The Right to Feel Alienated; R. Rubanowice

Mr. Rubanowice is Assistant Professor, special izing in modern European intellectual history, at Florida State University at Tallahassee. 670 ROBERT J. RUBANOWICE Alienation is a legitimate re sponse of an individual to insti tutions and practices which deny him the maximization of meaning in his life. To repress the right to feel alienated is to repress free dom of choice for the individual. In the face of dehumanizing pres sures and demands, the right to feel alienated may be the most important basic defense mechan ism to reaffirm one's individual humanity. Collectivist institutions alienate because they curb the latitude of the individual's freedom of choice. When one feels alienated in the face of collectivist pressures, where does the fault lie? Not in the individual, but in those very inhuman or ahuman institutions that are intervening in his life. Shakespeare wrote: "The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in the stars, but in ourselves." It is necessary to widen this viewpoint to enter tain a third possibility - that the fault lies in the oppressive politi1974 THE RIGHT TO FEEL ALIENATED 671 cal, economic, social, and educa tional institutions and their prac tices that surround the individual and suppress his freedom. In an age of bigness - of big govern ment, big management, big labor, big education - to stand alone and resist being gobbled up by huge institutions which feed on masses of people is a right to be cherished, not a plight to be lamented.

Alienated from what? Alienation involves feelings of estrangement, anxiety, isolation, pessimism, disenchantment, and frustration. Are these feelings wrong? Should one feel guilty or inferior when one feels estranged from remote bureaucratic concen trations of power; when one feels anxious about being trapped in a workaday-world rat-race; when one feels isolated rather than will ing to be absorbed into a nihilistic social order; when one feels pes simistic in light of growing stock piles of overkill bombs; when one feels disenchanted by irresponsible political structures and processes; or when one feels stifled by au thoritarian institutions? The real problem is not to be alienated, but to be adjusted to such a sorry state of affairs. If we live today in a veritable "Age of Alienation," as many cul tural critics suggest, I think we are amiss in rushing to conclude that something is wrong with us as individuals. It is not necessarily we who are wrong thinkers. It is the system that is wrong. If we tamper with the right to feel alienated, and allow the state or any collectivist institution to be the final arbiter in these j udg ments, we dangerously let power ful forces further batter individ ual freedom, which alre~dy is a fragile thing.

Concentrations of power tend to be self-aggrandizing, self-perpetu ating juggernauts. Political con trols devised to ensure the pro tection of the nation, the species, or whatever the group might be, regard personal individuality as an undesirable, divisive, centrifugal force to be exterminated. Earlier in this century, the sociologist Max .Weber predicted that the growing bureaucratic cast of so ciety would eventually stifle all spontaneous individual activity. This danger should be our concern today, as we view the growth over recent decades of greedy, large scale institutions which intervene crushingly in the lives ofindi, .. viduals. Removing Individuality When I hear talk about the need to end alienation, I cannot help but recall the case of Adolf Hitler. Among Hitler's primary goals was the end of alienation, by coordi672 THE FREEMAN November nating all activities of the nation into one gigantic Yolk-community where group identity and loyalty to the state took precedence over the needs of the individual person.

There is an insidious connection between the desire to end aliena tion and the desire to abrogate individual rights. But the zealous wish to over come and eradicate alienation does not appear in totalitarian fascist regimes alone. One need not be in an already established garrison state to suffer loss of liBerties. One should not forget that when George Orwell wrote 1984 he had in mind not to describe totalitari anism as such, but to warn against the collectivist and interventionist tendencies which he saw around him in allegedly democratic sys tems. Orwell's 1984 is essentially a story about Big Brother's at tempt to stamp out alienation. It certainly does happen in a totali tarian dictatorship, but it can also happen in a totalitarian demo cratic setting as well. Is a return to "community" the answer? Not necessarily. True communities are hard to come by, wherein the individual is totally respected and can properly retain and develop his full personality.

To escape from freedom into the illusion of community may result in the loss of a feeling of aliena tion but the gain of a Big Brother - what William H. Whyte calls the "imprisonment of brotherhood." The cure could be fatal. When one gets engulfed by a group, regardless of the size, the authentic human self is lost. Too much "togetherness" spells the death of the individual. Becoming enmeshed in any institutionalized role can lead one to forget - or never learn - to know himself. A popular ballad today, about a girl who both loves someone yet re luctantly consents to get married, has the memorable line: "But I'll never learn to be first just me by myself." It is human to need rela tions, but not to be fettered by these. It is human to need roots, but not to the extent that they immobilize. Return to Basics We must return to basics. From at least Rousseau's time to the present, original thinkers have detected the tendency in the mod ern world to separate, on the one hand, the meaning of an inner life, and, on the other hand, the outward reality of institutional ized roles. When there is a serious clea vage between these two spheres, alienation can occur. At that point, we might heed Pascal's advice, given several centuries ago: Try one of the most difficult things for a person to do, namely, withdraw alone to a place where 1974 THE RIGHT TO FEEL ALIENATED 673 no distractions or diversions occur except one's own thoughts and feelings. Withdraw to find the core of one's inner life, rather than forcing that inner life to corre spond to dehumanizing outward institutions. And then, once more in the world outside, set about curing alienation by dismantling those oppressive man-made insti tutional monstrosities which kill the spirit, and rebuild with a closer look at the human element and individual needs. I) IDEAS ON LIBERTY In Defense of the Indit,idual ONE of the great practitioners of the inner life has told us, "To mount to God is to enter into oneself. For he who so mounts and enters and goes beyond himself, he trulw mounts up to God."

I There are certain things that no one can dlo for us but ourselves. But we are not encapsulated monads whic~ develop in a shell in sulated from social contacts. Weare bor1n into a family and a community. An immense social heritage is put at our disposal - a storehouse into which has been distilled the contributions of an enormous number of individual men and women, some famous and some nameless. Knowledge, wisdom, .skill, and some of the very thought-forms by which we may avail ourselves of this trea sure are handed down to us. The problem here is not analogous to rationing a given quantity of goods to a. certain number of peo pIe; it is analogous to keeping a conduit. open so that the spiri tual accumulations of previous generations can flow unimpeded, to be enriched through understanding and application by this generation and passed on to those to come. Diminution of politi cal liberty is comparable to the silting up of the conduit; freedom is the removal of obstructions to the flow of energy.

EDMUND A. OPITZ Itlsh BOOkS€ll€ eaQnto COmp€ WILLIE E. NELMS MANY PEOPLE who supposedly sup port the concept of the free market are bitterly opposed to what they consider "cutthroat competition." According to these individuals, competition is acceptable, as long as it is not completely unbridled. If totally unregulated price re duction is allowed to occur, the industry or business in question will be ruined, the quality of goods will decline, and small entrepre neurs will be driven out of ex istence by larger producers. Thus, not only consumers but also businessmen are harmed when price decisions are left solely to the parties involved. The solution suggested is always the same: the state should regulate prices to "protect" both buyers and sellers. Any student of freedom readily recognizes the errors in the above argument. It is only through the Mr. Nelms is a professional librarian in Evansville, Indiana.