the problem of human alienation sinari

7/28/2019 The Problem of Human Alienation Sinari

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International Phenomenological Society

The Problem of Human AlienationAuthor(s): Ramakant SinariReviewed work(s):Source: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Sep., 1970), pp. 123-130Published by: International Phenomenological SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2105986 .

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DISCUSSIONTHE PROBLEMOF HUMAN ALIENATION

The phenomenonof humanalienationhas today become so complexand multidimensionalhatany amountof analysis, romwhicheveraspectonecanthinkof, is inadequateo exactlytell us where o locateits causesand howto avoidits undesirable ffects.Alienation n its mostprimordialsenseis a religio-metaphysicaloncept nasmuchas it has originallygrownaround he belief that man'sbeingin the worldrepresentshis dehuman-izationand fall and salvation s the only panaceafor it. However,whatwas essentiallya raison d'tre for religionsand religiouspracticeslikeprayer,sacrifice,meditation,and devotion,became in course of time apsychologically nd sociopolitically ignificantphenomenon.Since man'srealization hat his life has a sociopoliticaldimension,and particularlysince the rise of the IndustrialRevolution,alienationhas been viewedmostlyas a state of experienceemerging n a personor groupfrom thefact of its beingmateriallyn conflictwith the restof the society.Indeed,in ancientChristianity,as in Judaism,Islam, Buddhismand Hinduism,the transcendentalaspirationsof mystict and prophets had a socialsetting,a conditioningmilieu, but what they experienced undamentallyis a separation romBeing or God. A prophetexperiencedalienationaslong as he lay derelictfrom the divine reality;he sought salvation,aunion with God because he knew intuitively that this alone woulddealienateandbringpeaceto him.

In the domain of religion and hence in its most primitive sensealienation s an experiencesharedby a few oversensitivendividuals, nwhich they undergoa period of compulsiveanxiety, uprootednessandmental suffering,and consequently ong for a state of harmony andspiritual alm. Both in Westernand Easterncultures his experiencehas* The ideas in this article have emerged out of intensive deliberations on 'TheAlienation of Moden Man" at the Fifth East-West Philosophers' Conference atthe University of Hawaii, to which the writer was a discussant. The Conference,

under the directorshipof Professor Abraham Kaplan, brought together thinkers indifferent areas of philosophical study. All references mentioned in this article areto papers read and discussed at the Conference meetings.123

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124 PHILOSOPHYNDPHENOMENOLOGICALESEARCHbeen the preconditionof "revelation," n inwardflash, a breakthroughto a new modeof life claimedto be totallyintegraland complete.Man'sonly objectiveof following a religious path is the attainmentof thisextramundanetateof being.It is to surpassthe worldlysituation, o beenlightenedabout the fact that one journeysthroughthe world like avagabond trandedawayfromone's truedestination.Now, like every conceptthat grows intensionallyas more and moreakin formsof experienceare broughtunderit, the conceptof alienationhas grown n its meaning-content.Apartfrom the alienationof religiouspersonalitiesand their followers who devoutly obey the ord of theirbygoneprophetsand awaitthe hourof release,man's alienatedconditiontoday seems to have unfathomablesubtleties. It results from variedexistentialparadoxes:a strangecombinationof falling-apart-from-the-totalityand hope of a union; an awarenessof social injustice,apathyofman towardsman,anda desirefor brotherhood; senseof insignificanceabouthumanrealityand a moral need for action;a profoundyearningfor, and at the same time a fear of, change;and, perhapsabove all, apeculiarstrugglebetween our inwardlyunfulfilledsearch and our outeractivitywarrantedby social demands.Even for a generaldescriptionofthe factorsinvolvedin these paradoxesone would be required o scannot only how differentindividualsor groups react to their milieu dif-ferently,.but also how the same individualor groupwould react to thesamemilieu withslightalterations n its value-concepts.For example, an Americanhippie who experiencesboredomin hisown society and alienateshimself by fleeing to Banaras (in India) topractice"transcendentalmeditation"mightfeel pangsof a differentkindof loneliness n a foreigncountry.Oxewould be an alienvis-A-visNature,when one is in need of scientificand technologicalhelp; on the otherhand,one would undergothe atrocitiesof industrializationwhen one isin dire need of expandingthe "innerspace" and enjoyingliberty andsilence. People who live far from their family and countryundergoaperiod of alienationphysicallyand emotionally;but the same peoplemight feel alienatedwhen at home, althoughon account of differentreasonsaltogether.An intellectualmightfeel alienatednot only from alaymanbut also from another ntellectualwho is more influential,morecreativeor moreconstructive.Even a saint,who has solvedthe problemof his separationrom God, would experiencea type of alienation f hefails to obtainfollowers.Wheninstancesof alienationare so multiplied n responseto specifichuman situationsany single definition of "alienation"appears to beinadequateand sweeping.Any attemptto nail down a commondenom-inator of different forms of alienation would involve introspective



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THE PROBLEM OF HUMAN ALIENATION 125analysis.and self-studiesof literateursand artists, saints and sinners,statesmenand social reformers,yogis, messiahs, and existentialists,andof innumerable lien individualsand groups. On the level of subjectiveexperience,alienation mplies a strange feeling of being in a situationwith which one is not in harmony.The sufferingand anguishof an alienspringsfrom the fact of his incongruousrelationshipwith his situation.Obviously,any endeavor,emotional or otherwise,to achieve a concordbetween oneself and one's milieu is an endeavortowardsdealienation.For the purposeof identifyingan alien, the following ypes of "alienation-situation"might be helpful:1) alienationof an individual rom an object or objectsto which he isattached;2) alienationof one from society 'in the event of one's belonging to aminority religious,ethnic, linguistic,occupational, tc. - in a placewhereaffairsare determinedby the majority;3) alienationof one who shows dissensionwith regard o the valuesandideals society standsfor; fromsuch a dissensionmight, mergeethicalrebels and social reformers;4) alienationof a personwho disapprovesof his self and thus experien-ces a peculiarsort of self-estrangement;his self-estrangementmight

occasionallygive rise to neuroses,but if properlymanipulatedby therationalcensor may producecreativegenius;5) alienationof one who in a highly industrialized nd technologicallyoriented society as in the U.S. graduallyceases to use one's body;more and more use of buttonsand switchesdeprivesone from thenaturalphysicaloperations;his eventuallycauses a rupturebetweenmanandNature;6) alienationof those who are uprooted romtheir culturalhabitat; hispeculiar ormof estrangementan be witnessed n all those countrieswhere,as a resultof prolongedWestern nfluence,people experienceisolationfrom theiroriginalethos;7) alienation f a personor of a classthatis exploited,or whoseinterestsare downtrodden,by another person or class; it is this form ofalienation hat figuresas the centralissue of Marx's,Engels's, andof all socialists' hinking.Indeed,the most pertinentquestionone can ask at this point is withregardto the forces, and their logic, that bring about the very fact of

alienation. f x is in a state of alienation,what are the factors that havedetermined his state? What has penetratedthroughx's original non-alienated tate?Further,what sort of measuresor therapywould put xin the desirabledealienatedsituation?And, perhaps la existentialism,couldwe say that it is the very essenceof man to experiencealienation,



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126 PHILOSOPHYNDPHENOMENOLOGICALESEARCHto be and not to be himselfat the same time, to feel a "lack"within, toperpetuallysurpass the given state, and thus to be "condemned" oestrangementrom himself?

According o Rollo May, "themost fittingviewpoint(towardsaliena-tion) seems to be that the myths and symbols by which man hascommunicatedwith himself and othershave brokendown."1 For May,we have a discursive,operationalmediumof communicationwhichdoesnot succeedin puttingacross "thingsof feeling."Hence May underlinesthe fact that while differentviewpoints,such as Marxist,religious,polit-ical, and so on, try to explicatethe experienceof an alien, a psychody-namic approach o this phenomenonwill have to concentrateon the verysubjectivity f the alien,e.g., his anxiety,apathy,uneasiness,andpossiblyhis proneness o violence.Behindthe alienationof man today, Matao Noda, Professorof Phil-osophy in Kyoto University,remarks,one finds "the decline of tradi-tional communityand the'predominanceof an urbansociety consistingof many overlappingassociations." To Noda, who thinks that anysociologicalview of alienationmust be embedded n a generalstudyof"moderncivilization" and specific studies of Western and Easternsocieties, industrialization,speedy urbanization,and the spread ofscienceand technology,havereleasedman fromthe old formsof "slaveryanddecadence"but thrownhim into a new form of the sameevil.Nathan Rotenstreich.he authorof famousHumanismn the Contem-poraryEra, saw two interdependent ut clearly distinguishable"fields"of alienation n all times of humanhistory:one, betweenthe personandhis life or bodilybeing andtwo, between he personandsocialinstitutions.One is alienated rom society,he says. when one "feels or believes" hatone cannot fulfil one's role as a social being. However this feeling orbelief, according o Rotenstreich, s eventuallyan externalaspect of a"driftn one'spersonal ife."3For Thome Fang, of the National TaiwanUniversity,an alien is theproductof "behavioralmaladjustment,ntellectualmisconception,emo-tional perversion,value-blindness, rustratedwish, disruptivemind, orschizophrenicsplit."4 By alluding to the ancient religious faith andpracticeshe pointsout that the problemof humanalienationwouldnothave arisen,and "this Conferencewould have been adjournedbeforewemet,"had "thefoundationof religioussacredness"been preserved.

1 Rollo May: The Psychodynamics of Alienation.2 Matao Noda: Alienation in Modern Society.3 Nathan Rotenstreich:Spontaneity and Alienation.4 Home Fang: The Alienation of Man in Religion, Philosophy and PhilosophicalAnthropology.



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THE PROBLEM OF HUMAN ALIENATION 127Alienation,accordingo Daya Krishnaof India,implies"anawarenessof the otherand a felt estrangementromit, accompaniedwith a feelingthat this ought not to be so." Like existentialists,Krishnais concerned

morewith portrayinghe cognitive-affectivemood of an alien than withdefining ts causalfactors.To be an alien,he remarked,s "theconditionof man, at least as we know him." Alienation"is woven into the verytextureof man."5Just as thereis no problemof alienationunlessone is awarethat onehas fallenout of something owardswhichone oughtto be harmoniouslyrelated, he experienceof alienations overcomeas soon as one indentifiesoneselfwiththe purposeandprocessof all existence.At least metaphysi-cally, this impossible eat seemsto have been attainedby all those whohave claimed "transcendentalnlightenment."And, rather negatively,thosewho take to drugsmightbe said to succeedin canceling heircon-nection with the objective world and thus attainingdealienation.Thestateof mindrealizedby the lattermethod,however, s hardlydistinguish-able from self-oblivion.On the other hand, alienationas an experiencedoes not pervadethe awarenessof an ordinaryman, that is, of one whois not inner-directedr "melancholic" nd who has reducedhimselfto afunction.Yet such a person,as Kierkegaardwouldexplain,can be madeconscious of the inherentlonelinesswithin him, and indeed within theentirehumansituation.It is thereforen respectof personssomewheren between he ordinaryandthe spiritually elf-integratedhat the phenomenonof alienationcanmake any sense. The alien perpetuallymoves along a passagebetweenan emotionalstate of forlornnessand a rational or imperative -should-belong-somewheretate. It is his reasonthat demands rom an alien thefinalityto his mood, constantlydisapprovesof his being separated romhis milieu, moulds and overrideshis emotion. The functioningof therational ever is, incidentally,a sign that the mental state the alien is inis temporary.In extreme neurotic subjects this lever lies put out offunction. Consequently,these subjects feel strandedaway from their"originalhome," their individuality, heir womb as it were. On thecontrary,so far as the lever operates, the alien is in a position toarticulate he subtletiesof his experiencethroughpoetry, paintingandotherformsof art, symbolism.mythology,;eligion,etc.Both psychologicallyand sociologically,one of the most useful dis-tinctions s between"sick"or wastefuland "healthy"or creativealiens.Sickaliensareadmittedly socialproblem.Whetherheyaremasochistic,or sadistic,or frigid and inactive, their inner ruptureseparatesthem

5 Daya Krishna:Alienation - Positive and Negative.



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128 PHILOSOPHYNDPHENOMENOLOGICALESEARCHfrom society and makesa dialoguebetweentheirrationalself and emo-tional self impossible.Of course,this is not to say that taken by them-selves they mightnot constitutespecificsystemsof consciousness.Whatis true is that they stay inaccessibleand unintelligible o the world of"'normals."Outside the sphere of psychopathology hey cease to behuman.It is the healthyor creativealiensthatform the smallestcluster n anysociety. Muchof the culturalcore of peoples,and of the entire mankindas such, is generatedby them. It is difficultto conceive a healthyprog-ressivecommunitywithoutthe presencein it of a groupof "overgrownselves,""outsiders,"who have alienatedthemselvesfrom the whole bythe very fact of their supernaturalnsight,extraordinaryenius,spiritualflashes, or reformativezeal. History would have been poor withoutSocrates,Christ,Moses,Buddha,Luther,Marx, Gandhi,who transcendedtheirfellowmen,madetheirown selves theirabode, and eventuallygavebirthto new values.As a matterof fact, every instanceof social, politicalor ethico-religious ransitionin the world indicatesthe presenceof acreativealien at its basis, a sort of "project"hat bringsabout the bendof history.Perhaps he worst formof alienationman has imposedupon himselfispolitical having its ramificationsboth within and without the lives ofindividualcountries.Due to an increasingpowermodem politicalstruc-tureswield, a citizen'slife is day in and day out subjected o authority,pressure,andat times coercion.Even in some of the best democraciesnthe world, like England, America, and India, the urban bureaucraticpatternalienatesthe rural inhabitantsby leaving them ever displeased,the entire machineryof the government,wedded to a certain politicalideology,holdsdown political ibertyof the individualand, at least in thetimes of crisis, issues ordersabout which intellectualsare left with norightto bargain.In a sense it becomesnecessary or the governmento concentrate nthe interestsof the majority,and to antagonize he minoritiesespeciallyin those circumstanceswherea compromises beyond reach. And evenwhen such an antagonisms absent,states are feebly viable in favor ofminorities.The result is that the hurt conscience of the minoritiesalienates hemfrom the collectiveendeavor,at times with the inevitableconsequenceof generatinga permanent leavagebetween themselvesandthe rulingmajority. t is thus a fact in modem politicsthat the desirablecohesion among the people belongingto the same nation is not onlyabsent,but also appearsto be unattainable o long as all responsiblesections withina societydo not manifesta common will to weave them-selvestogether n pursuitof a total well-being.



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THE PROBLEMOF HUMANALIENATION 129On a strictlyinternational evel, the more powerfulnations alienatethe less powerful ones, nations dedicated to one philosophy alienatethose professingan opposite philosophy,nationswith the supremacyof

the white alienatethose whichare controlledby the nonwhite.6It is a well-known act in humanhistorythat the most intensetype ofmass alienationin Asia and Africa was producedby the imperialistpowers,whichout of their greedfor self-bettermentnd global supremacyuprootedpeoplefrom their own home territoryand culture. Invasionofa land by force creates a peculiar sort of collective estrangement. tcompels millionsof human beings into a way of life which is not theirown, causes a generationgap, imposes upon the natives a foreignWelt-anschauung,and, on the other hand, does not completely absorbthemwithin the essence of the "new" culture. These people thereforefeelsuspended n the middle, and even when freed fromthe foreignrule findit hard to belong again to their original "self."There is nothingmoredepressingn the life of a people than stayingin a state of irrevocablealienation,that is, an alienationfrom which return to self-indentity simpossible.Inasmuchas the subjective onditionof an alien,to whichever ategoryhe may belong,is concernedhe lives the life of a "severedego,"'and atevery momenthe longs for a unification,a kind of "homecoming."nall forms and degrees of alienation there prevailsa gap betweenone'sown being and the given world, one's inner space and the outer space,one's own value-conceptand the offered situation.Extremetranscenden-talists as they were, it is the ancient Hindu and Buddhist thinkersthatfocussed their entire attentionon the perennialphenomenon of man'ssufferingand accounted or it by no other theorythan that of the aliena-tion of human self from Brahmanor Being. Indeed, a metaphysicalapproacho alienation,as thatin Hinduism,Buddhism,andexistentialism,is explicitlyan attemptat reductionism.But as a method of formalcon-struction t would serve to define the very core of man-and-the-worldrelationship.Perhapsif one takes into consideration he very structureof humanconsciousness,ts inwardand outward"directedness,"ts everself-transcending isposition,one would see a primordialabyss within.It is this abyssthat man is destinedto suffer.

6 The color element in the phenomenon of alienation was highlighted by Dr.Ralph J. Bunche, Under-SecretaryGeneral of the United Nations, in his keynoteaddress"Raceand Alienation"to the Conference. Dr. Bunche said: "Withabundantreason, non-white peoples tend to be acutely sensitive about matters of race andcolor. It follows that the suspicions and resentments arising from racial conscious-ness and experience often complicate, obstruct, and frustrate efforts of the UnitedNations and other bodies in political, economic, social, and assistance fields."



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130 PHILOSOPHYNDPHENOMENOLOGICALESEARCHAll human endeavors are basically processes at approximationofconsciousnesso itself,to its situation, o the worldoutside, and to otherpersons.Fot it is only by arresting he severancebetween"I" and "my

world"that I can hope to achievethe way towardsself-integration, rdealienation.Love, sympathy,compassion, ntersubjective nderstandingand amity,abolitionof discrimination,galitarianismnd social cohesionare the remedy hat man can rationallyand honestlypractice,at least toreducethe sufferingof aliensif not to annihilate t altogether.RAMAKANTSINARL.

SIES COLLEGE,UNIVERSITY OF BOMBAY.

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