Alienation And Freedom

157 Pages·2002·0.57 MB·English

by  Richard Schmitt

R i c h a r d S c h m i t t
A F
LIENATION AND REEDOM

A
LIENATION AND
F
REEDOM
Richard Schmitt
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Preface vii
1 Alienation and Freedom 1
Alienation 1
Freedom 12
Some Serious Reservations 14
Notes 16
2 The History of the Concept of Alienation 17
Rousseau 18
Kierkegaard 23
Marx 29
Nietzsche 32
Is Alienation Real? 37
Summary 40
Notes 40
3 Alienation and the Human Condition 41
Misunderstandings of Alienation 41
Alienation and Its Precondition 45
Alienation and Specific Life Tasks 52
Recognition Is Central to Being Oneself 68
Who’s to Blame? Alienation and Luck 75
What,Then,Is Alienation? 76
Notes 78
v
vi Contents
4 The Social Roots of Alienation 79
Emma Bovary:Life in the Market Society 81
That Was Then ... 92
Summary 109
Notes 111
5 Alienation Limits Freedom 113
Conceptions of Freedom 115
External and Internal Constraints 117
No Freedom for the Alienated 120
Examples of Alienation 120
A Serious Objection 123
The Difficulty of Choosing One’s Own Good 125
Capitalism and Political Freedom 130
Conclusion 133
Notes 134
References 135
Recommended Reading 141
Index 143
Preface
Iwrote this book primarily for students, but professional philosophers
will profit from reading it because the concept of alienation has been lit-
tle discussed in the professional philosophy of the last twenty or more
years.This neglect is justified by the excessive abstractness of previous
treatments of alienation,as well as by the fact that these treatments are far
more tightly connected to the Marxian tradition than they should be.In
this book,Marx is important but he is no longer the fount of all wisdom
with respect to alienation.I have also made major efforts to render the dis-
cussion of alienation much more concrete.Since philosophy is by its very
nature quite abstract,I have made good use of the contributions of various
novelists who give us a much more detailed and therefore much more per-
suasive picture of the alienated life.
Discussions of alienation tend in two opposite directions. On the one
hand,we have many summaries of Marx’s writings that list the four condi-
tions of alienation found in Marx’s early essay “Alienated Labor” (the
worker is separated from the work process and its product,from his fellow
workers,and from the nature he shares with other human beings).To this
many writers add a summary of Marx’s observations in Capital (in the sec-
tion bearing the title “The Fetishism of Commodities”),where he claims
that capitalism confuses us about our power to change the social system.
Such restatements of Marx characterize some pervasive social conditions
that constitute one aspect of alienation.On the other hand,writers about
alienation focus on the subjective experience of alienation. Often those
accounts are associated with the existentialists, who tell us a great deal
about lives that feel empty,without meaning or direction,and about hu-
man beings who are depressed,aimless,and unhappy.Thus alienation is of-
ten discussed either as a set of social structures or,equally frequently,as a
range of pervasive emotions.
vii
viii Preface
If you read him carefully,Marx turns out to have included both aspects
in his account of alienation.He tells us not only about the social condition
of the worker but also about how the worker feels:
He does not fulfill himself in his work but denies himself,has a feel-
ing of misery rather than well-being,does not develop freely in his
mental and physical energies but is physically exhausted and men-
tally debased.The worker,therefore,feels himself at home only dur-
ing his leisure time,whereas at work he feels homeless.His work is
not voluntary but imposed,forced labor.It is not the satisfaction of a
need, but only a means for satisfying other needs....It is not his
own work but work for someone else.... [I]n his work he does not
belong to himself but to another person.(Marx 1963:125;emphasis
in original)
Marx’s account of alienation includes both the structure of the worker’s
situation and the emotions that structure evokes.But it includes more as
well.It tells us that the structure is not of the worker’s making,and that the
emotions with which we respond to those structures are only barely under
our control.Discussions that are limited to the social structures of alien-
ation and the emotional repercussions of those structures focus on human
subjects as mainly passive, shaped by social conditions, and overcome by
negative emotions.Such accounts ignore the effects on human beings’ac-
tive conduct of their own lives. Indeed, they ignore the most important
part of any adequate discussion of alienation:the ways in which alienation
affects and distorts the way we live our lives.Alienation,properly under-
stood,is manifest in our lives insofar as we are active in living them.
Human beings act.Marx expresses that fact by placing work at the cen-
ter of human life.Alienation is a grave injury because it hinders and dis-
torts our activities.It limits the scope of our lives.The alienated worker,
Marx says,“does not develop freely in his mental and physical energies”:
His range of possible lives is very limited because he is “physically ex-
hausted and mentally debased.”Thus the many different ways in which
human activities are restricted and impoverished by alienation are the cen-
terpiece of any useful discussion of that condition.
An account of alienation that omits any of these aspects is incomplete.
Oppressive social conditions do not always alienate.In some cases,groups
emerge from domination by foreign occupation or by ruthless govern-
ments with their pride and energy unscathed.Their suffering does not af-
fect the integrity of their members or the vigor with which they live their
Preface ix
lives. In other cases, oppressive conditions elicit heroic acts of resistance
that no one could have expected,challenging persons to assume new and
extraordinary dimensions.In that respect they are very different from the
alienated,who “come to doubt that they have the capacity to do the sorts
of things that only persons can do,to be what persons,in the fullest sense
of the term,can be”(Bartky 1990:29).As long as oppression spawns resis-
tance, the personality of the oppressed remains intact. Oppressive condi-
tions alienate only when they transform the personality.Energy becomes
depleted by continued struggles, and resistance weakens. Lives become
crabbed;enthusiasm wanes and is replaced by a persistent low level of dis-
couragement,the expectation that things will turn out badly.Enterprise is
limited,hope feeble;one sticks to the familiar and does not strike out in
unaccustomed directions.Human relations are not altogether satisfactory
for reasons no one understands.Life is all right but not really good.
Describing oppressive structures falls short of describing alienation.Op-
pression and alienation need to be distinguished.Oppression restricts one’s
freedoms and rights;alienation attacks one’s personality.In favorable cases,
oppression goads us into resistance and thereby strengthens our person.
Alienation has the opposite effect.It weakens us,making us less able to re-
sist oppression.
But,similarly,stories about unhappiness in its various forms often have
little to do with alienation.Unhappiness is not always a sign of alienation.
There is a great deal of sorrow in this world,not all of it the concomitant
of alienation.Those who experience oppression, deprivation, or great
losses feel pain and bitterness but often recover from their intense suffering
and emerge into a more serene state of mind with their powers enhanced
and their understanding sharpened.They are alienated only if bitterness
corrodes their souls so that they give up living their lives thoughtfully,just
taking what comes, with few complaints and little joy.The alienated are
sometimes unhappy and sometimes not.Unhappiness is not the exclusive
symptom of alienation.
Many writers about alienation have ignored its central characteristics—
that it deforms our personalities and makes our lives less firmly ours,less
adventurous,and less meaningful.For this reason I have made a consider-
able effort in this book to provide detailed descriptions of how lives are
narrowed by alienation.After introducing the concept of alienation in
Chapter 1 by citing some literary examples of it,I present this concept—
the failure to make one’s life one’s own—in Chapter 2 as elaborated by
some of the most profound thinkers about alienation.In the same chapter,
readers will encounter some alternative views on alienation that the more