Bourgeoisie alienation

[CynicalIdealist]

So I know that Marx had a whole theory of alienation with regard to proletarians, but has any socialist tried to formulate a theory of bourgeoisie alienation? Both my sister and I are both upper class or petit-bourgeoisie in terms of what we can both fall back on, and yet we've both felt incredibly alienated at different points in our lives. My sister is also extremely obsessed with not looking fat, to the point where she tries to weigh less than 100 lbs. Can this really be boiled down to "consumer culture," or is it more complicated than that?

[blake 3:17]

I don't know a cogent argument about the rich being alienated. There is some truth to it -- for example, maids and other domestic servants knowing the house far better than their masters do. Most of the really good work has been around problems of masculinity and whiteness. I can refer you to some good books on the subject.

On twitter there's a FirstWorldProblem feed: http://twitter.com/#!/search?q=%23FirstWorldProblems Some of it is awful light but there is some perspective.

I've been reading Freud's case accout of Dora, one of his most famous case studies, it could be worth looking at. Also Flaubert's Madame Bovary. Louise Kaplan's Female Perversions is also worth a look at.

[KC]

Bertell Ollman discussed this in his groundbreaking book on the subject Alienation: Marx's Conception of Man in Capitalist Society (http://www.nyu.edu/projects/ollman/books/a.php). He basically shows how Marxian alienation theory accounts for all humans, as alienation is not based on the experiences of this or that class but rather comes from the structure as a society as a whole, and that different classes will experience it differently due to their different positions in society.

If you're interested in learning anything about the Marxian theory of alienation this would be your first stop.

As for your individual cases, it's pretty silly to attempt to extrapolate out from individual psychological issues to class/societal issues as you are doing as it is essentially impossible to do. Sure class, etc... play into one's individual consciousness but there are so many other factors to account for that it's absurd to blame you or your sister's psychological problems on capitalist alienation.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

So I know that Marx had a whole theory of alienation with regard to proletarians, but has any socialist tried to formulate a theory of bourgeoisie alienation? Both my sister and I are both upper class or petit-bourgeoisie in terms of what we can both fall back on, and yet we've both felt incredibly alienated at different points in our lives. My sister is also extremely obsessed with not looking fat, to the point where she tries to weigh less than 100 lbs. Can this really be boiled down to "consumer culture," or is it more complicated than that?

You don't even need to go to Marx, just go to Hegel. The Master-Slave Dialectic as presented in the phenomenology of spirit describes the alienation inherent in being the master. So the history of alienation for the powerful predates Marx

[MarxistMan]

Hello my friend, I think that one of the main causes of alienation in corporate industrial nations is that people don't talk to each other in America. I don't really understand why this quiet behaviour of most americans in its 3 major classes. But i have a theory that in this country you have to be a super popular star in order to have a high social life, but if you are not a popular celebrity its real hard to find social worlds in USA. This is just my personal view on extreme alienation in America.

Here is a video on how pre-determined societies where opinions are all provided, and the future is pre-decided lead to this mental state of alienation even in the suburbs and upper-middle class like you said:


SUBDIVISIONS BY RUSH


Lu9Ycq64Gy4


Its a song about non-conformity and how society tries to make people into a conforming drone. This is particularily bad in most cities suburbs where the roads, the corners, the mini shopping centers, the buildings and the homes are built exactly the same by the same builder, where people drive the same types and brands of cars and high school is all about being part of the crowd. The song is about the need for conformity and mass consumerism in the neoliberal economic model we live in. Neoliberalism cannot function without it. When I listen to it, I hear an amazingly written eulogy for society by Neil Peart, Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson.

I also think it represents Neil Peart, Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson falling away a bit from their earlier beliefs, as they mentioned they had. There is nothing inherently wrong with suburbia or living in it, if that is what someone desires. A lot of people don't have the desire to go to "the bright lights." This song is clearly more about conformity, which can be found anywhere in United States: the suburbs, in the city, or "the far unlit unknown." In my opinion, the only flaw in this song is the focus on suburbia as the only place where conformity can be found. Popular opinion has been manipulated to belive that The Suburbs are the worst place for conformity.

Conformity also occurs when many people seek the same thing, including excitement in The Bright Lights (Everyone else is doing "the cool thing", so why shouldn't I?). That being said, Subdivisions is my favorite Rush song, and the best synth song ever. So much to write about this song. Basically, it's a song about the "ticking traps" that american people in this violent country fall into. A nightmare neoliberal-world where a person's main desire is a never ending escape from the suburbs. The suburbs can take many forms: from the boring, quiet life of suburbia to the pleasure seeking thrill ride of the big city. Ultimately, the suburbs offer nothing meaningful, and there is no escape within or between them.

However, in the first verse an outlet is available: "the far unlit unknown." This unknown exist within each person-the unique thoughts and feelings that make an individual; tragically, few venture very far into this territory. I'm also inclined to think that it's more about teens trying to breakaway from suburbia (and thier upper-middle class parents telling them HOW to think/beleive/be), only for some to discover (as Neil Peart writes) "

...Some will sell their dreams for small desires - Or lose the race to rats - Get caught in ticking traps "

Afterwards these suburb-raised, city-stressed folk "...start to dream of somewhere - To relax their restless flight - Somewhere out of a memory - Of lighted streets on quiet nights... "

I think it's more of a commentary on the seduction of city life and the potential trappings it brings. It is also a social commentary on how cliques are hurtful, and how expectations of comformity often drive away our best and brightest. Very much like the suburbs of Tennessee, Boston, Pennsylvania, New York and Chicago


RUSH
Subdivisions

Sprawling on the fringes of the city
In geometric order
An insulated border
In between the bright lights
And the far unlit unknown

Growing up it all seems so one-sided
Opinions all provided
The future pre-decided
Detached and subdivided
In the mass production zone

Nowhere is the dreamer
Or the misfit so alone

Subdivisions ---
In the high school halls
In the shopping malls
Conform or be cast out
Subdivisions ---
In the basement bars
In the backs of cars
Be cool or be cast out
Any escape might help to smooth
The unattractive truth
But the suburbs have no charms to soothe
The restless dreams of youth

Drawn like moths we drift into the city
The timeless old attraction
Cruising for the action
Lit up like a firefly
Just to feel the living night

Some will sell their dreams for small desires
Or lose the race to rats
Get caught in ticking traps
And start to dream of somewhere
To relax their restless flight

Somewhere out of a memory



So I know that Marx had a whole theory of alienation with regard to proletarians, but has any socialist tried to formulate a theory of bourgeoisie alienation? Both my sister and I are both upper class or petit-bourgeoisie in terms of what we can both fall back on, and yet we've both felt incredibly alienated at different points in our lives. My sister is also extremely obsessed with not looking fat, to the point where she tries to weigh less than 100 lbs. Can this really be boiled down to "consumer culture," or is it more complicated than that?

[Broletariat]

I find it proper to quote Zanthorus on Marx and alienation

"Marx's theory of alienation is a theory of the alienation of human productive powers:

"We proceed from an actual economic fact... that the object which labor produces – labor’s product – confronts it as something alien, as a power independent of the producer."

In the production process the worker creates surplus-value for the capitalist in the process of meeting her own needs. In her efforts to reproduce her own material existence she reproduces the capital relationship. She attempts to enrich herself but in doing so she only increases her own poverty, her distance from the material human community."


So no, bourgeoisie can not be alienated in the sense that Marx uses the word.

[QueeRiot]

So I know that Marx had a whole theory of alienation with regard to proletarians, but has any socialist tried to formulate a theory of bourgeoisie alienation? Both my sister and I are both upper class or petit-bourgeoisie in terms of what we can both fall back on, and yet we've both felt incredibly alienated at different points in our lives. My sister is also extremely obsessed with not looking fat, to the point where she tries to weigh less than 100 lbs. Can this really be boiled down to "consumer culture," or is it more complicated than that?

You certainly are alienated and much more! You are alienated by and for your family, your neighbors and yourself. You are alienated from simple forms of communion through a series of carefully (and haphazardly) constructed systems of input. You are alienated by not having your desires fulfilled and not having any desires of your own to begin with.

I'm no different. I may have much less in the way of "means" than you do, but we are so very similar because we live in societies constantly at battle with themselves.

[KC]

So no, bourgeoisie can not be alienated in the sense that Marx uses the word.

The capitalist is as alienated from human productive capacities and their products as the proletariat.

[ar734]

Both my sister and I are both upper class or petit-bourgeoisie in terms of what we can both fall back on...

Maybe what you and your sister experience is more anxiety than alienation. Marx showed that the petit-bourgeoisie was always living on the edge of "falling" into the working class. Thus we have Auden's The Age of Anxiety.

[Delirium]

Crimethinc touches on it with a artice called

'the discreet charm or the bourgeoise, or the tyranny of the hair drier'

They are discussing the bourgeoise as a social class or an image, not as an economic class.

[blake 3:17]

Marx showed that the petit-bourgeoisie was always living on the edge of "falling" into the working class. Or worse. That's the material basis for fascism -- other factors like nationalism, etc pay their part.

[MarxistMan]

The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said that for personal power, personal glory and personal happiness all people need is 2 main things, knowledge, intelligence usually from higher learning, thru book-reading, the ability to play an instrument like piano, or painting and arts. And a good health, a good physiology, a good body. So basically all people need for real wealth and real self realization is good bodies and knowledge.

But if people learn that all you need for self-realization and happiness is health and intelligence, the whole capitalist system would grind to a halt and collapse, because the capitalist system feeds itself off the low-self esteem and the existential hole and feelings of inferiority of the sheeple who buy on a constant basis luxuries and irrelevant goods and services to kill their inferiority complex.

corporations like jewerly corporations, luxury autombiles like Mercedes Benz, BWMs, Jaguars, Ferraris, and expensive fanzy un-needed goods and services like luxury expensive real estate corporations would collapse.

Among with other inane, irrelevant things that the controlled slaves of the upper classes buy in order to fill their lack of real wealth (intelligence and health).

Schopenhauer said that having lots of wealth, lots of money is even an impediment for real happiness and real power which is intelligence and health.

This is just a view on how capitalist propaganda mind-manipulates people into thinking that you need lots of luxuries in order to feel full and self-realized, instead of good education levels and health that are more important than luxuries.

.


So I know that Marx had a whole theory of alienation with regard to proletarians, but has any socialist tried to formulate a theory of bourgeoisie alienation? Both my sister and I are both upper class or petit-bourgeoisie in terms of what we can both fall back on, and yet we've both felt incredibly alienated at different points in our lives. My sister is also extremely obsessed with not looking fat, to the point where she tries to weigh less than 100 lbs. Can this really be boiled down to "consumer culture," or is it more complicated than that?

[stoneMonkey]

One of the biggest differences between the "petit bourgeoisie" and the "working class" (in the every day loose senses of the terms) is that the petit bourgeoisie are given an opportunity to do creative work within a range of choices with some appeal, enjoy a good lifestyle in various ways like vacations and possessions, be respected, etc ... but typically only if they drink the kool-aid of capitalist ideology, including showing respect for their "superiors" in the system and disrespect for their "inferiors" in the system. Whereas the choices of working class people are more limited, although still there is pressure there to climb as high as you can on the ladder.

So there is a sense of alienation from one's humanity and from sane values, even if the kind of work or other activities you are doing are not unpleasant or forced.

[Dave B]

There is an interesting and little read article on alienation by Karl in 1844, that we have been discussing on our WSM forum.

Context is important here as he is clearly at this point well into his Feuerbachian humanist phase, which is probably why it has been ignored, and he believes that communism is the un-alienated natural human condition or communal nature to which we need to return.

Communism, for the dolts, being a gift economy or society with voluntary labour and no money.


And as to what alienation isn’t.

Karl Marx 1844 Comments on James Mill,Éléments D’économie Politique








Let us suppose that we had carried out production as human beings. Each of us would have in two ways affirmed himself and the other person.
In my production I would have objectified my individuality, its specific character, and therefore enjoyed not only an individual manifestation of my life during the activity, but also when looking at the object I would have the individual pleasure of knowing my personality to be objective, visible to the senses and hence a power beyond all doubt.
In your enjoyment or use of my product I would have the direct enjoyment both of being conscious of having satisfied a human need by my work, that is, of having objectified man's essential nature, and of having thus created an object corresponding to the need of another man's essential nature.
I would have been for you the mediator between you and the species, and therefore would become recognised and felt by you yourself as a completion of your own essential nature and as a necessary part of yourself, and consequently would know myself to be confirmed both in your thought and your love.
In the individual expression of my life I would have directly created your expression of your life, and therefore in my individual activity I would have directly confirmed and realised my true nature, my human nature, my communal nature.
Our products would be so many mirrors in which we saw reflected our essential nature.


http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/james-mill/ (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/james-mill/)

[Luís Henrique]

So I know that Marx had a whole theory of alienation with regard to proletarians, but has any socialist tried to formulate a theory of bourgeoisie alienation? Both my sister and I are both upper class or petit-bourgeoisie in terms of what we can both fall back on, and yet we've both felt incredibly alienated at different points in our lives. My sister is also extremely obsessed with not looking fat, to the point where she tries to weigh less than 100 lbs. Can this really be boiled down to "consumer culture," or is it more complicated than that?

Well, the petty bourgeoisie is certainly not the upper class, or even part of it; if you believe so, then you are certainly alienated.

Luís Henrique

[Alleline]

Didn't Marx write something about the alienation of the capitalist in The Holy Family? Anyway, Sean Sayers wrote this in one of his articles:

The account of ‘Estranged Labour’ in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts echoes Hegel’s account particularly closely. It is clear from this that Marx believes the non-worker – in the shape of the capitalist – is just as alienated as the worker in capitalist society. Frustratingly, however, Marx’s manuscript breaks off just at the point where, having described the alienation of the worker, he is about to consider the way in which the capitalist is also alienated. Hegel’s account does not break off, and it is suggestive of the way in which Marx’s ideas might have developed. Just like the workers in modern society, Hegel argues, the ‘wealthy’ too are caught up in a complex and impenetrable web of economic relationships. Moreover, they are freed from the need to work. But, for this very reason, they are also alienated from the world around them, since they cannot see this as their own creation nor recognise themselves in it.

[Through] wealth . . . individuals . . . are freed from satisfying their needs and can devote themselves to higher interests. . . . In this super�uity, the constant re�ection of endless dependence is removed, and man is all the more withdrawn from all the accidents of business as he is no longer stuck in the sordidness of gain. But for this reason the individual is not at home even in his immediate environment, because it does not appear as his work. What he surrounds himself with here has not been brought about by himself; it has been . . . produced by others . . . and acquired by him only through a long chain of efforts and needs foreign to himself.

[Ms. Max]

I can't quote where Marx said it right now, but as well as the proletariat being alienated from their labor, capitalism produces a whole society where everyone is alienated from each other.

[Hexen]

I can't quote where Marx said it right now, but as well as the proletariat being alienated from their labor, capitalism produces a whole society where everyone is alienated from each other.

Capitalism is a individualist based system whilst Socialism/Communism is a collectivist based system based on empathy for others which is not found in capitalism.

[Rakhmetov]

Here's the whole concept of bourgeois alienation in a nutshell:


http://trendsupdates.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/farc-guerrillas.jpg

[Hexen]

Here's the whole concept of bourgeois alienation in a nutshell:


http://trendsupdates.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/farc-guerrillas.jpg

I don't know what you mean there. Are you saying that alienation causes anger amongst others hence igniting a revolution?

[ar734]

I don't know what you mean there. Are you saying that alienation causes anger amongst others hence igniting a revolution?

Or "all political power grows out of the barrel of a gun?"

[Luís Henrique]

Capitalism is a individualist based system whilst Socialism/Communism is a collectivist based system based on empathy for others which is not found in capitalism.

Then why are individual proletarians subjected to collective capital?

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Here's the whole concept of bourgeois alienation in a nutshell:


http://trendsupdates.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/farc-guerrillas.jpg

No, sorry, the concept of alienation cannot be illustrated by a picture that has nothing to do with production or circulation of commodities.

Luís Henrique