A Black Hole Inside: Alienation in the 21st Century

Akyüz 1
A Black Hole Inside: Alienation in the 21st Century
While discussing an internal problem, the first remarkable point must be the most close one to the reality even though Oscar Wilde states “the great events of the world take place in the brain”
(26). Shakespeare 's Hamlet may have been the first modern individual by showing his internal struggle as he wonders which path is “nobler” (Ham. III.i. 53-63). In the modern world, one of the observable and inclusive concepts is the process of distancing of the self of individuals from everything related to casual life. The name given to this process is alienation, and as a term, it refers to “a separation of individuals from control and direction of their social life” (Parkinson and
Drislane 9). Alienation 's perception in the sociology has continuously been composed by various usage of the term, “first mentioned by Asclepiades” (Willamson and Culligford 265), and used by many, such as Felix, Marx, Hutcheson, Rousseau, Hegel, Pinel, Freud and Adorno.
One must make the distinction to separate modern alienation from Marxian Alienation in order to underline their differentness. As Marx states in his Thesis on Feuerbach, Marxian
Alienation is dealing with a community, which takes its reasons from political and industrial bases and is peculiar to a group known as proletariat (570). Contrarily, modern alienation has been developed from its own unprecedented diversity of causes including the way of living of modern people, technology and self-apprehension. As it can be seen that modern alienation is much more complex and has such a pitch that it touches a larger mass. It is improving, blowing away the cobwebs and extending its scope day by day. Although alienation was used to be a problem specific to a group of people in terms of their way of life, this paper is arranged to show the fact that it has been becoming a concept concerning all humans because of its psychological, physical and associational effects on objective reality and canonical mechanism of the society in the 21st
Century.
It is interesting that the definements of alienation fail to reveal the richness and the complexity inherent in its history. In the Dictionary of Social Sciences by Lang, alienation is

Akyüz 2 defined as “separation between part of the whole of the personality and significant aspects of the world of experience” (17). Lang uses 3 starting points while making such a description: (1) objective states, (2) states of feeling accompanied by alienation, (3) possible separation between self and the objective world (Johnson 29). One can easily detect that Lang 's components are the consequences more than the reasons. Yet, another definition of alienation made by Durkheim is that
“alienation is a process of objectifying and rendering present in the objevtive world that which is individually contained” (56). Whereas, Durkheim 's definition seems sponginess from the viewpoint of being a noninclusive illustration of the reasons.
To describe modern alienation and its extent, certain components are to be taken into consideration by plumbing the depths of the problem, such as the simplicity and the ordinariness of modern way of life, the escape from making an effort, the problem of self-apprehension, the feeling of being uncompleted and uncharacteristic, the ideas, the ideals, the economic base, and the superior social character delusion. Based upon these components, alienation can be put under another meaning than becoming distant, which is not related to external world and the others. It is a black hole inside, including only self, as religion, inclusive and directive, seen in every doing of mankind,
“concerning all humans” (Fromm 95), a cycle which is getting a deeper comprehensiveness than one minute ago it was (Schacht 283), and “beyond objectivity and separation” (Johnson 30).
However, in many ways, “it is easier to say what alienation is not than what it is” (Josephson 166).
Having such a sophisticated nature and broad description, alienation creates a psychological typicality in the behaviors of alienated individuals by inducing schizoid symptoms. Laing concludes that these psychotic adaptations are to be justfied because of the abnormality of the society (58). By accusing society and its dynamics, Laing 's conspiratorial emphasis centers on an explanation of schizoid states and schizophrenia as externally manufactured conditions. Due to the fact that the modern description of alienation is interested in self-perception of schizoid individual, psychological extent of the process cannot be ignored. Freudian psychology presents a description

Akyüz 3 of human personality based on a set of biological drives inherent in all individuals (Freud 86). It can be claimed that alienation 's psychological dimension has been turned into a biological order and cannot be evaluated as liaise with the society. “Splitting of personality” (Bleuler 32) is more likely to be the first step of the order. The increasing quality of strangeness and peculiarity (Rappaport
74), and “the ego as being superior than libido” (Fairbairn 12) are the trackers of the first step.
Thus, it can be said that the psychological effects of alienation are to be thought as acting according to an order detached from society for every human being and cannot be distinguished from each other. One another outstanding creation of alienation is a course of searching for self. This is, being apart from psychological standardizations, an indicator involving concrete consequences. The searching often starts with “a displacing of agency onto a reified conception of the social system”
(Tietz, and Woods 298), which leds to miscommunication and individualistic acts. When individual is in the process of searching, s/he forgets the ties of the past which seems so ordinary that is called the life, and the disappearance begins with the problem of defining goals for individual. Fromm 's survey on the question that “are we human being sick, or do we live in a sick society?” (44) concentrates on alienation and concludes that although the sickness of human beings is derived from the society, the searching for self is the main cause of individualistic madness. Seeking for identity, waiting for the day in which existence occurs and refusing today 's conditions are the typical acts made in such a searching process. A reflection of the process to manmade doings is the play of Beckett 's Waiting For Godot in which Vladimir and Estragon, the main characters, are waiting for a symbolic person called Godot. In some dialogues in the play, they understand the fact that godot will never come, yet a particular time makes them addict to their wishes and they deny the fact and start waiting for Godot again. The play can also be seen as a metaphor for the existence of man when salvation is expected from an external entity, Godot in the play, and the self is denied introspection or nonextant (Webb 139). Hereby, when alienated individual is observed in his/her

Akyüz 4 process of searching for self which is not belong to himself/herself, it is arguable that identity-loss is one of the impacts of alienation and this process ends up with a desire of being a superior social character. While alienated individual is starry-eyedly searching for a character, another dimension caused by alienation comes out. That is, in terms of an individual, a connection between alienation and unstable reality, concerning the real state of private individual, and this connection is a product of multiplicity of alienation 's relationships with other modern dynamics. When self-perception of individual is turned into an inferior feeling, a dramatic escape begins: “Conformity”, and this conformity concerns “behaviors, goals and needs” (Israel 153). Individual starts to be someone else who s/he is not in the reality of primary world, his/her relationships with others start to be shaped according to his/her new personality. Hereby, a secondary world is created, in which the real individual is not himself/herself anymore in the sense of personality. This operation reaches a pretty pass that the created reality overrides the reality and it can easily be observed that the aspired personality has a meaning which appears at first blush as mass media 's pathological meaning does
(Baudrillard 116). This is also a matter to the common result of alienation shared with popular culture and mass-producing system: In order to be the person who is not himself/herself in reality, individual needs to consume what mass-producing system brings (Israel 153) and acts under the lines of popular. This shows the fact that alienation, causing multiplex realities, works with many other dynamics in modern world and is a result of whole of encountered processes.
One can research in the interrogatory that whether alienation is a universal concept or not.
Above all, studying for finding an answer, technology must be taken into consideration as a equalizer which is presenting the same culture and same living area in every place in the world. It is presumptive that technology balances the feelings of individuals as being similar each other 's in many ways. On the other hand, from a general perspective, it can be put forward that the world is closely pressed together in terms of individualistic ways of life and inner perception of outer world.

Akyüz 5
Although alienation is generally identified with western-culture, it can be properly found in easternculture, besides many other cultures in the world for these reasons. To illustrate, let us take a look at
Ann Mereryd Prince 's research of modern Japanese novels (1983). One of the novels examined is
Yukiguni in which the main character, Shimamura, desires to escape, tries to confront the reality of life and his journey ends up with “a disappointment resulting alienation” (Prince 57). It is undeniable that Shimamura 's arrival to a point which is as aloof as what western culture discusses as alienation today. Since literature is a response to culture and frequently includes sociological information about its era, it can be concluded that modern alienation is not unique to a part of people living in a specific area of the world.
Consequently, causing a biological order in which schizoid typicality occurs, making individuals familiar with the idea of the possibility of conforming to a superior social character which is a process ending up with an unstable reality with regards to personalities, and being a universal fact, alienation 's new extension in the 21st Century is a serious problem and different from what was known as alienation in the past centuries. Alienation is more than becoming distant or feeling different from others, it is, indeed, in relation to life itself, turning off the lights of life by causing permanent darkness for individuals. However, to solve the problem, Becker 's suggestion is that one should have an understanding of how society causes alienation (101). This can be an initiating point to take a perspicacity about the severity of alienation in today 's world. When its comprehensiveness and contagiousness are taken into consideration, it can also be concluded that alienation is not a problem which can be struggled without changing the course of time in some ways. Akyüz 6
Works Cited
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Akyüz 7
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Cited: Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation..Trans. Sheila Faria Glaser. Michigan: U of Michigan P, 2010 New York: Braziller, 1967. Print. Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot: A Tragicomedy in Two Acts. New York: Grove Press, 1954. Bleuler, Eugen. Dementia Praecox. Trans. J. Zinkien. New York: International Universities Pree, 1950 Durkheim. Emile. Sociology and Philosophy. Illinois: Free Press, 1953. Print. Fairbairn, Ronald. Psychoanalytic Studies of the Personality. London and New York: Routledge, 1952 Fromm, Erich. The Sane Society. New York: Winston Press, 1955. Print. Israel, Joachim. Alienation: From Marx to Modern Sociology. Ed. Amitai Etzioni. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1971 Seminar Press, 1973. 163-180. Print. Laing, R. D. The Politics of Experience and the Birth of Paradise. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967. York: Free Press, 1964. Print. Parkinson, Gary, and Robert Drislane. Canadian Dictionary for the Social Sciences. Toronto: Thomson and Nelson, 2007 MA thesis. The U of Michigan, 1983. Circle.ubc.ca. Web. 30 March 2012. Rappaport, David. The Structure of Psychoanalytic Theory. New York: International Universities Press, 1960 Schacht, Richard. Alienation. Garden City: Doubleday, 1971. Print. Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. New York: Dover, 1992. Print. Tietz, W., and S.M. Woods. “Alienation: A Clinical view from Multidisciplinary Vantage Points.” American Journal of Psychotherapy 24 (1970): 296-307 Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. London: Penguin, 2008. Print.