trapped animals; R. Maclver finds the leisure of modern industrial society being misused men do not have the cultivation and skill to enjoy leisure; Ernest van den Haag finds man so unhappy with himself that he must find an image to imitate in order to live with himself; C. W. Mills finds the conditions of mass society giving rise to lack of expression by individuals fewer people expressing opinions than receiving them --and correspondingly fewer opportunities for meaningful activities.3 Also, in the art forms one finds expression of alienation, particularly that aspect which suggests that man is separated from his intimates; this seems to be one of the main themes in what has come to be called the "theater of the absurd." Such expression is research of Sociology, Social Psychology, and Political Science.