Notion Of Alienation Research Articles

As Relações do Direito ao Lazer com o Trabalho Análogo ao Escravo

The conditions of slavery remain in contemporary society, manifesting itself through over-indebtedness and / or possession of the person through employment contracts that submit the worker to degrading conditions. The homogenization of the options to enjoy the right to leisure, behavior and thinking is the result of cultural standardization and the dominant discourse propagated by the cultural industry, an element that aids in men’s conformity to a slave status. It is important to conceptualize and distinguish slavery, or modern-day slavery, in order to demonstrate that the non-enforcement of constitutional principles embodied in the concept of dignity lead to the construction of slave labor, in the context of a new reality formed from the notion of alienation of slavery itself, which is not revealed to be presented and conceptualized under the features of a no longer existing social context. In sum, under the guise of an apparently free society, the existence of slave labor is disqualified, adjusting it to the features of a consumer society. For this paper we made use of the deductive method, with research in various literature sources.

Autonomy and alienated subjectivity: A re-reading of Castoriadis, through Žižek

In a time of political passivism in the Western democracies, this article argues for the value of Cornelius Castoriadis’s radical theory of autonomy as a means of conceptualising (wo)man’s ability to pro-actively create new social institutions ex nihlo. In making this argument, however, it also seeks to ‘correct’ a key flaw within the model of subjectivity underlying this theory of autonomy. Castoriadis’s attempts to bypass the notion of alienation as a metaphysical given led him to an internally contradictory conception of subjectivity based around an originary monadic psyche. Through a critical re-reading of Castoriadis’s position through that of Slavoj Žižek’s ‘transcendental materialist theory of subjectivity’, this article shows how (re)inserting alienation into the former’s work as a constitutive element of the autonomous subject makes it possible to overcome the aforementioned contradiction while maintaining a concept of radical autonomous social change that goes beyond Žižek’s own rather inactive idea of ‘the Act’.

Tom Wingfield's Alienation in Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie: A Marxist Approach

Several distinguished philosophers such as Rousseau, Hegel, Feuerbach, Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche, and Heidegger paid serious attention to the notion of alienation. The present paper elaborates on the notion of alienation, based on Marx's ideas, and traces it in the character of Tom Wingfield, one of the major characters in Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie. The Wingfields belong to the middle class living in the capitalist society of America during the Great Depression of the 1930's. The father has left the family sixteen years ago. The son, Tom, is the breadwinner of the family. As a poet with a job in a warehouse, he is alienated from his labor. As a result of alienation from his labor he is self-alienated. The specialization in the capitalist system prevents him from developing to the total human and alienates him from his species life. The selfalienated worker becomes alienated from his family members and finally leaves them.

A Sense of No-Place

That the roots of ecological crisis lie in the alienation of modern people from nature is a recurrent theme of environmentalist thought. The related principles of ecocentric identification and ‘sense of place’ are frequently advanced as providing a remedy for this problem, as well as a conceptual foundation for both Deep Ecology and environmental justice. This paper argues that James Cameron's Avatar can be understood as a dramatisation and implicit critique of these ideas. The film's imaginary Na'avi are an indigenous people whose claim to their land rests on ecocentric identification. 3D cinematography is employed to visualise the state of sensory immersion which catalyses the process of ecocentric identification, yet these techniques also produce a sense of aesthetic dislocation in the viewer. In this manner, Avatar brings to the fore a paradox that has always been implicit in narratives of ecocentric identification: in claiming to heal the split between subject and environment, they presuppose and inadvertently reproduce that split. Avatar thus highlights the need for an environmental politics that dispenses with the notion of alienation and traditional conceptions of place.

Siguiendo el rastro de la alienación en la teoría sociológica contemporánea. Una lectura de los diagnósticos de la modernidad tardía de A. Giddens, J. Habermas y N. Luhmann

This paper intends to review the concept of alienation in the "mature" works of A. Giddens, J. Habermas and N. Luhmann. In the context of recent contributions to the mentioned concept, it becomes necessary to rethink its place in these theorizations. In order to do so, we will first examine the different perspectives and background of the current blooming of alienation, to arrive at a global definition of it that will avoid its "essencialist" character. This outline will connect us to various fundamental dimensions of its analysis: the study of social totality, torn and alienated because of a "lack of relation"; the question of community confronted to this notion of alienation; and the link between this process of alienation and the individual, specially in its experience assumed as “authentic” of the self and of the social membership. In second place, we will make a reading of these dimensions in the theories of A. Giddens's, J. Habermas's and N. Luhmann's diagnoses of late modernity. This will allow a reinterpretation of their critiques towards the concept of alienation. This is how we will conduct an unexplored analysis of their works, pointing out decisive tensions in their theories, sometimes unresolved. In this way, we will study alienation specially in connection to: the problem of social order and anchorage of time and space in "reflexive communities" and "pure relationships" (A. Giddens); modernity's pathologies in communicative action and the possibility of a "community of communication" (J. Habermas); and religious communication, the exclusion of functional differentiation, and the modern codification of intimacy in love (N. Luhmann).

To nie jest fajka. Alienacja znaczenia jako przykład ideologii językowej

This article has two main goals. Firstly, to present the basic notions of the theory of language ideologies. Secondly, to discuss the concept of alienation of meaning, which is an example of language ideology. Alienation of meaning is analysed both in terms of “popular” beliefs about the language and as an element of linguistic theory. In order to show a broader perspective of the subject, an interpretation of a work of art is presented. The article ends with a discussion of the utility of the notion of alienation of meaning.

Researching Children's Diets in England: Critical Methods in a Consumer Society

How can critical psychological researchers and practitioners respond to current concern about children's diets? This paper argues for a methodological strategy of multiplicity that decentres prevalent concerns with carer-consumers' subjectivity. First, it discusses the notion of alienation and charts the establishment of consumer choice as a regulatory principle in England. It then explores ambiguities of choice and alienation in the life of the consumer. The different narratives of change that are embodied in a British TV programme and an ongoing debate over nutritional labelling are then explored as illustrations of how reliance on subjectivity as a focus of change processes is likely to intensify ambiguity and raise consumers' status anxiety. The paper then examines Cultural and Historical Activity Theory as a potential source of alternatives and argues instead for greater sensitivity to conflicts and coalitions within the multiplicities of “engagements” that form consumer's “perspectives.”

Political Marxism and Value Theory: Bridging the Gap between Theory and History

AbstractThis article proposes a reading of value theory firmly entrenched in the historicist framework of political Marxism; one which gives precedence to social relations and historical development over abstract logic and formal models. It argues that Marx's theory of value can be read as elucidating how social norms are being unwittingly created under capitalism by contrast with precapitalist societies. The article is divided into two sections. The first examines the two main ways in which value is considered within Marxism and highlights the problems that can emerge when taking into account the issue of the specificity of capitalism. The second section offers an alternative formulation of value theory grounded in the notion of alienation. This leads to the conclusion that the idea that value is shaped by labour refers to a political fact about decisions concerning the organisation of the labour process, rather than an economic fact about the expenditure of labour in the process of production. Value reflects the class struggles over the labour process and the norms that govern social life, rather than an embodied quantity of socially necessary labour-time expended within the labour process.

Aleksandr Griboedov's 'Woe from Wit': A Commentary and Translation by Mary s> Hobson (review)

REVIEWS 137 equal account of the culture of the original literary work and that of the translation? The next section of the book deals with translationsof Polish poetry into English, beginning with an incisive review of the English translationsof the magnificent Laments (Treny)of Kochanowski, one of the few world-famous Polish poets before Milosz. Another chapter deals with more theoreticalideas in the context of translatingSzarzyn'ski's poetry. A third chapter deals with Czerniawski'stranslations of Rozewicz which, Wilczek argues, are of such quality and resonance as to qualify equally as part of the English and Polish literary canons (another controversial subject Wilczek tackles later in the book). Part Two of the book comprises three essays on the place of Polish literature in earlymodern Europeanculture,and five on the place of Polish culture within American culture. These essays are also crammed with fascinating observations. For example, in his article on 'hate speech' in the polemics betweenJesuits and 'heretics'in the sixteenthcentury,Wilczekpoints out that the invective often employed by Reformation controversialistshad a long and distinguishedhistory in Christiandiscourse,from the time of the church fathers onwards. When aJesuit polemicist describes Socinian doctrine as 'an old and rotting cabbage', he is not merely being gross, but is attempting to show how offensivehe finds his heretical opponent's belief. He is also following Quintilian's advice to present the images of things vividly before our mind's eye. Reformation writers thus employed various modes of argument to appeal to the various faculties of the soul: logic to appeal to the reason, invective to appeal to the passions. The final seriesof essaysdiscussesa number of issues,such as the lack of fit between the widespreadignorance of East-CentralEurope in the Anglophone view of the earlymodern world, and the Poles'justifiedbelief in Poland'scontribution to European and world history. Other essays examine the notion of alienation as expressed by Polish poets in America, and the anomalous position of two Polish Nobel laureates,Milosz and Singer. There are a very few typographical errors in the book; noted were, for example, 'Forleben' for 'Fortleben' (p. 55), 'seventieenth'for 'seventeenth'(p. 9I). The production of the book is adequate but not luxurious; at times the print is smaller than one might want. Despite these minor reservations,the book is to be welcomed and enjoyed as an erudite, thought-provokingand wide-ranging examination of a number of important issues. T,nzniy College GRANTLEY MCDONALD Universi!y ofMelbourne Hobson, Mary.Aleksandr Griboedov's 'Woefrom Wit': A Commentagy andTranslation. Studiesin Slavic Languagesand Literature,25. The Edwin Mellen Press, Lewiston, NY, Queenston, ON and Lampeter, 2005. xxviii + 6I2 Pp. Illustrations.Notes. Bibliography.Index. $I49.95: ?89.95. THISis a large, but not well-proportionedchimaera of a book. It begins with a new translationof Griboedov'splay. One can understandwhy this version won Russia's Pushkin medal, for it meets Russian criteria of total fidelity to i38 SEER, 85, I, 2007 sense and form. It is sensitive to every nuance of the original, to the line length, to Griboedov's rhyme. The problem lies of course in that rhyme in Russian is C major, while in English, where the chances of any two words rhyming are far lower, strictABAB or AABB rhyme, especially with masculine and feminine rhymes,is A flat minor, i.e. demanding strenuouseffortand tension from translator,performerand reader. Either the rhymes are totally predictable, or they fall flat under their own phonic weight ('ahead then/led then' is typical):one doubtswhether this new translationwill supersedeothers, even though it is in most respectssuperior. The second quarter of the book consists of three chapters exploring the creative, cultural and historical background to the play and the somewhat drearycomedy traditionfrom which it emerged, one might say like a volcano in Iceland: here Mary Hobson is at her best, infusing familiarmaterial with many insights. The study shifts towards biography, notably in a chapter on 'The Prophetwithout Honour', but Griboedovstudieshave yet again failedto move much further from the point where Tynianov, Laurence Kelly and Evelyn Harding have left them. Is there no Iranologistof sufficientlyeclectic interests to go to Tehran and look at the archives, which will give us the missing viewpoint we need on Griboedov the...

Du fordisme au post-fordisme : Dépassement ou retour de l'aliénation ?

In contemporary political philosophy, the disqualification of the problematic of alienation has to a large extent rested on the conviction that the norms of democracy, justice, and the good life provide a sufficient framework within which to outline a social critique that is politically pertinent. The paradox is that, at the very moment when such a conviction was becoming widespread, its validity was being refuted by the historical reality. It would appear that the casting-off of the Fordist system has seen the emergence of a different set of social pathologies which, if they are to be adequately thematised and criticised, require the activation of the notion of alienation.

Aliénation et clinique du travail

The evidence gathered from medical case-studies and from the psychopathology of work throws up a body of contradictory findings relative to the question of alienation. Even a phenomenon such as workplace suicide cannot be restricted to any single, unambiguous interpretation. This said, when we analyse the aggravation of the work-related mental pathologies, we are confronted with a set of findings which enable us to clarify the contemporary meaning of the Marxist notion of alienation.

Thinking in time: Henri Bergson (an interdisciplinary conference)

Introduction "A 'return to Bergson'," Gilles Deleuze wrote in 1988, "does not only mean a renewed admiration for a great philosopher but a renewal or an extension of his project today, in relation to the transformations of life and society, in parallel with the transformations of science."1 The vigorous renewal of interest in Bergson's thought today is in large part due to Deleuze who championed the work of Bergson when Bergson remained, as Deleuze put it, an "object of so many hatreds."2 For this interest in Bergson to open onto something new today, however, it is essential to turn back to Bergson, in order to delimit the thought of Bergson from that of Deleuze—it is essential to read Bergson's texts. This double gesture—one that looks back to Bergson's texts and forward toward a "renewal and extension of Bergson's project today"—is what I have attempted to perform with a book, Thinking in Time: An Introduction to Henri Bergson (Cornell UP, 2006), that painstakingly traces the philosopher's arguments in two of his major works (Time and Free Will and Matter and Memory) and a conference held at the University of California at Berkeley last spring: "Thinking in time: Henri Bergson (an interdisciplinary conference)."3 If the papers collected here appear disparate, it is because they were solicited for the conference at Berkeley in order to take up Deleuze's challenge concerning the extension and renewal of Bergson's thought "in relation to the transformations of life and [End Page 1091] society, in parallel with the transformations of science." The conference was intended to explore the interdisciplinary reach of Bergson's thought today.4 The goal of the conference was to introduce Bergson's thought into intellectual discussions at Berkeley (and beyond) from which it was conspicuously absent, and to which it has so much to contribute. The aim of the conference was to explore the potential that the interdisciplinary richness of Bergson's thought might have for re-channeling intellectual discussion, first of all in the humanities (bogged down in old habits) but also across the humanities, the sciences, and the social sciences. Few thinkers have the reach we find in Bergson's work, which dialogued with contemporary research in physics, biology, the theory of evolution, psychology, and sociology that was cutting edge at the time (and, to a remarkable extent, structured key fields of knowledge in ways that still largely hold today), contributed a modern notion of alienation to thinkers such as Lukàcs and Gramsci, and critically influenced modernist aesthetic movements (in literature and the visual arts) in France, Great Britain, and the United States. . Upon first reading Bergson's Matter and Memory, William James remarked with admiration upon Bergson's capacity "simply to break away from old categories, deny old worn-out beliefs, and to restate things ab initio, making the lines of division fall into new places!"5 We feel that Bergson's thought can still have this impact today. * * * Bergson is known as a philosopher of life. In her essay, "The Concept of the Living", Paola Marrati (The Humanities Center, Johns Hopkins University) focuses on Bergson's two most celebrated works, Matter and Memory and Creative Evolution, to elaborate the specific force of Bergson's concept of the living in an analysis that emphasizes the pragmatic dimension of Bergson's thought. Through a careful mapping of Bergson's philosophical project, Marrati distinguishes Bergson's thought from phenomenology, arguing that for Bergson, "a philosophy of experience does not coincide . . . with a philosophy of subjectivity." Marrati's essay underscores the single most important idea in Bergson, namely that, as the philosopher himself put it, "If time does nothing it is nothing;" she explains how in Bergson, "living" means an openness to time, such that the virtual and the real are "different modalities of reality." In "The Reality of the Virtual: Bergson and Deleuze", Keith Ansell Pearson (Department of Philosophy, University of...

Turning Anomie on its Head: Fatalism as Durkheim's Concealed and Multidimensional Alienation Theory

Durkheim's underdeveloped notion of fatalism is the keystone for a bridge between two conceptual categories central to Marxian and Durkheimian theory: alienation and anomie. Durkheim does not necessarily disagree with Marx that excessive regulation can be socially damaging but chooses to highlight the effects of under-regulation. A Durkheimian critique of overregulation becomes possible if we turn away from anomie and toward Durkheim's idea of fatalism—a concept that I will argue here is unexpectedly consistent with Marx's notion of alienation. We can infer that Durkheim presents us with a notion of an “optimal” human condition that exists between anomie and fatalism. The structure of modern societies, it will be argued, is characterized not just by excessive control leading to alienation or by a lack of integrative restraint leading to anomie but also by active efforts to optimally regulate social life.

In the Event of Learning: Alienation and Participative Thinking in Education

This essay begins with Karl Marx's notion of alienation, and then explores a form of alienation specific to education. It examines Mikhail Bakhtin's treatment of alienation in connection with his participative thinking theory and suggests strategies for overcoming educational alienation that are based on Bakhtin's notion of the “eventness of Being.” The essay addresses the limitations of liberal and conservative critiques of education, both of which tend to ignore forms of alienation characteristic of modern schooling regardless of the issues of educational equity and efficiency. The author proposes that we can overcome the problem of event deficiency in our schools by paying serious attention to the nonacademic side of school life.

Deracialising universities: reflexive conversations

As a policy goal, staff equity, more specifically at the level of "race" ushers in several implementation challenges for the university sector. This article seeks to contribute substantively to this complex phenomenon. It relates the need for staff transformation (in terms of "race") with that of the democratic imperative as required by our diverse society. Having established the broad rationale for change it hones in on micro-level staff equity practices of recruitment and curriculum. It focuses on the extent to which "race" operates and intersects with other social factors. Furthermore, given the close conceptual relationship between "race" and the dimension of perceived alienation on the part of black academics, the article offers some insights into the meanings associated with the notion of alienation. (South African Journal of Higher Education: 2003 17 (3): 144-151)

Democratic leadership: drawing distinctions with distributed leadership

This article delineates the distinctiveness of democratic leadership in comparison with distributed leadership. The impetus for the exercise arises from the escalating interest in distributed leadership within the field of leadership and organizational studies. More particularly, this article addresses the danger that the idea of democratic leadership may be eclipsed or colonized by discourses on distributed leadership. A view of democracy is developed in which particular attention is given to critical theoretical roots in Marx's notion of alienation and the pervasive power of Weberian instrumental rationality. The article builds on theoretical modelling by the author (Woods 2003) of a type of governance (organic governance) in which democratic rationalities are an infusing and challenging feature. Two of the rationalities give to democratic agency its distinctiveness – namely, decisional and ethical rationality. The latter is discussed more fully, as it tends to be given least explicit attention in much literature on democracy. Essential to democracy is the recognition – and, today, the reassertion – that advancing truth is worthwhile, social and possible. Ethical rationality, linked in with the other democratic rationalities, requires, inter alia, creative spaces in a dynamic organizational structure that allows for movement between tighter and looser structural frameworks; a recombination of creative human capacities which overcomes the tension between instrumentally‐rational and affective capacities; and open boundaries of participation. Implications for understanding democratic leadership are highlighted in the discussion.

Alienation in American Society

This lecture was presented to a student conference on Socialism in America held at Yale University in 1964. It was later issued as a pamphlet by Monthly Review Press, but has been out of print for many years. It may seem odd to reissue it here, since the intervening decades have seen the publication of numerous important works on this same subject, including in the early 1970s such landmark studies as Istvan Meszaros' Marx's Theory of Alienation and Bertell Oilman's Alienation. But Pappenheim's approach was distinctive, not only because of its accessibility, but because it concentrated from beginning to end on the link between Marx's concepts of alienation and exploitation. Rather than using Marx's notion of alienation as the basis for an abstract humanism divorced from concrete struggle, and as a means of avoiding Marx's more developed political-economic critique of capitalism—as too many have done—Pappenheim stresses the close, indeed inextricable, relationship between a world of alienation and a world of exploitation. Notes for this piece are available from the MR office. - The EditorsThis article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Voting in Canadian Communities: A Taxonomy of Referendum Issues

Participation et résultats dans les référendums municipauxL'auteur du présent article s'est demandé s'il ne fallait pas voir un signe d'aliénation dans le fait que certains référendums municipaux commandent souvent une forte participation tout en n'enregistrant qu'un vote faiblement favorable aux innovations proposées. Dans cette étude sur la participation aux référendums et leurs résultats, dans les villes canadiennes ayant tenu deux référendums ou plus sur des questions similaires, contestation et consensus ont été portagés d'après les questions posées. La combinaison d'une forte participation et d'un vote faiblement favorable dans un premier référendum, suivie d'une plus faible participation accompagnée d'un vote plus favorable lors d'un deuxième référendum, peut réfléter une contestation immédiate, sur des projets controversés telle la fluorisation. Une faible participation accompagnée d'une plus large approbation dans le premier référendum que dans le second, suivie d'une participation plus abondante mais accompagnée d'un vote favorable plus faible dans le second référendum que dans le premier, semble indiquer une contestation en suspens, sur des questions telles que les sports et les services de loisir. Une baisse simultanée dans la participation et dans les votes favorables, d'un référendum à l'autre, manifeste un consensus à la baisse, sur des problèmes touchant les écoles et les librairies aussi bien que des projets d'amilioration relatifs à l'eau, les rues et les égouts. Enfin, un consensus à la hausse peut être révélé par un accroissement de la participation et des votes favorables, sur un sujet tel que la réforme du gouvernement municipal, par exemple. Puisque le rapport entre la participation au vote et ses résultats a varié d'après le genre des questions soumises, une recherche plus poussée sera nécessaire pour clarifier le rôle d'une hypothétique aliénation et des autres motivations dans l'appréciation des résultats d'un référendum.