What is alienation?

“THE BROADER THEORY OF SOCIAL ALIENATION

Sociologist Melvin Seeman provided a robust definition of social alienation in a paper published in 1959, titled “On the Meaning of Alienation.” The five features he attributed to social alienation hold true today in how sociologists study this phenomenon.

They are:

1. Powerlessness: When individuals are socially alienated they believe that what happens in their lives is outside of their control, and that what they do ultimately does not matter. They believe they are powerless to shape their life course.
2. Meaninglessness: When an individual does not derive meaning from the things in which he or she is engaged, or at lest not the same common or normative meaning that others derive from it.
3. Social isolation: When a person feels that they are not meaningfully connected to their community through shared values, beliefs, and practices, and/or when they do not have meaningful social relationships with other people.
4. Self-estrangement: When a person experiences social alienation they may deny their own personal interests and desires in order to satisfy demands placed by others and/or by social norms.

CAUSES OF SOCIAL ALIENATION

In addition to the cause of working and living within the capitalist system as described by Marx, sociologists recognize other causes of alienation. Economic instability and the social upheaval that tends to go with it has been documented to lead to what Durkheim called anomie — a sense of normlessness that fosters social alienation. Moving from one country to another or from one region within a country to a very different region within it can also destabilize a person’s norms, practices, and social relations in such a way as to cause social alienation. Sociologists have also documented that demographic changes within a population can cause social isolation for some who find themselves no longer in the majority in terms of race, religion, values and world views, for example. Social alienation also results from the experience of living at the lower rungs of social hierarchies of race and class. Many people of color experience social alienation as a consequence of systemic racism. Poor people in general, but especially those who live in poverty, experience social isolation because they are economically unable to participate in society in a way that is considered normal.