Theories of Alienation
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Theories of Alienation
Theories of AI ienation
Critical perspectives in philosophy and the social sciences
edited by
R. Felix Geyer Netherlands Universities' Joint Social Research Centre, Amsterdam
David R. Schweitzer University of British Columbia, Vancouver
tJvfartinus8Viihoff Social Sciences Division CLeiden 1976
ISBN 978-90-207-0630-7 ISBN 978-1-4684-8813-5 (eBook) DOl 10.1007.978-1-4684-8813-5
Copyright © 1976 by H.E. Stenfert Kroese bv, Leiden. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by print, photoprint, microfilm or any other means, without written permission from the publisher.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1976
Preface
The original papers which appear in this volume were initially presented in a series of sessions of the Ad Hoc Group on Alienation Theory and Research at the 1974 World Congress of Sociology in Toronto, Canada. This group was organized by the editors as a result of their longstanding research and teaching interest in the field. The purpose of the Toronto sessions was to provide an international forum where scholars and researchers could come together for a personal exchange of ideas and research findings. To our knowledge this was the first forum of its kind concerned specifically with alienation theory and research. More than fifty theoretical and empirical papers from thirteen countries and several overlapping disciplines were organized into panels and workshops during the span of four days. The response to these sessions indicates that interest in the study of alienation by philosophers and social scientists continues unabated.
The Toronto sessions were organized largely around a fundamental concern for further theoretical development and conceptual clarification in the alienation field. The papers selected for this volume reflect this thematic concern. Although many excellent empirical papers were presented, it was generally felt that meaningful empirical research would benefit from a continued elaboration and refinement of alienation theory. The present collection is consequently geared to problems of meaning, theory, and method. Considerable emphasis is also placed on a critical evaluation of the alienation theme as it has evolved from social philosophy to empirical social research.
At our request, and with this general unifying theme in mind, most of the papers were considerably revised prior to their publication here, and therefore represent the authors' most recent thinking. In a few cases, however, earlier versions have been published elsewhere during the time that has elapsed since the Toronto meetings.
Several people have assisted in the preparation of this volume. The authors themselves have been exceptionally helpful in meeting the rather severe publication deadline that we imposed. At the Amsterdam end, Felix Geyer would like to thank the director and governing board of SISWO (Netherlands Universities' Joint Social Research Centre) for their recognition, at
PREFACE VI
ane arly stage, of the importance of the alienation concept for the social sciences, and for having given him the opportunity to devote part of his time over the last five years to the study of alienation: first, for the preparation of several bibliographies; then, together with David Schweitzer, the organization of the Toronto sessions; and finally, the preparation of this volume. We also extend our appreciation to Riet Nelissen of SISWO, who tirelessly assisted with the final preparation of the manuscripts and the intensive correspondence with the authors, and to publisher Hans van der Sluijs, whose highly effective cooperation has been instrumental in enabling us to publish this volume less than half a year after our first contact. At the Vancouver end, we would like to thank Geoffrey Hayes for his invaluable editorial assistance and useful suggestions. Finally, David Schweitzer would like to acknowledge his intellectual debt to Melvin Seeman, John Horton, and Dick Morris which began with the seminars on alienation and the sociology of sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Amsterdam/Vancouver, February 1976
The Editors
Contents
Preface / V
List of contributors / IX Introduction: Key issues in contemporary alienation theory and research / XIV
Evolution of the theory and concept
Peter C. Ludz Alienation as a concept in the social sciences / 3
Extensions and reformulations in Marxist analysis
Joachim Israel Alienation and reification I 41
W. Peter Archibald Using Marx's theory of alienation empirically I 59
Psychiatric approaches
Frank A. Johnson Some problems of reification in existential psychiatry: conceptual and practical considerations I 77
S. Giora Shoham The Tantalus Ratio. A scaffolding for an ontological personality theory I 103
New conceptual and theoretical approaches
Richard Schacht Alienation, the 'is-ought' gap and two sorts of discord I 133
vm CONTENTS
John Lachs Mediation and psychic distance I 151
David G. Hays On 'alienation'; an essay in the psycholinguistics of science I 169
R. Felix Geyer Individual alienation and information processing; a systems theoretical conceptualization I 189
Work and politics
Albert B. Cherns Work or life I 227
Marvin E. Olsen Political powerlessness as reality I 245
Currant research findings
Melvin Seeman Empirical alienation studies; an overview I 265
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
PETER ARCHIBALD studied psychology and sociology at the University of British Columbia (1964-1966), and the University of Michigan (1966-1971). He considers himself a laboratory-experimenter type social psychologist. At the moment, he is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Western Ontario. Political involvement stimulated his interest in alienation, and this was further enhanced by a year at the University of Bielefeld, Germany, where he wrote the first version of his present contribution. His book, Social Psychology as Political Economy, which uses Marx's theory of alienation as its organizing concept, is nearing completion.
After graduating in Psychology from Cambridge, ALBERT CHERNS held a series of research posts before occupying senior positions in government social science administration. He returned to university life as Professor of Social Sciences and Head of the Department of Social Sciences at Loughborough University in 1966. Among other appointments, he has been Chairman of the Social and Occupational Sections of the British Psychological Society, of which he is a Fellow, President of the Sociology Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and a member of the Research Council of the International Sociological Association. He is a Governor of the British Steel Industry's Ashorne Hill College and a member of the Council of the Tavistock Institute, and on the Editorial Boards of several journals. He has served as Consultant to both UNESCO and OECD. He was a founder member of the International Council for the Quality of Working Life and is a member of its Executive Committee. He has published numerous articles on the organization and utilization of social science research, and on the social psychology and sociology of work in organizations.
FELIX GEYER studied sociology at the University of Amsterdam, from which he graduated in 1961. Since 1968 he has headed the methodology section of the Netherlands Universities' Joint Social Research Centre, a semi-government institution which coordinates the research activities of the Dutch social science departments. He has a long standing interest in applying principles of General Systems Theory to the social sciences, and was a board member of the Dutch Society for General Systems Research. He has published several articles on alienation and has prepared two bibliographies on the subject. Together with David Schweitzer, he organized the World Sociology Congress sessions of the Ad Hoc Group on Alienation Theory and Research in Toronto, on which the present volume is based. Now, combining his fascination with both alienation theory and General Systems Theory, he is writing a book which focusses on a reformulation of alienation theory in terms of an expanded and non-mechanistic General Systems Theory,
x LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
which is reformulated, in turn, to incorporate recent social science research data and theories pertaining to human information processing.
DAVID HAYS is Professor of Linguistics at the State University of New York, Buffalo. His doctorate in sociology was awarded by Harvard University in 1956. He considers himself a generalist in social science, but with a permanent concern for the mechanisms and structures of understanding. His Introduction to Computational Linguistics (1967) followed several years of work on machine translation and other problems of computer use in the study of language. He is currently working on a theory of cognitive structure, relating conceptual forms to processes of perception and communication; surmounting the system is a mechanism of abstraction, uniquely human, which accounts for natural logic and the complexity of language, both lexical and grammatical.
JOACHIM ISRAEL is Professor of Sociology at the University of Lund. Besides numerouc; articles, he has written eighteen books altogether, generally in Scandinavian languages and covering various fields. His book Alienation,/rom Marx to modern sociology has been translated in eight languages. His other books include a textbook on social psychology (in Swedish, also appearing in German), a two volume text on basic sociology (in Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian), and a text on deviance and social control. Together with H. Tajfel, he has edited The Context of Social Psychology - a critical evaluation, in which he also contributed a chapter on epistemological and methodological problems. This work was followed by two books in Swedish (and Danish) on problems of epistemology and the philosophy of the social sciences. His most recent work, Methodological/oundations of a dialectical social science, is nearing completion.
FRANK JOHNSON is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the State University of New York, Upstate Medical Center, Syracuse. He has published an edited book on alienation (Alienation: Concept, Term, and Meanings (1973) which was devoted to the exposition of the etymological, semantic, and operational uses of alienation. Although interested in the use of the concept in the social sciences, he has been especially concerned about its application to personality theory and to Western psychotherapeutic situations. Professor Johnson is currently working on a definition of interpretational acts occurring during psychotherapeutic transactions, using aspects of alienation theory as a model. His other writings have been connected with crosscultural contrasts of interaction, particularly in regard to Japanese-Americans.
JOHN LACHS is currently Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee. His interests focus on metaphysics and political philosophy where they intersect in theories about the nature of man. His earlier work includes articles on American philosophy, German idealism, and the British empiricist tradition. Marxist Philosophy: A Bibliographical Guide (1967) was followed by further work in materialist philosophies and the critique of culture. Animal Faith and Spiritual
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS XI
Life (1967) presented work on the American philosopher, George Santayana. His most recent book is Intermediate Man, currently under consideration by a publisher. In it the concepts of mediation and psychic distance are developed in detail. They are applied to a wide range of phenomena ranging from centralized government to the drug culture to yield what he hopes is a novel approach to alienation.
PETER Luoz is currently Professor of Political Science at the University of Munich and Director of Studies at the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, Ebenhausen - educated at the universities of Mainz, Munich, Berlin (Free University) and Paris (political science, sociology, philosophy, economics, history); diploma in economics, Ph.D. and Habilitation in sociology and political science; Director of the Department of East European and East German affairs in the Research Institute of Political Science at the Free University of Berlin (1958-1968); Professor of Political Science at the Free University (1967-1969) and the University of Bielefeld (1969-1973); political adviser to the Brandt and Schmidt governments in the F.R.G. (since 1969); Visiting Professor and Senior Research Fellow at Columbia University, New York City (1968-1970, Spring 1971, Spring 1972); Theodor Heuss Professor of Political Science at the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research, New York City (1974-1975). His main publications in English include:The German Democratic Republic from the Sixties to the Seventies (1970), The Changing Party Elite in East Germany (1972), Two Germanys in One World (1973).
MARVIN OLSEN is Senior Research Scientist in the Social Change Study Center of the Battelle Human Affairs Research Centers in Seattle, Washington, U.S.A., and is also an affiliate Professor of Sociology at the University of Washington. He received a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan in 1965, and taught in the Sociology Department at Indiana University from then until going to Battelle in 1974. From 1970-1974 he was also Director of the Institute of Social Research at Indiana University, and during the 1971-72 academic year he was a visiting member of the Sociology Department at Uppsala University, Sweden. He served as Book Review Editor of the American Sociological Review from 1969-1972, and is presently an Associate Editor of Social Forces, Sociometry, and the Journal of Political and Military Sociology. His publications include The Process of Social Organization (1968) and Power in Societies (1970), as well as numerous articles in professional journals. At the present time, his research activities at Battelle center largely around social aspects of energy and environmental conservation, although he is also doing research on citizen participation roles in public policy formation.
RICHARD SCHACHT is currently Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of lllinois (Urbana-Champaign). He graduated from Harvard College in 1963, attended Tiibingen University (Germany), and received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1967. His main interests lie in the areas of philosophical anthropology, metaphysics, value theory, and social and political philosophy. The courses he
XII LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
teaches deal mainly with the history of modern philosophy (with special emphasis on developments in 19th- and 20th-century European philosophy), and also include the philosophy of art and philosophy in literature. He is the author of Alienation (1970), Hegel and A/ter (1975), and a number of articles. He is presently writing a book on Nietzsche.
DAVID SCHWEITZER is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1971 and has held visiting lectureships at the Science University of Malaysia and the University of California at Irvine. He is the author of Status Politics and Conservatism in Comparative Perspective: The Swiss Case (1974), and a number of articles in professional journals on youth counterculture politics, radical political movements and antagonism toward ethnic minority groups. His current research interests range from comparative political sociology and right-wing radicalism to problems of inter-island migration and population resettlement in Indonesia. He is also preparing a monograph on the native reaction to foreign workers in Western Europe and a book on problems of theory and method in contemporary alienation research.
MELVIN SEEMAN, a member of the faculty at the University of California (Los Angeles) since 1959, received his Ph.D. in Sociology at Ohio State University in 1947. He has published chiefly in two areas: 1. the social pscyhology of status (e.g., Social Status and Leadership, 1960; and various papers on social mobility and prejudice); and 2. the problem of alienation (e.g., 'On the Meaning of Alienation,' American Sociological Review, 1959, a conceptual treatment which has led to various research applications since that time, centering especially on the consequences of alienation in work and the relation of alienation to social learning). He has served as Editor of Sociometry (a journal of research in social psychology) and Associate Editor of the American Sociological Review,' as President of the Pacific Sociological Association; and as a member of the Council of the American Sociological Association. Alienation continues as his current research focus, involving especially an interest in comparative studies (France, Sweden, and the United States in particular), and in the application of quasi-experimental field methods.
SHLOMO SHOHAM is Professor of Criminology at Tel-Aviv University. He studied law at the University of Cambridge and the Hebrew University, where he received his Ph.D. in criminal law and criminology in 1960. He has a wide professional experience: he was an assistant to the Attorney General of Israel, has represented Israel in several international meetings since, and has conducted research and taught at Ohio State University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Bar-TIan University. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Criminology, a Committee member of the International Society of Criminology, and editor of Excerpta Criminologica. He has published some ten books and over fifty articles, and has just finished a book based on the ideas outlined in the chapter on 'The Tantalus Ratio', prepared for the present volume. His best-known work, Society and the Absurd, was published in 1974. His present research activities include projects on drug abuse, white collar
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS XIlI
crime, anomie and value desintegration in the kibbutz, a comparative study on pressures towards schizophrenia and delinquency, labeling theory and social deviance, social change and delinquency of Arab youth, and the treatment of offenders by ex-offenders.
Introduction
Key issues in contemporary alienation theory and research
Despite the obituaries for alienation which have been written recently, the strong and continuing theoretical interest in the idea of alienation suggests that it is far from dead. The persistent vitality of the alienation theme is reflected in the growth of the international and mUltidisciplinary group of scholars and researchers who are working in this broad area. Many of these authors are represented in this volume. Their original papers deal with problems of meaning, theory, and method in the alienation field. A constant focus is placed on a critical evaluation of the alienation theme as it has evolved from its classic philosophic roots to contemporary empirical research applications in the social sciences.
This evolution of alienation from a philosophical idea to a secularized scientific concept has produced a great deal of debate over a wide range of intellectual and political issues. The purpose of this introduction is to outline some of the key problems which are currently under debate both within this volume and in the alienation field at large. Many of these themes are closely interconnected and have been separated only to bring critical clarity to the issues and debates which divide alienation theorists and researchers today. This is not to suggest that such issues can, or should, be resolved here; rather, our objective is to state the most important ones and elaborate upon them with an eye to greater conceptual precision and methodological refinement.
Our discussion will focus specifically on the following four themes: 1. alienation as a subjective state of individual consciousness versus an
objective condition of society; 2. essentialism and the problem of normative judgement implicit in the
classical conceptions of alienation; 3. the methodological and ideological problems arising from the psycho
logical reduction of the alienation concept; 4. the 'alienation syndrome' and the question of a possible underlying
unity among the varieties of alienation.
INTRODUCTION
Alienation: a subjective state of individual consciousness, or an objective condition of society?
xv
A recurring theme in the current literature on alienation narrows on the distinction between alienation as a subjective 'state of mind' and/or an objective condition of society. This distinction and its relevance to theory and research are discussed by many of the authors in this volume.
The emphasis on alienation as an objective social condition which, by definition, cannot be uncovered by an investigation into the feelings, attitudes, or other psychological states of individuals, is an integral part of the Marxian approach to alienation. Yet one striking development within contemporary Marxian theory is the increasing recognition that subjective elements of individually perceived and felt alienation are worthy of theoretical and empirical examination in their own right. With the sole exception of Joachim Israel, all of the authors in this volume - both Marxian and nonMarxian - address themselves in one way or another to the subjective alienation experience.
Peter Ludz underlines the stress that Marx placed on both the objective conditions for, and the subjective manifestations of, alienation and points to many of the parallels between psychoanalytic concepts (i.e. Horney's 'neurotic personality', Erikson's concept of 'identity crisis') and the psychological elements of alienation in Marx's early works. Ludz shows that Marx's general theory of alienation contains statements on many different levels, including what might be referred to as 'subjective' or 'psychological' ones.
Peter Archibald, along with Ludz and others in this volume, also takes a dual stance on the objective-subjective question. His reformulation of Marx's four dimensions of alienated labour provides one lead which he himself pursues in a search for more objective behavioural indicators of personal work alienation. These conceptual and empirical efforts point to new possible directions in Marxian analysis. As Ludz argues, Marx himself did not accomplish much with his analytical differentiations, and the concept of alienation still lacks specific meaning. He adds that while Marx's analytical distinctions are cited repeatedly by social scientists, they are seldom developed to the point where they can be usefully applied in empirical research.
Israel takes exception to the emphasis on subjective alienation in Marxian analysis and argues for a shift in the point of departure: from Marx's philosophical anthropology to historical-structural and empirical analysis; from alienated labour to commodity fetishism; from a theory of alienation to a theory of reification. In this volume, Israel continues with the work on
XVI R. FELIX GEYER AND DAVID R. SCHWEITZER
reification he began in an earlier book. His emphasis is on objective structural forms of alienation and the process of reification. Implicit in his rationale for a new departure point is the suggestion that Marx abandoned his theory of alienation - with its essentialist preconditions - in his later, more mature works. The debate over 'two Marxisms or one' is a longstanding one. Ludz, like Archibald and others, argues that while Marx may have abandoned the term 'alienation', he did not abandon the idea of alienation or the fundamental questions raised by the concept.
Ironically, the growing acceptance of subjective alienations among many Marxist scholars today is paralleled by a gradual recognition of objective alienations among non-Marxist scholars and researchers. Marvin Olsen, for one, documents his recent disenchantment with standard attitudinal approaches to psychological variants of the alienation experience. He suggests, for example, that the term 'political powerlessness' be reserved for those objective situations in which the socio-political system prevents individuals from exercising an effective influence on governmental decisions, policies, and actions. It seems absurd, according to Olsen, to label as 'alienated' those individuals who define themselves as politically powerless, because much of the time they are perfectly correct in their assessment. This has led to a call for social scientists - especially survey researchers -to 'rediscover' Marx's classical idea of alienation which refers to a set of objective social conditions; political powerlessness in this sense is an objective fact, not a subjective view of the world.
The subjective-objective issue extends beyond Marxian and sociological methodology. Two chapters in this volume represent what might be termed psychiatric explanations of alienation which include ontological, phenomenological, existentialist and psychoanalytic elements.
Frank Johnson builds his approach on aspects of alienation and reification theory (as described and developed by Israel), phenomenology, and existential psychiatry, in order to outline a therapeutic orientation toward alienated or schizoid persons. He stresses individualized feelings of purposelessness, moral relativism, absurdity, loneliness, separation, a perceived lack of control over one's environment, and a consequent awareness of the insubstantiality of one's own actions. He presents an image of contemporary man threatened by information overload in an alien environment. As an adaptive response, 'alienated man' becomes encapsulated in rigid, limited roles; his personality is fragmented and schizoid tendencies ensue. Alienation in this sense is highly individualized and is closely related to psycho-analytic conceptions.
INTRODUCTION XVII
Shlomo Shoham's formulation of individual alienation remains largely within the ontological-existentialist tradition. It represents a radical departure from most of the conceptualizations developed in this volume. Alienation, for Shoham, is an ontologically given condition which propels individual action, but which cannot be overcome by action. 'Separation', a vector opposed to 'participation' in this conceptualization, refers to universal influences on the individual which operate independently of social relationships. The pressures of separation which stem from three developmental stages that every individual passes through (birth, the moulding of an 'ego boundary', and socialization into an 'ego identity') produce a corresponding desire for participation; but striving to overcome separation through participation is futile. The title of Shoham's contribution, 'The Tantalus Ratio', refers to this unbridgeable gap between ontological separation and ineffective participatory efforts to overcome it.
The important point here is that ontological separation is the consequence of interaction with the environment. Shoham therefore rejects the Marxist principle of involvement through action. Yet he does not deny that individuals try to reach their goals through social action, even though this is selfdefeating insofar as their real goal - regaining a lost participatory bliss -is concerned. The achievement motive, for example, which characterizes the more industrialized 'tool-oriented' societies, is viewed as a participation surrogate that leads to either one of two possible final states. Allowing oneself to be propelled by the achievement motive ultimately leads to 'res sentiment anomie', illustrated by the myth of Sisyphus; but when the individual comes to the full realization that the achievement motive does not bring him what he had hoped for and consequently gives it up, the result is 'accidie', represented by the myth of Tantalus.
Felix Geyer, advocating a systems-theoretical approach rather than a psychiatric one, also views alienation as subjective states of the individual. While he recognizes that the causes of these states derive from groups, processes, or institutions in the individual's social environment, he considers it confusing when objective social conditions of this kind are termed alienated. These environmental determinants may be alienating, to be sure, but to call them alienated would imply they have a reflexivity and self-awareness which they clearly do not possess. To suggest otherwise would be the opposite of reification: anthropomorphization.
Melvin Seeman's social-psychological approach to his varieties of alienation places the emphasis upon the actor's personal expectations and values. Alienation in this sense is also treated as an individualized subjective phe-
XVIII R. FELIX GEYER AND DAVID R. SCHWEITZER
nomenon, although Seeman does not deny the importance of the objective social conditions which produce subjective alienations.
John Lachs proposes the replacement of alienation with the terms 'mediation' and 'psychic distance'. These terms, he suggests, deal more objectively and accurately with all the phenomena embodied in the idea of alienation. The individual and his actions are the point of departure in Lachs' philosophy of action. Mediated action - or action performed on behalf of another person - produces certain dehumanizing consequences: a growing readiness to manipulate human beings and to view them as tools, as means to an end; a growing sense of passivity and impotence; and an increasing sense of psychic distance between men and their actions. Psychic distance becomes a key individualized form of alienation for Lachs. It refers to a lack of direct and immediate experience with the conditions and consequences of one's own acts. Psychic distance is also an inevitable concomitant of language. As an important mediating force, language contributes to this loss in immediacy. Yet language can also serve as a stable, relatively neutral medium for the kind of reflection and criticism that is often required for a more direct and immediate grasp of one's own actions. Thus language, depending on the intentions of the user, can function as a potent weapon against the increasing tendency toward psychic distance and declining immediacy in modern society.
Richard Schacht has made a detailed attempt to bring analytical clarity to the objective-subjective question. He treats the different forms of alienation as forms of 'discord' which are categorized into two broad groups. These groups distinguish psychological forms of discord from sociological ones. While they are conceptually distinct, there is an implicit interactional overlap within, and between, the two groups. The first group refers to subjective or psychological dissatisfactions, with attention directed toward individual perceptions, feelings, beliefs, attitudes, desires, and aspirations regarding the situations and relationships in which individuals find themselves. The second group refers to objective or societal dysfunctions, and attention here narrows upon discord in social relations. The problem of discord at this level of analysis is one of integrating individual behaviour with group expectations and standards, and both individual and group behaviour with societal laws and institutions.
While the distinction between subjective and objective alienation is often drawn in theory (Schacht, Archibald, Ludz), one of the challenging tasks which remains is to specify conceptually, and to demonstrate empirically, the exact nature of the linkage between them.
INTRODUCTION XIX
Normative judgement and the problem of essence
Few writers today seem willing to commit themselves to the metaphysicalanthropological essentialism which prevails in Marx's early works. This is a predominant trend among contributors to the present volume, although the reasons for this vary. The notion of 'Gattungswesen', or the 'essence of the human species', is a utopian philosophical category - an ideal state of non-alienated man - which is avoided or discarded by most authors because it is conceptually obscure, subject to metaphysical speculations, or cannot be measured in accordance with the principles of empirico-analytical science (cf. Schacht, Archibald, Ludz). Israel suggests that Marx's shift from a theory of alienation to a theory of reification and commodity fetishism also indicates a rejection of his previous essentialist assumptions.
Another implicit way of postulating the 'true nature of man' is through human needs theory. But, as Albert Cherns points out, a Maslow-type conception of universal basic needs is just as difficult to confirm by scientific analysis as essentialist conceptions are. Shoham's unique conceptualization of the quest for unification with absolutes is also relevant here: insofar as essences exist at all, they refer to mental reconstructions of a past that can never be regained.
Because of its essentialist underpinnings, writers from Hegel and Marx to Fromm and Marcuse have construed alienation as a judgemental, as well as descriptive, concept. Thus alienation not only describes the effects that social relations and institutions have upon individuals, but it also becomes a judgemental instrument for criticizing the existing state of affairs. As Ludz shows, the concept of alienation, especially in Marxist analysis, is applied in a number of ways. It is an overall interpretation of man's situation in industrial society; a radical, sometimes propagandistic tool in the socialist struggle against capitalism; and an instrument for moral and humanistic criticism directed at various conditions of contemporary industrial society.
Archibald also maintains that Marx's treatment of alienation contains normative as well as descriptive elements. Unfortunately, both those who see Marx's theory of alienation as mainly normative, and those who view it as largely descriptive, come to the same unwarranted conclusion: that no comparative-quantitative research into alienation should be undertaken.
In Schacht's assessment, the concept indeed contains an implicit judgement - grounded in essentialist assumptions about man's nature - that certain conditions ought not exist, that there is a certain way things ought to be, and that consequently certain existing conditions ought to be altered. At
xx R. FELIX GEYER AND DAVID R. SCHWEITZER
first sight, the notion of alienation appears to enable us to bridge the 'isought' gap by virtue of its descriptive content combined with a normative thrust. But the end result is that alienation is often viewed as some sort of 'disease' - an undesirable state of affairs which should be changed. The crucial question which typically arises is: according to what standards can some state of an individual or a social system be considered diseased?
Schacht, among others, shifts to a contextual frame of reference. The normative standards of judgement vary according to relative personal perspectives or social situations; what is personally dissatisfying (subjective alienations) or socially dysfunctional (objective alienations) in one context may be satisfying or functional in other contexts. Forms of subjective and objective alienation or discord can be overcome either by an individual adjustment of perspective or by a modification of the social environment. But Schacht makes no judgement about whether they ought to be overcome at all. His conception comes close to attaining 'value-freedom' in the sense that no specific position is taken as to whether change should take place or how this should eventually be brought about: through a change of the individual's perspective or through a change of his social environment.
The idea that alienation points to social situations which ought to be changed raises important problems. For capitalist and socialist societies alike, the most important question is Karl Mannheim's classical one: 'Who plans the planners?'
Psychological reductionism: a methodological choice with ideological implications
There is some argument for abandoning the term 'alienation' once it is stripped of its radical polemics and normative critical power. One of the marked trends in the continuing evolution of the alienation concept in the social sciences is the reduction and neutralization of the concept, such that it becomes amenable to empirical measurement and objective scientific inquiry. Marxist scholars in particular have argued that this 'secularization' or 'dehumanization' of the alienation concept has obscured its classical meaning. By shifting the source of meaning from an historical-structural to an essentially ahistorical social-psychological level of analysis, the meaning of alienation has been separated from its critical philosophical roots in Hegel and Marx. By reducing the concept to psychological measures - characteristic of American empirical research during the past few decades - the emphasis
INTRODUCTION XXI
in meaning has shifted from evaluation to objective description, although Marxist critics will argue that only the appearance of value-free objectivity has been achieved through this psychological reductionism.
The critics tend to associate this trend with (1) attempts to objectify the concept under the guise of 'value neutral', or at best 'value relative', sociology and (2) attempts to eliminate its radical value implications by replacing these with conservative or conformist values. The emphasis in the latter case is more on an individualized and accomodating solution to the problem of alienation, and less on change in the social structure.
These trends in the psychologization process can be linked, in good part, to the desire for scientific respectability. The concept has been operationalized and transformed under the influence of fashionable survey research methods and techniques. These are psychological rather than strictly sociological concepts and measures. They operate on the methodologically questionable assumption that the aggregation of individual data (opinions and attitudes) can lead to the discovery of social-structural processes. The term reductionism, used above, is even incorrect here. Although reductionism has acquired a negative connotation among the critics, it is perfectly legitimate to reduce (i.e. translate) research outcomes on a higher level of complexity into the terminology belonging to a lower level of complexity - but this can only be done after these research results have been produced. Biological regularities cannot be discovered by studying the chemistry of organisms; but once discovered by proper biological methods, the chemical correlates of these biological regularities can certainly be described. There would be nothing against translating truly sociological research outcomes concerning alienation into psychological terms as long as one does not expect to discover those alienation causes that are sociological solely by measuring individual attitudes.
The abovementioned trends have inexorably led to the 'overpsychologization' of the alienation concept, further reinforced by the virtual absence of truly macrosociological research methods. To prevent misunderstanding, it should be noted that this process does not necessarily refer to the issue of alienation as an individual's subjective state versus an objective condition of society. Even when alienation is viewed as a subjective state, research should encompass the objective environmental determinants of this subjective state. Unfortunately that rarely happens in empirical alienation studies. Consequently, the researcher is unable to make a research-based judgement about the structure and conditions which exist in society at large; at issue are only the individual's feelings, perceptions, and attitudes. By focussing
XXII R. FELIX GEYER AND DAVID R. SCHWEITZER
on the subjective states of individuals, social structural problems which lie at the root of alienation are by definition excluded.
The subjectivization of alienation is also implicit in Johnson's existentialpsychiatric conceptualization. However, due to his phenomenological approach to the psychotherapeutic setting (which takes the total situation of the individual into account, including those sociological variables that psychologists usually do not pay attention to), Johnson avoids the reductionist exclusion of non-psychological variables which characterizes much of Western psychology today. While the implications of this approach are radical, they are radical in an existentialist rather than a Marxian sense. For example, it is the inalienable free choice (Gide's 'acte libre') of the alienated or schizoid person whether or not he wants to do anything about his condition.
Implicit criticisms of the psychologization of alienation are contained in Olsen's paper. He is obviously disenchanted with the standard attitudinal approaches to political powerlessness in American empirical research. Archibald's critique points to the inadequacy of most attitudinal investigations of alienation in the work setting, based on the usual 'job satisfaction' measures. Seeman is also quite critical of the careless 'one-shot' surveys and the inadequate measures that are too common in standard research today. In response to many of the criticisms stated earlier, Seeman has said that his decision to 'secularize' his alienation variants was a calculated risk, a strategic enterprise, geared ultimately toward the achievement of greater clarity, without necessarily compromising the intellectual scope or the humanistic concerns that lie at the heart of the classical idea of alienation.
Some attempts have been made to bridge the present chasm and to reconcile the classical notion of alienation with its current empirical applications. Seeman addresses himself to this issue at the end of his extensive review of empirical alienation studies in this volume. Archibald takes more concrete steps in his treatment of the empirical relevance of Marx's alienation theory, and Ludz points to current research efforts in the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries concerning the influence oflabour divisions, specialization, technology, and automation on work dissatisfaction.
The problem is not so much whether alienation is defined as a subjective phenomenon with objective causes in, amongst others, the societal macrostructure, or whether one defines it as an objective set of societal processes with subjective repercussions for the individual. Rather, the point is that in the former case one can be accused of reductionism if macro-sociological variables are not taken fully into account.
INTRODUCTION XXIII
The syndrome issue and the problem of unity
The proliferation of alienation concepts, terms, and synonyms which has occurred in recent years has produced a corresponding interest in finding a core theme, common denominator, or unifying multidimensional concept under which all varieties of alienation can be subsumed. The suggestion is that alienation is a 'syndrome' of diverse forms which display a certain unity, and that there is a common meaning which extends beyond some general notion of separation.
Whether this suggestion is plausible, or whether it is even worthwhile to pursue, is a matter for debate. It is argued in this volume (see Schacht) that alienation in abstracto does not exist, but that there are innumerable concrete alienations, and that any attempt to merge these into a single multidimensional conception should be abandoned as a theoretical and conceptual impossibility. Ludz draws attention to Schacht's contention that even Marx's subtypes of alienated labour share little more than a common origin and the idea of separation. Ludz concludes on an optimistic note, however, with the suggestion that the construction of a general theory of alienation, which ties together divergent concepts and methodologies, is an ultimate possibility.
Perhaps the single most important factor which has led to the proliferation of alienation terms and concepts in the social sciences stems from Seeman's original conceptualization of five (later extended to six) psychological variants: powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness, cultural estrangement or value-isolation, self-estrangement, and social isolation. In the closing chapter of this volume, Seeman summarizes the mass of empirical findings and recent developments with respect to these varieties of alienation which have emerged since he published his original 1959 conceptual article. It seems fitting that he should choose to conclude with the 'unity' issue, for it has generated a continuing theoretical and empirical debate. The debate, however, is cast in different conceptual terms in this volume.
In partial contradistinction to Schacht - who denies essentialist 'unity' conceptions but not the possibility of 'family resemblance' between the different varieties of alienation - David Hays and Felix Geyer operate on the principle that there is indeed a common denominator among Seeman's alienation varieties, provided they are viewed on a sufficiently high level of abstraction. They proceed to demonstrate this through two conceptual
XXIV R. FELIX GEYER AND DAVID R. SCHWEITZER
approaches: Hays through linguistic philosophy and psycholinguistics, and Geyer through general systems theory.
Hays locates a common denominator in the failure of what he terms the 'natural contract': the principle that an organism can act to obtain what is good for it. The variants of alienation elucidated by Seeman reflect some of the ways in which this natural contract can be broken, based on a breakdown of positive interaction between a person and his natural and social environment. Geyer's approach to the question of unity is similar. Individuals are conceived as systems operating in more or less open interaction with significant parts of their environment. Viewed from a relatively high level of abstraction, all forms of alienation consist of information processing problems of individuals. Using general systems theory, Seeman's varieties of alienation are seen as partial breakdowns of 'normal' system functioning. Powerlessness, for example, is linked with information processing problems located primarily in the system's output - i.e. severe limitation of behavioural alternatives. Meaninglessness is linked to input problems - i.e. the inability of the system to 'code' and thereby give informational content to incoming stimuli. N ormlessness relates to decisional functions; isolation denotes a breakdown of interaction with the environment; and self-estrangement is indicative of a lack of internal communication especially within the memory part of the system. Geyer and Hays, each in their own way, have demonstrated a certain kind of unity by raising the level of abstraction.
While locating a common denominator among Seeman's varieties, Hays nevertheless raises doubts about whether all varieties of alienation can be subsumed under one unifying conception. This is related to the problem of reductionism, again viewed in a value-neutral sense without its usual negative connotations. Seeman employs a psychological approach, while Marx used a sociological one. The unification of the two depends on the more general problem of the ontology of the social sciences. The natural sciences, according to Hays, have a common ontology: that of elementary particles. Biology can now, in principle, be reduced to chemistry and chemistry to physics. The problem is whether sociology (with society as its central concept) can be reduced to psychology (with mind as its central concept), and psychology again to biology. In Hays' opinion, psychology has not yet solved the problem concerning the reduction of mind to a composite of biological entities acting in accordance with biological laws, while sociology has almost solved the problem of society as a composite of psychological entities acting in accordance with psychological laws.
Although based on intercorrelational analysis, scaling techniques, and
INTRODUCTION xxv
factor analyses of attitudinal data, the empirical evidence regarding the syndrome question is contradictory and inconclusive. Seeman himself has insisted that there is no inherent unity among his alienation variants. This lack of unity may be due to differences in the conceptualization and measurement of the different alienation variants; but even more fundamental are the epistemological and ideological differences that separate these variants. The social history of alienation and anomie, for example, is basically the history of different ideologies and underlying assumptions about the nature of man and society. As Seeman has indicated on other occasions, an attempt has been made to merge Marx's radical and optimistic perspective on alienation with Durkheim's largely conservative and pessimistic notion of anomie or normlessness. Alienation and anomie, in this sense, are counter-concepts with different directives for action and change. This suggests, as Schacht does, that we should do better to find different and more accurate terms for what is too often subsumed under the term 'alienation'.
Many of the problems raised here still await a solution. We intend to continue with the work reflected in this volume by organizing another intensive round of sessions on alienation theory and research at the forthcoming 1978 World Congress of Sociology in U ppsala, Sweden. One of the key organizing themes will center around our concern for further theoretical elaboration, conceptual clarification, and methodological refinement in the alienation field. Hopefully, this volume will serve as one useful point of departure for further work in these priority areas of theory and research.
R. Felix Geyer and David R. Schweitzer
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