Alienation: from critique to conformity.

281 Pages·2016·13.29 MB·English

by  Howard. Cohen

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Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014
1977
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Howard. Cohen
University of Massachusetts Amherst
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MM
ALIENATION: FROM CRITIQUE TO CONFORMITY
A Thesis Presented
By
s
HOWARD COHEN
Submitted to the Graduate School of the
University of Massachusetts in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF SCIENCE
February 19 7 7
Psychology Department
11
Alienation: From Critique to Conformity
A Thesis Presented
By
Howard Cohen
Approved as to style and content by:
Dr. Howard Gad in, Chairman of Committee
1
Dr. Bonnie H. Strictland
Department Cha rpcrson
i
Psychology Department
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. INTRODUCTION
1
CHAPTER
II. HEGEL 13
CHAFrER
III. KARL MARX 19
CHAPTER
IV. EMILE DURKHETM 78
CHAPTER
V. TWENTIETH CENTURY THEORISTS: ROBERT K. J^ERTON AMD...
MELVIN SEEMAN 143
CHAPTER
VI. CONCLUSION 193
-
iv
Even for a thesis this paper was written under rather unusual
circumstances. The intellectual and moral support of my committee
members, as such, was especially important. I owe a special debt to
Professor Howard Gadlin. Without his backing and advocacy, this papc
would not have been written. Dr. Gadlin' s scholarship, teaching, and
friendship have all contributed to the strengths of this particular
study and analysis. As one of the pilliars of Reason within the psy-
chology department, his work in the critique of the dominant pro-
cedures and paradigms of psychology has provided the opportunity for
many to understand the ideological foundations of today's psychology.
His criticisms have helped clarify my arguments and his patience has
immusurably contributed to the completion of this dissertation.
Secondly, would like to thank Professor Marcia Westkott. Dr. West-
I
kott's scholarship and knowledge of social theory especially contri-
buted to the argument of this thesis. Her support and encouragement
was particularly important for one who was encountering several of
the sociological theorists for the first time. Her scholarship and
teaching exemplify the fact that an amalgamation of computer readout
and esoteric statistics does not even begin to replace social theory
In her absence from this campus she is sorely missed by those in-
dividuals who would rather think than punch computer cards. Finally
would like to thank Professor Dalton Jones. I sincerely appreci
I
iate the fact that Dr. Jones was willing to experiment with a thesis
of a different format. As a participant in his seminar, admire
I
his scholarship,
teaching, and open-minded
self-reflection.
Finally, each of these teachers demonstrate that intelligence
and critical thinking are quite compatible with affability,
understand-
ing, and jocularity.
vi
"
Division of labor and exchange are the two phenomena which
lead the political economist to boast of the social charac-
ter of his science, while in the same breath he gives expres-
sion to the contradiction in his science - the establishment
of society through unsocial, particular interests."
Karl Marx, The Economic
and Philosophic Manuscripts
m ,
p. 163. (emphasis the ori-
ginal)
"A psychology for which this the part of history most contem-
,
porary and accessible to sense, remains a closed book, cannot
become a geniune, comprehensive and real science. What indeed
are we to think of a science which airily abstracts from this
large part of human labor and which fails to feel its own in-
completeness, while such a wealth of human endeavor, unfolded
before it, means nothing more to it than, perhaps, what can be
expressed in one word - "need ," "vulgar need"?"
Karl Marx, The Economic
and Philosophic Manuscripts
,
p. 142. (emphasis in the ori-
ginal)
"It is noteworthy that modern doctrines of social change are
initiated by those who have a tendency to anomy. Let us take
for example the case of Karl Marx. He was from his early youth
subjected to some of the conditions that breed anomy."
Robert Maclver, The Ram-
parts We Guard (N'ew York:
MacMillian, 1950) p. 87.
0
CHAPTER
I
Introduction
All social theory, as expressed in interpretation and
categorization of phenomena, has both a social and political
history. An awareness of the historical development of
theory is necessary for it provides the only firm basis for
evaluating whether scholarship has "progressed," and if so,
in what directions and how much. Any conceptualization
.
which is ignorant of its founders not only does not know how
far it is travelled nor in what direction, but is apt to
suffer from theoretical redundancy, false starts, archaic
doctrines, and fruitless errors. However, the view of the
past is, in part, a function of where the present is, and
recently with the transformation of social theory into so-
cial science, the historical study of preceeding systems of
thought has been thoroughly neglected. With the internali-
zation of the criteria and standards of the natural sci-
ences, all systems of thought which predate the advent of
the scientific method came to be regarded as speculative
and had, if anything at all, only a curiosity value. Social
theory, having now been superceded by the scientific meth-
od, was relegated to the realm of social philosophy and un-
scientific speculation. As Gouldner has observed, current
American social theory has fostered the bizzare assumption
that books and ideas more than twenty years old are beyond
2
scientific salvation. 1 Once established on scientific,
ob-
jective foundations, the social sciences have tended in-
creasingly to cut themselves loose from history in general.
The twentieth century has witnessed the increasing consoli-
dation and augmentation of the scientific spirit as the do-
minant mode of modern consciousness in both its theoretical
and popular or commonsense forms.
The dominance of this world view becomes apparent in
the revival of the concept of alienation by twentieth cent-
ury social theorists in both psychology and sociology. Al-
though alienation has been the catchword of the post-war era
in the academy as well as in mass culture, the term has ex-
hibited such an extraordinary flexibility and vagueness of
meaning that "it has been suggested that alienation has both
supplanted and supplemented sin as generic concept for de-
2
picting a sense of defective aspects of human existence."
Theologians, philosophers, psychoanalysts, and a variety of
social scientists have discovered manifestations of aliena-
tion in an astonishing variety of aspects of Western life,
ranging from the assembly line to the therapist's couch and
including along the way such topics as delinquency among
the young, apathy among the old, status aspirations among
the poor, race relations, social change, urbanization, and
suicide. "At the present time," Nisbet has acknowledged,
"in all the social sciences, the various synonyms of
alienation have a foremost place in studies of human life