Why is our society ill?
Our society is ill for so many reasons. The main idea is that
people suffer alienation in our times, the society in which
we live doesnt offer us the means to achieve, reach, selfaffirmation, the recognition and assertion of the existence
and value of one's individual self. We are all valued, by
means of the results, product of our work, not by what we
truly represent. Our value as a human being and what we
can offer to each other is being overlooked. The moral
values are disappearing and people cannot find consolation,
relief, in their own families, because this institution too is
losing its attributes as we understand them, and its
beginning to be replaced by a distorted version of it. Our
society has changed so much in recent times therefore
persons cannot keep up with this pace. The moral values
almost have disappeared. Not to mention problems society
has like inequality rooted in class, race, religion and
ethnicity, which divide our society.
I imagine, envision a society like that one which the Bible
describes where goodness is a property, attribute of all men
and where peace endures, its everlasting.
Sleep of reason produces monsters.
The Sane Society (1955) by Erich Fromm is a
summation of his social and political philosophy wherein he
critiques and psychoanalyzes the modern industrial
capitalist society and its necessarily alienated,
commercialized and conformed citizenry. Rather than
explaining pathologies of individuals, he analyses the
pathologies of society contributing to the sickness of
individuals.
A person who has not been completely alienated, who has
remained sensitive and able to feel, who has not lost the
sense of dignity, who is not yet "for sale", who can still
suffer over the suffering of others, who has not acquired
fully the having mode of existence - briefly, a person who
has remained a person and not become a thing cannot help feeling lonely, powerless, isolated in present-
day society. He cannot help doubting himself and his own
convictions, if not his sanity. He cannot help suffering, even
though he can experience moments of joy and clarity that
are absent in the life of his "normal" contemporaries. Not
rarely will he suffer from neurosis that results from the
situation of a sane man living in an insane society, rather
than that of the more conventional neurosis of a sick man
trying to adapt himself to a sick society. In the process of
going further in his analysis, i.e. of growing to greater
independence and productivity, his neurotic symptoms will
cure themselves.
"Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in
groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule." Friederich Nietzsche
Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I
think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I
think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing
that.
The answer to this question is incredibly complex. The
whole structure of our society is to blame. We are highly
individualistic and competitive. Weve left behind all the
traditional social structures that gave us identities,
responsibilities, communities, and a sense of belonging. The
Beatles asked, All the lonely people, where do they all
come from? Indeed, they are everywhere. And some of
them are angry (homicidal loners).
Many of us live dulled lives, somewhat robotic
in nature and devoid of deeper meaning and
purpose. Our lives, often become visionless and
passionless. We live in an intensely competitive
culture that rewards achievement and success.
Our identity and esteem become reflections of
these external markers of achievement. Our pursuit
of happiness and well-being become terribly
misdirected. The demands of our intensely and
neurotically driven culture strain our emotional and
psychological balance well beyond its comfortable
balance. The cultural paradigm in which we live
leaves us disconnected, disenchanted and isolated.
When this occurs, we tend to honour and seek
material acquisitions at the cost of devoting
ourselves to intimate and loving relationshipswith
others and ourselves.
People that thrive in loving relationships don't typically feel
depressed. Depression is symptomatic of feeling isolated
and cut off. In our drive to live the good life, we typically
isolate ourselves from relationships that might nourish us.
Intimate and loving relations have become somewhat
marginalized and have lost value in our very hurried
lives. Our frenetic pace of life sees one day blur into
another, until life begins to lose its meaning. We don't have
time to nurture our loved ones or ourselves, and we lose
our vision of a well-spent life. In fact, the problem is that we
don't know how to live well.
Love is often nothing but a favourable exchange
between two people who get the most of what they
can expect, considering their value on the
personality market.
This lack of inhibition of desires leads to the same
result as the lack of overt authoritythe paralysis
and eventually the destruction of the self.
It is considered immoral to keep one "love" partner beyond
a relatively short period of time. "Love" is short-lived sexual
desire, which must be satisfied immediately
In some instances, depression is situational. Loss of a loved
one, illness or job loss creates circumstances that are
painful. Working through the loss is more healing than
medicating the pain. It is essential to address the
underlying causes and not simply suppress the symptoms.
The difficulty is that in our quick fix mentality, we believe
that if we can suppress the symptoms then all is well. When
we come to see depression not as the enemy but as an
expression of struggle, the epidemic will likely subside as
we come to honour the integrity of our human spirit. We do
not ordinarily grow without engaging struggle.
My thesis is, therefore, twofold: Much of what we call
depression is a typical life struggle around loss, fear and
grave situational issues that have become clinicalized for
profit. Yet, there also lies a deeper despair that
accompanies living an incoherent life, as a stranger in a
strange land. What I am strongly asserting is that
depression, and anxiety for that matter, are the most likely
outcomes of living in and with the unmerciful and
misguided constraints of a tired and destructive worldview.
Our constructed reality is for many people depressive and
anxiety inducing. Feeling as such ironically suggests that
many depressed people are merely mirroring the effects of
a somewhat incongruous, if not insane way of living,
fostered by the society itself. In effect, the way that we are
living is producing tragic results.
Spinoza formulated the problem of the socially patterned
defect very clearly. He says: "Many people are seized by
one and the same affect with great consistency. All his
senses are so affected by one object that he believes
this object to be present even when it is not. If this
happens while the person is awake, the person is believed
to be insane. but if the greedy person thinks only of
money and possessions, the ambitious one only of fame,
one does not think of them as being insane, but only has
annoying; generally one has contempt for
them. But factually greediness, ambition, and so forth
are forms of insanity, although usually one does not
think of them as 'illness.'"
The culture provides patterns which enable them to
live with a defect without becoming ill.
If he [man] lives under conditions which are contrary
to his nature and to the basic requirements for
human growth and sanity, he cannot help reacting;
he must either deteriorate and perish, or bring about
conditions which are more in accordance with his needs.
That human nature and society can have conflicting
demands, and hence that a whole society can be sick,
is an assumption which was made very explicitly
by Freud, most extensively in his Civilization and Its
Discontent.
Nationalism is our form of incest, is our idolatry, is
our insanity. "Patriotism is its cult. It should hardly be
necessary to say, that by "patriotism I mean that attitude
which puts the own nation above humanity, above the
principles of truth and justice; not the loving interest in
ones own nation, which is the concern with the nations
spiritual as much as with its material welfare never with
its power over other nations. Just as love for one
individual which excludes the love for others is not
love, love for ones country which is not part of ones
love for humanity is not love, but idolatrous worship.
Reason is mans faculty for grasping the world by thought,
in contradiction to intelligence, which is mans ability to
manipulate the world with the help of thought. Reason is
man's instrument for arriving at the truth,
intelligence is man's instrument for manipulating the
world more successfully; the former is essentially
human, the latter belongs to the animal part of man.
A feature in the social character of modern man...
constitutes one of the most striking contrasts to the
social character of the nineteenth century. ...the
principle that every desire must be satisfied
immediately, no wish must be frustrated.
These people are young, they are middle class and they
move upwards, they are mostly people who in their work
career manipulate symbols and men, and whose
advancement depends on whether they permit themselves
to be manipulated
Another aspect of alienated conformity is the leveling-out
process of taste and judgement..
The reality behind this concept of freedom is the presence
of anonymous authority and the absence of individuality.
The mechanism through which the anonymous
authority operates is conformity.
By alienation is meant a mode of experience in which the
person experiences himself as an alien. He has become,
one might say, estranged from himself. He does not
experience himself as the center of his world, as the creator
of his own acts but his acts and their consequences have
become his masters, whom he obeys, or whom he may
even worship. The alienated person is out of touch with
himself as he is out of touch with any other person. He, like
the others, are experienced as things are experienced; with
the senses and with common sense, but at the same time
without being related to oneself and to the world outside
positively.
We consume, as we produce, without any concrete
relatedness to the objects with which we deal; We
live in a world of things, and our only connection
with them is that we know how to manipulate or to
consume them.
Modern man, if he dared to be articulate about his
concept of heaven, would describe a vision which
would look like the biggest department store in the
world, showing new things and gadgets, and himself
having plenty of money with which to buy them. He
would wander around open-mouthed in this heaven
of gadgets and commodities, provided only that
there were ever more and newer things to buy, and
perhaps that his neighbors were just a little less
privileged than he.
ALIENATION OF GREGOR SAMSA
STEP 1:ALIENATION IN THE MENTAL PSYCHE
STEP 2:ALIENATION IN SOCIETY
his devotion to work and support his family, caused him to
become alienated in society
feels significant and a sense of belonging because of his
work
he lost his social ability
long for love and human affection
he is enslaved by his family
STEP 3: ALIENATION THROUGH PHYSICAL CONFINEMENT
Gregor Samsa's death liberated him from the desolation of
alienation. He was freed from the confines of his room, from
his familial obligations and social expectations. it was only
after his death that he was truly free.
Franz Kafka toys with the theme of alienation throughout
the short novella The Metamorphosis, exploring various
disciplines of alienation physical, psychological and social,
in reflection of the life of Gregor Samsa.
Gregor Samsa's mental deterioration started before his
transformation
rooted from his alienation at work from society and his
family
- his metamorphosis is a reflection of his self perception or
his true self identity
- his transformation is not only physically dehumanizing but
also mentally
- i chose this picture as it enables readers to visualize
Gregor Samsa in his bug form. However looking in his eyes,
there is a trace of human emotion as he looks like he is
crying. This contrasts the dehumanization of society and his
family towards him, as he still is evidently human.
the locked door is a symbol of isolation from the outside
world and his family.
he confines himself within his room as it is the only place he
feels safe
the removal of his furniture is a dehumanizing act, as the
last link to his humanity and human past is removed
the filth of his room represents his family's lost hope in
Gregor, since they let it accumulate in filth as if nobody
lived in there
in this diagram it shows Gregor as a bug, looking at the
unlocked door. the door symbolized the gateway into
society. after being constantly rejected and abandoned, he
leaves the door unlocked in attempt to reconnect with his
family and become socially accepted.
death represents Gregor's perception of himself. as a
worthless, insignificant bug. it also portrays how his mental
deterioration occurred prior to his transformation, but while
he was working as a sales man over the years.
Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling
dreams,
he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous
vermin. pg.1
Ive got the torture of travelling, worry about changing
trains,
eating miserable food at all hours, constantly seeing new
faces, no relationships that last get more intimate. pg.4.
Gregor complimented himself instead on the precaution
that he had
adopted on his business tips of locking all the doors during
the night even at home. pg.7
