Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 12:40:57 +0000
From: Mervyn Hartwig <mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk>
Subject: BHA: alienation


John:

>Feeling the empirical effects of alienation at work, in my own 
>experience anyway, has more to do with the intensification of work 
>practices over the last 15 years or so than it does with the narrative 
>about Adam. Indeed, how would we make the move from the high 
>level of abstraction about the fall of Adam to me sitting in my office 
>now feeling alienated? 

Intensification of work only became possible with the emergence of
master-slave-type or class societies and the appropriation of a surplus.
While the different historical modes of production have had various ways
of achieving this, work intensification is of course common to all.

In historical, rather than ontogenetic, terms, the story of the fall
recapitulates at the level of myth the emergence of class society and
alienation. Hegel seems to be saying (I think consistently with
Christian theology) that this development was a necessary one - there
could be no movement from the 'identity' of thought and life, reason and
nature, that obtained in early human societies (symbolised by Eden or a
golden age in the myth), to fully rational self-consious life and
reconciliation *except via master-slave-type society*. See esp. the
parable of the master and the slave resulting from the struggle between
two Consciousnesses in the *Phenomenology*. Bhaskar criticised Hegel for
this in DPF, saying that the second Consciousness arrives 'out of the
blue' i.e. there's only one Consciousness in early society, the parable
doesn't say why class society was necessary. (For Hegel it is necessary
ultimately because the whole world, including human history, is
rationally necessary because it is the unfolding of a purpose.) By the
time of FEW Bhaskar seems to have reconsidered, but deploys an I think
different argument from Hegel: the fall into master-slave-type society
is a transcendentally necessary condition of possibility for us "to
become self-consciously aware of the true nature of ourselves" (150),
for "there could be no enlightenment without avidya [ignorance] and . .
.  if we are already enlightened [as in early society], no recognition
or realisation of it without a prior forgetting (or fall)" (38, n.23).

The Eden-Fall-Redemption motif can be regarded as a general conceptual
schema within which a variety of approaches to history and explaining
why you are sitting in your office feeling alienated, can be deployed,
including certainly historical materialism which I take it you think
(rightly I would say) can give the most adequate account of the rise and
dynamics of capitalism; indeed, a version of the schema is recapitulated
in Marx's primitive communism-class society-communism shema. All
theories of history arguably implicitly, if not explicitly, contain some
such general conceptual schema, and can't be deployed coherently without
one, and so getting the schema right is important for really
understanding why you're sitting there.

And of course, a really good theory, like (T)DCR, will suggest routes
out of alienation, and help us to live out the future in our daily
lives. 'Optimism of the intellect, concrete utopianism of the will!'

Best,

Mervyn





John Roberts <msrssjmr-AT-man.ac.uk> writes
>Richard
>
>That is a fair point. My own concern was just that your account of 
>alienation might be too specific i.e. too western (though I 
>appreciate that I was somewhat wrong in parts here - although the 
>Islamic interpretation of similar Christian narratives [e.g. Moses and 
>Jesus as prophets] are still vastly different), but also too general. 
>Feeling the empirical effects of alienation at work, in my own 
>experience anyway, has more to do with the intensification of work 
>practices over the last 15 years or so than it does with the narrative 
>about Adam. Indeed, how would we make the move from the high 
>level of abstraction about the fall of Adam to me sitting in my office 
>now feeling alienated? 
>
>Obviously this is not to discount the idea that human beings are 
>unique beings who have a *sense* of spirituality. As Marx said, 
>religion is "the sigh of the soul in a soulless world" i.e. there is 
>something different and special about human beings in their 
>conscious appreciation of themselves and the suffering they 
>sometimes endure. But I do not think that this unique sense of 
>consciousness which we have as human beings (a sense of 
>spirituality) should necessarily be explained by resorting to religion 
>or to ideas of God. 
>
>All the very best,
>John
>
>
>On 12 Jan 02, at 17:42, Richard Moodey wrote:
>
>John,
>
>I suspect that the notion of alienation is as Eurocentric as is the story 
>of the fall of Adam and Eve (which is Middle Eastern in origin, and that 
>the Azande and the Maori have their own stories to tell explaining why life 
>is not a bed of roses.  I am not sure that I can be anything but 
>Eurocentric, given my background.   Insofar as I can appreciate the stories 
>and philosophies of non-European people, some of them seem to me to be 
>getting at something very similar to what we are groping towards with our 
>concepts of alienation and the fall of humankind.
>
>Dick
>
>At 04:43 PM 01/11/2002 +0000, John Roberts wrote:
>>Hi Dick
>>
>>Many thanks for your warm welcome. Yes, I have also often found
>>mailing lists to be full of great info, etc. People feel free to express
>>their ideas in a way that is not constrained by the numbing effects
>>of normal academic discourse/language (the worse crime of
>>academic discourse in my opinion is that it's so boring - my own
>>little bits of writing included of course!).
>>
>>I am interested in your concept of alienation. Obviously alienation
>>carries normative baggage with it and is usually applied this
>>manner. However your concept of alienation seems a bit
>>eurocentric to me. I wonder how it would fit with the beliefs of, say,
>>the Azande tribe in Africa? (In fact I wonder if the Azande know
>>how their everyday lives have established countless of debates
>>within the philosophy of science...).
>>
>>On 11 Jan 02, at 11:25, Richard Moodey wrote:
>>
>>Welcome, John Roberts.  I am a relatively new member of the list, and also
>>find the current discussion very interesting.  I seldom get into these
>>discussions, primarily because I am a dabbler than a scholar in Bhaskar's
>>writings.  I have probably learned more about Bhaskar from the list than I
>>have from Dialectic: The Pulse of Freedom (affectionately known as DPF on
>>the list), the book I am currently dabbling in.  I also consider myself a
>>Christian, a rather "heretical" Catholic, to be precise, and thus cannot
>>avoid being influenced by my religious beliefs, however critical I might be
>>of some of them.  Thus, I tend to interpret discussions of "alienation" as
>>an secularized attempt to get at the same dimension of the human condition
>>that is expressed mythologically in the story of the fall of Adam.
>>
>>Dick Moodey
>>
>>
>>At 02:39 PM 01/11/2002 +0000, you wrote:
>> >Hi everyone
>> >
>> >This is my first time on the list (I'm a new member). The discussion
>> >between Mervyn and Phil is very interesting. I would just like to add
>> >one quick note on the subject of alienation. It seems to me that
>> >Marx viewed alienation is a very restricted way i.e. he believed that
>> >alienation was specific only to capitalism where human interaction
>> >becomes mediated through things. Alienation is thus intrinsically
>> >associated with the fetishism of commodities. Obviously in other
>> >social systems such as feudalism people were subject to various
>> >forms of ideology, etc., but I would not want to say that they were
>> >alienated. Marx is fairly clear about his restricted definition in most
>> >of his works. Therefore, and for what it's worth, I think that the
>> >discussion of alienation by both Mervyn and Phil is somewhat
>> >transcendental insofar that both seem to define alienation beyond
>> >the remit of any real historical social relations.
>> >
>> >All the best,
>> >John Roberts (Manchester)
>>
>>
>>
>>
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-- 
Mervyn Hartwig
13 Spenser Road
Herne Hill
London SE24 ONS
United Kingdom
Tel: 020 7 737 2892
Email: mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk


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