The Dual Alienation in Waste Tide

Abstract

Abstract Environmental and sociological crisis is currently a global phenomenon. Addressing contemporary debates and urgent problems in environmentalism and sociology, the Frankfurt School's critical theorists criticize the capitalist domination of both human and nature. Their concept of domination describes the internalization of alienation. This article uses the Frankfurt School's critical theorists' domination thesis and alienation theory to examine the dual alienation—the interrelated processes of the alienation of human nature and the alienation of nature in Chen Qiufan's Waste Tide. Though the environment is currently a focus for young Chinese, ecological issues in Chinese science fiction writings still seem to be inadequately addressed. Thus, the author argues that the alienation of external, nonhuman nature is intimately and inevitably related to that of human beings and human beings' inner nature. It also points out that science fiction holds a similar potential as the critical theory in playing a significant role in sociology and environmentalism. Furthermore, Chinese science fiction's fictional explorations of ecological and sociological relationships, as represented by Waste Tide, engage with the more broadened area of the global environmental and social crisis.