Alienation

Richard Schacht

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317495734
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychologie
• Subtopic: Psychologie sociale

First published in 1970, original blurb:

'Alienation' is the catchword of our time. It has been applied to everything from the new politics to the anti-heroes of today's films. But what does it mean to say that someone is alienated? Is alienation a state of mind, or a relationship? If modern man is indeed alienated, is it from his work, his government, his society, or himself – or from all of these?

Richard Schacht, in this intelligent analysis, gets to the root of these questions. Examining the concept of alienation in the works of Hegel and Marx, he gives a clear account of the origins of the modern usage of the term. Among the many insights to be gained from this analysis is a clear understanding of Hegel's influence on Marx in this most crucial area. Mr Schacht goes on to discuss the concept of alienation in recent philosophical and sociological literature, particularly in the writings of Erich Fromm. Here he finds a great deal of confusion, which has resulted in a series of almost universally unquestioned misconceptions.

This, then, is a book for all of us who use – and mis-use – the term 'alienation', and who are interested in the concepts it brings to mind. The arguments of Professor Walter Kaufmann's introductory essay provide a useful background for Mr Schacht's analysis. In this essay, Professor Kaufmann states that 'henceforth nobody should write about alienation without first reading Schacht's book.'

1
The Linguistic and Intellectual Background

Traditional uses of "Alienation" and Entfremdung

The English term "alienation," as well as its French and German equivalents, alienation and Entfremdung, have traditionally had a number of uses. These uses were well established long be fore Hegel and Marx. The term Entfremdung occurs in Middle High German literature, and "alienation" goes back through Mid dle English and Old French to classical Latin. The terms still retain some of their original uses; in fact, all of their standard uses mentioned in recent dictionaries derive from them.

I. The Term "Alienation"

The Latin origin of "alienation"¹ is alienatio. This noun derives its meaning from the verb alienare (to make something another's, to take away, remove). Alienare, in tum, derives from alienus (belonging or pertaining to another). And alienus derives ultimately from alius (meaning "other" as an adjective, or "another" as a noun). (17)

Alienation as Transfer of Ownership

One of the principal Latin uses of alienare (and alienatio) is in connection with property. In this context alienare means, "to transfer the ownership of something to another person." To do so is to cause something quite literally to come to "belong to another"; hence the appropriateness of derivatives of alienus. Similarly, in Middle English, one could "alien away" something one owned, such as lands or a house. Thus in the fifteenth century a man could be ordered to "make no alienation of no parcel of land."²

The terms "alienate" and "alienation" still have this meaning today, as recent dictionaries attest. Some form of compensation for the transfer may or may not be involved; the term covers the transaction in either case. It only applies, however, if the transfer is effected "by the act of the owner." And it is appropriate only in those cases in which possession of that which is transferred is institutionally acknowledged (e.g., in the form of a title or deed). As in Middle English, this use of the term occurs primarily in legal contexts. When it does occur elsewhere, it is usually in dis cussions of economics.

Alienation as Mental Disorder

A second traditional use of "alienation" also goes back to Middle English, and also has its roots in Latin usage. In Latin one can speak of alienatio mentis, or simply alienatio, in connection with the state of unconsciousness, and the paralysis or loss of one's mental powers or senses-as, for instance, in an epileptic seizure, or as the result of a severe shock. In Middle English "alienation" was used in the same general connection. In the fifteenth century it could be said of someone that he was "aliened of mind or understanding," or "aliened and turned from reason." (20) The editors of the Middle English Dictionary suggest that this use of the term was from the beginning a technical "medical" one. Like the "legal" one, it too continues to be a standard-if infrequently encountered-use in current English; although now this use is designated as special to "psychiatry," rather than simply to "medicine."³

Alienation as Interpersonal Estrangement

A third standard use of "alienate" and "alienation" -which is the only one that can in any sense be called "ordinary"-also derives from Latin usage. The verb alienare can mean, "to cause a warm relationship with another to cool; to cause a separation to occur; to make oneself disliked." And alienatio can refer either to this process or to the resulting condition. (17) These Latin terms are applicable in ordinary interpersonal contexts. In Middle English, however, the derivative use of "alien" and "alienation" was confined primarily to theological contexts. In fact, it is specifically identified by the editors of the Middle English Dictionary as "chiefly theological." Illustrations contain references to being "aliened from God," and to "alienation and parting between God and man." (20)

In subsequent centuries the terms ceased to have a peculiarly or even characteristically theological employment. The first volume of the Oxford English Dictionary (21), published in 1888, gives the verbs "alien" and "alienate" the following, quite general definition: "To convert into an alien or stranger.... To turn away in feelings or affection, to make averse or hostile, or unwelcome." One indicated employment of the terms in this sense is in an ordinary interpersonal context: A person could "alien" or "alienate" another who initially felt close to him. The terms could also be employed in the last century in other than interpersonal contexts. Among the illustrations given in the O.E.D., one finds references to "subjects aliened from their duty," and to the increasing "alienation from the act of worship." In these cases there is a "turning away of feelings"; only it is something nonpersonal to which one ceases to feel attached or becomes ill-disposed.

In the first half of the present century the terms apparently ceased to be employed in such nonpersonal contexts, and came to be associated primarily with the cooling of personal relationships. In recent dictionaries "alienation" in this general sense is defined simply in terms of "making indifferent or unfriendly" or the "estrangement of the affections"; and these are terms which have their primary if not sole employment in connection with such relationships. Of course, one continues to hear the term used in connection with the less than truly "personal" relationships between people and their leaders and political parties. (It is often said, for example, that the Purges of the Thirties "alienated" many Western Communists from the Party.) But these may more accurately be considered attenuated forms of interpersonal relationships than fundamentally different phenomena. One who governs may be remote, but he is still a person. And parties are made up of people, and are capable of sustaining quasi-personal relationships in a way in which "duty" and "the act of worship" are not.

It should be observed that this type of alienation comprehends two distinguishable degrees of coolness in such relationships. A person may be said to have "alienated" another, or to have "alienated himself from" another, if he has done something to inspire feelings of antagonism or hostility in someone who formerly felt a positive attachment to him. This is perhaps the more common and obvious case. But he may also be said to have done so if he has simply caused the other's formerly positive feelings toward him to give way to indifference. The other may never be roused to hostility, but may one day simply realize that the person no longer means anything to him. It is equally appropriate to speak of "alienation" in this case.

A different sort of loss of intimacy can occur quite independently of untoward behavior of any sort, simply as a result of one of the former intimates undergoing a change of some sort. Long separation, for example, can transform people who once were close into strangers who feel they no longer know each other. They need not feel any antagonism toward each other; the bonds which once united them simply cease to exist. Indeed, they may regret the transformation bitterly, all the more so because they find themselves unable to regain their lost intimacy. The term "alienation" finds one of its most common contemporary applications in this context.

II. The Term Entfremdung

As in the case of the term "alienation" in English, the German term Entfremdung has been in use since the late Middle Ages. In the Grimms' Wörterbuch (8)⁴ the meaning of entfremden is given as: "fremd machen, berauben, nehmen, entledigen"; that is: "to make alien, to rob, to take, to strip of." The German fremd is much like the Latin alienus and the English "alien," meaning: "belonging or pertaining to another." Fremd originally was used to refer to things literally foreign; but it very early came to be applied in connection with virtually any kind of strangeness or otherness. The literal meanings of the German Entfremdung and the English "alienation"-"to make fremd" and "to make alien" -are therefore very similar.

Like "alienation" in Middle English, Entfremdung also has an application in connection with property in Middle High German. However, the application is a quite different one. The "making alien" involved is not to be conceived in terms of the lawful transfer of ownership, but rather in terms of the activities subsequently listed by the Grimms: robbing, taking, stripping of. In Middle High German, that which one "alienates" (entfremdet) is generally something belonging to someone else; and the "alienation" consists in taking or stealing it from him. Among the Grimms' illustrations is the statement that we "should not alienate or take away our neighbor's goods."

In later German usage, however, the term ceased to be used in this connection. And Entfremdung never has had a standard use in connection with the deliberate and institutionalized transfer of one's property to another, as "alienation" traditionally has had and continues to have in English. A different German term customarily has been used in this connection: Veräusserung. This is the term used by Hegel, for example, in his discussion of such transfer in his Philosophy of Right.

The term Entfremdung also had a Middle High German use somewhat similar to the English use of "alienation" in connection with mental disorder. The examples of it which the Grimms cite, however, suggest that it was used primarily in connection with unconsciousness and the temporary paralysis of the senses: e.g., "Their senses were empfrendet [sic], and they lay as if dead." Again, Betäubung—a daze, stupor, or coma-is characterized as a state "in which our soul is entfremdet from itself." One interesting survival of this use of the term Entfremdung in Hegel's time will be discussed below.⁵ Generally speaking, however, this use too seems to have disappeared by the nineteenth century.

Entfremdung could be used at least as early as the sixteenth century in connection with interpersonal estrangement; for it is so used by Luther in his translation of the New Testament.⁶ But it apparently was only in the nineteenth century that this use of the term began to have any noticeable currency. At any rate, Heyne, writing in 1890, remarks that this use has been "quite common since the beginning of the century"-thereby implying that it was not particularly common earlier. (14)

While this use of the term may have acquired some currency in the early nineteenth century, it cannot have been very great. For by the end of the century Entfremdung disappears altogether from German dictionaries. When it does reappear once again in very recent ones, however, its primary use is indicated once again to be in connection with interpersonal estrangement. And in this context, it functions in essentially the same way as does the English term "alienation."

This is the general linguistic background against which the special uses of "alienation" and Entfremdung, to be discussed in subsequent chapters, are to be viewed. Seeing them against this background helps one to understand how some of them have arisen; but it also makes clear how greatly many of them differ from traditional and standard uses.

Hegel's predecessors and contemporaries

An examination of the uses of "alienation" and Entfremdung in philosophy and theology prior to Hegel's use of the latter in his Phenomenology of Spirit will show that he was the first to use the term systematically in anything like the special ways in which it is used today. But it will also show that he did not write in a vacuum; and by indicating the various themes and strands of usage he brought together in his discussion, we can more clearly understand what Hegel meant by the term.

I. Alienation in Earlier Theology

Lewis Feuer asserts that Hegel "imbibed the concept of alienation from pessimist Protestant theology." (6, 117) This view is questionable. The sense of the term most characteristically associated with earlier theology-basically, that of interpersonal estrangement-is not unique to theology. The only difference in its theological use is in its application: Instead of being used in connection with the estrangement of one person from another, it is usually used in connection with the estrangement of a person from God.

The term occurs in the Bible, in Ephesians 4:18. Paul, speaking of the Gentiles, says (reading with the Revised Standard Version): "They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart."⁷ The sense of "alienated from" in this passage is quite clearly that of being separated or cut off from the life of God.

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