How can we be less alienated?

[KropotkinKomrade]

How can we most effectively be productive in reconciling the four forms of alienation?

What direct changes can each of us make to our lives to be less alienated from each other, from our productive activity, from our product, and from our species being?

[Rooster]

I think the classic way of doing it would be to raise class conciousness and participate in struggles (protests, striking, etc) to build solidarity

[Black Sheep]

What direct changes can each of us make to our lives to be less alienated from each other, from our productive activity, from our product, and from our species being?
One word :anarchist collectives!

actually it's two words.
Groups of people exchanging knowledge, expertise, teaching each other stuff they know, making things, etc
In short DIY networks are a very good way of getting the feel of it.

(Noone said it's a form of political resistance and self-sufficient isolation, so marxists , don't start)

[KropotkinKomrade]

Yes, a "Collective Do It Yourself" approach, please do go on...

In what ways do anarchist collectives reunite people with each other and their productive activity?

[Lyev]

I think partially via 'alternative culture'. From anything as diverse as starting up a community football team, to holding workshops on the critique of political economy. But I'm not sure. The situationist movement put a big emphasis on theories of self-estrangement so maybe reading some of their stuff will unlock a few answers.

[KropotkinKomrade]

How about do it yourself workshops that empower people by sharing utilitarian values such as; how to grow your own food, how to sew and fix clothing, how to maintain your bike, how to be resourceful in general and through use of the internet. Empowering communities to do productive activities together.

[Obzervi]

How can we most effectively be productive in reconciling the four forms of alienation?

What direct changes can each of us make to our lives to be less alienated from each other, from our productive activity, from our product, and from our species being?

I've always promoted communal living. The capitalist system aims to keep the working class divided by forcing them into individual dwellings.

[TC]

I am strongly in favor of communal living and alternative living arrangements and community raising of children rather than the alienating hierarchy and isolation of the traditional family.

I think expressing solidarity in the work place, whether through unions or simply through pacts not to compete with one another for the boss's praise, is another good way.

Spontanous acts of support for one another, whenever possible, and efforts to genuinely meaningfully engage other people in friendship and solidarity while expecting nothing in return, are also ways of reducing the alienation of everyday life.

[TC]

Overcoming the alienation of man under capitalism cannot be possible under capitalism through communes, alternative culture etc, but through the collective transformation of society into communism through a revolution. I found this to be an interesting article on the subject of alienation from the ICC:
Part 3: The alienation of labour is the premise for its emancipation (http://en.internationalism.org/ir/070_commy_03)


Alienation of labor (and alienation of the products of one's labor) represents just one type of alienation, we can still seek to reduce other types of alienation including interpersonal alienation.

Moreover despite the sort of vulgar marxist dogma, it is indeed possible to seek out forms of unalienated or comparatively less alienated opportunities for work in capitalist society - they are rare and not available to most but with just one life to live, working as a self-employed novelist or painter, a musician, - or anyone who does what they love to do for a living and can find decent working conditions, is able to mitigate the alienation of capitalism in a matter of degree, and sometimes that degree is enough or more than enough to live a more satisfying life.

Its not productive to tell everyone that there is no difference and no gradation between alienation prior to revolution because thats another way of disempowering people to improve their own lives and conditions.

[black magick hustla]

I am strongly in favor of communal living and alternative living arrangements and community raising of children rather than the alienating hierarchy and isolation of the traditional family.


i dont think this is feasable. i mean, i lived in a coop and i've met all sorts of people with alternative styles of living and actually, i think most of them are generally more fucked up and self destructive than other people not having alternative styles of living. if the 60s say something about this miserable world, is that communes generally ended when the drugs ended. or we can also think about the utopian socialist "paradiise" of the 19th century and how all of em were a huge failure.

[TC]

i dont think this is feasable. i mean, i lived in a coop and i've met all sorts of people with alternative styles of living and actually, i think most of them are generally more fucked up and self destructive than other people not having alternative styles of living. if the 60s say something about this miserable world, is that communes generally ended when the drugs ended. or we can also think about the utopian socialist "paradiise" of the 19th century and how all of em were a huge failure.

Obviously not every one will work and not every experience will be positive - you need the right mix of personalities - but I've had friends living in about half a dozen urban communes in three cities that have made it work and have had positive outcomes - none of which were drug based...

The patriarchal family has a significance endurance but that doesn't mean its a great arrangement - plenty are horrible and I have yet to find one that is fair or equal (except the sense in which two financially independent people of equal means and social status in a couple are a family).

[StalinFanboy]

How about do it yourself workshops that empower people by sharing utilitarian values such as; how to grow your own food, how to sew and fix clothing, how to maintain your bike, how to be resourceful in general and through use of the internet. Empowering communities to do productive activities together.

Why just utilitarian?

[black magick hustla]

Obviously not every one will work and not every experience will be positive - you need the right mix of personalities - but I've had friends living in about half a dozen urban communes in three cities that have made it work and have had positive outcomes - none of which were drug based...


i was never talking about the family. also its true that certain arrangements will work for certain people but i think this is where you invalidate your point - there is nothing "less alienated" about urban communes, atleast less than other sort of living arrangements. some people find it positive but some people find it negative. some people like their space, some people like being surrounded with people. some people dont mind the ocassional asshole that whines about how the cook forgot that there was a vegan at the place, or the dudes fucking really loudly in the next door.

i think the confusion arises from the similarity of the word "communism", and "commune". communism has very little to do with "commune" though, communism is the realization of a real human community which is a project that seems related to communalism but only very superficially.

[Zanthorus]

What direct changes can each of us make to our lives to be less alienated from each other, from our productive activity, from our product, and from our species being?

I'm not sure entirely how these are four different kinds of alienation. First of all, that man is a species-being means that he makes the 'species' of every object an object for himself, he manipulates, molds and alters it to his own ends, that is, he appropriates the nature around him and produces a new material environment for himself. That man is a 'species-being' means quite simply that he engages in productive activity. That man is alienated from this 'species-being' means that his productive activity is alienated. And what causes this alienation is precisely the fact that humans are alienated from one another, the atomisation of the various branches of the division of labour within the social process of production is what causes labourers to exchange their products and turns the human social act by which the products of human labour complement one another into the activity of the products themselves which come to dominate the producers. Finally, the producers alienation from her product is merely the result of the fact that her productive activity itself is alienated.

Which is not to say that there are not other types of alienation, for example in religion where the products of mens brains come to stand over and dominate their lives. However I think the four different 'types' of alienation you describe are merely different aspects of the same process, a process which is caused by capitalism and which can only be ended by the destruction of the old world and the creation of a new way of living. It cannot be halted by isolated individuals within civil society attempting to voluntarily rearrange their activity.

[RED DAVE]

I think partially via 'alternative culture'. From anything as diverse as starting up a community football team, to holding workshops on the critique of political economy. But I'm not sure. The situationist movement put a big emphasis on theories of self-estrangement so maybe reading some of their stuff will unlock a few answers.The problem with all that stuff is that it was a product of a particular time, including stuff like football teams, block parties, etc. Capitalist alienation has advanced in amazing ways in the past 50 years. I think that only united struggle can overcome this -- and socialism.

RED DAVE

[Lyev]

The problem with all that stuff is that it was a product of a particular time, including stuff like football teams, block parties, etc. Capitalist alienation has advanced in amazing ways in the past 50 years. I think that only united struggle can overcome this -- and socialism.

RED DAVEYeah I wanna I repudiate that post, it was kind of silly. Alienation is not really something that can be easily or quantitatively measured. It is an inherent feature of capitalism.

[syndicat]

"alienated labor" refers to the lack of control that workers have in production, and the way that the capitalists develop the techniques and organization of production, taking away skill and discretion from workers, increasing monitoring, speed-up, control over workers, to ensure they do what management wants them to do. This means that workers do not have the opportunity to exercize their capacity and need to be self-managing in their work and to develop their potential. The only way to end this is for workers to collectively self-manage production, and gain control over technical development and organization of production. but this needs to be in the context of a social economy where workers are also accountable to the consumers of their products and to society, overcoming the split or conflict between the production system and the society.

[Rakhmetov]

How can we most effectively be productive in reconciling the four forms of alienation?

What direct changes can each of us make to our lives to be less alienated from each other, from our productive activity, from our product, and from our species being?

Pssst ... Hold a General Strike.

http://www.google.com/url?source=imgres&ct=tbn&q=http://phillyworkersvoice.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/greek.jpg&sa=X&ei=Py42TenEC8ys8Aafv_i7CA&ved=0CAUQ8wc4Ag&usg=AFQjCNFetzkj3QrKgtCQuQA-VhKc_9v_Cw

[Frosty Weasel]

Doing something other than politically motivated stuff is always a good idea. Volunteering at a community garden is one of my personal favorites.

Of course getting involved with a group like Food Not Bombs or even joining a commune can do wonders.

[jastrub]

I think we use the internet as a proxy for connection, but in the end it leaves us more alienated than ever. I believe that technology has replaced religion as the opate of the masses, and that if we do not recognize this soon we will lose ourselves in the cyberstream of relentless information. We cannot delude ourselves that we do not live in a hyperreality. The internet only helps to solidify the capitalist dream state; the society of the spectacle that Debord wrote of. We will not revolt while we are placated by media, and we must not use technology as a way to escape our fears of alienation.

I am not a primitivist, and I see the advances and importance of technology. But we cannot pretend that it isn't shaping our lives, partially for the worse.