2.1 Psychology of Alienation
The individual is aware of the limitation of their knowledge and their impotence before nature. The lack of knowledge about nature brings sensorial and emotional inconveniences to the individual. Sensorial inconveniences are a product of a direct, painful relationship with nature. Emotional inconveniences are products of a reflective relationship with nature. The most apparent emotional state is the fear that is the consequence of the individual’s insufficient knowledge and impotence to oppose natural inconveniences. The individual rids themselves of the inconveniences within the limits of their possibilities.
If the individual does not accept their impotence where they are objectively unable to surpass it, they then form the need that exceeds their possibilities of realization. Since thoughts are free and may act independently of nature, under the pressure of the inconveniences caused by their impotence and the need to overcome it, the individual forms a subjective idea about nature and the laws of movements within it in the form that suits them. Suppose such subjective determinations overcome the obstacles in the relations with nature, which is possible since there is often no inconvenience in direct contact of the individual and the nature unknown to them. In that case, the individual relieves themselves of the inconvenient tension and accepts such determinations as accurate.
The subjective vision gives the individual an illusion of power in nature, which brings quickly and easily the conveniences that are by their intensity identical to those arising from the real surpassing of the individual’s impotence in nature. The transition between reality and illusion is smooth and suitable, encouraging the individual to find the sources in each moment of life in search of greater conveniences. One may say that “the individual who does not know,” or, more precisely, an impotent individual, during their lifetime in the unknown, superior, or inconvenient nature, forms an indefinite number of determinations of nature; its parts and natural phenomena in the form that suits them. Such nature is no longer unknown because the individual “becomes familiar with it,” it is no longer superior because the individual “wins over it,” it does not belong to somebody else because the individual “annexes it.” By their subjective visions, the individual adopts nature to the determinations that suit them the best. However, such determinations are alienated from their objective essence.
Alienated determinations form an alienated conception of the conveniences and inconveniences in the individual’s mind, which creates alienated respect toward the powers in nature, alienated emotional states, alienated needs, and alienated actions. In this way, a subjective consciousness develops alienated knowledge. Therefore, alienated knowledge is false and forms an alienated mode of the individual’s living. The alienated style of living separates the individual mentally from their nature, and thus the process develops.
One may say that the individual alienates from their nature when they cannot accept the limitations of their nature. Individuals who cannot accept their weakness where they objectively cannot surpass it create a subjective vision of reality that alienates them from objective reality.
Subjectivity creates alienation. However, a subjective vision also has some objective determinations. Absolute subjectivity would form an utterly alienated consciousness, and the individual as the protagonist of such consciousness would lose the possibility to exist. On the other hand, complete objectivity would build total naturalness, representing an ideal of the individual’s living. The relationship between objectivity and subjectivity represents the relationship between naturalness and its alienation.
Alienated knowledge that illusorily resolves the issue of the individual’s impotence before the unknown nature may find justification if it mainly contains the objective determinations of the laws of nature’s movements. Such knowledge, although not accurate, does not have to come necessarily in direct conflict with natural powers and releases the individual from the inconvenient tension of the relationship with the unknown.
Alienated knowledge loses its justification when it diverts the individual from their natural path. The individual can never fully meet the alienated needs because no activity can capture the nature of the origin of such needs. Naturally, the individual cannot surpass the power of nature.
Since alienated needs cannot accomplish satisfaction, they are insatiable as a general rule. Such alienation develops egoistic features of the character and manifests in greed, ambition, infatuation, and fanaticism in the field of the individual’s alienated interest. Alienated needs may objectively be entirely unnecessary to the individual’s nature; however, they create in their alienated consciousness great importance. They then direct the individual to act contrary to their nature.
Suppose the individual’s alienated consciousness can find an illusory confirmation for their alienated power. In that case, the individual then develops a higher degree of subjectivism that creates a narcissistic feature of the character. Narcissism significantly represses and underestimates the objective, unknown, unacceptable reality and glorifies the alienated vision of one’s power in nature, which creates a grand illusion of living conveniences. When individuals, by their subjective perception, define their power far more significant than they can objectively have, they come across the contradiction in real life, which brings tensions and inconveniences. Objectively, narcissistic needs are unnecessary to the individual’s nature; however, they become a precondition for ensuring existence in their subjective consciousness. Hence, such an individual invests high energy in the fight for alienated survival.
The more the individual is alienated from their nature, the less they can satisfy their needs and thus find relaxation and conveniences. The alienated individual can be recognized by the fact that they are almost permanently under stress; they are more nervous than easy-going; they are more bad-tempered than satisfied, and they are more depressed than happy no matter what their accomplishments are. The individual’s nature cannot endure permanent tension and inconvenience. Therefore, they inadvertently get perverted and find their way out from the anxiety in the perversion of their senses and emotions.
The alienated individual rids themselves of the inconvenient tension and finds illusory relaxation and conveniences in the perversion of their nature. While the natural individual finds peace and conveniences in love, in a constructive attitude toward nature, the alienated individual finds illusory conveniences and relaxation in hatred and destructive attitudes toward nature. To such an individual, destruction becomes a need. The destructive tension that then appears may make the individual entirely unable to perceive the objective causes of their inconveniences.
Suppose the subjectivity of alienated individuals overestimates the conditions of nature, which bring inconveniences to them. In that case, they then find the causes of impotence in themselves; they then orient destructively towards themselves. Depending on the degree of powerlessness, self-destructiveness acquires features that range from passivity before natural forces, even where the individual has the power to overcome them, to the need for self-destruction. The individual does not aspire to self-destruct because of objective impotence such as poverty or famine, but only if they lose the alienated form of power in nature. The individual accepts self-destructiveness as a need to escape from reality. It can develop from, for example, the need to consume alcohol up to the entirely alienated consciousness or lunacy. Such an individual can only, in that way, find relaxation from the inconvenient tension.
Suppose an alienated individual underestimates the power of nature with their subjective vision. In that case, they find a way out from the inconveniences and an illusory relaxation from the tension, in a destructive attitude toward nature. An individual is never as destructive as they are when their narcissistic character, false human greatness, gets hurt. Depending on the degree of impotence and the lack of respect toward nature, destructiveness manifests in the form of aggression that may develop toward the act of destroying nature.
Individual who lives in harmony with their nature overcomes impotence within the limits of their capabilities. Such an individual accomplishes natural conveniences. When individuals alienate their nature, they cannot satisfy their needs. Therefore, tensions emerge that push them to destruction. The alienated individual lives a biologically inconvenient life.
This whole book is about alienation, but what would that be in one sentence? Alienation is a state where an individual does not recognize values where they are. Instead, they imagine values that don’t exist. Individuals think as they feel, feel as they live, and live as they think. Since the individual manages their thoughts through knowledge, since thoughts determine needs and thus direct the action, the individual bears responsibility for realizing their own sensory and emotional states. One can say that the individual is what they think or, more precisely, that they are what they know.
